Ender's Game

For my book assignment, I read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. The plot of this book is really interesting to me. In the book, the government selects Andrew “Ender” Wiggin for training at a elite battle school. Ender eventually accepts the offer, and leaves his family a very young age. At the school, Ender is arguably the smartest person of all other new attendees. This causes him to be constantly isolated by the other kids. Even so, he improves rapidly and becomes rather popular through out the school. During all this, his two siblings Valentine and Peter are up to something of their own. They form an uneasy alliance and create fake identities that allow them to publicly speak of government and politics. Peter, who is the main player of the two, plans to drive the globe into chaos, allowing him to take control. Valentine, who deeply cares for Ender unlike Peter, is very reluctant to follow Peter, but is eventually convinced of Peter’s wants to make the world a better place. As time goes on, Ender eventually became a commander of his own army of students, and does unexpectedly well. Ender’s new army causes commotion within the school, due to his unheard of strategies and tactics. This is as far as I’ve gotten in the story, but I plan on finishing the story later.
In the book, there are three main characters, Ender and his two siblings, Valentine and Peter. Ender is the main character and protagonist of the story. Ender cares deeply for his sister Valentine, but greatly loathes his brother Peter. His has the compassion of his sister, and the ruthlessness of his brother. Ender greatly detests the negative parts of his personality. He always tries to subdue that side of his personality and tries to use his positive site more. He is always put into situations were his negative side emerges, but tries his best to not use violence. An example of this is when he beats another child to death, but only did it because he had to. When he learned that he did this, he hated himself for this.
Valentine cares, through out the story, does everything in her power to protect Ender from Peter’s sadistic tortures. She has the same compassion of Ender, but doesn’t have the ruthlessness of Peter. Because I haven’t read the whole book and valentine hasn’t been fully introduced, I don’t know that much about her. She is currently being introduced and I’m learning a few things about her. For example, there is a part of her that likes manipulating and controlling people.
Peter, the older of the three, is devoid of compassion and only has ruthlessness in its place. He is very sadistic to his other siblings, and at some points it’s unclear if he is going to kill Valentine and Ender. He is the mastermind of his and Valentine’s political endeavors. Again, as he hasn’t been fully introduced, I don’t know much about him.
The themes I can see at this point are symbols of the games. Ender hypothesizes that the games have deeper meanings throughout the book. He constantly tries to say away from the teacher’s manipulations. But even though he tried, he actually played right into their hands. This is also the main conflict in the story for Ender.
Well, until I finish the book, I won’t be able to talk about the whole book. So I might come back and edit this once I finish the book. Good bye everyone.

Final Blog

I am going to talk about all of the work I have done in this class throughout the year and how good I think they are. In all of my blogs and other projects, I tried to write as much as I could without repeated things and keeping the post interesting. I think that the content of all of my post were rather well, but his could just be my biased opinion. A good example of this is My Lord of the Rings post; this post was rather long, had a lot of content spread about it and covered all that was supposed to be covered. A few of my posts held a few mistakes, but not so much that it would be horrible. But because that we had a lot of interesting things to write about, the quality of my work was pretty good. Whenever I’m writing about something that greatly interests me, I try to do my absolute best. And this showed in a few of my works I think.

In the media communication class I have learned a lot about some interesting topics. The main goal of this class was to study how the media affects society. We did many projects and watched many films to do this. I learned a lot things I previously didn’t know do the things we studied. A great example of this was the lat movie we watched, which as Food Inc.. By watching this, I learned a ‘lot’ of things that I couldn’t even imagine. The knowledge I gained from this movie was quite valuable to, so I think the goal was accomplished. I also learned how the media directly affects society. The best example for this was the Merchants of Cool. In this short film I learned how the media seek to find out what teenagers think is cool, so they can make the products and other thing to make money.

The most interesting thing I learned in this class would probably be the parallel between epic films. I learned things that should have been rather obvious, by comparing separate films. I found it really cool how many epic films share a similar outline of there stories, characters, symbols, and themes. The task was to compare and epic film or films with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. For my project, I picked the Star Wars movies. I researched the qualities of the two movie trilogies, and found that a lot of the outline was alike. There is a hero, there is an epic task that has to be completed, there is an epic conflict through the plots, and there are sub-heroes. There is a lot of other things that they share, but doing that would take up a lot of space and I have to get onto other things. I was also most engaged in learning about the epic films parallel. I have always enjoyed watching series of film, and seeing deeper into them than normal. Because of this, I found It really interesting and fun to compare and pick apart he films we watched.

The thing that I was most distanced from and uninterested in were the vlogs. I don’t know what it is, but I really detest being on a camera and talking to the public basically. Whenever I had to do a vlog I got extremely nervous, and jittery. The idea of basically posting my self for everyone to see made me feel really uncomfortable.

For future classes, I think that some things should be added. I think that the class should contain more material on how the media directly influences society, like the Merchants of Cool and You Tube anthropology. I found these kinds of things really cool and enjoyable. I also think that future classes would enjoy this also.

Honestly, that’s all I really ha e to say. I didn’t really dislike anything, except vlogs, from this class. I don’t think that anything has to or should be changed for the class to remain interesting. Well, this is my last blog for the year, so see ya.

Food Inc. Blog

I found this movie rather interesting, if not disturbing. The many facts that I learned peeked my interests, but a lot of the facts were not appealing at all to me. To learn that a few companies basically run the entire food industry was surprising to say the least. Since there are only a few companies, said companies hold very large amounts of power. The most disturbing thing I learned was how these companies used this power. A great example was the case in which a child died due to food contamination. The parents sued the food company and lost due to the fact the food company had more power and money. Their son died and they lost a case because they didn’t have enough money. What’s more is that the food companies pretty much control what we eat and know about the food we eat. Before this movie I was unaware that chickens were pumped full of unnatural hormones that made them grow much faster than they’re supposed to. This means that we’re eating food that is filled with unnatural things that most of us aren’t even aware with. The fact that the food companies can get away with this frightens me greatly.

Another thing that I found interesting was how dependent we are on corn. I knew that corn was used for many things and is a very useful food, but I had no idea how many foods have corn bi products in them. Another thing is how they showed that cows, who are not supposed to eat corn, are fed corn all of the time because it is cheap. Because corn is not supposed to be eaten by cattle, they develop bacteria and we eat the cattle. E-coli is one bacterium that has been found, and many have died because of it. Yet despite this, cattle are still fed corn no matter the consequences.

The last thing that I want to talk about is how a company called Monsanto, bioengineered plants so that they would be more resistant to parasites and pesticides and would last longer. The bad thing about this is that every plant that is affected by Monsanto is owned by them. They already own basically all of the soybean produce. This means that farmers cannot save left over seeds for later year because it would be considered product infringement. But since Monsanto owns most of the soybeans, farmers can’t really acquire seeds anywhere else.

All in all, after seeing this movie I realize that the food industry needs to change. They food companies hold fare to much power and are corrupt, and if we do not change it major health concerns will become even more of a problem. We need to be able to choose healthy foods over non-healthy ones disregarding the price. People need to stand up and say that they want organic food sand not mass-produced, hormone filled foods.

Digital Nations

This week the class has been split into groups that have been presenting on digital nations. Each group had an interesting topic and thoroughly explained what each one was about.

The first one I want to talk about is Reece and Chris’s presentation on how gaming can be militaristic. They explained how there is a gaming center where army recruiters lounge about and talk to teens that are interested in war games such as Call Of Duty, which is a first-person shooter game. They explained how games can actually help people learn strategy and sort of familiarize them selves with war like environments. They explained how technology already plays a very large role in war. They gave and example of remote controlled planes that are used instead of actual people. I really like this one because I myself am interested in games like these and agree on many of the points they presented.

Second I would like to talk about is Shelby and Justine’s presentation. They talked about how relationships were affected by technology and how it is changing. Many of the things they brought up were sort of sad, but true. The biggest thing was the problem of whether to censor the internet or not. The example they gave was the girl who found an internet page on anorexia. They pointed how that the information that the site gave could be very harmful, and should not be on the internet because of that. I completely agree that this site should be censored or removed, because the things it talked about were rather disturbing. It was sort of like a religion for anorexia, which is just sickening in my opinion. All in all I found it very interesting, and at some times disturbing, how technology is affecting the way of relationships in the world. I think they did a very good job in pointed out the main points also.

The third one I want to talk about is Willy, Cody and Kinsey’s presentation on Virtual Worlds. I found this one particularly interesting, because I think it is amazing what they talked about. One of the things they talked about is the second life program, which is where you create a digital version of yourself, an avatar, and interact with others who do the same just as you would in the real world. I think this is interesting, but it kind of concerns me that we will become disconnected from reality because we are too focused on something that is fake. The other thing that interested me was their talk about video games and how it affects people’s habits. They explained how violent games do not really influence people in the long run, although it might have short-term affects. They pointed how games can actually help us. I think this whole topic is very interesting, because I am very interested in technology. Overall they did a good job in presenting their points.

V-log 4

V-log 3

Iron Man Vs. Lord of the Rings

I really like this powerpoint. I saw Iron Man and i loved that movie, so it's no surprise that i liked how he compared it with another awesome movie. I really like how in Reece's first slide he put half of Tony Stark's face and half of his Iron Man mask. I like how he paralleled Tony and Frodo. He explained that they were both being held captive by something or some one; for Tony he was held prisoner by terrorists and Frodo was help captive by the ring's powers. I like how he compares the power Tony gets from his advanced suit to the power Frodo receives from the ring. Tony is able to fly, shoot missiles, has super strength, and advance hud due to his suit. For Frodo the ring gives him the ability to become invisible. He does a good job at comparing Pepper to Sam; he explains how each sub-hero gives emotional support and helps guide the Hero to do the right thing. My favorite parallel between the two movies is that each Hero has to destroy something to keep it from enemies. Tony has to destroy the weapons he made from terrorist, and Frodo has to destroy the ring to keep it from Sauron. He does a great job at pointing out the parallels between Stane and Gollum. He explains how it seem that each one of them make it look like they are helping the hero, but in the end betray them. I find it funny how Reece pointed out that they both died in and explosion or fire. All in all, i loved his powerpoint! It makes me want to watch Iron Man again.

Harry Potter Vs. Lord of the Rings

This was my favorite comparison os far because i like how Justine compared the to films and highlighted the parallels between the two. I personally love the Harry Potter books and I think that comparing it with Lord of the Rings is a very good idea. Like Justine pointed out, both films share many epic qualities such as heroic qualities and plot. She did a great job at pointing out the parallels between Harry Potter and Frodo Baggins. She explained how each character share many qualities such as a pure heart, brave, and how each one of them would risk their own lives to complete their quests. My favorite comparison was between Dumbledore and Gandolf. She explained how each one of them was magical, they both guided the main hero and each of them helped all they could with the hero's goal. She did a great job at comparing the plots too. She explained how the ring from Lord of the Rings is similar to the horcruxes in Harry Potter; both objects represent great evil and the main goal for each plot is to destroy them.

Princess Bride Vs. Lord of the Rings

The last one i picked was Shane's power point comparison between The Princess Bride and Lord of the Rings. I really enjoyed this power point because both of the movies are a few of my favorite films, and comparing them just made it more enjoyable. He did a good job at comparing Westley and Frodo; he pointed out how each of them had a pure heart, they were both very brave, and they both had determination to complete their quests. The quests of each hero is similar but not the same. Westley had to siege the castle to save Buttercup, and Frodo must travel to Mt. Doom to destroy the ring. The quests are similar in the way that they both have to travel into enemy territory to complete their quests, but other than that they are different. He also did a great job at comparing Gandalf and Miracle Max. He explained how each were magical in a way; Gandalf was a wizard and Max was a potions master. Watching Shane's power point just made me want to watch the movie again. It reminded me how The Princess Bride contained many epic qualities; the hero was brave, determined, and was 'good', or pure of heart.

Star Wars Parallelism

Star Wars Parallel

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V-log 2

V-log 1