Movie Review: Frozen

My mom had reserved seats for this movie a few days ago telling us that we had to watch this great movie. Although I respected my mom's opinion, I was honestly not cool with the idea of watching what seemed like another princess movie. But then, I remembered the movie Princess Bride from GLPS and decided to watch it.
Here's the trailer:

Frozen is an anamation movie that was released (in Korea) about 2 weeks ago. It was directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee. Despite the asian looking name, Jennifer Lee is actually American. This really reminds me of Mr. Albert Lee from GLPS21.
Anyways, the movie opens with a short episode of Micki mouse. In the cartoon, Micki and his friends rescue Mini, Micki's girl friend, who is captured by some fat dude. While this was happening, the 2D cartoon characters would jump in and out of the screen to become 3D and almost real life characters. Although I was watching the digital version of Frozen, at this short intro cartoon, I almost had the illusion that I was watching 3D and was in the wrong theater room. So, after this came the movie itself.
Here's a short clip of the beginning of this small cartoon unfortunately it doesn't show the most creative and interesting parts.

So, here is the summary of the movie:
(Don't worry because there are no spoilers just things on IMDB): Elsa, princess of Arendell, has a beautiful and dangerous gift. She can make snow and ice at will. After an incident where she almost froze her sister Anna, Elsa isolates herself from everyone to hide what she thinks is her curse. On Elsa's coronation day, the firmly closed doors of Arendell are opened for the first time in many years.  Everything seems good especially for Anna, Elsa's sister.
(Before I go on… Here a comparison of Anna and Rapunzel. Although there are some differences, they do look a little similar)

Anna finally gets to meet real people at a real ball. She even meets Hans, a prince who Anna thinks is her true love. However, things turn bad as Anna triggers Elsa's emotions, causing Elsa to lose control over her ability. Elsa accidentaly makes ice in front of everyone. Her dreaded secret revealed at last, Elsa flees from Arendell, and sets off an eternal winter that even she can't control. Determined to turn things back to normal, Anna embarks on a dangerous journey to find her sister Elsa. On the way she accompanied by Kristoff, a ice seller; Sven, Kristoff's reindeer; and Olaf, a very cute and funny snowman. The four travel through the harsh terrain, hoping to find Elsa and bring an end to the eternal winter magic she set off.

This movie was very surprising and broke the structure and format of the traditional princess movies that Disney usually comes up with. Instead of the traditional prince and princess romance kind of thing, in this movie there was a lot of emphasis on love between family as you can see with Elsa and Anna. Also, there is a big difference especially in the character of the princesses. Back in old times, princesses were like these puny and beautiful women who were basically just sitting there waiting for their true love to rescue them. But, in this movie the princess, especially Anna is a very outgoing and strong person, who actually changes the story. For example in a traditional princess movie, the princess would be in danger and some handsome and strong prince would run off to rescue her. However in this movie it is not the prince who goes looking for Elsa. It is actually the princess (Anna) who goes.  Another aspect of this movie is that it sort of different from old movies is the meaning of love. Although you will find out if you watch the movie, love isn't always what it seems to be... A character I really loved was Olaf, which is the snowman that helps Anna. He was very funny and his jokes often helped me stay focused on some of the "boring" parts of the the movie. It was really funny how a snowman would say that he wanted summer back saying that he wanted to know what the warmth felt like.  There was something I noticed and it was that the trolls from the movie looked sort of like the Jeju Do key chain souvenirs. Here are pictures of each so you can compare them:

There were also a lot of parts, especially in the beginning where the characters would sing. The songs were pretty catchy and at times it was like watching a cartoon musical.
Here's a clip of the song "Let it Go":

The anamations on this movie were also very good. It created a more realistic and artistically beautiful world. Even though it's just snow, the animations made the scenes look really magical.
Here's a picture of the ice castle form the movie. Beautiful, isn't it?:

Anyways this movie really goes outside the box in terms of storyline and characters and this was probably what made the movie interesting. This is (for me) the best animation movie I've ever seen so far. The story wasn't as obvious as the former princess movies like Snow White or whatever and I think it's pretty good. Hopefully I haven't spoiled the movie for you and I do recomend that you watch the movie.

2 words

The end... These are one of my least favorite 2 words. You get that relieved, but sinking feeling inside you, especially if it is the end of a  good movie or book. I have been through many "the ends", such as the Harry Potter series and the Star War saga, but the end of GLPS 21 has so far given me the worst "the end" feeling. Sitting her typing this, I still can't believe that this is the end. A week, or even a day ago, it felt like camp was never going to end.
All our classmates, teachers, roommates, PAs, and TAs that we knew like old friends are now going to part. Although we may still contact each other, we will probably never have another opportunity to study, to debate, and present in front of each other like we did in GLPS. As I said in the beginning, there's a sinking, yet relieved feeling inside me. The heavy burden of history presentations and mock trial is now gone. I feel like I can now breathe in all the clean and fresh air, and can see the true beauty of the school campus. But, with this blissful feeling comes the tremor of uneasiness. Although it was tough at times, I wish (now that it is over) that I could study more here. I guess The only way to do that is to come back. Not as a GLPS camp kid, but as one of the mature and bright KMLA students. It will be harder than anything I have ever done yet, but I feel that I have gotten some courage and motivation. To leave evidence of my determination here, I threw a coin into the fountain in front of the Chungmu building, hoping that 2 years from now I would be able to  retrieve it and buy myself a drink. Although not many of you will read this, I would really like to thank everyone at GLPS. To all the teachers, I would like to say that I am very thankful for all their help and passion. To the PAs and TAs, I want to say thank you for taking care of us and forgiving our wrong doing. Finally, I wish my classmates good luck and hope that we will meet someday in the future. Thank you all for a great GLPS!! I will miss everyone...

Funny Looking Picture

This is a picture-obviously- of Kim Jong En, the current dictator of North Korea. He was ugly even with his normal face, but now that his face is all puffed up like a cheese ball, he looks horrendous. Just attach some snakes on his hair, and make his skin scaly, he could be Medusa's husband.
With a simple deduction from this picture, I think I have found why his face is like that. Just look at the buttons on his coat. As you can see, they all have radioactive signs on them. So, we can assume that because this poor dude ordered so many nuclear tests, even he himself has been nuclear poisoned. As you all know, if you get exposed to too much radiation, it will slowly cook your flesh and make you deformed. Maybe that's why his face is so puffed up. A funny thing I noticed about this picture is that although his face is bigger, his eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows etc, are still in their regular position. Before I stop, I have a quick "fun" fact. Kim Jong en, actually didn't look like what he does know. It is said that he had plastic surgery done to make him look more like his father, Kim Jong ill.
Here's a comparison of the father and son. The first picture is the Kim Jong en, and the second picture is Kim Jong ill.
Oh, and Kim Jong En. Please don't use my post as an excuse to nuke us and make us get all puffy like you. Thank you!!!!!

           VS            

Diamonte Poem

I finished the photo essay and I was wondering what to do. Flipping through the purple blog book that Ms. Angela gave us at the start of camp, I found a few pages on diamonte poems and decided to do it just for fun. OK, so here it is…
Don't forget that there is an explanation of the poem at the bottom!!!

North

horse and buggy, red

testing, boasting, purging

blood, language, DMZ, Korea 

discovering, studying, developing

intricate, egalitarian

South

Explanation: There might be some words here that you may not have heard of. Let me explain the meaning of each word. Here they are:

1. horse and buggy--- A buggy is basically a wagon with a horse driving it. This is an adjective that means that something is old fashioned like the horse and buggy which    people stopped using after the invention of modern automobiles. I used this adjective because North Korea, as you know is very behind in terms of technology. For example, they're still using weapons from the WWII or Cold   War era.

2. Red--- This is just a word that describes communism. I think that this name stuck because the color red was used extensively by the Soviet Union and China

3. Purging--- This is a verb that means to eliminate someone (usually someone with power) in a violet and sudden way. I chose this word in particular because Kim Jong En, the dictator of North Korea, recently killed Jang Song Taek, one of the highest government officials in the Communist Party. 

4. Intricate--- This is just a word meaning sophisticated and advanced. South Korea has the best internet connections for example

5. Egalitarian--- This is a word that means promoting equal rights for everyone. It has a similar meaning to democratic...









Now, let me explain the words in the middle. Although this was sort of an antonym diamonte poem, I chose 4 things that the North and South have in common such as blood, ancestry, language, the same Korea, the DMZ etc etc.
Also, a notable thing is that the poem sort of looks like the Tae kuk symbol on the S. Korean flag. I hope that one day our country may unite and that we can live without worrying that there might be another war someday.

Thank you for reading!!!!!! This may be my last post so bye!!!

Photo Essay

There's a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. But, perhaps a picture can have more value if the photo is also explained with words. Anyway, for my photo essay, I will post 6 pictures that are related to living here at GLPS. My writing won't exactly be describing the photo because I think that it would make it even more boring than it is now.


1. Notebook---

This is a picture of the notebooks we all got on the third(?) day of GLPS. I really love the fact that they have springs because it makes it easier to rip off pages you need or want to discard. However, the one thing that I didn't like about the notebook was the glossy feeling of the paper. It seemed like there was some coating done on the paper and it made writing on the notebook irritating, especially when using a pencil. The notebook has a square shape and "KMLA" is written on the cover in silver writing.





2. Food---(Sorry, don't have a photo for this yet...ㅠㅠ)

The food here at GLPS is to me really, really good. It's like maybe 4 or 5 times better than what I had in my school. Which reminds me, I really hate the free meal policy that the Korean Education Department (or whatever they're called) passed. The food at my regular school wasn't good, but still it was okay. But, after they passed this free meal thing, the food is literally inedible. In the soup, they would put a bunch of water in it so that they could produce as much soup possible for the least amount of money. Let me tell you that the soup tasted terrible (bland). It was very similar to putting too that taste you get when you put to little cocoa powder in your hot chocolate. Also at school, the combination of the meals are so weird and awkward. For example, they would serve curry with some spinach and an apple. But, I have no right to criticize the food because it is free after all. I don't know if it was because I had always eaten this kind of food at school, but the food here is just terrific. There's a lot of meat and I think more effort was put into making it then at school. It may be because of the fact that we all paid tons of money to come here, but still it is pretty good. (well at least to me) Because so much food is made in the cafeteria, the moment the elevator doors open, the aroma of food comes into your nose.

3. IPod---


So, this is a picture of my IPod Nano (gen 7). After Steve Job's death in 2011, I felt that Apple was going down the toilet. Just check out the apple website and look at all the products. The only real change that was made is color. Before, they only sold black and white, but know they sell green, blue, yellow and what not. And guess what?! No innovation what so ever. No new gadgets or cool stuff. The only change: the hue of their already well designed products. Okay, many people will love the fact that they can now buy a colorful IPhone, but it is the software that really matters. I fear that Apple, one of the most creative companies in the world has now put a fence around their genius. Even though I say this I do still like Apple. So anyways, in great need of an MP3 player I bought the IPod Nano because I already had a Mac Book Air and the design looked good etc etc. The IPod Nano, is about the size of a business card, and has a rectangle shape. It is made of mostly Aluminum and it feels very nice in your hand and you can barely feel it in your hand because it is very light. I really don't think that I could have survived without all of my favorite music to lift my spirits, especially when I was really exhausted because of all the work that I had to do. Occasionally, when I had to study in the bathroom (they cut all electricity to the dorms except for the bathroom) I would listen to some noisy songs to keep myself up. Being a huge Eminem fan, 95% of all the songs in my IPod are Eminem songs and I've also memorized most of the lyrics for almost every song as well. It might seem like an incredible feat of memory, but it's actually pretty easy because most of the lyrics rhyme.



4. EOP paper---

Everyone in GLPS has probably gotten one of these before. In this photo, you can see that there are maybe 12 sentences that you would have to memorize. But, on the first week of GLPS, EOP papers used to be almost twice as long as they are now. I guess that the PAs, realizing that we weren't smart enough to memorize so much, reduced the quantity of the sentences that we had to memorize. Anyway, the EOP paper would usually have you memorize something interesting such as a Bane (villain from Dark Knight Rises) quote, or a description of a snitch. On this particular one, it has a Mr. Smith(Matrix) quote on what humans are. The EOP paper is just a A4 paper that has a bunch of writing on it. It might just be me, but whenever I hold one of these in my hand I get the feeling of wanting to crumple it up and play paper basketball.


5. Green/Yellow/Red Cards

These cards are all of the same size and same shape, the only difference is what each card means. Green cards equal good job, yellow cards say that you're in trouble, and red cards say that you are a bad kid. I don't quite understand the hype about these cards. They're just a piece of paper made to try and control little kids. On a few occasions I noticed that some kids were doing all they could for that (useless) paper card and I was confused. Honestly, who cares about green cards? It's just a way to get kids to compete and participate more. Now, let's look at the yellow and red cards. Many kids are afraid of recieving these cards because you can't get an award if you get too many of these. First of all, I think that it isn't the yellow cards that prevent you from getting an award. It's actually your own lack of skill or effort that stops you. I think it's okay to get 1 or even 3 of these. It's just a colored piece of paper after all. However, I am not saying that we should misbehave or something like that and I also don't mean to offend anyone. I just think that some kids are putting too much fuss about these cards.

6. Jacket---


God, it is just so cold here at KMLA. It's always below 0 degrees and the occasional gale of wind really doesn't help. To add to that, the buildings are about maybe 200m apart and we have to walk all the way up- or down-to our next class. In this blood freezing place up in the mountains, my jacket was really a life saver. Imagine leaving your jacket in your dorm. You would have to single handedly battle the flesh biting cold of Korea. In these circumstances your jacket will truly help you stay warm and alive. So, when you walk to your next class, please don't forget to take your jacket. 

These are my pictures and each of their descriptions. There are some parts where I exaggerated a bit, but still most of what I said is true. All the photos were taken with my friend's camera, so I would really like to thank him. If there's another everyday thing that is important here at GLPS, please comment and I will add it to this post. Thank you for reading!!! Hope everyone has a good time for the remaining few days left of GLPS.

Movie Review: The Princess Bride

So today, instead of studying we went to the auditorium, to watch the movie: The Princess Bride. The Princess Bride is a movie directed by Rob Reiner in 1987. It has several genres and they are to me: romance, comedy, action, fantasy, and cliff-hanger.
The movie opens with a grandfather reading a story (called the Princess Bride) to his grandson.

This is the story that the grandfather told:
Princess Buttercup is to be Prince Humperdink's fiance. However, she has still not forgotten her true love, Westley, who was killed 5 years ago. The princess is kidnapped by three bandits, but she is rescued by a mysterious black man. It turns out that this black man is actually Westley. The two are united, but only for a few moment because they are captured by an angery Prince Humperdink. With the help of the two former kidnappers, Westley is rescued and the trio plan to infilitrate and rescue the princess from her forced marriage. I will stop here because I don't want to spoil the movie for yall. 
Here's the trailer and please excuse Prince Humperdink's large and quadilateral(square) shaped face.

This movie was very impressive, especially considering the fact that the movie is 27 years old. I really liked how the grandfather was reading a story to his grandson. I felt like my own grandfather was telling me a story, when I was really in a dark room looking at a screen.

In terms of leadership, I didn't really see what to do, but I did see what not to do. For example. Vizzini, the bald kidnapper showed me an example of bad leadership. He treated his fellow kidnappers like they were fools when he himself wasn't smart either. From this example you can clearly see that if you are the boss then you should treat your subjects with respect, duh. Here's a clip that shows what not to do in leadership.

Vizzini reminds me once again that people with real talent don't have to show it. It just shows through. Here's the clip that proves Vizzini's thickness. He seems to talk with very clear logic, but when the two men drink, he dies. Well, look how much good Arisotle did to you, Vizzini.

Out of the movie, I didn't really like the end. It left me with a question. What now? Maybe the director stopped the movie here because from this point on, it would just be an obvious happy ending. Although it would have been a little mushy, maybe it would have been better if the movie showed what happened to Buttercup, Westley and the two kidnappers. 
Now, let me talk about 2 technical problems in this movie.

1. ROUS (Rodents of Unusual Size)

Remember these more-cute-than-scary creatures from the forest? The moment I saw these guys I got a feeling that there was a human in some sort of costume. The way this thing moved  reminded me too much about the way a human would crawl. Also although you might think that this   
creature is only fictional it actually exists for real. Ladies and gentleman let me introduce to you the world's largest rodent!!!!(Applause) It is  the Capybara, and it is from South America. Minus the teeth, the ugly snarls, and the darker brown fur, you would get this "little" guy down here.

2. Burning Dress and Fire Swamp

As in the picture above, you can see a hole or tube where the fire is coming out. You can see that the princess has caught fire. However, in the movie, after the prince helps the princess to  extinguish her dress, I noticed that there were no burn marks on the dress. She must be wearing a fireproof dress or something.

3. Rolling down the hill scene

For those of you that don't remember, the princess pushes Westley (didn't know at the time) down the hill. While the black man rolls down he manages to say the words "As you wish". Hearing those 3 words, the princess also falls down the hill. I wonder who pushed her. Finding no one else present in this scene, I can conclude that the princess pushed herself down the hill. (Am I starting to sound like Vizzini now?) 

So, these are the 3 technical errors that I found. But, rather than to criticize the director or the movie, I want to say that these errors actually made the movie somewhat more interesting to watch. These days because of all the advanced computer graphics and what not, you can't really tell what's real and what's fake. Although there were several technical errors, and the ending was a bit of a nuisance, overall it was a very good movie for something that is 27 years old. The story was also interesting and it was told pretty quickly. There was also many interesting characters and catchy phrases.(As you wish, Inconceivable, Prepare to die, etc) Although I wasn't really looking forward to this movie because of its title, it really did surprise me in the many aspects that I mentioned before. If only movies like this could be combined with the modern computer graphics…

3 Things about Me

Who are you? That is a very important question. To answer this question instead of writing a boring post talking about where I was born and how many family members I have, I will write three things about me and you get to figure out what they mean. Well, here they are:
***Please click on the numbers***

1. COD


2. Marshall Mathers

3. -6


So, these are my three things. If you want to know more-which some of you who are already bored by now might not- please click on the links at the bottom of this page.

If you have read this entire post and you find it boring; I am sorry. My only excuse is that these 3 things were the best I could think of.

Pop Song Contest

So, today we had the pop song contest in the gym at 4. I was nervous , but sort of confident because we had practiced a lot with Mr. Blaney Sir. Our class chose to do Micheal Jackson's "Thriller".

We were going to go for a modern pop song, but we chose this song instead because we thought this song would bring up lots of nostalgia from the judges. After choosing the song we had to make the dance. Mr. Blaney really did much of this. To match the song we had this zombie theme. The most interesting part our dance was when all the zombies chased the two humans (Freddy and June) and eventually ate them. To make us look more like zombies our PA, 지영, helped us put do zombie make up. It was the first time that ever had make up done on my face (aside from suncream if that counts as make up), so it felt very weird and awkward and more so because a girl did applied the sticky stuff on me. Anyways, despite our efforts, at the contest we got second place. Everyone was disappointed. We had spent so much time practicing and Mr. Blaney Sir had invested a lot of his time too. While writing this, I suddenly remember a saying that the losers always have the most to talk about.

--Picture of our class at the pop song contest. (www.glps.co.kr)

The problem for us was that unlike when we practiced, we didn't sing loudly enough. I really regret the fact that I didn't tell anyone that we should use the mics. Maybe we would have won if we did so...
I feel sorry for Mr. Blaney Sir, and wish we could have won, at least to make him feel a little better. I'm not sure if he is pissed off, but if he is I understand. After all, he was the one who made the dance and plan everything. I even saw his notebook, which was filled with drawings of the dance moves.
At least get second and we all did our best. I want to end this post by saying thanks to everyone in our class. Cheer up everyone!!!!