Sunday, September 18, 2011

travel/ The Secret Circle/ United Way music video

Sept. 15 Travel: I remember talking to my friend Angela about how I don't like to travel alone, because I'm afraid I will get lost.

A: But getting lost is half the fun.

I was thinking about this as I am often looking for the office I have a job interview at. It's often in neighborhoods and places that I haven't been to, so I get lost in the city. No point in traveling somewhere far away and spending money. I'll go on Google Maps, and take buses to different parts of the town and meet different people when I do my job interviews. lol.

Sept. 16 The Secret Circle: Here's my review of the new supernatural drama called The Secret Circle about witchcraft. It's based on the book series by L.J. Smith who also wrote the book series that turned into a TV show called The Vampire Diaries. Both TV shows/ books are similar as in they're about the supernatural, the lead character's a teen girl, and it starts off with a death of a parent(s), and living in a small town. The shows are shot differently with different cameras.

It starts off with a teen girl Cassie Blake (played by Brittany Robertson from the TV show Life Unexpected) and she's driving. She then gets into an accident and her car gets a flat tire. She calls to this black car that stops, but it drives away. She then calls her mom that she got a flat and is changing the tire.

The black car that was shown earlier then pulls up to the house. The driver blocks the cell phone signal. Charles (played by Gale Harold, from TV show Hellcats) then does some magic and burns the house down with the mom in it. It was hauntingly beautiful to watch the house burn down as he walks away from it.

Cut to one month later, and Cassie drives from California to New Salem to live with her grandma Jane played by Ashley Crow (Claire's mom on Heroes.) Cassie starts experience weird occurrences like how she closes the curtains, and then they're open again. She goes to school and meets the principal Dawn Chamberlain played by Canadian actress Natasha Henstridge. She was on the comedy- action show She Spies.

The teens talk about how C is in town. C meets a guy who used to be her mom's old boyfriend in high school, and meets his son Adam (Thomas Dekker from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.) There's Faye Chamberlain, the principal's daughter. There's also Melissa (Jessica Parker Kennedy from the show Kaya.) Faye then tries to incite Cassie's powers, by starting a fire in C's car. Adam comes and saves her.

It looks like the story is setting up for A and C to get together. Then it turns out Adam has girlfriend named Diane. Psych! There is a character foil as Faye is the bad girl and Diane is the good girl. D doesn't want anyone to risk exposing their powers.

Cassie then bumps into Charles, the guy who killed her mom. It turns out he's Diane's dad. The adults don't want kids to practicing witchcraft because it ended badly years ago. The teens then tell Cassie that she's a witch. C and Adam then used their power to make water float. C is trying to understand her power, so she goes back to Adam's dad to talk to him.

Faye loves her power, and now that C is here, the circle is complete. Their powers are magnified. F makes this big storm and then she can't stop it. C then comes and stops the storm. After it she says she doesn't want any part of this.

Charles is the clear antagonist by killing Cassie's mom, and then he uses his magic to drown Adam's dad for a little bit before he lets him go. Charles then talks to Dawn and they know about Cassie, and Dawn looks like a bad guy too. Cassie finds a letter from her mother that tells her that she has power, and that people will be after her.

I give this show an average rating. It's okay, but I don't think I'll be watching it regularly.

Witchcraft on TV: Prior to watching this show, my sister asked me if I was going to watch it.

Me: Yes.
S: I knew it. You used to watch Charmed.
Me: Yeah, I watched the entire first season back in 1998. (Then it was on too late after that, and I only saw a few episodes here and there. It lasted for 8 seasons.)
S: And there were movies like The Craft- and what's the other one-
Me: Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
S: No, Practical Magic.

I loved Sabrina when it first came out in 1996. I was 11 yrs old back then and really thought the sitcom was funny. I saw it for a few years, and then it was on the WB which I didn't get. I thought The Craft was a good movie. I saw it on video when I was 13 at my friend Heather's birthday party.

Writing: From the ages of 11-14 yrs old I was into witchcraft. Then I read a book about the religion Wicca and then I wasn't really into it. I was into supernatural TV series like Buffy and Angel, and wanted to write something like that, so it was my research. Come to think of it, I haven't wrote anything supernatural since I was 15. A couple years ago I wrote about a character seeing a psychic that predicted things right, but it was very reality- based.

Sept. 16 Blog article: I got his article through my blog about networking tips. It talks a bit about social skills and how to mingle and meet people. It's an average article:

Hi Tracy,

We would love to share with you an article that we just posted on our own blog! “50 Expert Networking Tips You Should Start Using in School” is linked below and could be a fun way to share this announcement with your readers.(http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2011/09/13/50-expert-networking-tips-you-should-start-using-in-school/)

It has been a sincere pleasure to read your great content.

Sincerely,
Tim Handorf

Skills decline: I was reading the business section of the newspaper, and they said that the longer someone has been out of work, that person's skills decline (unless they practice). I know, I was like that in gr.10 when I was in all the low classes and I didn't have to work hard to pass. Then gr. 11 hit me and it was really hard to get back the work ethic I lost over a year. But I did get my work ethic and it stuck with me for the rest of my life.

I have the work ethic, but not always the skills. It's like that math test I took about adding positive and negative numbers. I looked it up and the term is called integers. If I don't practice or study my math, my skills decline. If it's reading and writing, I stop doing that for a year, I can still get right back to it.

It's like if I was transferred to a foreign country where I can't read the words, and I work at a restaurant, and my hobbies would be watching TV and shopping. I won't have trouble reading and writing if I haven't done it in a long time. I haven't done gr. 7 math in 14 years. I finished Pure Math 30 in 2003, that's 8 yrs.

Sept. 18 United Way music video: My friend/ college classmate Omar Mouallem is in this music video for the charity United Way. He starts rapping in 1:52 secs of it. It's filmed around downtown, City Centre, and Chinatown. I totally recognized the streets. The song is good and uplifting.

Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mwdiU3kAvI

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