Movie Review

Albert Nobbs
Disguise is freedom... or is it?

Release date: 2012

Rating: **1/2

By Katelyn Bright April 29, 2012

This drama that takes place in Ireland in the 19th century, tells the story of woman who wanted nothing more than the chance to be able to live out her dreams.

Opening the movie, you see a male figure serving in a fancy hotel for hoity toity passers by. But there is something peculiar about this male figure. He seems very alert, very quiet, always on guard. As the night winds down and guests retire to their rooms, so do the maids and butlers. Albert returns to his room to do his daily routine of counting his money that is stored under the floorboards of his room in the hotel where he stays.

Soon a painter by the name of Mr. Page comes to the hotel to make a few touch ups by Mrs. Baker, the hotel owner’s, bidding. Mr. Page’s job is one that will take a few days to finish, so he needs a place to stay while he is there to work. Mrs. Baker makes the proposal that Mr. Page share a bed with Mr. Nobbs. When Mr. Nobbs protests, the audience’s suspicions about him begin to rise. What is he hiding? Albert suggests that Mr. Page sleep on the couch downstairs. Mrs. Baker becomes outraged at this suggestion, and Albert has no choice but to allow Mr. Page to share a bed with him for the night.

That night, Albert returns to his room to retire for the night, finding Mr. Page already asleep in bed. As Albert lies down to rest without waking his unwanted guest, he suddenly starts to convulse. As he jumps out of bed, his surprise is not only revealed to the audience, but to Mr. Page as well. “Jesus, you’re a woman,” Page exclaims, as we see that Nobbs was trying desperately to unclasp the corset that was choking her. Nobbs automatically fell to her knees, begging Mr. Page not to let her secret out. Page promises to not tell, as long as Nobbs stops sniveling, as she was about to wake the others throughout the hotel.

The next day, Mr. Nobbs tries to serve Mr. Page while we works without intending to make things awkward, but fails. As he tries to thank Mr. Page for keeping her secret, Page pulls him aside to show Nobbs a secret of his own. As Page reveals what’s under his shirt, Nobbs is taken aback to discover Page is a woman as well.

Albert Nobbs continues to butler at the hotel, but day dreams of opening up her own tobacco shoppe with her hard earned money. She also dreams of having a wife alongside her to help run the shoppe.

As she dreams of these things, she wonders how in the world Page was able to have such success in the life she runs? By this time, Page has finished the painting tasks asked of Mrs. Baker, and has left the hotel. With so many questions to ask, Nobbs sets off to Page’s house for a visit. When he finds the house, a little woman opens the door, followed by Page. Nobbs is introduced to Kathleen and is invited to stay for supper. Page goes on to tell Nobbs her story and how she found Kathleen and how she’s adjusted to this life of being a man. Page tells Nobbs that any goal she has set in life, she should just go for it.

Nobbs then proceeds to make a move on one of the maid’s she’s had her eye on, Helen. But Helen is seeing Joe, the new boiler room worker. Even though Joe is abusive, Helen still continues to see him. Helen turns down the thought of “walking” with Mr. Nobbs, but Joe thinks it’s a great idea. He tells Helen that she should try and get things out of Mr. Nobbs. Joe’s main idea is to get money from Nobbs to sail to America. Helen goes out walking with Nobbs and gets a few things, but then he talks of opening up the shoppe with her, and Helen backs out.

Joe and Helen finally have a huge fight; Helen is pregnant and is warned that Joe will probably run out on her, even though he claims he won’t. Nobbs tries to defend Helen from Joe, but Joe knocks her down, causing her to hit her head really hard. Nobbs goes to lie down in bed, and ends up passing away. It is then discovered by society that she was a woman.

Mrs. Baker discovers Nobbs’ money and uses it to fix up and reopen the hotel, after it had been shut down due to a Typhoid outbreak. Mr. Page’s wife Kathleen had died from the outbreak. Helen has had her baby and is threatened to be thrown out into the streets. Mr. Page promises that she won’t let that happen, and it is implied that Page and Helen get together.

Although this movie may have been perceived as strange by some, I found it entertaining and enjoyed seeing it. I feel that it is a good movie to show for present times because of the gay rights movement. This movie shows the struggle that gays and lesbians face everyday; the risk of being judged and mistreated. The struggle, of course, was even more so in this film, not only because of the time period, but possibly also the setting. But it is still good to show here and now in America, because it shows the unjustness of the mistreatment of people who choose to live this way. All people are people, and we should all be treated equally.

Reflection for English 101

So, I have to admit that english has not always been my favorite subject in school. But I feel that the older I have gotten, the classes have become more easy to stand. This is because I feel that the focus went from annoying little things, like grammar and punctuation, to bigger things, such as writing styles. I’m not one for writing much either, but I find this better than going over rules all day, every day.
For English 101, I have found it interesting to focus on genre and learn about how it is in pretty much everything, not just books and movies. I think my favorite projects were the first and second ones; particularly the first one. I, by no means, would think to call myself an artist. But I had a lot of fun working on the computer to come up with and design a book cover. It made me feel very professional, even though I definitely am not. It also helped me learn some new ways that I can use the word document program, if I would need to use it for something like that in the future. I also liked learning about the different techniques that artists use to make things stand out and pop on a cover. I like learning about the significance of why the cover is designed a certain way. Same with the advertisement, I found it really interesting to find out about the different gimmicks that companies use to draw your attention and pull you into buying their products, simply from picking up a magazine to read in your free time!
Project 3 was definitely tedious, but it’s for good reasons, I know. Whenever I have to write a huge paper, such as a research paper, it helps remind me of how to properly write for my other classes. It is of the utmost importance to cite and learn how to do so. It is also important, just to learn how to write in a formal way. No one’s professor is going to even read a paper that has casual, modern-day language in it.
I would say that English 101 has taught me some good tips for future projects and reminders for writing. 372

Audience for Letters

For my two letters, I have chosen to write to my dad and to my adult friend from back home, Terre.

The reason I wanted to write to my dad is because I feel that my dad is one that I need to convince more to let me do certain things. My mom is very supportive of what I want to do with my life and wants me to be happy with whatever I plan to do. My dad wants me to be happy as well, but he always has to analyze everything and make sure it is practical, not just for pure happiness. So when it comes to things like what I want my career to be, he is very much an influence of me in that aspect, whether I want him to be or not. He wants to make sure job security is a priority in my life, which it is. But I oftentimes have to ensure him that what I want to do will be secure enough. He makes me look up facts and information about things, which is tedious and annoying sometimes. But I know he’s doing it for my best interest.

The reason I wanted to write a letter for my friend Terre is because I feel like she was a big influence on me with what I chose to do in high school and who I wanted to become in the long run. She is very much supportive of anything I want to do with my life, and she is sort of like a second mom figure to me. Terre is the kind of person that wants to know what’s going on in people’s lives all the time, but not in an annoying way. She’s just a very caring, compassionate person that wants to keep in contact with you. She’s always ready to listen and be there for you when you need her. I know that she would be very excited to hear about what my next step in life is going to be and she would support me all the way. 348

Summer

For this week’s blog, I would love to complain about how sick of school I am, but I don’t know if I could talk about that for a whole three hundred words. So instead, I’ll talk about how excited I am for this summer and what all I have planned.

I am really excited for summer because I will be able to have a nice long break where I can just relax at home. I won’t be totally free from school however. I plan to take a summer class at Parkland Community College in Champaign. It’s Math 119 because I plan on taking 120 in the fall. I’m not really looking forward to it, but I’m hoping it won’t be so bad, and I might be able to get some help from friends back at home. I will most likely be getting my old job from high school back for the summer, so that’ll be nice for my bank account. I am also hoping to get a second job just for the weekends. There is a place in my home town called Allerton Park, and it is beautiful. A lot of people hold weddings there during the summer, so hopefully  I can help serve at those for some extra cash. I am excited about this job. Ever since I saw the main character, Daphne, with this job in “What A Girl Wants”, I always thought this job looked like fun and I wanted to try it. I know that’s a lame reason for wanting to do it, but oh well.

Even though I am glad to be getting a break, I have mixed feelings about how fun this summer will be. I think it might just be plain weird, because I won’t be with any of my friends from here at school, and a lot of my friends from high school will be busy doing other things as well over the summer. So hopefully we’ll be able to get together every now and then, but we’ll just see. This could make for a really interesting summer. 346

Major

                My major here at ISU is psychology. I originally wanted to be an early childhood education major. But by the time I decided this at the end of senior year, the program was all full. So I was going to have to wait to get into the program. But over Christmas break, I took a day to job shadow a lady that changed my mind. She is a school psychologist and she works in a couple preschools. I went with her to one school in Decatur one day to observe the classrooms and the teachers’ classroom techniques. But as we (Sheree and I) went around to each different classroom, observing the one “target” child for that day, I found that I really enjoyed just sitting back and observing one child at a time for struggles they may be having. The last half of the day, we tested one little boy for autism. It was soooo interesting; I loved it. At the beginning of the day, Sheree had told me her goal that day was to switch my major from education to psychology. At first, I just laughed it off. By the end of the day, it wasn’t so funny anymore. She had reached her goal.

In February, I applied to be an official psychology major, and I got it! I am very excited about my major now. Even though I will have to go to graduate school (which I’d rather avoid), I think it will be worth it in the end. I realize now that this will be a way better position for me than being a teacher. I still love working with little kids, but now I get to work one-on-one with them to help the ones struggling find a “game plan” to learn better; something I will like much better than trying to keep twenty-something kids’ attention all day, every day. I am considering adding a child studies minor, I think it will be beneficial (and I heard it’s easy). I am also looking into volunteering next year at a place here in Normal called The Autism Place. There I would be able to work with children who had this disability. I am very excited about my major and the  work I plan to do in the future. 380

College Class

                One college class that I have really enjoyed taking this spring is my Acting One class. The reason I took this class is because at one point in the beginning of first semester I tried to be a double major with Early Childhood Education and Theatre Studies. I thought that maybe I could try to teach preschool age children, but maybe try and do theatre education for adolescents on the side, but really I think I just wanted to do theatre for fun; I love it! But I even though I was only taking one theatre class last semester, I quickly realized how much time it would take out of my day just to focus on theatre, and that didn’t even include what all I would do for my education major. So, I decided to drop the theatre major. The cool thing about ISU’s theatre program is that anyone can audition to be in shows without being a theatre major or minor. So I plan to audition for shows next year. That’s partially why I decided to go ahead and keep my acting class for this semester. I knew that high school acting was a little different than acting in college and beyond, so I wanted to learn techniques before I auditioned here at school. It’s been really cool to learn new ways of acting. As my acting teacher says, in high school you are rewarded in acting for being the most outrageous character up on stage. But in college, acting is about “getting the job done”. Sometimes being too “showy” in college theatre can get you in trouble; it just looks too fake. With getting the job done, you need to be as real as you can be. You need to get as close as possible to how you would really respond to situations as you would in real life. In our real lives, you say and do things in order to get what you want; well, this goes for acting as well. 334

Research Paper

For my research paper, I am discussing adult patients dealing with the emotional struggles of childhood sexual abuse. I find this topic very interesting; even though it is a very depressing topic, I am fascinated with how this type of trauma can sort of warp the mind.

I find that I always have trouble with finding sources when first coming up with material to research with. I guess maybe I should rephrase that; I do not really have that much trouble finding sources, I just have anxiety that I will. Even when coming up with a topic can be stressful. It’s not that I can’t come up with topics, I just always try to think ahead and think if I will be able to come up with enough credible sources to obtain information. To overcome my anxiety, I always talk to my teacher about what my ideas are and get reassurance for if they are good, or get advice for how I can improve and come up with more ideas.

Another problem that I sometimes encounter is just simply keeping my focus. I often get distracted very easily when working on the computer. This is because I love to flip on and off from sites such as facebook and pinterest. It is very hard for me to stay off of these sites sometime. I go to sit down and write my paper, and before I know it, I have been sitting facebook creeping for an hour and a half. Sometimes it helps if I go somewhere other than my dorm room. I usually like to stay and do homework in my room because of pure laziness. But I know that if I’m not getting work done, it’s time to move and go somewhere like the library for a couple hours.  300

Spring Break

                For my spring break, I am going on a trip to Miami, FL. I am going with Merge, a campus ministry here at ISU. Every year, Merge goes to Miami during spring break to work with Habitat for Humanity to build a house for a family in need. I have been on three mission trips in my past years of high school, but I have never been on one like this. Usually, I would be working with children for like vacation bible school type activities. I have never been on a trip like this to build anything, so I am very excited to finally have this experience. I am also excited to visit a different city in Florida; I have family in Ft. Myers, so that is the only area of Florida I have never been to.

                At 10pm on Friday night, 40 of us college students will be packed into 15 vans and headed on the road! That night and all the next day we will be driving. Saturday night, we will stop in Clermont to spend the night. On Sunday, we get up to go to church. Then we have a cook out, day on the lake at this nice old lady’s house that has offered us a day of fun before we go work. After a few hours of boating, we will head back on the road until we reach Miami. We thought we might have to stay in a church basement, but we lucked out and got a renovated motel instead.

                Monday is a beach day, then the next 4 days are reserved for working. We will be working all day, but at the end of each day, we have some sort of fun party or activity planned to end the day.

                As I said before, I am very excited for this trip, and I cannot wait to get to know everyone in the group better!

                Happy Spring Break! 323

Growing Up

            I always knew that college would be a time for me to mature in a whole new way and to finally “grow up”. But I don’t think I realized how much and how quickly I would actually have to grow up until now. Along with academic due dates comes deadlines for payments of classes. Not only is there worry for paying for school, but also just having extra cash around for necessities and just to go out and have some fun. Unfortunately, my parents are not really able to help me pay for school; I’m kind of on my own in that sense. I survived pretty well this first year. But my experience from this year has caused me to really crack down to prepare for next year. Filling out the FAFSA is always a great joy… yeah, right. I started filling it out at the end of Christmas break. But then I had to wait until the middle of February to finish it because I had to wait for taxes to be done and such. The day that I was finishing up, I’m pretty sure I called my dad nine times in a row to ask questions about certain sections. But when I finally got it done, I felt relieved, and had achieved at least one more thing to help me out. Every little bit helps. A couple weeks ago, I walked to uptown, picking up all the applications I could from different shops and restaurants.  I actually just had an interview for Merry Ann’s diner. It seemed to go well; I think I pretty much got the job. The lady said she would contact me about training sometime next week, so that’s good. I’ve never had experience serving in a restaurant before, but I’ve always wanted to try it; it sounds like it might be fun. Tomorrow I have another interview in a town close to my home town for a summer job. It’s to be a field inspector. If I get the job, I’ll be working from early in the morning until evening, walking up and down corn fields. It’ll be hell, but I’ll be making bank. And I’ll get a wicked tan. Not to mention one of my friends works there already. So, there will be some perks to it. I’m hopeful everything will work out just fine. 393

My Writing Process

Whenever I sit down to write a paper for a class, say maybe for English, it always seems like I can manage to come up with at least a little bit of my paper. But, as I’m sure everyone agrees, I can write so much more all at once and have a lot more to say when I put myself in a certain environment.

Back when I was in high school, I took a required composition class my junior year. My teacher taught us that people write better at different times during the day. Whether it be early in the morning or way late at night, everyone has a different period during their day when they can getting the “writing juices” flowing. It was funny, because eventually in that class, we would have people walk in on the day that our papers due, and they would say things like, “I’m so tired; I stayed up all last night to write the rest of my paper because I write better late at night!” There were times when I would fall victim to one of these late nights, perhaps because I tend to be a night owl. Now that I’m in college though, I tend not to stay up too too late to do homework, unless I can sleep in a little bit in the morning.

Now that I’m here at Illinois State, I often try to do my homework in my dorm room, simply because I am too lazy to take all my stuff and walk somewhere else to do it. But there are times where I cannot focus at all in my dorm room, whether it be because of roommates, or just because. This is when I like to go to Milner Library. My favorite place to go in Milner is on the fourth floor in the corners with the huge windows. Not only is it quiet, but I love being able to look outside and see everything. I don’t know why, but for whatever reason, this helps me to be more creative with my writing. 346

   

Pump it Up!

I feel that within the last few years, America has really been pushing towards healthier life styles. Maybe we have always been this way, and I just never really paid attention. But I think that it could be because of the recent increase in obesity. I honestly do not think that students our age have this problem as much as maybe people our parents’ ages. But nonetheless, it seems that students at Illinois State University have made working out one of their many priorities. I think this is wonderful! I may not have had much to say about this back when I was in high school, because I was one of those people that always dreaded PE class. But now, I have come to love when I have my own time at the nice, new rec center we have here on campus. We have a bunch of free classes held that gives you different options of how to get a good work out in while having fun as well. I have really enjoyed going to yoga and zumba classes. One of my favorite things to do at the rec is to go and run on the track. I used to really like running on the tread mills. But ever since I “discovered” the third floor, I have tried to go at least once daily. Unfortunately with homework, this is not always a possibility. But I go when I can.

During first semester, I never really had a desire to go to the rec and work out. This was probably because I was already involved with marching band at the time. And between having to walk three times a week from Watterson to Tri Towers to reach the practice field, and then marching and working on flag routines ( a great arm workout!), I felt very tired and felt that I was getting enough activity going on in my week. But now that band is over, it has felt really good to go and burn off some stress and calories by going to the rec.

                While I think it is great that people are trying to find more time in their day to go work out, I will leave you with this. The other day on pinterest, I found this quote, and I very much agree with what it says: “Exercising should be about rewarding the body with endorphins and strength, not about punishing your body for what you’ve eaten.”

               Happy Exercising! 411

A Memorable Commercial

     The commercial that I have chosen to share today is the "Hungry Eyes" M&M's commercial. I do not know if I would say this is my most favorite commercial of all time, but I find it funny and I was extremely excited when I first saw it. I will explain the reason for this.
     A couple of years ago, I was chilling with my youth group in our youth minister's house, and he had just figured out to do this thing where you connect his HDTV to the internet. I am not sure if this is part of Tivo or what it is called. But anyway, we decided to look up random youtube videos just for fun, a normal activity for anyone in our generation. This was the night that I discovered Trale Lewous. My friend Jennifer was the one that suggested we look him up. I feel like this was one of those videos that I would not have thought was nearly as funny unless I had Jennifer right by my side cracking up laughing the whole time. So of course, I could not help but laugh as well. Well these series of videos show a man dressed in a bad 80's outfit, trying to advertise for different name brand candies, such as Twizzlers, M&M's, and my personal favorite, Skittles. My halloween outfit for this past year (a Skittle's bag dress) was actually inspired by my love for the Skittle's Trale Lewous video. Anyway, for this legitimate pretzel M&M's commercial, it shows the red M&M and a pretzel talking about a woman nearby and her "hungry eyes" for them. The M&M was saying how nervous he was about her, but the pretzel then points out how he is more worried about "that guy" than her. Then they turn around to show   that "that guy" is Trale Lewous. I think it is quite hilarious. If you have not checked out his youtube videos, I recommend you do so. 327
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucHCgc48Z1s

A Change of Taste

     Ever since I was a little girl, music has always been a big part of my life. It's just that important to me. When ever I was in elementary school, pop was always my first choice in music genre. I got my first two CD's in first grade, which were N'sync and Britney Spears. Back in those days, they were the coolest. I guess Backstreet Boys were too, but I didn't have their CD, so I just never had as much interest in them as I did with N'sync. As I got into middle school, and started going to the dances, my style of music started changing. Because the songs they would play at the dances were more like hip hop and dance type songs. So I started to start liking that more. My mom didn't necessarily like that my music style was changing, but since then, she's learned to put up with it...well, most of the time. Towards the end of my high school career, I started to really like Coldplay a lot, and I have loved them ever since. I am in love with their new album Mylo Xyloto. It's a bit of a different style than what Coldplay normally does, but I still like it. I feel that at the end of highschool and going on into college, I have started really liking alternative music. I guess I just like music that I think is unique and something that not everyone would listen to. But then it always seems like a "new song that I've discovered" all of a sudden becomes popular. Oh well. Not only have a started liking alternative more recently, I have also started liking dubstep and Kid Cudi. Two different genres, but it's what my roommates listen to. So after a while, I started liking them too. I didn't really know much about dubstep back in high school, and I never really though I'd ever like Kid Cudi. But I guess I was wrong. 330

Book Review

       When I was little, my favorite series of books were the Junie B. Jones books. I believe I was in second grade when I was first introduced to these books. My teacher, Mrs. Weurful, (one of my favorite teachers growing up), read a few of these books to our class. We all fell in love with them. I can also remember her reading us Ramona books as well. I liked those too, but the Junie B. Jones books were always my favorite. Any of the books that she didn't read to us in class I would check out at the library and read on my own. I remember for my next birthday, I got the book Junie B. Jones Is (almost) a Flower Girl. I was so excited to get my own Junie B. Jones book!

     
            As I got older and involved with more school activities, I found myself reading less and less, which was a shame. But the next time that I really got involved in a book series was the summer before my sophomore year. That was the summer that I discovered Twilight. Now, I know what you're thinking. "Twilight, how dumb. Everyone makes such a big deal about that series." Well, that may be true now, but when I first discovered this book was a few months before the movie was to be out. The previews weren't even being played in theaters yet. In other words, I didn't know there was going to be a movie. I think this is the most excited I have ever been to read a book. I find it really sad how all the hype from the movies not only ruined this for me, and for most of my friends. But putting all of that aside, I still believe that the series is really good; the first one is my favorite. 309
     

Introduction

         Hello, my name is Katelyn Bright. I am from Monticello, IL, which is about 50 minutes east of Normal. My favorite colors are lime green and bright pink. I was in color guard first semester, and second semester I will be starting civic chorale. As you can see, I love music. I also love to act. I live in a quad in Watterson, and I love my roommates. They're names are Sarah, Allison, and Maddie. We all get along pretty well for living together randomly. Our floor is pretty cool, too. We're all really close, and we hang out together all the time. I feel that I am pretty lucky to live on this floor because I figure this is not an often occurrence. Back home, I have 3 little brothers. Aaron is 15, and he is a high school freshman. The twins, Ryan and Ethan, are in 5th grade, and they are 11. Aaron is in drum line, and really enjoys it. Ryan plays trombone, and Ethan plays trumpet. For it only being their first year in band, they are pretty good. My dad works at Kraft in Champaign, and my mom works at Gordman's.
           Some more interesting things about me: I really like photography; not that I'm like a really intense photographer or anything. I just like to look at other people's work, and then I get ideas for how to tweak my own photos taken by my cute, little digital camera. I just discovered picnik.com, so now I like to edit my photos with that. My birthday is tomorrow (January 21st). I'm turning 19. It should be fun. I'll probably get my nose pierced. It'll be funny to see my parents reaction afterwards.
          Right now, I'm sitting in my dorm room with Maddie watching Toy Story. It's always good to go with a classic. I've got about 45 minutes before I have to go to my 2 o'clock class. American Diversity. Oh joy. Hopefully it won't be too bad. I kind of like my professor. He reminds me of a grandpa; he makes me laugh because he makes those type of "old people" jokes where he tries to be funny, which makes it even funnier. The only problem is that he likes to talk a lot, so he could almost be boring at times. But that was just when we were going over the syllabus the other day. Hopefully his lectures won't be too bad; I guess I'll find out today.
         Well, that's all I have for today. Have a good one! 425