What If?: We Broke the Rules

              In class we are currently working on the Frank Gehry project. A project where we have been given the task by our teacher to create a given building from scratch and make it exactly as the teacher requests. If I had not seen the film about Frank Gehry, I would have assumed this project came with a lot of rules. When doing something for a customer the worker must always work to please them and only do as they say. But, after watching the film about Frank Gehry, I realized his philosophy about breaking the rules. Frank Gehry thinks outside of the box and tends to break the rules or the "status quo" when building these amazing buildings he is known for.
            Growing up in the suburbs we are always surrounded by these cookie cutter houses. We have such a strong status quo that when broken the community is in utter shock. But what if we broke from this status quo and began making up our own rules? What would happen to the community? The major question here is does it make you a bad person if you break the rules? Frank Gehry constantly breaks the rules of architecture and creates these beautiful and memorial buildings we all have seen today, but does that mean the same for us? Will good come out of our rule breaking, or will we be shunned for trying something new. In a community where every person is just like the next we need to learn to loosen up and break the rules because who know what will happen, we may be the next Frank Gehry.

Blogging Around: Elyse and Justine

         In Elyse's post, Connection: Philosophy and Justice, she addresses the use of philosophers in MLK's Letter to Birmingham. In the post Elyse speaks about time and how with time correlates with good judgement and with time our judgement will improve. I really enjoyed reading her post and below is comment I made on her blog.
        When I saw that the Letter from Birmingham was used in this post I had to read it. I love history and reading about MLK and all he stood for. This post connects two key things that when brought together can change the world. When you said, "the definition of justice or what good judgement means definitely depends on the time" and I couldn't agree more. Back then the public lacked a sense of philosophy on the matter of what it meant to be a person and how no color can make you any less human. I love the use of philosophers in the letter and I'm really happy we read "Sophie's World" this year because if we didn't we wouldn't be able to connect to MLK's speech as well as we did with the knowledge we gather from the book.
         In Justine's post, Connection: Once and Hollywood Films, Justine connects the movie "Once" to traditional Hollywood films by showing the difference in styles. "Once" took a more realistic approach while traditional Hollywood films tend to run around the truth and end everything in a fairytale. Below is the comment I made on Justine's blog.
         I couldn't agree more about how different the film was from the traditional Hollywood films we are used to seeing. I too enjoyed that the film makers took a risk and made this movie more realistic to the viewers. After watching the typical Hollywood fairytale ending films the viewers walk away sad about their lives and why their life isn't as perfect as the one they watched unfold on the screen. But in the movie "Once" our whole class walked away in smiles. They could relate to the story and the pain each character felt. I think change is good and the difference between the movies help the whole class realize how caught up we can get in movies and how unrealistic they truly are.

Captured Thought: Saying Good-Bye

               As high school comes to an end we all start to ponder how in the world will we say good-bye? I can't even imagine that in just four short months I will never see some of my classmates ever again. As I began scrolling through Facebook I looked back at pictures from middle school. After middle school graduation some of us had to say good-bye to dear friends as we parted separate ways to different high schools, but why does it seem more difficult to say good-bye in high school than in middle school? After laying in my bed for a couple minutes it finally hit me. We are all scared that after spending over four years together saying good-bye means forgetting each other forever.

              Once I finally found this long searched answer I was able to connect in to the movie, Peter Pan, directed by PJ Hogan. In the movie the main character Peter Pan teaches all of us a life lesson on what to say when two people part ways, "Never say good-bye because good-bye means going away and going away means forgetting." Although Peter Pan is a a fictional cartoon character, we could all learn such a great lesson from him. I never want to forget my high school peers and all the memories we've created through the years so instead of saying good-bye, I'll say until next time. There is no reason why we should say good-bye and risk forgetting all the good, even some of the bad, things that have happened to us through the past four years. No longer will I ever say good-bye to someone because if I truly know them I'd never want to forget them. The future is full of possibilities, the past is full of memories, and the present is here for all of us to enjoy the time we have left together.