Posts tagged Costa Rica
“Runner Runner” a Loser Loser
Oct 13th
“Loser Loser”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Runner Runner stars Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck in a movie about offshore gambling, and it brings to mind an eternal truth about gambling: “The house always wins.”
In this case the house is the movie theater, and the loser is you.
Timberlake plays Richie Furst, who is earning his masters degree in finance at Princeton and is also a teaching assistant, but he spends a lot of his time playing online poker, which causes him to be called into the dean’s office for a meeting.
The dean tells Richie that he has his hands in his fellow students’ pants, he is an affiliate for online gaming, and then says, “You will close up shop immediately.”
Like all gambling suckers, Richie doesn’t listen to reason, he plays online poker again on a popular Website, bets everything he has, and loses it.
However, Richie’s two buddies and colleagues use statistics to convince him that the Website cheated him, and so Richie travels to Costa Rica, where the Website is located, to confront the owner of the Website.
Affleck plays Ivan Block, the owner of the gambling Website, and after Richie learns that Block is like The Wizard of Oz and nobody gets close to him, Richie manages to get an invitation to meet Ivan on Ivan’s boat.
Ivan tells Richie that he thinks Richie is exceptional, and Ivan offers Richie a job working for him.
After Richie proves himself to Ivan, Richie now believes that he has almost everything he wanted, and he invites his two buddies from Princeton to come down to Costa Rica and work with him.
However, Ivan confesses that he hates his business and that it is not fun anymore, even though it allows Ivan to do whatever he wants. There are payoffs and bribes to local officials that are necessary for him to run his business, and it is also very dangerous.
Yes, Richie gets beaten up a couple of times doing his job for Ivan, who even knew it would happen.
Ivan tells Richie that everybody has something worth more to them than money, and in Richie’s case it is his father.
You know how some movies seem to have been made just because of the exotic location? This is one of those movies.
Runner Runner is nothing more than a loser loser.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Runner Runner – Movie Trailer
Oct 7th
Richie, a Princeton college student who pays for school with on-line gambling, bottoms out and travels to Costa Rica to confront the on-line mastermind, Ivan, whom he believes has swindled him. Ivan sees a kindred spirit in Richie and brings the younger man into his operation. When the stakes get incredibly high and dangerous, and Richie comes to fully understand the deviousness of his new boss, he tries to turn the tables on him.
Flagler College faculty-led trip to Costa Rica
Jun 5th
The following is an update on the program from Flagler student Adam Krell who is currently on location with fellow classmates Ana Chambers, Diane Cassidy, Matt Garber, Elijah Hayes, Adrienne Gonzalez, and Stephanie Sweeting.
The program is led by Assistant Professor Agnieszka Johnson.
It is not every day you get on a plane to travel to a different country for five weeks. Upon arriving in the beautiful country of Costa Rica, we were greeted by our host families at the airport, who speak no English. From that point on, it has been non-stop Spanish speaking for all of us. It is truly a rewarding experience watching not only myself, but also my friends grow in the language and culture.
Intercultura School of Languages here in Costa Rica strives to provide full Spanish immersion for students so we can fully develop the skills and techniques required for learning a second language. From the intensive Spanish courses and the homestay experience with our Tico (Costa Rican) family, we are building the confidence needed to speak in Spanish.
Each day we wake up early with the sun and eat breakfast with our host families. We converse about what we have planned and make our way to the school. Spanish class starts at 8:30 a.m. sharp each morning and lasts until 12:30 p.m. with two fifteen minute breaks. After taking an hour to walk around and eat lunch, we either have a Costa Rican cooking class or dance class followed by another class taught by our faculty leader, Professor Aggie Johnson. During the cooking classes, we have learned how to cook several local dishes, like Patacones (smashed plantains that are fried, like chips) with guacamole and beans, biscochos (a Costa Rican corn cookie), and empanadas, all while learning our way around the kitchen speaking Spanish. During our Latin dance class, we learn one of three styles of dance: merengue, salsa or bachata. As we move our hips to the beat, we have fun dancing with each other and a variety of other students who also are attending Intercultura.
Our other class, with Professor Johnson, is a Spanish literature course that will eventually end with each of us writing and reading our own short stories. This class is more challenging, as we come to class and discuss a short story completely in Spanish each day. After class, we head home to eat dinner with our host families and talk about our days. It’s non-stop Spanish speaking until we go to bed.
As we are ending our third week here in Heredia, a suburb of the country’s capital of San José, we have experienced many different adventures. From seeing an active volcano, Póas, visiting a waterfall garden, taking a tour of the coffee plantation Doka (a local company near Heredia), to taking weekend trips to San José, we are not missing out on anything that Costa Rica has to offer.
In the next two weeks we are going white-water rafting on Mount Chirripó, the highest peak in Costa Rica, and making our way to Playa Sámara for a week. There, we will spend the week with another homestay family and attend classes right on the beach. When the week ends, we will make our way back to Heredia for one night and fly back to the United States on June 11.
As the Ticos say here in Costa Rica, ¡Pura Vida! (which translates to “pure life”)
Source: Flagler College