You may see my new little image in the sidebar below the Archives. That’s right, I’m carbon neutral. Take that! Check out this great initiative at this nifty German site… don’t worry, this page is in English: Make Your Blog/Website Carbon Neutral.

I believe in the importance of protecting out natural resources. I’ve always been a tree-hugger of sorts. I even gave $30 of my own money once in 4th grade to save an acre of the Amazon Rainforest. I was so proud, I was even allowed to do a special class report on it. Whether that acre of rainforest was actually saved, it’s hard  to tell. But I’m inspired by this initiative, I just might go out and plant a second tree on my own.

Well talk about a fail for the month of January. It’s been a good while since I’ve posted anything here. It’s been an awfully busy start to a very busy semester for me. But I’ll jump right in.

Avatar Movie Review

I’m going to say right off I really enjoyed this movie a lot. But I felt that the plot was a direct pull from Disney’s Pocahontas. White man meets native girl, natives teach him their ways, white man and “savage” fall in love and try to bring the fighting between their people to a stop, etc. But I felt that it was a different enough twist with aliens, new planet, outer space, futuristic time period that it was well worth the watch.

I also feel that it had very strong themes on community, nature, and protecting your environment. You get emotionally invested in the storyline and want things to workout. This movie in fact reminds me a lot of the Disney movies I watched growing up as a kid and made me think of the impact those still have on me now. For example, with The Lion King, every little girl (and some boys) between the ages or 4 and 8 became obsessed with lions around the time this movie came out. We all wanted to play with Simba and Nala and Zazu, the nice African animals. We grew a sympathy for lions, and now I think my generation is more conscious and sympathetic towards African wildlife because it subconsciously reminds us of our animal friends from The Lion King, that we watched and played with as kids.

There is similar effect that the Discovery Channel has created with Shark Week on television. People love Shark Week! I hear about it non-stop when it’s airing. People talk about sharks and how awesome they are instead of how many people they bite a year. The few people who do bring up how they bite people, someone pulls out a statistic (learned on Shark Week) about how more people die of bee stings a year than who get bitten by sharks. You have a better chance of dying from a lightning strike than a shark bite.

My point is, that I see this movie getting into people’s subconscious and making them more sympathetic to environmental issues and difference among people. Who cares if you’re tall, blue, and you have a tail; we can still get along! Media effects people, our opinions, what we think, our morals and so on. This movie will impact younger generations most specifically. And from what I see, it will be a good impact. I give Avatar two thumbs up, and I will probably be buying the DVD.

<Dork Alert> P.S. - One other relationship… you know how in Pocahontas when she’s singing “Colors of the Wind” and she touches the tree and the rock right before you see the bears and the ground glowed… I wonder if Avatar took that from Pocahontas? Hehe. I always wanted to be able to do that… </dork>

Paper Planes is a video I made for my Time Studio class. It was filmed in edited in one day. Just the way I like to get things done.  So with out much more adieu, enjoy!

(It’s supposed to be silent.)

Paper Planes from Ellen on Vimeo.

Credits

Ellen – Directing/Editing/Folder #1

Matt – Filming

Stephanie – Folder #2

Lisa – Folder #3

Amra – Folder #4

All kinds of cheese. Swiss and cheddar go together surprisingly well. American is great on sandwiches. Gouda is okay, and port salut which is difficult to find but I found amazing the one time I tried it. But I like other kinds of cheese as well.

Romantic cheese is nice, with poems and praise, which are always flattering. Although I don’t believe it to be cheesy since it shows thought and intelligence to interpret the poem to relate to another person and then share it with them. Or even better if it is written. Creative expression with words is not always easily mastered, but the effort is highly appreciated with me.

Another thing I love that’s sometimes considered cheesy; chivalry. I have the utmost respect for guys who are genuinely chivalrous to women. I’ve known a few, and I really like to hang on to them even as just friends because I love being treated as a lady at times.

I also like cheesy jokes. Not all the time! I like clever jokes too. But a well placed cheesy joke can make me laugh so hard that I cry. I find joy in just being silly even if it’s just, “Why did the chicken cross the road? … To get to the other side!”

But in contrast to being completely silly is logic, I believe. Logical conversations are best. And well, this topic seems to come out of nowhere and may have missed a few people… but hopefully someone understands it and would like a conversation. I know I would.

(Not to mention, I love that I got to put a giant picture of cheese on my blog.)

When I was little, my parents used to take me here what seemed like all the time. So much that I’d get sick of it and they’d just be dragging me around and I’d get tired and whine. I was a whiner. Now that it’s been a few years since I’ve gone, I’m much more interested. Also, the last time I went was my pre-hardcore photography interest, so I felt like I went there with a completely fresh perspective and it was wonderful.

First off, the weather was beautiful and perfect. It was a lovely sunny day out, the greenhouses were a warm (kind of sweaty) 80-something degrees, and outside it was a cool, breezy 60ºF. Second, I had wonderful people with me from my Photography Club. It was a small group, but very fun. You can view all of my photos from Saturday in my Flickr Set.