Movie Based On A True Story That Inspired Me

The Walk is a 2015 American 3D biographical drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Christopher Browne and Zemeckis. It is based on the story of French high-wire artist Philippe Petit's walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on August 7, 1974. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, James Badge Dale, Ben Schwartz, and Steve Valentine. The film was released by TriStar Pictures on September 30, 2015, in the United States in IMAX 3D, and on October 9 in regular 2D and 3D. The film was dedicated to the victims of the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Lets go through the synopsis of the movie

In 1973, French street performer Philippe Petit is trying to make a living in Paris with juggling acts and wire walking, much to the chagrin of his father. During one performance, he eats a hard candy which was given to him by an audience member and injures his tooth. He visits the dentist and, while in the waiting room, sees a picture in a magazine of the Twin Towers in New York City. He analyzes the photo and decides to make it his mission to walk a tightrope between the two buildings. Meanwhile, he is evicted from his parents' house by his father, citing his lack of income and the fact that he's a street performer. Philippe returns to the circus that inspired him to wire walk as a child and practices in the big top after hours, but is caught by Papa Rudy, whom he impresses with his juggling skills. While performing one day, Philippe meets a beautiful woman and fellow street performer named Annie, and they begin a romantic relationship. He also explains that although he didn't know it at the time, she was his first "accomplice". He tells Annie about his dream to walk between the towers of the World Trade Center and she supports him and gives him a perfect place to practice at her music school. Philippe meets a photographer named Jean-Louis and befriends him, becoming Philippe's official photographer and second accomplice in his "coup".

Philippe requests Papa Rudy for tips and advice on knot tying and rope rigging, which Papa Rudy agrees to for compensation. After failing his first real performance by falling into a lake, Philippe decides to attempt to walk on the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to redeem himself. He succeeds with the support of Jean-Louis but is arrested in the process. Jean-Louis introduces Jeff, another accomplice who has a fear of heights, to Philippe and Annie, while explaining his idea to use a bow and arrow tied to a fishing line to get the cable across the Towers. Philippe and Annie then travel to America, setting the date for the walk as August 6, 1974. Philippe dresses in disguises to spy on the construction crews and scout out the locations, impaling his foot on a nail in the process. At one point, he meets a man who reveals he is a fan of Philippe's and saw him at Notre Dame. He introduces himself as Barry Greenhouse, a life insurance salesman who works in the building, becoming another member of Philippe's team. They also meet French-speaking electronics salesman J.P. and his friends, amateur photographer Albert, and stoner David. The gang goes over the plan several times, ending with the notion that Philippe must be on the wire before the construction crews arrive at 7:00 AM.

On the eve of the event, the gang encounters several speed bumps, such as being three hours behind schedule, guards on the premises and nearly dropping the heavy cable off the roof. However, they successfully string up the ropes and set the cables. Philippe begins his walk, explaining that everything around him faded once he started, except the wire and himself, and that for the first time in his life he felt truly thankful and at peace. He successfully crosses the gap between the towers while crowds below cheer him on. Once he reaches he has an urge to return, so he walks back again across the void. At one point he kneels to his audience and even lies down. The police arrive, and threaten to remove him by helicopter if he doesn't get off but Philippe relentlessly continues to walk back and forth until he achieves the feat a total of six times. He is arrested on site, with the police and construction workers commending him on his bravery. Philippe and his accomplices are eventually released and he decides to remain in New York, but Annie chooses to follow her dream, and return to Paris. The building manager gives Philippe a free pass to the observation decks of both towers, and Philippe gives a final look to the camera, with the Twin Towers in the background, as he says the expiry date on the pass was crossed out and changed to "forever".

There are few moral values that inspired me by watching this movie. 

Nothing is impossible if you believe you can do it

After gone through a rough training with Papa Rudy to become a wire walker, Philippe was so confident that he can cross over between the two World Trade Center building at the height of 1,368 feet. Philippe did not took Papa's Rudy advice to cancel that dangerous act because he really believe with his own ability and he did prove it to Papa Rudy. If you want to do something that  is beyond possibility, you need to believe in your own ability so that there will be no more hesitation inside you and you can do it confidently.

Never give up in achieving your dreams

Although Philippe had to face a lot of obstacles and solve many problems, but all those thing never weaken his spirit in completing his most glorious act. For him, there are nothing that can stop him from achieving his dream. If you got a dream and you need to achieve it, you should never give up until you got everything that you had dreamed of.

10 Tips On How To Be Confident To Speak In English

Hey. Welcome back.

How are you doing? I hope all of you are in the pink of health. So today, I'm gonna continue from my last entry. If you already read it, you will know what am I talking about. If you still didn't read it, you can spend a little time to read my last entry. It was just a short entry only. For this entry, I'm gonna give you tips on How To Be Confident To Speak In English. There are a lot of tips that you can find on how to be confident to speak in English out there or you can either Google it. I'm just focusing on speaking because we know that this is the hardest part for most of them who is learning English to speak with confident and fluently.

1. Don't Mind With The Grammar

This rule might sound strange to many peoples, but it is one of the most important rules. If you want to pass examinations, then study grammar. However, if you want to become fluent in English and to have confident in speaking, then you should try to learn English without studying the grammar.Studying grammar will only slow you down and confuse you. You will think about the rules when creating sentences instead of naturally saying a sentence like a native.

2. Don't Afraid To Make Mistakes

Sometimes it can be difficult to put all those rules and words together into a simple sentence. Don’t let the fear of saying something wrong stop you from speaking at all. Even if you think you’re making a mistake, keep speaking anyway. Most of the time, people will understand what you’re trying to say, even if you make a mistake. Plus, the more you speak, the easier it gets, and the more quickly the right words will come to mind.

3. Speak As Much As Possible

Learning a language is just about like learning anything else.  The more you practice, the better you get. That’s worth repeating.  Learning a language is just like learning anything else.  The more you practice, the better you get. There, that’s more like it… Maybe you can still remember what it was like to ride a two-wheeler for the first time or to swim your first lap. Stop to think about the first time you got in a car to drive, or when you cooked a favorite recipe. 

• Do you remember how you felt?
• Do you remember when it “just clicked”? 
• Perhaps, you felt a little scared.  
• Perhaps, you were a little doubtful.  
• Perhaps, you even wanted to q-u-i-t! 

But, do you also remember that each time you continued that you got better and better until finally it became a habit? How did you feel then? 

• I bet you felt proud.  
• I know you felt confident.  
• I think you probably wanted to go and do whatever it was, over and over again. 
• You probably even told someone, or maybe more than one person, about it. 

Well, that is the same with speaking another language.  The more you speak, the easier it will be to speak.  The more you speak, the better your English will become. The better you speak, the more confident you will be at speaking a second language.  This will be an incentive to encourage you to speak even more. Before you know it, speaking English will be as natural as riding that bike or swimming a lap, driving a car or skiing down that hill. Let’s think of some of the natural ways you can speak English in your day.

4. Reading Out Loud

Reading fluency is simply the ability to read a book or text clearly. You correct your pronunciation mistakes until you make no errors.

The more you practice fluency, the more confidence you will have because it gives you a safe environment to practise in, increase your reading speed, and to process words faster.

If you are nervous about speaking in front of others, start reading aloud by yourself at home. As you feel more confident, ask a teacher or a native English speaker to give you feedback on more advanced vocabulary.

How to start:

1. Choose a text that is approximately 75-200 words long. Pick something that you think you can read easily, such as a book from one of your English classes, or even a book recommended by a friend.
2. Ask your teacher or someone you know with excellent English if they can read the text out loud while you record them. You can also choose a clip from a movie or TV show to practice with if you prefer.
3. Listen along to the recording while reading the text at the same time.
4. Practice reading with the recording until you are confident.
5. Record your own voice. Listen and compare.
6. Find another text to read and repeat the first 5 steps.

You can develop your fluency by reading even for only 5 or 10 minutes a day at your own pace, and on whatever topic interests you the most

5. Learn And Study Phrases

Speaking English fluently means being able to express your thoughts, feelings and ideas. Your goal is to speak English in full sentences, so why not learn it in full sentences? You’ll find that English is more useful in your everyday life if you study whole phrases, rather than just vocabulary and verbs. Start by thinking about phrases that you use frequently in your native language, and then learn how to say them in English.

6. Don't Translate

When you want to create an English sentence, do not translate the words from your Mother tongue. The order of words is probably completely different and you will be both slow and incorrect by doing this. Instead, learn phrases and sentences so you don't have to think about the words you are saying. It should be automatic.

Another problem with translating is that you will be trying to incorporate grammar rules that you have learned. Translating and thinking about the grammar to create English sentences is incorrect and should be avoided.

7. Chatting With People Online

Find opportunities to chat.  You will use many literacy skills. This is a great way to practice listening and visual attention, speaking and comprehension.

8. Stay Calm And Don't Use Long Sentences

Just because you're speaking to someone in English doesn't mean that you have to try out every word and every grammatical structure you know. 

When you're in a conversation, your first job is just to listen to the other person. If you're listening carefully, you won't have time to worry about your own language problems.

Your next job is to respond to what other people are saying. Your response can be a smile or frown, a few simple words, or a short question. It doesn't have to be complicated.

Don't feel like you have to express every idea that you have in English. Some of your ideas might be too complicated for you to talk about right now. It's OK to save them for later and say something a little simpler instead.

9. Submerge Yourself

Being able to speak a language is not related to how smart you are. Anyone can learn how to speak any language. This is a proven fact by everyone in the world. Everyone can speak at least one language. Whether you are intelligent, or lacking some brain power, you are able to speak one language.

This was achieved by being around that language at all times. In your country, you hear and speak your language constantly. You will notice that many people who are good English speakers are the ones who studied in an English speaking school. They can speak English not because they went to an English speaking school, but because they had an environment where they can be around English speaking people constantly.

You don't have to go anywhere to become a fluent English speaker. You only need to surround yourself with English. you can achieve results by changing what your surroundings are. Submerge yourself in English and you will learn several times faster.

10. Find The Right Technique

Finding a technique that works for you can also help you feel comfortable when speaking aloud. You may find that simple breathing exercises can quickly make you seem calmer. Or you could try visualization techniques that make you feel more confident and positive as you raise your hand to participate in class.

As you can see, those are the few tips that I can give for you so that you can apply in order to be more confident to speak in English. Remember, you can do it.  Say it with me:  I can do it!  You can speak with more confidence. You can learn English and become a better speaker.  Believe in yourself. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, 

Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I have the belief that I can do something, I shall acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have had it in the beginning.

So then, make it a goal to start today.Until next time. :)

Challenges In Acquiring English

Hey. Welcome back.

How are you doing? I hope all of you are in the pink of health. So today, I'm gonna write an entry about challenges that we may face in acquiring English. As we all know, there are many challenges that can befall on a person in acquiring English. Examples of challenges in acquiring English are:

1. Grammar

English Grammar is complex, making it difficult to remember, master and use logically. Ensuring you use the correct grammar can be tricky, especially when you are in conversation with someone and they are speaking at an alarmingly fast pace. Learning grammar is like learning to drive, you can learn all of the theory, rules and regulations, but you won't be good at it unless you practice it and it starts to become second nature to you. Grammar is extremely important, incorrect use of grammar can confuse the person you are speaking to and even change the meaning of what you are communicating, what's more is native English speakers are hyper aware of grammar and will notice almost immediately if a grammatical error is made, even if this is the smallest of errors, English speakers are incredibly proud of the language and look negatively on it being used incorrectly.

2. Vocabulary

Is often a challenge, particularly when it comes to verb variations and understanding which tense should be used in various situations. English has one of the biggest vocabularies of all languages, and it can be very confusing for non-English speakers to master. Using vocabulary inaccurately is incredibly noticeable to anyone who's first language is English, though it doesn't often change the meaning of your text, it does weaken it.

3. Pronunciation

Knowing how to pronounce words in English can be very difficult as it isn't always obvious. English speakers have been taught these from an early age, which is how they know not to pronounce the ‘k' on ‘knight' , they are taught the subtleties in how to pronounce something to communicate the right message. Furthermore, depending on the first language of the English student, it can often be difficult to pronounce certain words properly, having not ever had to create that phonetic sound before.

4. Misunderstanding the meaning and content guess

English language having such an extensive vocabulary and complicated grammar. Students rarely exposed to the slang words used by English speakers in every day conversation. Sentences can be predominantly filled with slang words, so maintaining a real sound of words can be difficult for anyone who doesn't understand what they mean.

5. Variations in English

The variations in the different forms of English can often be difficult to understand. For example, the difference between using formal and informal language or the differences between spoken and written language. This leads to students writing words phonetically, i.e. how they would say it rather than how its actually spell, and using informal language, maybe even slang that they have picked up, in formal situations which may perhaps be viewed negatively.

6. Lack of confidence

This kind of problem commonly occur in those whom afraid to practice their English in their daily life. They felt like their English is worse thus making them to lack of confidence and they will be afraid in using English.

7. Afraid of making mistakes

This is also a common challenges. Students tend to think about grammatical or another mistakes that they may did. They are so afraid of making mistakes even though the real process of learning something is by making mistakes and learn from it. Just do it and learn from it. That is what we called learning.

8. Uninterested with English

Student does not interested with English usually because they feel like it wasn't important to them and they just learn it because they were forced to.


9. Unsupportive friends

When someone would like to learn or to practice their English, there are always a few people that keep breaking their spirit from doing so. This kind of friends should be avoided at all cost because they don't have the vision to see their friends to succeed.


10. Lack of material

For those who are hardly acquiring English, they were lacking of material in improving their English. Most of us usually only focusing on reading English book even though by watching English movies was also one of the material that we can use to improve our English. 

How Would Your Life Be Different If You Have Four Arms?

If I have four arms?? Erm... I think my life would be more different and I would be more useful. Of course I can be more useful but at the same time I can be use by another person because of the advantages that was given to me. Here is the list of what my life would be if I really have four arms.

1. I can help my mother with her chores

At home, my mother was so busy with her chores. By the end of the day, she will looks so tired. I feel so pity on her. That's why I will help my mother with her chores if I really have four arms.

2. I can play any 2 player games all by myself

Usually when I at home, my siblings were so busy with their work and I can't simply ask them to play PS4 with me. Thus, it will be more easier for me to play video game with four arms instead of interrupting my brothers and sisters in the middle of their work.

3. I can easily finish my assignments

As a student, it is a must for our lecturer to give us assignments. And there will be a time when we had to finish all the assignments to be submitted on the same date or the same week. Thus, my four arms would be an advantages for me because I can finish two or three assignments in a time

4. I would join any fighting competition

Actually I'm not that kind of person who likes to fight. But if I really have four arms, I will try to enter any fighting competition to make use my of my advantage.

5. I can play drum and piano much better

Playing drum is about the right speed and the right timing while playing piano is about the speed of our hands. So, my four arms would be a benefit for me because I can simply hit the right tone or rhythm without being panic to search and hit the right keynote.

6. I can count from 1 to 20 using my hands

As for normal person, they can only count from 1 to 10 using their hands but for me, I can count from 1 to 20 using my four arms. Ain't it nice??

7. I can use the keyboard at faster speed than the usual one

I like to play computer but when it comes to typing, I'm like a kid who just learnt to use the keyboard. It is such a problem for me. So with the help of my four arms, I will be able to type at a faster speed rather than the usual one.

8. I need to cut two more holes in all my shirts

This is such a problem to me. Literally, there are no shops that sell shirts for a person who have four arms. So, when I buy a new shirt I need to cut two holes on the shirt so that it can fit for my four arms. Such a nuisance.

9. I can do heavy works

When I have four arms, its mean that I have more muscle power. When I have more muscle power, that means that I can do more heavier work. 

10. I would be called as weirdo

Last but not least, definitely I would be called as weirdo. A weirdo because I have four arms. Such a sad name. :'(