Museum of Natural History.... What a surprise!!

It was another good experience that I shared with Jessie, Daniel our guide ;-) , Omar.... I have to confess that I was Hysterical inside and wanted to run and jump everywhere like all these kids around me except that I'm 26 years old..... It was the first time in this Museum and I've already decided to go back there with my sister next week!!! I wanted to read everything, to see everything but I definitely need a whole day to fully enjoy this place.

I loved the African room ( don't remember the real name of the rooms.....) with these huge Elephants, the tiggers, Lions... I should think about going to the Zoo ! lol

I loved the room with the whale, sharks,Dolphins, even if I freaked out with when I saw the spiders, disgusting!! 

Well I loved a lot of things so I'm gonna stop there...

I think it's pretty much set up like a movie in a sense that it starts slowly, the scene is set up...Like in one of the room, you enter and you can find some butterflies, crabs of any kind, disgusting spiders.... and then in the middle of the room , you have this monumental whale!! The most interesting part of the room... and then you walk around and discover all the creatures that you can find in a ocean from the prehistorical time until now....

In the movie, you often find the interesting part after a little while which build your interest for the end of the story...

Lincoln Center: THE Library!!

First time in Lincoln center and I was very impressed and so happy to see Julliard School ( Is that the same in "Save the Last dance" ? just love it!!

I found the library amazing!! You have huge space, it's very modern.

I'm very into Music and this Library is the place to go if you need to do any research about Music! You can find everything about anything!! Just great!

You have also a lot of computers in your disposition in the first and second floor. The library site is very easy and definitely help to find what you like. Everything is clearly classify( Media, Films, Video, Music....).

Well, it was a great day, I will definitely go back and pick some DVD's!!

Final Project

I wanna do my final project about something which stroked me when I was in France and That I confirmed since I moved in the US.
Like everybody, I watched the news program almost everyday in France and I've always been very interested about everything going on in the U.S. So I always watched the U.S news as much as possible. After a certain time, I started to notice a slightly difference between what was reported in France and in the US about the same event.
It became pretty obvious when I was in college. Indeed my major was international affair/business; we compared a lot the international news with the national news.
During the same year occurred the invasion in Iraq by the US, and it was a kind of revelation for all my class. When you watched the French news and then the US news about the exact same facts, it was like the reporters were talking about two different affairs!!
Then I started to understand why French people were so against the War and why Americans were pro-War. I guess that if I were American and if all day I always had the US version about the situation in Iraq... I probably would have supported the War as well (... no probably not but I try to understand...).
French news showed different images, different point of view about the War. They criticized all day long the decision of the Bush administration to attack Iraq whereas the US magazines, news programs on TV, newspapers were bombarded by the opposite idea and gave all the elements to justify their attack.

I made the exact conclusion during the conflict Israel/Palestine. The news were driven depending of the Political interests and positions towards these two countries.
It was just clear just in listening to the US news and French news who were politically close with Israel and who were not...

As for me, this particularly event opened my eyes about the power of the Media and how they can manipulate a whole nation.
That's also a reason why I wanted to study Medias to understand and learn how they are organized, who control the Media, who are behind the Media...

The Media should be there to give us the facts and should be more objective. The audience should have their own critical ideas about the facts and make their own opinions.
Unfortunately the Media are such a big part in our life that they control our mind and tell us what to think. It can be pretty damageable sometimes...

"Simone"

I really enjoyed this movie, I think it was funny and I just love Al Pacino!

The whole movie was about "Simone" a beautiful actress who was digitally created by a film maker Victor Taranski. After her first movie, everybody totally fell in love for her without knowing that she was unreal. "Simone" became a huge phenomenon, everybody became just fascinated by her and asked more about her. Victor Taranski is quickly overwhelmed by the success of his creation. He couldn't stop it. He even tried to ruin her career but it didn't work.

He finally decided to "kill her" and was arrested. He tried to explain the police that "Simone" has never existed but nobody wanted to believe it. They are all just crazy about her!

This movie shows how a man can be again the slave of his own creation!! Simone became so real in his head and in people's mind that it was just impossible to reverse the situation and to make people understand that simone was just a simulation!!!

 

This movie also underlines how people are hungry of celebrities' gossips!! In our society, a lot of people want to enter in the intimate life of the celebrities... they just don't have never enough..

Once again, as in "The Matrix" or "open your eyes", Victor realises that nothing is more worthy than the reality....

The "Uncanny" and the "Shadow"

Sigmund Freud is the most famous psychanalyst, He studied the relation between the soul and the body. He worked as psychiatrist with crazy people and hysterics women .
He believes in the conscious and the subconcious of everyone. He believes also that you could learn about this unconscious of somebody by studying his dreams.
As for him, there are three parts in everyone that he calls Archetypes:
The "Id" based on our unconscious. The Id is our animal part. That's represent the things that we really wanna do, our "Pleasure Principle" without thinking about the consequences. It's the impulsiv part of our mind.
The Super Ego which plays the role of mediator and control our Id.
The Ego is the social person, the reasonable part of us.
He also studied "The Uncanny" which a very complex notion for me!!! That's the scarry or weird impression that we feel sometimes about some situations without knowing why. Or it can be when you have the impression that's something is pretty familiar although it's the first time that you see it.... for Freud that's the result of the relation between our conscious and subconscious.

C.G Jung as Freud's student shares the same ideas about the consicous subconscious and keeps the idea of Archetypes.
Jung's Archetypes are however different.
The Anima represents the female soul. Trinity in the Matrix for instance plays the archetype of the Female
The Animus the masculine soul like Neo .
The shadow is the third archetype and can be compared to the unconscious of Freud.
The shadow gathers all the bad experiences and painful feelings that we experienced in our life.
The shadow is the part of our mind that we want to forget. The risk is that if we ignore it totally, the shadow takes the main personality and can make some people depressiv or crazy!!

Later, Joseph Campbell also mentions the huge part that the Ego plays in our life. That makes us submit to the system. It also compares the Ego with the Dragon that we find in all adventures stories. I like the image of the Dragon who holds us, the dragon who locks us and makes harder the quest of our own " Nirvana"....

Open your eyes...

Well, well , well......... One of the weirdest film I've ever seen.

I have to admit I didn't like this movie that much.

It was a little too much confusion for my little brain!

I couldn't understand if Ceasar was dreaming or if it was the reality, if he really got this accident...

I still don't know who is the real Nuria...?? 

The thing that I was thinking during the movie was that it was the opposite of the matrix

The main quest of Neo is to find the real world and to get out of the matrix.

Ceasar on the other hand wants to escape the real world to live in a dream.

However, "Matrix" and "Open your eyes" have the same end which is to privileged the real world as horrible as it may be.

Ceasar realises that he prefers to live in the reality even if he has to accept his new face. In living a dream, he realised that it happened to be even worst...

Final Project.....

For the final project, I’m thinking about doing a research paper about the media coverage of the Iraq War. It’s not because I’m very interested in this event, but more because I was in France in 2003 and I was surprised to see how the French Media and the US media covered the same event so differently.
Indeed when the war started, I closely watched the news as everybody. It was the main subject at school also. My teachers asked us to watch the international news, more specifically the US news because France and the US were like enemies when U.S decided to declare the war to Iraq.
I wanted to understand why French people were so against this war while American people supported the war.
I finally found out that the information that we were given in France and the images that we saw on TV were quietly different from the one in the US.

I was just thinking about another example: The war between Israel and Palestine, one more time two different point of view in France and Here in the U.S. The U.S were more Pro Israel, and in France we were more on the other side. The Medias are used to support one of these positions. But it shouldn’t be like this. The media should give to the audience an objective view about such horrible events they should communicate the real facts and to cover everything. Instead of picking this image or the other depending on the position of the government.
In taking the Iraq war in example , I want to underline the importance to really have a critical eye on what the medias communicate to us . If in 2003 everybody around the world had watched the same news, maybe the Iraq war would never happened…. For me it’s scary to see how powerful can be the medias and the governments understand and use it very well…It’s not the first time that the Propaganda leads people to support a war….. and not the last time if we still continue to believe everything we see.

More and more we discuss about this movie and more I love “the Matrix”. It’s weird but I really didn’t like it 10 years ago ( Already!) . The only thing that I enjoyed at this time was the fight scenes, all the Kung Fu fights, just love it!!!! But today I totally have another overview of the movie and I just can’t but telling myself that these brothers Wachowski are just genius!! All the elements, symbols, philosophics themes, messages that you can find behind what is just at first sight like another great science fiction movie! I never thought that I will be on admiration for a movie, more precisely, admiration of the work behind this movie! It makes me happy because I was not sure about taking my major in Media Studies and today I just wanna learn more about films, cinema, media… So I know that I made the good choice in taking these classes ! Thank you Neo ! lol Sorry It was not the subject!

The quest for the reality represents the most important message in this movie. ‘The Matrix” was and is still a modern way to philosophy about “ What is real?”

A lot of people are conscious that we live in a reality that Gouvernments, religion and other Institutions create for us. These “gatekeepers” find in the various forms of media the best way to communicate and spread their messages. Choosing the "blue pill" for Neo would have lead him to stay in this world, to live his life “in the cave” eventhough He would know that the real world was outside “this cave”.

The search for another world, for a better reality or just for a different reality has been the theme of numerous shows and movies. I think about X Files … Mulder is persuaded that the Gouvernment hides the truth. That another world co exists but some powerful institutions want to keep us away from it. Mulder as Neo is not happy at all in our world, he feels that something else exists even if he’s not sure about what it is. Mulder as Neo look very unsatisfied about their life. Neo has finally the chance to see what he always wanted to see.

Other shows as Sliders or farscape are based on the desire of some people to find the real world. They jump from different "parallel worlds" that they believe are real but finally find out that they’re not…

J. Crichton,in the episode that we watched in class, crashed in a world that he truly thought his home. But he finally realized that he created this world from his memory and his mind.

Another theme that I like in " the movie" is the idea of Human vs Machines. In the movie, the machines that humans created became so powerful that they finally use humans as batteries. 

MacLuhan said " We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us." This statement is so real! Humans invented so revolutionary inventions that they, we become so dependant of them! Nowadays, How can we live without our phones? Computer? Everything is done by computer. Every year for the new eve, during people are waiting for midnight to celebrate the new year, other people are just having the hardest time as making sure that all the informatics systems are not going to crashed!!!!!! I worked in the bank for 4 years, and every December 31 was the best day for us. Everything is computerized, the economy of a country is totally dependant of these little machines!! We shoud be good with them!lol

Marivaux, a very famous french playwright of the 18century said " we become slaves of our slaves". I think that it's exactly what we find in the matrix as in our everyday life. 

As for me , I became a slave of Internet!!

 

THE MATRIX

What is The Matrix about? What is it really about? Do we live in The Matrix? Do we live in Socrates' Cave? How do you know?With all the discussions that we had in class about 'The Matrix' I realize that the first time that I watched Matrix ( in French which is weird!!),I just didn't catch the point of this movie at all!!Today it makes more sense.The Matrix makes me wonder if I really live in the reality, if I'm not prisoner of this Plato's cave?I do think that we live in 'the matrix', that we just know what the government and different medias want us to know. Neo wanted to discover the 'real world' that he finally found which appears to be very scary!I personally prefer to stay in "The Matrix" and to ignore the cruel reality of this world. If I have one life to live, I choose to stay in peace!

Little about Me, Myself and I !!!

My name is Sabrina, I'm French, I've been in New York for almost one year. I was graduated in International Trade and Finance in France. I worked for 4 years in a Bank and I just quit my job to move in NY.I'm not interested anymore in all finance stuff.. and I really hope to find my way in Media Studies.My first goal for now is to improve my english.

My first passion (I realise it sounds ridiculous) was and still is New York , that's the reason why I decided to move here.I just love sport in general, I practiced soccer in my home country, I love running, basketball... Eventhough I don't have time to practice any of them since I live here...I love also watching TV, all kind of shows: "Desperate Housewives", "Prison Break".. all the reality shows like Bachelor,Top chef.. lol. I also enjoy the documentaries Animal Planet, Discovery...When I watch TV , I just want to relax and clear my mind that's why I don't watch the news often, make me depressed!I love movies, going to the Theater as much as I can. I'm not difficult so I can watch any kind of movies (except French movies.) My favorties are "The Color Purple", Tina "What's love got to do with it", Ghost, Dirty Dancing..Too many in mind.

Music is also a big part of my life, I have to listen music every single day or I just feel bad! I'm a very big fan of Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey. I listen a lot of R&B, old school, Soul, Hip Hop, Arabic music,House....