1000909 Turn Off Your TV!

Turn Off Your TV!

A new study reveals that watching less television may lead to a longer life

August 17, 2011

By Alice Park

Sitting in front of the television may be relaxing, but spending too much time in front of the tube may take years off your life.

That's what Australian researchers found when they collected TV viewing information from more than 11,000 people older than 25 years. The study found that people who watched an average six hours of TV a day lived an average 4.8 years less than those who didn't watch any television. Also, every hour of TV that participants watched after age 25 was associated with a 22-minute reduction in their life expectancy.

What’s Going On?

It's no mystery that sitting in front of the tube isn't exactly healthy. The more TV you watch, the less physically active you are. And the less exercise you get, the more likely you are to develop diseases such as diabetes or heart problems.

Lennert Veerman is the lead author of the study, which was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Veerman works at the University of Queensland. He acknowledges that it may not just be the sedentary nature of watching TV that lowers life expectancy, but also the poor diet that onscreen junk-food advertising can promote. But Veerman says that the association between watching too much TV and lower life expectancy persisted, even after adjusting for diet.

Veerman says that it might make sense for doctors to start asking their patients about how much time they spend in front of the TV, and to treat TV time as they would other risk factors for poor health, such as lack of exercise and an unhealthy diet.

Veerman points out that people who are concerned can simply turn off the TV and gett off the couch. "Exercise is good," he says, "but even light physical activity also improves health."

Max- After August, we start school again at September. We could not relax anymore after this, but we had lot of fun at summer. Some people do some outdoor activities in summer, and some people play computer games and watch TV for the whole summer. Researchers found out watching TV for a long time can take years off from your life. Because we may watch TV for a few hours during the whole summer, so we would get unhealthy. As we say some people are couch potatoes, this is worse than just being a couch potato. I can’t even imagine that your life would shorten for a few years by just doing such a thing that’s not important like smoking and drinking alcohol! So maybe couch potatoes should spend less time watching TV, and go to exercise to have a healthier body!

1000902What makes a good teacher-Max

What Makes a Good Teacher?

By Max

     Everyone in the whole world can see a teacher during school. Teachers are always very good tyo students, because teachers need to give effort to the students to let them study well.

     But in our real life, not every teacher is good in school, and that is because of the way of how they teach is different. For some teachers, the way they teach is good and effective. But some other teachers treat students very badly, even though they want their students behave well, but the wrong way has the opposite effect.

     I am a smart student, and I met a lot of teachers before. The teacher I liked the most is the teacher who taught me from third to fourth grade. She is very kind and not really strict. Even the way she taught isn’t very good, but she sometimes talks about some stories to let us relax. I can always get high scores in this class because I am happy about studying in this class.

     If I can pick a teacher to teach me, I wish I can pick the kind of teacher that can be kind, that can accompany me, and teach me things that I don’t know. Because I am the kind of student that studies everything I need to know, so I wish I could have this kind of teacher.

     Everyone doesn’t like the same kind of teacher, because their personality isn’t the same. I think every kind of student matches with the exact kind of teacher. This may be a good way to be a good and happy student.

1000805 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Report

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Report

By Max

After I saw the movie “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, even I almost threw up bacause it was boring, but after I read the book, it beacme interesting.

This book is very funny because half of the things it contains are nonsense. The author, Douglas Adams is making fun of the way people live and value things that aren’t really important. So today I’m going to write a book report about this!

At the start of the book, the author mentions some green pieces of paper and digital watches. Of course, this has nothing to do with the story, so maybe the author is just having fun with this. But if you read that part again and again, you might think it will be interested in what is he talking about. I have no idea what he means when he is talking about the small pieces of green paper, but I may know about the digital watches. In the story, he wrote a lot of people are mean and miserable, even “the people with digital watches”. Why? I think he says this becuase people are getting richer and can buy things they want, but a few days after buying that, they would be unhappy and start to want something else. This process lasts forever. This part is just the preface, and I now think he is talking about the people’s feelings on Earth, rather than just talking nonsense. You may understand this part even if you forget about those small pieces of green paper.

When you do some exercises like climbing mountains and running, you can use a towel to dry your sweat. Towels are a regular thing. We may know how towels work in a regular way: washing your face, cleaning yourself, and washing other things with it, etc, but in this book, the author writes some ridiculous ways to use a towel when you are a hitchhiker. He says, you can lie on it when you want to take a rest. You can use the towel as a pillow to sleep on. You can use it as an oar to sail a boat. You can even use it as a hat to avoid something falling on you. And the most ridiculous way, if you are a hitchhiker with a towel, and you are traveling with a nonhitchhiker (which is also called a strag), the strag will assume that you have any supplies he might need, just because you also have a towel. After reading this book, I really thought about why I didn’t know these purposes of the towel, even though they are crazy! I really approve the author’s imagination because of his comments about the towel.

Do you have fish in the fish tank that you need to feed? I believe many people have them. On Earth, we can feed fish to prevent being bored, to make ourselves feel happy, or feed the fish to eat them later. But in this book, it introduces a different way to use fish. Even though it looks like a ordinary fish, the fish is called a Babel Fish. When you need to use this fish, you need to let it go into your ear, which is really yucky because you may be uncomfortable having a slimy thing in your ear. The fish becomes a tool to translate what you hear. I think this part of the movie is very funny because Ford tried to stuff the Babel fish into Arthur’s ear. The fish keeps sliding in and out because Arthur wants to let the fish out of his ear. I can only say it is very cool and extraordinary, but a bit slimy.

The last thing I would say is about the “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. Remember I’m not talking about the book you guys read! I’m talking about the guide that appears in the movie, but for a different function. In the movie, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is just like an iPod with a keyboard. It is rectangular, and it can tell any information you need to know. The only thing different is that the icons are bar-shaped, and when you choose a bar, you need to type something to make it find the information you want to know. This machine is just like a electronic dictionary, but it not only can find words, but everything. So this is a good invention for all the characters in the film, and it helped Arthur and the other people a lot. After I saw this machine in the movie, I thought the movie is talking about the machine! I realized, however that they are different

This movie is really sci-fi. Even though the aliens looked very ugly, they actually were very smart! I thought their home is very ugly, but they were very clean. They also invented a lot of things that we don’t have. The movie always tested my ideas. Overall I think this movie is a little bit hard to understand, but it is still better than I thought.

1000723 "Disaster Movie" Movie Review

“Disaster Movie” Movie Review

By Max

     Disaster Movie is a comedy film made by Jason Friedburg. The plot is about the end of the world, August 29, 2008 has been predicted in the ancient years. In that same day, Will and his friends and some guests are having a “Super Duper Sweet Sixteen” party in his house. At suddenly, the house started to shake hardly, and Will and his friends knew about the earthquake is caused by a meteor rain, if they don’t return the crystal skull they have to the altar, it is the end of the world! So they start their journey to bring back the crystal skull.

     I think the camera work was perfect, like the crazy Chipmunks wanted to kill Juney in the shelter, and they ate her vertebrae. That vertebrae was just like a real one, it was emersed from her body, so I felt it was a bit scary. The effects are also good too, at the part of the three heroes wanted to fight with the natural disaster, instead of winning, they are all knocked by some big cows falling from the sky. It was pretty funny because when the Green Hulk wanted to fight it, his pants are blown away and he is very shy. He is also knocked by the cows.

     At the scene of everyone leaving the city, Batman talks to Will and realizes that is 5:30pm, he hooks the rope to the roof of a building, but misses and accidentally hooks to the back of a car, Batman ends with being pulled by the car and hit a lot of things. At that scene it was pretty funny because of Batman doing the wrong thing.

1000721 Scary Movie 4 Movie Review(Edited)

Scary Movie 4 Movie Review

By Max

     Scary Movie 4 is a comedy movie directed by David Zucker. In the movie, the main character Cindy finds work with a home healthcare company taking care of an old woman who lives in a scary house. Her neighbor Tom falls in love with her after she moved in, but aliens invade the world and everything gets crazy. I really enjoy watching this movie because the unique lighting and special effects make the humorous scenes standout. Further, the screen writing always keeps me thinking. Let’s take a closer look. 

     This movie’s lighting is overall very good, but the scene where Cindy and the other supporting characters are trapped in a bathroom really demonstrates solid light work. At first the bathroom the bathroom is pitch black, then lights turn on flickering and we are left with an image of them wearing a venus fly trap.  It’s hilarious.

I also like this movie’s special effects very much, for instance when the Tripods come out from the road and transformed into aliens.  This is extremely funny because the Tri-pods actually looked like I-pods at first, and we are expecting some very scary aliens to emerge, not mp3 players.  The special effects men also do a very nice job transforming the shape of the Tripods from an I-pod into a cockroach-like creature. It is fantastic. 

     Throughout the movie, the screen writing really makes the jokes enjoyable. There is one scene where the president of the United States is testing out a weapon which makes people’s clothes disappear. Of course we wind up with a naked President on screen! I think everyone can find things to make them laugh in Scary Movie 4. I highly recommend it.

1000719 Scary Movie 4 Movie Review

Scary Movie 4 Movie Review

By Max

     Scary Movie 4 is a comedy movie directed by David Zucker. In the movie, Cindy finds work in home healthcare to take care of an old woman in a scary house. Her neighbor, Tom, loves Cindy after she came. But, alien invaded the world, so Tom leaves with his son and daughter to the battlefield where the U.S. fights with the Tripods, and Cindy leaves with Brenda, another person that she met, to a village that can’t leave when staying it. They met each other again in the bathroom at the start, and they need to play a game with Billy Puppet to save the world and themselves.

     The scenes include Shaq and Dr. Phil in the bathroom with nerve gas in it, the scary house that Cindy need to take care of an old woman, the street that the Tripods started to invade Earth, the village that Cindy and Brenda went to, the battlefield that the U.S. army fought with the Tripods, and the bathroom that they woke up the next morning (It is the same bathroom in the start!), and some more scenes.

     This movie’s lighting is very good, though, even there is a lot of scenes are dark, but the lighting is great in the lighter scenes. About the camera work, it is very good too, with some shots of close and some far images. I like this movie’s effects very much, like the Tripod came out from the road, and it transformed into an alien. The huge laser rays and explodes are making the scene like a true thing happened here!

1000715 Youtube

Youtube

By Max

     Youtube is a web page that has many videos on it. It brought people some entertainment on the web, and you can relax and watch some videos without going outside.

     We could see some movies, concerts and songs on Youtube, not only watching videos. These video clips are being posted to Youtube by us, so using this way is like sharing some videos on the web.

     Youtube also helps our homework, too. When we need to write a project about the environment, you just enter the word on Youtube and you can see videos that are related to it. We could see that many education videos are also posted on Youtube, so this is also one of some good ways to learn things on the web.

     Everyone has some experience about using Youtube. Like me, I registered a Youtube account, and posted some of my own made videos on Youtube. While doing that, I also watch other people’s videos, and I sometimes will leave a comment or question about the video. After I learned about Youtube, I and my brother really liked to see Billboard Hot 100. It is very good to watch!

     Saying of Youtube, it is very convenient! When you want to see some concerts and movies, and hear some music, you just find them in Youtube! You can never spend money to see concerts and movies, and CD’s too!