Rain, Sleet or Hail Mary

"Rain, Sleet or Hail Mary"*

For the past several months this slogan has been plastered all over Super Bowl XLVIII ads and merchandise since this year, for the first time ever, the Super Bowl will take place in a cold weather climate – East Rutherford, New Jersey. This slogan is indicative of the tough, no nonsense, and determined attitude of football players as well as the fact that football is played whether it is sunny and 70 degrees or snowing and below 0. Fortunately, it seems that this year peoples’ concerns and the Farmer’s Almanac’s prediction of a massive snowstorm or bitterly cold temperatures on the day of the Super Bowl will not come to fruition. Instead those that celebrate the unofficial Super Bowl holiday will be able to enjoy it without fear of snow.

Whether you are a diehard football fan, a bandwagon football fan for the day, or you simply don’t enjoy football, the day of the Super Bowl has something for everyone. Many football fans, even if their team isn’t playing in the Super Bowl still get excited for the matchup and end up rooting for one team based on factors such as an emotional favorite (Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos, whom I’ll be rooting for), a team that really deserves to win, or a rival of your team. However, the Super Bowl encompasses so much more than football these days (even though that’s my favorite part). People throw big parties with great food like wings, heroes, chips, and beer and sometimes have a football pool where people can win cash prizes. There’s also the highly anticipated Halftime Show, featuring Bruno Mars this year, and Super Bowl commercials. It’s also a day or weekend to spend time with family and friends or go on a weekend getaway if you have no desire to be part of the Super Bowl festivities.

Vocabulary

Hail Mary (noun) - long throw used in American football when a team needs to score points to win at the end of a game.

Plastered (verb) – completely covering a surface. 

XLVIII – roman numeral for the number, 48; Super Bowls numbers have been written this way since the first Super Bowl. Roman numerals (noun) are the numbers used by the ancient Rome that look like capital letters in the American alphabet.

Indicative (adj.) – to reveal a side of someone or something.

Fruition (noun) – the completion of something

Diehard fan (noun) – someone

Bandwagon fan (noun) – someone who takes an interest in something because it is popular but not necessarily because they like it. Can also be used in the idiomatic expression: to jump on the bandwagon.

Encompasses (verb) - to be made up of different parts, pieces, aspects, etc.

Festivities (noun) – party or celebration

Vocabulary Exercises

1.      The posters for the dance were _____________ all over the hallway.

2.      MMXIV is 2014 written in ________________.

3.      The __________ pass was intercepted by the opposing team.

4.      The grade he received on his paper was ____________ of all the hours of work he put into it.

5.      The wedding __________ lasted until 2 a.m. the next morning.

6.      After all the research and writing she had done her paper finally came to ___________.

7.      Once Breaking Bad became popular, everyone jumped on the ___________.

8.      The portfolio ____________ all the artwork she completed throughout the year.

9.      He is such a ______________ that he goes to every Mets game whether or not they make it to the playoffs.

Grammar Point

When using numbers in a paper, the way you write them should be consistent. For instance, if you decide to spell out twenty instead of using its numeric form, 20, you should do that throughout your paper, especially in a sentence with several numbers. Also, numbers that "can be expressed as one or two words should be written out" (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/593/01/) and numbers used in a date, address, percentages, time, and so on should be written numerically. 

Grammar Exercise
Correct sentences that use the wrong form of the number.
1. She lives at ninety seven Birch Street.
2. The results showed that 75% of girls preferred pink to purple.
3. My neighbor won fifty million dollars in the lottery.
4. He met her at the restaurant at 7:00 pm. 

*I wasn't sure how to cite the quote because there isn't technically a place where it can be found other than on Super Bowl merchandise, so I guess it belongs to the NFL. 

Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

This question pertains not only to the winter storm raging outside but to Disney’s newest chart-topping film: Frozen. Frozen is one of the most successful animated Disney films of all time in the United States, recently grossing over $700 million; currently, it is second to The Lion King in terms of total revenue. For the first time in animated film history a Disney movie (Frozen) earned more money than a Pixar movie (http://filmonic.com/international-box-office-frozen-slips-past-700-million).

Although I am a huge fan of Disney movies, I enjoy the pre-2000s movies more than the modern ones. Initially, I wasn’t sure what to think of Frozen, but after I heard so many good reviews I decided to see it for myself. I loved it! It had the typical elements of a Disney fairy tale: girl meets boy, they fall in love at first sight and want to get married with a modern twist. The heroine, Anna, is told to wait and get to know this new man, Hans, before she decides to marry him. Her sister, Elsa, is a sorceress who must hide her uncontrollable ice powers from everyone, including Anna, to avoid hurting her as well as others. Although it seems as if Elsa is villain once she accidentally reveals her ice powers to the entire kingdom, Hans shows himself as the villain when he refuses to save Anna from freezing and tries to kill Elsa to take the throne from her. Throughout the course of the movie, Anna realizes that she truly loves Kristoff who is by her side throughout her journey to bring Elsa back to their kingdom and does everything he can to help her. While I do believe in the kind of love found in Disney fairy tales – soul mates and fate, I truly appreciate the fact that Frozen shows that familial love is as important as romantic love. It also portrays true love as sacrificing your needs for someone else’s, as something that needs a lot of work and something that can only be true when you really know someone.

The Frozen frenzy is incredible. You can already pre-order the movie, which comes out in the middle of March, any merchandise related to Olaf the snowman or Sven the reindeer is considered rare, and other merchandise sells out in merely a few days. The most astounding thing of all is that Frozen is still going strong despite the fact that it has been in theatres for almost 2 months.

Vocabulary

Pertains (to pertain to) – has to do with (to have to do with)

Raging – wild, out of control              

Grossing (to gross) - earning (to earn)

Astounding – surprising

Going strong – doing well, continues to have success

Frenzy – craziness, obsession

Merely – only, just

Vocabulary Exercises

1.      After 20 years of marriage, their relationship was still __________________.

2.      The __________ party lasted until 6 a.m. the next morning.

3.      The number of fans at the team’s homecoming game was _______________.

4.      Her Broadway debut was __________ minutes away.

5.      Beanie Babies were a 90s _________.

6.      In only a week, his first novel __________ $100 million.

7.      The top number of a fraction _________ to a portion of the bottom number.

Grammar point
Punctuation: Italics
The title of a movie, book, magazine, newspaper, TV show and so on should be italicized. For example: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, To Kill a Mockingbird, People, Newsday, and Chopped. 

Grammar Exercise
Italicize the titles.
1. I found a great quote in Chapter 10, Strider, of The Fellowship of the Ring.
2. Every Sunday he reads the Sports section of The New York Times first. 
3. One of my favorite TV shows is Cake Boss.