Category: Uncategorized

For each class ask yourself the following:

1. My greatest strengths in ________________ include:
2. For greater success in this course, I need to:

Communications

1. My experience giving presentations from high school. I am also confident in speaking and am not really bothered by it.
2. Practice my speeches more so I actually memorize them.

world building dystopias

1. My love of reading compels me to read the books and I enjoy writing reflection essays about the books.
2. Wake up early so I don’t miss it that much. I have an absence and a late already in that class.

history of games

1. I really like video games, and I enjoy the discussions in the class. I know how to study and keep up with the assignments.
2. I really should start doing the readings when they are assigned.

visual studies

1. I am willing to learn about the arts even though I am not naturally talented in them.
2. I should take more/better notes in class.

writing

1. I like and enjoy writing.
2. I should take more notes in class, even though I don’t really think I need to.

Computer skills:

1. My computer skills include: Being able to type pretty fast, using basic things such as powerpoint, drive, and other google applications. I can navigate the web pretty fast.
2. I still need to learn: I really want to learn coding and I signed up for an online class to do so.

Research & writing skills:

1. My greatest strengths as a researcher/writer include: My analysis skills are adept. I can research pretty fast and find what I need when I need it. I enjoy writing and I think that is the most important aspect of being able to improve your writing.
2. I need to work on these aspects of research and writing: Citations. I am pretty inconsistent with them and I often get docked points for not citing my sources correctly.
3. I learn best & accomplish most when: I have the lecture to view later if necessary so I can re-read anything that I may have missed when the teacher was giving the lecture originally.

ACTION PLAN

Choose one class that you are struggling with or are not doing as well as you could.
Now make a list of 10 ways you could improve your performance in this class.

Visual Studies

1. Ask more questions
2. Take notes
3. Sit near the front
4. Don’t open up other tabs on my computer
5. Turn off my phone
6. Go in for office hours
7. Ask for help when needed
8. Get to know the professors more so I can better understand their teachings
9. Start on my projects earlier
10. Open my mind

1. I thought that the presentations were very interesting in the sense that they all got to showcase their work, almost like presenting a resume of sorts to us. To be honest though, the one I was most focused on was the Interactive Games Studies presenter, because it is my major. One thing she said that really stuck with me was that you need to go above and beyond to really put yourself out there, that doing just the assigned work wasn’t enough to land you a job for sure. I took that to heart and enrolled in a C++ coding and Unreal engine how to class online with Udemy, which I got for 10 dollars because of a sale. I plan to gain knowledge of coding and complete the 55 hour course in my own time.
2. I found four sites that I think are interesting.

https://archive.org/

I chose the Internet Archive because of their main goal. It is to compile the history of as many webpages as possible. It could be considered similar to Wikipedia in this regard, but there are some key differences between these two sites. One of them would be the fact that you can interact more with the information on Internet Archive. For example, you can play Oregon Trail on here, fully and completely.

https://www.reddit.com/

Reddit is a site that has been growing in popularity over the years. I think it is interesting as a site that is home to countless forums and fandoms, but also that it focuses on showing news. The voting aspect is interesting too, it is different than the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in the fact that you can upvote or downvote (essentially liking and disliking) anything, whether or not it is a comment or post, which helps filter content that is not of quality and separate it from quality content.

https://www.twitch.tv/

Twitch is a popular live-streaming channel that is designed and mainly used for streaming video games for entertainment, but it is also possible to stream non-video game content. It has been heavily monetized with professional video game sponsorships and subscribing to certain streamers, but I think it is an interesting platform, and it’s popularity is only growing.

https://www.udemy.com/

I chose this site because I recently bought a course on how to code C++ and learn Unreal engine for only $10, where it usually was $200. This site lets people acquire skills, and I read that completing a course from Udemy is definitely worthy of putting on your resume. I think it is a good way for people to learn certain skills, especially since it is an online class that you can complete at your own pace. I think this is good because there are a lot of people with jobs that cannot attend school whenever they choose, so online classes that are flexible are a big help.

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These images are from my visual studies class. The goal of the assignment was for us to understand principles of gestalt. We collected a set of photographs, and presented them to our professors, explaining why we chose to put each picture in our presentation. We were learning about principles of gestalt in class, and we were thinking about each picture as we took them.

The strongest aspect of this project was definitely how I was able to apply these principles in my camera work, despite not working with cameras at all really in the past.

The weakest aspect was my presentation, I went overtime by a lot.

I feel like conceptually, it would improve if I acquired a greater understanding of art and gestalt principle in general.

It could be improved technically if I was better at using a camera. Many of the photos came out really blurry and just bad in general.

Cuphead is a game that has just recently been released for PC and the Xbox One. The cool thing about this game is that it is designed in the style of 1930’s cartoons. Just look at it. 

Does it not just scream “Mickey Mouse” especially with the color of the red character? It also has the subtitle “Don’t Deal with the Devil”, which is pretty similar to the cartoons at the time. After all, there was Donald Duck reading Mein Kampf, and war propaganda was practically everywhere around the 1940s, which was around when World War 2 was just starting to get underway.

The thing about indie games is that they usually have very distinctive art styles, and you can definitely tell them apart from the games that AAA developers make. However, usually with an indie game, it isn’t the art style that will attract me to it, as they will a lot of times just use pixel art, and why wouldn’t they? It makes everything easier, and it attracts an audience that likes the retro style. However, I have yet to see a game with a 1930s style. The best part about it though, is that the game play has gotten great reviews, so the art style is not carrying it. Metacritic and other sources have praised it, and it is currently on the front page of the Steam Store, which is something any indie game would aspire to do.

My schedule for this past week.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
7:00a	sleep	sleep	sleep	sleep	sleep	sleep	sleep
8:00	sleep	sleep	sleep	sleep	sleep	sleep	sleep
9:00	sleep	wake up and go to class	sleep	wake up and go to class	sleep	sleep	sleep
10:00	wake	class	wake	class	wake	sleep	sleep
11:00	rhet and comp	lunch	rhet and comp	lunch	rhet and comp	sleep	sleep
12:00p	lunch	break	lunch	break	vis seminar	sleep	sleep
1:00	history of games	break	history of games	break	history of games	wake	wake
2:00	visual studies	speech class	visual studies	speech class	visual studies	lunch	lunch
3:00	visual studies	break	visual studies	break	lunch	socialize	socialize
4:00	visual studies, then leave	break	visual studies, then leave	break	break	socialize	socialize
5:00	eat	study	eat	study	socialize	socialize	socialize
6:00	socialize	nap	socialize	nap	socialize	socialize	socialize
7:00	study	eat	study	eat	video games	eat	eat
8:00	study	study	study	study	video games	study	study
9:00	video games	video games	video games	video games	video games	study	study
10:00	video games	video games	video games	video games	video games	video games	video games
11:00	video games	video games	video games	video games	video games	video games	video games
12:00a	video games	video games	video games	video games	video games	video games	video games
1:00	Shower	shower	Shower	shower	shower		socialize
2:00	Sleep	sleep	Sleep	sleep	laundry		socialize
3:00					laundry		walk
4:00a					sleep		sleep

I sure do spend a lot of time playing video games.

Part 2

This is a picture from an extremely simple game that I made using Game Maker Studio. I made it over the summer when I was really getting fired up about game creation and what not. I made the sprite, as well as the menus and backgrounds using MS paint. I really just made it to become familiar with the engine that is Game Maker so that I can make more complex games in the future. I am majoring in games studies so hopefully I can learn to better use the program as well as make better art.

1. The main point of article 1 is that artists make good leaders because of the qualities that usually come with being an artist, such as creativity and being humanists. The point of article 2 is that artists and entrepreneurs are extremely similar, but artists need to learn the necessity of support systems and having backing, specifically they need to learn it from the entrepreneurs.
2. The artists need to learn more about how to get connections and how to really get the ball rolling, whether that means not instantly fulfilling your dreams and pandering to the crowd, or just starting smaller and getting the backing before you go all in. They need support systems.
3. I agree that artists are entrepreneurs. To be an artist you must forge your own path through work that is unique enough while there are countless other people trying to do the exact same thing as you. Their resources are not guaranteed and they are on their own for their creative work a lot of the time.
4. I would agree that artists are craftspeople. They make their own unique creations out of their own unique ideas. They speak with their creations, and I think that is an applicable skill in the world of business.
5. One more thing I would point out about artists is how much pride they take in their work, and how they can describe their work so precisely. Pride in your work is always good to have, and so is the ability to present well.

I have grit. Honestly I think that I developed my grit through struggling in certain subjects like math even though I excelled in other subjects like History. I knew that I wasn’t dumb and I was capable of succeeding, and I have never been afraid to really buckle down and work for long periods of time. Sometimes though, I will think about starting a project and not really follow through with it. I may start it, but not complete it. However, I have followed through with most things I have set out to do. Stopping procrastinating is a very common solution and one that would definitely help me. I say that as I am writing this at 1 am the day it is due. However, I am still doing the work and putting in my best effort instead of just going to bed, so I believe that shows some grit.

I am not sure if there was not any sound purposefully or if it was a mistake on YouTube’s part, because reading some of the YouTube comments didn’t really make much sense, unless they were referencing one of Brackage’s other works that I wasn’t aware of. However, I will say that I think it is a cool artistic choice for there not to be any sound, as there is not any sound in space, where this video “takes place”. The name stellar confirms that, and to me, it looked so chaotic but beautiful, almost like it was the creation of our universe. With all of the lights moving extremely fast and the art being almost abstract in a way, what is actually going on is left up to the viewer. All that we know is that it is in some way supposed to represent stars from the title.

But I actually like that more abstract feeling in the art. When something is spelled right out for you, you tend to not spend as much time thinking on it. After all why would you need to if everything is just spelled out for you right there? I think this is what Brackage is going for. Overall I really liked this video, and I watched it multiple times and in both slow motion and double speed.

The stereotype that black people can’t really play country music is more of a casual racist problem in our world. I am not saying it isn’t a problem, but it seems like nothing that not many people really care about or get riled up about. Kiwanuka ends up changing his song from country to more of a soul tune and it does end up sounding better in my opinion, but I still think that it’s a problem that because he’s black he’s not “supposed” to play country music.

I always think it’s interesting to listen to the progression of the making of a song, and that’s kinda what this podcast was. My brother is a musician, and when we both still lived at home and not at college, I could hear the progression of a song from it’s birth into when it becomes a true song instead of a collection of chords. Comparing the original country song prototype with the published video is very interesting to hear. Hearing it progress from country to soul by inclusion of things like gospel soul singers shows his cultural identity as a black man, and I believe it is important to embrace your culture, which the song does very well.

One of the things he was very worried about was saying “in a white world”, that people would find him racist or prejudiced because of saying white so many times to make it seem almost repetitive. I don’t really think it’s a problem to say something like that, or racist or anything. I think it is akin to saying something like “I’m a woman in a man’s world” which nobody has any problems with (well some people do but they’re an outlier), so I think that this song overall doesn’t deserve any criticism for it’s lyrics.

I found Amy Tan’s TEDTalk to be very interesting for multiple reasons. One of these was her ability to mix together extremely serious themes and elements such as her father and brother both dying, but at the same time, she is using comic sans as a font with the little explosions introduce the words onto the screen. It reminds me of when I was making computer presentations in middle school, and it is funny to think of using that style while giving a speech for a prestigious organization like TED. But I think that is exactly why she used comic sans and explosions, she was making an attempt at absurdist humor, which I very much enjoy. It is those moments where life sucks but we just have to laugh in spite of it all.

The title of the video, “Where does creativity hide?” is interesting, as she is leaning towards the idea that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Going through traumatic experiences can really help us unleash our creative potential, even if it is still going through a traumatic experience. This goes back to absurdist humor. After going through something and getting past it mentally, we can even laugh at it. I think this is not only true for creativity, but for living in general. You learn a lot more from bad experiences, failures, and losses than you would if you just won all the time and had an easy life. It makes you experience a lot of different feelings, and something she said (and that I agree with) was that the feelings are some of the most important parts of writing a good story.

Upon seeing the title, the first thought that came to my mind was “What is the Conceptual Age?” This was answered very quickly and immediately. We have evolved from farmers to factory workers to knowledge workers. My reaction to the photo with the evolution from monkey to farmer to factory worker to businessman to a painter with what appears to be a heart monitor that doctors use, made me think of the modern day route for most wealthy-enough teenagers in America, in short, what I consider to be a modernized version of the American Dream. Mostly everybody is encouraged to go to college even if they don’t have a plan, which I think is perfectly ok. But there is also the option of trades and trade school, and although it does state that we need both left and right side brain workers, I feel that in modern America, we are acting like doing something necessary for our society to survive is a bad thing. We cannot live without plumbers, welders, and electricians, and I don’t think we should be telling children that those are lesser roles than becoming a lawyer. I understand that the article isn’t saying that at all, in fact, it is saying that we need to have these jobs, but I am targeting the particular figure 3.2, even though it said it appeals to more of the right side of our brain.

One of the other points that really struck and stood out to me is the topic of Japan. I went to Japan 2 summers ago on an exchange program, and I have also studied Japanese language for 4 years, as well as just reading up on their culture in general. Japan has the highest suicide rate of any country, despite being so advanced and having such a “great” education system. I put quotes on this article because I do not think the education system and their work culture in general is great. Sure, statistically, they have us beat in math and probably most every subject, but that is because students are working themselves to the bone quite literally day and night. My student went to school from 8 am to 7 pm, and then students would go to cram school which is literally more studying and cramming information into your brain until about 1 am. Not to mention that you are expected to study after cram school as well. Additionally, when I say study, I don’t mean the American studying, which is looking at your phone half of the time and taking breaks every 10 minutes. My host student once emerged from his room with a bandage on his thumb. He had gotten 3 kanji characters (characters such as these 表外字) wrong on a vocabulary quiz, and had to write out each of them 500 times by the next day, and that was only one of his classes. Where is the time for creativity, the time to think? I honestly didn’t know how they get through it. The sad thing is, a lot of them don’t get through it. Hundreds of students kill themselves if they do not perform well enough on their high school or college entrance exams, they die so as not to face the shame from dishonoring their family, but it also quite literally, in a way, determines the rest of your life. Any education system that ignores not only mental health, but is a major source of suicide, is not ok in my book.

A society like Japan offers no place for individuality, not in school, not in the workplace. There is no room for creativity, when so much of young people’s lives focus on a single standardized test (the SAT in America). The SAT for us is slightly comparable to the entrance exams in countries like Japan and South Korea (which also has many of the problems I addressed last paragraph), except not at all to the same degree. However, that does not mean that we should leave it how it is. The SAT and ACT aims to test you in exactly one way, which is sitting you down for a 4+ hour exam focusing on school subjects. So many people learn in different ways, it’s like telling a fish to have a footrace against a cheetah, and then when the fish has quite literally failed, you dismiss it as worthless. We cannot let our country fall into a one-track state of mind, which is what I believe the author is trying to say.