The Pursuit of HAPPYness

The Pursuit of Happyness is a movie based on a true story about a man named Christopher Gardner who ,has invested in a "Bone Density scanner". However, his devices don't sell because of the high price that he's trying to sell them for. While Christopher attempts to figure out a solution to sell his devices, his wife leaves him, he loses his house, his bank account, and all his credit cards. Gardner had no choice but to live on the streets and desperately look for a steady job to take care of his son. Can you imagine if this was your life?

After watching The Pursuit of Happyness, which starred Will Smith and his son, Jaden Smith, my perspective on life had been changed. Near the end of the movie, Chris takes a chance to fight for a stockbroker internship position at Dean Witter. One day, Christopher was called into the office where he met the heads of Dean Witter. He thought he was being called in the office to be told the job is not his. However, he got the job and was told to wear a suit and tie the next day because it was his first day as a broker. This scene made me realize that hard work and determination pays off in the end. After seeing the smile on Christopher and his son, I had tears running down my face because I was so happy for them and inspired to never give up on my dreams.

This movie is definitely one of my favourites because it always reminds me of everything I have and how thankful I am. To see the struggles of a man trying so hard to get his life on track and to do anything it takes to support his son was astonishing. The Pursuit of Happyness inspired me to keep my head up and work harder for the things I want to achieve in life.

My Dream Career of Working for Dreamworks

One career option in the media that I would definitely pursue is to become a graphic designer for Dreamworks. Why you ask? Well, I am a very creative and artsy type of person that loves to create new things. Recently, I've researched a few things about the whole process behind becoming a graphic designer and it sounds stressful, yet enjoyable. From my perspective, I think I would really enjoy working for Dreamworks as a graphic designer because I love watching their animated films, I enjoy working with Photoshop to create all kinds of effects, and I would have to move to California, which is one place that I definitely love.

I've always enjoyed being creative with technology, even if it was simply editing pictures to make them look better, or to edit a video for a school project. For my marketing class, we had to create a magazine ad with one of our group members dressed as a celebrity and advertising a product. My group decided to make me dress up as Michael Jackson and advertise 5Gum. Once we had decided, we had to do a photo shoot of me doing a variety of poses, so each member of the group would have a different pose for their magazine ads.  Here is the I Photoshopped:

Although I'm not the greatest at Photoshop right now, I still enjoy playing around on the program to see what I can create. I hope to improve my Photoshop skills, so I can begin making a portfolio and possibly use it as a reference to get me into a graphic designing program.

Working for Dreamworks and making the characters for their animated films sounds like a pretty fun career to me! The whole idea of working behind the scenes to create animated cartoon characters and possibly getting the chance to meet celebrities on set that are doing the voices for the characters all sounds great.

However, for now I can only dream. If I want to get to my dream career, I'm going to have to continue with my education and work towards it, which is what I am trying to do. Hopefully one day i'll make it somewhere in the graphic designing industry!

Changes of Print Media

Do you guys remember when you actually had to go out to the store and purchase the latest magazine with your favourite celebrity on the front cover? Well, it's a lot different now days. Print media has constantly been changing due to the advancement of technology. Since we have laptops, smartphones, tablets, e-readers, etc., there's no need for a physical printed copy anymore. 

I, myself, have an iPhone4 that I use for almost everything. There's a new app that came with the new update for my Apple device that says "Newsstand", which allows me to download magazines and newspapers. By downloading a newspaper, I can stay updated by simply reading it from my iPhone4 and not having to worry about a bunch of papers laying around. Although I do tend to get distracted with other websites, such as Twitter(I can't help it, it's too addicting!), I still find that I can get much more work done on the computer than I would with just a piece of paper and a pencil. In my opinion, I believe that the demand for printed media will continue to decrease, as the demand of technology expands further. It's most likely guaranteed that students in school will be provided with tablets instead of thick, heavy textbooks. 

Having the printed copy of something can benefit society in a way that the Internet can never replace. The first benefit of having the physical copy is the ability to create memories. By this I mean, when someone reads the daily newspaper, they usually memorize the story by what the heading said and what the picture illustrated. The front page of a printed newspaper is the most important part that many articles on the internet do not usually offer. The second benefit is that by having a printed copy allows people to get away from their technological devices. Majority of people spend their entire day looking at a computer, so it would be a good change to get away and also to not have to rely on the Internet to read something. 

However, there are some disadvantages of printed media. Printed copies of media require a large amount of paper, which is produced from trees; and the ink, which involves chemicals. Both of these materials are very time-consuming and expensive to produce. Another downside of print media is that it's not as exciting as the information given through television or the Internet. Media that is received through TV, radio, or the Internet, often include many visuals that allow the viewers to get a better understanding of what is being portrayed. Lastly, information that is found on the Internet is distributed much quicker than printed media. Printed media involves vehicles and people to deliver to its audience, which costs money. Media that is shown on the Internet is often free and can be received easily. 

In conclusion, the demand for printed media is continuously decreasing because more people are interested in media through technology. Majority of people don't think of the idea of going to the store to purchase a book or magazine anymore because we have the ability of finding them online. We can try avoiding technology as much as we want, but it's continuously expanding and becoming a major part of our lives. 

The Role the Internet Plays in My Life

For many years the internet has made information available to the public in a quick and easy manner. It has helped people in many different ways, such as providing entertainment, helping people find answers to problems, allowing people to communicate more, and also shopping online.

Since the internet keeps advancing and becoming apart of our everyday lives, we depend on it a lot more. Now days the internet has various different activities for us to do compared to the early days of the internet. Today, the internet allows us to watch videos on YouTube, search questions on Google, send emails on Hotmail, purchase items from Amazon, and video call with our family members and friends through Skype.

The internet has played a significant role in my life for a very long time now. When I was young, I'd sit with my older brothers and sister sometimes when they'd use the internet because I was always interested in getting to know how to work the internet better. When I started getting the hang of it, I started using the internet to play video games whenever I was bored. This may sound weird, but I actually think by playing all those video games as a kid allowed me to advance my knowledge with the internet. Now that i'm a teenager, the internet often helps me when I have difficulty with my homework, it allows me to research for answers to situations that I don't know the answer to, and it also allows me to communicate with family and friends that live far away. The internet was a big part of my life because my generation grew up when the internet began getting more advanced.

There are many things the internet has helped me with; travel expenses, concert tickets, communication, etc. When my family and I were planning our trip to California for the summer of 2010, we looked online to find good deals that we could book for our flight and we also looked on various different websites to look for a vacation home that would fit all 8 of us. Luckily we found a house that was located a block away from downtown Hollywood that could fit up to 8 people. The internet allowed us to find better pricing than we would have found with a travel agent and enjoy the fact that we were only 1 block away from all the excitement. The internet also helps me whenever my favourite artists have concerts because my sister can use her credit card and easily pre-order our concert tickets and we don't have to worry about the concert being sold out. For example, in the summer of 2011, Chris Brown came to Toronto and it was a big deal because it was the first stop of his FAME Tour. Before tickets were available to anyone else, a radio station in Toronto, "Flow 93.5", had tweeted a code that allowed people to pre-order their tickets. I remember clearly, I woke up at 9:00AM (which is very rare for me) the day that tickets were up for pre-ordering and I got my sister to use her credit card and the code.

       

In conclusion, without the power of the internet, I have no idea how the world would be today. The internet plays a very significant role in not only my life, but to majority of the population. It allows us to stay

connected to people around the world, search for answers to situations, shop online, and many other things. The internet will continue to be a resourceful source to the world.

Why is the news so important?

The news plays an important role in our daily lives because it keeps us aware of what is happening around us. By staying aware of the news, it increases our knowledge and allows us to build our own opinions, thoughts, ideas, etc.

There are various different sources of receiving news, such as TV news channels, newspapers/ online articles, radio stations, social networking websites, etc. The benefit of receiving information through TV news channels is that there are many visuals displayed on the screen as the news anchor tells what had occured. The visuals and videos allow the viewers watching the channel to get a better understanding of what exactly happened. However, the downside of receiving information through news channels on TV is that there is a certain time limit in which the program must follow. This means that TV news channels are restricted to what news events they will show within the time period. Moreover, newspapers are a good way of finding out information because they have several articles that explain what happened in detail. Specific newspapers have local, national, and international news all in one. For example, I often read the Hamilton Spectator and it is organized into sections; local, in Canada, and around the world. I personally think this is an easier way for people to stay updated with what is happening all around the world because by just reading through the entire newspaper, you'll know the details of majority of the events that have occured. The only disadvantage of newspapers is that they aren't as quick and as up to date as other major sources such as the internet or TV news channels. The newspapers are printed at the end of each day, which means some events that occured afterwards will not be featured in the paper until the next day.

As I mentioned before, social networking websites are a source of receiving news as well. For example, on Twitter there is a list of "Trending Topics", which displays the top 10 most frequently used words or phrases by Twitter users. Occasionally, there are some important topics that trend, such as "#GaddafiDead". I remember seeing "#GaddafiDead" on the list and when I clicked on it, I saw a tweet from the CNN Twitter account on October 20,2011 confirming that Gaddafi had been killed. I then searched on Google for further information on his death. If I hadn't logged onto Twitter or seen the trending topic, I probably wouldn't be aware of the historical event of a Libyan dictator found dead.

When we receive news from one specific source that we usually rely on, we instantly believe that it is true. It is important to question the news that we receive to be certain that it is accurate. I personally don't usually take the time to analyze news sources to see if they're being bias. Most of the time, if the news sounds pretty accurate to me, I'll believe that it is true. If i'm really curious as to knowing the details of a particular event, I will do a little research online to find an answer that sounds somewhat accurate to me. We have numerous different ways of receiving news and we need to take advantage of what we have. I believe we should all use the sources we have today very wisely to be aware of what is occurring around us, so we can help everyone worldwide.