Future in Voter Representation

Despite the fact that I still had loads of homework to do, I found myself sitting in front of the TV, notepad in hand, earnestly scribbling down observations on Tuesday night’s first presidential debate. Being not old enough to vote yet, I found myself listening to the candidates’ arguments about issues, but I also was interested in the rhetoric of the debate.

Jim Lehrer was the debate moderator.  Although I am not a supporter of either candidate, it was interesting from an outsider’s perspective to see how the debate played out.  I was thoroughly impressed with the way Romney seemed to take control of the debate. While Obama was speaking, Romney either looked directly at the camera, at Jim, or at Obama with that unerasable smile on his face. Obama, on the other hand, seemed to take a more passive approach. He often looked down and wasn’t as forceful in his speech. Only towards the end did he start acting more aggressive.

Little Red…

I love how many new interpretations of the fairy tales are around right now-from Grimm on television to Snow White and the Huntsman movie to BOOKS (!). These reinventions brings us back to childhood, but in a whole new gory/mind-bending way. I recently started reading Maria Tatar‘s history of the Grimm Brothers and found it fascinating. Here are some other books to explore (with links to the author’s websites):

Video Game Review: Persona 4

If there’s one thing that school has managed to teach me so far this year, it’s that senior year is busy. Painfully, ridiculously, ungodly busy. But has that stopped me from watching anime or playing video games?! …Actually, yes. Which is why I’m pulling out the big guns and reviewing Persona 4, which I actually played much earlier this year around February or March.

Anime Review: Toradora

This summer has been incredibly busy for me but nevertheless I had time to watch an anime that was highly recommended by a friend of mine. It took some doing, since I generally try to avoid romantic slice of life shows, but he eventually got me to watch it and I found that I really enjoyed Toradora, and you should see it too!

Toradora is a show about a high school boy who looks like a juvenile delinquent, Takasu Ryuuji. His scary looks completely overshadow his gentle personality. However, this year takes a turn for the better as he arrives at school and finds that he’s not only in the same class as his one and only friend, he’s also in the same class as the girl he’s completely smitten with. Unfortunately, it’s then that he runs into another girl in his class: Aisaka Taiga, nicknamed the “Palmtop Tiger” as a play on her name and a reference to her diminutive stature. She then proceeds to knock him flat with a punch.

How to Create a Character Out of Thin Air

Hello everybody. I’m back in school now, and through a series of unfortunate events (including, but not limited to being subjected to death by AP courses, slaying a dragon, a hospitalized rainbow-making buddy, and a vanishing ferret) I have found myself with very little free time. However, I recently had a brainstorming session with a friend about character design and thought that I would share what I’ve learned. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, though; I’m new at this.

The first order of business when writing a story is usually character design. If you have a vague idea of a plot and setting, the best place to sharpen them in your eyes would be by creating your protagonist. Recently, I have come to realize this is a very Rumpelstiltskin-esque experience; you have your imagination, your ideas, and your language of choice, and you must weave them into somebody who will carry on his/her shoulders the plot of your story. You, as the writer, are faced with a similarly daunting task. In between you and your completed character are several common obstacles.

Movie Review: The Avengers

Recently, for some reason, I’ve been on a Marvel movies binge. In the span of a month I managed to catch up on almost all of the Marvel superhero movies, and the last one I saw was The Avengers. Despite the original Iron Man cutting it pretty close, I have to say that The Avengers was my favorite of the whole bunch. This may be my favorite superhero movie ever. (And that’s counting X-Men First Class.)

The Avengers begins with Loki, the antagonist from the prequel-ish movie Thor, stealing a cube called the Tesseract from supersecret organization SHIELD and promising to bring havoc to the world with his alien Chitauri army.

A Guide to Defeating RL Bullies Using MMPORG strategy

Now that I’ve finally finished with the worst of the school year, I think it’s time to turn my attention from school to more important things, like… school. Or, more specifically, what happens all too frequently at school: bullying. While have written many posts about MMORPG, bullies in real life aren’t so different than defeating bullies in the games.  Bullies are kind of like boss battles. They are difficult to beat, come in many different forms, but you usually level up after defeating them. And so, for you entertainment and information, here is a guide to overcoming life’s boss battles.

TV Show Review: Legend of Korra

When I was in elementary school I would occasionally flip to Nickelodeon and see the TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender. Somehow I had the bad luck necessary to see the same episode each time (The Great Divide), but I still thought that Avatar was a pretty cool show. Last summer I saw all 3 seasons within a week and really fell in love with the cartoon. Now the Legend of Korra, the sequel to Avatar: the Last Airbender, has been released and I’m here to tell you guys why it’s every bit as awesome as the original show.

Busting Out the Board Games

Mason again. Though the weather doesn’t show it, ’tis the season for snow, ice, and cold weather in general. Unfortunately, power outages go hand in hand with winter weather. Unless you’ve got a good book to pass the time, being snowed in isn’t much fun. Board games are a great way to entertain the family in this kind of situation, so without further ado I present 3 great board games you probably don’t know about.

New Year’s Resolutions

My New Year’s resolution? To be able to bench press 50 pounds by the end of January. I don’t think this is something that would happen by itself, but I don’t perceive it as to unfeasible to accomplish. For me, it’s a perfect goal.

The Top Ten “Teen” Resolutions:
1. Get Healthy
2. Get Happier
3. Be a Better Person
4. Find Love
5. Show More Love to Your Family
6. Be a Better Friend
7. Get Better in School
8. Learn Something New
9. Be a Role Model
10. Make Some Money

I asked several of my friends what their goals were and all of them fit somewhere in the top ten “teen” resolutions (listed above).  I think that all of these are fine New Year’s goals, but they are objectives that I strive to accomplish on a daily bases, not especially in a New Year.

Resolutions are generally hard to stick with, after all most people think that they should be life-changing goals. After only one week, just 64% are still on track, and after six months, less than half of the “resolvers” are keeping up with their plan. This goes to show that you should keep your plan SMART.

The Pokémon Card Game- Good Friends, Good Times

Hello everybody. I’m Mason, the sort-of-new blogger for the site. Now that break’s here, I can start writing! I’ll cover games, for the most part. Since I’m guessing that you’re not here to read about me, I’ll get straight to the post.

One of the first and foremost things you should know about me is that I’m a card game junkie. I dabbled in Magic The Gathering, the Naruto Trading Card Game (TCG), and Yu-Gi-Oh, but my hands-down favorite would have to be the Pokémon TCG. I forget why, but at some point in third grade a girl gave me a couple cards. I took a look, and was instantly hooked. Ever since, I’ve begged shamelessly to go to all the tournaments near us; they’re just that fun. Let me tell you, like so many other random nerd hobbies, it has a fantastic community. You will find some of the nicest people on Earth chattering away about what deck to use for the next event, or what they think about the latest idea doing its rounds on the internet. They’re devoted, too: they’ve risked life, limb, weekend, and social standing to be a part of the huge, hidden family that spans the world.

Let’s Talk About Junior Year and AP Courses

Junior year is so much fun that I may potentially be losing my mind. Or that could be the sleep deprivation. So much like my post last year about how to not prepare for the SATs, I’m going to tell you guys a story about my past week at high school, where my eagerness for winter break was suddenly overshadowed by looming piles of schoolwork that frankly came out of nowhere.

The Occupy Movement

On July 13th, 2011, Adbusters, a Canadian group, called for a peaceful occupation of Wall Street. On September 17, 2011, it began. At first, a little over a thousand people showed up, but the numbers quickly grew. People camped out in Zuccotti Park protesting, as Adbusters calls it, “CORPORATOCRACY”.

Just after less than a month, the occupy movement had already spread to more than 95 cities in 84 countries. You may have heard of their slogan, “We are the 99%”, which refers to the wealth inequality between us, the 99%, and the top wealthiest 1%.

Yes, there are occupy movements currently in North Carolina.

How to Get Organized for School

Welcome back to school! While I’m definitely going to miss the summer, it’s time to get back to the (less relaxing) schedule of more work than play. To help keep track of your seemingly never-ending list of tasks, I’ve come up with a few tips that have worked really well for me.

1)   Use a planner! 

A planner can be your best friend during the year if you really stick with it. I recommend finding one that shows you a full monthly calendar so you can schedule long-term projects and that has daily planning pages. My personal favorite is the Franklin Covey planner,

which lets you change the pages each month (to keep the planner really light) and each year (so you don’t have to keep repurchasing entirely new planners). I think it is absolutely amazing since you can personalize the pages, choose whether you want weekly planning pages, monthly planning pages, and/or daily planning pages, and use the same planner every year. The planners also have places for any stray papers, your credit cards, and pens!

It’s the End of the World as We Know It

Last week I had the pleasure – and terror – of reading Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi (to be published in November 2011). In her debut novel, Mafi paints a rich, gorgeous, and terrifying post apocalyptic dystopian world that left me trembling and eternally grateful for free speech and ice cream. But while I hurriedly checked to be sure that my books and pets were safe and reassured myself that I wouldn’t incinerate if I stepped outside, Mafi’s vision lodged itself into a small but growing knot of anxiety in the back of my mind. I speedily ingest dystopian fiction, from the recent Hunger Games trilogy and Divergent, to the classic 1984 and The Giver. Okay, perhaps I’m taking all of this a little too seriously. How likely do you believe it is for the government to remove color from the world, as described by Lois Lowry?

Summer? Where did you go?

Where did summer go? Where did all this time go? There’s a little over 10 weeks of summer, and by now I have wasted 6 of them. I remember an Arthur show from when I was little and how he and Buster had a list of things to do over summer, one of them being building a rocket that would go to the moon. Arthur and Buster managed to do all of the things on their list before school. I didn’t have a list of crazy things to do over summer–no list at all actually. It never seems like you did anything meaningful over summer– fun things, yes, but meaningful? No. It doesn’t seem like it but as I look back, I realized how many wonderful things I was able to do during my summer.

Book Review: Decision Points by George W. Bush

So I decided to read George W. Bush’s 481 page autobiography, Decision Points. I’ve never really been into politics myself, (except for when we had to analyze the 2008 election, but then again, I had never really understood the workings of all of it) but I did think it would be nice to see everything from another point of view, other than the constant “Bush ruined our country” perspective.

This autobiography is organized into sections based on major “decision points”, as the title suggestions.

Book Review: Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

If you’re looking for a book that’s interesting, well-written, full of detail, and long enough to keep you occupied for a few weeks, this is the book for you.

This is The Great American Novel, written by Margaret Mitchell while she was bedridden. Published on June 10, 1936, it instantly became a best seller, and, in 1939, one of the most popular movies of all time, Gone with the Wind, starring Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara and Clark Gable as Rhett Bulter, premiered.

The copy that I’m reading, the version published by Pocket Book Fiction, is 1448 pages in all. I think it’s the longest book that I have ever read, and also one of the best as well. But don’t let the page number keep you from picking up this book. It’s definitely worth your while to read.

How To Stay Cool This Summer

When I think of my summers as a little kid, I remember going over to my Omi and PopPops to spend the day.  I remember that my PopPop always had a drawer of snacks that my mother didn’t approve of for me to eat. But mostly I remember that I would go to the freezer and take out a big bowl of frozen grapes that I would eat with my Omi and her puppy Poco while reading Peter Pan on the side porch.

FROZEN GRAPES:

The best kind of grapes to use are the large purple or red table grape, or they may be called king grapes.

The Last Day of of Being a Freshman…

MOST people may wait and wait until summer starts, but I dread the last day of school! No, I’m not one of those people for which school is the highlight of my day but, I’m not very fond of endings. When I read a book, I read the last page halfway through. Just so I’ll be prepared, and the last day stretches out 4 days for me, four days of hugs, four days of good bye, and four days of crying.