End of Summer Attempt at Productivity

There's something about the end of summer that makes me amazingly lazy. Or apathetic? I think it's just the prospect of how busy I'm going to be this semester. Maybe I'm trying to save up my hours of doing nothing so I can survive forgoing them later? If so, perhaps I'll be okay. This last month of summer has been "full" of video games, reading, working at Tad's, and hanging out with friends and Bill (Seriously, this kid hangs out at our house for upwards of 12 hours a day! But he's chill, haha). It hasn't felt like I've been doing too much, but I've been putting off writing this blog. Bad T.J.

I have been productive, though! In other, more roundabout ways. Here comes the list: I'm up to 31 books read this summer, I've become addicted to Civilization V (but I have not played the newest expansion), I've been practicing cooking from my grandma's recipes (chicken adobo and spaghetti sauce!), I've been experimenting with painting my nails and doing makeup (it's the only reason I use Pinterest), and working on getting my semester together (which includes orientations, meetings with teachers, and setting up my tutoring jobs). See? I think I haven't completely lazed my summer away.

A great present appeared in my email one day as well. I won an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of a book called Just One Year by Gayle Forman, but I didn't think I would like it right away. It came from Penguin's FirstToRead website where I entered in several lotteries to get free ARCs. Now, it's a contemporary romance novel that follows a college-age guy for a year after he meets a girl in England, and it's also the second book in the set. I got a copy of Just One Day, which is the first book that follows the girl in the story for a year. Though it's not my normal genre, I gave this series a chance and was not disappointed. THERE WAS SHAKESPEARE IN IT! OHMYGAWD, the incorporation of his plays in the books really tied everything together and made me love the story even more. I can't say enough good things about these books and I wish I could somehow use them in my future teachings. Pairing them with Shakespeare would be easy, I think. Anyway, y'all gotta read them because it's the best love story I've ever read. I think Just One Year comes out in October, so I suggest waiting to read the first one because it will be very hard to wait for the next one!

And here's a brief overview of my upcoming semester with generalized times:

• M-F 8 am - 12 pm: Practicum in a middle school classroom where I'll be involved in two English classes, two Writing classes, and a prep period
• M-Th 12:30 pm - 3:45 pm: Classes plus a 4:30 pm -7 pm class on Wednesdays that's 45 minutes away and an 8-week Monday night class
• M-F at random times and perhaps until 6 pm: Tutoring elementary and high school students
• M and Sa 4:30 pm - 9 pm: My job at Tad's, though I have to change the Monday night one, now.

Busy, busy, busy. :)

And for the last part of this post, I wanted to put up some proof that I have been writing during this time, just not that much. So just for fun, a couple of drabbles I came up with. Peace.

Metal walls reflected multi-colored lights that flashed around the bar, highlighting the dancing figures. At first glance, the party was energetic and intense, but if I fixated on one dancer through the strobe, I could see their moves were jerky and tired. Space stations on the fringe collected the weary and jaded, but mostly the dregs of society. Breathing deeply, I took in the familiar burning metal smell of space, twisted with sweat and alcohol as I looked around, scanning the crowd for my next attack. My eyes lingered on another pirate, his ship full of life-sustaining nutribars to steal.

Ash lined the ground as I wove between the sparse trees, my quick footsteps kicking up small vortexes as I traveled. The perpetually weak sunlight allowed me to see the dreary landscape in varying shades of gray. Patrols never came out this far, so I cared little about silence as I sped toward my destination. I wanted to see it once more, make sure I had reason to hope again. Stumbling into the clearing, I knelt down to touch the emerald grass before looking into the crystal-clear waterfall. Emerging from the mists, the dragon lifted his head nonchalantly-- magic reincarnated.

Funny Observation about Women in the Geekdom at Comic Con

Something that's always been a bit weird to me is the objectification of women in video games now that women make up nearly half of the gaming population. I'm referring to the scantily clad women with nonsensical armor and crazy high heels that are extremely prevalent and make no sense other than drawing in the men for the games. Now that women have a large voice in the gaming community, I think that this is something that should change mostly because none of outfits that women are wearing (if you can even play as a female in the game) would help them at all in the game. Most male armor makes sense and will help them stay alive, but just look at any women in video games and try to explain to me how exposed boobs will help them take sword hits and what not. Don't get me wrong, we can still have pretty women in games, but why can't we have more realistic armor that doesn't turn females into warrior whores?

In case you've never seen female characters in practical armor, check out the Tumblr Repair Her Armor. It's one of the only ones I check out on a fairly regular basis because I love the re-drawings of characters that are posted. The armor makes sense, still makes the girls look good, and isn't that hard to redesign (for the most part). I hope this isn't a lot to ask for, but I think it's something that needs to change. I'm sure there will still be games out there with women looking like porn stars, but we girls should be able to play good, popular games without cringing and wondering how these characters would fight or do anything without worrying about twisting an ankle or taking a hit to all the exposed skin.

This small rant comes from my observations at Comic Con where I spent some time people-watching. There were many women dressed up as their favorite characters and a lot of their costumes were great, but something I found funny was after they had been walking around for awhile. Lots of these women wearing their detail-perfect cosplays ended up walking around the convention center carrying their several-inch-heeled shoes in their hands because it is very uncomfortable to wear them. If these women can't walk around in these shoes for very long, how are the character supposed to fight and run in them? All I could do was laugh as woman after woman would walk past me with their shoes in their hands, complaining about how their feet hurt. This is something that needs to change, but can people accept it without lashing out at the gaming companies or crying about how they can't see more skin? I hope so, because it seems like something that can be changed without too much effort! Here's to a little more equality in the gaming industry!

The Start of Comic Con

San Diego International Comic Con starts this Wednesday, July 17th, with preview night, but I've already started getting ready for the craziness. Not only have I been trying to get my costume and book-selling paraphernalia together, but I've been helping my G-pa get stuff ready for his booth since that's my ticket into the show. If this isn't my tenth year of Comic Con, it's certainly getting close to that. I'd like to think of myself as a Comic Con Veteran, so I'm really excited to have two new-comers this year, some awesome friends from Kansas: Tommy and Chris. :D

Now I started working on Friday with my G-pa, going through boxes on boxes of merchandise that he has recently moved into a couple of storage units. We have to get to work early because it gets very, very hot and there is no shade anywhere. In fact, I am picking up Tommy and Jesse at 5:45 AM so we can start working at 6. We gotta pack up the truck with shelving units, display cases, a couple of walls, and boxes of wood carvings and other crazy pieces for sale. I'll try to get a picture of the finished booth so y'all can see the stuff he sells. Probably his most popular sellers are the sterling silver jewelry pieces, including twenty something trays of rings and several displays of earrings and pendents. The designs are so cool! I've never really seen stuff like it here because a lot of them are hand made! But my favorite thing he displays are the dragons. Every wood carving is hand carved, but some of the dragons he has... Amazing. I hope he brings a big one to the show so I can include it in the picture. They're so cool.

But after we pack everything, we have to transport it to the convention center, unload it, unpack it, and then set it up, make it look pretty, and make sure everything is priced! It's a crazy process and the set up starts on Tuesday. We finish it up Wednesday and get ready for the preview night attendees that usually come as we're still getting everything ready. Then I put on my best seller's face and try to get people to buy everything since that means less stuff to pack up at the end. :D Though we do have to restock every morning. The rings are the most tedious things to do since you have to find the rings that have been sold and then measure the sizes around the sold space so you can put in the right size. And you have to polish them so they look pretty, haha. But we get a lot of people down our aisle in Artist's Alley so it's a lot of fun to see the costumes and weird things people buy. Comic Con is always worth it.

New to this year's booth is the addition of Meet the Author! My G is letting me put up a sign to show off when I'll be in the booth so people can buy my book, talk to me about it, and basically just let me share it with the Con-goers. I feel so weird promoting my book since I'm not exactly full of compliments about myself, but I'll have to suck it up and act super cool so I can convince people to help promote my college education. My mom is also convinced I'll sell out of my thirty copies really quickly, but I still think I ordered quite a few. It'd be quite awesome if I sold them all, though! I also got some pretty sweet business cards to help promote my sales while I'm walking around or if I do sell out of books. I've just always wanted to have some business cards, so I thought this was as good a time as any to make some! I hope they work, haha.

Besides that, I've been working on my costume which is pretty easy, but there has been one thing I still haven't figured out, and that is Rayne's trusty sidewalk scraper! I want to go out tomorrow and get one because a zombie hunter costume isn't complete without the main weapon! I also want to put some fake blood on my goggles (which I just got in the mail the other day) and scraper, but so far my best idea is getting some plasti dip and flicking it on each. The problem is that the red I can get is very bright and I don't think zombie blood would be that color. So I'm thinking I can perhaps sharpie some black on it after it dries or I can buy some black plasti dip and mix a little in. The only problem with the second idea is that I'd have to pay $20 instead of $10. :( And as I'm typing this, I realize it'd be pretty cool if I could get her knife and thigh holster, but I don't know where I could get one that I could take in to the Con... So I hope the scraper is enough! I'm just so excited. :D

I also have a few questions for anyone that reads this. Any better ideas for zombie blood? Any better ideas for promoting my book? I'm hopefully gunna make a sign to hang from my scraper so when I rest it on my shoulder it hangs above the crowd for people to see. Anything I should say in particular to get people to spend $9 on a book? How do I sound cool and knowledgeable without being a jerk? Should I wear my costume every day? I think that's all I have on my mind right now, though, haha. I'm so ready for this nerd fest. :D

Drabble, Drabble, Drabble

Now that I've hit the lull between being published and trying to sell more books at Comic Con (I've sold six copies, yo), I got a little bored and didn't know what to do. I even asked my sister what to do a blog post on and she said, "Me." Psh, she's boring right now, haha. Lately she's just been lazing around and not wanting to leave the house to hang out with me and my friends. Although, I guess I can understand a little bit why she wouldn't want to, haha. Right, guys? :P (Don't hate me, Syd. <3)

Anyway, I've been missing my keyboard and decided to get back into some writing. I haven't been able to sit down for too long by myself, so I didn't want to work on a long project (though I should!). Instead, I picked up something called drabble. It's a type of flash fiction that is exactly one hundred words long. Flash fiction is just a very short story that is usually between three hundred and a thousand words (according to Wikipedia). If I had known of Flash Fiction Month, I may have tried to do it, but Comic Con would probably have kept me from doing one every day. I applaud everyone who is attempting it, though. :D (Hope you're keeping up on your writing, Nick!)

I told Jesse this would be a short post, and I'm trying to not get into another wordy rant, so here are a few examples of drabble that I wrote.

1. My eyes opened, but I didn't know why until the dark room that I had awakened in flashed brilliantly for just a moment. The light was so bright that there were no shadows, leaving me dazed as my mind attempted to put together the pieces. Rumbling began and I could feel it begin from one corner as it swept across the floor followed by a deep roar that shook everything even more. Rhythmic slapping turned my head towards the window and I could see chaotic trails of water streaming down the glass. The maelstrom outside raged, roared; in essence, life.

2. The sentences rush together as I realize they have no true conviction to them. There is no pain and suffering in these polysyllabic words that tell the story of good triumphing over evil. Instead, everything seems gilded in gold as heroes easily subdued the savages of the land, mutilating them to cries of victory from the better armed. There is no mention of families torn apart, friends murdered, homes trampled and burned, lives destroyed forever; only smiles as they marched over the land that their God had blessed them with. This is my history, my past, and yet so foreign.

3. I read his files on the back of my eyelids again, but everything checked out. He's been living in a space station for ten years that's been in geosynchronous orbit around a small planet, researching the properties of a strange flora that resides there. No notes on the research, must be classified. Perhaps the reason he's on the run? His look of suspicion then relief at his first glimpse of my face slid through my mind. He shows his feelings on his face-- dangerous or truthful? Opening my eyes, his grateful smile appeared before me, truer than data.

4. I brought my wrist up to my face to view the screen: five minutes. Attempting a slow spin, I glanced around as I noted that nothing was close enough to be bigger than just a pinprick in the darkness. It's always so hard to imagine how many stars there actually are until you see them from space, infinite in every direction. A beep from my helmet let me know the timer was on its way to zero since my suit could no longer sustain my life. Interlacing my hands behind my head, I floated peacefully because panicking is wasteful.

So try your hand at some drabble and let me see what you come up with. Choose your words carefully!

My First Publication

So I did it, guys. I actually have a published book. Now, granted it is self-published, but hey, I'm much farther than I was before. The story isn't even my favorite thing I've written, but it's a start. My real dream is to write and publish a stellar sci-fi novel about space travel and crazy physics, but I'm still working on that! Until then, I had to give in to Cody's nagging and publish my zombie novel (but that sequel... I dunno if I can do that, what would the plot even be?). Honestly, I saw that winning NaNoWriMo gave me a CreateSpace code to get five free copies of my book, but I didn't realize that I had to actually publish the book to do so. I just wanted the physical copies! Now I've made $13.70. So far. Haha.

I don't want to sound whiny, but I don't think this story is my best writing. HOWEVER, I think it's an entertaining story and just something fun to get into for a few hours. Now that it's in a permanent state, of course I think of things I wish I added to the story, or changed, or just fixed so it sounds better. That being said, I still think it's pretty good for being written in thirty days and only edited for clarity. Also, the money is going to a good cause: my college education! So I'm absolutely happy for whatever money comes my way and I'm actually more concerned that people simply enjoy the story and maybe laugh a bit, perhaps spark some zombie apocalypse conversations. Because those are always fun.

But publishing was so much harder than I thought it was! I mean, I knew it was pretty involved, but I tried to shove everything into a week because I was not very smart and didn't realize my code expired on June 30th (I actually totally forgot about it and got a reminder email from the NaNoWriMo site). I did one edit while I was still in Lawrence, had Jesse and Mookie do a read through on the plane home to San Diego as well as having Mookie rewrite his creative zombie killing scene in Walmart, and then did a marathon session of reading my book aloud with my sister. I'd like to say I caught most of the errors, but now I'm scared to read through my book because I know I'll find commas I forgot to take out, or weird sounding sentences, or just any typos in general. The more I think about the story, the more I realize it was pretty poorly planned, leaves lots of questions unanswered, doesn't have great descriptions or character development, and probably could have included way more awesome stuff, but I have to stop thinking about that! It is what it is and I had fun, learned lots, and now it can hopefully make other people smile.

All those negative things being said, I absolutely love the fact I can hold my writing in an official form. I love that my friends and family are excited for me and willing to spend some money to read my story and support my hobby/fanciful future job/college education. It's so cool that I've taken a step in the right direction and gained some experience and insight for future publications. Now I know to think about having an author picture in my book, writing an about the author blurb, how to make a cover image, how to format a book in Word, book prices, royalty amounts, and all these little things that never really crossed my mind. It'll definitely make my next story much better. I hope I'm not saturating you guys in too much talk about it, but I really am excited despite the fact I get all shy when people talk to me about it.

Now I wanted to dress up for Comic Con this year, but didn't know what to go as, so now I have a character! My own Rayne, loosely based on me, is the perfect candidate, haha. I even have the one outfit I described her in, so it shouldn't be too hard to get the other accessories I need (I have friends who say they can get me aviator goggles and a sidewalk scraper :D). I bought thirty copies of my book at my special author price and I'm hoping I can sell them while I walk around the convention center. I thought that was way too many copies, but my parents are sure I'll sell out. I dunno myself, but it'd sure be cool. I'll be selling them for $9 and signing them on request, if anyone would actually want that. Gawd, I even made a twitter account and email should anyone want to contact me about my book. @ZombieTJO and zombie.t.j.olson@gmail.com in case anyone was wondering.

So here's to more writing and publications! Thanks for all your support and listening to all my blatant self-promotion. :)

Amazon/Kindle Link
CreateSpace Link

Xbox One: Ahead of Its Time

Let's just take a moment to mourn the advancements in gaming technology that have just been silenced by the calls of the internet.
I think the saddest part of this story is that it's only after we lose some of the coolest advancements in console gaming that I'm starting to see people come out and say that the Xbox One was what they were interested in buying because of what the DRM enabled. Thanks for fighting against the hivemind earlier, guys. The gaming community on the internet was spouting the same misinterpreted data over and over, clogging news articles with ignorant phrases like "draconian DRM" and "Microsoft hates its consumers and only want money" while they ignored the advances that the Xbox One was bringing to them. Now that Microsoft is trying to change the fickle opinion of the internet, we are left with only a few of the advancements we could have had.

With the original, single ping needed every 24 hours to check if you were still who you said you are, people were able to have ten people play ANY of your games on their consoles. They wouldn't even have to spend time downloading the games because they could stream them from the cloud network. We could have played games without having the disc in the console which not only helped with the lazy, but allowed us to keep our games on the harddrive and not worry about losing/breaking a technology that is slowly going out the door. When was the last time some of us bought a physical CD for music, but we're still buying video games on them? I'm sure DVD/BluRays will eventually fade away too, I mean, just look how popular Netflix and other streaming companies are. The Xbox One was a good transition between physical discs and digital copies, but now you'll HAVE to have the disc in to play. I feel like that's a bit of a step backwards.

There were some good outcomes possible with this new digital gaming paradigm, but it doesn't seem like many people saw them. If we switched to the way games worked on the Xbox One before the change, we could have eventually had cheaper games that don't have to include the price of creating physical copies and shipping it all over the world. More money could go to the creators, who surely deserve the money, if games sold back were given to dealers that agreed with the gaming companies and the rules for their games. This means cheaper games, more money to creators to make better games, easier ways to obtain the games, and trading games in for credit to buy more games available at the press of a button. Yes, this change would probably have an impact on places like GameStop, but do we have stores where we trade in and buy used copies of PC games? Besides, we wouldn't have to deal with the low trade in prices that Gamestop has. The console war is leading consoles to become more PCesque, and I feel that looking at that market shows what the future of console gaming may look like. And it's nice that PC gaming industry has already gone through this change that the Xbox One was trying to start. The last PC game I bought on a physical disk was Diablo 3, and before that... Starcraft, actually, the battlechest with BroodWar when we played back in high school. With computer programs like Steam, players buy, download, and play the games through the same platform, with no trading or selling back used games. This is what the Xbox One was transitioning to, but with the ability to give games to friends (though yeah, only once was a bit of a let down), play friends' games from their library, and trade in old games for credit to buy more. Sadly, this great change got stopped by the squeakiest wheels on the internet that were complaining about things that weren't even true (like having to always be connected to the internet to play games).

If people hadn't over reacted to having a check to see if their game library is up to date, we might have gotten something like Netflix for video games, digitally obtaining games for a time before turning them back in and receiving a new game to play. The DRM of the Xbox One before the change would have allowed that to happen because Microsoft could be sure it was a paying customer playing the games. Now we can't even play our own games on the console without having the disc in the machine. That statement almost sounds archaic to me since we've been playing games with no discs for years on PC, but when we try that for console gaming, it gets stopped because the requirements are "draconian." What's draconian about a split-second check once a day and specified dealers for trade-ins? With the trade-off of disc-less playing on multiple consoles near instantly as well as allowing ten people to play your entire game library, I thought it sounded pretty good. Now we're left with cloud computing, which is still pretty cool, but we could have advanced gaming so much more.

So I thought the Xbox One sounded like  great advancement to video games, and I've convinced some people to check the facts before they think the new console was the worst thing to ever come to gaming, but then they usually try to hit me with the always plugged in Kinect and the fear of being spied on. Guys. Let's just take a moment to think about how silly that is. Microsoft has over a billion people using products that they've created, many of them with cameras and microphones. In fact, there's probably some device close to you that could tell the government where you are, what you're saying, and what you look like, but you didn't think about those until I pointed it out. Your phone has so many ways to track you, but you probably didn't fear that too much, if at all. The Kinect can be shut off and not allowed to record anything, audio or visual, and can also be specified as to what, if any, information that it picks up from you can be given to others. It's completely under your control.

Ah, but what about the fact that it always has to be connected to the Xbox One? It could still record you if someone wanted it to since it's still connected to the console! Well, yeah, but so could the cameras on our phones, laptops, and tablets. You could have been tracked and listened to for years now, but since the whole NSA thing got picked up by the media around the launch of this console, the Kinect must be a surveillance device! I think part of the reason it needs to be connected is so that companies will want to look into innovative ways to use it since everyone will have one. On the 360, not everyone had one, probably not even a majority of people had one, but now that more people do, we can look forward to amazing new features that people will and probably already have created (the new Kinect is pretty cool, allowing 1080p recording at 30 frames a second, as well as many new upgrades). And like I've said before, if you still think someone is spying on you, just turn it around and put some blankets over it.

This whole "console war" is just making me think of witch burnings and ostracizing simply because something new is proposed. Proposing that the earth rotates around the sun? Laughter. The gaming industry should leave behind an extraneous format to further the abilities of gamers and ask for just a few things in return? It's the worst console ever and proof that the company only wants money and no happiness for their consumers. I hated getting online for awhile because all I saw was Xbox One is the worst thing ever, PS4 is the best console ever, Microsoft has draconian DRM, and a bunch of other misinformed titles. I found a single article that praised the Xbox One, though not the console itself, but the fact that the games for it were worthy E3 winners, if winning E3 was based on the games announced and not the consoles they run on. I couldn't find any articles that said anything positive about it until this change. Under all this crazy shouting about over-hyped possibilities, there was some real change happening. Now I'm just sad it'll probably be a while before I see these changes come back to help the gaming industry evolve.

Xbox One, I'm sorry you were ahead of your time.

Werelions and Werewolves and Werebears, Oh My!

So now that Game of Thrones is over and won't be back for another year, some people are looking for something to spend their time on while they wait for more high fantasy shenanigans. I have a lot of friends that are a little intimidated by the roughly 1000 page average for the Song of Fire and Ice series while others just want to be surprised by the show. For either group, or if you have another reason to not read Game of Thrones, I have another book series that may pique your interest. Just picture the Game of Thrones world, but populated by clans of people that rules the "normal" humans and can change into animals, called therianthropes, which is a fancy word for wereanimals. Think werewolves but with other types of animals as well.

Hailed as the "Game of Thrones for the tween set,” by the School Library Journal (tween? lame term), it is an easy read that is extremely entertaining and has many parallels to the writings of George R. R. Martin (with no sex scenes!). The author, Curtis Jobling, is surprisingly familiar to most of us because he is responsible for the design of the popular children's show Bob the Builder. I think he does a great job catering to an older audience in his Wereworld series that is set to finish up with the sixth book this fall (before Game of Thrones even comes back!). So many elements remind me of Game of Thrones throughout the books, but really, it's a great series by itself and I hope more people pick it up! For this post though, I want to look at some of these parallels between series and maybe get some Game of Thrones enthusiasts to branch out and try some young adult high fantasy.

Characters
We first meet our main character, Drew Ferran, as the son of a human farmer on the Cold Coast, unaware of his great heritage and his family's demise. The first parallel is the fact that Drew is a werewolf, which is similar to the Stark's sigil of the direwolf. He also holds many of the Stark's values, such as being fair, brave, and truthful. If I had to compare him to some Starks, I'd say he's a bit of a mix between Jon, Robb, and Arya for his dedication to friends, his attempts to take on the role of being a king, and willingness to break out on his own adventures to do what he deems as right. Drew is definitely the crux on which this story turns as the kingdoms of Lyssia are pulled apart by the far-reaching war, and he may just be the right person to bring everyone together.

The main villains in this series are the Catlords, ruled by the werelions Leopold and his son Lucas, with others joining the story in the subsequent books. The obvious connection here is the lion, but don't worry, there's no incest in this family. Leopold did marry Drew's mother, Queen Amelie (a white werewolf), and thus had Prince Lucas, so there are some weird family ties going on. Lucas is also very Joffreyesque with his spoiled and violent personality, making him a perfect villain, and a half-brother to our hero, no less. The felinethropes of this series channel the Lannisters well but have their own special talents and reputations that make them formidable foes.

Some other connections are a female werebear similar to Arya since she wants to be a scout and not a lady, a prissy redhead werefox that is a bit Sansa-ish, a fat bibliophile wereboar who is rather similar to Sam (though they get rather opposite while following a very similar path), and a black panther werelord that screams Tywin at me every time I read about him (very powerful, merciless, and wants to rule all). Also, the sheer amount of characters in this series is reminiscent of Game of Thrones, as well as the untimely deaths and sudden reappearances of other characters.

Land
The continent of Lyssia contains seven kingdoms, which is the same amount in Westeros, though none of the names are too similar. The Wereworld series ranges all over the continent as the books continue, taking you to places like the dangerous and wild Dyrewood to the scorching volcanic island of Scoria to the freezing wastelands of Sturmland. There is a second continent in the series, Bast, but it doesn't contain a beautiful war woman like Daenerys. Instead, it's where the Catlords invade from. The kingdoms have their own ruling families of different werespecies, as well as realistic histories that give the land a real feel and help forge a deeper connection with the story.

Plot
Much like the Starks and their quest to bring down the Lannisters and remain as rulers in the North, Drew is trying to reclaim the high throne from the werelions and bring the people of Lyssia together. Other than that, it has its own story that is adventurous, full of blood and gore, flows well, and is even a bit magical (if we're not counting the changing into animals as magic). The high fantasy aspect is the same, but Jobling definitely puts his own spin on the genre.


Basically, the Werelords series is a complex story with realistic characters (including pirates!), a deep history, some fun plot twists, and an engaging pace. It's a great series for anyone that likes to read fantasy and I would recommend it to anyone that's read books like Harry Potter, anything by Tamora Pierce, The Hunger Games, and I guess any other popular young adult fiction series, even Twilight. Just give it a try, pick up the first book, Werelords: Rise of the Wolf, and enjoy the trip to the world of Lyssia and the Werelords. You'll love it.

The Truth about Xbox One

Yes, the following is quite the wall of text. One of my ADHD friends requested my article to be explained in 10 words or less, so here it is at the beginning before I lose some people's interest: Xbox One is completely different than what everyone else thinks. Now continue on if you want more details.

Okay guys, first off, I just want to say that I am not trying to get everyone to buy an Xbox One because it's necessarily better, I'm just trying to show people that all of this hype on the internet is wrong, sometimes completely unfounded, and is hiding the potential of future gaming. The phrase that keeps running through my head, courtesy of Jesse, is "People want change because it's new, but hate it because it's different." Xbox One is really offering some amazing new technology and concepts that have been spit upon by the mass and social media because they think Microsoft is only out for money or is only out to screw the consumer. How does that even make sense? Of course Microsoft wants to make money but keep their fan base wanting more, so here it is, the true next generation console, explained by refuting common fallacies surrounding its existence.

1. Xbox One is the next Big Brother because it's always online, always on, and the Kinect will be watching everything I do and reporting it for financial gain of big companies. 
Okay, I think these type of ideas came about before the console was really revealed and Microsoft took a bit of time to answer these questions clearly without muddying the waters. I would like to say that all of the above is completely wrong. Here's a(nother) list to explain.

A. The Xbox One does not need to be contiually connected to the internet 24/7. It does need to connect to the internet at least once every 24 hours, but I don't know why this is an issue. Our Xbox 360 is always connected to the internet anyway, so this is not a big difference. But guys, here's the kicker, leaving the Xbox One always connected to the internet means that games can be continually updated and patched without you having to wait for it when you want to play the game. So it's a time saver! And now many games include things like real-time weather patterns and dynamic worlds that continually change and require periodic internet connection to stay up to date. But I'm sure there will be many more new and innovative elements that can take advantage of periodic updates to make gaming even more fun. So for anyone worried about a crappy connection that will interrupt gameplay when it disconnects, I don't think that will happen since games only have to update every so often. Anyone with that bad of internet connection probably has a hard time playing games like CoD or Halo online anyway. Hopefully Google Fiber gets internet companies playing by their rules soon so we can have internet comparable to the rest of the world! Also, playing DVD/Blu-rays discs and watching live TV don't require internet and can play offline, so there's that.

B. The Xbox One can be turned completely off! The Kinect can stay on and will only respond to the phrase "Xbox On" to turn the console back on, but that is a setting that can be turned off. The console has been designed to benefit from continually being on, but it by no means needs to remain on. Forza 5 gives players a reason to stay connected online because of their "drivatar" which is an AI tuned to your driving style that "plays for you while you're not playing," and I believe you get the credits that your drivatar wins. Or you at least get to see how your AI played against others. This give the AI cars in the game a more realistic feel because they imitate the driving styles of real people. I think it's cool because then you can see how well you compare to other people that play the game without having to actually play them, or while you're not even playing. When racing, you will have the option of choosing the difficulty of drivatars that you'll face, but this is still an early development in the game and the developers at Turn 10 are always looking for new ways to incorporate cloud computing (which I'll talk more on in a bit) to make gaming better. The app Word Lens gives us an idea what cameras can do for augmented reality that may make its way into more games.

C. As I said earlier, the Xbox One can be turned completely off, and this goes for the Kinect as well. While it does need to remain plugged in, you can pause or turn off the Kinect. The reason it needs to always be plugged in is so that it can always be able to take user's commands and be available for games. If this bothers you, then never have the Kinect turned on, and if you're still scared, put some cloth over it. But really, the Kinect has a lot to offer users, like being able to take both audio and visual commands for going through menus as well as really cool integration with games. Microsoft has explained that "you can play games or enjoy applications that use data, such as videos, photos, facial expressions, heart rate and more, but this data will not leave your Xbox One without your explicit permission." This is not the beginning of Big Brother, but instead Microsoft and other companies' attempt to make gaming, believe it or not, better for the buyers.

tl;dr Point 1: Xbox One doesn't have to be continually connected to the internet (though that's how must people have it anyway and it really streamlines gaming), it can fully turn off, and the Kinect is not an eye that is used to spy on gamers as it can be turned off and is really just to make gaming new, different, and better.

2. Xbox One is going to kill the used game market and crush my ability to share games with my friends.
I would just like to say that Microsoft is still allowing used games to be sold, but Microsoft left it up to the game publishers to allow people to trade in used games at participating retailers. On top of that, Microsoft is not requiring any fee for anyone to resell their games, so it's up to third party places and companies to come up with pricing. This is just an example of the misdirected hate at Microsoft because it's not their decision on whether games can be resold or not. Now here's where it gets interesting. You can now have up to ten "family members" hooked up  to your account that can play any of your games ON ANY XBOX ONE that can connect to the internet at least once an hour, and I think all ten accounts can play at once, provided there are enough Xbox Ones to go around. How's that for sharing games, eh? You can still give the disc version of your games to a friend, but it is restricted to Xbox live friends you've had for at least thirty days and it can only be given away once. I know this is pretty limiting, but honestly, it's not that bad considering you can just log on to someone's account you've got a connection to and play their games. So whatever happens to the used game market is not on Microsoft's back and I think game sharing is still pretty viable, just not in the traditional way. Honestly, this way seems much easier and cooler. And as proof that Microsoft listens to their consumers, they've said that they're looking at different ways to allow lending games. There is still room to improve the console and Microsoft will try to fix what they can once they get more real feedback from people that have played and not just followed the bandwagon.

3. DRM is going to be the end of gaming and I hate DRM because everyone else hates DRM.
With the future of gaming being based on games stored in the cloud (Sony will have this option available in 2014), DRM is going to be important to gaming companies because it will keep people from simply getting copies of games from pirates or friends. If you pay for the games, it's not going to affect you at all. Basically, the Xbox One is going to be a gaming computer for the livingroom, with all your games stored on the cloud for faster gaming (no having to wait for the slow CD read speeds) and DRM will just make sure it's a legit copy so all of the game extensions work correctly, game information is patched and updated, and you can have a worry-free gaming experience. And if you try to say only Microsoft is allowing DRM, you are very wrong. Both Microsoft AND SONY are leaving DRM up to the gaming publishers. Get mad at the right people, guys.

4. The Xbox One is way more expensive than the Playstation 4 and will probably fail miserably in sales.
For reference, this is what was said of the Playstation 3 when it came out, and look what happened. The PS3 was $500 at launch, a full $200 more than the $300 Xbox 360, and yet the PS3 completely sold out on it's first day, with 40% of presales not even appearing for the launch because so many people pre-ordered them. The PS4 is premiering at $399 and the Xbox is $499. I just don't think that is too much of a price difference to try and base the future sales of these consoles on. That extra $100 is, in my opinion, completely worth it, because if any of these new consoles are truly "next gen" consoles, it's got to be the Xbox One for it's use of cloud computing. Also, Xbox live gold is only $10 more per year than the PS Plus ($50 compared to $60), and Xbox live, contrary to popular belief, or at least this video, does have free membership in the form of Xbox live silver. So while the PS4 looks much cooler than the PS3, but when I look at it, I just see a better PS3, not a new take on gaming. This is only the beginning of cloud computing and I can't wait to see what game developers do with it in the new future.

So now that I've commented on the most common issues I've seen, let me geek out a bit on cloud computing. I've already mentioned the drivatar from Forza 5, but there are so many more applications that can make games so much cooler. I think my favorite point so far is that cloud computing will allow the Xbox One to focus its computing power on making your game look good and play well while the cloud takes care of physics for everything else in the game, including other players. This makes multiplayer games run seamlessly, lag much less, and generally play much better. Without having to concentrate on every piece of information you see on the screen, cloud computing will make gaming so much crazier.

It also allows for multiplayer games have as many as 128 people playing at once! I don't know if that affects how many people can play on one console, but can you imagine playing in a game that big and not lagging or watching other people lag out when pulling amazing feats of physics that would tax the processor of the console? Such a cool upgrade. And because all this cloud computing needs more space, Xbox live will be upgraded from their current 15,000 servers, to 300,000! That's a crap ton! Haha. So that is going to improve playability A LOT.

I think this is where Microsoft has created the true next generation console because it has taken the chance to try a new way of gaming that could, and I think will, revolutionize the way games are played and created. “It’s not like on day one, everyone will have figured out how to take advantage of that power,” Microsoft interactive entertainment CMO Marc Whitten told Wired. “It’s just one of those stakes we’re placing.” I love that quote because they're leaving it up to others to find new ways to make cloud computing even better, but they've opened the doors for amazing things to happen.

So give the Xbox One a chance instead of writing it off like everyone else.

Now for homework. Read this article, or really any article, blog, or meme about Microsoft/E3/Xbox One and exercise what you've learned to see from this post and how no one else has seemed to pick up on the potential. And remember, question everything!

PS: No more having to deal with Microsoft points now. :D

Sources:

• Great breakdown of Always Online, Used Games and Giving Games to Friends, Game Installations and Digital Downloads, and Kinect Requirements.
• Another good breakdown
• Good overall article and a bit on Cloud Computing
• Cloud Computing and Forza 5
• A little more on the Kinect
• PS4 Cloud info
• Xbox 360 info
• PS3 info

Adventure Time in the Classroom

I really want my future classroom to be full of fun and new ways to look at life through the perspective of literature, so when I came across this blog post about Adventure Time and the Hero's Journey, I knew I had to hold on to these ideas. Adventure Time is a crazy kid's show that seems to have very polar reactions from people that view it (or at least from the people I talk to about it). I personally love the show for its commentary on society, hidden humor, and absolutely random story lines that blow my mind when I figure out what it all meant. The recurring jokes are also great, like the snail that is somewhere in every episode, but it also has a vast history that is weaved throughout the show in small pieces during its five seasons (and they're going to have a sixth!). I can somewhat see where people are coming from when they say it's complete trash and worthless and makes no sense, but that seems to only come from people that have only seen one episode or don't see the implied meanings and whatnot. I always tell people to look for the hidden messages when they watch another episode.

But I think this is a good example of a show that I could possibly work into my classroom because of its short length (eleven ish minute episodes) and appeal to kids around the age I want to teach. I haven't put too much thought into other episodes I could use in the classroom, but the author of the blog that I'm referring to chose Season 1, Episode 5: The Enchiridion as an example of the Hero's Journey. Now, if you're not familiar with this narrative pattern, I won't kill you, but I'll be a little sad. Basically, it breaks down stories into somewhere between twelve to seventeen steps (depending on what version you're working with) that detail what the protagonist is going through at specific points. Ryan's blog uses the twelve step version that include these steps (also taken from his blog):

1.  Ordinary World - At this point in the narrative, the reader or viewer sees the world as it exists for the hero before the introduction of the primary conflict.

2.  Call to Action - The hero faces some sort of challenge or change to their ordinary world.

3.  Refusal of the Call - Unsure of him-/herself, the hero(-ine) expresses uncertainty about or refuses to participate in the journey or quest.

4.  Meeting the Mentor - The hero meets an individual who trains or advises him or her on beginning the quest.

5.  Across the threshold - The hero abandons their ordinary world and the quest begins in a place where he or she encounters challenges not usually faced in the ordinary world.

6.  Tests, Allies, Enemies - As one might expect, this is the part of the journey is where the hero undergoes various tests, learning who his or her allies and enemies are along the way.

7.  Approach - The hero and his/her allies prepare to confront their primary challenge.

8.  The Ordeal - The hero faces this primary challenge; the stakes are high.

9.  The Reward - The hero accomplishes the goal they set out to achieve, but there is often a chance that the reward he or she receive for his or her troubles may be lost.

10.  The Road Home - On the way back to the ordinary world, the hero is confronted with the possibility of losing the reward.

11.  The Resurrection - The hero faces one final challenge, this time with often higher stakes than before.

12.  Return Home - The hero arrive at home with the reward or treasure they fought to secure.

So take a story you're familiar with and plot it out with these steps. You'll probably find a lot of similarities and scenes that directly connect to these ideas, but not every story will follow all of these steps. This pattern is a nifty way to teach students how to break down stories or even build their own. Watching an episode of Adventure Time after learning the steps can help reinforce the pattern and let students see the it happening in their own lives. I'm thinking this would easily fit into a single class period, but it'd be nice to expand it a little bit so the students can have some time to work with the steps by either applying it to a story in class or having them write their own (short) hero's journey. I'd like to see if I can work this in during my student teaching just to see if it could actually work in a classroom, but I'm not sure how I'll do it since I don't even know anything about my teaching assignments next semester/year. At least I'm thinking about it, right? Maybe if I'm really bored I'll try to write an actual lesson plan with an Adventure Time episode to highlight the content. I'm sure I can use other episodes for other English-y stuff, but I really loved how Ryan wrote out the Hero's Journey in his blog. If I find a good episode that complements something I'd want to teach, I think I'll try to break it down like he did.

Which shouldn't be too hard since I'm always looking for new things to potentially use for teaching, and when I do find things, I try to update my links page with them. I'm thinking about elaborating on some of the links through some more blog posts so I can keep a record of my ideas (good or bad, haha) somewhere. Let me know what you think of my ideas or if you've got some more to add!

Learning? During the Summer?

I started off this vacation from school with a list of things to do that mostly entailed voraciously working on my reading list and trying to work on some writing. I've definitely still found room for common summer practices like enjoying the outside, coming inside and turning the a/c up, half-price shakes at Sonic after 8pm, and going swimming, though maybe getting caught in torrential downpourings of rain doesn't quite count. But for the last two weeks, I've been reading all the time! I've finished six books so far, working on my seventh, and here I am, practicing some writing with a blog post! And now my hours have (finally) increased at work, so now I'm working five days a week instead of two. This makes me feel a little bit better about lying around all day and reading books.

But I do more than just read these books; I try to learn as much as I can from them. It helps that almost all the books I've read so far were either science-fiction, or actual non-fiction science books. These facts and possible ideas that stem from these books are so interesting to me that I just can't help looking up more information to see what other applications can be found. Wikipedia has always been a great help and I seem to always have at least one tab open to an article from them at all times. I currently have tabs up for String Field Theory, String Theory, Nuclear Propulsion, and Antimatter. It's gotten to the point that Google just opens up Wikipedia articles for me instead of giving me all the other results of the search. I love Google. :)

Anyway, Jesse also helps in my endeavors by playing video games, oddly enough. His latest time sink is a game still in alpha called Kerbal Space Program. It has thousands of dedicated players already, a helpful community, is available on Steam, has third-party mods, and its own subreddit. It's in version 0.20, but it still has many opportunities to have fun and explore new places. It is basically NASA if they had an infinite budget and astronauts that are super cute and don't need to plan for food/water/oxygen/time spent in space. There are also several places out in the solar system to explore such as other planets and moons, but sometimes just leaving Kerbin's atmosphere is quite the challenge. The game operates with mostly realistic physics and requires players to pay attention to actual rocket science components like delta-V, angles of trajectory, and surface weight to thrust ratios. It's fun seeing terms like apoapsis and periapsis in the game because they're not shying away from the real terminology, and it definitely made me want to learn what they were so I could understand the game better. Someday there will be a career mode, but until then, it's a sandbox game that lets the user do whatever they want from making rockets to space planes, and even rocket powered boats, because why not.

His current mission is to land a 150 ton floating base on a mostly water covered moon (Laythe) of a Jupiter-like planet (Jool). It's a three part base that includes the core, a large fuel tanker, and a return craft. My favorite part is the inclusion of two boats that the Kerbals can sit on and boat around the moon. This is a very different mission than some of the others he's done, such as landing on the moon (Mun), making a space station to orbit Kerbin (the Earth-like planet), and landing on a planet similar to our Mars (Duna). It's just so much fun to watch what people can do in this game and it's like real rocket science. So crazy! Youtube has many videos of this game, if you're curious, and it has plenty of tutorials for those wanting to play.

So there's just a little bit of a glimpse into my science-filled summer so far. I'm learning about other non-sciencey things as well, but science is always fun to talk about. Now I challenge you guys to learn something new today/this summer as well! Go go go!

Geektastic Review

As a person who enjoys things that many people have deemed "nerdy" or "geeky," I am naturally drawn to things that market themselves as part of this genre. When I came across a book called Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd by Holly Black, I felt obligated to read what was inside. After finishing the fifteen short stories that it contained, I have to say that it was a really great experience. It was also really cool to see some stories from authors that I recognized, such as M. T. Anderson and Scott Westerfeld. Overall, I loved the book and thought a lot about what it means to be a geek or a nerd because of it, so I felt it easier to just sum up my ideas on these terms in one sentence: being a nerd or a geek (now interchangeable for the most part) shouldn't be an exclusive title and everyone should be excited for others to join the fandom because it means more people to be excited with! But the theme running through all the stories was about embracing your inner geek and enjoying your life because you are being true to you! So since there were so many great stories, I decided to just comment on a few.

Once You're a Jedi, You're a Jedi All the Way by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci
This was the introduction anthology and it was a great choice. It was very engaging, written from both perspectives of the main characters (a male jedi that loves to do light saber routines and an aggressive (duh?) female Klingon), and got deep into the world of cosplay. I remember reading some parts of it with my mouth open because I couldn't believe what was happening. While it's hard to convey the entire culture of cosplay in a short story, I felt the authors did a great job throwing in little details to show how much dressing up like a Jedi or a Klingon can mean to the people that do this. A line that comes to mind: "When I met D'ghor in debate club, it was only a matter of time before I was attending a dipping party and having a life cast made so I could sculpt my first [Klingon] ridge." Another line was during the all out war between Star Wars and Star Trek cosplayers: "No one looks scared. Everyone looks happy."  The story was finely crafted and had me laughing throughout, especially at the end when I thought I wouldn't see a specific Star Wars trope until it snuck in with the last line. Great story!

One of Us by Tracy Lynn
Although I first saw this story as an obvious attempt to explain geekdom to the reader, I really loved the transformation from stereotyping cheerleader to someone who can see that people are people, not just their high school clique. The story had a few levels to it between the different members of Springfield High's Genre and Nonsense Club (or SPRIGGAN) such as helping the cheerleader realize her boyfriend doesn't want to work as hard as she does for the relationship, some people have worse problems, and being a geek doesn't make someone part of a lower class. The jokes in the book were pretty good, and while the characters walk the reader (and the cheerleader!) through some basic geek genres (e.g., sci-fi, comic books and manga, video games, high fantasy, and LAN parties), many of the jokes don't explain themselves and it adds to the reality of the story. Definitely a fun read.

I Never by Cassasndra Clare
This story had a pretty cute ending despite it being a little weird in the beginning. It starts off with a meeting of players from an online role playing game that allows people to become their favorite fictional character and interact with other characters. Some of the people at the get-together were Xena the Warrior Princess, Neo and Trinity, Luke Skywalker, and Dracula. Our main character identifies with Catherine Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights and meets her Heathcliff online, slowly building a relationship that culminates with them finally meeting at this party. There is a little bit of a twist in this story, and the party is pretty wacky, but I loved how it shows that geekery can pertain to people that love literature! So of course, this story spoke to me a little bit because of the main character felt like she doesn't fit in because she likes classic literature and advanced writing instead of more mainstream entertainment like movies, tv shows, or video games. This was pretty much a great PSA for inspiring diversity among geeks and nerds, with a dash of romance to keep the story together.

The Quiet Knight by Garth Nix
I love the invention of LARPing and reading this story made me eager to see the fighters at Comic Con! The quiet knight is a LARPer who is uncomfortable with speaking but has found a way to continue his love of fighting while never having to exercise his vocal chords. The adventure that the knight takes part in one night is then replicated in real life at his high school the next day and he is faced with the decision of saving the girl he has a crush on and revealing his interests and voice, or walking away and remaining on the fringe of society. The story is very internal, walking the reader through the knight's thoughts, but I felt like it was a great story because it gives insight into why people hide their geekiness from the world. Just goes to show why exercising your imagination can be lots of fun.

The Stars at the Finish Line by Wendy Mass
In case is wasn't obvious, I'm in love with space, physics, and anything having to do with science and technology, so this story really resonated with me because it was about passion for the cosmos and a little bit of healthy competition between students. There may be a slight infatuation between the main character and his competitor in high school, but that is what has helped both of theses students do their best and try to get into a good school like MIT. When an astronomy competition comes around, an opportunity for these two students to work together is created. The competition has a pretty rocky start, but who couldn't love a smart guy who knows how to find and label different galaxies, set up a telescope, and eats peanut butter and fluff sandwiches? A great story for anyone who wants an introduction to astronomy as well!

These were just a few of the stories I really liked, but there were several others I enjoyed just as much! The book is not super long or too short, and it's nice to be able to finish a story and come back to the rest later. The diversity in the stories was wonderful, and I really enjoyed the gender role reversals, trope breakers, grittiness, and nonchalant take on social issues that several of these stories pull into the forefront.  I highly recommend this book because there are just so many awesome morals, ideas, characters, lines, and of course, geeky moments that take the reader for a ride and you might even find yourself shedding a tear or two. Definitely take some time to learn about the other facets of geekdom with this collection of fun stories!

New Ideas for Scarlett's World

After finishing all of the major books in the Ender's Game universe (Enderverse), I think I have found the time in which my sci-fi story shall take place. The Enderverse has a new series that's partially finished (the second book is released June 4th!) and takes place before the events in Ender's Game. Two wars and around a hundred years before Ender's Game to be a little more precise (EG takes place in the 2220's). In Earth Unaware, we are introduced to many characters that make their home on mining ships way out in the Kuiper belt (where Pluto and other dwarf planets hang out). It wasn't the story line of this book that got me thinking about my story, it was just the fact that I realized I liked the idea of having the outer edge of my world be the Kuiper belt. That means it doesn't have to be set so far in the future! I can still discuss different methods of space transport, though, because they'd still be inventing new ways to travel faster, probably with the goal of finally leaving the solar system. I love discussing space travel techniques!

Anyway, Earth Unaware was mostly focused on mining from asteroids and the introduction of the first alien species in our galaxy, but there was also a small part about pirates out in the belt that made me think that Scarlett would be at home in a place like this (not much authority, life on the frontier, free-reign of territory). The book didn't have too much about space stations, but in my world, there would probably be many of them because none of the planets in the solar system have been terraformed and people mining so far from Earth would need a place to refuel and such. I'm thinking I'd probably have Mars be in the process of being terraformed since it takes a long time to change the surface of a planet, but we'd probably have a base on the Moon.

Basically, I feel like I'm rethinking the whole story because the setting is very different, but I'm liking this idea more and more. In the beginning, Scarlett will probably be known for the speediness of her ship and her attacks on, oh I don't know, maybe we'll stick to the corporate stereotype. The story still has heavy emphasis on Devon who is looking for anyone to help him escape from his old life. The problem is that he can't remember his own life because he's had so many other personalities loaded into his brain to help keep important knowledge locked away. Helping him ultimately leads Scarlett to the discovery of the technology that gives her wormholes and perhaps faster travel than what was previously possible. When I read a particular sentence in Earth Unaware, the final scene of my story flashed in my head. I pictured Scarlett engaging the wormhole drive for the first time and suddenly seeing a new solar system in a different part of the galaxy for the first time. She'd probably say something better than my original thought: "Now this is an adventure." I've got a whole story to write before I have to get her final words sorted out, so I think I'll be okay.

So here was just some proof that I'm still thinking about my story! I've just been caught up in my reading spree, recently. The book I'm reading now, Geektastic by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci, which is actually a collection of short stories written by other geeky authors, is amazing and I'm thinking about writing a little something on it when I'm done. It's so good, I have to share why I like it so much!

Why Is It Weird for Girls to Like Game of Thrones?

I saw this article, Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones, not too long ago, but I refuse to think that it's written with any real convictions. This has to be one of those controversial articles written with the sole purpose of creating arguments on the 'net that consequently generate traffic for the site. The woman who wrote this is channeling the stereotypical popular kid from high school who can't stand the site of, dare I say it, NERDS. But that's not what really irks me about this article. I have to say, I don't really mind people calling me out for being a nerd and acting all disgusted because I know they're just missing out on all the fun I get to have with my nerdy friends (e. g., watching/reading/discussing Game of Thrones, playing video games, discussing astrophysics and technology, or entertaining ideas like the zombie apocalypse). It's the fact that people write articles that follow the theme of girls wanting to be nerds or enjoy nerdy things are somehow weird or not normal that I get me feeling a bit upset. In fact, after I read that article, I wondered if people like this really exist.

I think one of  the worst parts of this article is the fact that it isn't even that long but it still manages to sound amazingly sexist. All it contains is a picture of Tyrion from Season 3, two bulleted lists, and some text to fill up some more space. The author is writing from the point of view that all girls hate Game of Thrones for five reasons: it's "gross" and has incest, it's too hard to follow all the characters and plot lines, it is reminiscent of "kids that used to play magic cards in the cafeteria" and people that attend renaissance fairs, there's lots of naked girls to attract the guys, and people lose many body parts throughout the show. I only have two answers that I want to give to these points: a) the story takes place in a medieval setting so many of these types of things happened in real life just a couple hundred years ago, and b) not all girls are swooning damsels that feint at the sight of blood and can't remember key plot points. I think Ygritte has a little something to back that last point up.

It's thought processes like the one in this article that make people think it's alright to talk down to people that are called nerds or identify with the term. On a slightly different note, I'd like to ask how she expects someone to try to explain the different storylines of GoT by using Venn diagrams. I feel like there are much more useful ways to go about that. It also happens that I am a girl that loves the complications, overlaps, twists, and turns that are prevalent in Game of Thrones, but that's a personal example and if anyone else likes to discuss the theories in this book series, please talk to me-- I love the theory side of this series!

Anyway, the article goes on to be even more sexist with its second list of how to get girls to watch the show such as highlighting the "romantic crap," talking about the gay characters, and not discussing the incest. The last point specifically references a part of the show that the author even gets wrong (I'm pretty sure she means Podrick, but she is right about Tyrion in the first half of the sentence). Her parting advice is the idea that if you're girl that won't watch Game of Thrones, then Mad Men should work as a backup because all girls love Don Draper. I would just like to point out that Don is quite the womanizer and isn't exactly the kind of man most girls would call "good boyfriend material."

I guess all I'm trying to say is that gender shouldn't decide who can or cannot be a nerd (embrace the term, guys. I don't think it's a negative term anymore). Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't understand the intricacies of a book/TV series and therefore I don't like it. I've also heard people then go on to say this series is demeaning to all women and my only reaction is to laugh at them. So many of George R. R. Martins's characters are strong women such as Daenerys (everyone's fav), Arya, and Ygritte, just to name a few. The thing about GRRM's writing is that every character struggles with something in their lives that makes them choose to be who they are and therefore no one is truly good or evil. Jamie Lannister anyone? I'd would also point out this article that is an interview with Martin and how he upholds feminist ideals, but ultimately he treats men and women the same. My favorite quote he has about his female characters comes from an interview with George Stroumboulopoulos (yeah, what a name) who asked him, "There's one thing that is also very interesting about your books, I noticed, is that you write women very well. You write them very different... Where does that come from?" GRRM replied: "You know... I've always considered women to be people." Everyone laughs at the line, but hey, it's true. He elaborates on his answer a little more in the video at around 18:30.

So quit encapsulating girls (or anyone really) under one stereotype! In this post, I'm especially defending girls that enjoy activities associated with nerdiness, such as fictional literature/media, science, math, or technology since that's what I was thinking about as I wrote this. And at least take some time to learn what you're writing about because this author did a poor job describing anything remotely like Game of Thrones  and instead focused on small points in a vast world of other more enlightening topics to discuss. I mean, this series even makes politics interesting! So I say let's just get together and nerd out instead of bickering about who can join in on the conversation.

Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi Review

First off, I would like to thank my Daddy for getting me a new Kindle Paperwhite! Could not have been better timing, with the start of summer and finding out my Kindle was broken due to unknown reasons, I told my dad about my broken e-reader who, in turn, told me he was actually thinking about getting me a new Kindle! Twenty two hours after purchase, the Kindle was in my hands and I did not waste any time putting books on it and reading my first true novel of the summer. (Since the end of finals, I've read The Comic Book History of Comics and several other Ender's Game short stories, including the original Ender's Game short story.) I chose Ender in Exile and  was not disappointed in either the new Kindle or the book! So in just over one day of ownership, I've decided that this is the best e-book reader I've ever used. Thanks again, Daddy!

The other e-readers I've used were the Kindle Keyboard with Wi-Fi, my iPod Touch 4th gen, an older Sony e-reader, a Nook, an Asus netbook, my Photon Q cellphone (now with Jellybean!), and my Asus Transformer tablet. I feel like I'm kinda knowledgeable about books and novels and stories and such things that are used to read them, so I wanted to share my opinion since I'm super excited about this one. The Paperwhite was by far my favorite way to read a book because of all the features it had, as well as the way it was designed to be extremely helpful and make reading easy! I do have a few things that detract from its awesomeness, but as long as I can read books that I've already had on my computer and take notes on them, then I can accept them!

The first thing I love about this reader is the screen since it is now a touch screen and is back lit. Fear not complainers-of-screen-fatigue, the Paperwhite's screen is very natural on the eyes just like the past Kindles and does not make you feel like you've been staring at a computer screen all day. It's got some crazy nanotechnology with its fiber optic display and energy-saving LEDs (as advertised on their site) so it is easy to read and the battery still lasts for eight weeks. I have obviously not been able to test this advertised time, but I don't doubt it's length of life since I read several hours straight yesterday and today and the indicator for battery life has barely moved. The touch screen is also very nice because now the only button it has is the power/sleep button and I've just always loved touch screen capabilities. I'm thinking that's mostly because it feels super sci-fi-y to me, but hey, that's a positive thing. It also makes turning pages really easy because most of the screen (while reading) is designated to turn the page, while a small part is for turning back a page and the top of the screen brings up the menu. Good design for sure!

I also liked the interface that I was presented with because the tutorial it runs you through is quick and easy and gives you everything you need to know so nothing is a mystery and it's easy to find anything you need. There is even an option to turn off some of the advertising that takes up like a third of the page when you first turn it on. Beware though, it does not turn off ALL the advertising, just that bit. I honestly didn't care about the advertising, though, so it was just a cool little thing I found in the settings. The Paperwhite also makes creating collections of books and searching for books very easy and I was surprised at how much I liked the onscreen keyboard despite the fact that it doesn't have swype. It suits my purposes, so it's not really a positive or negative aspect. 

One of my favorite features is the new Time to Read which estimates how long it will take you to read the chapter you're in as well as how long to finish the book. It's an awesome way to view progression because I find myself trying to beat the time it says I'll take. It is useful though, because I was looking to see how much longer I'd be reading a chapter so I could pause and do something else. I know I can just put the book down, but I hate interrupting a scene! But it's way better than the strange Location progression that showed I had over five thousand locations in Ender in Exile! Time is a good measure of book reading and it also helps me read faster, so thumbs up on that update.

The other features I like include the highlighting, annotating, and sharing capabilities that are available when reading the actual book. It was really easy to simply select a word to look up in the dictionary, or select whole sentences for highlighting, writing a note on, or even sharing on Facebook or Twitter. With just a second-long finger touch, it is easy to select words and then drag it over longer passages. It's even pretty easy to highlight lines that extend over multiple pages, and this made me very happy. I love being able to highlight and make notes over anything I highlight! Annotating books is actually something I really enjoy and I'll have to try to help my future students learn how to have fun with it. Anyway, I haven't used the sharing feature yet, but I will once I find a line that really resonates with me. It's awesome to be able to easily share parts from books that you're reading with others! I also read somewhere that when reading you can see passages that have been highlighted by other readers, but I think that's only through Amazon-bought books. At least Amazon does have good features for books bought through them. An easy step to help making money in a pirating world! But that's a topic that could easily be a post in itself.

As far as what I don't like about it, the only things I really have to complain about come from the Kindle app I have on my phone, tablet, and desktop. It sucks that I unable to sync books that are in the app on my desktop to my other devices, but I can at least physically put them on my Kindle. Also, books bought through Amazon have more features on the Kindle, such as the X-ray view that allows you to see the "bare bones" of the book and read about specific characters and such. Cool feature, but I haven't gotten to test out a book that has it. I guess I could also complain that the casing on it gets smudge marks pretty easily, but they also rub off relatively easily and it's a aesthetic thing that doesn't bother me much. Oh, and I guess I could say that it doesn't come with an AC adapter when you buy it, but the USB cord is pretty long and could be hooked up to desktops as a charger since it doesn't need to be charged very often.

So overall,I say it's a great buy for someone who likes to read! I have a good number of books I would like to read this summer, and this will certainly help me organize and read at least a good number of them. I have about seventy five books on it already, but I don't know how many I'll actually get to read. All I know right now is that if anyone asks me what e-reader they should get or buy for someone else, the Kindle Paperwhite is definitely my answer! I'm already wishing I could get them in my classroom so students can read books and easily take notes while their at it. It has 4.3 out of 5 stars on Amazon, and I'm definitely giving it a 5, at least compared to the other readers I've tried. :)

Reboot

It's definitely about time that I started my blog up again! School's out, I have four of my six grades (all A's so far :D), and right now, the weather is beautiful in Kansas. I have much more time to think about what I want to write about and how I'm going to record it. As you can see, I've changed my blog up just a bit. I'm not fully focusing on my sci-fi story anymore, but instead I'm opening this up to all of my writings. Because why not? I want to work on all aspects of my writing and solely updating my original story just felt like a lot of pressure. Having a blog gives me the need to write because I know there are a few people that read my posts, but not having to post on one topic makes me feel better! I do still feel like I need to write more and update more often so I don't let others down, and this was the easiest way to fix that. It makes writing a worthy cause and how could that be bad? I also just want to thank you guys for reading my stuff!

So the blog's title is still the same, I mean, it's still my process of writing. I've moved all of my sci-fi stuff on to one page and I've created another page for links to things like future teaching ideas, cool things I feel like I should link to, and some of my own stuff like my old work and my GoodReads account so you can see all the books I've read. I'm sure I'll come up with other ideas for more pages, but I'm just starting up from this reboot and I'll add on as I need. I want to update this blog with stories and poetry, article reviews, teaching stuff, things that make me squeal in geeky pleasure, and whatever a blog is normally used for. Guess I'm just moving my blog from a specialization to a more general and personal blog. Looks like I needed less restrictive rules so I can look like I actually write stuff!

I also unearthed my DeviantArt account from high school (mostly because I was coerced into sharing it with my fellow future English teachers), brushed it up a bit and added some of my more recent stuff so it didn't look so sad. I think my last update had been two years previously. But now I'm going to throw some more stuff up there just so it can be public instead of sitting in my dusty harddrive; however there isn't much to be found on the site. It serves more as a museum to show me how far I've come in my writing. Most of what's on there is super cringe worthy and extremely over exaggerated in its angsty high school voice, but I feel like I've come much farther since then! There were some not so bad things in there, mostly a couple of lines in some of the poems, but I'm moving on, trying to work on new things and whatever catches my attention. It is a funny thing to look back years into the past and only having some words on an old website to help you remember what life was like. And then you laugh at how clueless you really were. This is part of my argument to always be a self learner!

Anyway, I feel like this post was a good start to actually doing something, and I'll end it here. Got to get back to reading the last few books from the Enderverse. The Kindle Paperwhite is amazing and I love using it to read. (Thanks Daddy!) Perhaps I'll write a review of it for next time?

Priorities

Hey, another apology post, haha. School is fighting to take over my life again. I know, crazy, right? Well, I kind of want to graduate eventually and get a job, so I guess I should put homework first. I'll get back to this as soon as I can.

But I gotta say thanks to all you guys who read my stuffs! It makes me feel pretty cool. :)

Making a Timeline

So I was wondering if this story really needs to take place nine hundred years in the future. I don't even remember why I picked that long anyway. To remedy this conundrum, I figured I should just make a timeline and see what I come up with. I thought it'd be easy, but I kept asking more and more questions.

My first question was how long would it take for humans to invent near light speed travel? Or want to begin terraforming and colonizing new planets? Then I wanted to know how far they'd have to travel to find around forty ish (totally random) habitable planets, but I could easily do research for that one. A few wikipedia articles later and I got a rough estimate of seventy five to a hundred light years. Traveling around ninety five percent the speed of light, the travelers would experience somewhere between thirty to thirty five years on the ship to get to the furthest planets. At least it's less than one lifetime.

Then I wondered how long my world war would set the human race back? What would their level of space technology be before it happened? When would they send terraforming crews? How would they terraform planets? How long would it take to make them habitable? How long would it take to establish colonies? How long before space trade would become common enough for space pirates? I guess that's the final question, but it conjures all these other questions.

So I think humans have maybe tried to colonize Mars before the war so they at least have a little bit of experience before they have to start sending people off planet to repopulate. Let's say I give the world one hundred years to start terraforming Mars, then the war hits and wipes out people, land, and probably puts a damper on up coming technology. During the rebuilding, Mars would slowly become habitable and would be the first place to start really rebuilding humanity. We could probably have near light speed travel become available some time in this period. And perhaps terraforming takes one hundred ish years? So now I'm two hundred years in.

Now scientists are trying to broaden our territory by sending terraforming crews, scientists, engineers, other speciality crews, and normal people to settle these other earth-like planets, the furthest being about one hundred light years away. Seem to really like the number one hundred. Anyway, that means it would take two hundred years (from Earth's perspective) to simply get a colony to touch ground on the furthest planet. Now I'm at four hundred years from now.

So how long until these colonies set up interplanetary trade? Because that's where Scarlett comes in. There would probably be some trading among the closest planets because they got terraformed first and could begin establishing themselves while the furthest planet are still being terraformed. So shall we say, ehh, another two hundred years to get into the swing of things? That would mean Scarlett is only six hundred years in the future. Seems a little more manageable, I think.

Thoughts? Contradictions? Better ideas? Other points of interest along the time line? Please let me know.

Next I want to think about the technology people in this time would have at their disposal, including weapons. :D

Finding Dmitri

Yes! I finally finished another snippet! The only thing about it is that it would only show up in my book as a flash back, if it did at all.

It's a little story from when Jayden and Scarlett were only a duo and hadn't met anyone else on the crew, but it is significant because it is how Scarlett came by her special wormhole drive. She also meets Dmitri, as you can see by the title of this post and the snippet. He's a pretty cool dude, even if I can't write his lines very well. They're supposed to sound like broken English since Scarlett chose a weird filter for her translation program and it sounds like a stereotypical Russian accent. That's right, I worked in accents, haha.

I liked writing this story because it helped me come up with questions to make the universe a little more real, like what would movement on the ships be like, how are the ships laid out, how do their PCs interact with the world around them, and most importantly, how my characters think, speak, and act.

I hope it makes sense and sounds good, but it's a first draft. I already had to go back through it when I was almost done because I realized I was writing like the ship would have gravity on it. Just had to rewrite a few sentences so it made more sense and stayed consistent. It was actually more fun to write like that because I really had to think about how that would change everything in the scene. Space is really cool.

Finding Dmitri

I. Love. Science.

Seriously. Science is like the coolest thing ever.

Today, I had some awesome conversations about how my spaceships would be able to transport people literally trillions of miles away to colonize other planets as well as do trade and what not. Scientists (real scientists today) have discovered planets with earth-like conditions as close as thirteen lightyears away. That doesn't seem too bad, I guess, if you could get a ship that could travel at, or close to, light speed. I wondered how I could get a ship that could travel as close to the speed of light as possible, as well as sustain that energy for years of travel time. This is where the fun really starts.

I got a few ideas from friends that included constant acceleration and nuclear pulse propulsion, both of which sound pretty cool. Basically, if the ship accelerates at ten meters per second squared for fifty percent of its journey and decelerates at the same rate for the other half of the journey, so it can stop at it's place of arrival, the ship reaches near light speed on it's way across space. With this method, it would take about fourteen years to reach the closest hospitable planets. But here's a cool feature! The people on board the ship would experience the journey as only about five years or so instead of fourteen. Thank you, relativity. ALSO. Because of the acceleration speed, the ship would have artificial gravity on it that is similar to Earth's. Boom. This is awesome.

Now think about using nuclear pulse propulsion to do this accelerating and decelerating. One way to do this is to detonate atomic bombs behind the ship, on the other side of some kind of wall/shock absorber combo of course, that provide specific impulses of six thousand to one hundred thousand seconds. For comparison, the engines in NASA's space shuttles can produce specific impulses of 453 seconds in a vacuum. Just think of specific impulses as measurements of thrust. I personally like the idea of having thrusters that are powered by lasers shooting at specifically designed fuel that compresses so forcefully that it creates nuclear fusion (what powers the sun) explosions. The energy from these explosions can be funneled in certain directions so that the ship can have control over its movement, as well as use some of the energy to run the ship and whatnot. Science.

Now on to Scarlett's wormhole magic. The current idea is that she finds a wormhole drive (actually the snippet I'm working on now) that is able to open wormholes to another point in space. This drive shall work because in this universe, the the third dimension is actually folded over on itself in the fourth dimension. This creates mappable "close points" where the drive can open a wormhole to specific coordinates. Scarlett can get to these close points and activate the drive, put in the coordinates, and open a wormhole with little energy required, at least compared to opening wormholes willy-nilly. This means she can jump on ships from out of nowhere to raid them, but it puts in a little bit of excitement because she has to reach a close point through straight space before she can disappear. How's that sound?

See? Science is fun. I got so distracted by these conversations that I didn't have much time to actually write, though. But hey, these ideas are pretty cool! At least I'm having fun.

Backtracking Just a Little

I've had a lot of really good conversations about my story since the other day, and I realized that I want to know why I'm writing this story, what I'm trying to say with it so when I don't know how to continue, I'll know why I should. One person said that great sci-fi is about what it means to be human and it made me wonder what mine is about.

My goal is to write a story that has believable, relatable, and interesting characters that make one want to read about them and the portion of the their lives that is shown in the book. I don't have a message that I want to share with the world, nothing like a critique of society or a profound moral. I just want to write a story that is as much fun to read as it is to write and vice versa. This is a venture to have fun and create interest, creativity, and deeper thoughts for all those involved, like future readers and my friends who are helping me now.

Reading has always meant a lot to me and it is something I enjoy immensely; it's part of the reason I want to be an English teacher. By writing my own story, I can add to the world of literature and perhaps have people who will think my writing is pretty darn cool. I'm not saying this story will be something that gets published and becomes popular, but maybe someday I can get something published. I just want to write for fun to create fun, I'm not expecting anything great.

Bu by writing about these characters and their lives as they do their best to follow their own dreams, I feel like I am writing about what it means to be human. I want them to seem real; I'm just telling their stories from a specific time in their lives. All I'm doing is just adding in a bunch of nerdiness, science, and technology with dashes of awesome pirate-ness and witty humor. And maybe some not-so-witty humor. If I haven't made this apparent already, it's all for fun!

So, I think I need to spend more time figuring out the universe that these characters live in so I can understand why they are on the track they're following. Jeez, so much to think about! It kind of hurts my head. Now I just want to play guitar and not think about how much work I have to do, haha. Not to worry, I've got some great ideas to post coming up soon. I'll try to finish my characters, so I can at least have an idea of who they are, and I'm not so sure about writing two more snippets before spring break is over. I'll try, but certainly no promises. Thanks again to everyone that's helped me so far. :D