Blue: You Make me Wanna

Blue is one of the biggest boy bands in the UK. With six Top 10 singles (including two massive No.1 Hits) plus a double platinum selling album and a No.1 DVD/video under their belts, Lee, Duncan, Antony and Simon were the pop sensation of 2003.

Blue continued their charge on the pop world in 2003 with their sell out UK Tour and third album Guilty.
Blue comprises of London based lads Duncan James (22), Antony Costa, (20), Lee Ryan (18) and Simon Webbe (22). The boys got together when Duncan and Anthony decided to form a vocal group, enlisting Lee (whom they had seen on the audition circuit and regarded as the best singer around) and his flatmate Simon to make up the numbers. Vocally, the four soon realised they had something special going on, and both management and a deal with Virgin's Innocent Records quickly followed.

Visual Text for Essay 1 posted by Lorraine

This image is a combination of four screenshots from an online game. I took the screenshots myself and I combined them into this image myself, so there is no citation.

Visual text for my essay 'Absolute love'

This is the ending of the movie called 'Kiraware matsuko no isshyou'

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Os5l6jrX0

posted by Hanayu Hiroto

Tada kimi wo Aishiteru(just love you)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzwLpFeScSU



this is a summary of my favorite Japanese movie with subtittle.


SAYAKA MURATOMI

The Bridges of Madison County

This movie is a love story about a woman who has a husband and children. The woman who was bored with monotonous daily life as a wife and a mother suddenly fell in love with a cameraman while her family went on a trip. A family that usually described as a symbol of happiness was described as a boredom for her in this movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymakSmPK_kw



Ako Ando

Visual Text I Chose

From 0:00 to 1:42
"Honey, before you buy the car, you take it for a test drive." -Samantha
of "Sex and the city: Season 3 episode 42 -Don't ask, don't tell"
--Jihwan Choi

It was started again…

I felt like I became a journalist or comic artist just before deadline.
I like writing essay..ㅠㅠ

New Book: "The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America"

By Katherine S. Newman and Victor Tan Chen, Boston: Beacon Press, 2007
Fifty-seven million Americans - including 21 percent of the nation's children - live a notch above the poverty line, and yet the challenges they face are largely ignored. While government programs assist the poor, and politicians woo the more fortunate, the "missing Class" is largely invisible and left to fend for itself.

Missing Class parents often work at a breakneck pace to preserve the progress they have made and are but one divorce or unexpected hospitalization away from sliding into poverty. Children face an even more perilous and uncertain future because their parents have so little time to help them with their schoolwork or guide them during their adolescent years. With little supervision, the younger generation often flounders in school, sometimes falling prey to the same problems that are prevalent in the much poorer communities that border Missing Class neighborhoods. Paradoxically, the very efforts that enabled parents to get ahead financially often inhibit their children from advancing; they are in real danger of losing what little ground their parents have gained.

"The Missing Class" is an urgent and timely exploration that describes - through the experiences of nine families - the unique problems faced by this growing class of people who are neither working poor nor middle class. Katherine Newman and Victor Tan Chen trace where these families came from, how they've struggled to make a decent living, and why they're stuck without a safety net. An eloquent argument for the need to think about inequality in a broader way, "The Missing Class" has much to tell us about whether the American dream still exists for those who are sacrificing daily to achieve it.

Romantic Movies

50 first dates [Adam Sandler & Drew Barrymore]

a romatic comedy movie... Adam is a marine vet in Hawaii, he dates without commitments.. meanwhile Drew suffered a short-term memory from a car accident.. After meeting in a restaurant, they got hitched.. Throughout their relationship same things happen, she remembers and forgets him.. Adam tried his best to always win her back, still, he gave up.. As he decided to leave and move-on, Drew remembered everything about him.. followed and asked him if he's willing to be with her eventhough she has that condition.. so yea, a cute happy ending for them..



Sweet November [Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron]

a sad romance movie.. the 2 met in a DMV office and from there she made him her project for the month of November to change his outlook in life. the entire month, he lived with her & for the first time she felt love as he is with her. by the end of the month, she revealed she's dying of cancer also, finishing their month-long agreement. Keanu who finds it difficult accepted the break-up. Now a better person, he continued carrying with him the lessons he learned from her and the love he had lost..



-abilene

David Sedaris, The End of the Affair

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172396/trailers-screenplay-E16048-310



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1fqvBhAnys

Khaled Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns
http://www.khaledhosseini.com/hosseini-podcasts.htm

The Kite Runner

http://www.khaledhosseini.com/hosseini-books-kiterunner.html

Movie: "STILL LIFE"

"Majestic... an extremely beautiful movie. Jia [is] a master filmmaker." - David Denby, The New Yorker

"The best film of the year." - La liste des lecteurs, Cahiers du Cinema

"One of the world's most important filmmakers... A human triumph." - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

"Jia's finest film yet... quietly powerful. One viewing is not enough to absorb STILL LIFE." - Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

A peerless chronicler of China's astonishing, relentless pursuit of change, Jia Zhang-ke's (The World, Platform) latest feature is set in Fengjie, a small city soon to be submerged by the waters of the massive Three Gorges Dam. As crews demolish entire blocks and Fengjie prepares to disappear, two travelers come to town looking for a link to the past -- a coal miner searching for the wife who left him over a decade ago and the daughter he's never met, and a nurse seeking a divorce from the husband she hasn't seen in two years.

NR, China, 2007, 108 minutes. In Mandarin with English subtitles

A film by Jia Zhang-ke

http://www.ifccenter.com/film?filmid=58607

Students and Real-World Writing

A Notice from English Department, Writing Center---
"As a means of expanding students' sense of audience, deepening their investment in writing, and making explicit the link between composition and the "real world," we are inaugurating a student writing competition, open to any student enrolled in a Composition course during Spring 2008. More details to follow, but the gist is that eligible students can submit *any* piece of writing they think is excellent (produced in your class, or not; related to your class, or not). The student writing award will be funded by Collide: You will likely recall that neither editors nor contributors to Collide have received or will receive royalties from the text; in lieu of royalties, the publisher sets aside $1 from the sale of each text, and with this money we will fund the student writing awards."

Why we believe Americans are stupid

http://youtube.com/watch?v=C6r1IcY1pv0&feature=related



Can you answer those questions?

The version with subtitles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE&feature=related

Sleepless night in Seattle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veG2h_lJX5c



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw0lWIZFtVE&feature=related

You've got mail

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohysNKJmdOs&feature=related

funny American

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ANTDkfkoBaI

Sofi Mathsson

Today’s society is on its way to destroy our earth with outlets and over using its assets.
during my research for my paper i have realized that most people on college level are not aware of what is happening with our earth.
So many American kids are driving back and fourth, without thinking about the consequences it bring.
we have to create a society that is more aware of the problems that we humans create, because if we don't the polar-ices risk to be melted within 23 years (acording to Al Gore, Nobel peace prize winner 2007, for his environmental work).
todays society is all about gaining profit and not about what to do to prevent our earth from getting extingushed... something that i think i terrible.

Death Penalty-Choel Woo Lee

Capital punishment is, and has been for a long time, a hot issue for debate, but

changes in policy are not always visible or enacted fairly. Considering many problems the death

penalty brings, it should be abandoned worldwide and replaced by appropriate incarceration

with the chance for prisoners to reform.

We must consider that no matter what a convict is charged with, taking away another

person’s life is still an act of murder. Also, there is always the chance that the executed may

have been innocent. Lawyers and evidence are not always correct, even when the successfully

convict someone. This may occur due to misjudgments, framing, or even nefarious arbitrators.

Additionally, when these executions are carried out, families of the deceased have forever lost a

loved one with no chance of them returning as active members of society.

Cruelty of the death penalty also warrants discussion, as the executed often undergo

undue agony when they are put to death. There are well known facts through out the human

history and all over the world. Though victims and their families do not bemoan this, civilized

societies strive to treat all people equally and fairly, thus rejecting the idea of merciless justice.

Furthermore, capital punishment disallows those convicted to death a chance to reform.

If life sentences replace death sentences, it will be possible for offenders to reconsider their

actions and perhaps become remorseful. Pardons and paroles can be considered for the

imprisoned, and time in the prison ca be sufficient retribution for their inhumane conduct.

If the eye for an eye approach to punishment is indeed and effective deterrent for

crime, countries with the death penalty should have lower crime rates than nations without it.

This, however, is not the case. Abandoning capital punishment prevents countries for the act of

murder, while allowing criminals a chance to reform. In an era of rapid globalization, all nations

should consider the European Union’s lead, who turn down countries with the death sentence

from joining their federation.

Real English through pop culture

33rd JALT (Japan Association for Language Teaching) International Conference on Language Teaching and Learning and Educational Materials Exposition was held at the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center in Tokyo on Nov. 22-25.
Workshops are organized around the following topics,

"Pop Culture and Global Issues,"

"In my critical thinking global issues program, I guess the goal is to present these kinds of arguments in a presentation form based on what is originally in the media through pop culture," he said. "We're looking at pop culture as a means to access global issues. The pop culture is a kind of catalyst."

"Global Education Through Popular Culture."

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/20071213TDY14001.htm