Video Presentation?

Well I haven't gotten off my ass in a while.
I've been sitting around, playing a fuck-ton of Destiny, eating grapes, and I've just not felt any need to write. I told myself, "Write something everyday", but everytime I do, I question whether or not it matters. All the news and opinions and such I pay attention to are visual. I mostly watch news site videos and YouTube, and I wonder if I should focus my writing on school work and practice more with video editing, do a vlog instead of this shit. It'd be easier and more accessible, and I'm comparatively comfortable in front of a camera. Problem is I don't have shit. I don't have a nice webcam or mic, and I haven't edited a video in a couple years. So, should I go for it, two people who read this? Should I try doing vlogs instead and see if I'm half decent in that way?

Teacher or Preacher

Something that has bugged me going into senior year is that more and more, the opinions of my teachers manifest themselves much more frequently. Teachers make statements based on their opinions that are expressed as fact, and students take their opinions as fact, because they’ve been conditioned to do so. Too sparingly, the teachers that do so get lucky enough to not get fired due to their preferences. For example, one of my teachers stated that he wouldn’t teach high school freshmen or sophomores because they weren’t mature enough, and luckily he doesn’t. If his students were any younger, presumably they would come home and tell their parents about what he said over the course of the day, and if any of his political, religious, or economic opinions were expressed, the parents would act to keep the teachers from imposing these views on their children, and the best way to do so is to keep the teachers from expressing their opinions in class. Obviously, this doesn’t always happen, but one way or another, teachers are prohibited from imposing their opinions onto their younger students. But, as students get older, they become more independent, but not necessarily less impressionable. Their independence means parents aren’t as aware of the teacher conduct, and their impressionability leaves them victim to the molding of their teachers.

Worst part of this is that the teachers know this, or at least they should. Part of the process of learning how to educate is knowing patterns in childhood, and being easily manipulated is a frequent characteristic in children of all ages. The notion that teachers would know the power they have over kids and consciously misuse it, regardless of their job requirements. In public school, teachers are employed by the state. As long as they are on campus during school hours, they represent the state, and thus have a responsibility to remain comparatively objective. Now, if a student approaches a teacher after hours asking about their opinion, perfectly fine. That’s a private conversation between two people, not a communication between a civil servant and person. But if it’s in school, its exploitation of minors to distribute a personal philosophy or opinion, because they are in an environment where they are expected to take their teacher’s word on everything, where their ability to distinguish between opinion and fact is blurred.

So, in short, teachers who maintain relative objectivity, props to you, teachers who don’t, suck a bucket of duck fucks.

Game Burn-out; A Way Gaming Can be a Social Catalyst

With my newly found time management skills, I've found myself enough free time to play some video games after I get my work done, and I've found that I can't get into anything in particular. I've done some thinking about why, and I've realized I'm not the only one who came to the conclusion I've thought of. So, the following is advice for both kids and their parents of all ages if there is any concern of not doing your work because of any supposed "video game addiction":

During summer vacations, play a ton of games. Just do it, play through games again, go for online achievements, and if you are willing, play a lot of online games. 

As someone who has played video games my entire life, I've found that the amount of gaming I did over the summer has made me indifferent to it. Right now, the only gaming I do is for social or laborious purposes. For example, during lunch, I talk with some of my friends about the game Fallout: New Vegas, a game whose acclaim is centered around ego- insertion and decision-based personalization of the story and world. We talk about those decisions, and what paths we take. Because I've grown tired of playing without purpose on my own, now I take my friend's advice and try different playthroughs with their advice and see where it leads, and then bring whatever the results are to the discussion the next day, making the gaming a much more social experience, and giving it some sense of purpose and motivation instead of mindless time-burning. But, if I have no one to play with or no one to talk with about the game, I don't play it, unless I'm writing a review. Because of my summer gaming spree, games have now become a connection between my social life and my free time, instead of something that separates the two, and has made my life arguably a much healthier one. 

Now I can effectively pace out my free time and my work time, all because I did no such pacing or monitoring for most of a summer. It may not work for everyone, but I suggest it in the hopes that it will help someone, and, as odd as this statement seems, this can make video games an enhancement for your life instead of simply an escape from it.

Reviews (Do you care?)

In my journalism class, we've been working still on basics, learning to answer the primary questions any reader will want to know when reading any article, and one that caught me when thinking of reviewing old movies was the question, "Who am I writing for?". I thought people that wanted to know of a movie before they see it, but then I thought about why people review old movies. If I'm talking about the old Super Mario Bros movie, what would a journalistic review offer as opposed to a forum commentary? What reviews matter that don't come from experienced directors? I get that any sort of criticism requires some credentials, because I wouldn't take my little brother's recommendation of a movie with any seriousness, but there isn't really any set standards of what constitutes credibility in terms of escapist reviews, reviews of movies, games, books, and so on. This case seems to be one where every coin has two sides. One could say my review of an old game means nothing because I'm a kid with limited game creation experience, another could say my review means more because I represent the body of people the game is marketed towards.

I don't bring this up to talk to myself, I genuinely don't know. I take other people's criticisms and recommendations of games and movies seriously while considering their credibility and general opinions, but not every one does, and watching random reviews is much different than writing successful reviews. So, whether you're a close friend or acquaintance reading this, or someone who stumbled dickfirst onto this blog, please comment on this post with your opinion and pseudoanalysis of reviews in general, so as to give me some external perspective on what people look for in them.

Bird Funeral

So, I was walking with a friend of mine after class, and while talking, we look up and see two birds. I thought nesting, she thought fucking, either way, initially, neither of us had any reaction. Then, she realizes that one of the birds is a hawk, killing a smaller bird wo is flapping and fighting for its life. So, I throw a rock at the dicksack of a bird, and the victim falls into a long, thick bush. My friend digs the bird out from the bush and we check its body for breath or pulse, and no such luck. The motherfucking hawk crushed the birds torso and wing, and the bird lost a lot of feathers fighting the hawk. My friend being an animal loving future veternarian, and me being an admirer of survivalism, we decided to take the bird corpse and bury it down the road, taking a moment of silence for it. For both of us it was the first time we had literally watched a life end, and I figured had that bird been a person, he'd have gotten the purple heart for the fight he put up against that violent abortion of a predator. She was traumatized, I was depressed, so we went and had a drink to dull our pain.

So don't tell me an animal's life isn't worth anything, because (not to get conservationist. but) that bird was more badass than most humans, considering the fight it put up against a much bigger bird after having its spine and torso crushed, then falling from 15 feet into a thick bush.

Why High School Rallies Don't Work For Me (another ranty argument)

I just joined a journalism class (relevantly enough), and being a social creature, I've taken to talking to my peers, and a lot of the kids in the class are part of my school's student leadership programs. Talking to them, they talked a bit about the upcoming rally, and I expressed that I don't like the rallies so much. A couple of them were just awestruck, like I had just suggested that The Real Housewives was a show about patriarchy being good. One of them, however, understood and suggested that rallies were more fun for people participating in the cheery dances and flamboyant chants that compose the rallies, and this brought up a concern that I feel should be brought up more often in school settings, and that is the ineffectiveness of rallies in arousing school spirit in terms of "recruiting". 

The rallies at my school are all basically themed performances by various clubs, mostly dances, and they all wrap themselves around the theme of the dances or sports they advertise. The issue with that is it really only brings about any form of school pride from those who already have it, which makes it seem like the school isn't even trying to convert the skeptics and unite the school under the elitist flag it flies. As dissatisfied as I am, I understand why they do this, and my issue isn't as much with this focus on the zealous as much as my issue is with those who want rallies to be about the skeptics. What I mean by that is that these student leadership kids were concerned that I didn't have the school pride prerequisite that I need to enjoy the rally, and I find that this is a very common problem, where there are kids without school pride, and the kids who want everyone to have it. While it isn't necessarily that simple of a division, it does manifest itself in school. I ended up explaining that division by using myself as an example of someone without school pride. I moved to California in my sophomore year, and before that I was in a chartered liberal arts school, meaning I didn't get a freshman orientation to the public school I attend, nor did I know any of the 3500 kids attending at the time. The friends I gained and the familiarity with the area I gained thus wasn't associated with the school, because I didn't grow up there, and I had no particular attachment, as my figurative heart stays in my Arizona home to this day. So, a series of dances and announcements just isn't sufficient enough to bring me onto the school bandwagon. 

I rant about this because I know firsthand I'm not the only one who feels this sense of detachment from a school I spend so much time at, and I know that that isn't necessarily the only reason to be detached. My hope is that kids with this sense of pride will read this and have an understanding of why school pride isn't universal, and thus there won't be any form of animosity or exclusionary feelings between groups coming on a major dance or sporting event. To end on a personal note, now you may have an idea of why I have no school pride, but I don't bitch and moan about others having that sense of attachment to their alma mater. I try to be understanding about it, but I accept that rallies and other sort of motivating demonstrations just aren't my cup of tea.

Fake Workouts in Real Life: Sales Pitch

I had an idea for a comedic YouTube video in which larger kids would go to a public space like the mall, the school cafeteria, etc., and mime-act intense workouts while yelling, tensing, and flexing. For example, I would lie down on a table during lunch and pretend to do the bench press, and have my brother pretending to spot me, yelling in my ear all the profanities that an over-intense trainer would yell. I wasn't sure where to go with it, though. Considering it is a profane public disturbance, I'd probably only end up putting it on YouTube. My school's weekly video series is (supposed to be) very careful about being PC and reserved in terms of anything beyond characterizing broad cliques in school, but if this was done at school, I'd have to clear it with them, and it'd have to be held to the same standards as the video series, which means the idea is screwed at school, and if I did it at the mall, I could be arrested. I mean, that risk may be half the fun, since people would recognize how bizarre it is, but still, I need to think about how to work around that. But regardless, this is an idea in development for the future.