Quarter Quell: Back to the Arena

Hunger Games

Once you're out, you're out. Well that only applies if you win. Every quarter year(year 25, 50, 75, etc), a card is drawn to declare that special year's event. Sad enough everyone knows there's another math for the Games, but it like any other pain when you find out that every victor in the past years are returning to the arena once more. The event of the 75th Hunger Games is to send every past victor back to the arena for a go round.

 Katniss Everdeen returns victorious along side her "lover" Peeta Mallark. Only one victor can return but the rules were shifted among the last four survivors. Only a year passes allowing them and their families to live with style, money, and peace. Sadly the year comes for preparation for the Games. The Quarter Quell arena is selected to enforce suspense and difficulty. One of the hardest parts about returning is dealing with the good-byes and the the thought of not coming back.

In the 75th games not a specific set of people are sent in. Normally only 24 would enter, but some some victors died from age leaving every remaining victors to enter. The most that can enter is 24. In this particular situation, the highest age for any victor to re-enter would be 93. The possibilities of that are extremely slim. The shocker in the story is that Katniss and Peeta have to re-enter, considering they are star-crossed lovers, things now get complicated. They have to make a decision, who kills who, that is if it comes down to them two in the finals.

When Did Spiders Get Claws?

Trogloraptor

Sometimes I don’t realize these complex words that ramble through my head while I’m reading. Whether I know them or not, when I read the text of an article, paper, interview, etc, I read these long terms or phrases that completely shut my brain off. I come across the words, then all of a sudden my mind just powers off like these groups of letters are killing me.

This is why English is an important subject. So we can increase of intelligence and knowledge, our understandings of things. We as a class read this article about a new species of spider that has been discovered. Trogloraptor is what they call it. Trogloraptor is latin for “cave robber”. While we were reading, most the words were simple and easy, but there were a few that stood out. One of the words was “rapacious”, which I now know means aggressive. The spider's name is Latin for "cave robber," a reference to its habitat and rapacious-looking talons. Of course everyone would just be saying use your context clues. I tried that on this word but the things I come up with weren’t close to aggressive.

The spider itself has claws on the ends of its legs. They prey of food by snapping them in its claws as they fly underneath him. Trogloraptors hang from the ceilings of caves until it's time for them to feed. They appear to be a shy species that avoids most creatures to insure its own safety. According to the article they also don't seem to be poisonous to humans.

Dain Fagerholm

What are the results of a creative artist and an art form that creates a three-dimensional illusion? Not only does Dain Fagerholm draw with his own style of drawing, but he intertwines it with stereographic animated GIFs. In a previous blog I talked about animated GIFs and his uses of his masterpieces. These animations require at least two or more frames, or photos to cycle through.

Dain's style of drawing are sort of weird but awesome at the same time. His supplies contain pens/pencils, his creative creatures, and paper. His artwork includes these monsters that look like they hide under your bed or in your closet. The only difference is, he puts a smile on their face. Don't get me wrong their his preferred choices and I respect that. But these monsters aren't the only things he uses. Recently he drew a different girl that transitions through a cycle of colors that look like some retro hallucination.

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/images/images_2/leigha/dain%20fagerholm/df17.gif

Dain's career as an artist has became a artistic wonder across the nation. Among everyone who I met that has recognized his work, some supply negative criticism. They say they aren't attracted to his art because of his "weird" creations and simple drawings. I see where they're coming from when they say it's too simple. Dain's monsters or girls aren't involved in any activity or action. The only thing that keeps his viewers intrigued is how he uses the animation with his art to make it stand out.

Speech Defects

As of now we have a project to remember for public speaking. Not only do we have to balance college with , math, civics, and blogs, but now to add to that is a famous speech to memorize. Each student is suppose to choose a separate speaker from everyone else and memorize the speech that person gave to say on Thursday. I admit for myself that I am bad public speaker and have many flaws that follow.

Every time I am put on the spot, I get this annoying shake that sometimes distracts my own self. Not only that but I often get this minor stutter when I get confused with what I'm saying. So far I've covered the shaking, stutter, and I forgot to mention a strong memory lapse when I feel uncomfortable.

http://publicspeakingactivities.com/wp-content/uploads/public-speaking.jpg

These are a few things that irritate speakers or professional people that are use to intelligent and sophisticated speeches. But among everybody, I'm not the only person who faces speech defects. I could name out people in my class who do the same but I find it easier to just say everyone. Everyone has their own problems to improve on and work with. I for instance am going to take my own advice there.

Each student had to write down five things a speaker should never do during a speech for an earlier assignment. A common thing everyone wrote down would be chewing gum, no eye contact, and inappropriate language depending on the topic.

What's been learned?

Civics and Economics is the study of government, economy, and citizens rights and citizenship. The class is important in learning since we America as a nation are the most ignorant of all countries because we are the youngest. In the class, we've already learned about citizenship and partially about the process of being naturalized.

What I mean when I say being naturalized is becoming a US citizen. This process is call naturalization. The first step in becoming a citizen is signing the declaration of intention. Step two involves an interview and/or an exam. The citizenship exam usually consists of at least one-hundred questions. The last step is taking the oath of allegiance. You raise your right hand and repeat word for word what the speaker says. Oath below-

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

There are two ways you can become a citizens. The first way is by birth and there are only two ways to become a citizen by birth. The first is to be born in the US(American territory) or born on a military base. The second by birth is born from US citizens outside the US. The second way to become a citizen other than birth is by naturalization.

As citizens we have our duties and our responsibilities. Our duties are things we have to fulfill required by law. Our responsibilities are obligations we should do but can be done voluntarily. The government of the US is considered a bureaucracy. The term means complex systems, many departments, many rules, and a chain of command.

One useless fact that I myself didn't even know of until my civics class was that on the back of every US coin is the Latin phrase "E plurabus unum" which stands for "out of many, one".

How to Survive

How would you feel if your life was controlled by a tyrant who strictly limited you access to certain places. Staying in one city for your entire life without a glimpse of life from anywhere else would suffocate you. In the book The Hunger Games, Everyone is glued to one district, which is the one you were born in. Out of all 12, each district has its own special occupation. For example, in the book District 12 specializes in mining.

You must be wondering why people don't just run off, ditch everyone and leave. It's not as simple as it sounds. Each district is bound inside due to highly electrically charged barbed wire fencing that stands higher than 10 feet.

The main purpose in this entry was to mention the torturous punishment due to the rebellion between the Capitol and the district. The results of the war were District 13's annihilation and the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is a survival challenge where each district sends in a male tribute and a female tribute to compete. All twenty-four tributes are tossed into an arena to fight to the death.

In the middle of the arena is a cornucopia filled with polished, sharp, and helpful weapons. Once the gong sounds, there are two options you can choose from. You can choose to fight your way through the bloodbath or run. The reason I bold the word run is because that is the wisest choice to make(that is if you want to survive). The best strategy you could use in a situation like this id to hide and wait out most of the deaths. You must remember to run for a water source because wherever water is, you find life, thus life=food! Always remember-you can’t hide forever.

Mother Earth Gets An Attitude?

Would you appreciate Earth trying to get rid of the human race. If you've ever read Planet Earth Doesn't Know How To Make It Any Clearer It Wants Everyone To Leave then you would first think planet earth is tired of everyone. If you took a minute or two you would understand that someone is trying to make us think about what we as humans are doing wrong to the planet we live on.

The purpose of this post is to try to raise the issue brought up by this story. Once you think about it you realize that if earth could talk, its most likely what Earth would say. This story makes you think about all the trash being thrown around and us polluting the air and water we use.

http://www.dreamstime.com/sick-planet-earth-thermometer-thumb10795386.jpg

The author uses Earth's perspective in the story to help raise the topic. His tone assists with that by setting an agitated, tired of everything we're doing to the planet. His use of these help strengthen his writing and his possibility that people would recognize the awareness.

In the story, the author is questioning why we haven't left for another world when we have the technology to do it. He/She makes it sound tiring killing millions of people just to hint our unwelcoming stay. Apparently all the natural disasters we face are the planet’s way of hinting at our unwanted presence. If I were to comment under Earth’s perspective, I would call the human race a horrible rapidly spreading disease that plagues the planet’s surface.

Gaming Life

To start off, Super Mario Bros. is one of the most famous classics of all time. I have never met a single person who has not liked this game. Scratch that, I've met one person but he doesn't know what he's talking about. Old time games started the gaming revolution that led to what we have today. If I had the choice to trade my PS3 for Nintendo 64, I would make that trade in a heartbeat.

http://www.hark.com/clips/nkccclgmpk-sample-from-super-mario-brothers-theme

I love playing video games that rely on strategy and thinking. That can include a variety of games from Super Mario Brothers to Portal 2 or Left 4 Dead to Minecraft. I don't only play strategic games, of course nobody can forget the classics like Zelda, Mario, Pac Man. Although I love top play the classics, I unfortunately don't own the old gaming systems or consoles.

Life doesn't always rely on the past. Today games are made realistic, futuristic, past based, or even cartoon styled. Two of my favorite games have opposite styles and genres. Minecraft (first game) is a sandblock-RPG-and adventure game. Borderlands (second game) is a cartoon style RPG and FPS game.

Gaming has been a major part of my life and I intend to keep it that way. When  mention games, I also mean board games and sport games.

RPG- Role-playing game

FPS- First person shooter