Jeffery's Room

 Is love the driving force behind conflict between family members? In my life, the people that I have fought with the most, yelled at the most, and gotten annoyed by the most are my family. Yet, they are an integral part of my life and we all love each other very much. While love between family members is seen as a positive thing, the intensity of love breeds conflict and may have negative effects on family members and those around them.  Growing up, I always wondered why my parents would lecture and even yell at me about getting good grades in school even in elementary school. I would hate listening to them tell me to focus on academics. If my parents loved me so much, why would they yell at me? In the memoir Crying in H-mart, by Michelle Zauner, Michelle had many conflicts with her mother about her future career and her academics. They constantly argued about college and her music career. While these arguments got heated and sometimes got violent, it was clear that her mothe...

In class, we watched a clip from Moonlight about Mahershala Ali’s character Juan teaching Chiron how to swim. It was an interesting scene which displayed the trust that Chiron had in Juan and it also led into a pivotal scene in the movie where Juan gives Chiron advice about life.  Avril pointed out about how the way the scene was shot with the water going above the camera illustrated Chiron’s perspective during the swimming lesson. This is an example of how Directors can use cinematography and different visual choices in their movies to convey emotion and progress the story. Today I will be analyzing some simple yet effective camera movements that pushed the narrative forward in a movie.  In Avengers Infinity War, when the giant Ring arrives in New York City they do not just directly show it. Rather they opt to show it from the perspective of Tony Stark. As Tony Stark walks out of the building to see the looming threat, the camera follows him. The camera is also hand held to c...

In class, we are debating between fate and free will. While it is a highly debated topic, I think that none of our choices are really our own. It’s not that I believe in fate because of some mystical being. It's more that I believe that we are just products of our own environment making choices influenced by our surroundings.  There is a book called The Other Wes Moore, which explores how two people with the exact same name, Wes Moore, who lived in different environments became so different. Despite having the same name and being born within a year of each other, one Wes Moore became a successful combat veteran, White House Fellow and Business leader while the other Wes Moore is currently rotting in jail. It goes to show that people’s environments truly affect the outcomes of their lives. The choices each Wes Moore made were influenced by the circumstances of their surroundings. For example, it was the first Wes Moore’s mother that forced him to go into the military which set his l...