Kid Nation

the one thing that I took away after reading everything on Kid Nation was that everyone seemed to think that it wasn't going to work because the way that the producers set up the show. they made a sort of hierarchy with the way that the challenges were set up. But i think that even if the kids had truly been able to set up a society the way that they wanted...it would have been the same as the one we live in now. Kids are not dumb and by eight years old, as the youngest was, they already know the way that society works. They can see their parents coming home annoyed that their boss who makes more money then them is able to do what he wants. That simple act is the beginning of the child learning about American Society. You can see it by watching this video. These kids are not being coached on what do to, at least thats what we're told, but they still have debates in the town meeting and try to discuss things in a "democratic" way as one of the participates says. So while some people may look at this show and say that kids were not able to create a society without the mistakes of our original founding fathers, i looked at it differently.
these kids were able to come together and support each other. there was no shady behind the scenes work to get people voted off the show which in my opinion was completely different from our society today. Now obviously we can't vote on who gets fired or who has to leave the class, but in a way don't we all try to beat other people in life, always trying to get ahead at all costs? Sure these kids were all trying to get the gold star, but the council had to vote on who to give it to so ultimately they had no control over if they got it or not.
I think that this show, while having its flaws, should be commended on at least trying to give kids a chance, which is more then most parts of society does. Kid Nation had the faith to at least try to see what those kids could do and what ideas they could come up with.

Project idea

Ok so i dont really know what i want to do for my project. i would like to do something involving music and how teenagers use it to express themselves. i know when i was in highschool you could tell what mood i was in by what cd i was listening to. i would like try to see if that has evolved at all over the last two decades. if anyone has any ideas as to how i could do this let me know! see you in class!

Team Shalvey

My uncle was diagnosed with Huntington's Disease about two years ago. He is the third person in our family do get this horrible disease, and because there is no cure for it, he will die. Huntington's has already claimed the life of my Aunt and my Grandfather, and it is completely possible that my cousins, aunts, uncles and myself could have the gene. We have put a team together to walk for the Huntington's Disease Society of America Walk-a-thon in June. I know that we are all college student and money is tight but if anyone is interested in donating to our team please let me know. There is a website that you can donate to directly, http://www.firstgiving.com/teamshalvey or if you would rather not use the website I will have the sheet made up so I can bring it to class. HDSA is the only national voluntary health agency that provides support and services to persons with Huntington's Disease and their families so this is very important to me and my family. If you can help at all please let me know! thank you all!

I was interested in finding out if there were any girls tournoments at Rucker, but I couldnt find anything about it online. I was wondering if anyone else had had better luck?

my thoughts on class last nite

Okay, so I'm not going to lie, i know little to nothing about hip hop culture other then what i see on TV. like some other people in the class i have seen videos and artists on TV and frankly Ive been disgusted with them. but after watching the documentary and listening to the two songs that Marco presented, i realize that there are some genuine artists that have a positive message to get out.

one thing that aggravated me with the documentary was that the rappers that were being interviewed did not really take responsibility for what they were saying. it was always the same, "yea we talk about guns but we don't really use them." that's all fine and dandy but there are fans out there listening to them and trying to be like them who are not going to take the time to distinguish the truth from the embellishment as one of the rappers interviewed called it.

And as a side note, Marco you did a great job!

Juno, It all started with a chair.

After listening to the discussion in class I can see why some people did not like the movie. The Clinic was completely falsely represented. I have driven passed the one in providence and there is no cute little girl standing outside with one sign, rather there’s a crowd of people all yelling, calling the girls whores and holding sick signs of dead babies. I do think that the writers chose to not put that in because lets face it, not many people would go to see a movie that showed those images, at least I wouldn’t.
It was clear that the writer was trying to get across that people in the high school were not approving of Juno’s pregnancy. The scene with the teacher looking at her belly and also the two scenes in the hallway, one with the students clearing the way for her to walk and the other when she is eating lunch. While her peers never actually said anything to her, I think it was implied that they were talking about her behind her back, because that’s what usually happens in high school.
The one thing that stood out for me in the movie was the idea of family. Throughout the film Juno struggles with what a “real” family is. For a teen film I think it was important to address this issue because there are still adults today that don’t know what a family is. In the beginning of the movie we are introduced to Juno’s dad, step mom and younger sister. It seems that Juno does not consider this to be a real family for some reason.
When she finds out that she is pregnant Juno decides to have the baby and then give it to a couple who cannot have a child of their own. To me this seemed to point in the direction that to Juno a family was a mom, dad and child. And in this case it was mom, dad, child and a lot of money, so I also thought that maybe Juno thought only well off families could be happy. It was almost as if Juno thought the opposite of what her life was like was the right way.
The part that really stuck out for me was at the end of the movie when it showed the note that Juno had written for Vanessa. It said “If your still in, I’m still in”. It was framed and on the wall where Vanessa had told her husband the first family portrait would go. It was as though the family was not mom, dad and baby, but Vanessa, Juno and baby. What I got out of this was that Juno finally realized that family is not a set group of people, rather it is people who care about each other and help each other out in all situations. In this case Juno gave Vanessa the baby that she desperately wanted and Juno learned that you don’t need to be perfect to have a real family.

Ok, so i thought it was funny that after we talked about people of my generation being "digital natives" i became the computer whiz at work. everytime something went wrong this week i was called. we even went bowling as a group and guess who was assigned to put all the names into the computer to keep score...yea that was me. i just found it funny that after we talked about it, it started to happen alot more.


and yes bowling was awesome!