Going to the Movies or Not?

            Why people should or shouldn’t go to the movies? Everyone gets really bored every once in a while and usually a solution to this problem is why don’t we go to the movies and go check out a movie that looks not half bad? Well, there (in my opinion) are some good reasons to go see movies and some really bad reasons as to why you shouldn’t see movies.

            The first reason I have is that if it’s nice outside, seeing a movie is probably not the best choice. Since movies take place indoors you shouldn’t waste the beautiful day by spending it inside watching a movie, go play sports, go for a walk, or honestly do anything, but waste the beautiful day spending it by watching a movie inside the theaters. Now there is exceptions to this rule like if there’s an outdoor theater then it’s okay to go watch a movie because you’re outside. One reason that you should go to a movie in regards to the weather as well is if it’s raining, no one likes the rain and unless you want to go dance outside in the rain (which I actually love to do…) then seeing a movie is probably the best choice if you want to get out of the house and actually DO something, but keep in mind there is so much more to do then just see a movie. Oh, and of course it’s during the winter, no one ever wants to actually do anything we like to store our fat, or you know just don’t want to do anything in the cold. But usually, people can never think of what to do, (especially in Iowa), but you just have to be creative and not always go with doing the boring things.

            Another reason to not go to the movies is that it’s pricey. I mean considering a ticket is about $9 and once the movie comes out on DVD you can buy it for like the same price. Also the food there is not even worth it, add all this together for going to the movie and you end up spending too much on just wanting to see a movie. So if you want to see a movie I’d do it maybe every once in a while like once a month or something (besides there is other activities besides seeing a movie.) In contradiction to that, maybe you just love seeing a movie with people surrounding you, I for one seem to laugh more when I’m at the theaters since I feel awkward laughing at home by myself. Besides it might be a movie you really want to see; which then it’s okay to go see a movie in theaters.

            I also think that it's really weird when people go to the movies together. I mean I know no one wants to go to the movies by yourself, but think about it, whenever you go to a movie with a friend you just awkwardly watch a screen together because it's not like you can talk during the movie for the people around you will probably end up shhing you. But as for going to the movie on a date it's a bit weird unless you don't think being quiet is awkward at all. So just overall think of other activities to do besides a movie.

          But overall sometimes going to the movie is a good idea while other times you should just get off your lazy butt and do something besides watching a movie, even if it’s walking in a circle at the park. But all depends on the situation, and seeing a movie at night is always a best bet since there’s not much you can do at night besides partying….So yeah, movie might be your best bet. 

Movies During School

            I think that during school teachers should show movies because it allows the students to relax for once instead of having to learn something new all the time. Teachers are always stressing out about lesson plans and what to do during the class period, so by just showing an educational movie it will allow the students to learn from the movie and have the teacher be less stressed on trying to get a lesson plan together.

            During middle school I remember watching a ton of different movies, and now in high school my teachers rarely have us watch any movies, and it saddens me because I think that we learn a lot from just movies. One reason teachers should play more movies is it allows the student to just relax, and yes I know that this means an opportunity for a student to be sleeping since us students never have time to sleep! But anyway I think that if teachers played movies during class it would allow the teachers to be able to get caught up on grading the students work, creating other lesson plans, and just in general get to relax.

            I think especially during the time after Ap exams are all finished that teachers should play a couple of movies for the class to watch because like I said before, you can learn a lot from a movie, just like you can learn a lot from a book. I would love for more teachers to allow students to watch movies, since I feel like sometimes were not doing anything in class anyway and it would allow teachers to use their time wisely by showing an educational movie.

            Some teachers think that showing a movie in class is a waste of time, and to a certain degree I agree with them like there’s not really a movie you can watch that’s based upon math that will help you learn math…But I definitely think that in subjects like Spanish, Ap Psych, Ap Us, and just a ton of the subjects I’m taking this year that it would be very productive of the teachers to show a movie from time to time.

           Overall, I think that teachers should show a movie every once in a while so that the teachers can get caught up on their work since us students are always wanting to quickly know what we got on a test or different homework assignments. And it’s good for us students too! Because it allows us to not have to think for once and just relax and take it easy for a bit. So I think that teachers should show a movie in class every once in a while; I’m not saying all the time just maybe like once a term or something. 

Energy Drinks

            I’m always tired all the time and what is my solution to staying awake and finishing my homework at night? Caffeine.  Caffeine is actually really bad for you, but what other choice do students have to try to stay awake during class? Teachers assign so much homework that students have no choice to stay up late at night to finish their homework, since many students are involved with other extra circular activities like sports, clubs, and music students either chose sleep or achieving good grades.

            I am one student that I strive upon trying to achieve good grades during school, so I stay up late about every night trying to finish my homework for the next day and end up being exhausted. My solution is caffeine. Every morning I have to drink coffee or I’ll be exhausted the entire day, and even sometimes I drink my coffee plus an energy drink in the morning just because I had to stay up late to finish my homework and without the caffeine I would end up falling asleep during class. Which teachers get mad when we fall asleep during class, but what they expect? That we are robots that can just function without sleep? So a lot of students are having to make a chose to whether get good grades or to get sleep.

            So if you’re wondering how this relates to books and movies…How does it? Well, it sort of does in a way because during class usually you’re forced to read some sort of text and how can you read something when you’re half asleep? So anyway that’s how this relates to books and movies. Ever try reading something when you’re half asleep? It’s like you read the page and when you finally get done with the page it’s like what the heck did I just read!? That happens to me all the time, but with my junior year I decided to start every morning off with coffee, and occasionally the energy drink if I’m really tired.

            Energy drinks are not good for you. I’ll say that simply, they are not. With people that are really sensitive to caffeine they should not drink them because it seriously has about three times the amount of caffeine and sugar that normal can of soda contains. But I mean what choice do I have? A lot people that get good grades I know end up falling asleep in class because they had to stay awake late to finish an assignment. One thing that I don’t get is that schools encourage extra circular activities, but how is one supposed to do extra circular activities, get good grades, and get a descent amount of sleep? It’s really hard to do, so my way of being awake all the time is to drink an energy drink or have some coffee. And though caffeine consumption is really bad, so is not getting enough sleep, and I (along with many other students) don’t get enough sleep either.

Dark Visions

            One of the best books I’ve ever read in my opinion is a book called Dark Visions by L.J. Smith. L.J. Smith has wrote some really good supernatural books in my opinion, but my favorite one is this one because it doesn’t exactly seem like a carbon copy of all the other books out there. Yes, it is a romantic book, and has to do with supernatural abilities, but instead of werewolves, vampires, or some strange other species this is all about psychic abilities of some teenagers.

            The reason I like this book so much is because first of all it has romance in it and I sometimes love romance books, but the main reason is the writing style. I mean the words are pretty easy to interpret and it’s not really hard to understand or anything and that’s why I like it. The age group for this book I’d say is about middle school and maybe early high school (so me being a junior now would probably be an extremely easy read for me), but I definitely suggest to about middle school students and to the high school students that are tired of looking up every other word in the dictionary because you have no idea what it means, or sparknoting the book to figure out what the book is trying to tell you to begin with.

            Dark Visions focuses on three guys and two girls (if I recall correctly) Lewis, Gabriel, Rob, Katlyn, and Anna. I think the psychic abilities makes the book a little different from most romance novels and there is way more action occurring than would usually be in a plain romance novel. And honestly it’s one of those romantic books that doesn’t really seem like a romance till about the very end (or a bit in the middle).

            I love the characters that L.J. Smith created in the book you have this golden charming guy, Rob, the bad boy, Gabriel, the comedian, Lewis, and then the sweet Anna that’s always there for everyone. Now the book takes place from Katlyn’s perspective and so like most romance novels she thinks she’s nothing important and by the end of the book….blah blah blah like most clichés.

            I just think that if people want a rather simpler read (but not too simply of course because that is just highly irritating) that they should read Dark Visions. My guess though is that probably only girls would like this book, but you never know…But this is definitely one of my favorite books and I think that others will enjoy it as much as  I did (I read it like five times). Now if they had a movie for this book, I think that would be really interesting, but there can’t necessarily be a movie for every book I enjoy sadly. 

Repetition

            So some people say why should you read books more than once? Like what is the point of reading a book multiple times since you already know everything that happens? I enjoy reading books multiple times, not like back to back though.

            I have re-read multiple books and book series because I just love the story like I can’t even count the number of times I read Dark Visions by L.J. Smith I just absolutely love that book. The reason I like to re-read a book is the first thing is I really enjoyed the book the first time and I think that if I read it again I’ll enjoy it even more the second time. My second reason for re-reading a book I have already read is you get more details from the second or more times you read it than the first time reading it; I can’t say the number of times that I read a book and I forgot a part that wasn’t in the book before, so by reading it more times I can remember more of the details. Not only do you get more details, but when you’re reading it the first time you don’t know what happens at the end, and a lot of books end up foreshadowing and when re-reading it you can see all the places in the book where you should have realized what the ending was going to be.

            I just like re-reading books some people say it’s a waste of time if you’ve already read it, but I don’t think so. Especially, re-read a book or series if the movie is coming out soon and you read it a while ago, re-reading will jog your memory and have you all pumped up for the movie. So I just think that people should re-read books because of that as my main reasons.

            Another thing is when reading the second or more times you can pay more attention to the vocabulary and word choice and it will help expand your vocabulary, or if you don’t know what a word means you can go look it up in a dictionary since you won’t be as eager to read the book since you already know what happens, it will just help you overall. Also I like to do a fun thing where I edit the book and see how many mistakes I can find in the book overall (usually I find a lot). But overall I just think re-reading books is a good idea and people should do since they will get more from the book the second time than the first time they read it.

Divergent

            The new movie Divergent came out about two weeks ago and is a complete hit for a movie to see. The movie can be seen by both females and males, and also young and older people, so it is a really good movie to see.

            The movie is based upon a book series called Divergent by Veronica Roth about a dystopian society that has to live by the rules and follow the structure within the society to follow the rules. I have not currently read the books, I believe there are three of them and I have heard from multiple friends that the book series is extremely good, and contains three books (so it’s a trilogy). Maybe in the future I will read them, but for once I have actually watched a movie of a book series I want to read before actually reading the book. But I heard from people overall that compared to the book the movie was okay, that they left out some major details, so most people if you have read the books might kind of be annoyed by the movie in that aspect.

            I thought that the movie was really good, then again I didn’t actually read the books for once. I honestly think this kind of reminded me of like the Giver, the Hunger Games, and City of Ember because the main focus of those books is like a dystopian type society that must follow and obey all the rules or will be punished. I think though compared to the Hunger Games movies I definitely prefer the Hunger Games movies (the first and the second, Catching Fire) and I really liked the movie; City of Ember because the main actor and actress I really liked, I think they did a really good job in that movie. But back to Divergent, the movie was overall good since it had a lot of action and suspense going on; and of course some romance to add to the spice of it all between the main actress Shailene Woodley who plays Tris and Theo Games who plays Four in the movie. Also they add some humor in the movie between all the characters within the certain faction that Tris had chosen.

            I think the movie did a good job, my favorite part in the movie was during all the action at the end and the whole really cheesy part of where Four wakes up and remembers Tris, but the part that was the worst part in the movie is when Shailene Woodley starts crying because of her characters mum had died, I just thought it was a pretty pathetic way to cry and just seemed so fake, so that’s the part I disliked the most. But this movie is definitely one of the top movies to see of this year. And it’s even funnier since the movie that comes out later in the year called the Fault in Our Stars is a romance with Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort…And in the Divergent movie they are brother and sister which I just think is hilarious. So yeah, this movie was really good and I recommend seeing it eventually whether it be in theaters or at home.

Switching Out Textbooks

            Why should schools get rid of textbooks? Textbooks are heavy, and no one likes to carry them around. Schools should get rid of the textbooks and have online textbooks it will save many of us high school students from severe back pain.

            So like many students including myself they have about six subjects in a day, so that can mean up to six textbooks, or even more if that certain subject decides to have more than one textbook that they use. Ap World History is an example of a class that used two textbooks, and unfortunately with one of the textbooks you had to bring to and from school. Just carrying one textbook around wouldn’t be that bad, but it adds more weight to our backpacks, because yes the adage of papers adds up with all the papers teachers give us students. So all the loose paper and a few textbook is a complete pain to always be carrying around. Some teachers I know they will tell you when you need your textbook in their class that day, but not all teachers do that for instant my Ap United States History doesn’t say when we might use the textbooks in class. All this adds up to is back pain and the annoyance at the teachers for dragging the textbook around. And like I said before, all these textbooks add up.

            I think that if the school’s got rid of textbooks and replaced them with nooks or tablets (honestly any device that is lighter than a damn textbook) then it would really benefit the students and save money for the school by not having to buy new textbooks every few years. To be able to download all the textbooks that the student would use in one device would make it easier for the student as well. And the student just needs to bring that back and forth from school to home. Another reason the schools should replace the textbooks with an electronic device is students could easily access Microsoft programs on their tablet or the device and so students that do not have internet access, a computer, or laptop don’t have to worry about staying at school late or coming in early to finish their homework since they would be able to access it all one the one device.

            The schools should just get rid of textbooks because it’s a pain to always have to be carrying them around, and even if they don’t provide an electronic device they should still get rid of textbooks and make everything online. I’m not saying that’s the top solution they should do, because I for one think it’s really awkward to read a textbook with a computer or laptop, but it’s better than having to carry around textbooks. Or another suggestion I have to solve this problem of having to carry around textbooks is make an app for it; that way people can read it right off of their phones. Obviously though, with this idea they’d still have to provide textbooks to the students who don’t have a phone or a phone that has apps, but at least that would make it a bit easier for more than half of the school.

            I think that the schools should get rid of textbooks, it’s really annoying to always have to be carrying them around, and honestly they cause back pains with all the stuff that gets put into our backpacks we don’t need the weight of textbooks as well. My suggestions are to get electronic devices and start using technology, textbooks are ‘old school’ and we need to keep up with the whole world and move on from those nasty heavy textbooks. Though I know overall the cost of providing every student with an electronic device would be costly, it would really benefit the students and the students could raise money in order to achieve the switching of textbooks to tablets or another device.