Are we at war?

Well, I ammost days. Not in the sence that I originally took this topic to be in, but yes, I am at war. I'm at war with myself on some days. For example, today's war was: I want to come to class but I don't want to leave my room. Yesterday's war was: tell my friend her essay was... less than what I know she can write, or keep it in and spare her feelings. I think teenagers like myself are at war with something or someone most days of their lives. Not wars over terrorism or econony or oil, but things that perhaps seem to be a huge deal to us today, and yet mean nothing to us tomorrow. Things that may seem to be life or death problems in our lives. The truth is, recently I've discovered there are more important things than these stupid little wars with ourselves, and out parents, and our friends. Compared to some, my life is a walk in the park. I think I need to think about other peoples wars, the important ones. The ones about real things, not about teenage drama. So I ended today's war by going to class, and I'm going to try really hard tomorrow to not have another stupid war.
-Emily

National Media Education Week

According to a website I recently looked over, media education week is when ‘Educators will focus on online behaviour, encouraging youth to "Think Critically, Act Ethically."’ It also asks the question “who can teach media literacy?” The website responds with, “You can.” We are all essential in the process of making everyone “media literate.” And what can we do? Well, I know I can start by learning more about media myself (which has been helped greatly by the availability of this course ). I’m sure many of us enjoy talking, I know I do. We can all talk to at least one person about what it is we see in the media, how we feel about different messages being put out there, and how we can make a difference if we see something we don’t agree with. I know this would probably be an easier task if we were all parents or teachers or people with some authority, but most of us are just teenage students who are probably a little hesitant about bringing up certain concerns with our peers. If we would all just learn how to look at media, and determine the message being given to us, I think it would be a lot easier to spread the word about media literacy.
-Emily

http://www.mediaeducationweek.ca/

Net Neutrality

Hmm, is the internet public or private? I think it should be a little bit of both. The main issues, I think, are probably things like kids giving out too much information on the internet, copy write laws, easy accessibility to “inappropriate things” online. Now, why should the internet be more of a public forum? Simply because it has become the most accessible place for students to gain knowledge for projects, assignments and other school related things. Why should it be private? Because kids don’t know when enough is enough. I mean I am a self proclaimed facebook-aholic, but I know it’s not a good thing to put your phone number, address, etc. posted on facebook for a world full of creepers to see. I see kids going into high school with their entire lives available for anyone to view with one click of the mouse. Certain things should be made private other things should be public. There will never be a medium that is acceptable for both sides because the more you look into one perspective or the other, the easier it becomes to pick out more and more good and bad points for public and private internet.
-Emily

OWD

How has the internet changed my life? Well I don’t know if it has really changed my life because most kids my age have grown up with the internet growing as well. It has, however, given me opportunities that my parents never had when they were my age. Over this first semester of university the internet has helped me to keep in touch with my friends and family and makes it seem like nothing ever changed. Rewind a little farther back, maybe a year back. At that time the internet was helping me research to make one of the biggest decisions of my life, where I wanted to go to school. Without this great tool there’s a good chance I would have ended up at a university a little closer to home, and a little less suited for me. I was able to discover some great things about Guelph, share them with my parents, and even brought a few friends onto the bandwagon with me. That’s probably the most important thing the internet has helped me with in my entire life.

-Emily

ps. Guelph was a great decision, in case anyone was wondering =)

The American Presidential Election

What a touchy subject. How do you talk about it without stepping on a few toes? I think the best way is to talk about the election more and the candidates less...but they can’t be completely left out. First off I should start by saying I actually am pretty interested in the American election. I feel like I know more about it than a lot of my friends, however, I do wish I knew more. While I neither live in the USA, nor plan to anytime in the future I still think it is important for Canadians to be informed seeing as we do share a border and many other things. And although my opinion doesn’t matter whatsoever, because I can’t vote in the States, I still enjoy following along in the process. I must admit that I was rather fond of the idea of Hilary Clinton taking office. Now I don’t know if I thought she was the best candidate, but the idea of having a female president was pretty cool! Since that is no longer an option, I’ve decided that I think Barack Obama would be the best candidate for the job. Again my opinion means nothing in this process, and I respect all other opinions, but I do think he would really rebuild many aspects of the USA. In the long run, I really hope this American election turns out better than the last two did...
-Emily

A Day in the Life.

When I woke up at 10:00 am yesterday the first thing I did was fire up my laptop and begin making plans for the day... over facebook. Did you know that some women pay too much for car insurance, or that there is such thing as a Super Model Diet? I know, it sounds super random, but those are just 2 things I learned from ads within my first 45 seconds on facebook. So already by 10:10 am I had been bombarded with media. Anyways it was decided that I would go over to my boyfriend’s house for lunch. When I arrived there he was sitting in his garage watching football with some friends. That’s right; he has a TV in his garage...he can pretty much watch TV where ever he is. After watching I don’t even know how little football, the commercials began. I swear if you asked me the score of that game, or even who played I couldn’t tell you if my life depended on it. However, if you asked me what commercials I saw... well that’s a different story! I think there were Bud Light commercials, a Coke-a-cola commercial, Campbell’s Chunky Chicken Soup commercial, and countless others. That night we went to the movies. We just HAD to see Righteous Kill because simply because of Al Pacino and Robert Di Niro. I don’t think we would have chosen that movie had it not been for the actors in it. And really, do you think we could drive a safe speed on the highway? No. Why? Because we absolutely couldn’t miss the previews. It was, for some reason, essential that we see what movies would be coming out in the next 6 months. Who knew that movie previews had the unintended function of causing near car accidents?
-Emily

Advertising in Magazines

Who is Ken Paves? I asked myself the same question as I flipped through the pages of the most recent issue of Cosmo. I could tell that the image of a man surrounded by beautiful women was an advertisement but I had no idea what it was attempting to sell. Then in the top left corner I saw the words “Ken Paves.” I could only assume the man in the picture was Ken Paves, so I directed my eyes to the fine print on the bottom on the page. The words read “This is my world... and now it’s yours. My all-new, natural, botanical Healthy Hair TM line is now available over the beauty counter in fine hair stores everywhere.” Beside the fine print was a tiny picture of a bunch of bottles that I hadn’t even noticed before. I decided to go to this man’s website and figure out who the heck he was. Well it turns out “he’s one of the most sought after hairstylists in the world.” I guess should have known this was advertising for a hair product from all the women in the photo? Or maybe from the fancy dresses? Or perhaps it’s the tiny little bottles in the corner that look like they are perfume bottles? I guess what I’m trying to say is I really had no idea what the photo was trying to sell until I investigated a little bit more. Most people would say that if you can’t even tell what the product is then perhaps it’s a waste of an advertisement. I might have said the same thing at first, but as I wrote this blog I realized what this picture did to me. It made me look into the man and the product. Now I have an overwhelming urge to wash my hair! Success? I think so!
-Emily

Learn more about Ken Paves and his products at http://www.kenpaveshealthyhair.com/