True Meaning of Christmas

I think that many people during the holidays tend to forget the true meaning of Christmas. People get wrapped up in getting gifts, seeing distant relatives, eating too many cookies, or simply just doing nothing. Now don’t get me wrong, I love doing all of those exact things over Christmas break, but I think it is important that people remember there is more to Christmas than opening presents and eating too much food. For me, Christmas is really hard because my older sister passed away on Christmas Eve in 2007. Spending time with family when I get the chance to be home is extremely important to me. It is important that people remember that the true meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of our savior. God sent his one and only son to this world to save each and every one of us from our sins. Christmas should be a time for friends, family, and giving (of course), but it should also be a time of celebration. We should be extremely grateful to have a God that would love us enough to send his only son to this sinful world and have him crucified on a cross for us. I hope that everyone has a safe and joyful holiday, and remember the true meaning of Christmas!

Hallmark Movies

Why are hallmark movies so addicting? I know I love them. For some reason, even though they are cheesy and a little ridiculous, I still like to watch them. They put you in a feel-good mood after you watch them. My favorite time to watch hallmark movies is during Christmas. During the holidays, everyone wants to be with someone special and fall in love. That is exactly what hallmark movies gives you for 2 hours. Sometimes the movies are even based on a true story. One of my favorite hallmark movies is called “A Very Merry Mix-Up”. This movie is about a woman who goes to visit her future fiancé’s family for the first time. She ends up going to the wrong family’s house because there is more than one man that has the same name as her fiancé. The funny part is that she ends up falling in love with the man who is supposedly the brother of her fiancé. She doesn’t realize that the family she is visiting isn’t really her fiancé’s family.  The woman ends up visiting her real fiancé’s family and it is terrible. The mother is rude and the father only cares about money. The “brother” ends up coming back and fighting for her.

Hush

One movie I recently watched when I was home is called “Hush”. This movie is about a young woman who is an author and has isolated herself from society by living alone in the woods. She is also deaf. She ultimately lives in a secluded, silent life. It was silent and secluded until a psycho-stalker killer comes and tries to kill her. She did not even realize for the longest time that he was at her house because she could not hear anything. The killer realizes that she is deaf and takes his time to tease her and not kill her right away. He uses a crossbow as his weapon, and at one point the girl actually took it from him when they were fighting. She was able to stab him with a knife and steal the crossbow. She then hid in her room trying to figure out how to work the bow. She was running out of energy because she was shot in the leg and bleeding a lot. The woman’s friend came to check on her because he was worried after she wasn’t answering her phone. The killer killed him before he got the chance to save her. In the end, the woman ended up fighting for her life and surviving.

Squad

For this blog post, I decided to write about three of my friends who mean a great deal to me. These people are Hailey Krewald, Sarah Fryman, and Casey Morton. I met these three awesome girls through playing basketball here at Huntington. A few things that we enjoy doing together are cruising around town with the music loud and windows down, playing Ping-Pong, having deep conversations until 3 a.m., and going to church together. These girls have impacted my life in so many ways. They always encourage me in everything I do and are always pushing me to be my best. One of the funniest memories I have with this group of people happened one time at Wal-Mart. We were all looking at funny t-shirts in the men’s section, and all of a sudden we smelled something horrible. We all looked down and realized we were stepping in poop. There was poop spread all over the floor, and we all got it on the bottom of our shoes. The funniest part was when a worker came up to us and said, “Always make sure to watch where you step!” We all died laughing because OF COURSE we should have been watching out for poop all over the clothing aisle. I am so thankful to have this group of girls in my life and thank God every day for them!

Sports Broadcasting Presentation

Noah Tobias gave a presentation on Thursday about Sports Broadcasting. It was really cool to hear about what Noah is passionate about and wants to do in the future. Being someone who plays sports at the college level, I never really think about who is commentating our games because I am the one playing in them. It was super cool to hear about what it is like to watch sports from a different perspective. Noah began his presentation by stating the three types of sports broadcasting, which are T.V., radio, and webcast. Noah also shared that he has been a commentator for sports for the past four years. It is super cool because Noah commentates my team’s basketball games. Noah mentioned 3 main sports commentators that he admires and looks up to. The first one Noah talked about was Harry Carey. Harry was a commentator for the Cubs, and they even have a statue at their stadium in honor of him. The second commentator is Jim Nantz. Jim commentates golf, basketball, NFL, and the Olympics. Jim shared that he wanted to be a commentator because he wanted to narrate, not because he wanted to be famous. The last person that Noah talked about was Vin Scully. He was known as the “Voice of LA” for 67 years. Hearing Noah share about his passion for sports broadcasting was awesome.

Modern Animation Presentation

Nicholas Berry gave a presentation on Thursday about modern mainstream animation. He started his presentation talking about cartoons and asked the class what cartoons we liked to watch growing up. Nicholas said that the cartoons we used to watch are episodic. This means that each episode had its own story that did not affect any other episodes. The storyline for each episode only lasts for that single episode. Nicholas shared some episodic elements: cheesy, humorous, over the top, unrealistic, and bright in color. A few examples of episodic shows are Ed, Edd, n Eddy, Johnny Bravo, and Animaniacs. I have only ever seen Ed, Edd, n Eddy. Nicholas then started to talk about the transition from episodic to modern day. Some examples of transition shows are Samurai Jack, Ben 10, Regular show, and Toonami. This transition meant that stories started to have longer story lines. Nicholas shared that his favorite show is Adventure Time. Some modern day elements that Nicholas shared with the class include surreal imagery, humor, longer story lines, and heavier political issues. I really enjoyed Nicholas’ presentation because I did not know much about cartoons before this. I rarely watched cartoons growing up, so this presentation was very informational.