Enlighten Up!

After an absolutely exhausting day this will be short and sweet before my pandora logs off. Enlighten Up! is about a fairly young journalist named Nick who is travelling around the world discovering what Yoga really is and how it impacts him. He travels with  documentary-maker Kate. They start in New York and work their way to California, Hawaii, and eventually India. Nick's parents are divorced and practically opposites. His dad is a lawyer and his mom is a total hippie, and he's not religious or spiritual whatsoever and rather materialistic. Most of the United States Yoga centers were full of...odd people. They were not impacting Nick at all, but i must say I was very impressed and slightly jealous of how ridiculously flexible they all were.

That's ludicrous. I mean seriously, who has enough time in there day to think, "Hey I think I'll learn how to grab my foot in the most complicated way I can possibly think of," Yes I'm sure that has a lot of practical life applications... I get the physical aspect of it, but Kate was pushing hard on Nick to accept the spiritual aspect of it, when he's just not a spiritual guy. Kate is supposed to be a 3rd person aspect too, so her telling Nick what he's supposed to be feeling not only messes with the results of the experiment but ultimately I think it's unprofessional. After five months from family and friends and only yoga, Nick has to beg Kate just to give him one night off from her omnipotent camera   just to go on a simple date. Kate is a bit obsessed with the project. And at the end of it Nick even says that he doesn't feel much different except for only one yoga experiment when he was meditating for so long that he fell asleep and woke up missing his mom. So, he felt that he wanted to be closer with his family and he wanted to be happier because of a long speech and Yogi in India gave him. he ended up moving to Colorado and made a documentary on rock climbing... I have no idea what that has to do with the plot and Kate ended it talking about herself.

Hmm, well not my favorite. But I learned some moves myself! I can actually do a pretty decent headstand now but I have to say of all the yoga places they showed my favorite was one in India where all they did was laugh. Literally they just stood there and laughed for and hour with very basic yoga moves and they called it spiritual because retouching childish behavior gave them a young spirit. I thought that was pretty to think about.

No blog next week, because of the holidays so probably start blogging again January 10thish. So goodbye for now and Happy Holidays!

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW-Yu8N4qoblnrB3bJ7GudGencQSw5ELIb-Q1pCar4yxF1tbZxeutCNb4WqMxSzwWPbGA0YGxNBnAmVzd2GzWRw9tYoxf5cDIY6fLROWwfvKPaKGwdjqIr9oXF2ttvlPX0iLamXjQ68fo/s1600/yogapose.jpg

This Thursday

Enlighten up!

 A story about taking a cynical man and making him into a "yogi" or a yoga lover. It's an analogy for how different the materialistic world is from the spiritual world and finding the bridge between the two to enjoy both. Okay, there's my deep moment. Now, here's the vapid, yoga looks hard.








http://goo.gl/ZymXB

Life in a Day

This was by far my favorite documentary yet. If I could recommend anything it would definitely be this. It's all about people from across the globe's day. July 24 2010. It was eventful for some, but no world history was made. Just an ordinary day except people from 192 countries recorded their day spanning from 10+ people living in a house that we would consider a tool shed to a man driving his Lamborghini to work. It was honestly really eye opening to how most of the world lives there life. And as ridiculously cheesy and stupid I sound, it was really beautiful and such a good demonstration of how with the right attitude you can spend everyday joyfully. Being a touch cynical however, there were three scenes that I hated.
1. They showed a cow getting shot in the head. As from Food Inc. I love my cows, I especially love the way they taste. I just really really hate the process of them getting to my plate.
2. Almost showing them slit a goat's throat. I'm pretty sure I scared my dog with how fast I threw my hands up to my eyes so to be honest I don't really know if they actually slit it's throat or not.
3. This really annoying stereotypical American girl that just ranted about how her day was ordinary and how she was sad about it. Hmm well give me a second as I describe according to me as to the degree that this girl really ticks me off. First of all, heart shaped hooped earrings to me have already screamed moody facebook status poster. Secondly, she's complaining about how her life is "sooooo normal" well missy there are hundreds of millions of people living on earth today that would kill to have a car, clean clothes, food everyday, and the multitude of other common luxuries that I can be almost positive that she takes for granted. Yet, she has the audacity to say that her life is just not good enough as it is.
And lastly, what probably got me the most is that she vented to the poor people of youtube that she was "waiting for something to happen" in her everyday life. Waiting for someone to take the reins and make her life interesting for her. Well hate to break it to you, but if you want something new to happen to you you have to make the change yourself. I believe that God does intervene at pinnacle, life changing moments to 'take the reins' and shake things up. But for your ordinary day God gave us free will to change things up for ourselves.  I will give you three things off the top of my head in twenty seconds to change up little Miss. Complain's life
1.Join or participate in a charity
2.Try talking to a person you don't usually talk to
3. Go somewhere at least an hour away and just go to a restaurant or club or something that's brand new
YOU CANNOT JUST WAIT FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN, YOU HAVE TO MAKE THINGS HAPPEN.

Okay, I'm off of my preaching pedestal now. Besides that horribly last five minutes of the film, the rest is genius and eye opening. If you have a Netflix or I have convinced you to get one by now please watch it, it's a fantastic thing to have in floating around in your brain.

As for me, I saw the musical Les Miserables last night and I have been wearing the t-shirt and listening to the album all day! It was absolutely wonderful, beautiful, and awesome. I have said this before and I will say it again, Netflix. Netflix has the 1998 Liam Neeson version on DVD order and you should get it. Just saying. And I am counting the days down to see the Hugh Jackman version!! AHH! It comes out on Christmas!
Until next week!

The Suicide Tourist

I hate political movies. I seriously do. Sorry to start off so depressing. It's hard to deal with it really is. I was literally shaking the entire time I watched it, it was so disturbing and the most horrible thing was that it's real and it's happening.
Craig Ewert has ALS which is the weakening of muscles until paralysis and eventually death. It is incurable and the guy in this movie had it. He was diagnosed four months prior to the film and after numerous dicussions with his wife they decided to go to Dignatis an assisted suicide center in Zurich, Switzerland. He claims that he would have been an empty shell (referring to paralysis) for months to only then reach an undeniable death, so he took matters into his own hands while he was still himself. His wife supported whatever he decided but was of course heart broken when it actually came to his death by drinking sodium ******* which was closely monitored by two workers of Dignatis. The process had to be video monitored to prove that it really was a suicide.

WELL TO BEGIN WITH, who in the heck would take that job?????? You're basically a legally approved serial killer. The guy in this situation was literally smoking pot just to get over what I suppose he had to do everyday. Can you imagine? Waking up and saying, "Time to go to work! Bye honey I'm off to kill people and make their families depressed! What are we having for din-din?" ----"Oh casserole dear! Little Timmy and Little Suzy want to hear all about your busy day when you come home! Sweetie you forgot your suitcase of butchers knives and nooses!" How does someone even apply for that job anyway? "Well here's my resume. As you can see I went to medical school and also I was an intern at an animal shelter; oh yeah, I've killed plenty of cute, fluffy puppies and kittens before. Also, my mentor is Jack the Ripper," I cannot possibly imagine what type of person you would have to be. It boggles my mind.

Anyway, he was incredibly level minded about the whole thing. He really did love life. He appreciated his time on Earth and wished it didn't have to end. He wasn't depressed or emotional; if anything he was incredibly left-brained about the whole thing. He just saw it logically as he was going to die either way he might as well be peaceful, ready and on his terms. The really sad thing for me personally was that he had no faith of any sort. I am a Methodist but  I wouldn't have minded if he was Hindu as long as he believed in something before he died. He had no idea where he was going or even if he was going anywhere. He was trading a life of what he knew would happen for the unknown of whatever the next is. That was the only thing he seemed to be sad of, that he believed that it was truly over and that there was nothing afterwards.

I was literally shaking and had a sick feeling in my stomach throughout the entire procedure  Even thinking about it now I feel queasy. I have never seen a real dead person, in person, before due to welcome censorship from parents in my early years during the very late years of some scarcely known elderly relatives. And I've certainly never seen a real person die before even on video. It was a lot more quiet than the movies ever portrayed. Not that I based any predictions on 'Scrubs'. (Which is an amazing tv show and I highly recommend, and it's on Netflix of course).

I can't honestly express even to myself how I feel about this. I'm against suicide 99.99999999% of the time it's a permanent decision based on non-permanent emotions. But this guy wasn't doing it solely on emotions he was in physical pain and I'm not saying that it's right in any sense because you never know what would have happened if he had just waited and seen. What if they cure ALS next year? Then it would have been all for nothing. so actually yes I will conclude saying I am 100% against suicide. It's never the only option.

Well now I head to a much needed soccer practice and I have Gangam Style on repeat to lift my spirits. One last thing that made me think was that Craig chose Beethoven's ninth symphony to die to. That made me consider what would the last song I would want to hear be? Imagine, the last sounds of this world you will ever hear again. What would you choose? For me I think it would be Furious by Jeremy Riddle.

Kimjongilia: The Flower on Kim Jong II

The presidential  elections were two days ago. Two torturous days of political fighting later and we've come to Thursday. Political fighting; that's right and I'm only in high school. Which, of course, only makes it worse because you've got a school of 1500+ people who can't even vote to begin with (thank goodness) who just will not cease to shut up. I went on Twitter and Facebook on Tuesday just to see the raging caps lock  and viscous hastaging of emotionally unstable teenagers. And I for that I logged on to the perfect site. For at least an hour I watched a sophomore boy and a junior boy go at each others throats on Twitter, mostly it was about how the other's opinion did not matter due to some social reason. And to prove my point that some highschoolers should definitely not be in charge of logical department here I show you exhibit A:

 The Katie by the way in this case was not me by the way. But this was a tweet in the middle of a political argument. Yeah... well this guy didn't win. Proof that some people just do not have class. Kansas being mainly a republican state you can imagine the amount of angry tweeter and facebookers there were on Tuesday. I personally am impartial. Whenever my dad starts one of his republican rants on meand asks me for my opinion I always reply with the same thing, "Well, I'm moving to Europe so there,"

Anyway I decided to actually do a documentary on politics this time. Kimjongilia: The flower of Kim Jong II. It's about prisoners who escaped North Korea and the daily life of people in North Korea. It begins with what I assume is a North Korean men's choir. Before this the only Korean singing I have heard was Gangam Style a very brief fad indeed but for this idiot not very brief I suppose:

He shouldn't be in charge of a logical department either.

The movie begins with Korean people talking about the crazy amount of hunger they had everyday and how some had to sink to the level of eating mice just to stay alive. Of people beaten for hours, sold as slaves, and arrested for believing in God. Thousands die of food shortages everyday due to the severe isolation of North Korea.
The first story is of a woman who escaped prison through bribing the guard with everything she owned. She was placed in prison because he best friend was Kim's lover and and she knew about it. Her entire family including her parents and four children all under the age of 10 were put in prison for 8.5 years. Her three sons died, she had to put her daughter up for adoption, she doesn't know what happened to her husband and her parents died.
Kim Jong-il is forced to be like a god for the Korean people.
The next story was of a man who was arrested at 9 because it's tradition to purge three generations after a crime is committed. So his grandfather, his father, his uncle, his sister and himself were thrown into prison.
In the prisons after role call they had to recite the rules of a sector:
1. If you had an attitude or didn't work hard you were shot to death.
2. If you steal food you will be shot.
3. If you don't obey you will be shot.
4. If you try to escape or don't report an escape you will be shot.
A common theme huh? North Koreans are starving and being tortured and we're complaining how we're ONLY 7th in the global standing. Just be fortunate we live here at all.

Food Inc.

Today was my first day of political documentaries, a big moment I know... I logged on to me lover (Netflix) and selected Political Documentaries and chose.... "Food Inc." Yes mainly I chose this because it had a very cute cow on the front.

Well, if you'll ever so carefully take a gander, yes a gander, at the phrase on the cover,
"You'll never look at dinner the same way again"

Hmm, weeeeell that lasted for a strong hour or so. While the movie pointed a strong finger at "The Man" it didn't have too much of an effect on me. The documentary was about how food has become an assembly line and that the "BIG" companies don't give a fun-sized candy about us lowly peasants. How, animals being processed into food are maltreated, malnourished, disease ridden. The story line followed a woman who had lost her son to E.coli in a cheeseburger gone wrong trying to put forth better policies in the FDA. Also, a disgruntled organic pig farmer who was angered against the big pig farmers who was constantly giving his opinions about how animals should be treated in the slaughtering and housing process. I, the cynical one, actually found what he had to say was very reasonable. He spoke of how the animals are not eating their natural diets and were insanely overcrowded. They then went on to show video clips scarier than Disney Channel's attempts of decent television. They showed the machines that the animals went through just to be slaughtered in cruel ways of their forced pathetic lives. I practically sound like a vegan! While it does make me very sad that they treat God's innocent creatures like this my love of meat overcomes all; however, the three slices of bacon I ate an hour ago did go down with some guilt.

Yep, that sure is a pumpkin; that's all the theatricality your going to get from me. I am excited for tomorrow though! I'm not trick or treating per say but I am going to take my dogs on a special walk...


HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511eHmnaBCL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Just when you thought you were almost done with politics...

Time for political documentaries.... yay. First one tonight though! I hope you all tune in! Honestly, I have no political opinion whatsoever, except that both parties should stop making political commercials.  Frankly, I think they just annoy every one and you're definitely not convincing me to vote for you by seperating me from my Pretty Little Liars just that much longer than I need to. And sometimes a girl just needs her Pretty Little Liars. I don't even know when the election is! So now that we've clarified that I really am  not opinionated in that category, check in tonight!

photo from
http://curiousphotos.blogspot.com/2009/06/funny-pictures-of-politicians-50-pics.html

My twiiiiitah

My Twitter account is @katiehalt37626 for quick updates about upcoming blogs, follow me so that I may entertain your brain for however long it takes you to read a blog. You may think to yourself someday "Hmm... I wonder who crossed the Delaware River on Christmas 1776?" You just ever so happen to be on twitter and see my post, "George Washington documentary tonight, I will solve any questions about his involvement with the Delaware River in a quirky way! #life". Well good sir or ma'm that is why you must follow me on twitter. I explain things awesomer than my good friend Wikipedia ever could. Just sayin'...

The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon

Well, I've never really been a big Pink Floyd fan. And... I'm still not. I'm possibly a semi-fan. I knew exactly .5 of their songs. Yes, .5 I recognize about half of "Money". But I've always found their album cover to be pretty!

I swear I'm not one of those teenagers who hasn't heard classic rock before, I love Weezer after all... Kidding! Really though, my dad bathed me in The Beatles and The Who; I even have their records. That's right I said RECORDS I have a remastered record player in my room; which I bet even most of you cynical adult readers don't even have! So I know my stuff (other than just the two I mentioned) and I found I liked Pink Floyd, even today I heard the full "Money" and I asked my 50 year old mother not to change the station.

Netflix was my supplier as usual and the documentary.... The Making of the Dark Side of the Moon. It was good actually! A LOT better than that Eminem thing. It was mainly about the era of which it was made and why they made the songs they did. So the title was kind of self-explanatory. It explained all of them except maybe "Speak to Me" and "Any Colour you like". The beginning starts out with them saying that they were all collectively creative in the process and had a common goal of getting rich and famous. Pink Floyd was mainly underground rock during a glam rock period so them becoming famous in my opinion helped along or was helped along by the hippie movement. But here is a brief summary of each song:

Breathe (In the Air): Was one of the band's favorite if not their favorite song.Roger Waters came up from the first couple cords based of a song by Myles Davis.
On the Run: Was an experimentation of the sound board. Playing the sound board was a part of their concerts and they had multiple people on the desk of it just for the one song.
Time: Was the realization that life is always happening, even when you're "waiting for life to begin". It features four female singers; Doris Troy, Lesley Duncan, Liza Strike, and Barry St. John. And it's my personal favorite.
The Great Gig in the Sky: Clare Torry was brought in and the entire thing was improvised. They told her to think of death and horror, and when she came out she was very embarrassed and they assured her that it was really good.
Money: Was Pink Floyd's real first hit and they thought it was almost hypocritical that they were singing of the negative effects of money and all of their goals were to make money and be famous. And after they did make money they said at first they didn't know what to do with themselves.
Us and Them: Is a reflection upon other peoples lives and thinking about how people see you and how you see them. Just really thinking retrospectively; it's about ordinary people.
Brain Damage: Is about lunacy, they brought in ordinary people and they interviewed them. They even used their recordings in the song.
Pink Floyd to me at least is very hippie-ish and some of the songs start to sound the same to me... Sorry Floyd fans. But even I have to admit as I was writing this I bought "Eclipse", "Time" and "Breathe". So what's my over all rating?

Thanks for reading! Here are the citations for the pictures in case any of you are really cool:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a0/The_Making_of_The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon.jpg

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon?from=Main.TheDarkSideOfTheMoon

www.netflix.com

Eminem AKA

First blog holla! Finally right? Well, I've come back to you well informed on my topic and at the same time a little honestly uninterested.

I now know what a Rockumentary is! It is defined as:

a documentary about rock music.

Wow. Because I definitely would have been lost without that informative definition...

ANYWAYS, I watched my first one tonight called Eminem AKA made in 2004. Technically it's not about rock music so I guess that makes Dictionary.com wrong. Moving on, it was quite informative; especially for a luke-warm Eminem fan. I'm not a huge rap fan and if I do like any of it it's usually pretty mainstream. Sorry underground rap hipsters. I think in my total archive of Eminem (I'm already getting sick of typing that word) I have 9 songs; four of which are featuring other artists. None are pertaining to any of his personal struggles that I'm aware of except maybe "Not Afraid". The movie begins with a brief summary of his life that could have been easily read from Wikipedia. Which I did. Then of the different stages of his life shown with comic book pictures, very original... *cough* MARVEL *cough* and the theme of comic books throughout the movie. It does have relevance however, according to Betty Kresin, Todd Nelson, and Debbie Nelson-Mathers a young Marshall Mathers (Eminem) loved heros and Eminem quoted in his song "Sayin' Goodbye To Hollywood" Eminem raps, 

"Bury my face in comic books...cause I don't want to look at nuthin', this world's too much,"  

Betty Kresin is Marshall's grandma, Todd Nelson is his uncle, and Debbie Nelson-Mathers is his mommy. Basically, the entire time the mom and the grandma (who are mother and daughter) have a 14-year-old-girlish-fight about who's to blame for Eminem being so screwed up. I summed it up as: the Grandma is irresponsible and won't take any blame for marrying a whole bunch of alcoholics and not to mention at the age of fourteen (that's an eighth grader by the way). The mom is the type that thinks she's doing well but could be doing much better and Eminem says in an interview (not in the movie) that she was constantly suing someone. She also moved him back and fourth between Missouri and Detroit about 20 times for no apparent reason before he was even in the sixth grade. Uncle Todd is the good father figure. 
So the mom and Marshall end up in Detroit for good and the dad abandoned them when Eminem was little. Debbie went on to make it seem like they were the only white people in Detroit and when Marshall was 12 or 13 a black kid put him in a coma in the school bathroom where it took Eminem a year to regain motor skills. 

I personally hate reading paragraphs so here is a basic list of his life:
Born, dad abuses mom ( he leaves), mom and Marshall move a lot, settle in Detroit, Marshall gets Chris Browned in a bathroom, Kim Scott moves in with Mathers family as foster child, Kim and Eminem fall in love, mom won't allow it, Kim and him move out and live with friends, Kim gets preggers, Eminem is starting to get famous via rap battles, Hailie Jade Mathers born 1995, Eminem gets fo reahl famous, him and Kim get married, mom sues Eminem (her only son) for deformation of character for 10 MILLION DOLLARS, and then he and Kim get a divorce.

I really did feel bad for the mom until she SUED HER OWN SON. Yeah, Ms. Motherofthecentury you definitely got your ten million... Just kidding. She only received $25,000 which she had to use to pay off her lawyers and taxes with so basically she burned a bridge in a 90210 style. Another ridiculous suit was the boy that put Eminem in a coma... yes, he is working as a trash collector. No, he did not receive a penny but he did receive a rap form of a decline of suit from the legal department. Seriously. I guess the judicial system does develop a sense of humor in their spare time of proving false paternity of pregnant Justin Bieber fans. Even the sweet old daughter-blaming granny jumped on the Eminem cash-cow and wrote a tell all book about Eminem and Debbie's relationship. I bet she knits and bakes cookies too.

So, by now I'm wondering when is Eminem going to speak for himself. Because the constant feuding and inconsistent information from the mom and the grandma has me confused. So I'm waiting and waiting throughout the film and still no Marshall Mathers. They roll the credits and I'm left with a million questions. The entire thing made it seem like Eminem was dead and couldn't speak for himself. It was insanely depressing. I get that he had a bad life and I really do feel for him, but even when he made it big they only emphasized on what was going wrong in his life. I was thinking to myself, "You have millions of dollars! Why not actually smile in a picture with your adorable two year old?" Speaking of which I had no idea how their relationship was. That was something I was actually interested in and they spoke so little of her that I Wikipedia-ed her and even told from the cold third person voice of Mr.Wiki was more heart touching than the entire movie! As it turns of Hailie is the same age as me.. "hmm... I wonder whats she's like," was my next thought.

Questioned answered. I've developed a rating system of 1-10 original right? 10 being I want to go marry this person or start a charity on the spot, 1 being I want to go slap this movie in the face with a blazing Hot Pocket. Eminem AKA receives.....

Procrastinating

Well, after my mother talking me out of doing the everyday thing (which I'm beginning to agree with due to an immensely busy schedule) so tonight will be my first Rockumentary ever. Yes, finally tonight any of you that care. Also I will be tweeting my semi-official schedule on @katiehalt37626 so yes I am asking you to stalk my twitter and blog because frankly in my newspaper class we have mini competitions to see who can get more page view. So far this one kid has 105 page views which I'm convinced that he just looked at his page 104 times and the other one was his mother. SO, if you legit like this so far limited blog... It's corny but tell your friends! And to my sister Jilli if you're reading this, you write for a newspaper; be a dear and give m advice or recommend me to your dean or Obama or something. Christmas is coming soon *wink* *wink*. See you guys (or hopefully your page views tonight) I hope you enjoy it! I really do like writing for my tiny audience :)

Pilot

My name is Katie Halt. I am a teenager in Kansas where I play soccer and enjoy my life with two dogs and an iPhone. I love to travel and have been to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, various Caribbean islands, and hopefully by next summer England as well. I do not have many political opinions or prejudices. I guess one could call me a clean slate or a fresh thought. I am one of those nerds that absolutely loves those documentaries that they play in high school. So when my parents gave me a Netflix account it was bye-bye to any pre-existing social life and hello Revolutionary War: Life of George Washington. Documentaries address social, political and health related conflicts in our world as well as historical information. Some provide persuasion to inflict opinions upon the weak minded and some are to lull you to sleep it seems. Netflix divides it's documentaries into twelve categories; I'll be focusing on eight. Biographical, foreign, historical, political, rockumentaries (whatever that means), science and nature, social and cultural, and travel/adventure. I will be posting every week and have divided up my time/weeks until May 18.  How on earth will I be able to stand 18 days of political documentaries? I have no idea... Well I came up with a schedule that will probably change due to my less than accurate math skills
October 4-29= Rockumentaries because I'm curious as to what they are.
October 30-Nov. 22= Political; due to the election, creative I know.
November 23-Dec 18= Cultural because they're my favorite, and hey it's close to Christmas so why not...
January 7-30= Biographical, no reason but I feel smart typing it.
January 31-Feb 25= Historical because I feel like it's related to biographical and why not get rid of the ones about dead guys all together
February 26-March 28=science and nature; I have to get it done sometime I suppose.
March 29-April 23= Foreign because next category is travel which is typically foreign.
April 24-May 17= As promised travel so I get pysched for my trip to England and Paris (not likely to need any more excitement but it won't hurt). Well this should be at the very interesting, to me at least (maybe). And to any of you odd enough to read this you're either divinely inspired or are friends and family forced to read this. So let me start this off by greeting my one true follower; hi mom!