The End...

    It's been quite a year! Not only in my life, but on this blog too. I feel like I got my wish, and though few voices actually had the patience to read my writing, I got what I believe out there. I've talked about so many things that otherwise nobody would probably would even think about in their lifetimes, and it's been satisfying to know that perhaps I might have helped the country be a little better through the minds of a few Young Adults.
    From my blogs about Politics, to the Environment, and then to the very things that make us human. Not only have I shared ideas on the most basic things of humanity, I have also gained ideas. Ideas from people such as Ghandi, Stephen Biko, my Geography teacher, my English teacher, and my friends. I have learned much, and I still have much to learn.
    I have loved writing this blog all year. It has improved my writing skills, and allowed me to interact with my classmates on level I have never before experienced. I have grown incredibly, and have connected myself with the world better.
   I would like to thank all of those who made this blog possible: Mr. T, my dedicated Honors English teacher, who introduced me into this world. The Music Man, who's comments have often sent my mind reeling for hours at a time. The Ruler Of The World, who's critisism has helped me to take a hard look at myself and what I write. Mystique, who's comments have helped to increase my sense of being in the world. Fermata, who always has something intriguing to say that gives me a sense of wonder.
And finally The Girl From Cedar City, who has cheered me up on many a sad day.
   This is not the END end, of course. I will continue to write this blog and stay up to date with the rest of the people who will continue to write theirs. This is simply the end of honors english and ninth grade.
    I hope you guys still have some patience left in you, because it isn't over till it's over!
                                                   Adrian.

Masquerade

    Masks. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds. All lined up in neat little rows, ready to go on in a moment's notice. The alarm clock rings. The Masquerade begins. Who knows what masks I will need today? What I do know is that I need them. Every single one of them. Anything could happen.
    I know this is a ominous start to my post, but this second to last post is a thing that I have considered for many years, and I want the mood to feel a little dark. Of course, the masquerade is symbolic. Symbolic of Life. Each mask is a symbol of how you interact and act like around each person or circumstance.
    Imagine a masquerade with hundreds of people in it. Now imagine that for each one you put on a different mask. This is very similar to life. We interact with people, places, and things constantly, and our attitude and outlook changes. For example if you are playing video games, you are happier and brighter than when you are doing your math homework.
    A person interacts with other persons around him/her in different ways. The way you talk to Johnny is different from how you talk to Suzie. Every single person you know has a mask in your mind. When you meet that person and interact with them, you slip your mask on and dance your dance.
    Of course, this is because of human nature, and because everybody is different and unique, but while this is true there is a very real danger of losing the self. You can be caught up so much in being popular that you don't ever take your mask off. All you can think about is the next mask, the next person, the next social event. Masks can also lead to an opposite effect, where the person remains silent inside a special quiet mask that prevents them from dancing with others.
    Being yourself is a very hard thing to do. Showing your real face, and being proud to do it is an immense accomplishment that nobody fully accomplishes in this life. It is a striving which requires effort from all fronts, whether it be physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or any other aspect of humanity. There are certain times of peace for everybody, though, when they slip off the mask for a bit. When you decide to do something strange, or thy something new, you step out of the comfort of the mask.
    Doing such things requires great courage. Courage that does not come easily to any one human. I often do not acquire the courage to be myself, which always hurts me in the long run. We must be willing to get burned. Being yourself is like cooking over a fire. You may get burned, but in the long run it's worth it.
     I hope to be myself more than I have before. I want to be more accepting and open to those who really need help, and most especially accepting and open to myself. We all need to gain self-esteem. Life without a mask is much better for everyone. It is worth it to try.

Past and Present

    I have thought about the idea of forgetting or learning from the past and applying it to the present, but there is a point where you are obsessed with your past. I just want to explore some of the balance that is neccesary to live in the best way.
  
    First off, I would like to recognize how useful our pasts can be. Memories are a compostition of  past failures and succeses that we can draw from when we need to. People most often refer to this view of the past as experience. If someone has a lot of experience, they have learned the most effective ways to do or act in a certain way through trial and error.

   Now I would like to point out that memories can also hinder a person's ability to do something. Memories can cause fear, discomfort, or a whole range of distracting emotions. It could make someone hesitant to do something good, like going to the Dentist, or getting a haircut. This is very evident in little children, who don't understand what is good for them, or what was an extreme example of something that normally doesn't happen.

   So in light of these two things, we can go to two extremes. One is where we blow off the past and just keep living without thinking about mistakes or successes. Another is where we cling to the past, constantly moping and whining and being frightened of everything. The trick is to find the balance.

   The balance is different from person to person. Some people only listen to their pasts if they blow them a little out of proportion, while others are very sensititve to past mistakes. There are also individual cases, because all memories affect us differently, where a single memory is difficult to either feel or contain.

    There really isn't one correct solution, or probably even ANY correct solution to help us take advantage of the valuable resource. It is just one of those human things that will never be perfect no matter how we try right now. I hope to find the best balance I can, and I wish others luck in their search for balance.

A Prologue to a Story

     Since I've sort of digressed from the organization intended to have in my blog, I decided to throw a prologue to a story I am considering writing into the whole disorganized mix. I hope you enjoy it!

     "HOW COULD YOU?" shrieked the girl dangling beside me. "HOW COULD YOU?" She thrashed from side to side, trying to loosen herself from the shackles that held her aloft. She would soon give up, much like the boy to my left had, with a slump of the shoulders and an empty, resigned stare.
     I use my own resigned energy to force myself to concentrate on small things instead of listening to the shrieking, like the smell of rotting plants the cold stone dungeon has, or the taste of blood which still lingers in my mouth. It's not that the shrieking itself is driving me insane, but the fact I know that I caused it.
     It IS my fault that we're all here, hanging from iron shackles that lift us three feet off of the ground. It was because of my that these people who were my friends are suffering. I did do the right thing, but is it really the right thing if it causes so much pain. I look down, feeling an urge to cry, but I haven't cried for hours. It's surprising how short of a time it takes you to become inhuman in a prison.
     I find myself wanting to console the girl, but what can I say? "Sorry for betraying and imprisoning you for all eternity, will you forgive me?" No, I'll just have to suffer here in the dark until they finally decide to kill me off.
    I suppose that I had best start at the beginning, when I first met the pair of people who now hang beside me. I'll prove to you that I did the right thing. Maybe I can even convince myself...

The Bright Side

    We've all heard the phrase "Look on the Bright Side" before. In fact, we've probably heard it so much that it has lost a lot of meaning in our brains. Today in this post, I will explore some of the deeper meanings this phrase could possibly have.
 
    The phrase "Look on the Bright Side" is usually used to console or reassure someone who has had a particularly bad day or experience. It is used to show that although the situation seems bad (has a "dark" side), there is also goodness, learning, and hope (the "bright" side). For example, when someone loses a family member, a friend my try and comfort the person by saying, "Look on the bright side, he's in a better place than you are."

    Does it mean more than this, though. Does it only refer to the specific good effects of situations or happenings, or does it refer to a much more universal thing?

       I believe it does. I mean, think about it. The world in general can often be thought of as a "bad" place to live in. It has a lot of bad things in it. Murder, rape, greed, and other nightmares plague a lot of places. However, what happens when you apply "Look on the Bright Side" to the entire world? It suddenly becomes brighter. You remember all of the beautiful, kind things that have happened to you. Every flower, ever person that was willing to make you feel welcome, every bright ray of sunshine. Then you find yourself thinking, "It's not perfect by a long shot, but it's not too bad at all."

     It is often the little things like this in life that makes life worth living. It is these small things that brighten up our days, and make them feel happier and more complete. It is so sad how often everyone misses out on a lot of that stuff because they are so concentrated on the bad. I think that the phrase "When walking upon the path of life, stop and smell the roses" expresses this idea nicely. We should all take a little time out of our busy lives to realize that the world is a wonderful, beautiful place.

The Hunger Games: What is it really trying to teach?

   I've been reading and talking about The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and have been pondering on its meaning and themes. I will not give a background or a plot summary, because this post is meant to specifically target those individuals who have already read the book and pondered its inner meaning. So, this post has a major spoiler alert.
    Suzanne Collins to me is very brave person. She writes literature for kids that broaches on subjects and actions that parents try to shield children from. Whats more, she writes her books to get people to think, which is a hard and, well, dangerous thing to do.
    I think that Suzanne Collins wrote those books the way she did as a sort of warning to our generation. It is full of mini-themes and messages about nature and censorship and such, but I think that the main themes of the book have to do with the humanity and how violence affects who we are and what we become.
     Katniss at the beginning is used to having to fend and survive for herself, and doing things out of necessity. She has never had anything provided for her in her life, and has developed a system of "owing" people, where anytime someone does something for her, she must pay them back equally. This quality comes back to haunt her in the arena, where she hates owing people for saving her life, which is hard to pay back.
    Now, in the first book, the Hunger Games sort of humanizes her. She is animal and automatic and kills because of necessity, but once she kills her first human, she realizes what it actually means to take a life. She realizes that  every single person in that games is, in fact, a person. She finds that every thing has a right to live, and that the games are pure evil.
    After that, though, her experiences start to overcome her. She becomes more and more monstrous in her automatic killing response when confronted with a threat. She stops thinking about those who she kills, and becomes more focused on her own survival and the survival of others around her. She stops caring about them. She becomes more and more removed from not only the people she kills, but the people she is close to as well.
    If you compare the pre-Games Katniss to the Mockingjay Katniss, you think that maybe Katniss's disturbed twin came and killed her and replaced her. I mean, at the beginning, she is dark, automatic, and kind of isolated, but after, she is still those things, but they are blown way out of proportion. She is disturbed, insane, broken, and intensely isolated from the rest of the world. She hates everything, especially herself. She is in a crazed, horrid state.
    So what does this show about our world? I think it clearly shows the effect of violence upon humanity in general. It shows that violence warps people and hurts them internally. This is a clear warning to us. We don't want to end up like Katniss. Cold, isolated, unresponsive. We need to make sure we make choices and perform actions that will bring peace and not violence. Sort of like Ghandi, who believed in non-violent protest.
     I fear for the world today. Desensitization to violence is happening all around us through video games and the movies. We put off the idea of violence in other parts of the world. It has become a silly thing now that isn't real except in T.V. and on the PS3. What would happen, if we ended up in a situation that caused violence? Would we easily give in to violence ourselves because it has always been a "silly thing"? I hope that our world today will recognize Collins and her attempt to warn them about violence and its effects.

day, April 8, 2011 My Very Very Very Late April Fools Post!!!!! The Story Behind the Mouse-clicks: Blizzard Entertainment!!!! Part 2

      First off I am horribly, horribly sorry for being this late on my blog. I haven't had the best week, and I have been really busy. So today I am going to present a long post yet again, with the threat of crushing math homework over my head.
     

       Today we will continue with my exploration of the awesomeness of Blizzard. To recap, we have seen two amazing Warcraft games and the incredible Starcraft. Now we jump up to the time when 3-D really hit a new peak. The old look of a sort of 2-D cube changed into something that look of a 3-D cube. This is around the time when Nintendo really hit its final stride to the top, and the computer game industry charged into full force. The game Blizzard created at that time was the third installment of the Warcraft series: Warcraft 3 Reign of Chaos. The example of this 3-D is shown in the following pictures (of course the graphics are a bit dulled by the fact that they are pictures):

     As you can obviously see, this game was well-developed visually. It was a pioneer of this technology, and used it so well that it played in a significant part in gaining Game of the Year, and gathering players for World of Warcraft in later years.








      Part of the appeal and greatness that this game had had nothing to do with technology or hardware or advanced creating techniques. You see, every one of Blizzard's Warcraft games had been rather standard and stereotypical. Evil Orcs versus Valliant Humans. Blizzard looked at its games, and saw that it hadn't really added something to the world of fantasy. So it decided to do something different. It created a one-of-a-kind story.

      When you first come into the game, you notice several things. First, the cutscene displaying that evil is coming. Second, there are no longer only two races. We'll get to that later. Third, you notice that there is a small Orc prologue to the rest of the campaign. Here is where the ultimate beauty comes in that has made Blizzard famous. The Orcs have been imprisoned for a long time. They have become calm, quiet, and a lot less disruptive. It is odd, since they were once so bloodthirsty and violent. Up rose a leader by the name of Thrall, who was raised by humans. He saw that his people were not violent naturally, but only because they had been under the curse of demons. He turned to the shamanistic ways, and liberated the orcs from their camp. He became their Warchief. Then, when they were in hiding, trying to make lives for themselves, a mysterious prophet appears, and tells Thrall to travel across the sea to the unknown land of Kalimdor to face the evil demons that will return. Here is part of it in the second cutscene.

     As you can see, Blizzard has taken something, and turned it into a beautiful story, free from regular cliche. The Orcs are only a fourth of the story, however. Humans have been changed as well, but is it for the better, or will it cause their dooms?

     The Human campaign tells the story of Arthas, son of the king and a noble Paladin. At first, he serves the cause by driving out the still demon-corrupted Black Rock Orcs, and protects the people. While this is going on, the government is corrupt, and word of a mysterious plague in the north reaches their ears. Finally, after ignoring it for so long, they decide to send Arthas and a wizardess named Jaina to investigate. What they find out is horrifying. There is a strange plague in the grains that turns all who eat it into undead. Not only that, but a mysterious force of undead has begun to take the land. As Arthas fights to save what he can of the people, a major city falls into plague. He purges the whole city, and act that defies the order of Paladins, and goes against what his father wishes. He lets the rage get the better of him, and embarks on a quest to find a sword which shall turn him into a being of darkness, a Death Knight. A servant of an evil master. He then returns, kills his father, and takes his place with the Undead Scourge, a new race which I shall explain in the next paragraph.

     The Scourge is a group of Undead that are under control of the evil Lich King. They are armies of rotting flesh, bones, and destruction. They have been given a charge to destroy all of the strong races of the world, and to prepare for the coming of the Burning Legion, the group of demons who corrupted the Orcs. As they began their rampage across the Human lands, they destroy the wood elves, and take away much of their power. But, the plan of the Undead did not succeed fully. First off, the Orcs had fled to Kalimdor. Second, the Prophet had been trying to convince a human leader to flee to Kalimdor, and had succeeded in Jaina, who had fled with a large part of the population.

       Next is the real Orc Campaign. As the Orcs arrive, they begin to search for a place to settle. They meet the Tauren, giant bull-men who follow shamanistic ways, and befriend them by driving away the Centaurs that plagued them. The chief of the Tauren tells Thrall to travel to a nearby cave to consult a mysterious Oracle. When Thrall ventures in, he is surprised to find humans, the same humans Jaina had fled with. Then he meets the Oracle, who convinces him and Jaina (who is also present) to work together. Unfortunately, Thrall had sent a leader of part of the horde Grom Hellscream to the northern forests to collect wood. Angered, Grom quickly calms down as he meets mysterious warrior women in the forest, who turn out to be the Night Elves (see next paragraph). Then a Demon named Mannaroth finds Grom, and re-enslaves him and his group he had with him. Thrall then works with the humans to catch and release him from the Demon influence. He and Grom then travel together, and kill Mannaroth, forever ending the Demon curse.

     The last chapter of the story is of the Night Elves. The Night Elves are dark wood elves, who fight to protect their forests. When a strange force of green-skinned and white-skinned people move in and settle, they drive them out, only to be attacked and almost captured by the Burning Legion. Tyrande Whisperwind, the Priestess of the Moon, then escapes and gathers all of the Night Elf Forces. Unfortunately, it will not be enough, but soon Tyrande and her leader Malfurion Stormrage meet the Prophet, and join with the Humans and Orcs to make a final stand against the Demons. They win, and live to see another day. But at what cost? The entire world is in Chaos, the Scourge is still ever-present, and there is little left. That is the point where this story leaves off, and World of Warcraft comes in.

     World of Warcraft took the story, and created a world where you could play a single person, and fight for your side. Although there was an agreement between all races, they once again split up into the Alliance and the Horde, and went to war with each other. Now you fight for your side, and for the very survival of your people. It is pretty fun, I played it for a while. You could be one of several races, and several classes. When they made the game, the producers at Blizzard joked about making the 1 Million player mark. Well, they hit the 10 Million player mark instead.

     Starcraft 2 came out recently. There is a whole website full of info, and plenty of Youtube videos. All I need to say is that Raynor wants to overthrow the government, but when a sudden unexpected attack from the Zerg happens, Raynor is forced to choose to save lives, even if that means he must side with his hated Dominion.

     Thanks for reading all those you did. I will be going back to my observances once again after this. Sorry for the late post! For the HORDE!!!