Josh's Weblog

My favorite movies

joshdrake — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:23:16 +0000

some of my favorite movies of all time are older movies, classics. some of the best movies of all time are some of the older ones. old to some people might be young to others but the old movies that i am referring to is anything made before i was born 1989. even though some of the best movies of all time were made before i was born my favorite movie of all time would have to be one made in 1999, October Sky. i think movies much like other things i do when i was younger seem to be so much better and cooler because i havent experienced enough to know other wise. if i like it when i am younger then i will probably grow up thinking its a great movie, even if it is not. for a movie to be get on my Great Movies list there are certain requirements it must meet and that will vary depending on my situation and mood i am in at that given time. as of lately i like high action well made and directed movies. movies that are all over the place and confusing are not very much fun to watch. but the real good ones that have the power to stand the test of time with me are the ones that make you think about everything going on at once. that lead you one way the whole movie and at the end make you realize that you were being fooled the whole time. those are the great movies that have the potential to make it onto my favorites list.

Blogging

joshdrake — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:59:29 +0000

now that i have been blogging for the better part of half a year i feel like my feelings have slightly changed about it. before this class and my teacher made me write these blogs i viewed them as girlish things that people did to waste time. now that i am on the other side looking back i can truly see that they are a way of releasing yourself from every day life and letting you inner most thoughts freely flow out without the persecution and ridicule of others. blogging as it is called is therapeutic in a sense that you will not be judged for what you are saying and you can get as much and as many things out as you want. personally i do not think that i will continue to write in these blogs after our time in this class has come to an end. but that is mainly do to time restraints not the fact that i do not like to do them. because as of recently i can see the benefit of writing in these blogs. you can clearly get all your thoughts out without someone snapping back at you and telling you you are wrong or your opinions and stories are stupid. you can relive things in your life by telling them back to yourself and even help you get through difficult patches in your life. blogging can be a very beneficial tool to help you in your life. while writing these blogs i have come to realize things about myself that i previously was not aware of. that i am more of a sensitive person then i had ever thought before. i can tell that i have had a lot of built of emotions about situations and towards people that have helped shape my life in ways that at the time were unseen to me. blogs are a good tool to help you get all your thoughts about things out and in the open in a forum where u can either let the whole world read your inner most dirty secrets or keep them locked up behind a password were no one but you can see them. the important thing about blogging is to get all of your thoughts out in the open. i can tell after writing all of these blogs (many in straight succession) that i am opening up to my inner self and letting my thoughts flow out better. blogging has been a good thing for me and i am glad that i actually gave it a chance.

“Sing, sing a song…”

joshdrake — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:42:58 +0000

there are many ways i use to get in touch with my creative side. when i was younger i would always eat a lot of food or have some sugar and for some reason the sugar rush seemed to excited my brain and make me all kinds of hyper. the overly hyper activity would make me do and say some of the first things that popped in to my mind, sometimes that was not always a good thing though. on occasion instead of getting hyper enough to stimulate my brain and do good on a paper it would stimulate my whole body and be in a blind craze all night. i would be running around doing and saying stupid things all the while bouncing off the walls uncontrollably and eventually just annoying my parents to the point of anger. now that i am older many things have changed for me, although this fallacy slightly still holds true. i can still eat very sugary and sweet foods and still get a sugar rush but not near as big of one as i would get when i was younger. now days if i am looking for a way to be creative i will have some sugary foods still like i did when i was younger but that alone will not fully get the job done. now i have to go and sit still somewhere with some slow and soft music, preferably rock, on just loud enough that i cant hear anything else. then i will try with all my might to block the world out and focus. last year in my English class we had to write a good number of poems and me being a terrible writer i had to try to be very creative to make my poetry worth a damn. so i turned on my play list of my alternative music and focus on the words and rhythms and rhymes. this would always help me think of sentences of lyrics and lines of rhyme. focusing on the words it would open my mind and allow me to let the thoughts freely flow out and make a good poem or story. doing this is how i am at my creative best. many people have their own special ways of being creative and opening their creative side, for me it is simply listening to music and calming down just enough to open my mind to anything that i can think of and come up with.

Stress Relief

joshdrake — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:55:56 +0000

people learn to deal with their stresses in many different ways. some find it calming to have a cup of coffee and sit by the fire or reading a book or something along those lines. there are a few ways i handle my stresses of everyday life depending on how stressful the situation really is. most of the time when i am stressed about school or basketball or something kind of small like that i will just try to stay as calm as possible about the situation and relax and approach it from every angle possible to find the best way to get through it. for example right now i am pretty stressed about writing all of these blogs and also fairly mad because i have had to redo a lot of the work that was on my laptop because yesterday afternoon a special ed student decided to sit on my bag then when he was leaving he stepped right on top of my backpack which contained my laptop and all of my files on it. luckily though i had some of my files backed up on my flash drive so i felt saved, for now. until earlier i brought my flash drive to print of a term paper i have in another one of my classes and the computers up in the tutoring center at the school for some reason decided to corrupt my files therefore i had to stay up until all hours of the night and redo a lot of my work including my paper. since i stayed up so late and it took me all that time then i didn’t have the time last night to finish all these blogs so here i am again today up in the tutoring center on this computer stressed out to the max writing all the blogs that i can and as fast as i can all the while trying to stay as calm as i see possible given my certain situation. there is one method that will just about always help me relieve my stress but i only do it in times of desperate need. normally when i am stressed i will sit still and listen to music that calms me down and gets my mind off of it. but when i am super stressed and feel like theres nothing that i can do to save myself i have to go for a little run. at 2 in the morning usually i will strap up my running shoes and take off. theres really no telling how far i will run on a given night, it usually just depends on how stressed out i am. i will run and run and run until i either pass out, make it home, or stop thinking about my problems. very seldom do i have to do this but in times of desperation and extreme stress i will. these are just a few of the ways that i have come to learn to deal with my stresses of life.

Enlarging Your World

joshdrake — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:34:05 +0000

The blog that i chose was one that i hold very near and dear to my heart. as most people are well aware i am a very big Texas fan. and with the end of the football season right around the corner the BCS rankings mean more now than ever. at the beginning of the season UT started out that polls somewhere around 7th or 8th place. throughout this roller coaster of a season they have risen all the way to the top of the NCAA football world to grab the number one position, only to relinquish their spot a few weeks later. now they are currently third in the nation, one spot out of the national championship. the topic of this blog was to discuss how they are third in the nation under a second ranked team in which Texas has already beaten earlier in the year. the national championship could come down to the very last week and games of college football this year to determine who will be in the national championship. the common conception is that with the SEC championship winner will go to the national championship game to face Oklahoma (assuming of course that OU beats a less that impressive Missouri team). however this blog states the fact and in many peoples opinion the downfall of the BCS. that even if Florida #4 upsets Alabama #1 in the SEC championship then do to the BCS polling systems the computers could put them slightly ahead or slightly behind Texas. however last year Georgia was in a very similar situation as Texas is now and they were not allowed to play in the National Championship game despite being so good because they neither won nor played in their conference championship. Texas, much like Georgia, is stuck between a rock and a hard place. being number 3 in the nation and not allowed to play in the Big XII championship game. coincidentally the big 12 game will consist of an Oklahoma team ranked #2 in the nation which Texas previously beat by 10 at a neutral sight and Missouri, a team that Texas defeated handily earlier in the season. could it be that yet again one of if not the best team in the nation does not get the chance to play for a national championship because of some computer rankings or a dumb rule? Football is a game of chance and skill and being the best comes down to the players and coachs. the future of a season should not be determined by a computer crunching numbers. with this mayhem occurying for the second year in a row (deserving team not making the cut) those in charge of the NCAA need to drastically reevaluate the rankings. so in the end Texas argueably the best team in the Nation might narrowly miss the National Championship game because of the slightest decimal from a computer.

http://www.fanblogs.com/bcs_poll/007920.php

Assessing Ourselves

joshdrake — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:56:10 +0000

since earlier this year, January, i feel that i have changed a lot. i have learned more about myself and the real world in the past few months then i ever have the rest of my entire life combined. there are things and people that i thought i knew and had figured out that have as of recently constantly suprised me. there are plenty of things that i have had to overcome this past year be it loss of a loved one or just a hard time in life. i had some of the best times ive ever had so far in my life this past year. but on the other hand i also had some of the lowest of lows and bad times in my life. i think that i have grown and changed alot but mainly in a good way because i have been through so much. between me and all of my friends and all of our problems that we all bravely or idioticly face together i have been through just about every situation that i can think of imaginable and i think im stronger for that. im a better person because of the experiences that i have been through. my whole life i have always heard that change is inevitable and now looking back i can see that that saying is exactlly true. you cannot help but change, or go with the flow. it happens and we cant stop or prevent it. the only thing that we can do is take it as it comes and learn from your mistakes and better yourself with each passing day. just so far in my college life i can tell that i have changed in many ways. my body has grown bigger stronger and faster. i am learning alot through school but learning alot about myself and the real world as well. and best of all is the fact that i am now so much closer to everyone that i hold near and dear to my heart. everytime i see my family and especially my friends it means alot more to me than before. so change will happen and it is obvious to me that my personallity has changed in many ways. the person that i now see in the mirror is a far cry from the boy that i was looking at this time a year ago. more mature in every sense of the word. ready and waiting to take on life and all of its many challenges.

Connecting

joshdrake — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:34:46 +0000

i can totally relate to the things that slim said in the blog about if only he had turned in his transcript to transfer high schools. we all have things in our lives that we regret at the time or even later on down the road. in his case he feels that if he would only have transferred schools he would be around better people, a better basketball program, and would have had more opportunities than the ones that he has. i believe that everyone can closely relate to that. maybe not exactly about transferring high school but about how they could have put themselves in a better position or place but at the time chose not to do anything about it. you see a prime example of this almost everyday with kids our age going off to parties and drinking and doing drugs. they could have very easily made the good conscious decision to just say no and walk away to put themselves in a better position and get out of that place but instead for those few moments they stayed and maybe ended up getting in trouble. i was in the same situation as he was a few times throughout my life. every four years i have changed school and towns and everything and i look back at it as one of the best decisions that i have ever made but on the other hand i feel like i left a big part of me behind each time i moved and i still have regrets about leaving all of my good friends behind. i guess that it would appear that i am more on the opposite side of the fence as he is because i always keep leaving where as he did not. and almost every day i think about if only i would have stayed how would my life be right now. would i have the same kind of life that i do now. would i have even had the opportunities that i was given at my high school. the answers are all probably no, i moved from a not so great place up to a better place. i made the necessary changes in my life to prevent my life from going down the wrong path. so i believe that i can closely relate to the feelings that he was feeling when he was faced with the decision to leave and transfer high school or not.

Driving Miss Daisy

joshdrake — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:11:13 +0000

driving miss daisy is a film about a black man that has to drive an old Jewish woman around in the car because she is not capable of driving anymore. the movie although old is well made and i like that it touches on the racism part of American society from back in the day. honestly i did not really like the movie all that much and i don’t even have very much to say about it at all. but in order to at least get some type of credit i need to type something about this stupid movie that i will probably never watch again and wont even recommend that anyone ever watches it. so pretty much the movie is about a ladies son hired an old black man to drive around and old white Jewish woman named daisy. hints the name, Driving Miss Daisy. other than the occasional funny moment that where few a far between i found the movie slightly dull and boring. i am not entirely sure how it won an award for something so slow and boring. personally i would have preferred a lot more action scenes or something to at least liven the movie up some. i really cant think of anything else to write about a movie that i neither have a passion for or even liked. five hundred words is a whole lot to write about a movie especially one that i have absolutely no interest in. in an attempt to drag this blog on just a little more i have been filling time and space by just rambling on non stop for about three hundred words so far. i hope this will suffice because if not i really have nothing else to say on the topic of how i feel about the movie Driving Miss Daisy.

When i grow up..

joshdrake — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:40:46 +0000

for many years, most of my life, i have viewed myself as just a child never aging or growing up at all. when i was younger and would go to my mom and dads school where they taught i would see even middle school children and be in awe at how big and smart and cool they were. looking back it did not seem tat long ago even though it was over a decade ago. then when i had finally made it into middle school i felt like i had arrived and was a big deal at the time. all the while looking up to high schoolers as if they were grown adults and defined cool in their own unique style and character. then as i started to grow up more and more i was becoming that which i had idolized for so long. in high school i feel felt that my youth was the predominant side of my personality coming out when i was with my friends. no one wanted to grow up and in our minds we were never going to. however with each passing day we would grow further from the kids we have come to enjoy to the adults we looked up to. growing up into the college students that we are now has been bitter sweet in most cases. we have more freedom which we have been seeking since childhood but the relationships built up along the way are scattered all over and far to distant. now is when we have to plan for our future and choose to grow up, something that now i wish i didnt have to do. i have to think of what i want to do when i grow up. even though i have been looking and waiting for these moments my whole life now i feel like they are simply being thrusted upon me very unwanted and unwelcomed. so as for me growing up or knowing what i want or need when i grow up i cannot yet say. so far in my life i have taken things as they came, take them in stride and keep on going. so that is exactlly what i plan on doing, when i grow up.

In the news…

joshdrake — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:59:58 +0000

the other day i was watching an HBO sports special on illegal child labor in foreign countries, India in particular. after watching the report and doing a little more research i found out just how bad the problem really is. every day children are being enslaved, sometimes even by their own parents for pennies a day if that. young children are not suppose to be working long hours a day like they are being forced to do on some of the streets in India. their little bodies are physically breaking down even before they reach their teenage years. long 12 hour days of constantly sewing and stitching together soccer balls has taken a toll on their bodies. their fingers are worn down raw, many will develop eye problems from peering at the fine stitching all day every day, some receive severe cuts and wounds form the young children working with dangerous razor blades, and many of them will develop back problems before they even reach puberty from bending over all hours of the day. some may think that the children would at least get compensated for this literally back breaking work, however they do not. in many cases the kids parents have sold them in this debt bondage for money or a loan. and the interest is so steep on these loans that sometimes the children are forced to serve their whole lives, and when they get to old to do the work any longer their children in many cases would have to take over their duties. people ask why the children. why cant this work just go to the thousands of unemployed adults living in India. the answer is complacency. the children that they make work are so young that they will, for the most part remain quiet. more often then not the children wont form unions and raise hell about working conditions or making little to no money, where as adults would. their childhood is being stolen from them for the simple cheap production of soccer balls. it was made apparent that this problem desperately needed to be addressed and in the 1990′s Mitre, the worlds leading soccer ball manufacture called and meeting with the largest soccer ball manufacturers and distributors to discuss the issue. however, policies are one thing and practice is another. the problem has continued for years after and large business seemed to have turned a blind eye to the problem. even the united states can partially be to blame for this continued problem. even the united states department of labor is partially to blame on the subject because we have also turned a blind eye and just allowed this illegal actions to occur. if something is not done, and soon, many children throughout the streets of India will be continued into this slavery for their lives. something must be done, and soon.