Movie Review

Project Nim

A brilliant project gone dramatically wrong.

Release Date: 2011

Rating: ****

By Billy Keene: December 6, 2011

Chimpanzees are definitely intellectual and intelligent animals, but are they able to learn sign language and know what they are saying when they use it? I don’t think so. “Project Nim” is a documentary about a chimp named Nim Chimpsky who is raised as a human practically from birth. The chimp by the end of the documentary may be liked more than the other beings in it.

Nim was born in captivity in Oklahoma to a mother chimpanzee that had already had multiple of her newborns taken from her. She knew instantly what was happening. A few days after being born, Nim was recruited by Professor Herbert Terrace. He had one of his students, Stephanie LaFarge, to be Nim’s mother. As they were in the 70’s it seems to me that it was only natural that Ms. LaFarge breast-fed Nim and allowed him to occasionally drink beer and smoke pot.

In his early years, Nim was a very bright chimpanzee, as he had learned up to 125 signs within a couple years. He also learned how to use a toilet, although I’m sure he never knew why he would ever need to do that. It seemed that this project was going to be successful based on the early success.

As Roger Ebert says in his review of this movie I also call Nim “him” or “he” rather than “it” because the whole point of the movie is to show how human-like chimpanzees can be rather than just being thought of as wild animals. Even though the footage that we see in “Project Nim” is not all original filming of Nim, it is as close as they could get it to what it was originally like.

About half way through the documentary, the project started encountering problems. Nim started growing up. He got to about the teenage years for humans. Just as humans are, Nim became very argumentative and didn’t obey any of his handlers. To me this seemed like it was about time to stop the project and make the conclusion that chimpanzees can’t be raised as human beings because they are way too aggressive. But despite all the setbacks because of Nim’s aggressiveness, the project continued.

Later in the movie Nim bit one of his handlers’ cheeks. This was basically the last straw for that handler as Nim was constantly hitting and harassing that handler. Nim signed the sign for “sorry” but by this point it was too late and frankly I don’t think he really knew what he was saying. By this point in Nim’s life he already knew what he was supposed to do when he was getting “yelled” at. To him this was just a routine motion and I don’t even think he knew what he did wrong or what he meant by “sorry.” To him, saying “sorry” I think would be the same as a dog barking when you tell it to “speak.” It doesn’t know what the word “speak” really is but it knows what to do when it hears the word so it will either be pet or get a treat.

The whole end of the movie just shows Nim in captivity after the project is discontinued. It shows how sad he is being alone even though his new handlers still play around with him. One of the last things I remember happening is when the Professor comes back to him after so many years. Nim still remembers him and even holds a conversation with the Professor for a little while.

Despite Nim being able to remember the signs and being able to have a conversation with the Professor, I still don’t believe that Nim really knew what he was saying. To me sign language is based off of answering signs to other signs. Most of the time, a conversation in sign language would not make sense if it were translated exactly to oral words. Don’t hate me because I am kind of putting sign language, because I actually know quite a bit of it myself and actually really like sign language, but I am a really literal person and don’t think that it is possible for a Chimpanzee to be able to learn sign language and actually understand what it is saying and hold a real conversation with actual sign words.

Cast & Credits

Professor Terrace Himself

Dr. Lemmon Bern Cohen

Stephanie Reagan Leonard

Lab tech Bob Angelini

Roadside Attractions presents a film directed by James Marsh. Running time: 99 minutes. Rated PG-13 for Some Strong Language, Drug Content, Thematic Elements and Disturbing Images.

Farewell to arms

Well this seems weird already having our last blog for the semester. It seemed to go by really fast. I would like to start off with saying how I really enjoyed being your guys’ classmate. I really enjoyed some of the conversations that were held in class, and for some of you even outside of class. You guys seemed to be there when I decided to forget what Ms. Gregory said in class, so I definitely thank you guys for that.

Now besides that, taking this class has definitely changed my writing ways and how I like to do them. I started this class basically knowing only how to somewhat write a persuasive essay and how to do parts of a research paper. Now however, I not only know how to do those better and more in depth, I also know many other ways of writing and how they have so many differences in how they are written. For example writing letter like we are for this last project is different. I now understand that writing a letter doesn’t always have to be too formal, or too friendly for that matter. I learned that in these days of cell phones and internet social networking, there are still people who write letters to tell somebody facts about stuff. This seemed weird to me at first because I am all about the texting and Facebook, but now I don’t really think it is all that different, just on a paper form instead of being sent electronically. You can do so much with writing styles and portray different messages by using different styles, even if you are arguing or talking about the same subject between the different styles. Also, I learned that I actually kind of like blogging, even though we had restrictions most of the weeks in this class.

So as I am writing this and you are reading this I send my farewells to you guys and I hope you have a fun future here at ISU. By the way if you want to add me on Facebook, it doesn’t matter to me as I will accept any of your friend invites.

Word Count: 361

Audience Awareness

So...this week we are supposed to be writing about the two audiences we chose for our project 4 and why exactly we did so. My audiences that I am writing to for this project are my mother, Becky Keene, and my best friend, Ali Stevenson. These two audiences happen to be very similar in personality, yet very different in the way that I talk to them. The way I talk to my mother is somewhat more of a formal way of talking, with correct grammar, because she has taught me from very young how to use it, and really without any type of words that could be considered slang nowadays. I can have a very fun tone to my talking or writing, but not to the extent of what I could do when talking or writing to a friend. This especially applies when talking to my bestest friend ever. When talking to her, I really enjoy just talking and not really thinking of what I'm saying before I say it. She really brings out my randomness, and more than half of the time when talking to her even I have no idea what it is that I'm saying or even meaning by the words that are coming out. I choose these different audiences because of how alike, yet different they are. I believe I will have very similar arguments, but different ways of bringing them up and arguing them. As a side note, I choose Ali because she goes to Illinois Wesleyan University, which is about a mile and a half walk away from my dorm. Ever since we found out where each other was going, we have been arguing about which school is better, and why. With this project I will have yet another reason to say why Illinois State University is the better school and IWU stands no chance against it. EVER.

Word Count: 314

Poetry and Inspirations

Poetry has been a big part of my life ever since I learned about it. I'm not really that good at it but I like to think that I'm pretty decent at it. Poetry is one of those things for me that I don't do very often, but when I do I like to sit down and have no distractions. I can only write poetry when I get inspired by some random thing, where half the time I have no idea where it comes from. I will share a couple of my poems and some brief descriptions of where they came from.

You don't know how much you would truly miss something until it is actually gone.
Scruffy, the best dog in the whole world, taught me this.
Over 8 months ago this dog left his body for this world to be in a better place.
He was still a young pup at the age of 2 and a half years young.
On the 20th of every month, this dog comes back to communicate with me.
He has many ways of doing this, but definitely makes his presence know to me every time.
Some may think that I sound crazy for thinking a dead dog communicates with me,
But to me this is completely normal as it happens every single month for the past 8.
Honestly you can think whatever you want, but to me this dog will always exist on this world.
He left his body to be in a better place but still left his soul and presence here.
He will always be missed, as he left a presence in everybody that had ever met him.
This includes the Schwann man that came once every 2 weeks, who would even give him a treat every time,
The Hinkley Springs water delivery guy that came about once a month,
The Orkin bug prevention man who came about the same as the latter,
The people of the vets office that would take care of him whenever we left town,
The friends of the family he had known to love and despite the barking loved all those friends too,
And most of all to the family he was raised by.
Nothing will ever be able to replace this dog in the hearts of many, despite what they think will get rid of him.
Most of all, I will miss you to my grave Scruffy.
Rest in peace and please if you somehow can read this, please keep visiting me as I look forward to that day every month.

This poem is my most recent and is about my dog that passed away about 8 and a half months ago now. He comes back to me and I did this poem one of these days that he came back to me.

I gaze into your eye
And can't help but to smile.
These are moments of happiness
But they only last for a while.
I spend all the lonely moments in my life
Hoping and wishing to be with you.
I would give up anything of mine
To just be with you for a second or two.
But as I come back to reality
Just staring at the moon.
All I can do for now and ever
Is just dream we will be together soon.

This one is also about my dog, Scruffy. I wrote this one just a couple days after he died. I feel this is one of my better ones because it happened at one of the most emotional times in my life.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and please if you have feedback, don't hesitate to comment and tell me. Good or bad doesn't matter to me.

Final Word Count: 620

The life of the actuary

Well my intended major here at ISU happens to be something called actuarial sciences. This is apparently the hardest undergraduate major here, according to the department head of the actuarial sciences. It is a branch off of the mathematics department and involves a lot of high end mathematics and statistics. The ISU actuarial science program happens to be like the best in the country and one of the best in the world I think. I really had no clue what an actuary was or what it did or never even heard of it until I was talking to my guidance counselor in high school and she told me that since I was so good at math, that I should go and be an actuary. That night I went straight home and looked up a good amount about actuaries. I learned that they get paid a lot of money. The average salary for an actuary is about $84,810 a year. I then went to an ISU visit (because my dad went here) and talked to the people at the booth for actuaries and they gave me the email information for the department head. That night I went home and emailed the department head and he had a lot to say about actuaries and gave me many sights to look at, to this day I haven't looked at all of them yet. I think this major is a really good route for me because I really wanted to do something with numbers because I am better with them than I am with letters, but I didn't really want to teach. Everybody said I was good at tutoring people in math but I never felt like I was doing good enough for them because of the way I do my math. I have my own ways of doing things based off the way the teacher teaches it basically. So I decided to go this route and it is definitely looking like I'm going to stay with it for the long run at the moment.


Word Count: 341

Fall

Things to do in the Fall...well I don't necessarily have one specific thing that I always do every year. However, Thanksgiving happens in the Fall and Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday. Every year I get to have two different Thanksgiving dinners in one day. I get to eat Thanksgiving lunch in Jacksonville, IL at my mom's parents' house. I eat there with my mom's whole side of the family. That consists of at least 20 different people eating all together in the same room. It can get to be pretty hectic at times but can also be a very fun time. Then, from there, we go about an hour north to the state capital, Springfield, IL. There we eat at my dad's mom's place. Even though she lives alone, and works all the time just to fill the empty void, her Thanksgiving dinner is the best thing ever. Nothing will ever compare to it for me. I look forward to that one meal every single year. This meal is all being made while she is at work. The first thing to start with is the turkey. She gets a huge butter turkey every year for just about 6 of us. She puts it in this pot with chicken stock, yeah I said chicken stock, and even more butter and lets it cook while she is off at work, working the buffet lunch at the Chesapeake restaurant, a fancy seafood and steak restaurant in Springfield. Then she gets these noodle things from the State Fair every year and cooks those later with the stock of the turkey and chicken stock as well as cooking the stuffing with the same juices. She uses the typical boxed stuffing and adds those juices. Then there are random bits and pieces of everything else here and there, including ham for my sister who doesn't like turkey. It is the best time of the year.

Word Count: 320

Collegiate Success?

Okay, so...we are supposed to talk about one thing that we have learned in one of our classes here in college that is useful or important. Well, I won't be able to write 300 words about just one thing that I have learned here in college that is useful or important unless I keep rambling on like I am right now, speaking about nothing at all just getting a lot of words out there.
So one of the things I have learned that will be useful in my upcoming college career is that Calculus 2 is supposed to be one of the hardest math classes for math majors. If you are able to pass Calculus 2, then you will be able to do rather well in the upcoming classes. As of the moment I seem to be doing rather well in my Calculus 2 class, and I really hope to keep it that way. Being a math major, I really need to do well in this class to be able to do well in the classes yet to come.
Another thing that I have learned was in physics. I just recently learned, in fact the class prior to me doing this post, that people are constantly accelerating at at least 0.033 meters per second squared. This means that we are constantly moving with respect to the Earth. However, what if a person were to walk at a constant acceleration of the same as the Earth, but in the opposite direction of the Earth's rotation. Or, would it be easier for a person to run outside towards the East since the Earth rotates towards the East. By doing this the person would be moving with the Earth, as compared to running against the Earth. If you have any ideas as to answers or postulates of these questions, please comment your answers on this post. This is really puzzling me , even though I have my own theories of answers to these.

Word Count: 330