Difference between German schooling and American Schooling

In Germany, everyone here seems a bit more relaxed and free.  In our schools, everyone always seems uptight or stressed about something, but it isn't that way in Germany.  Everyone always seems like they have a handle on things.  The school systems, and culture around schooling and children is completely different between our two nations.  In Germany, everyone seems very relaxed and friendly.  Everyone is not scared of something horrible happening at the schools, or someone coming and kidnapping their child while he/she is walking to school that day.  Everyone seems to have their own set of things that they need done that day and they get it done.  It is entirely different in America.  In our schools, most people take naps during classes, or talk during classes.  They don't do this in Germany.  If someone were to be caught sleeping in class, they get punished much more harshly than they do in America.  In America, parents could never trust a little kid around age 7 to be able to take multiple buses and get to school safely, but everyday I see it happening.  The entire atmosphere of the school is different in Germany.  Before this year, our school had a very open campus feeling, and I personally loved it.  It is the same way in Germany.  Here, people are able to leave the school and do whatever they want in between classes.  As long as they show up to the next class at the scheduled time, the teachers don't care what they do.  It is not like that at all in our schools.  Everyday,  I have 4 free periods (including lunch), and I always find myself wanting to leave school and go to Burger King or a pizza place, but if I were to do that, I could get detentions or maybe even a suspension.  In Germany, they don't care what you do, as long as you show up to class on time, and I love that!  The schooling here seems much more relaxed, and sometimes that is a bad thing, but at the same time, they get things done, and they are learning things that are on the same level as what I was learning in that grade level.  I understand that the whole culture of our countries is far different; we live in a much more dangerous place than they, but why can't some schools try adapting this way of life? It seems to work very well for them (the school that I am staying at has some of the highest testing scores in all of Germany).  It may not work for a school like ours, being so close to Wilmington or Newark, but I think that this view on schooling may not be too bad.

Jack and the Giants

Today, before our next class started in Germany, some friends and I decided that we would go to the movie theater and watch a movie to pass the time.  The only movie available at the time was "Jack and the Giants". I had heard of the movie from previews, and I figured: "Why not, this movie couldn't be that bad". I don't think I have ever been more wrong in my life.  For the next hour and a half, I sat there watching a poor rendition of Jack and the beanstalks.  The movie was made for a much younger audience, and that was apparent.  During the movie, I found myself wondering how much time was left, and I found myself more willing to ride down a slide that the movie theater had installed.  The plot of the story was quite similar to the tale of Jack and the beanstalks, but they took a much different approach to it than I would have expected.  The movie tried focusing a great deal on the giants, but it never went to deep with explaining anything about the giants.  It was just obvious that there was a leader and some minions.  The entire movie seemed rather drawn out, and it was apparent that the director tried taking a movie that should have only been 45 minutes, and making it into an hour and a half movie.  This movie was a complete waste of my time in my mind, and I most certainly do not recommend it to anyone in the future.  However, German movie theaters do have very good slushy machines.

Mixtapes that artists make

Many artists start off their career making mixtapes and posting them online.  These mixtapes are almost always free to the general public, and they are generally very well done.  These artists almost never start off with a record deal, so they start with mixtapes to hope and get their names out there.  Recently, I have been downloading a lot of mixtapes of my favorite artists, and I must say, some of their work on their mixtapes is far better than their work on cd's.  For example, I enjoy listening to a rapper by the name of Wale.  He is relatively new, and raps about almost everything in life.  I think a lot of his songs are okay, but recently I started listening to his last mixtape that he made: "More About Nothing".  The mixtape has 20 songs on there, and I find myself listening to about 18 of them on repeat throughout the day.   Many of the songs on this mixtape include clips from the very popular television show Seinfeld, and the clips that he adds to the songs make the songs so much better.  These songs are far greater than any songs he has made while he has been signed onto a record deal and released to be sold.  One song on the mixtape, "The War", speaks to me on a level that not many songs do.  I am not sure what it is about this song, but literally every time I listen to it, I get shivers up and down my spine.  During my plane flight to Germany, I only listened to these songs.  When I landed, I also listened to the music that I purchased through iTunes, and I can hardly listen to those songs anymore.  Now, I find myself wondering, why would an artist who claims to love music and rapping so much, stop trying as hard as he once did when he didn't have a record label backing him up.  Does money really affect the way people try that much?  If money really affects people that much, then I feel like we should almost consider not buying some of their music any more, because from what I have seen, mixtapes tend to be better, and they are free!

For this blog post I am going to talk about the movie Django Unchained.  I recently saw this movie in Germany.  The movie was shown in English with German subtitles for my German friends.  I think the movie was supposed to be a retelling of a dramatic time in our history, but the director took more of a comedic take on the way things should be handled.  At one point in the movie, they were walking through the desert, and calm classical music was playing, then out of nowhere, Rick Ross started playing.  It was completely unseen by everyone in the movie theater.  The Germans did not laugh too much at the music being played, because I don't think they understood what was happening too well.  But, the Americans that I was with were laughing hysterically.  In my mind, this movie was very good.  The director was able to take a very serious topic and make it quit comedic, and tasteful.  However, At points in the movie, I found myself wondering what was happening or why certain things were happening.  The director seemed to go a little too far in some cases.  For instance, in one of the final fighting scenes, one man was repeatedly shot in multiple parts of his body, mainly by his own allied forces.  There was no reason for him to be shot so many times, he did not play a very important role in the movie, he was just there.  I suppose the director just wanted everyone to get a good laugh out of a very serious part in the film, and I would say that it worked out quite well.  In total, I thought that Django Unchained was a very funny film, that was rather tastefully done in all.  The director was able to take multiple big name actors and use them wonderfully to make the best out of the movie.  I would most definitely recommend seeing the film.

The emotional impact of Tuesdays with Morrie

As I said in a previous blog post, we were given an assignment to read a novel called "Tuesdays with Morrie" over the Christmas break.  This was a very emotional book.  It recalls the tale of a man, Mitch Albom, who recently learned that his old favorite teacher Morrie Schwartz is terminally ill with Lou Gherig's Disease or ALS.  When Mitch was in college, he was a student of Morrie's.  He and Morrie were very close.  Mitch recalls that he used to call Morrie coach, and Morrie loved Mitch like a son.  Mitch Albom, the narrator, uses flashbacks to help show the immense affection that he and Morrie have for each other.  When Mitch graduated college, he introduced Morrie to his parents.  Morrie told Mitch's parents that their son was a "very special boy".  This shows the affection that Morrie has towards Mitch.  When they were saying their goodbyes, Morrie makes Mitch promise that they will stay in touch.  Mitch promises with the best intentions, but over the years he forgets.  He and Morrie never actually stay in touch.  One night while Mitch is watching TV, he notices Morrie being interviewed by ABC's nightline.  He immediately recognizes Morrie and cannot believe how frail he looks.  The disease has begun to eat away at his physical stature.  Mitch feels bad that he broke his promise of keeping in touch with Morrie and he can't believe that he did not keep in touch with him.  The rest of the novel is devoted to Mitch attempting to make up for all of the time that he missed with Morrie.  Every Tuesday he and Morrie meet, and Morrie teaches him a little more about life.  Morrie informs Mitch that he is not afraid of dying.  That he wishes death were not directly related with the word useless.  The entire novel sends us on an emotional rollercoaster as we learn of the relationship the two have shared, and the degrade of Morrie's physical well-being.  But in the end, we are relatively happy that Morrie is eventually at peace. 

Review of The Bourne Legacy

The other day I saw "The Bourne Legacy".  I was very relcutant to watch the movie because it did not have Matt Damon playing Jason Bourne like all of the other movies.  Instead the lead character was played by Jeremy Renner.  I was not sure that Jeremy Renner would be able to fulfill the hole that Matt Damon left when he decided that he was not going to make another "Bourne" movie for fear of ruining the series.  In the beginning of the movie, I was confused as to what was happening in the movie.  It seemed rather fictitious that the CIA agents would be genetically mutated to become "super soldiers".  But after continuing with the film, I realized that Jeremy Renner would actually be a very good fit to replace Matt Damon.  The director, Tony Gilroy, set the movie at the same time when Jason Bourne was on the run during the other movies.  Throughout the movie, references to Jason Bourne and the crimes that he was committing in the other "Bourne" movies can be seem, adding a bit of depth to the new Bourne movie.  Overall, compared to the other "Bourne" movies, this movie was actually quite similar from a broad perspective.  The movie mainly consisted of a CIA agent who realizes that the organization he works for is trying to kill him, causing him to go rogue.  The CIA agent who goes rogue, meets a woman who is willing to help him so he can further his own cause, very similar to the woman that Jason Bourne met during the first movie: "The Bourne Identity".  And finally, the main character overcomes a series of obstacles, killing many to conquer the people trying to stop him.  This is very similar to the other "Bourne" movies.  Even though this movie was very similar to all of the others, I still found it very surprising and I did enjoy it very much.  However, if the director continues to make his movies very similar to each other, I can already predict what will happen in the next movie. 

Sports as a religion

We recently had to read "Tuesdays with Morrie" in our Death and Dying class.  In this book, the narrator, Mitch, recalls an assignment he is given by his teacher.  The assignment is a senior final thesis.  The topic of this thesis was something along the lines of "Is sports a religion for some people".  Today, as I sit in my basement watching the football playoffs, I began wondering if this is true.  There are people out there that will devote their entire lives to sports.  They will spend their entire life savings to attend sports games.  They live for sports.  Personally, I love sports.  I would much rather attend a professional sports game than do just about anything else.  I enjoy playing sports as well, but that does not mean that I will spend my entire life savings or devote my entire life to a specific team or sport.  My friend Ian devotes his entire Sunday to watching football, and during the offseason for football he moves onto another sport.  I would honestly say that he may be obsessed with sports.  But there are people that go past that.  There was a fan of the New York Jets.  His name is Ed Anzalone.  Every game for years, Ed Anzalone (better known as Fireman Ed) would attend Jets games in a New York Jets fire fighter hat.  He would inspire other fans and lead the stadium with the "J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets" chant.  Ed is an ex NYFD firefighter that was injured on the job and receives monthly checks from the government.  He spends those checks to attend Jets games.  He is literally spending almost everything he has to attend the games.  You could easily make an argument that sports is a religion for him.  It does not just stop at him.  There are thousands of fans who attend every game of sports, their lives revolve around their favorite sports team.  Also some fans idolize certain athletes.  We purchase jerseys of players, we cheer when they do something great, we boo them when they screw up.  Those athletes serve as demi-gods to some people.  We view the athletes as perfect, they can do no wrong on the field.  We, as a society, view sports as a way to escape from our everyday lives.  Some of us follow sports religiously, while others hardly follow them at all.  But for the people who follow sports regularly, they most certainly have a profound impact on our lives.