'West Side Story' 21st century movie...

 

Watching last year's 2021 Steven Spielberg (co-producer and director) movie brought back lots of memories as a high school teacher in South Auckland (in the last century) in the early 1990s where I'd read the script in book format with my senior English classes and then watched and studied the 1961 movie production.

Having also taught Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' in high school with senior English students was also interesting as the themes were very similar having been based on similar conflicts of love between two people from different cultures i.e. white American and Hispanic (Puerto Rico). I thought it was very important to expose students to a variety of literature.

I would definitely recommend this movie to watch and study as it keeps very close to the original 1961 movie, in fact, one of the actresses who play the Puerto Rico female lead in the origin movie plays the shop keeper (originally male) in the 2021 production, some 50 years later. Simply amazing!

Is it a sad love story, just like the Romeo and Juliet story, but it reminds us of the prejudices and stereotypes that we often have of other cultures, often perpetuated by the media and that we often don't know much detail about. 

This movie reminds me that often there's a lot at stake and when prejudice and stereotyping leads to hate crimes and violence then inevitably it will often lead to the death of loved ones. Perhaps it's a reminder to always teach about diversity through understanding, respect and humility otherwise someone or people get hurt...

Keeping fit whilst walking virtually...

 

One of the things that assisted me during the time of my father's passing in December of last year was a virtual challenge that I started in November of 2021.

It's the Pacer virtual adventure/s that I started last year and when I chose the Jordan Trail of 650 km, I didn't know that it would take me till mid March before I would be able to finish it. 

For more information and other challenges information please view on: https://adventure.mypacer.com At the moment I'm currently walking the Easter Island track and it's quite fascinating to learn more about this most isolated island that I've read about.

I would highly recommend this and other challenges as it's assisted in my keeping motivated to keep fit and also learning about the country as I walk it virtually. 

I've currently finished over a dozen challenges and the medals are so well designed with free shipping all over the world (yes, unfortunately you do have to pay for the medals) but good to also pay for the discounted price whenever they have new or discounted challenges.

I must say that it allows me to combine my interest in travel, keeping fit, learning about the geography and often histories of countries and keeps me motivated to choose what the next challenge is based on what I want to accomplish i.e. long walks over 500 kms (over months) or short walks around 50 - 100 kms (over days or weeks).

There's even a merch (merchandise) that includes buying Tshirts of the favourite walks that you've done and accessories with which to hang your medals on. I've chosen to keep my medals displayed in a recycled Subway catering pack plastic container (I'll try and remember to take a pic and post).

So if you would like to join in a virtual challenge and want to combine the interests that I've posted about here then why not give it a go and if it's something that works for you then congratulations on trying something new or developing something that you've already started on. You'll never know where it takes you to...