Author: Jordan Brown

I’m a sophomore studying economics and communications. I’m also a movie junkie who specializes in rom-coms with the philosophy that life is better at the lake.

The Calling of the Bees

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It has become common knowledge that bees are dying.  I have seen many stickers, read many articles, and heard many people discussing this topic.  If bees go extinct then the way that we live our lives will drastically change. This is a problem that most people do not know what to do about to fix it.  Most people are also scared of bees, and run away when they see one, or they are generally not too happy about interacting with them.

I have spent some time on a Bee farm in Ecuador.  The farm was called Bee Farm Ecuador, and there was one family that kept all of the bees.  The head beekeeper, Gabby, was telling me about what the bees want. She says that a couple of years ago she realized that she could talk to the bees, or at least that she could understand them.  I know that this sounds crazy, but she says that there is a beekeeping community around beekeepers who are able to talk with bees. She says that the best way to save the bees is to invite them into our lives.  Every morning she does yoga with the bees, and she will put healing crystals around the beehives that she has made for them.

Gabby believes in somethings called “the calling of the bees”, this means that bees come to you if they think that you need them for some reason.  She says that the bees come and bring their strong feminine energy and the presence of them will help your life in some way. While I do agree that at first this sounded ridiculous, being around her and the bees I quickly realized that I was not scared of the bees while thinking with the mentality of “the calling of the bees”.  It didn’t matter if I believed that the bees were there to help my life or not, by me telling myself that they were I was not afraid of them when they flew by me and I heard there buzzing all around.

I think that the best way for people to start to help and solving this disappearance of the bees is to first stop being afraid of them.  And having “the calling of the bees” mentality is an easy way to do this.

2019 Oscars

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The beginning of the year is known in Hollywood as the award season.  Where is seems like every week there is a new award show on TV. The most popular being the Emmys, Tony’s, Grammy’s, and the Oscars.  Each of these four popular award shows are based on a different category of entertainment: Television, Broadway, Music, and Movies. There is more than one award show for each category, these are just the most popular and seen as the most prestigious.

The Oscars seems to be the biggest award show out of the four, with movie stars coming from all over just to be at movies biggest night.  The Oscars gives awards for a large variety of categories from movie scores, to costumes, to the more common categories like best actress and actor.  Most people only seem to know about the “bigger” categories because those are the only ones broadcasted on television. Most of the other awards are done beforehand and are not shown.

The Oscars also has awards for different types of films.  There is the biggest award of the night, “Best Feature”, and there are also best animated film, best short, and best documentary just to name some examples.  

Generally the public has not seen the majority of the films nominated for Oscars, but it seems that this has changed a little in recent years.  For example “Black Panther” and “A Star is Born” are both nominated for best picture. “Black Panther” was one of the most successful movies of 2018.  Most people still have not seen the best documentaries or the best shorts nominations. However, the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor is playing all of the Oscar nominated best shorts and best documentaries.  This can give people a chance to go and see them before the Oscars, and it gives the opportunity to see something that most people would not have the chance to see otherwise.

Hamilton in Michigan

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The hit Broadway musical “Hamilton” is finally coming to Michigan after being on Broadway since 2016.  The show will be playing in three different theaters across the state throughout the 2019-2020 season.

The Broadway show “Hamilton” seemed to become a new classic from the moment it started in April 2016.  The writer, star, and producer Lin Manuel Miranda shot to stardom because of this show. He played Hamilton during its first run on Broadway and will occasionally come back and play him again for special performances.  An example of this is during Hamilton’s Puerto Rican show to raise money for people in Puerto Rico who are still affected by the hurricane.

The show seemed to be so popular that was even hard for celebrities to get tickets.  There seemed to be constant stream of pictures of different celebrities watching Hamilton each night.  It may not be surprising then to find out that tickets were about $500 a person to go see the show. Luckily the tickets for the three shows in Michigan are a little more manageable.

Hamilton’s first stop after Broadway was Chicago, where tickets were still expensive and hard to get your hands on.  I was lucky enough to go to a performance and see Hamilton in Chicago. They stayed in Chicago for several months before getting ready to tour elsewhere.  Hamilton’s show in Puerto Rico was the start of their tour that will be all over the United States for the 2019-2020 season.

One cast member on this touring company is University of Michigan alumni, Simon Longnight.  He graduated from the University of Michigan in 2018, and is playing Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson on the tour.

The Broadway hit musical “Hamilton” is coming to Detroit, Grand Rapids, and the Wharton Center within the next year.  Tickets for the Detroit showings have already gone on sale!

What to do on a snowday?

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Once the University of Michigan cancelling classes for two days in a row, I thought to myself “Hooray!  I’m going to catch up on sleep for the next two days!” Then I tried to remember what I did on snow days during elementary and high school.  I would play outside for the day, or have friends over to play inside. So I decided that maybe instead of sleeping for the next two days I could do something else.  So here is a list of things that I might do during our snow-days.

Movie Marathons!  I am a huge fan of movies, my favorite genres are romcoms, sci-fi, and thrillers.  When creating a movie marathon you have the choice of watching a bunch or random movies, movies with the same theme, or a movie series.  Watching random movies is good so that you do not get too bored when watching a couple movies in one sitting. This way you can laugh, cry, and get scared in one day; which can be more exciting.  Watching movies from the same genre, or with the same theme can give you an extra dose of whatever feeling you want. Watching a movie series gives you purpose when you are sitting watching a movie, because you now have to finish the series.  I personally like watching movie series. You can always re-watch Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.

Read!  As a college student, I never do any reading for pleasure during the school year because I am constantly reading for my classes.  Taking two days to start and possibly finish a book that has been sitting unread in my bookshelf would be great. Cold weather is also the perfect reading conditions because then you are incentivized to sit in a chair curled up with a blanket and a book and are able to read for hours.  It’s also nice when you are sitting by a window that brings in natural light and so that you can look outside but you do not have to go outside.

Game night!  The last activity is better if there is someone else with you.  A game night or afternoon is always fun and relaxing, depending on the game.  I used to play a lot of board games growing up with my family, and I have not played them much since going to college.  I love when an opportunity comes up and I can play them again. The best games to play during snow days are games that take a long time because you have all of the time in the world.  I personally like to play Risk when I have a couple of hours to spend on a game.

America’s Got Talent

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The tv show Americas Got Talent (AGT) is a popular summer show that the whole family can enjoy.  It has been running for 12 seasons and has gone through many changes in judges, sponsors, and now hosts, but one thing that has remained constant throughout the show is that singers dominate the competition, particularly child singers.

With an abundance of singing shows like The Voice, The X-Factor, and American Idol one would think that someone aspiring to be a singer would audition for one of those shows.  But a very large amount singers audition for AGT. Singers dominate that competition on the talent show to the point that it almost certain that there will be at least one if not two singers in the final three.  Singers have won the show over half of the time. In the past several seasons, child singers have begun to dominate the field. Child singers have won the past two seasons of the show. This has become a trend in the past several seasons but the very first winner of AGT on season 1 was an 11 year old singer named Bianca Ryan.  These children are very talented but they get a lot of their votes on their “cute factor” instead of only their talent. There voices may also change and they can’t grow into an amazing career, which is the goal of the show.

All of the singers present and competing on the show leave less room for the unique and variety acts that AGT was created to discover.  Perhaps there should be some limit on the number of singers that can be let through to the finals, because it’s not that these singers don’t have talent, there are just many other options for them to show their talent.  Where other acts don’t have that platform, like magicians and dog trainers. For true off the wall and unique acts AGT is the only place to show off their gift, and season after season they are overshadowed by the singers who come on the show.

Indoor Home Garden

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Winter in the midwest is the time for everyone to stay inside and wait until April before venturing outside, it’s too cold to go outside and play.  In the southern hemisphere winter is the time for people to be outside and enjoy the nice weather. Over winter break I was lucky enough to take a 10 day trip to Ecuador and learn all about food sustainability.  The winter season for them is when they start to plant their crops so that they will grow nice and large for picking season in the late summer.

This got me thinking about planting in the midwest in the winter.  It is too cold to go outside and enjoy gardening, but it is the perfect time to start a small indoor garden of your own.  Some very good indoor plants that are hard to kill are string of pearls, succulents, and prayer plant. Succulents are already very popular and famous for not needing much attention, but these other plants are also easy to keep alive and they will add some color to your room/house.

Other plants are nice to have in your home because they have a purpose.  Some purify the air, some can calm you down. The Peace Lily and Snake plant are great for purifying the air, and they  only need minimum light to keep alive, which is great for winter months when there isn’t much sunlight. Other plants like aloe and lavender are great to have to calm down and help you sleep.

The last type of plants that are great to have indoors all year round are edible plants.  Some herbs that are easy to grow, and can be useful very often are basil, thyme, and parsley.  These plants are easy to grow, and will be very useful when cooking. Another good plant to grow is mint, but that is a little harder to grow inside.

While winter is a time to stay inside, it doesn’t have to be the time to stop gardening.  These are just some of the easiest indoor plants to grow, but there are almost unlimited options to start growing an indoor home garden.