Synopsis Annabelle & Andrea- VIDEO PROJECT

For our video project we want to focus on the HPU tennis-team. We want to cover upcoming games, profiles and members of the team. An overview over how the season is going and trying to figure out what the future brings. We also want to compare the HPU tennis team with their competators. We will include footage of games, interview with team players etc.

Everybody’s going to SEX REHAB

Tiger Woods was there. Jesse James was there. There exists a long list of celebrities that have admitted themselves to what seems to be a new “trend”- sex rehab.

 What is the reason for this? Are they really sex addicts or are they there just to make up an excuse for being irresponsibly horny? I think many celebrities want sympathy from the public, and that they think that by going to rehab, the stuff that happened was out of their control- that’s how “sick” they were. 

 So what is the definition of a sex addict? The National Council on Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity has defined sexual addiction as "engaging in persistent and escalating patterns of sexual behavior acted out despite increasing negative consequences to self and others."Sex rehab even has it's own TV-show: "Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew on VH1. Here the patients live in a facility center with Dr. Drew and they go through one-on-one therapy sessions to get rid of their behavioral problems.  The patients consists of porn stars, models, surfers etc. 

Well.. at least it's good to know that if you ever cheat or act "irresponsibly" you can always check in at a sex rehab center, and everything is going to alright! 

Alice in Wonderland

Was the movie everyone was talking about as spectacular as everyone thought it would be? No, is my answer to that. The movie was good, entertaining, but also a bit of a disappointment after all that hype.

 

Alice in Wonderland (for those of you doesn’t know) is about Alice, a young girl who keeps having the same dream over and over again. When she is older, and is tricked into coming to her own engagement party that is set up for her with a guy she can’t stand, she runs away and follows a rabbit with a watch that she sees in the garden. She falls down the hole where the rabbit went, and finds herself in another, crazy world with weird looking creatures and people. Most of the characters in this wonderland is already familiar with Alice, as it turns out she has been there before, not just once, but many times. 

There is a war going on between the Red Queen and the White Queen (sisters, one bad and one good), and Alice ends up at the Red Queens castle and sees, first hand, her reign of terror. Basically this is your traditional movie of good versus bad, and you already know what’s going to happen at the end after just watching a little bit (even if you don’t know the original story of Alice in Wonderland.)

 The movie itself has stunning visuals (especially seen with 3D-glasses), and great, famous actor/actresses, but the story itself isn’t quite how I remembered it to be, to be honest it was sort of dull. The thing is that this movie seems to be just another one of those “Tim Burton movies”, and Johnny Depp (who I think is a marvelous actor) is just doing the same character he has been doing for the past years. Depp’s character, Mad Hatter, resembles Captain Jack Sparrow a little too much, and this ruins a lot.

The newcomer Mia Wasikowska as Alice is perfect for the role. At least the way she looks. Her performance isn’t the best, but she is good at playing surprised and baffled. Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen is arguably the best actor in this movie, even though she might me overdoing it a little, and I can’t even count how many times she said “off with their heads” in the movie.

 I have always been (and still is) a big Alice in Wonderland fan, and I’m not going to lie and say that this movie is not entertaining, because it definitely is, but that is mostly, like I said, thanks to the visuals. Alice in Wonderland is a great, mysterious story, and if you are familiar with it and like it, I will definitely recommend it. Also, if you are a fan of Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, you will most likely enjoy this one as well.

Gigapan-Shoot!

Today we (Phil, Susanne, Phil, Annabelle and I) all met up at around 7:30 a.m. and went to Makapu'u for our Gigapan shoot. We got there pretty early so there weren't too many people there yet. We set up the camera on the tripod on our chosen spot (put on the rocks by the beach) and began plotting in the coordinates for the camera. I think we started shooting at around 8:00 a.m. and we were done by 10:00 a.m. We took 874 pictures in total, so it didn't really take to long. We actually had a lot of fun, even though everyone was tired. While we were waiting aroundfor the camera to get done shooting, we had a little photo-shoot of our own! It was a good start to the day. The sun was shining, so I think the panorama's gonna turn out quite nice. 

Tiger, Tiger, Tiger....bla bla bla

We have heard a lot (too much) about Tiger Woods in the media lately. Ever since the media found out that he had cheated on his wife late last year, till now, when he made his public apology, there has been nothing BUT Tiger in the media. 

But how interesting is it really? Ok, he made a mistake, he cheated on his wife and disappointed his fans, but is it not time to leave the man alone? He is not the first to make a mistake like this, and he is not a public elected official. That being said, he has chosen to be in the public eye, in the spotlight. Tiger is not only great at playing golf, he has also voluntarily "thrown" himself out there. He has been doing a lot of commercials and advertisements- there is even a commercial of Tiger walking on water!! Clearly, he is more than just a golf-player... BUT, I think now is the time to leave him (and his family) alone. The media needs to back off. He has made his public apology, and he says he is going back to "treatment", what more does the media want from him?

Interview: Susanne Haala

Susanne is an international student at Hawaii Pacific University, with journalism as major. She was born I Hamburg, Germany in 1987- is 22 but soon to be 23. She grew up in Germany but soon realized the America was the place for her. She wanted to improve her English, but at the same time escape from the rain and the cold weather of her hometown.  So she decided to move to Hawaii.

 

At HPU she works as associate editor for the student newspaper, The Kalamalama. Even though she doesn’t want to work for a newspaper when she is done with school, she thinks working for the school newspaper is good preparation for whatever job she might get in media industry.  Her dream for a future job is to work as a news correspondent, and her goal is to settle down in New York and work there. Even though she is a city girl, she admits she also would love to live in North Carolina, because she has a lot of family there.  “I know for sure that I don’t want to live in Hamburg, maybe not even in Germany at all.. I would always choose The United States over Germany. It rains too much there. And I love the beautiful landscapes and variations in this country!” she says.

 

She had a lot of different hobbies as a child, and is lucky enough to one of those people who still hold on to them today. She loves tennis, golf and horseback riding, and she still practices all of them today.  “It’s even better here in Hawaii because the weather is actually good!”

 

Susanne is currently living in Hawaii Kai, even though she used to be a Waikiki-girl. She still likes Waikiki, but says she feel a lot safer in her quiet neighborhood in Hawaii Kai. This is not without reason. She had a bad experience about a year ago when she still lived in the city. She was home by herself taking a shower a late night, when she noticed that a man was outside her window spying on her. When she saw him, he ran towards the front door. Just then she remembered she had forgotten to lock the door. She runs, towards the door, just wearing a towel, and she turns the lock, just in time. “Just when I had locked the door, the man grabs the door handle, and tries to break in. I freaked out, and immediately called 911.“ Before the police made it to her house, the man tried to break in through the windows. The police arrived later, but by then the man was long gone. “I didn’t felt safe for a long, long time after that episode. It was horrible, and it took me a while to get over it. “ The man came back 6 weeks later, but this time the door was locked. He was never caught, but soon after, Susanne decided to move. She as a word of advice to everyone out there, especially girls living by themselves: “ Always remember to lock your doors! Don’t assume that your always safe and that no one wants to harm you.”

Review "Act of War"

“Act of War” is a documentary about the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom. The documentary takes us way back in time, when Cook first saw the islands of Hawai’i, to how Hawai’i is today. It informs us about what happened, how things are today, and how things could have been different.

Personally, I liked this documentary. It was very helpful for me as a European to see and realize how much the Hawaiian’s have gone through when trying to prevent outsiders (The United States of America) to become rulers of their land. The movie gave me a better understanding of some of the “bitterness” some natives must still feel today. In the movie we see how the natives and Queen Liliuokalani were lied to and cheated for their land. Ultimately the Americans took over, and the Hawaiians lost power over their birthplace.

It was interesting to see all the pictures included in the movie that were from the time when the overthrow took place. There were pictures of American officials and important figures as well as important Hawaiian personalities from that time such as Liliuokalani. The only thing I did not like in the movie was the way they acted out these people’s voices and personalities. It seemed kind of unprofessional to me that they had men making the voices of some of the American figures involved to sound more “evil”, and the voices of the Hawaiians portrayed, softer and “nicer”. I think that in a documentary, you should be given both sides a story/event, and the viewer should be able to make up his or her mind themselves weather the act was wrong or right. Off course I am not saying that I believe that overthrowing a kingdom and a culture that does not want to be overthrown is the right think to do, but I do not believe that the American’s behind this were evil and did this out of pure fun. For them, at the time, it was a different story, and they viewed the whole situation in a different light. I do not think they understood the value of culture or how much harm this would cause.

I came to Hawai’i almost two years ago, as an international student, and my first impression was that Hawai’i was a lot more like the rest of mainland America than I would have thought. Today there is a Mc. Donald’s and a Starbucks on almost every street corner. The school system is like most of the rest of the U.S. and it pretty much looks like the rest of the U.S. I didn’t really think much about this in the beginning, but after I met some local people and I read and watched movies about the overthrow of the kingdom, my view changed. I think it’s sad to see such a rich culture almost gone, and that it has become so “Americanized”. In a way I can relate to what the natives might be going through, because I’m from a very small country in Europe (Norway) that has not been taken over by America, but in a way I would say that it has. My country has become so “Americanized” that the regular American wouldn’t miss a thing of his/hers home-comfort if they visited. In a way its great that we have all these things from the great country of America (and other countries around the world), and we love it, but I think many of the local people would like to see more of the traditional music, food…culture in general, to keep our country’s roots alive. That every country, every place, every city, has its own specific culture and feel….I think that’s what makes the world we live in such a great and interesting place.