Monday, April 22, 2013

Amelia Earhart

Birth Date and Place  



Amelia Earhart was born on July 24,1897 in Atchison Kansas. Atchison Kansas is also known as the America’s Heartland. Amelia spent a majority of her childhood in her grandparents house. Her grandparents lived in a spacious white wood and brick Victorian house.She spent almost 9 months a year with her grandparents, because her mother Amelia “Amy” Otis had married a man that had a bad alcohol problem. This Alcohol problem lead them into money problems, so when times got rough her mother would send Amelia and her younger sister Muriel to their grandparents house. Amelia and her sister were very close and enjoyed going on adventures and exploring in their grandparents neighborhood.They would climb trees and go hunting for rats and other little animals. Their favorite thing to do was to go sledding on a big hill far from their grandmothers sight. Amelia enjoyed belly slamming, which is when she would run really fast and jump on the sled and go down the hill super fast. The girls grandmother did not approve of their belly-slamming.Their grandmother also disapproved of the bloomers worn by both of the Earhart girls. The girls  started wearing bloomers because their aunt approved of them. Their  aunts name was Margaret, who was a feminist. Amelia  did not always act like a proper little girl. She enjoyed trying to be one of the boys. she liked to climb fences and did not wanna wear the dresses that the other girls wore.


Hobbies,Interests, and Activities


Amelia was never one of the girls, she always acted as one of the boys.There was never a day that went by that Amelia was not out on another adventure. She loved to be outside, whenever she was outside she felt as if she were free and nothing could hold her back. Amelia was always considered a tomboy. When Amelia was ten years old her father took her to the Iowa State Fair. this is where she saw her first aircraft. Her father tried to get her to like the idea of taking flight,  but one look at the old rusty “flivver” was enough for her.She had no interest in taking flight. Later in Amelia's life her and a friend visited an airfield.One of the highlights for her was the flying exhibition pilot on by a World War 1 “ace” pilot. The pilot saw Earhart and her friend in an isolated clearing and dived at them. Earhart stood her ground as the pilot took the aircraft close to them. Amelia says she believes that the little red airplane said something to her. Earhart could not figure out what it had told her though. In long beach in 1920 Earhart and her father attended an airfield where Frank Hawks gave her a ride that forever changed her life. From that day forward she knew she had to fly,learning how to fly became all she ever thought about. She began working many jobs to try and earn 1000 dollars for flying lessons. January 3, 1921 was the day of her first flying lesson. 6 months from that day she purchased a second hand bright yellow Kinner Airster Biplane which she named the “Canary “. She set her flying ambitions high and on October 22, 1922 she flew the canary to an altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a world record for female pilots.Earhart became the 16th woman to be issued a pilots license.  




Anecdotes  


Amelia Earhart the tomboy of her family was always so brave. She never let anyone see that she was scared. Some people say that they think that amelia never was scared.She would always take on any challenge that was thrown her way. One day when Amelia was younger her father had made enough money by working outside the office. He made $100 and spent it all on a family excursion to the worlds fair in  St. Louis. That is where amelia saw her first roller coaster. she told her grandparents that the roller coaster was so fast she felt like she was going to fly right out of her seat. As soon as they returned to Kansas , she began to build one of her own. She had one of her neighborhood friend and uncle Carl help with it. She even built a buggy with wheels big enough to fit on the tracks that were constructed out of lumber and nails they found in the tool shed behind the house.She hauled the cart up to the roof and gave her friend the go ahead to push her down the ramp. The first run ended in a crash landing. Amelia crawled out with a torn dress and a cut lip, but wanted to try again. The  second run was a success. Amelia said she felt like she was flying.  


Career



Earhart did not just have one job throughout her life. She had many jobs, but not one was she more passionate about then flying. Amelia was fortunate enough to have grandparents that paid for a lot of things growing up. When they passed they left Amelia's mother a trust. Amelia's mother was paying for her tuition fees and all associated costs for Columbia University. She soon after had to transfer to the Massachusetts Institute of technology because her mother could no longer afford what she was asked to pay. So amelia then began looking for work and found a job as a teacher. Soon after that at the age of 28 she became a social worker  in Medford Massachusetts , there she maintained her aviation interest. There she became a member of the american aeronautical society boston chapter . Eventually she was elected as vice president of the group. She left her job as a social worker and became a sales representative for kinner airplanes. On the side of that she wrote local newspaper columns promoting flying. She started to become a local celebrity and was asked to lay out plans for an organization devoted to female flyers. In 1927 Earhart was asked by Capt. Hilton to help him fly across the Atlantic. After the flight Amelia began her official career in Aviation.


Reason for fame, Later life/old age, and Death

After Earhart began flying as her job, she started to show up all over the newspapers and magazines. They began reffering to her as “Lady Lindy”. The United press called her “The Queen of the Air”. Soon Amlia was writing books, and posing in pictures for big companie. She posed for products like luggage, Cigarettes and womens clothing, also some sports wear. She had clothes that were apart of her image sold in macy's. She was doing all of the endorsements for only one reason, and that was to earn money to finance her flying. In
1929 Amelia became the first Aviator to promote commercial Air travel. Along with Charles Lindbergh she represented TAT or transcontinental Air Transport. Later her company became Northeast Airlines. She had gained so much fame for her transatlantic flight, but still only focused on being in the air. In august 1928 Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the North American continent and back. Many experienced professional pilots who flew with her said “she was born a flier.”. At the age of 34 Amelia made one of her most memorable flights. May 20, 1932 she flew solo nonstop across the Atlantic. For being the first women to do this she was given the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress and the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the french Government. She also received the gold medal of the National Geographic Society from President Hoover. Because of her fame she became close friends with many important people such as Eleanor Roosevelt, and the first lady. After Earhart's bug flight she went on many other solo flights. In 1937 Earhart started planning the round-the-world flight with Fred Noonan. Once they had everything planned it took them three tries to get everything right. On their Final Approach to the Howland Island they started using radio navigation. Soon they realized that the radio connection was bad. The radio connection was bad. The Itasca received strong and clear voices from Earhart but she could not hear them. Noonan and her kept talking to any air landing towers they could. No one able to get a good enough connection. Earhart and Noonan were never able to get ahold  of someone. They had no choice but to land somewhere because they were out of gas. The only reason we know this is because Pan American Airways station could hear Earhart, the airlines said “ they must be on land with the aircraft since water would have caused the connection to fail.”. Sporadic signals were reported for four or five days after Amelia had disappeared, but none had any understandable information. Search efforts began about one hour after Earhart's last recorded message. The search efforts lasted until July 19, 1937. As a result of never finding Earhart or the aircraft, Amelia Earhart was declared legally dead on January 5, 1939. Many people said Earhart was “ shyly charismatic, independent, cool under pressure and courageous.”. Earhart's accomplishments have inspired many female pilots. Today the home where Amelia was born is now the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum. No matter how Earhart died she will always and forever be the “Queen of the Air”.



Thursday, March 7, 2013


Stress

As times goes on teenagers stress levels are getting higher and higher. Teenagers have a lot to deal with during their high school years. Between parents, teachers, school work, and after school activities like work and sports a teenagers stress level can be extremely high. First off school can cause a lot of stress on its own. Teachers don't always understand that homework can get really overwhelmingly when you have it every night for every class. Sometimes you have to work on big projects even when you have other homework. It gets hard to worry about homework when you have your own personal work to do at home. Some parents give chores to be completed over the week and if you don't get them done then your grounded and know one wants to be grounded. Parents also expect us to be involved in sports or extra curricular activities that can take up a lot of our free time between practices every day or up to three times a week not including games or matches. Besides sports parents also expect us teenagers to start paying for our own things and be responsible and get a job. So now we have homework, chores, sports, and work to worry about, but also getting good grades and applying for colleges. With all that being said I hope you starting see just how stressed teenagers can be. With that being said I think parents and teachers should be a little more understandings and realize how much stress they are putting on teenagers.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Coraline Movie Review

Coraline,the touching, funny, and even a little creepy stop motion film will keep your eyes peeled on the screen. The movie Coraline directed by Henry Selick, is a movie about a young girl named Coraline played by Dakota Fanning, gets her life turned  a little upside down. The movie takes place in Ashland, Oregon where Coraline and her parents, who are played by John Hodgman and Teri Hatcher, move into the Pink Palace Apartments.


This movie starts out with a young, bored, adventure seeking Coraline you goes exploring through her new home. Coraline finds a secret door, but to her disappointment the door has been sealed up and has bricks covering anything that could be behind it. That night Coraline goes to bed just as unhappy as before, because she does not like her new home and has only made one friend named Wybie and his little black cat. Once Coraline falls asleep the mysterious hidden door becomes a portal to a while new world. This whole new world is everything  Coraline could ever dream of and much more. To Coraline everything in this new world is perfect and beautiful, even her "other parents". When she goes to into this new world she is introduced to what looks like her mom and dad but they have buttons as eyes.Coraline calls them her "other mother" and "other father". Coraline started to come to thus new world every night to see her other mother who always had the most Delicious food and gave her the best presents. Coraline begins falling in love with this new world, but what does this mean for her real mom and dad? Is this new world really what it seems?

Henry Selick the director of this film and Neil Gaiman the writer of Coraline worked countless hours with the help of many to make this movie the best it could be. Everything in this movie was handmade! Every person working on this film had to be extremely dedicated and very creative. Its amazing just how much work goes into a stop motion film.



Overall i thought Coraline was a great movie. It had a great hidden message and kept my eyes glued to the screen the whole movie. I would not recommend this movie to younger kids because at times it can be a bit scary. This is definitely a movie i would want to see again.

Monday, October 1, 2012

So You Think You Can Dance

So You Think You Can Dance, a show that has caught the eye of millions of people. This show consists of twenty dancers competing against one another for the title of America's Favorite Dancer. The dancers are to learn many different types of dances from hip hop, quick step, salsa, and contemporary. At the end of each week the two Judges Nigel Lyhgoe and Mary Murphy with Americas help picks who stay  and who goes. In the end there is only dancer left who receives the title America's Favorite Dancer.

Season 9 of  So You Think You Can Dance was a very interesting season. With so many unique and original dancers as the weeks progressed it became harder and harder to watch a dancer be eliminated. There are always many contemporary, hip hop, and jazz dancers on the show but we never really get to experience the joy of having ballet dancers. This season we were lucky enough to have three ballet dancers. Two of them were fortune enough to make into the top ten. As season 9 progressed we all began to fall in love with amazing dancers, but each we week sadly had to watch one girl and boy leave. Once it got down to the top four it became clear who Americas Favorite Dancers were going to be.

At the begging of the season finale all top 20 dancers were reunited for one last group dance. This opening dance was such an extraordinary piece that America fell in love with, the dance was choreographed by Sonya Tayeh and Christopher Scott. Producer/judge Nigel Lyhgoe says that this dance was the "best routine we've ever opened the show with.". Throughout the entire show the host Cat Deeley, the judges, and each one of the top four dancers was able to pick there favorite dance of the entire season and have it performed one last time. After all of the dances were performed Cat Deeley informed us that it was time to get down to business and announce not just one winner this season but two! America voted on who their top boy and girl was. In the end both Ballet dancers Eliana Girard and Chehon Wespi-Tschopp were announced the winners.

I believe that America made the right choice by picking Eliana and Chehon. Both of these dancers excelled in every dance that was thrown there way. From the begging to the end we watched them improve and fight for their spot on the show. All of the judges saw a lot of potential in both of the dancers. So with out a doubt theses are Americas Favorite Dancers.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012