Term 3 Newsletter - Anglo Singapore International School

REELING: The Film ReviewDark Shadows by Sirijung (P6) and Gin (P6)In summary, “Dark Shadows” is a story about a mannamed Barnabas Collins. His family owns a verypowerful canned fish factory during the 18 th century.Barnabas Collins broke Angelique Bouchardʼs heart.Angelique was his maid who was a witch. She loved himbut he loved Josette Durpes so she cursed him andmade him become a vampire.Upbeat – The Music Column By Sirijung (P6)Many parents and e ven someold-fashioned teachers wonʼt approve butmost students will agree that somesoothing music, especially music withoutlyrics can actually help a person study.This is especially true when it comes tocreative writing assignments and essays.Just imagine that your upstairs neighborssound like they're rearranging the furniture and your brother is clipping histoenails across the room. How do you drown out sound and put yourself inthe right mindset to study? There's always “White Noise”, a Mac OS Xsoftware application that drowns out distracting sounds while you work.White Noise plays a continuous, static/waterfall that does a surprisinglyeffective job of killing annoying roommate and downstairs neighbor sounds.You can get it with a free download, Mac OS X only.Besides the above, I actually prefer some good tunes with noise-cancellingheadphones. For deep-focusing background music, I'm partial to any musicwithout a lot of lyrics. Soft instrumental music is probably the best forstudying. What about you? What do you listen to when you're trying tostudy or write?Two centuries later, in 1972, his tomb was dug up andhe went back to the Collinsʼs house. By then, Angeliquehad started her own canned fish factory to compete withhim so she could destroy Barnabas and his family inrevenge. Then, he had to rescue his family because hisfactory was losing to Angeliqueʼs.We felt that the start of the movie was very good withgreat character development of the Barnabas Collinspart (Johnny Depp). Eva Green does a good job actingas Angelique and Chloë Moretz is always good at bad girlroles. But after the first part of the movie, things startedto fall apart for us and the enjoyment factor started tofizzle.Upon first seeing the trailer for this movie, my teachermentioned that “Dark Shadows” was an original TVseries. Having never watched it (the original TV series)before, we cannot compare the two but can say that“Dark Shadows” was a bit of an embarrassment for sucha blockbuster. It's not funny, it's not dramatic, it's notscary, it's not really anything; “Dark Shadows” was just2 hours of blah. The story was very badly written; therewere so many random events and during the last twentyminutes you find out the young girl was really awerewolf the entire time, but it had really nothing to dowith the movie plot.The movie Stars:Angelique Bouchard is played by Eva GreenBarnabas Collins is played by Johnny DeppCarolyn Stoddard is played by Chloë Grace MoretzElizabeth Collins Stoddard is played by Michelle PfeifferBella Heathcote is played by Josette DurpesWhat is Visakha Bucha Day? By NatVisakha Bucha Day is one of the most important days in Buddhism. It is theday of Buddhaʼs birth, enlightenment and death. It all happened on Vesak, aday of the full moon on the sixth lunar month. This day usually is in May.The Buddhaʼs real name was Prince Siddhartha Gotama. He was born aprince and the son of Queen Sirimahamaya and King Suddhodana. When hewas 16, he married Princess Yasodhara and had one son. All his life, thePrince had lived a very convenient life had not seen any suffering. At the ageof 29, Siddhartha escaped and followed practices and starved himself. Hefound out that this is not the way to enlightenment. He then went to theforest and sat under a tree. On his 35 th birthday, he had found a way toenlightenment, the middle way. After he discovered it, he went to teachothers about it and that was how Buddhist started to increase. He died at theage of 80, exactly on his birthday.Visakha Bucha Day is a veryimportant date and there aremany ways to celebrate thisday. Buddhists around theworld can celebrate it by walkingwith lighted candles inhand around a temple, givefood offerings to a Buddhistmonk or release fish andbirds. We can also go totemples and pray.Visakha Bucha Day might be very important but many people, surprisinglyBuddhists themselves too, do not know what it is. No one seems to muchcare much about this anymore. We should encourage others to celebrate thisdate. If we do not respect religions anymore, they may soon all fade away;along with the culture that is a big part of them.