Happy Holidays

December is finally here – it’s only 11 days left ’till Christmas day! I am so excited! Today I was just out shopping for my Christmas gifts. The malls were filled with Christmas decorations, not much of the Christmas songs as I’m living in the Middle East, but the atmosphere was fantastic.

Mommies and Daddies were shopping with their kids “Dear Santa” letters. I remembered how I used to write my own “Dear Santa” letter at the beginning of the December so that Santa could get my mail on time as post mail would take a month to reach Santa (my parents told me so).

Now shopping my own gifts for my loved ones, it makes me reminisce the times when I was younger and innocent where I still believed in Santa Claus with his working little Elves in the North Pole.

I love Christmas – the gifts, the tree and of course the annual family gathering after the Christmas Church mass. It’s just something that cannot be bought out of money. I’m so excited for this year’s celebration!

Good luck to all of us with the numerous Christmas preparations ahead of us. They are like a huge hurdle to take as it only happens once a year and are meant to be memorable. Happy Holiday everyone!

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Divorce rises up

It’s been said that the most successful people in today’s society are the wedding planners and the divorce lawyers. Wherever you go, you would always bump into someone who is divorced. Some may look like they are just doing fine but deep inside, they are crying out for help. Most of the divorced women are taken good care of by their governments or by an organization that’s available in their country. However, these same organizations are not open to men. I just realized this while I was having a conversation with one of the guys in my screen class.

I met one guy who is a divorcee and he himself told me a couple of the struggles he had to go through as a single parent. His wife left him and his kid. He didn’t know what else to do but to overload himself with work. He couldn’t ask much help from other people around him as he didn’t want to show it, he decided to suck it up and move on.

According to The National newspaper, “Legal and social experts say strict visiting rules are denying children the chance to build proper relationships with both parents.” Divorce parents in the UAE aren’t given the same visiting rights as the standard international visiting rights. They’ve mentioned that the most affected victims throughout the failed marriages are the children – they grow up with parents that are not united. If the kid comes to a stage where he or she wants to talk about personal situations, he or she ends up going astray and look for something else or someone else to turn to. This can lead to following the wrong crowd, blinding the divorced couple of the exact whereabouts and doings their children are capable of.

Having couple’s therapy is also needed – specially for a divorced couple. They also need to consult a family therapy. Though the mother and father have undergone splitsville, the foundation for making “a family” for the children is very important. If both parties have moved on with new lovers, bring them along to the family’s therapy too. There are families who ended up growing closer even though the main cause of bringing them together was through a divorce.

It’s how the parents show their sincere intentions of being a true parent that counts for a kid. Going to school, kids would want to feel the same love as they see from their friend’s parents. It’s a challenge if it’s a single parent, however, trying is more than enough as kids are not dumb. If they see that their single mom or dad at least try to be both the mom and the dad for him or her, they will love them more than ever.

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Unclean H2O = price of someone’s life

Water or H2O is one of the basic necessities a human being needs to survive. However, our society has come to an age where we tend to forget how precious water is to us. In certain countries, where water is limited, people struggle just to get a drop of water drip slowly into their mouth. Just try imagining being in their position where there is no water to drink or to clean oneself for a day, a month or years.

Water.org is an organization that assists these basic needs for them. They have dedicated people who run the numerous projects being done in countries like India, Ghana, etc., where clean water is scarce. A lot of kids born into these kind of environment gets waterborne diseases and complications due to their surroundings. They can’t prevent these as they are just living to survive. Clean water is running out. Bottled water industry have grown so much by commercializing something that should not have a high fixed price on – water should be easily accessible to everyone, with or without money.

Here’s how the water industry works with their top selling product – Bottled Water. (2010, storyofus.org)

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Revolution of TV

Today in Screen class, we were discussing about how television have become interactive. The advertisements were extensively polished to “suit” our society’s “interests”. Of course when the television was first introduced, everyone believed everything that came out from that photo-moving box. It was something that was new, hot and fresh – in other words, no one was able to spot the manipulative performance (the real intention) of the show being aired.

 

When The Brady Bunch show premiered, everyone was fascinated by it as it handled certain “tabooed” topics that were usually hushed away in a very good manner. However, beneath all that was a subconscious real message in the show. They show how family of that big of a size are picture perfect but has a huge chip on their shoulders. This was supposed to be a reflection of the society at that time. However, not everyone during that time were picture perfect. Not all women were always dressed up in a certain way and behaved in a certain way that The Brady Bunch showed. In other words, the producers at that time only had one target audience in their minds – mass audience. They didn’t care about the niche audiences that could be watching and end up perceiving their ideology in their shows in a whole different angle.

 

At our present time, we have so much channels to choose from. At times, two shows that we would like to watch are playing at the same time. It even has gone to an extent where we are able to record our shows just by a click from the remote so that we won’t be able to miss an episode of any of our shows. Interesting isn’t it? That’s how revolutionary television has taken us this far.

 

Is television an essential part of your daily life? How far has it taken you?

Slavery

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery.

Slavery at our present time is still very much alive. We may think that it’s abolished on certain countries, however the right word for it is, it’s well hidden. While I was watching CNN the other day, the CNN Freedom Project flashed and it got me intrigued. I browsed through their website and got more interested in it. They have articles and interviews of women who were working for pimps. They described how their lives were before they were rescued. It was horrible. I remember around a few years ago, I was watching in Discovery Channel about a man who was looking for his niece. It was his aunt reached out to him for help which he couldn’t say no to. He found out that his own niece was cheated to get a good stable job from another country. In reality, she was actually recruited by a pimp and was sold in a sex trade. It was sad as the man went through everything just so he can get his niece back. Unfortunately all the leads that he thought would make him get closer to getting her were all a dead end.

There are a couple of Hollywood movies based on sex slaves too. One movie that I like a lot is Taken (2009) starring Liam Neeson. It’s about a man who’s daughter was kidnapped and used as a sex slave. He tracked down all the people who took her and eventually got her back in the end. Of course, Hollywood’s depiction of reality isn’t always correct. Things don’t always happen picture perfect as how it is in movies like Taken. Out of power and greed, a lot of people have succumb to their own world where things work only for them. How selfish isn’t it? Well it’s been proven that there wouldn’t be any good unless there’s evil. What do you think? Is slavery necessary to balance the good things in our society?

What is Respect?

Respect is a very common word that a lot of people forget what it really means. It is a very delicate word. One would need the right mind and the right situation to know when to use it. “Be respectful towards your elders” – these are the words from my own mother. She was the one person who would always tell me to be respectful to anyone who’s older than me, regardless of the situation. As I grew up, I realised she just wanted me to learn to not hold on to stupid grudges against anyone who would hurt me emotionally and physically.

 

Going to a working environment, everyone knows that all the employees have to respect their boss or else their jobs are on the line. What if someone who you do not know at all disrespects you and your own family out of his own egoistic judgement – say someone who is a racist or a person who looks at certain people as dirt, would you still respect this particular person? There is a line between being sincerely rude and cooperatively plastic. Those pair of words don’t seem to look good together, don’t you think?

The ‘Right’ Choice

I was watching ‘Dangerous Minds‘ today. It’s an old movie, released around 1995, I think. It starred Michelle Pfeiffer. She was an ex-marine who was going through a rough divorce and needed a new job for a change. She decided to take up a job as a teacher in a public school. Her class consisted of kids who came from broken families or problematic families. I remember watching it for the first time when I was still young and I thought when I get to high school, things would be how it was shown on this movie. However, now that I am in University, I realized it isn’t always like that. I would say I was lucky enough to get into a good high school. My parents made sure I surrounded myself with the right crowd. Of course there were instances where I would get into trouble but they were petty troubles within the school only and not outside like in the movie ‘Dangerous Minds’.

I realized after watching this movie that people have this mentality of taking the easy way out for everything. For example if one would like to get money to get something, they would rob a bank or steal it, etc. However, a lot of people take it for granted that there are other possibilities to get what they wanted. This movie was a reflection of reality at that time however, if you look around you, these particular things are still happening. Why is that so? Even after portraying it in a movie, why do people still continue to do those things? Is it because they are mentally challenged? I don’t think so. I think they are just lazy.

What is the ‘right’ choice? It’s usually getting the right outcome at then end of the day, is the right choice. It’s partly right, I guess. Choosing the right path to get what you want ,and not just getting what you want but getting something unexpected at the end of the day is the right choice. I didn’t know how else to explain this but it made more sense to me now. A good example would be me getting into trouble, I solved my big problem by solving all the small problems first, one by one. Eventually, the big problem became a small problem which was good. When I was younger, I admit that I use to do things tactlessly and always do things without thinking. However I realized that I wasted time as each time I did tactless doings, I ended up being stuck or going backward rather than going forward in life.

iPod allowed in exams?

Never have I ever heard of such a silly story. What has this world come to? Apparently, a girl was allowed to have her iPod with her as she can’t concentrate without her iPod plugged to her ears. I find it ridiculous that her own parents stood by her side for this. I understand that some people (like me) can’t concentrate properly without music in the background. However, the essence of exams shouldn’t be changed. It’s unfair how the Board of Education allowed this to happen. Now I am able to concentrate without music, specially during exams. However I still held on to put the music on while studying. Studying is different from writing the exam. I use the songs to remember the formulas that I needed to remember during the exams – in my head of course. Most probably, this is what the girl is doing. That’s why she needs her iPod. However it’s somewhat unfair to the rest of the students sitting the same exam. She was allowed to get special treatment while everyone else were to follow the norm of sitting the exams. How about you? What do you think? Do you think this girl deserved to get a special treatment from the Board of Education?

A poll was made at sodahead.com asking whether students listen to music while studying. Here are the results.

Read more here for the full story of what exactly happened.

Botox at 8 years old?!

I checked over my mail today and I read through a post by a fellow blogger Michael G. titled “Injecting Botox Into Children Should Be A Criminal Offense”. Read more here. I was very appalled to watch the video he inserted into his post. It was about this mother who wasn’t ashamed to let the world know that she injected Botox into her own 8 year old kid. She is only 8! I’m still in shock. Medically it is very wrong to inject Botox into a very young girl. She is still growing. Her cells are still growing and with Botox in her body now, it can create complications for her when she starts growing. I don’t know how the world has turn to these days. What about you? What do you think? Do you think it is a crime? For me I just think it’s mentally sick. The mother needs guidance herself.

Techie Zombies – 1 min movie

My first movie project ever. We were told to make a 1 minute movie.

Synopsis:

In our world, everyone’s hooked to all types of screens – Blackberry phones to Computer games. This inspired me to make my film. We follow Alex my main character and in her journey we are able to get an insight into this new world that has taken over our society. We do not know this as we look at things around us with one eye closed. Hope you enjoy my movie! Thanks.