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The Direction I’m Going Now With This Blog

Now you see me… Now you don’t…

 

I’ve been trying to blog for years and nothing truly good ever comes to me. It wasn’t until recently when I realized my love for movies that I decided to change the direction on this blog and make my main focus reviewing movies. 

 

These movies may be good or may be awful, but no matter what, I will give you all the most accurate rating I can give. I will be using the star scale and making the scale be out of five, five being the highest a movie can go. 

 

So, when will these movie reviews be out? Sundays at 11:30 am, starting this coming Sunday, October 4th. 


Why October? I decided to choose October because I am in love with horror movies that some people might have not heard of. And what better month to do it than October?

 

Here is the schedule for when I will be releasing the spooky horror reviews:

October 4th

Teacher (2019)

October 11th

??? (a surprise!)

October 18th

Creep (2014)

October 25th

Truth or Dare (2017) vs. Truth or Dare (2018)

October 28th

Movie Reviews Coming In November

 

What if I liked hearing your stories about college and your overall life? I’m not done with those blogs yet, but those will be posted every Wednesday for anyone interested.

 

Here is the schedule for my life blogs:

 

October 7th

College in COVID-19 Times

October 14th

The Truth Behind Being A Transfer Student

October 21st

Mistakes I Made When Transferring

 

Thank you for your support and interest! 🙂 I can’t wait to get these started!

 

Stay safe!

 

– Allyson

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The Trolley Effect

All aboard the Sociology train! It’s time to talk about one of my favorite theories: The Trolley Effect. The Trolley Effect is a really fun theory/effect/whatever you want to call it. It can take many forms, many situations, and many hours to discuss it. So get your debating shoes on because talking about this in a Sociology class, could last awhile.

The Story

The Trolley Effect goes like this: You are near a platform and you have a lever you can pull. The trolley tracks split into two paths ahead and on one side (let’s say the left) is one person and on the other side (right) are three people. The trolley is coming and cannot stop and currently is on the right tracks headed for the three people. What do you do? Do you switch it to kill the one person? Or do you kill three people and save one?

A beautiful representation of the trolley effect I created

Most of the people, including me, chose to save the three people. Then my teacher changed it up on us. What if it was a loved one on the other side of the track? Would you hit three strangers to save your loved one? Or would you hit your loved one to save three strangers?

Loopholes

Many people in my class found ways around this problem. Here is a list of some of my favorite loopholes.

  • The trolley should continue on the three person track, someone has to notice the trolley coming.
  • Scream at the top of your lungs at the people closest to you — someone has to hear you.
  • If there’s a loved one on the tracks, call their phone, and tell them to get off them.
  • Why would this exist? No one would play on trolley tracks long like this?
  • Find a way to de-rail or stop the trolley
Real World Application

While this seems implausible, this problem is a really fun theory to mess around with. There is a real world application with this problem and it is self-driving cars. Currently, they are using this to decide what should happen if the car cannot stop and has to stop itself.

http://moralmachine.mit.edu/ (This is a really cool simulation and it let’s you decide between two events.)

Summary

The Trolley Problem is great for having fun in Sociology class and determining the morality of people. This shouldn’t ever have to happen to anyone nor should this actually be tested. But, if you ever take a Sociology class now you can find fun and new ways to get past this problem or present this problem.

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The Girl Who Never Smiled

 A girl never to laugh or love, a girl to never smile.
 Her father sent out a dove, to find someone to her beguile.
 So off the dove flew, and not many came,
 To help this sorrow girl and come to her aid.
 So this girl never showed her teeth,
 Or smiled for her kingdom to see.
 Instead, she stayed forever in grief.
 Never knowing what she was missing.
 A boy whose story should not be told,
 Punished and worked till he felt old.
 His boss sent him out with one coin a year,
 Only for him to drop it down a well, one coin each year.
 So one year this boy traveled the world,
 With all the coins given from Mother Earth.
 The well overflowed and came with,
 His one coin a year and everything beneath.
 He gave a coin to a mouse who asked for alms,
 A coin to a beetle for all of its qualms.
 A coin to a catfish for wanting legs,
 Giving him nothing for him at home.
 So off to the castle, did this boy take,
 Hoping to be merry and fortune to fortake.
 When the boy, he did slip in the mud,
 And fell from up and up above.
 The princess watching stifled a laugh,
 Showering the castle in all that she had. 
 So now, the boy turned oh so hot,
 Married his princess, who smiled a lot.
 Happy and forever ever after who thought.
 This is where their storybook ending gets closed,
 With the famous words, “The End”,
 Now their story, the world will know.

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Comparing a Dandelion to a Ski Lift… Hard or Easy?

This past week, I learned about comparing and contrasting in an essay. There are three ways to compare and contrast. We wrote down two people, places. or things, then threw them into the center of the room. Then, we had to walk into the center of the room and grab two pieces of paper and write about that. I got a dandelion and a ski lift. Two polar objects that have no relevance to each other. We then got to pick what format we wrote ours about. The block f, the point by point, or the “build up” format.

Here are the three types of formats along with the essay I wrote on contrasting and comparing a dandelion and a ski lift.

 

  • Block
    • The most common type of format, the block format is where you take object A or B, (for example a dandelion) and put all of the focus on that object. Then, when you introduce object B (ex. ski lift), you do a few sentences on it alone. Then, you immediately compare and contrast object B to object A.
  • Point by Point
    • The point by point format is where you take both object A and object B and find similarities and differences. Your strongest point goes last and you take object A and object B point by point.
  • The “Build Up”
    • The “Build Up” format is when there’s one huge point and you just build up on that one point you have. This can be challenging but the people in my class were able to do it perfectly.

I decided to do the block format for comparing and contrasting dandelions and ski lifts. The essay is down below :

Yellow flowers and the bare weeds with their seeds hanging onto an umbrella crowd the grassy lawns across Colorado. The bright dandelions reflect the sun’s golden smile on a hot summer day. Dandelions can survive weed sprayers, little children, and being mowed. Yet dandelions cannot survive the harshness winter brings. With the cold and unmoving air, comes children abandoning their grassy front yard filled with weeds for the harsh half-days up in the mountains skiing. Once skiing, families make their way to the mechanical machine that transports them up the mountain so they can just reset their progress; the ski lift. While dandelions can survive forever, these ski lifts stay open for ski season only and just help the weary up the snowy mountain.

Yet, ski lifts and dandelions have helped children create and reach their dreams. Little children gather bouquets of dandelions and wish on their desires and hopes by blowing the little white umbrellas into the ocean blue sky. Meanwhile, ski lifts transports some young children whose dreams are to either become Olympians or to become competitive skiers. Those dreams can be reached by the transportation in the sky or the weeds rooting up from the grassy meadows, nonetheless.