Shark Fin Ban Video

This was a final group project for Writing For New Media, and my group members and I did a video about the recent Shark Fin Ban. I met with Senator Clayton Hee to learn more about the ban, and we also interviews a few locals to get their thoughts as well. My other group members were Madeline Bergstrand, Joana Gonzales, and Jessi Starr. Great job everyone!

Shark Fin Ban from Jessi Starr on Vimeo.

Bali: Perfect Paradise or Overrun By Loud Mouthed Aussies?

Bali is one of the most beautiful places on earth. It has pristine beaches, food and shopping for cheap, great nightlife, and amazing surf spots. One of the most popular surf spots is Uluwatu Beach, which lies on the southern part of Bali. Over Uluwatu is a large cliff, where you'll find restaurants, bars, surf repair shops, and photo shops where you can buy pictures of yourself surfing the big waves! Another popular surf spot in Bali is Padang Padang, and there is definitely a season for the waves. In the summer is when it usually gets pretty good size, but if you go during the winter, don't expect to see any decent size waves. But the winter is definitely a good time to go if you just want to lay on the beach and relax.

However, even though Bali is a tropical paradise for most people, the locals have been complaining that the island has become overrun by loud, noisy, Australian tourists. I have to admit that when I was living there, there were a lot of Australian tourists. Most of them were very nice but there were definitely some that were more obnoxious and somewhat disrespectful to the local community. One night while eating dinner at one of the local restaurants, there was a group of Aussie tourists that were being really loud and everyone in the restaurant kept looking over and glaring at them. It was clear that they had definitely been drinking, and when the waitress came over and started speaking broken english to them, they mimicked her by speaking broken english back. It was extremely rude and disrespectful and I felt bad for the waitress.

In recent news, locals have been complaining more and more about the Aussies spending their vacations in Bali and feel like they should go somewhere else. But Bali to Australians is like Mexico to Californians or The Bahamas to Floridians. It's super cheap and super close! The locals who surf in Bali also complain about how the Aussies will constantly cut them off when they're trying to catch waves. For me, I feel like the Australian tourists make everyone else look bad, like that all tourists are disrespectful toward the locals.

The number of tourists continues to rise each year, and in 2010 the number of Australian tourists increased by 30% to 400,000. Thailand used to be Australia's most popular tourist destination, but with a longer flight and more expensive ticket prices, it has quickly lost to Bali.

While some of the Australian tourists may be obnoxious at times, one group is obnoxious and rude all the time; and that group is the monkeys of Bali. If you ever go to Bali,beware of the monkeys. I was chased and growled at by these demon monkeys, and I heard stories from the locals about people who tried to feed them and ended up getting attacked. So be cautious of the Aussies, but beware of the monkeys!

More Chocolate Please!

Chocolate. It even sounds as amazing as it tastes. Now I have a huge sweet tooth, I mean I think I can safely say I'm definitely addicted to sugar. Chocolate is definitely at the top of my list of favorite things in the world, and I don't think I've ever met anyone who didn't like chocolate. But there's actually more to chocolate than just it's amazing taste, there are actually many health benefits to eating chocolate!

Unfortunately, it's mainly dark chocolate that has all the health benefits, because milk and white chocolate have little content of the cacao bean and contain mostly sugar. That being said, eating chocolate in general (dark, milk, and white) makes people feel good, because it increases the levels of serotonin in your brain. Serotonin is the neurotransmitter responsible for an enhanced mood and acts as an anti-depressant, in other words, it releases the happy emotion in your brain.

Dark chocolate has far more health benefits than just making you happy. A small piece of dark chocolate is really good for your heart because it lowers your blood pressure and lowers your LDL cholesterol by up to 10%. Have you ever noticed that we crave certain foods when we're really stressed out? Well, since chocolate causes the brain to release more serotonin, that leads to significant reductions in anxiety when we're stressed.

So when you're stressed, depressed, upset, or when you suffer from high cholesterol or high blood pressure, eat chocolate! But not too much, because it is still high in fat and calories.

Facebook Privacy Policy: Have YOU read it?

Facebook changes their look and privacy policies so much, that's it's hard to keep up with the ever changing terms and conditions. Earlier this year, Facebook took a turn for the better when they changed their privacy policy, not to mention, their home page (yet again). And it might have been because Mark Zuckerberg suffered quite a few lawsuits when fellow Facebook users found their profile pictures posted on billboards and other advertisements.

Turns out that up until this year, unless you specifically stated otherwise, Facebook could use your photos in advertising campaigns and market products. Whenever you posted photos to Facebook, you're actually giving them permission to use your personal content, including photos, and they have the right to use them in internet and television ads.

Now because Facebook didn't clearly state this information, they suffered a couple lawsuits. So in the new Facebook privacy policy, you give Facebook a "non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post..this license ends when you delete you IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with other, and they have no deleted it." So Facebook has the right to have your content on their servers AND serve it to others but ONLY in accordance to your privacy settings.

So in order to make sure your picture doesn't end up in one of the sidebar ads, you need to edit your privacy settings. Go to account settings, Facebook adverts, ads shown by third parties, and select NO ONE. This ensures that you won't see your photos anywhere except on your profile page.

College Students and Sleep Deprivation

After three years in college, I've definitely had my share of all-nighters. Mainly during finals week or during big projects. I try really hard to not to stay up all night anymore, because now I know how bad it is for your body, and your brain.

Sleep deprivation affects 60% of college students today, and that's not an exaggeration. According to one study, only 30% of students get at least 8 hours of sleep most of the time. 20% of students said they pulled all nighters at least once a month, and 45% said they usually stay up until 3 A.M. at least once or twice a week. Many students, including myself, will sacrifice precious hours of sleep so they can get their homework and projects finished.

The biggest problem is that students really underestimate the importance of sleep, and don't realize that they are sabotaging their mental and physical health. Everyone is different when it comes to the effects of sleep deprivation, but from what I've experienced, things can get pretty scary. Last year, I went 2 weeks with only about a total of 15 hours of sleep. From what I remember, I had really bad mood swings, I went from extremely tired to extremely hyper, I had a difficult time putting sentences together, and suffered from mild hallucinations.

Students are not likely to complete their best work while they are sleep deprived, and all-nighters have become more of a habit in recent years. Even if students pull one all-nighter and then use the next two days to catch up on sleep, sleep deprivation is still going to affect their ability to retain information and pay attention during class.

The good news, is that as college students become more mature and get older, most of them tend to grow out of all nighters and learn to prioritize their health while balancing appropriate times to study. I've found that all of my friends, that I've had since freshman year, don't pull all nighters anymore like we all used to. I think it's because when we're younger, we don't know how to prioritize our workload so we wait till the day before it's due and stay up all night getting it done.

The Benefits of Doodling in Class

While doodling in class may bother some people, there have actually been studies that show doodling can be beneficial, and even helps us pay attention more. I doodle pretty much every day when I'm sitting in class, and when I was younger I got yelled at for not paying attention. But I was paying attention (most of the time) and I thought it was strange that teachers saw drawing as a distraction for students to not pay attention. The reality is that given the way our brain functions, doodling is almost like a necessary tool to keep the brain from totally dozing off. You see, the brain is actually very active when people are bored, because we're constantly processing information. The problem is that when we're bored, the brain almost becomes stressed, because there's no stimulation for the information to be processed.

Now, doodling solves that problem, because doodling provides enough cognitive stimulation during an otherwise boring task and prevents the mind from completely dozing off and running into a fantasy world. So in a nutshell, when you're bored, doodling provides just enough so that you're still paying attention instead of going into a daydream-like state.

The funny thing about daydreaming is that even though it seems like a pointless, absentminded thing to do, it actually requires a lot of the brain's processing power. You start thinking about that awesome club you and your friends are going to tomorrow night, which then leads to you stressing about what you're going to wear, maybe you should go out and buy a new outfit, but you're stressed about spending money, and then maybe you should get a part time job, but you're worried about balancing school and work, etc. You see how these things start to pile up? And then the teacher calls on you and you have absolutely no idea what's going on because you've just essentially been shaken out of your daydream coma.

Doodling, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. As I said before, it requires just enough cognitive energy to keep your mind from daydreaming, but not so much that you don't pay attention.

APEC: The Local Standpoint

After a week of roads being closed off, fights breaking out, hundreds of secret service agents and police officers, and motorcades, the locals of Oahu are relieved for it all to be over. The Asia Pacific Economic Corporation really caused an uproar for locals who were just trying to resume their normal lives during the conference, but with all the road closures and intense police force, it made it quite difficult.

Even though I did my best to avoid the hectic craziness of Waikiki, the traffic and police force still caught up with me to interrupt and alter my plans for the day. For example, after dropping my boyfriend off at work one day that's just a few minutes from our house, I sat in traffic for 45 minutes so that protestors of APEC could cross the roadways. There were at least 70 people walking in the protest, and while the police force kept them under control, they couldn't do anything about the blocked traffic. The same thing happened on a day where I had class and was unable to get downtown because off the delays, I ended up turning around and not even bother going after sitting in the same location for over an hour.

I really feel that they could have done a better job controlling the roadways during the weekend, a lot of major intersections were blocked off and everyone had a difficult time getting to the places they needed to be. Even tourists who were on vacation had to walk several blocks to get to tour vans because the vehicles were not allowed to approach certain hotels. In the future, if I know another major event like this is going to take place in Hawaii, I might take a vacation to another island just so I won't have to deal with it again!

Go Vegetarian To Save Money...And Yourselves

I've always been a supporter for the vegetarian lifestyle, and in our society today with all the cheap fast food at every corner, going vegetarian might not be the worst idea in the world, and there's ways that it won't break your bank. My initial reason for going vegetarian when I was younger was because of the treatment of the animals that are raised for slaughter and to be honest, it didn't take long before I became committed to being a full time vegetarian for about 7 years. Unfortunately, I've since become a prisoner to my taste buds and have been a vegetarian on and off for the past 5 years. But that's a whole other story.

It's sad that a lot of people won't go vegetarian because they think it's too expensive and it also requires people to actually cook their food more than eating out. We all know it's much easier to go walk a block and go to your local fast food joint and pick up a value meal with a soft drink, burger, and fries, all for $5. It may not hurt your wallet now, but it will hurt your waistline and your health over time. If people were to drop meat from their diets, they would actually find that food would be cheaper than your average cut of steak. Rice, vegetables, fruits, and beans are not expensive items compared to meat which averages at $4.99 per pound, and that's just the cheaper cuts. If you were looking to get a nice cut of meat, you're looking at around $10 per pound and up.

By going vegetarian, you're less likely to suffer from diseases that stem from obesity and viruses that are transmitted from dirty meats in the factory. So having better health translates into lowering your health costs so you're not spending as much when you visit the doctor or even go to the hospital.

I don't expect the world to go completely vegetarian overnight, especially since eating some meat does have its benefits. For example, last year after I hadn't eaten meat in almost two years, I suffered from lack of iron and would wake up in the morning with bruises from tossing and turning overnight. My body actually started craving meat and I broke down one night and finally got some short ribs and rice. So at the end of the day, everyone doesn't have to go completely vegetarian, but eating less meat and incorporating healthy raw foods into your diet is a better long term solution for your health, and your waistline!

HIFF: Bob Marley: The Making of a Legend

Bob Marley's former girlfriend and filmmaker, Esther Anderson, has put together a film about Bob's life, mainly containing lost footage before he became the Bob Marley that fans all across the globe know and love. While there isn't really much of a storyline, Esther puts together clips where Bob is just laying around, smoking joints, and practicing some of his most favorite songs such as "Get Up, Stand Up" and "I Shot the Sheriff".

It's easy to see what kind of messages Anderson wanted to send to the world, she wanted to share what the world might not have known about Bob Marley, kind of a backstage pass time machine, all in a 90 minute film. We do learn about some of the origins from which some of Bob's songs started, for example, the inspiration for "Get Up, Stand Up" came after Marley visited Haiti and saw the living conditions and lives of the people there. One of my favorite scenes is Bob practicing some vocals for a song while strumming his guitar. As a Bob Marley fan, it was really something else to actually see him in his roots, and totally unaware that he would become one of the most famous global superstars.

HIFF: The Price of Sex

There are many dark corners throughout our world today. The majority of the world's population is poor and some people would do almost anything for money. The sad part is, that a lot of women today are tricked into the sex industry with promises of wealth and freedom. The Price of Sex is a documentary by photojournalist Mimi Chakarova who follows the societal causes that force women into modern day slavery.

Chakarova takes us to the poorer parts of some Eastern European countries such as Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, and Dubai. The women in the documentary explain that when you live in a poor country, like the ones in Eastern Europe, you suffer from high levels of corruption and greed. One of the women we meet is Bika (I'm not sure if I spelled it correctly) who was approached by a woman when she was 19 years old who offered her a job as a waitress and promised her she would make hundreds of dollars a month. Instead of serving as a waitress, Bika would be serving as a prostitue in Dubai and was sold to a brothel owner (pimp), where she worked as a sex slave for four years before finally escaping.

Each girl we meet in the film is usually from a very poor country, where there is no opportunity to have a decent life where girls can make money or have a decent job. Jenea, another girl from the film, is from Moldova, where her living conditions were so bad, she couldn't resist a job offer from a woman who approached her while she was working in the field.

It's sad that we live in a world where women in outside countries sometimes feel like there is no other way for them to make money other than being a prostitute. These sex-trafficking business people will approach these desperate women and manipulate them into coming with them to other countries only to be sold, and the women don't know any better because all they want is to get out of their own way of living so they ignore their common sense.

This film really moved me, and definitely brought me to tears a couple times. It made me want to do anything I could to help these women who are suffering and even the ones who have escaped are now essentially broken and emotionally destroyed for the rest of their lives. This film really is an eye opener for those who don't know the reality of human trafficking and that we're still practicing modern day slavery.

HIFF: Knots

I honestly had no idea what to expect when I choose to go see Knots. I didn't really know much about it except that the whole movie was shot here in Hawai'i, which I thought was pretty cool. I actually ended up really enjoying the movie, especially since it seemed like a low-budget film. The film takes place on the island of Oahu in Hawai'i and centers around a mother and her three daughters who run a wedding consultant business. Ironically, all four women all have troubles of their own concerning their love lives.

Lily, the main character is terrified of getting married because she doesn't believe that two people can be in love with each other for their entire lives. Her mother, Miriam, is three times divorced and has two other daughters, Hoku and Twinny, who are Lily's half sisters. Twinny is pregnant and is worried that her husband might be cheating on her, and Hoku started dating Lily's ex-boyfriend Kai and wants him to propose. The film pretty much circles around that plot line with each character, as well as dealing with the crazy bridal clients.

I think the movie has a really good storyline, the best way I can put it is that it's definitely an untraditional romantic comedy. Most romantic comedies you see today always have happy endings and seem unrealistic at times. While this movie does have a happy ending, it seems more believable than your average chick flick. It has a more mature message for viewers and tells a story about three very different sisters who are all just trying to make it in this world and who are all still learning to grow up. It was definitely one of the more uplifting movies I saw and I hope I get a chance to see it again.

HIFF: Super 8

Yesterday I went and saw the film, Super 8 which is directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg. Before I saw the film, I really wasn't sure what the movie was about, since the previews didn't really convey any sort of story line.

The film starts out with a group of kids, probably all around 13 and 14 years old, who are working together to produce a scary zombie movie during the summer of 1979 in Ohio. The main character, Joe, lives with his father, Jackson (who is also the town deputy), and the two of them have an awkward relationship since the death of Joe's mother. One night, Joe and his group of friends go to the train station to film a scene for the movie, and they witness a truck drive into an oncoming train, causing a major derailment and total destruction. Joe also sees something kick open one of the train doors and escape, but he can't make out what exactly it was.

Over the next week or so, strange unexplained things start to happen in the town. People's dogs start to run away, kitchen appliances go missing, and people start to go missing too. Joe and his friends decide to investigate the situation and discover that the government air force captured an alien back in the 50's and have been keeping the creature in captivity ever since. The truck that drove into the train that night was only trying to set the creature free so that it could go home. The film comes to an end when Joe and his friends discover that ever since the alien escaped, it had been building it's own ship to go home, using metal objects such as the missing kitchen appliances. The alien's ship finally becomes complete and the creature starts his journey to his home planet.

What I didn't like about the movie was how similar I felt it was to J.J. Abram's other film,Cloverfield. Not necessarily concerning the story lines, but the aliens in both movies look so similar! I mean when I first saw the alien in Super 8, I thought, "Is this supposed to be a prequel to Cloverfield?" However I did appreciate that Super 8 wasn't shot documentary style like Cloverfield, because watching that movie made me pretty nauseous.

Overall I thought the movie was pretty good, there's much more to the story than the summary I just gave. There's a mini-love story that goes on between Joe and his crush, and we also learn more about the death of Joe's mother and how it has affected his relationship with his father, and another side plot describes the air force and how it could be parallel to our society today, given how much the government keeps from society and we have no idea.

Lion King 3D: Need I Say More?

Seventeen years after the release of (in my opinion) one of the best Disney movies ever made, The Lion King was re-released to theaters in 3D! Not only did the movie give viewers a 3-Dimensional experience with the beloved cats, but the film also featured new and improved scenery throughout the film to make it look more realistic, and it really took the viewing experience of The Lion King to a whole new level. The animals of the African savannah seemed to only be inches away from my movie seats, and the water in the movie is so enhanced that it appears to be silky smooth and the rain even looks to be real.

The new and improved effects of the movie really make it more memorable for the audience, and I was absolutely thrilled when I was finally able to go see it last night. In addition to making a memorable impression on the audience, The Lion King made over $29 million the opening weekend of the 3-D event. In it's original release back in 1994, the film made over $312 million total at the box office, and became the highest-grossing film of it's time. In its entire lifetime, The Lion King has grossed over $422 million over the past 17 years.

Disney might have even started a trend with releasing one of its classics, because early next year, another classic is said to be hitting the big screen again. That's right, fans of the movie, Beauty and the Beast have something to look forward to in the new year. The film will be presented in 3-D with enhanced picture and sound and is said to hit theaters on January 13, 2012. Maybe The Little Mermaid will be next in line, who knows!

Stressed Out Students in a Stressful Economy

College students are probably, for the most part, mentally and physically some of the unhealthiest group of people. They're sleep deprived, usually don't have the time or money to make consistent healthy meals so they're eating crap, and most commonly, they're stressed out. It makes me angry when I've had friends tell me how much busier they are then I am or that they're way more stressed than I am, because really, every college student is stressed with their own problems.

However, in recent years, studies have shown that the stress levels of college students have increased to alarming rates. In 1985, a survey asked students if they felt their emotional health was above average or below average, and the results showed that only 35% of students said they felt they were below average, and the remaining 65% said it was above average. The same survey was taken again last year, and the results have changed dramatically. In just 26 years, 49% of students felt their health was below average, and 51% felt it was above average. Other studies have found that more students are being prescribed medication for depression and stress even before they get to college.

So why the sudden change? The answer is most likely our ongoing declining economy, which adds to students financial stress, and not just the expenses of college, but also their own college debt as well as the job prospects once they graduate. I happen to be one of these college students, I'm supposed to graduate with a degree in Integrated Multimedia next year, and I'm terrified of being unable to find a job. The truth is, when I was growing up, myself and people in my classes were told that we would go to college, get degrees, and get good jobs and be successful like our parents. That is what we were all promised. That is not the case today, more people than ever are losing their jobs and people with master's degrees are applying for jobs they are over-qualified for.

Students today are going into college knowing that their graduating class is more likely to be less successful than when our parents were in college, and everyone's worried that even with a college degree they won't find a job that pays more than minimum wage. A lot of students in college can't afford it to begin with, and more students are taking out loans than ever before, so the debt they will have to pay is another ongoing crisis.

Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation

The documentary "Act of War" tells the story of how the United States pretty much took over the monarchy of Hawaii. The film begins by showing a local hawaiian woman standing in front of a crowd of hundreds of hawaiians yelling, "We are not American! We will die as Hawaiians! We will never be American!" I always knew that the islands of Hawaii were stolen from the locals, but I didn't know the full history until I saw this documentary.

In 1893, armed troops from the U.S.S. Boston came to Honolulu looking for support of a treasonous coup d'etat against the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian monarch, Queen Lili'uokalani. Former U.S. President Grover Cleveland described these events as "an act of war." Queen Lili'uokalani ended up yielding her throne to what she called, "the superior force of the United States of America" in order to avoid bloodshed in her land. She trusted that the United States would eventually right the wrong they had done to her and the Hawaiian people, but obviously that never happened.

Throughout the few years I've been here in Hawaii, I've had a couple times where this subject has come up and conversation while talking to some of my local friends. It's funny because some of the people I've talked to will say that what happened to Hawaii was a good thing because now Hawaii is a developed state and because of all the tourism, it creates more jobs for the locals. Other locals have a different opinion though, they hate the fact that Hawaii has become a number one tourist destination, and how a lot of the forests have been torn down and replaced by skyscrapers and hotels.

An interesting fact about Waikiki in particular is that before it became one of the most famous beaches in the world, it was a marsh. That's right, for people who don't know, the town of Waikiki was marsh and wetlands that often flooded, so Waikiki beach isn't really even a real beach. Authorities have to keep replacing the sand every couple weeks to keep a beach for the tourists, and they actually end up taking the sand from the North Shore of Oahu. I think a lot of Hawaiians are angry that Waikiki is really this man-made tourist destination that replaced the true agriculture of the island.

Jade Bio

Hi! My name is Jade Summer Storms and this is my third year living in Hawaii and attending Hawaii Pacific University. After my first year at HPU, I decided to take a year off from school to travel, during which I went to France, Portugal, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Bali, and Panama. It was an amazing experience for me and by the time the year was up, I was really excited to go back to school.

I've been studying graphic/web design at HPU, and it's definitely something I really enjoy as my major. I'm not sure what exactly I'll do with it, but I wouldn't mind working in a design agency for a couple years. Ultimately I would like to own my own bakery business, and the way I see it is that I could use my web design skills to market my business to the public, and plus I just really love to bake. But who knows, I can be really indecisive most of the time and so I'm not really making any long term decisions right now. After I graduate, I would love to travel to more places all over the world. It was such an amazing experience to see other cultures in Bali and Panama, but it was just a small fraction compared to the rest of the world, so it really made me want to just travel the entire globe!

In my free time when I'm not working or doing homework, I love to paint, draw, surf, read, bake, and just relax and hang out. I love being outside whether it's doing a hike or going to the beach, I'm always down for adventure and trying new things!