Blog #32

Today I started my new job at Tommy’s pizza restaurant. I used to work at Marc’s Grocery Store for the past couple of years, but I had to get a new job for college because classes went later into the day. I am very glad I was forced to get this new job though, because judging by my first day I am going to like this job much better. My shift was from 2pm to around 1130pm tonight. Although that is a long shift I don’t mind, when I go to work I would like to get as many hours in as I can in that shift. And my old job consisted of stocking all the shelves, running the cashier (which is much harder at a grocery store than other stores), and helping out with getting the carts they have. Now I simply work the line, which basically means making the pizzas and putting them in the oven. So, I get to simply stand there and work with some food, next to a few other dudes. Its nice because it takes literally no mental or physical effort and you can talk the entire time to your co-workers. It did take some skill to get used to getting the pizzas right, but I can tell within a few weeks I will have it down pretty well. Also today they told me was considered busy, and I never felt overwhelmed by the amount of orders I had to get. But the best part of the job - FREE FOOD. As long as you are working you can make anything on the menu, or get any of their drinks and have it right then. There is no going on break, you just take it when you want. At my old job I used to get in a bunch of trouble for having ‘free food’, despite the fact that it was a grocery store. And you were strictly limited to a 30 minute break. At this job you basically are on break anytime it isn’t busy. That’s it for tonight I am going to bed.

Blog #30

    Today I am going to write about old video games I used to play.  My friend reminded me of this idea today when we were hanging out.  I used to play a game called Twisted Metal, which was basically a bunch of decked out cars that shot missiles and guns and you raced/fought to win the game.  I always used to play as a character called Sweet Tooth, who was a crazy clown man who drove a creepy ice cream truck.  He had special heat seeking missiles and a machine gun.  This whole game was very violent, but I played it all the time in elementary school.  Another game I loved when I was growing up was Super Smash Brothers.  That was basically a game with a bunch of random characters from other games, and you got to pick which one you wanted and fought them.  It sounds simple, but with a lot of people playing it can be pretty intense.  I thought I had more to say about that topic, but since I don’t I will talk about how my friend is coming from home from California tonight at 10:00.  He has been gone for almost 6 months and I’m pretty excited to see him.  He saved up his own money to get home a few weeks earlier than when his parents were going to fly him home.  He really wanted to make it back for Halloween, and now I feel like I got to find something really fun for all of us to do since he’s back.  That’s about it for today.

Blog 29*

                The hardest part of this paper for me has definitely been the ‘bridge’ area.  Connecting my real world connections – about how too much responsibility and too much stress can have a negative effect on someone, and does not always pressure them to get more done - It can do the opposite in many cases, especially with learning.  But connecting that back to the show I analyzed (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer must give up her high school crush because she can’t endanger him with her lifestyle of… Slaying Vampires of course.)  is just too much of a stretch I’ve found,  especially when I attempt to go into detail about any real world connections which tend to be very specific.  And obviously there aren’t any real world examples of people being overburdened with the pressure of fighting zombies, or being any kind of superhero.  It seems that if I go too far to the side of Buffy’s situation - ‘looking for people who are greatly stressed because of the insane responsibility their jobs carry’ I steer clear of any kind of scholarly article, with reputable facts and studies.  Which is really what I feel is necessary to make an argument.  On the flip-side,  If I go in the direction of focusing on the scientific side of stress and pressure and show all of it’s negative effects with scholarly articles,  my paper feels like it has only a vague connection to the show which started the paper in the first place.  If I can’t find some solid bridge to connect these with scholarly sources, I will probably lean towards the argument side of my paper and unfortunately neglect the Episode Analysis part.

Blog 28: One Day Late

This is my “Blog about anything” but it is one day late.  Did anybody notice that the title rhymes?  I thought about writing a whole blog in rhymes, but that would take a serious amount of work.  And I haven’t written anything with rhyming every since… I learned about Haiku’s.  Haiku’s are an asian poetry style (I’m pretty sure), and they’re basically a god send for anyone who can’t rhyme, or write some really deep poem stuff.  They start out with 5 syllables on the first line, then 7 on the next, and back down to 5 for the ending line.  Yup.  Three lines are all you need.   And because they are an accepted type of poetry, nobody can call you lazy.  I would have really liked to be the guy who invented Haiku’s though -  I’m all about the Haiku’s.  And it wouldn’t have been that hard either; you just would have to be born a really long time ago.  That’s how I feel with a lot of inventions.  If I was just born before all the good ideas were taken, I could have come up with a thousand things.  I know it’s not that easy, but that is just how I feel.  I try to remember quotes like hindsight is 20/20, and this one quote I read made by the president of an American patent company sometime in the 1900’s – before just about anything we use today was invented.  He said the same thing I did – all the good ideas are taken.  Surely, they are not, but it does make you wonder what else we could possibly invent?

Blog 27

While I was deciding on what I would write 250 words about today, I googled ‘Something to write 250 words about‘. Before I could find any solid ideas to write 250 words on, I came across a web article about an Australian man who wrote a book on how to write 480 words about anything. I read further, and I thought it was a pretty ridiculous book idea already, and found out that it was a book about nothing. Basically, this Australian man wrote hundreds of 480 word articles on completely random and almost nonsensical things - just to write 480 words. Then I decided that that was definitely the way to approach the assignment, and tried to think of my own ridiculous topics. It was much harder than I anticipated though. My creativity definitely took a blow from this challenge, and I regretted my condescending attitude towards the man and his idea. I found it very hard to write about any topic besides this one that I am now, because I guess I didn’t have anything else really going on in my head. That’s a little sad. He had ideas like, going around and throwing pies at famous politicians, or ‘protecting your children from Snow White’. I wondered even what he had to say on a few of the topics listed. I had nothing to say about those things, and not much more to say about many other things. All I had to say was about this subject, and I’m running out already, thank god I just hit 250 words about fifteen words ago.

Blog #15: Research Ideas

The episode I will be using for my research paper I think will give me a lot of research options. As I already talked about in my blog, it deals with a theme that applies to everyone. With more power comes more responsibility. I think this is a great starting point for my research, because it definitely is a good lesson to learn as well as it being relatable to a new coming college student taking on more responsibility, and power as well. Also, in this episode the major ’high school life’ lesson to be learned where she simply cannot balance all of her responsibilities: handling schoolwork, spending time with friends, relationships with boys, and of course being a superhero. This is also very relatable and I think can lead to a large amount of articles on the stress of modern life and teen life in particular With this in mind, I decided to narrow my topic of research to the responsibilities and pressures of college students especially. I’m not sure if I will have to broaden or narrow my topic in any ways, but it is flexible and it is a very relevant issue as well. This research idea was easy for me to come up with and so I will cut my blog short this time of 250 words. Sorry.

Blog 14: Never Kill a Boy On the First Date

In this episode of Buffy, the 'lesson to be learned' was one which I was familiar with actually because of the movie Spiderman. Buffy has to directly confront the problem that she cannot lead a normal teenage life if she is going to embrace her destiny as the slayer. I was reminded by Spiderman because Peter Parker suffers the exact same dilemma where he struggles to keep his college and social lives together due to being a superhero. They also made their so far trademark connection to teenage life as Buffy is a teenage girl struggling to keep together all of her responsibilities. Because in high school teenagers often struggle with the increase in responsibility.
The episode consists of a new character - Owen - who Buffy in time develops a crush for. Meanwhile, the vampires have a new plot to create an ‘Anointed One’ - some monster who would surely reek havoc on Sunnydale. Buffy plans a date with Owen, but can’t make it because she must fight off the rising of the Anointed One. (Her greater responsibility gets in the way of her normal life.) Owen follows Buffy not realizing the danger, and is almost killed. Only to be saved by Buffy, and Owen’s reaction is not quite what I expected. Instead of being terrified, or completely ignorant like most not-main characters. He embraces the ‘vampire world’ and wants more. But Buffy realizes by involving herself with him she is putting him into to much danger, and she tells him they cannot be together. This directly parallels the first and second movie of Spiderman. Maybe later on it will parallel the third and they will be able to be together?
This episode has a worthy lesson to be learned, and I can’t state it better than the quote from Spiderman - ‘With great power comes great responsibility”