words of inspiration

so does anyone remember when the “now” cd’s were in the in the single digits? well, back in 1998, when now 2 came out (i was collecting them, but i think i gave up at about 6),  there was this “song” at the very end of the cd that i would always skip. it was just this guy…talking. why would i, at 14, want to listen to that?? it wasnt backstreet boys or britney, so i didnt care.

well that “guy” was baz luhrmann, the movie director (he directed moulin rouge), and the “song” actually has many good points to it. its one of my favorites now, and i wanted to share it with everyone. i apologize in advance, because it’s long, but very eye-opening, and very worth it. so this is baz luhrmann – everybody’s free to wear sunscreen. enjoy! (oh,  and a couple of the parts i really like are bold.)

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’97
Wear Sunscreen

If I could offer you only one tip for the future,
sunscreen would be it.
The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists,
whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience
I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, oh nevermind,
you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself
and recall in a way you can’t grasp now, how much possibility lay before you
and how fabulous you really looked,
you are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future, or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

Sing

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts,
don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Don’t waste your time on jealousy, sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind,
the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults,
if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life,
the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22
what they wanted to do with their lives,
some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t,
Maybe you’ll divorce at 40,
Maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary
What ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either
Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body, use it every way you can, don’t be afraid of it,
or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings, they are the best link to your past
and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get,
the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard,
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander,
you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young
prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund,
Maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you’re 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia,
dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off,
painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen

-Katie

lonelygirl15 hoax

so im a little late on this, but i wanted to comment on the lonelygirl15 article and videos.  before this class, i had heard a litte about lonelygirl, but had never really looked into it (granted before this semester i barely had a decent working computer, but thats beside the point). since i already knew before watching the videos that they were staged and scripted, it was rather hard for me to believe any of it.  However, when i watched them, i tried to pretend like i didnt know, tried to pretend it was real, and it all still looked a little too fake to me. i just dont see someone putting so much time into one minute and a half video, editing it, adding music, etc.  if someone is going to stream their thoughts and ideas into a video blog, they are just going to say what they need to say and put it out there.

as for the viewers who watched it thinking it was real, im not sure whats so exciting about watching a girl talk from her bedroom. i guess, if they could relate to what she was going through, it was nice to know there was someone who could understand, someone who felt the same way. to then find out it was all fake? well, i would be absolutely pissed. when you watch a movie or tv show, you go into it knowing its not real, realizing that all the events are scripted; but to watch what you think is someones real life, real emotions,only to find out it was all fake, simply for entertainment?? its almost like finding out youre adopted, or like jim carrey in the truman show when he discovers his life is staged (not that i know about either, i can only imagine). i think, had i been a viewer of lonelygirl15, i would be hurt or feel betrayed. but since im not, i think the whole thing is a little ridiculous.

however, i think all of those involved in the project have brought entertainment  in an entirely new direction. its kind of similar to watching a tv show on the internet, the only difference being this shows channel IS the internet. instead of heading to the movie theater or to the couch in front of the tv, we can all plop in front of the computer screen for our daily dose of action, drama, entertainment, etc. maybe soon we can watch the newest movies from the web? who knows, but im sure more changes are to come.

-Katie

Revenge of the Mudds

So…

Apparently this whole mudd thing is alot different than I originally thought. In my last post I pretty much covered the negatives. After reading “A rape in cyberspace” story I realized that there are obviously more negatives.

But that doesnt mean I dont “get” the whole mudd thing. I still think its crazy how people act and date or whatever. But I do think that it is cool that it is interesting place and theme for people to interact with eachother.

There is always ome bad apple out there. At my job things are pretty easy. We were once allowed to help oursleves to any kind of potato chips that we wanted. WERE. Someone kept taking chips and leaving half eaten bags all over the wharehouse. My boss flipped and we werent aloowed to take chips anymore. Somebody ruined it.

I understand that the people we read about dont represent Mudds as a whole. Its funny in the way that myspace and facebook are funny. Some people get way to obsessed. Some dont.

-n

i changed this title about 37 times before hitting publish

i just read an article that zac hanson is going to be a father. it also said that he is now 22 and married. god i feel old.

obviously, im horrible at writing frequently in this thing. i thought i would write often, however it seems that whenever i have time to write, i  dont know what to write about, and when i have something to write about, i dont have the time. well now im making time, so lets see what happens.

nothing majorly exciting has happened so far this week. i worked a lot. christmas shopped a little. didnt sleep nearly enough (but thats not new). so i might as well talk about the end of last week,which WAS eventful. thursday was thanksgiving, so naturally that was exciting. it was also my high schools homecoming game, the annual cherry hill west vs. cherry hill east game. we (west) won as usual (the team is horrible throughout the season, but playing east is a guaranteed win), so that was great, and i got to see some people i had not seen in a while. as much as im glad to be out of my high school, going back for the one game every year isnt so bad. black friday was, of course, a mess, considering i work  in retail, but still fun. as crazy as it sounds, i  like working when its super busy. its a lot harder to get bored and lazy.

however, the highlight of last week was getting my praxis scores in the mail. i already knew two of my scores, but i was anxiously waiting for my other scores to come in, because as other education majors know – if you dont pass, you cant keep taking courses. i was so relieved to have my scores, and i did a lot better than i had originally thought. i got a 182 in reading, a 185 in writing,  and a 186 in math. at first, i thought those numbers were out of 200, but when i looked at the score report, i discovered they were out of 190, so i was surprised at how well i did. the fact that i got every algebra question correct just reinforced my decision to minor in math so i can teach middle school algebra. i feel like im going to be in school forever. but since im  going to be a teacher, i guess technically i will be?

for anyone that has not heard, the container store has opened a new location right next to the cherry hill mall. it has go to be one of the greatest stores (it’s my #2 favorite, after target, of course). they have some of the greatest little gadgets and the best storage ideas. of course this is horrible for me, because i am all about getting organized and finding better ways to store things in my room, so im sure im going to go broke because of them. but you should check it out sometime.

i guess thats enough for now. and i promise, one of these days i will write, and it wont be this obnoxiously long, and it wont be just a youtube video either. ill just have to write on one of those days when i dont know what to say.

finally! an educational one!

so not only have i been lacking in the educational posts on here, but i’ve been lacking in posts altogether. i was trying to procrastinate and avoid actually getting work done by spending time on facebook, and then i remembered, “hey! we have an article on facebook! so why not talk about it and kill two birds with one stone?” and so i will.

i  remember several years ago when facebook first surfaced  – myspace was the big site and facebook was just “one of those college sites”.  even upon entering college, i did not sign up for a facebook account, because, as i looked at it, i already had a myspace, so i wasn’t missing much.  however, a friend convinced me to give it a try, and sooner or later i signed up.  at first i wasn’t too interested in it – it was something new, i didn’t really know how to use it, and myspace in my opinion (at that time) was still better.  i rarely used it, and didn’t really see a  point to it.

a short time after i signed up, Mark Zuckerberg introduced the “news feed”, and many facebook users became outraged.  groups were formed trying to eliminate it or complaining about it and many considered it “cyber stalking”.  i, quite honestly, thought it was a great idea.  it gave users information that in the past they would have to retrieve by viewing the profile of EVERY one of their friends. users still protested, but the news feed stayed,  and after a while,  i think more and more users began to like the idea of the news feed.

another addition to facebook that enraged users was the idea of making facebook public. no longer would college students have a networking site that was entirely for them; soon, anyone and everyone would be able to have an account of their own. once again, i felt it was a good idea.  as the article stated, facebook is away of keeping in  touch with the friends we already have. well, not all of our friends go to college, is it really fair to exclude them because of that fact? of course not. and those who want to keep facebook a “college site” can keep  it so by only adding friends in college networks. as with the news feed, the dislike of this new feature faded over time, as im sure users realized it was a good idea after all.

the final great change to facebook – the only was i was not a fan of at first – was the addition of “applications”.  at first, i really did not like these because i thought they added too much “junk” (unnecessary quotatations there? you tell me) to a person’s page.  many people (including myself) felt that facebook was beginning to turn into myspace, and sooner or later it would become the crazy mess that myspace is now.  the simple solution? if you don’t like the applications, don’t use them. but how do you avoid them on someone else’s page? you can’t, unless you don’t go to their page. however, the applications did something that i really hadn’t thought of before, they allow more self expression on each users page.  each page no longer had the same layout with the same basic information (with “about me” and”interests” being the only basic form of expression).  the applications also allow other websites and companies to take their part into the supersite facebook has become. and besides, theyre fun!

what i love about facebook is the sense of privacy it still has, and i’m sure it will maintain. no one can view your site unless they are your friend, and no one can be your friend  unless you allow it.  i also like that it is more protected in a way. yes, it still has ads on each page,  but it is not overcrowded with large, sometimes annoying ads. similarly, your page cant get hacked into, so there are no viruses or spam.  i must say, i LOVE that aspect.

I knew the history of facebook before reading the article, simply because i experienced the changes, but i had no idea that Mark Zuckerberg faced so much negativity because of those changes. He knew what he was doing with each change he made, and he knew that although some would not like the changes at first – afterall, we all love what we are already comfortable with – they would adapt to them and like them eventually. when i first signed up, i had to force myself to log into it once in a while; and now? i have to force myself to log out. im sure there are millions of others out there who have done the same, proving just how popular facebook has become. i had no idea, though, that Zuckerberk turned down 1 billion dollars for the site. come one now, 1 billion dollars?!?! he wouldnt have to work another day in his life! but he knew it would get bigger, and it has.

youre a smart man, Mark Zuckerberg, and ive got to admit – im pretty damn jealous.

Stuck in the MUD

SO as I was reading the article “Who am We?” by Sherry Turkles I stumbled upon something unknown to myself.

A MUD.

Its pretty much a Multi User Dungeon. A place were you can control virtual characters that can interact with other peoples characters.  Some men pose as women and some women pose as men. People do it to have cyber sex and cyber dates with the opposite or same sex.

I thought that was really weird. It gets weirder.

There are people that know their spouse is on playing as a MUD and are ok with it. They are ok with the fact that their spouse is using the computer to simulate dates and sex with other people? Thats just crazy to me. How can that be ok? What kind of example is that showing to children growing up? Will the feeling of any kind of infidelity still exist in the future?

-n

The world needs more Pete and Pete!

-n

the world needs a little more cowbell

by the way (2)

 i like the new layout. 

yeah, motion city soundtrack was very good and very loud. my ears were ringing. got lost on the way home, listened to my friend who is worse then me at directions(didnt think that was possible)

i guess i go by Nate. prefer Nathan.

i’m done now, i swear.

-n

What’s wrong with time?

I just noticed the time on these posts are pretty off.

-n