There's a new movie coming out this month called the box trolls. It is from the makers of Caroline and Paranorman, but more importantly, it is composed of stop animation. Stop animation is when you get an object and you take a picture after you move it a little bit so that it appears that it is moving. To get it looking fluent, you have to take tons of pictures, even for a PSA that is just thirty seconds. Imagine how many pictures that would take to make a whole 100 minute long movie. The patience needed to do that is also major. If you make a mistake like kick the tripod on accident or move the character to much, you may have to start again to get perfection. I would give up after the first mistake. You can find the trailer here. <http://www.focusfeatures.com/the_boxtrolls> I never thought about this before I was in Media, but now I have a new appreciation for stop animation.

   I think that the scariest thing that I have ever done was go into Alcatraz Prison. I went there on a tour, not because I did something bad. That place was the absolute scariest place ever and I was scared for weeks later. It was already scary and gloomy, but then to make it worse, they talked about the people who died in there. That scared the bageebers outa me. Then, I saw this really creepy doll that this person made to escape.

   The place itself was probably one of the scariest places that I have ever been. It was really dark and scary. The walls were also partly broken. It was dirty and scary. The beds also were broken and the toilets and sinks in the cells were brown and busted. It was really not somewhere that you would want to go to.

   If the physical part of Alcatraz wasn't enough, they then started talking about the inmates that killed other people with the lunch table on spaghetti day. Jeez, walking on a death field. They also said how the guards killed the prisoners and vice versa. That is like a real life haunted house.

   I then saw a scary doll. I find dolls and manikins super duper scary. Ventriloquists scary me half to death, faceless manikins make me want to puke out of fright, and then I saw a faceless doll mean to help a murderer escape from prison. Holy moly. That just freaked me out. It was in an orange jumpsuit and frightened me three fourths to death. Man! Was I scared. It definitely didn't help that it was in a gloomy murder zone for convicted criminals.

   So basically, the scariest thing that I have ever done was go to Alcatraz on a tour. It was dark and creepy, people died there, and they had a faceless doll. I never want to go there again. Never ever. Gave me night mares, and then when I went home, for a couple of weeks, whenever I heard a soft sound, a little part of me died. It was terrifying.

     Pretty much everybody in the world has already experienced a little stress in his or her life. If you are in media, chances are that for however long you have been in media, you have felt stress every waking hour. Because of this, you need to develop ways to un-stress yourself. I have three ways that seem to work for me. These are sleeping, showering, and any mindless activity.

     Sleeping feels really great when you are starting to get stressed. I generally sleep at night when I have all my work done. You just relax and start to drift off. Sleeping can be done virtually anywhere, and most people won't mind if you do it if you have all your work done. Sleeping also takes no energy to do, so it's my favorite.

     I also like to shower. Showering feels great if the water is at a luke warm temperature. Showering is great because like sleeping, you get an opportunity to do it at least once a day, and no one has a problem with you doing it. People actually encourage it. It not only de-stressifies you, but also increases personal hygiene. The only problem with it is that it wastes valuable fresh water, so you shouldn't take really long showers.

     The final way that I like to relieve stress is by engaging in mindless activity. This can be a lot of things. It can be watching a movie, playing video games or reading a book. These activities generally don't take very much brainpower, (unless the book really advanced) are really relaxing, and are generally entertaining. This form of stress relief is the least advised. If you are stressed, it generally is because some thing is due or work has to be completed. These activities take up a lot of valuable time that probably should be used to finish your work instead. If you have work to do, then you should complete it before you engage in any of these activities.

     These are the three ways that I like to relieve stress by. Snoozing, taking a bath, and participating in activities that generally take relatively little thinking power. Some of these are better than others and take less time, but they all work for me. I hope that some of these are useful to you so you don't get too stressed out, which can be very bad.

   This year, I have become an eighth grader and there are a lot more responsibilities. For one, there is the eighth grade slide show. It is a slide show that the eighth graders of our class make every year to show at the end of year banquet. The eighth graders always wait till the last minute to do it. As an eighth grader we also have to think of the community service project for first quarter. The final responsibility is to be the role model and help the new people in the class, which I personally think is the hardest job. I think that it is the hardest job because you need to teach the new people in the class everything that you know. It becomes especially hard when you need to finish a project but you need to mentor, and that is when things get tough.

   For first quarter, our (Carter and I's) project is not doing so well. It's on the rise of the rose ringed parakeets and it is pretty behind. This is because we have had a little trouble contacting them. I also think that we will have to change our story as well. Although we are behind, I do think that we will finish on time though.

   The first reason on why our project is late is that we have had trouble getting in contact with them. We called them the week that we got our topic approved and they answered, but then the person that we needed to talk to was sick, so we said we call beak later. We have since then called them almost every day for two weeks and they have not since picked up. We can't find the other person’s contact information that we wanted to interview. He has the exact same name of a famous actor that lives in LA, so we can’t get in contact with him through the internet.

   I was thinking of changing the topic because if we can’t even find who we wanted to be the main speaker in our project, it's going to be hard. I few do want to switch, we're going to have to do it fast, because the deadlines are rolling in. IF we can't change our topic, then we are going to have to try really hard to get our parakeet story working.

   I do think that we will finish though. Even I few do have to change our story, my partner and I will work really hard on our project. Also, because we have more laptops this year, when the laptops get approved, then we can take our project home and work on it. The hardest part of a story is getting an interview because it is partially out of control, but once we film our interviews, we will have no problem finishing our story on time.

   In conclusion, our story is a little bit behind and should be farther along but isn't. This is partially because we have not been able to get in contact with the people that we would like o interview. We may have to change our topic if this doesn't work out. Although we are behind, once we get our interviews, all it will take is a little hard work and we will have our project done on time if not early.

   This year, the class is going to one community service project every quarter. For the first quarter, the eighth graders are going to think of one. The idea o doing a beach cleanup was brought up, and I think that it is a good idea; the only problem is that we don't know what beach it will be on or when. I do have one question for Mr.M, which I will ask on Monday is if we are going to do it with an organization, or are we just doing it as a class by ourselves. I do think that the idea of community service is a good one though because we get so much from the community through our fundraisers; I think that it would be a good idea to give a little bit back.

   The first week of school was a so-so week. It had its good points, but it also had it s bad points. It was good because I was excited to get back to school, and it was only a three day school week, but it was bad because there was a new bell schedule.

   I was really excited to be back in school because I wanted to see what classes I was in and I wanted to meet up with my friends. I wasn't too overly excited about my schedule this year, although I was really happy that I got PE. I wanted PE last year but I didn't get it. I was hoping to have art, but I don’t. There's always next semester though. I did see most of my friends over summer, so seeing them in school was not that big of a deal. It was fun though and I do have a lot of classes with them.

   The school week also wasn't that long. It was only a three days long. This is due to Hurricane Issele. I didn’t' hit us, although they closed down the school as a precautionary measure. It’s not that I don't like school; it’s just that I like it only a few days a week. 

   The reason why it wasn't a great school week was that the bell schedule was really hard to get adjusted to. The bell schedule changed from having advisory in the morning to having advisory at lunch time. I was late to some of my classes because I went to the wrong one. Another thing that will make all school days not so fun is that I have a class on one side of the school and another class directly after that on the other side of school. I have to run to make it on time, but the schools not that big so it’s not much of a problem.

   So basically, the first week of school was pretty okay. It was neither fantastic nor horrible. I liked getting back to school, especially because it was a short week, although the bell schedule was a little difficult to get used to.