So now that I am finally going to college I though I would post one of my essays that I wrote for the common app, I kinda love it and I hope you do too =D

Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of millions more than a good horror movie. That’s because a good horror movie reaches people on such a personal and primitive level that it shakes them to their core. Everyone has a fear whether it is spiders or fear itself, and though some may call it exploiting I prefer to refer to it as forcing people to face their fears in the presence of popcorn and sticky floors. Horror movies also reflect the fears we face as a society, cultural relevance is key. There are some directors who find fear in the familiar and can turn anyone into the murderer. While others dip into the supernatural and use our own paranoia against us.

Most horror movies have a general formula and rules to survival that were so eloquently explained in Wes Craven’s 90s trilogy Scream. The rules explained mirror those of a mother of a teenager: no drinking, no drugs, no sex. And in the eyes of a teenager the punishment in both cases is equivalent, the end of their lives. The plots and characters may be different but the messages of these “teen scream” movies are always the same, about not disobeying your parents. Stories that were normally passed down as urban legends or folklore have been immortalized on the silver screen and pumped full of CGI.

Nowadays horror movies are less about psychological fears and more about the “scream factor.” Directors are more concerned with getting a reaction from their audience by having someone jump out of a closet or get chopped to pieces. Now don’t get me wrong, I like a little gore but I also enjoy a little plot with my blood. The transition to the current condition of the genre mirrors the desensitization of modern society due to the graphic images we are faced with in both political and popular culture. Images of war and mutilation being shown on the news and in classrooms has removed tact from our country’s vocabulary.

In terms of the supernatural aspect to the horror genre we are presented with a hybrid genre referred to as “Science-Fiction” or “Sci-fi” for short. In most cases the presence of magic or demonic activity is a symbol for something else. In Joss Whedon’s television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer he uses magic as a symbol for drugs and how what can start off as harmless fun can turn into an addiction and harm not only yourself but those around you. A similar theme is present in Andrew Fleming’s The Craft about how getting in with the wrong crowd can end badly for anyone who comes in contact.

Horror movies are an escape from the real world into a whole new universe where there is always someone behind you and that window wasn’t open when you fell asleep. They are a whole new nightmare world where directors get to take our deepest and darkest insecurities and create monsters and killers that make us leave the door cracked and hallway light on. With these films comes a power over the strongest and smartest of us all and I find that fascinating. Being able to frighten someone with even the possibility of a murderer on campus like in Jeff Wadlow’s Cry_Wolf or take stories that we already feared and bring them to life in Jamie Blanks’ Urban Legend trilogy is a talent. A talent I can only dream to have in the future.

Being able to create a good horror movie takes an advanced level of understanding of how the human mind works. To take what scares people the most and make art through cinematography is a gift as well as a talent. To come up with lines that withstand the test of time and still strike fear into people’s hearts such as “Here’s Johnny!” is extraordinary and amazing. Horror movies are in all of us, buried deep within our subconscious and it takes a genius to bring that to life. I only hope that one day I can join those geniuses and scare the crap out of the world.

Sorry!!

Soooooo sorry I haven't posted in forever. Posting from your phone is not as simple/fun as it sounds so that was kinda a bust. Anyway a lot has happened since my last [real] post. For one, I graduated from high school [YAAAY]. Everyone always asks how it feels to graduation and for me it feels like this giant weight has been lifted. It feels like I am finally free to live my life and become whatever I want to be. I have the whole world in front of me and I'm ready to just go already!! The going will happen at the end of August when I move to college. I'm all registered and I have my room assignment and roommate and did almost all of my shopping so I am ready to get out of here!! Another new thing is my latest obsession that has stemmed from another obsession: Slayalive. Probably one of the greatest fan forums out there, and for the greatest verse ever: the Whedonverse. Between posting on Slayalive, checking my facebook and photoshopping like a fiend I barely have time for anything else. So of course I take an unpaid internship because having no time is not enough, I have to be over worked. I'm currently working as a media intern with a dance company here in New York. Its pretty fun. I get to take pictures and videos during the rehearsal and will eventually edit them into a promo for each piece. There is even a chance that they will be run on television during a special on the company. Last Saturday I returned home from Disney World where I went with my best friends as an end of the year thing. Aside from the daily fighting, it was pretty epic. We did everything! All of the parks, all of the rides [twice!] and never wanted to leave Epcot. So my summer has already been pretty awesome but unfortunately the bad stuff comes now. Most of my friends, including my best friend, leave before I do for college. So not only do I have to watch them go but I have to stay here, at home, not in a dorm with other awesome college kids, but home. The worst part is my best friend leaves to go to school across the country during the week my parents had planned our annual beach "vacation." I use quotes cause for me the beach is not a vacation, its a punishment. I'm not a beach person. So I'm gonna have to figure that out somehow. But then I get to go to college. =D I really can't wait, only 31 more days, 21 more hours, 54 minutes and 34 seconds. Ok I'm having Slayalive withdrawal so I must depart, but I promise to update at least once a month if not once a week if not once a day.

So now I can blog via text message which will hopefully mean more posts but this is just a test to see if it works =D

I'm such loser

Ok so today is the post where I show just how much of a loser nube I am to blogging because I am super excited! I got my 2nd comment on my blog which makes me happy aaaaaaand I have a follower!! Which sounds really weird an like cultish but its not because its awesome. So just a shout out to Melissa who may be the only person reading this unless she has disabled her notifications and hit follow by accident. Anyway, not much to talk about just wanted to post. I tried to blog on my new iPhone but it glitched so I'm still working out the kinks of mobile blogging. Once I get that I there will be new posts in more consistent intervals of time. Anyway I just wanted to share my youtube account because its been kinda sad and lonely lately so for anyone who has stumbled upon my little blog by accident or on purpose here's a treat ... just click the word treat :D

Ok so I'm out but I realized my last picture was a little emo so here is a happier one :D

For the past two months I've had a countdown on my phone counting down to February 15th. It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, when everything would fall into place and I would have a solid plan for my future. I spent months locked in my bedroom staring into the purple designs on the wall pouring my heart into essay after essay and trying to figure out which one portrayed everything that was me. For weeks I choreographed and re-choreographed solo after solo to different songs and different styles and recorded take after take until it was perfect. Every detail down to the addressed envelope was meticulously done to perfection. Then came the waiting. Everyday I would flip open my phone to see that number on the top getting smaller and smaller. The day was coming closer and I could see the light. But then the darkness came. 

The doubt and the fear that I hadn't seen before. The dreaded word that until then had not come across my mine: no. What if they said no? For days my stomach was in knots so much so that one of my ballet teachers commented that I looked "pale" during class. (For those who don't know or can't tell from the pictures I am practically albino) Then the day came. I dutifully brought in the mail and sorted everything to their respective recipients piles and there it was, staring at me. Its maroon crest profoundly contrasting the clean, crisp, white envelope. My first though; its small. Nothing special, just a thin singular envelope. I managed to get the envelope open before everything consumed me. The excitement, the fear, the doubt. I broke down, paralyzed. I finally managed to get the phone and call my mother. I told her that I couldn't unfold the letter, I just couldn't. I sit on the floor of my kitchen staring at my reflection in the black stove. She was taking a long time. I managed to get up and hold the letter. I fought through the tears and opened it. I read the first line and new it. "Dear Ms. S...., We are sorry ..." I didn't have to, or rather didn't want to continue. I set it back onto the counter and melted to the ground. When my mom got home she read the letter and I snapped at her to throw it out. I went upstairs and just lied there staring at the purple squares that had once given me such creative inspiration and hope. Now all they were were a reminder of my failure. I shoved my head into my pillow and slept. 

I slept for probably two days. When my mom finally came into my room she tripped over the mess that had accumulated over the last few stressful weeks. Normally she would make a snide comment or even yell that I had to clean my room but what she said next sounded like the perfect idea. She told if I straightened everything up we could go to Lowes and buy paint to redo my room. She didn't know about my resentment towards the purple but this was perfect. I don't think I had ever cleaned so quickly or meticulously in my life. I was done in an hour and ready to go. I spent the next three days straight priming and painting until it was perfect. Leaving the final details and designs for another weekend. The next few days I just slept or lay in my bed staring at my new blue ceiling, hoping. Hoping that everything would be OK. Well as of now everything is not OK, and I don't know how long it is going to be until I am OK. I just hope/know that some day I will be. 

NYC ComicCon 2009

So I know I should have posted this yesterday but I was so exhausted when I got home that I went right to sleep and woke up about a half hour ago. So here is what made me so tired: ComicCon. It was amazing!! Me and Nick [my best friend] got to the convention center at like 5:45/6 am and then slept on concrete [inside but still freezing] for a good 4 hours til we moved into the like lobby place to wait another 2 hours to get into Joss Whedon's panel for Dollhouse which looks AMAZING and premieres this friday!! And after the panel was over I managed to slip Joss a letter I wrote about working with him possibly after I get out of college. But then when we tried to go to the autograph signing all this bullshit happened with the tickets. This is what happened: when we had first gotten to the convention they gave out these raffle tickets and were like the Joss Whedon autograph tickets will be picked at a lotto. But then we find out that you had to be present at the lotto which was at the same time we were like camped out on line for the panel, so there was no way we could have made booth. So after like flipping out on these people we went into the main section of the convention to try and see Amber Benson. Once we found her we saw that her line was INSANELY long, but we'd wait anyway. Then this big scary dude was a total ass whole and cut off the line like 10 people in front of us. So this other girl that we were with cause we met her in the panel and she was dressed as Vamp Willow and was pretty awesome, like yelled at the guy til he let her go at the end of the line. She was so nice and took my box set to get it signed, but we followed her like next to the line so when we got up there Amber had seen that I bought her book and was like "Oh do you want me to sign that?" so I was like "hells yea" and then I asked her if I could get a picture and she was so nice cause she really had to leave but stayed to take it. Then we took the long ride back up to 101st to get our stuff my sister's apartment where we stayed over and went to the diner around the corner to get burgers. Then was the even longer journey back to SI that we like practically slept the whole way back. All in all it was an awesome day :D

If you keep studying us, you'll never know us.

So yea the consistency is kinda shot but w.e. This is kinda gonna be another teens v. adults post but they just won't shut it. So recently I heard on the news that "studies  showed" that a teenager's amount of television viewing and exposure to multimedia devices is directly related to signs of depression ..... ! They said that they did a study that included more than 4,500 teens where they asked about their television viewing habits and multimedia exposure finding an average of 5.7 hours a day per teen. This was back in 1995 (not that many good things on TV, no iPods, iPhone, Buffy, etc.) Then 7 years later ... 7.4%... let me repeat that 7.4% of the teens had developed symptoms "consistent with depression." Ok seems simple enough .... except for all the variables! First of all none of the participants had ever shown symptoms of depression so um hello, did the control group have elsewhere to be? Dr. Brian A. Primack was directly quoted as saying "... we were unable to control of a lot of variables such as socioeconomic status and education, ..." Um, can we say big deal?? Next to parental influences those are two of the major things that shape someone as a person during this stage of development. They are not simply variables they are freakin' big deals. This "study" is totally bogus, to put it colloquially. All the did was ask a bunch of kids how much TV they watched when they were 15 and then 17 years later, after the hell of high school and life shaping experience of college they asked if they were feeling sad. WHAT THE HELL!?!?!?! This is just as bad as people using a defense for axe-murdering their family that they saw it in a movie. Television and movies will only affect us as much or as little as we let them. It is the responsibility of the parents to make sure that their child is developing in a healthy way. And not by restricting or censoring which would only lead to resentment but by actually talking and sharing with their children. As long as the child has a strong sense of morality instilled by their parents they will be able to distinguish between reality and fiction. This is not to say that movies and television have no effect but to quote the infamous Billy Lumos, "Movies don't create the psycho, movies make the psycho more creative." Violent tendencies don't just happen after watching Friday the 13th, they were there before that and the parents neglect to teach their child that those kinda of movies aren't reality and what those people do isn't right is what leads to acts of violence. So yea, adults I will repeat myself ... CHILL OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you go around studying us forever you will never get to know us.