9-Krishna C- Changes

“You can’t go back and change the beginning.  But you can start where you are and change the ending.”

    The way I interpret this quote is that no matter where you are in life, in your mind, or socially  it is never too late to better yourself or your situations.

     I 100% agree with this quote because I believe that most of the time it doesn't matter where you start, the only important part is that you start somewhere .

     Although waiting till later will only make the process harder, this usually leads to many people giving up because they don't get the instant gratification. Although the process may be harder later down the road if you are able to make the decision to do better at whatever your goal is it will be much more rewarding because you have seen your personal growth and as you get older you are able to appreciate your hard work better.   

    Starting a change is only half the battle though, it is easy to start something new but it is much harder to consistently go through with it. I believe that that is where you will have to look inward for gratification, because when you don't see changes, or get burnt out, or just want to quit, getting over that hump will only feel good to you. 

My point is to stop looking at the past and asking why and make the change today, and that you might not get the results you want immediately but it is very important to stick to the process and stay consistent because that is the only way true change can be made. 

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9 - Lucas V: A Very Nostalgic Series

 

       Back in the day I really liked an anime called Beyblade. I used to watch it every day after school and also play with the physical toy while watching. This series was called Beyblade Metal Fusion and it is one of the best series from the franchise. The next series with the same characters is called Metal Masters which was a little bit boring since most of the episodes were tournament-type battles, whereas the Metal Fusion had a better story that had included a villain. The toys themselves were pretty good. The series ended unfortunately because the viewers were declining. The thing with the shows was that there were sometimes humorous scenes and also some scary scenes. The sound effects feel very real and the art that the animators made was really nice. 

    This series and the toy plus the characters make a very nostalgic experience. There were two different toys that were being sold. One brand was called Takara Tomy which was sold in Japan and then there was another one called Hasbro which was basically sold everywhere. They were basically the same beys just somewhat the same names as the original Japanese had different translations. I remember bringing the toy to my school and showing it off to my friends. It was a great time back then. Those toys that I had, I actually sold them back in middle school to get money for the newer Beyblades. I sold all my Beys, launchers, and a couple stadiums to a little kid for $40. I kinda regret that decision now that I think about it. 

Word Count: 262

9- Antonio L: A Child's Gold Mine, AKA, The Prime Era of CN and Nick

 A Child's Gold Mine, AKA, The Prime Era of CN and Nick

My childhood wasn’t filled with JUST cartoons, I’d watch shows like CSI, CSI: Miami, NCIS (shows that follow this scheme, usually when my parents watched them) but I wouldn’t call them the shows I’d mainly watch.

I spent a majority of my time as a kid watching Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, both of which were the two main networks with lots of recognition about 10 years ago (both kinda fell off though). But enough background, time to see if anyone can relate with me based on their favorite childhood shows.

I’ll start off with the older shows that aired on Cartoon Network like “Dude, What Would Happen”, “Destroy, Build, Destroy”, and “The Hole In The Wall (though I kinda didn’t feel like mentioning game shows, like BrainSurge on Nickelodeon). Right next to the occasional rerun CN aired, they tossed in more reruns in the form of the shows I just mentioned. All were very similar, the way this was done was through destruction, usually of everything surrounding the participants in the shows.

If I had to remember all the cartoons I’ve seen on CN, that I actually enjoyed watching, they would be “Codename: Kids Next Door”, “Camp Lazlo”, ”Chowder” “The Amazing World of Gumball”, “Regular Show”, “Adventure Time”, all the seasons of Total Drama, a lot of seasons of Beyblade, “Over the Garden Wall”, “Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated”, and “What’s New Scooby Doo.”

But CN isn’t that simple, they also have another network called Boomerang, which is full of their older shows that have stopped airing over the years like “Teen Titans”, “Samurai Jack”, “Johnny Bravo”, and other old shows that I can’t remember. All I remember though is the Friday and Saturday nights I spent as a 9 year old watching the old episodes of Teen Titans and actually noticing the large distance between how cartoons were made 10 years apart from each other. Nickelodeon also has something similar to this, that being NickToons, but their choices of what older shows to air are very questionable nowadays. 

Notice how I’ve said all of this, and I haven’t gotten to Nickelodeon yet, and that’s because I realized as I’m writing this that the shows they aired weren’t that significant like “Sanjay And Craig”, “Fairly Odd Parents (the later seasons), and the multiple live-action shows Nick tried to gets people’s attention with, not saying all of them were bad, like “Drake and Josh” and “iCarly”, but the later ones never made me want to watch Nickelodeon, also because the majority of Nick’s airing time was spent towards showing old episodes of Spongebob. 

There are still a choice few that were good on Nick though, like “My Life As A Teenage Robot”, “Three Delivery”, “El Tigre: The Adventures Of Manny Rivera”, “Danny Phantom”, “Jimmy Neutron”, “Back In The Barnyard”,  “Avatar: The Last Airbender”, and “Mighty B”, though most of these I remember watching with my sister when I was like 5.

I’d like to go onto how Disney Channel and DisneyXD have better shows compared to Nick, both cartoon and sitcom types, but I’m just going to cut it off here. Word before I go I do acknowledge how many shows I’ve listed and probably assumed I just Googled these shows, but just believe that I sat in front of a TV a lot after school before. 

Word Count: 555

9 - Khiem D. : Heavy Themes And Religious Dogma

 

Heavy Themes And Religious Dogma

Trigger Warning: I will be covering themes of child abuse and generally disgusting visuals

Well here we are again, I swear I will try to write something more cheerful but I just find the message of this game to be really powerful. The Binding of Issac is a indie game about the story of Issac, told through his imagination going wild as he slowly asphyxiates to death in a toy chest hiding from his mother. The story is very personal to it’s creator, Edmund McMillian, as he set out to create a game to express his experiences with religion, coming from a household of former drug addicts turned born again christians. Of course this is metaphorical as he wasn’t literally hunted down by his mother or fighting vile lovecraftian horrors by shooting them with tears, but more of a sharing of his feelings in a way he feels fit, dark humor.

The story of Issac as mentioned before exists solely in his deteriorating mind, as he hides from his mother as he assumes she is coming to sacrifice him like the biblical story of the same name. McMillian frames this story as a more up to player interpretation as he has stated before he hates hand holding in stories. My understanding from the clues given to us is that Issac used to live happily in a relatively poor nuclear family, consisting of a recovering alcoholic dad who is implied to be some sort of researcher and his stay at home mother who is a devout christian.  His father fosters Issac’s creativity, inspiring him to take up drawing and creating papercraft worlds as a release. This lays in stone the basis of Issac’s main coping mechanism before the events of the game as eventually through some unknown event, his father takes up gambling (implied to perhaps help his family’s poverty) which kickstarts his drinking habit again which fuels his gambling even more. Issac’s mother, to cope, delves deeper into her religious beliefs and eventually drives her husband to divorce. With his father gone Issac’s mother would fall deeper into her beliefs escalating to only absorbing evangelical christian programming, eventually taking away everything Issac owns and locking him a room, starting the events of the game.

As mentioned before, the story is highly interpreted through the bits and pieces given throughout the game. Most of the stages, items, bosses, and endings show Issac’s understanding of the events as it stands as a young kid, he naturally doesn’t truly understand religion and interprets it as him being filled with sin and being the sole root of the problems in his life. I don’t believe McMillian is demonizing religion but rather trying to establish the idea that children are susceptible to the connections they make unconsciously, dangerously so. It’s a great game mechanically and the themes are very well thought out, but I would not advise the squeamish as it is literally one of the most grotesque games I’ve ever played despite the cartoony artstyle, from things like a damage up item stapling one of Issac’s eye shut to literally fighting through a floor representing the a decaying womb.

Wordcount: 511

9 - Charlene H: One Step In, One Step Out

 

Are You More Like?: Are you more like the escalator or the stairs?

Escalators. Stairs. Both of which transport people between floors of a building.

But there is one that I feel I connect with more, and that is the escalator. I connect with it more because of what it symbolically represents.

I feel that some people may associate me more with the stairs, and I understand why. As stairs force people to put in the effort to move their legs up or down, stairs symbolically mean putting in a lot of work to reach a goal. Stairs symbolically mean enduring struggles in order to reach a higher level of success.

There is a tweet I remember seeing. Essentially, it says, “The person who outsmarts you is out working you. The person who finds shortcuts is out working you. The person with a better strategy is out working you. Usually, the hardest work is thinking of a better way to do it.” This is like an escalator.

Physically working hard isn’t necessarily a bad thing; however, strategic thinking is important and beneficial in the long run. Strategies outshine mindless hard work. It helps conserve mental energy and increase motivation. While I try my best, there are times when all I want to do is take breaks and rest. My productivity ability should not be the value I have as a person.

Society encourages the idea of hard work, sometimes even to the point where maximum productivity is valued above everything else, like it’s important to sacrifice any moment of relaxation or free time. This is a mentally and physically draining cycle.

The value of human life should never be defined by productivity. People have gifts in what they can do with their lives, what they bring to people, and what they bring out of people. The way that one spends their life, how they treat other people, and specific actions they choose to take all show more about a person’s personality, attitudes, behaviors, and motives than productivity ever could.

Rather than work to fatigue or exhaustion, it is helpful to think out how to reduce labor while still accomplishing the same goal. But of course, thinking of strategies and not taking any action to put them into effect is useless. These strategies still do require effort.

And that is why I am more like the escalator. It’s “work smart,” not “work hard.”

Word Count: 389

8 - Blu M: I’m Listening

 Growing up, many have told me that I’m a great listener. I don‘t blame them. I excel in school, engage in all conversations I'm involved in, and can remember the smallest details that someone may mention to me. Yes, I remember you talking about the Irish word for soul mate. I also remember each time you’ve spiraled (I don’t blame you!). I’ve always been the person for people to run to with their words, whether it’s focusing on drama, fun news, or just needing to vent, so I would closely connect myself to being a good listener.

I actually don’t know how I became the person most people run to. I do remember saying that I would be there for others if they need it, and if they wanted to talk I’ll listen, but I never set myself up to be a confessional booth or a wall to just blab away at. In fact, I wouldn’t even consider myself fond of listening and just sitting there. Don’t get me wrong, I do find out some crazy details, but I also have had to deal with so much that just gets piled on top of me. Listening is kind of stressful, and people may not understand their limits to talking…

Now, listening doesn’t always have to come from hearing other people talk to me. Yes, I listen then, but my hobbies also require ear strength. After all, listening comes in all different forms! I’ve played multiple instruments throughout my life and have indulged in the peace of nature. In order to be strong with all of my instruments, I have to do literal ear training. Listening to notes on repeat, understanding chord progressions, differentiating a flat with a sharp, all that requires my ears. I can imagine some confusion on nature, but it is simple. I have to listen hard enough to hear any animal noises, since an irrational fear of mine is get mauled by a rabid animal or something along that line…

When I compare the power of my visual memory to that of my audible one, I wouldn’t say they’re polar opposites. I’ve been training each type of memory for my entire life, but hearing things has always stuck out to be more effective. This disappoints me. I am so visual in my approach to working and being creative, but I need to hear in order to remember. Yes, my hearing is fantastic and I can catch detail, but I quite literally have 20/20 vision. Why is it failing me, why do I need to be an audible learner?! 

While writing this, I’ve been listening to music, staring at this crisp white screen, analyzing how much of a listener I am. I think I understand now, as I subconsciously separate the high hat from the bass in this song that’s playing right now. My ears, they’re strong, they work, and they do help others and I.

I guess you could say I’m “all ears.” 

Word Count: 499

8 - Lilly T.: Your Memories, Your Life

 

Thinking deeply about fences brings back both good and bad memories. Wholesome memories are nice to remember and make me smile. However, those bad memories cause me to relive the moment during the time I think about it. 

Those wholesome memories included family time, among other random things. My father, sister, and I would play badminton in our backyard, and the birdie would sometimes get hit over the fence. During times like this, my dad would go get the ladder, I would climb over to get the birdie, and then continue playing. Other times, I would watch the animals on the fence from my window - birds chirping to one another, and cats sitting on the fence. These memories helped shape my perspective of the natural world.

One vivid memory I don’t like to recall was when someone crashed their car into the fence of the house that my parents were renting out. None of my family members were, thankfully, directly involved, but I felt worried and scared for the people who lived there. To make matters worse, it was a rainy day, and that was most likely a factor that led into the car crash. The driver did end up dying, unfortunately. However, I was more worried about my parents at the time, who had to drive to the house to check up on the family. The situation doesn’t sound that bad, but it had an impact on me. Bad memories like these made me who I am today.

Memories about all sorts of things can shape who you are throughout your entire life, even if it is something as simple as a fence. Treasure your memories, and continue making new ones.

Word Count: 282