Madonna loves H&M

Today when I checked my Myspace account, I came across this: Designed by Madonna

Huh? What? Madonna has designed clothes for H&M?!?! I have to admit I'm intrigued. There's no H&M in Charlottesville, so I'll have to satisfy my curiosity on the web. Luckily, H&M's site is pretty amazing so that shouldn't be hard. :)

Flash mobs!

Do yourself a favor. Visit YouTube and search for "Flash mobs." Hilarious!


UC Berkeley Cal Flash Mob 1/25/07 - Ninja Battle
Flash mob definition courtesy of Wikipedia: "flash mob describes a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, do something unusual for a brief period of time, and then quickly disperse."

The perfect way to start a new semester

Tomorrow I begin the second of four business school semesters. For most of today I've been working on interview preparation, cover letters, and homework so I decided to take a break and watch Akeelah and the Bee. God, I love uplifting movies. That was awesome! Back to studying. :)


P.S. Here's a pretty good review of the movie. It's good because I agree with it. :) If you haven't seen Akeelah yet, stop reading after the first two paragraphs or you'll know too much of the plot.

Just what I needed

A strange and brilliant mind created Little Miss Sunshine. The plot would be sick and twisted on paper but on screen it's hilarious and uplifting. Now that's impressive.

How did I miss this?

So I am at Lynn's house in New York right now and Lynn is making a pop up book while I am reading RollingStone magazine for the first time in forever and surfing the web. Well, I just read about The Gray Kid spoof on Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" from RollingStone. When I mentioned "PaxilBack" to Lynn, she said, "Ooh. I love that song! My favorite line is 'mattress on the floor.'" I can't believe I didn't know about this. Am I not with it anymore? Arghh!

This is awesome!

I was looking for the Justin Timberlake song "What Goes Around" and look what I found. God, I love YouTube!*


If you can't see this, try the following link.

* Oh, and just in case you haven't seen this one yet... I Want It That Way

Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock to Divorce

Say it ain't so. And I really thought that one was going to last.

Unschooled

Back in college, I was a big fan of the movie Higher Learning. At the end of the film, just before the credits, the screen went black and one word appeared in big white letters: "Unlearn." Though the movie was set in college, it was mostly about race relations and what the director wanted us to unlearn was our prejudice.

Well, now it really is about unlearning what we have learned in school. There is a new movement called unschooling. The first I'd heard about it was in an article from today's New York Times. "Home Schoolers Content to Take Children’s Lead" didn't provide much information on unschooling but it piqued my interest. So, I headed to the most trusted source of information on the web... Wikipedia. Here's how Wikipedia defines unschooling:

Unschooling is a form of education in which learning is based on the student's interests, needs, and goals. It may be alternatively referred to as natural learning, child-led learning, discovery learning, autodidactic learning, or child-directed learning.

Unschooling contrasts with homeschooling in that the student's education is not directed by a teacher and curriculum. Although an unschooling student may choose to make use of teachers or curricula, s/he is ultimately in control of his/her own education. The student chooses how, when, why, and what s/he learns. Parents who unschool their children act as "facilitators" and provide a wide range of resources, instruction and support. Unschooling begins with a child's natural curiosity and expands from there, as an extension of his/her own personal interests and needs.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. How can a child know what he wants to learn when he hasn't experienced very much? I was and still am a slow reader. I wonder, had I not been forced to read in school, would I have spent my life avoiding all unnecessary reading? If so, I would have missed out on so many wonderful stories, so many ideas that have changed the way I think. I like the idea that unschooling creates a love of learning but I worry that it limits children too much. Currently, I am no expert on schooling or unschooling so my opinion is just that. If I do end up in education again,* I'll revisit this topic... because in five to ten years, Where is my mind? will still be going strong!


*Magic 8-ball says: Signs point to yes.

Yet another beautiful and distressing film

from Alejandro González Iñárritu.* I watched Babel with Catherine. While she left the theater with a lot of questions,** I left satisfied. Low expectations are the secret to happiness. :)



*González Iñárritu is also responsible for Amores Perros and 21 Grams.
**Why did a reviewer say that was like Crash? What was I supposed to get out of that? What was it about?

Music is my first name

Back in my "I wanna work for a record company" days, I was fortunate enough to meet Cam'ron. He was nice. He breezed into Epic's video production department with his posse, hit on the other intern (who I'd just like to mention was totally not as cute as me), talked to one of the executives, and left.

Why am I writing this? Because there is a great article in, you guessed it, The NY times today. Here are some choice paragraphs from Kelefa Sanneh's The Reesey-Piecey Man Cometh (and Rhymeith):

In 1998, years before it became obvious that he was one of hip-hop's most appealing surrealists, Cam'ron was just another aspiring star, content to hold down the world's most glamorous job: New York rapper....

The process was simple: a couple of hit records, a couple of memorable videos, and suddenly you were richer than God and nearly as omnipresent. It was a time when even the most extravagant hip-hop boasts could pass for predictions: O.K., maybe you didn't actually own an island, but you were so close.

This gilded age didn't deliver on its promises. New York rappers discovered that music-industry success was nearly as demeaning as failure: it's hard to look cool when you're working overtime to satisfy radio stations and club D.J.'s, and it's hard to maintain your king-of-the-world image when you're being outsold by boy bands.

Ahhh, the joy of show business.