Why I Hate Scary Movies

Around Halloween time, there is always the release of some very scary movies. Some are filled with gore and guts and others just plain old terrifying. While many people flock to the theaters to indulge in what I consider a sick fetish, I choose to steer clear of these films. Why? Because I simply hate the feeling of sitting down whether in a living room or movie theater where things come out of nowhere and I have no choice but to sit in my seat and watch.

            It isn’t that I hate blood and gore; I just find it completely unnecessary to take it to the extreme like many of these movies do. Here I am having a mini heart attack and I have paid money for this to happen. It just doesn’t really make very much sense to me. I don’t find it fun to get scared, its not how I want to spend my free time. If I really wanted to get scared, I could tell my parents that I’m dropping out of school, then I would be terrified. Its not even that someone is setting up something to scare you, your purposely-paying money to get scared.

            From the scary movies that I have seen, they all start off like this. First groups of people big or small come across some supposedly haunted house or wander into a haunted forest because they heard that it was haunted. Then they all make the clearly poor choice of entering said haunted house or forest and slowly one by one are killed in increasingly gruesome ways. Nearly all scary movies are terrible movies with terrible actors. If I want a movie that excites me and where people get killed, I can watch an action or thriller where the good guy/girl is always a badass and comes out on top. It’s just the idea of paying money or wasting time to get the crap scared out of me is not something that I enjoy.

            Don’t get me wrong I love Halloween. I love dressing up, I love candy I actually like haunted houses too but I hate sitting and watching some stupid people get killed in gross ways. I can think of many other ways I would like to spend my time.

Daughters from Danang

I found this documentary to be an interesting mix of emotion and frustration for me. Although it was easy to feel for Heidi and her inability to fit in her homeland, I felt incredibly frustrated by her lack of knowledge and understanding. She experienced a stereotypical case of culture shock upon her arrival causing her immediate anxiety and emotional distress. I just don’t understand what exactly she was expecting. Here was a family she had barely ever known back in a third world country ravaged by a gruesome and vicious war. And yet she is taken aback by the poverty they live in.

            What stuck me first about Heidi’s complete lack of knowledge was her dress code. This lady travels to a southeastern country nearly on the equator and walks around dressed in leggings and long sleeve shirts. When I visited Vietnam I wore gym shorts and a tank top and I was still hot. The other article of clothing that really stood out to me was the jewelry that she wore the whole time there. Gold rings, a watch and a necklace really made her not just stand out but show her actual family that she was well off.

            When Heidi finally does meet her real family, the happiness is short lived. The language and cultural barrier makes conversation and interaction awkward. Heidi feels suffocated due to her real mothers desire to spend ever waking hour together. The worst comes when Heidi is asked to bring her mother back to live with her in the United States. It is understandable that this is a request that Heidi does not want to make, but the request for Heidi to send some money back monthly I think is not. This becomes a clash of cultures. The family lives in less than ideal conditions so that when a family member does move away it is customary they send money back. But Heidi cannot move past her feelings of resentment and doesn’t grant either request choosing instead to leave early back to the life she knows.

            For Heidi to abandon her family giving nothing back I thought was selfish. If Heidi was able to send even $20 a month back to her real family, I know it would make a huge difference in their lives. But she chose to leave and forget wishing she had left the curiosity alone. Daughters of Danang displays stereotypic American cultural ignorance and selfishness at its finest. The fact that she wished she never went, never wrote back to the letters they sent her and never met and reconnected with her real family proves her self-centered personality. She visited a life that she should have been living only to forsake and wish to disremember instead of embracing and cherish.

Aligning the Internal Compass

In Jessica McCaughey’s “Aligning the Internal Compass”, I found a short story that brought me back to the days of my study abroad program and my attempts to travel in unfamiliar places. Your internal compass from my experience seems to be something that isn’t just inherited. You either possess the ability to thrive in uncomfortable situations or you are prepared with knowledge. Your ability to decipher maps that are in foreign languages or find seemingly invisible landmarks is an important aspect to travelling both efficiently and effectively.

            In this day and age, technology has given those who are not directionally enabled a tool that is worth its weight in gold. Smartphones equipped with GPS can tell you where you are and if for some reason you can’t find the place you are going, then you have the world wide web – both in the palm of your hand. I will not go as far as to say that I’m am directionally challenged mainly due to my impressive feat of navigating the Tokyo subway system by myself one day but I definitely have my bad days. The first necessity is to have a game plan, even if it is very vague. The city you want to visit and what you would like to see and do when you are there. Secondly, you need to use and possess the resources that are available to you; maps and guidebooks are really the only tools that will help you help yourself. In Tokyo, the first thing I did was find a subway map, with this in hand I figured out the subway system I was by reading signs and then looked to see where I was planning on going. The night before I had made a list of stations that I was told to check out, I found them on the map and then began plotting my route toward them. Efficiency was the key since I had a clear time frame. However, given the different number of lines and transfers it was no easy task. But, I was prepared with knowledge and a plan and so I was just fine.

            This brings me to the story of McCaughey and her father and their pathetic attempt to navigate the woods. It was clear to me that from the beginning, it was not going to go so well. Their lack of knowledge and preparedness prove to be harsh when they become lost and unable to read the map. As an Eagle Scout, I spend my fair share of weekends in the woods and on backpacking trips through the mountains where it was vital that we know how to us these basic and frankly ancient tools of navigation. It seemed to me that with all of her attempts to try and improve her sense of direction, she just never seemed to improve. Barely making it out of the woods as one of the last groups (I saw that coming) it was clear that she and her father should either never go back into the woods or actually take a real instructional class on navigation. From my experiences, once you can figure out your current position and have a good idea on how far you walk (which requires setting a pace), it is not very hard from then on.

            I found the story overall humorous and entertaining although at times frustrating that they just could not figure out where they were or where they had to go. The origins of directional skills in my opinion depend on your preparedness and experience. It isn’t really something you are born with, maybe your comfort level in sticky situations can play a big part but being able to use the tools you are given properly makes the world of a difference.

Blogging the World

In my opinion, reading travel blogs are some of the best ways to research a place before you visit. You get to read a personal account of someone who travelled somewhere with the idea in mind that they would find the best way to experience that place. I find that most travel blogs are actually realistic, but some do assume you have a lot of money and are looking for luxury rather than reality. This is why my favorite travel blog by far is Lonely Planet.

            Apart from focusing on backpacking and saving you money while experiencing the country as close to the way locals do, they also publish books. When I went abroad, these were my lifelines. Researching the country we were heading to beforehand was made ten times easier. These books can tell you everything, where to stay and what to expect, what and where to eat, prices you can expect to pay, how to bargain, the list goes on and on. The blog has a ton of information on nearly every country so researching before you even buy one of their books is a breeze. Its recent posts cover pretty much anything related to everything travel that I find to be not just informative but entertaining as well.

Even if you’re just browsing, Lonely Planet is a great resource for information on countries in general. Whether they are safe or politically stable and if you should even go there and what a viable alternative would be. I find it not only the best travel site on the Internet, but all around the best resource for a educated reasonable and realistic world traveller.

Homesick in America

For most people, home is where they are from. A hometown is a place special to everyone. You grow up there, the earliest memories of life were formed and the first friends were made. Everyone has different experiences, some move around a lot, some not at all. Everyone has without a doubt felt that feeling of finding himself or herself in a new place, unfamiliar and foreign. Whether that is in a different town, state or country being exposed to somewhere new puts you outside of your comfort zone. For many including me, we thrive outside the comfort zone. Going somewhere new is exciting and refreshing and we all know the feeling of realization about where you are and what you’re doing. I’m sure everyone felt that as they began freshman year at CU and even more so if you did a study abroad program. When you move somewhere either permanently or for an extended period of time, you recognize that you have a new home. My home is in Boulder, I spend the most time here and the majority of my belongings are with me. My home home is back in Parker Colorado where my parents lived. I have not lived there since 2009 I have only visited.

            Homesick in America presented the idea that transitioning to a new home is difficult. The task is made even more trying by moving to an entirely new country. It goes to show that just because you speak the same language, people are unique everywhere. By coming to America from England, it was shown that two countries although similar in many ways, are, when you really get down to it quite culturally different. For my study abroad program, I chose to do Semester at Sea, for 3 ½ months I visited 12 different countries including the United States. Nearly every week it was a new country, a new language and a new culture. Although we weren’t able to spend as much time as we wanted to in each port, we found the best ways to make due with the time we had.  It without at doubt changed me in many ways and proved that wherever you go, there will be similarities and differences and the ability to welcome those similarities and embrace the differences is what discovering a new culture is all about.

5 Hours in Mauritius

On our way from Cape Town to Mauritius, our ship was directly in the path of a tropical storm. It had a name so must have been a bit important. Anyways, we had to take a detour and at first it was announced that we would arrive in Mauritius at night to refuel and would not be able to get off. Everyone was disappointed and the administration announced they would give us the day off and a barbeque. Where these ribs and burgers came from we do not know and did not ask. 

BUT…

During our "Mauritius Day" they announced that we would in fact be able get off the ship for a total of 5 hours from 7am to noon. This was some incredible news and we still got a barbeque!

We had a great Mauritius Day that included sitting by the empty pool since seas were rough, eating as much mac and cheese, ribs and burgers as possible, laying in the sun and catching up on some much needed sleep. After our day off, it was time for our 5 hours in Mauritius.

Mauritius is a pretty interesting place; it is basically a natural experiment in evolution. Since no natives ever inhabited the island, when the Dutch first showed up they began destroying the island's pristine flora and fauna. As you may know the Dodo bird comes from Mauritius, it is a bird that lost its ability to fly over time because it had no predators and therefore no reason for flight.

Everyone was up early and ready to get through immigration as fast as possible to make the best of the 5 hours. Once we got off my small group had decided that instead of going to the beach like everyone else, we were going to hike. And hike we did, after making it to what we figured was the trailhead of "La Pouce" a thumb shaped mountain that would give us a 360 degree view of the island we hit it hard.

Never mind making it to the top, we ran out of time but found a place with a view. It had to be one of the coolest hikes I've ever done. Surrounded by jungle it was like walking through a tunnel. And the view! Quite amazing what a place, reminds me of Jurassic Park. Once we turned around, we quickly made our way back to the ship, took a quick stop at a post office and made it on the ship with seconds to spare.

After that it was time for food, shower then a quick nap before beginning homework.

India will be up soon, and so will finals...