What Music Did I Listen to Growing Up?

When I was a little kid I really liked classical music. That was pretty much the only thing I liked, though. I hated songs with lyrics for some reason. I still listen to this genre of music, although I like more styles of music now. I listen to classical music even more than I did in the past though, but I prefer piano solos. Especially pieces composed by Chopin and Rachmaninoff!! That concludes this post too though so ya lemme get that extra credit thanks

My Favorite Musical Artist!!!

I love music. Like, a lot. Especially piano, considering I play piano but okay y o u  k n o w

My favorite music artists are as follows, and I've linked their names to a piece of their music:

• Chopin
• Panic! At the Disco
• Dodie Clark

As you may have noticed, Chopin is really different from the other two artists. That's because he's a pianist, and he's not even alive anymore. Yikes. I have a sort of broad taste in music though, I guess??? Usually with music, it's the tune that draws me to it first. Then I look into lyrics and all that and blablabla so uhh yeah that concludes this post!!!! Good-bye!!!!!

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was written by J.K. Rowling and published by Bloomsbury and Scholastic on June 21, 2003. It is a best seller, alongside the rest of the books in the Harry Potter series. It was made into a movie as well (again, like the rest of the books in the series) that was released on July 11, 2007. The movie earned around $938.2 million worldwide, but I'm not sure how much money the book made in sales. I couldn't really find anything about it online (not any useful information, anyway).

Honestly, I love this book. I love the Harry Potter series. Seeing as such, I haven't got anything negative to say about the book (which I am reading for the second time-- it's been around six years since I first read the series). It's very different from the books that we're supposed to read in school because it's not necessarily a classic. It's something much more modern that practically everyone nowadays has read. I'm not so sure I can say the same about something like Of Mice and Men.

I think we can learn a lot about literature from reading best sellers as opposed to classic literature. The information and style in these sorts of books are more modern, and thus, more relevant to today's society. This is extremely useful when it comes to writing, and I believe that if you want to pursue a career in writing, it's just as important to know about both modern writing and older, classic writing.

Best sellers aren't all about commercialism though, for the most part. Of course making a profit (and a large one at that) is an important aspect of writing and selling books, but in order to produce content that so many people will love, it's essential for the writer to basically put their heart and soul into that book. Readers will not want to read something that the author hasn't put a good deal of though into, after all.

Harry Potter Banned? NOT CLICK-BAIT!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!11!111!!1111!!!11

First thing's first-- The assignment said to give some background information on the book we chose so here goes: JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series (the first book in the series having been published in 1997). That should be enough info so I'm going to get to the main point of this post now lol

So here's the thing. The Harry Potter series has been banned before!!! This is real 100% true information that is not click-bait. According to an article titled "Harry Potter Banned," "Ever since becoming popular, the Harry Potter series has been among the most frequently challenged books, as measured by the American Library Association." This is for multiple (dumb) reasons. Apparently the series promotes evil because it contains witchcraft. Some super worried parents with what I consider to be bad reasoning believe that people will want to be witches if they read Harry Potter. Harry Potter is also considered inappropriate and a bad influence to younger readers because it supposedly promotes rule breaking, lying, and disobeying figures of authority. Like people didn't do that before Harry Potter was a thing. And for the most part when that stuff happens in Harry Potter it's not for a bad cause y'know. Some people also consider Harry Potter to be too scary because it contains death and violence. A lot of other books have death and violence but I don't see all of those sorts of books getting banned. Things like that happen in real life too-- Preventing people (more specifically kids) from reading about things like violence isn't necessarily going to prevent them from witnessing things of that sort in the real world. Overall, the Harry Potter series SHOULD NOT BE BANNED!!!!! I will not stand for this!!! This is not okay!!!!!! This is no bueno!!!!!!!

my FAVORITE book of ALL TIME!!!!!!!!!!

My favorite book ever is a really good book. That's why it's my favorite book. For some time I was actually torn between The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde and And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, but overall, The Picture of Dorian Grey is my favorite book of all time (although, And Then There Were None is a close runner up). I first read it a little over a year ago when I went to visit a book store in Beijing. I was in China for around two and a half months and when I wasn't out going places and enjoying being in another country I was pretty bored. All social media was blocked and the Internet was kind of no bueno so I texted some of my friends over WeChat (this Chinese instant messaging app) and that was my only contact with the non-China world. Anyway, that didn't keep me from being bored when I was just chilling at home (mostly because I could barely talk to my friends because of the time difference between China and the US). So, when I found a book store and went to go take a look my uncle bought me a bunch of books. By a bunch, I mean like. A bunch. Overall it was around $100+ worth of books and I felt really bad because my uncle spent so much money buying me those books and I was like aadfughdgfibhvbkj omg

WELL ANYWAY one of those books was The Picture of Dorian Grey (a copy in English and a copy in Chinese since it was a package of two) and so I went home and read it later that day. I finished it the following day and omg I love that book so much

It's

a really

good

book

I'm probably going to read it again over autumn break because it's been a while, it's been like... A solid year. More than that. So because of that I can't remember all those cool little details in the book which SUCKS because I LOVE THAT BOOK!!!! And because I love that book I feel obligated to remember every single little important detail of it because it's my f a v o r i t e

Another thing I have to talk about in this blog post, though, is print reading experiences vs. digital reading experiences. Personally, I don't really like digital reading experiences. Because of that I don't do it much. I think the only books and scripts and stuff I've ever read on a digital device isssssssss

1. the Little Shop of Horrors script
2. No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

And I only read those online because I couldn't access copies of either of them in person ://// Personally I think digital reading kind of ruins the idea of reading because books have always been in print on paper and things that you can physically hold in your hand. There's also some people that enjoy collecting books and you can't really do that with digitally copies and honestly physical copies of books are so much better than digital copies. No offense to people that like digital copies or put their hard work and effort into making digital copies of books a reality buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut

physical copies are better

Misogyny in Video Games

So, I watched this video in class called "Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games" starring the infamous (?) Anita Sarkeesian. It discusses sexism towards women in video games and how practically every game out there seems to follow the trope of a man saving a damsel in distress. I suppose that it is fairly common, but not necessarily in every game. Personally, I think she's blowing it up into a bigger issue. I'm sure there's some game out there where there's a girl who saves a guy in distress. She focuses on Princess Peach a lot in the video, and even provides the viewers with outdated information because she says that Princess Peach is only playable in one game (and accidentally), but I'll have you know that Princess Peach is a playable character is Super Mario World 3d. So. Take that, A n i t a .

Okay I get that the video is kind of old but still. Peach ain't really helpless. I mean, in earlier games yeah, but not anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As for how this misogyny/anti-women/idk in games affects society, I guess it does have a pretty big impact (sort of) because it portrays women as weak and helpless, which isn't always the case but idk if a dumb little boy is playing Mario and thinks that because Princess Peach got kidnapped, only girls get kidnapped or something stupid like that, that's a negative impact because it ain't true lololol I'm not really sure if kids even think like that nowadays but idk it seems like something a little boy might think because kids are dumb. For the most part anyway, lololol

I don't really think that the video is important. I didn't really learn anything from it because everyone knows about the damsel in distress trope and I personally don't really care about it because I don't think that it's a very big deal. It's just a trope for media and all that, it's not like its's some government conspiracy to eliminate women across the globe or something y'know. And I'm a girl too so if Anita wants to come at me and roast me for "being ignorant of what video games are doing to us women!!!!!" or accuse me of being a "fake woman" or accuse me of disliking women myself, then let her come at me I'll roast her right back ok, OK

blog response 11/1/2017

Question 1: Write about a video game you played that shocked you with its violence, racism/cultural insensitivity, or misogyny. Identify the game and what bothered you about the experience. If you have never played a video game like this, you might write about a music video, song, or T.V. show that fits the bill.

Answer 1: Okay so I guess I'll write about Call of Duty. It doesn't really shock me with its violence because you know, violence in video games isn't really a huge shocker to me. I can see why people like violent video games-- Even I like some games where a bit of violence is involved, but I can also see why some people would be bothered. And, in order to answer the question a little better, that's what I'll talk about. I guess it shocks people because like. OMG!!!!!! Violence!!! That's bad!!! Killing people is a no-no!!! Why are you playing COD, Jimmy- You're grounded!!!!! And I guess all that is because of the fact that it comes as a surprise to people that some people find violence appealing and fun. To be more specific and like, mention COD more. It's got lots of shooting and guns and overall violence so it ties into that whole thing about it being a shocker to a lot of people that some people enjoy inflicting virtual pain on virtual characters, or that some people enjoy the idea of violence and all that kind of thing in general.

Question 2: Consider why such games or media are made. How do these images or representations affect you personally? How might they affect your family or loved ones?

Answer 2: Violent and/or explicit video games and media are created in order to appeal to an audience. Some people like those sorts of things, and if companies want to appeal to a larger/certain audience, then they'll make things that the people in that particular audience would like. These things could affect me personally, as well as family and loved ones by just??? Being there?? I guess?? I mean, I guess some media is influential to people, especially younger kids y'know because they don't know much about right vs. wrong or just much in general because they're like 5 what life experience do they have lol

Question 3: Or is all of this just an excuse for deeper social problems in our society? Why or why not? How?

Answer 3: I don't really think violent/explicit games/media are made to show deeper social problems in our society. Of course, that doesn't apply to all of that sort of media-- I'm sure there are some media things that try to address deeper problems, but idk personally I think the main thing about media is to appeal to an audience and get people to like that particular media and ya

Video Games

Okay, so I'm supposed to write about my favorite game and the problem is that I have a lot. But, I guess I'll go with what I guess my absolute favorite is, and that's Rune Factory 4.

I actually haven't played it in a while-- some amount of months. I know, what a disgrace lol

OK the OBJECTIVE.

It's been a while so I'm gonna' try and remember as much as I can. But basically, your character is going to go deliver this gift to this super powerful dragon in this town city place, but you get amnesia and then basically you try to get your memory back and then you're mistaken for a prince/princess by everyone and then the ACTUAL prince that everyone was expecting shows up, and you'd expect him to be upset and go NO because he's the REAL royal person, but instead he's really chill and he's like nah you can be royalty even though you're not lol and YEAH

Basically, after all that happens, disaster strikes!!!! But not really. I mean, kind of. The dragon (Ventuswill) like, disappears or something-- I forgot the details of it. It's been like, four years since I beat the game and I never bothered to make a new main file to redo the game because there's a lot of post game content, especially if you're a completionist and you want to accomplish everything possible in the game (which is what I'm doing. Plus I have too much of an emotional connection to my main file-- I could never start a new one! But maybe I will in the future. Idk).

How you play the game is pretty easy. It's for the 3DS and it's got pretty generic controls. Press a button to attack. Hold down a button or use the little spinny thingy to walk/run. And so on.

I like the storyline and gameplay of Rune Factory 4. I also like the characters and how there's a lot to do, even after you beat the game. Overall, it's a good game. It's cute and interesting and stuff and uhhhh

ya

it's bueno

I'm not really sure I learned anything from the game, though. There isn't really much to learn from video games is there? Unless you're talking about like, Fire Emblem, because that helps you out with strategy and stuff, which is pretty bueno. It's fun though, and that's a benefit so yeaaah

please give me a good grade