Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

Two men are walking up Dimmitt hill toward Olsen Student Center, one is tall and Caucasion, with a none-too-recognizable face, the other is African with an all-too-recognizable personality.

“Hey, Paul Johnson!” say a couple of girls as they cross paths with the two. The Caucasian man grimaces in embarrassment as he doesn’t know who the two girls are. The African man turns around to speak to the girl.

“Hey Natalie, hey Sarah, how’s it going,” he replies. He seems to know these two very well.

“We missed you at the MAC event last night,” the girl on the right playfully pouts.

“Hey, I had a lot of homework to do,” Johnson defends himself with a smile.

“Suuuure,” the other girl giggles as she walks away with her friend.

The Caucasian man lifts up his head, “How do you know those two, Paul?”

Before he can answer back, the two are greeted by another person who seems to be good friends with Paul…

This is a daily struggle for anyone who may walk to lunch with Paul Johnson: The Most Popular Man on Campus. Very rarely will one find a person on Morningside Campus that does not know the name Paul Johnson. Same goes for the face, the smile, and the laugh, and the personality that go with this character.

His large and attractive personality somewhat contrasts his considerably average-sized and almost standard appearance. At 5’10” with dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes, one cannot immediately see why so many people are drawn to this figure. Hailing from Nigeria, Johnson is partially known for being the “only Nigerian that [anybody has] ever met,” according to Josh Doering, the tall man that was walking to lunch with Johnson.

The main reason, though, that Johnson knows so many people in the Morningside College student body is the fact that he holds such a large interest for people. “I’m really interested in people. I like to know more about them… Whenever I meet someone new, I want know where they’re from, what they do, why they believe what they believe…” Johnson explains, “I love diversity.”

Johnson is considered unique among the many people on Morningside Campus, which is sometimes attributed to his Nigerian origins, but he himself says that he is different from other Nigerians. “In Nigeria, if there is a person that is older than you and they do something that you know is wrong and you call them out on it… That’s viewed as really disrespectful…” Johnson goes on to explain how that’s something he did a lot back in Nigeria and that was something that would get him in trouble on multiple occasions. “But I feel that here, in America, people are more accepting of that.”

Medication has kicked in and I cannot focus at the moment. Will continue later. This article will include:

• Living on Paul’s Hall and his open door “Paulicy”
• A little bit of backstory, including struggles he’s gone through
• How he’s different from even other Nigerians
• His head balancing talent
• More quotes from Josh (he had a lot of gold)
• What makes Paul, well, Paul
• Puns
• And maybe some words from the one hater that Paul has (if I can get the interview).

Competent: Adj. Acceptable and satisfactory, though not outstanding.

That’s how I would describe Thank You for Smoking, a comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman and starring Aaron Eckhart, a competent lead actor among a troupe of competent supporting actors. While the film had excellent craft and clever usage of certain cinematographic techniques, it was mildly generic and doesn’t stand out from other films in my mind. It’s the perfect film for one to enjoy when there’s nothing else to do.

The film begins with Nick Naylor (played by Aaron Eckhart), a tobacco lobbyist, appearing on a talk show to defend the usage of cigarettes. Anti-smoking lobbyists attempt to use a cancer-ridden teenager against Naylor and his campaign. Naylor, however turns the scene around as he points how the anti-smoking lobbyists want the teenager to die while he and his company want him to survive. Naylor wins the crowd over, victory for his company, roll intro credits.

Throughout portions of the film, Naylor narrates in  order to give exposition. Given that this movie is based off of a book, one can assume that the narration is taken from first person narration in the original book. Personally, I felt that this was a nice touch, as it provided exposition and helped with the feel of the entire film. It made it easier to explain characters and their roles.

My favorite part was the introduction of the “Merchants of Death”, Naylor’s friends whom also work in industries known for killing people. Their conversations provide good foils to each other and their interactions with Naylor’s son, Joey, added development to these characters.

I must say, though, that , was my least favorite part of the film. I didn’t mind his character, but I felt that the child who played him was a little wooden in their acting. It didn’t take away from the film, but it did irk me, somewhat. One particular moment in the film that bothered me was during the Joey’s speech was when he looked straight into the camera and as does a quick zoom to his face. To me, that felt out of character and a little unnecessary.

That wasn’t the only case of out of character cinematography, but I imagine that those were all part of providing emphasis for certain scenes, which makes it somewhat forgivable, but still off key, in my opinion. For the most part, the cinematography was just fine. There were nice establishing pan shots, good usage of stills, and well-placed graphics. Overall, I give this film a 3 out of 4 stars.

Stories are narratives that can have a great effect on who we are and what we become.

To me, a story is painting a picture with words. Each little character is a mark, that when placed with other characters, form a subject, and when those subjects are placed together on the same canvas, they form a picture. Of course, a picture can have as many or as few subjects as necessary.

A story is comprised of events, situations, characters, settings, and (most importantly) movement. These different pieces of the story are key to immersing the reader and/or viewer into an entirely different world. This construction of words and terms are what helps connect our society from one to another.

At the bare minimum, this is the effect that it had on me…

When I was younger, my parents would take me to church so that I could be a good boy. For a while, I would be separated from them, which was a rarity for any 4-year-old attending home-school, and go to Sunday school. There, I would learn many different Bible stories about David, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. Each of these stories had some sort of lesson to be learned, mostly on how to make sure that you go to Heaven and not… Come to think of it, they never really mentioned anything other than Heaven….

Anyway, these stories helped instill a long withstanding moral code that I had followed for much of my prepubescent life. I had always done my best to make sure that I didn’t anger God with any sin that I had; All these stories of miscellaneous people goofing up usually led to the wrath of God made me fearful of failure. It was during my middle school years that I began to realize that my sins were not much of a factor on whether or not I would meet God’s wrath.

Regardless, to this day, I still have a need in me to not be a terrible person (I avoid saying “be a good person” because my definition may not fit other people’s definition). Whether it be Bible stories or superhero movies, I was told not to be a good person for my own needs (because that makes you not a good person), but to be a good person for the rest of the world. Making the world a better place is the truest and best reward, as these stories have told me.

Of course, that’s just why I need stories…

Not sure if this’ll still be graded, but I saw this article, and figured that it was worth a shot.

Article: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/woman-whose-school-photo-became–60-year-old-girl–meme-talks-to-trending-now-201847056.html?vp=1

As someone who frequents the pages of Reddit, I figured that this would be a good article to share. It gives tale to the story of a woman who found a hilarious old school photo, showed it to her husband, who then showed it to the world, getting internet famous in the process. It’s actually a lot less climactic than it sounds.

The meme is titled “60-Year-Old Kid” and often entails typically elementary school situations with an added elderly twist. For example: Gets allowance, and social security… It works much better in Advice Animal format. Many of the memes that have shown up are rather clever and I personally would not have been able to come up with them myself.

Honestly, I think this meme mimicked its own joke when it got old on Reddit no sooner than a day after it became a thing (source: I’m a redditor). Yesterday, this meme was all over the /r/AdviceAnimals subreddit. Now, the page looks like it did before this meme became a thing. Another form of life imitating art.

But in all reality, I don’t think that it’s because it’s a lame meme. I personally think it’s a very clever idea, and would be okay with it continuing. The problem with it is that it requires a bit more thought than most advice animals, being that it’s not (as far as I know) based off real-life situations like those that you usually see on /r/AdviceAnimals. Additionally, Reddit has a tendency to act as a semi-cynical hivemind that likes to laugh at its own jokes, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole “60-Year-Old Kid got old pretty fast” thing is just Reddit’s way of making another inside joke.

Cactus out.

Article in question: http://news.rutgers.edu/research-news/addicts-may-be-seeking-relief-emotional-lows-more-euphoric-highs/20131106#.UnuwyPmkqUY It explains how addicts might be abusing drugs simply to avoid lows rather than to attain highs.

This article somewhat surprised me. Not for the information that it had, but for the fact that the data attained in the tests was treated as some unusual discovery. I don’t want to seem cynical and/or sardonic, but I thought that it was pretty obvious that addicts get stuck in addictions because of the lows that they get once the high wears off.

When I was in school, they made it clear in simple that hard drugs are bad for you. “What comes up must come down.” So the better the high from a drug, the worse the low you get from withdrawal.  Based off of testimonies that I heard from recovering drug addicts, it seemed fairly evident that the addiction became less about getting high and more about not being low.

Though, I will credit these scientists for providing factual scientific data about such a thesis. They experimented with mice and listened to the sounds that the mice made, based off of their emotional state (it’s explained more in-depth in the article). It just sort of bothers me how they treat the information as if it’s something profound and/or surprising.

Maybe I’m not taking into account the fact that they may have not been exposed to this sort of information before. Again, regardless of how they treat the information, they did a good job attaining it.

Article in Question: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=psychological-power-satan&WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook

As someone who is fascinated by ideas of Christian mythology as well as psychology, I couldn’t resist reading when I found this article. I was a little bit of a lost, at first, as to where Satan was involved in all of this, but then the article tied it up all together at the end.

The article basically elaborates how studies show that the belief that people can be pure evil correlates with harsher punishments. The idea that someone is unredeemable makes one feel that penalties need to be harsher. At least, that’s what the studies seem to indicate.

Personally, I believe in pure evil, but I don’t believe that it can manifest in human form. I believe that it can distort the way that people see the world and cause them to do evil things, but they may not have entirely evil intentions and/or they are not entirely in control of their actions.  I highly recommend the article if you enjoy psychology.

Tension continues to rise between the Stone Temple Pilots and their former vocalist, Scott Weiland.  The band has been touring and recording with new vocalist, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park.

In February of 2013, Weiland, the original vocalist of the band, was dismissed, according to an NME article. Not too long afterward, Bennington was hired to fill. Since then, there has been conflict between Weiland and the remaining three members.

Weiland currently tours under the name of Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts.  Initially, though, he attempted to tour the US as a solo artist, singing the same songs and using the same name as Stone Temple Pilots, according to another NME article. The band filed a lawsuit in order to stop him from doing so.

In response, Weiland filed a counter-suit, claiming that they have no right to the name, saying that the band will have to buy him out of the “company”, according to a Loudwire article. Both suits are yet to be resolved.

Currently, the band is going under the name “Stone Temple Pilots with Chester Bennington”. The band is now touring and has their latest EP, High Rise, due to be released in October. So far, Bennington has been generally well –received as the new front-man of the band, according to another Loudwire article.

Article found here

Kenya is predicted to have access to huge water source for the next 70 years.

I liked this article, mostly because it was quick and easy to read. But at the same time, this is something that’s revolutionary for the East Africa region. In the attached video, it was mentioned that the soil of Kenya is rather fertile. Now that there’s this water source, Kenya may as well become a lush utopia now. Altogether, I’m glad to finally find some good news out of all the outcries about Syria and Miley Cyrus.

With the termination of Scott Weiland, addition of Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, and upcoming release of a new EP, the Stone Temple Pilots have been garnering a fair amount of media attention (comparative to anything that is not about Miley Cyrus or her VMA performance).

In February of 2013, Weiland, the original vocalist of the band, was fired, reportedly due to his drug abuse and consistent tardiness. Not too long afterward, Bennington was hired to fill. Since then, there has been tension between Weiland and the remaining three members.

Weiland attempted to tour solo under the name of Stone Temple Pilots, with a backing band attempting to impersonate the original band, resulting in the other three members filing suit. In response, Weiland filed a counter-suit, claiming that they have no right to the name.

Currently, the band is going under the name “Stone Temple Pilots with Chester Bennington”. The band is now touring and has their latest EP, High Rise, due to be released in October. So far, he has been generally well –received as the new front-man of the band.

Welcome to Morningside.edu Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Your blog is set to “Private” by default and will not be listed on the main page. To change this behavior use your dashboard, “Settings” and look inside “Privacy”.