Is it ever OK to cheat?

In my opinion, it is a big NO. Personally, I hate cheating so much for some reasons.

First of all, cheating is not fair to you. When you cheat, you are cheating yourself. This is so true. If you are honest and don't cheat at all, you would be a better person and would gain knowledge. However, if you cheat, you won't get nothing but fake prize or whatever. 

Second of all, cheating could destroy trust. If you cheated on exam or quiz and a professor found out about it, the professor wouldn't believe and trust you anymore. Besides you would get in a big trouble and it might ruin your life. 

Finally, you won't be proud of cheating. You would be so proud of yourself if you achieved something by yourself, however, if you cheated or got help by others, you wouldn't be proud if yourself.

Cheating hurts my heart. cheating means lie to myself and people. Even if I could cheat on someone well, I know the truth and it would hurt. I simply want to be an honest person to myself and others. This is why cheating is not OK.

The 87th Academy Awards

The last big entertainment event in February is 87th Academy Awards. It was on February 22nd, last Sunday at Dolby theatre. Academy Awards is the biggest awards for movies and has long history. In this year, the Oscars was presided over by one and only Neil Patrick Harris. In the opening of the Oscars, he sang a song and threw back to the history of movies with pictures. Anna Kendrick also joined him with the costume of Cinderella which she played in the movie “Into the Woods”. In addition, Jack Black joined them from the audience. Neil Patrick Harris successfully made the audience surprised and have fun.

The movie “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” won Best Picture, Cinematography, Writing, and Directing. The film director Alejandro G. Iñárritu had never won any Oscars before, so this means he got 3 Oscars at one time. There is another film that won from 4 categories like Birdman. It’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel”. This film won Costume Design, Music, Makeup and Hairstyling, and Production Design. The most surprising thing from the Oscars was probably that Eddie Redmayne from the movie “The Theory of Everything” won Best Actor. Most of people thought Michael Keaton from the movie “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” would win this, and Michael Keaton self thought he would win too. We can see that he was prepared to give speech with the transcript. Patricia Arquette won Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. On the stage, she gave the audience speech about women rights. Meryl Streep agreed with what she said and applauded. 

The Academy Awards is also about music that is related to the movies. Lady Gaga sang songs from a movie “The Sound of Music”. “It was “new” Lady Gaga.” Ali Alshagrawi, a student at Avila University said. “I had never seen Lady Gaga singing like this before. I have seen her wearing colorful cloths and crazy performances. But this time she seemed very classy and I really liked and enjoyed it,” he said. John Legend and Common also sang “Glory” which is featured on the soundtrack for the movie "Selma". They also won an Oscar for Music –Original song- with “Glory”. On the stage, they remarked about slavery, incarceration are true.

In conclusion, the academy awards was successful. And people well enjoyed watching Oscars. People who won the Oscars deserve them. College students watch movies a lot in their spare time, so the Academy Awards was related to college students more than other entertainment events. 

My Five Favorite Presidents

These are my five favorite presidents, and reasons why I chose!

1. Abraham Lincoln
He is credited with the emancipation of the slaves. This is very important.

2. Barack Obama
He is the first African American president and he did great things for the U.S. and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

3. John F Kennedy
He did his best to protect human rights for African Americans. For example, he put army in action to let a black girl go to school that was for white people. He tried to protect her civil rights.

4. George Washington
The first president of the United States, and he laid the foundation for America.

5. Thomas Jefferson
In 1776, he drew up America Declaration of Independence.

What I'd buy with a $50 iTunes Gift Card?

So what would I buy if I had a $50 iTunes Gift Card?

I would buy 
1. Katy Perry's album "PRISM" $11.99
2. Ariana Grande's album "My Everything (Deluxe)" $12.99
3. Sam Smith's album "In the Lonely Hour (Deluxe)" $13.99
4. Beyonce's album "BEYONCE (more only)" $8.99

The total is going to be $47.96

NBA All-Star Game

February 15th, 2015. It is time for NBA All-Star Game! NBA All-Star Game is a special annual game. Eastern Conference and Western Conference play against one another. Players and head coaches are chosen in fan balloting. Since NBA All-Star game started for the first time in 1951, it became an annual event. Every year, it is held on one weekend, so it is called “NBA All-Star Weekend”. Usually on Friday, there is Rising Stars Challenge, on Saturday, there are Slam dunk Contest and Three-Point Contest, and on Sunday, finally there is NBA All-Star Game. As a result, West All-Stars won the game against East All-Stars with score 163-158. From West All-Stars, Russell Westbrook got MVP this year.

The game itself is important, but there is other important thing too. The half time show. As I mentioned about Katy Perry’s half time show for Super Bowl, it seems like for big sports games’ half time shows are common and popular to people. This time, Ariana Grande was chosen to sing during the half time show. She sang “Problem”, “Love You Harder”, “The Way”, and her ballad “One Last Time”, and “Bang Bang” with Nicki Minaj. Finally she closed with “Break Free”. Most of people might be watching NBA All-Star Game for watching a basketball game of course. However, half time shows attract attention, and give the singers status.

I interviewed some international students about NBA All-Stars Game this year. Zeyad Al-ammar from Saudi Arabia, Computer Science majoring at Avila University, told me that he had no idea what the NBA All-Star Game is. When I explained to him what NBA All-Star Game is, he told me that he is not interested in basketball at all. Because in Saudi Arabia, soccer is the most common sport. I asked other international student if she watched the game or not. Uyen Dang from Vietnam told me that she did not watch it. I asked her if she even knew that there was NBA All-Star Game last Sunday, and she said “no”. She told me she is not a big fan of American Sports. Other international students told me the same thing. They didn’t watch the game.

As a result, it seems like international students are not into NBA All-Star Game after all. Some of them did not even know what NBA All-Star Game is. They grew up in other countries and they might not had the opportunity to watch NBA All-Star Game before, so it would not be important for them. Everyone has opinions for themselves and we should respect that.

This weekend, there is Academy Award. Let’s see what is going to happen!

The 57th Grammy Awards

The second big event in February is here! The 57^th Grammy Awards 2015 was on 8^th February, 2015 at Staples Center in Los Angeles. The Grammy Awards is the most important music award in the entire world, and obviously it has a long history. Every year, the Grammy Awards is held in February. This is not only about award presentation ceremony. You can also watch performances by successful singers and interviews on red carpet. This is not only about music. Sounds like there’s a lot of entertainment in the Grammys. 

Lots of things happen in the Grammys, however, Sam Smith definitely got attention the most. He got four Grammys which were Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Best New Artist, and Best Pop Vocal Album. This is crazy and amazing! He was an unknown British singer just one year ago. Who imagined he would be such a successful singer like this? 

The other person who got attention was Sia. She is a great singer and her songs have strong messages. However, this time she got attention not because of her song, because of her outfit (or should I say her big wig?). She hates social media so she didn’t to want to take it off. Even during performing “Chandelier”, she didn’t look at the camera at all. Unfortunately, she didn’t get any Grammys this year.

Clearly the Grammys gathered momentum at the popular level, but what about for college students? I asked Katie Bryant, nursing major at Avila University if she watched the Grammys or not. She said, no. She had to work at that time. I also asked others but they gave me the same answer. College students listen to music a lot, and they grew up with iPod or other music devices and players, so music would have been closer to them than the parents’ generation. However, not a lot of college students didn’t watch the Grammys. It is not that important to them. And they have some stuff to do more than watching the Grammys, for example, taking assignment, working for tuition, and hanging out with friends or not interested. Even if missed the show, you can watch it anytime on YouTube if you want. This useful stuff make students think they don’t need to watch it on time. 

Even though it was a big event for the world, it wasn’t for most of the students. They are busy and got lots of things to do and not interested. Last week’s Super bowl was successful. Of course the Grammys was successful too. However, Super Bowl got more attentions from students more than the Grammys did. Maybe it is because the Grammys is not related to students well. Super Bowl is definitely related to students. There is a football team in Avila University, and Football is the most popular sport in the U.S. This weekend is going to be NBA all-star game. Let’s see how the students will react!

Super Bowl Night

Every year, this season is very important to football fans. February 1^st, 2015, Super Bowl was took place at University of Phoenix Stadium. Super Bowl is a football game played each year to determine the championship of National Football League. This year, the two teams that played were New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks. Super Bowl is a foot bowl game…. Is it? Of course main event is determining the championship, however, there are also important things are going on during the Super Bowl game.

 A lot of people are watching Super Bowl. Are they all football fans? I asked some of my friends and most of them enjoyed the half time show by Katy Perry more than the football game. Nursing major at Avila University, Gabriela Garcia told me she enjoyed Katy Perry’s show. “Her outfit was so cute and I was glad to listen Firework which is my favorite song.”  Singing in the half time show is important to singers, it means the singers are acknowledge. Viewer rate of the half time show this year reached a record-high. Katy Perry showed up with a huge gold tiger and sang Roar. Even if you really don’t like Katy Perry, you must have been impressed by her performance. She was riding the elephant, and dancing with sharks, everything was terrific. Perry’s half time show mast reminded you that the half time show is the one of the most important things in Super Bowl, and a lot of people are looking forward to it.

Other entertainments were commercials from sponsors. Usually, commercials and advertisings are annoying when you are watching a TV. However, commercials and advertisings during Super Bowl were totally different. Sponsors prepared Special commercials only for the Super Bowl night. It costs tons of money, but it’s worth it. Millions and millions people are watching Super Bowl, which means it would be a great opportunity to appeal the company or merchandises. Besides, some people watch Super Bowl to see these special commercials. Joudy Maestro, Philosophy major at Avila University told me that he personally enjoys the advertisings during the game because he can watch different commercials than always and it is interesting. For example, in a commercial for Victoria’s secret, models were wearing football’s uniform. And they gave us the sentence, “Don’t drop the ball” in the end of the commercial. The companies are trying to make us remember and give us strong impressions from the commercials.

Most importantly, New England Patriots got the championship, and Tom Brady, QB, Patriots got MVP. This is big deal for them because they had been training for getting the championship and MVP. Super Bowl is not just a simple football game. A lot of people and businesses are involved. Singing during the half time must have been big deal for Katy Perry.

Also it must have been big deal for sponsors. For everyone, it was a big deal day. Let’s look forward to what is going to happen next year. It must will be big deal for someone else.