Visiting my Classmates' Blogs

After posting all of our activities in our own blogs, we were told to visit the places our classmates created for themselves and post over there, these are the blogs I visited:

María's Final Project: María Alejandra Morales's blog, I left my comment on the unit 3 post.
Ana's First Blog: Ana Vilchez's blog, I left my comment in the huge post in which she combined all of the class activities
the_blogging_engineer: Wolfgang Romero's blog, so far the most complete and personalized I found. I left my comment in the cinquain post.

Rafa 1000!!!: Rafael Díaz's blog, the second most complete blog I've found. I left my comment in his introduction post.

-Christian

Conclusion: Then What?

And so the semester comes to an end, and the subject activities as well. During this class I managed to improve my skills in English writing, whether it's for essays or formal documents. By checking what my classmates wrote I also polished my grammar and spelling skills.


My favorite unit so far has to be "Finding a Job", reasons are that this unit gave me a taste of what will I have to do once I graduate and enter the job market in order to get a job that suits my career, and most importantly, it taught me that I'm not too far away into reaching my dream of becoming part of the gaming industry with Nintendo, and confirmed to me that I'm taking the right steps in order to do so.


The face of the monkey reflects how I felt at the exact moment we were told that we would create a blog and post all of our activities and writings on it for the last activity, greatly shocked. Luckily I acquired some blogging experience and tips by being a collaborator in the site Ociotakus (big thanks to NOlo for introducing me into this world), and that served me well while writing the posts for this blog.


The experience of having the classes in the computer lab was great, not just for being able to spend some time in the Internet during class time, but for the fact we HAD to do so in order to complete our activities and grow as English speakers and writers.


So what will be next? The blog apparently served its purpose, will I delete it after I get my grades? No, I plan to keep on using it for gaming and anime fandom stuff, like essays, reviews and recommendations in bilingual format (Spanish/English). During some free moments I had during the semester, I did an English to Spanish translation of an essay for a certain group of the Naruto fandom (it's currently being checked by other 4 people) and I plan on publishing it in this blog once I do the necessary edits on it, perhaps I'll even do some fanfiction to let my imagination fly a bit.

With all this said, see you later, alligator!

-Christian

Unit 5: Outlining

For the last unit, we had to write a 3 paragraph composition on whatever topic we choose, a persona-poem about ourselves and a Cinquain poem on anything we choose. This unit served to further develop our writing skills when it comes to reflexions and doing some internal analysis.

Being the gaming fanboy I am, I chose videogames for the topic of my composition:


Videogames are often looked down upon as a waste of time, there are even people who put the blame of today's high violence on videogames. To all those people I have 5 words: you are all dead wrong. Gaming is in fact an entertainment activity that as a rule of a thumb, makes the gamer work on his/her hand-eye coordination in order to achieve the goals (s)he has to accomplish in the game; depending on the kind of game, it can help developing observational and logical skills; if the game is about fighting or any other kind of competitive activity, it actually helps easing the tension built between the ones playing, so it won't explode in less acceptable forms, such as having an actual fight (there are psychological studies supporting this point); and when it comes to socializing, multiplayer games come as an option for the people who want to spend some quality time with their friends and/or siblings, and online multiplayer games do allow people to make new friends who happen to have similar interests.

Children play videogames while they should spend that time studying? Can't the same thing be said about parents who spent hours and entire afternoons playing hide-and-seek, street soccer or pulling pranks during their childhood and when they were supposed to study? Don't come up with the double-standard answer "Oh! But that's different!", in both cases children spend time having fun, and parents have the task of telling the children when is it okay to have fun and when should they study. Violence? You guys ever heard of a place called "the real world"? That's where children are under the risk of getting abducted, abused, and in the worst scenario, killed by complete strangers, here I ask, what's the harm for a youngster in killing polygonal terrorists on Counter-Strike when (s)he can be murdered by some random criminal on his/her way back home? Shouldn't parents actually worry about the perils that can actually take the lives of their children? Also, games do have something called "rating etiquettes", in case anti-Gaming parents don't know, those etiquettes the game developers set by themselves on their games, serve to inform what kind of contents do the games have and which age groups are they best suited for, so if a child plays an "inappropriate" game, don't blame the game maker, blame the parent for being irresponsible at the moment of buying that game. Oh, and by the way, a good advise for parents who are in a Holy Crusade against games, making use of paternity (you know, telling and teaching your own children about what's good and what's bad about certain subjects) can be of help if you consider there is something wrong about the games your children play.


Well, after all this ranting, how do I see videogames evolving? I say that thanks to the new technologies in online gaming and controller design, we can count on having more ergonomic games and have competences against people within our immediate vicinity and around the world. Sony and Microsoft have been into online gaming since the past generations of consoles; and Nintendo has already taken steps into both the online gaming (taking the prize for creating a safer environment against hackers and n00b-hunters) and by making games in which the gamer has to move like the character (s)he controls in order to beat the levels or the other gamers who are having a healthy competence session (take Wii Sports, Wii Play and WarioWare Smooth Moves as examples). Who knows, maybe in a near future we'll be able to see, hear and talk through our characters' eyes, ears and voice, as long as game creators keep coming up with new ideas to allow gamers to be part of stories and/or compete with each other, there is no limit to what they can do.


For Cinquain poems, we had to come up with something to write about, use adjectives and gerunds that describe it, and a sentence and a name that relate to it. I chose life as the theme of the poem I wrote, here you are:

Life
By Christian

Life
Unique, diverse
Being born, growing, renewing
We al have it and pass it down.
Existence

For last but not least, we also had to write a persona-poem about ourselves, you guys/girls are the judges on whether the one I wrote describes me well or not:

Christian.....
intelligent, persevering, helpful, passionate
son of Ana Cecilia
who loves anime, videogames, and the Internet
who is afraid of Communism, bankrupcy and failure
who wants to see Japan, Venezuela's prosperity and his graduation
resident of his dreams
..... Meier.

If you guys liked the webcomics I used to complement my post, check out the sites of VG Cats and CubeToons, they got some good humor for gamers.

And that's all folks!

-Christian

Unit 4: Pros and Cons

As you can imagine, this unit was about pointing the pros and cons on a certain subject, in order to do so, we had to make a paragraph and a tree-graph with the advantages and disadvantages of something we choose. This unit taught us to analyze and write in a coherent and unbiased way. I chose the Internet as the subject of my analysis, here's the paragraph:


The Internet is the invention that caused the greatest revolution in the 90's and got humanity not just one step, but a huge leap closer to the ideal of turning our world into a global village. Due to its communicative nature, it allows people to keep in touch with distant friends or make friends from far away, of course, at the cost of not knowing for sure if the people you meet up with are saying the truth about who they are; due to its worldwide expansion it is possible to access information on a desired subject quickly and can be accessed to from nearly every spot, as long as they got the proper equipment and pay the service in that place; lastly, the diversity of sites that can be accessed through it can be helpful for works and also a source of entertainment for people of all ages. The only great risk in the Internet consists on people and companies who use it to cause harm and/or steal information from you.

Lastly, here's my graph:



Hope you guys liked my opinion on this great place called the Internet.

-Christian

Unit 3: Finding a Job

Starting this unit, we were told to look for a job on the Internet, and then write a resume and a cover letter to apply for that job.

When I began the job hunting, I got pleasantly surprised to see an opening for a bilingual Software Engineer in Nintendo of America, here's what I typed for my impressions in the unit:

For many, finding a job is without a doubt a long experience full of disappointments and with few asserts. We can see unemployed people desperately trying to get a job so they can put food on the table, at times in charges below or unrelated to their studies; and few of them are lucky enough to find a chance in a job they dreamed of. Fortunately for me, the latter was my case; my dream is to work for Nintendo, and when I began the search first thing that appeared on the job listing was an opening for a bilingual software engineer in Nintendo of America. When reading the requirements for the job, I found out that the academic profile fits well with the one of my career and that my Japanese studies were giving me higher chances for that job, since it explicitly states that they need an engineer who is fluent enough with both English and Japanese; then I imagined what would my skills be after graduating, and wrote both my resume and cover letter as if I had those skills I intend to develop by the time I get my engineering degree, with the help of 2 sample models.

At the end of the day, the experience of finding a job, writing the resume and cover letter for that job while still being a student was an enlightening experience, not only did I confirm the reasons why I decided to pick the career I'm studying, I also confirmed that my studies in the Japanese language will become more than a hobby and learned that finding and applying for the job I dream for isn't as traumatic as other people make it look like.

Checked by: Jesús Castellano and Rafael Díaz


This is what I prepared for my cover letter (the original Word document looks more neat :P):

Christian Meier 058**********

-ADDRESS REMOVED-, Maracaibo, Zulia, ZIP 4002 maracunator@gmail.com

Objective To achieve my dream of working in the videogame industry as an Engineer in the ranks of Nintendo.

Professional Profile

Informatics Engineer graduated in URBE, looking for a job in the Videogame Industry.

Programming skills with Java, C++ and Visual Basic. Skilled in the 3D Graphic design and implementation area Experienced in providing software-related solutions to users. Experienced in developing and finishing projects by teamwork. High technical writing skills. High skills with the English language. Skilled with the Japanese language. Highly interested in the world of videogames.

Work History

Computer Lab. Assistant

URBE, Maracaibo, Zulia

From September 19th, 2006 until graduation

Education

Undergraduate Degree on Informatics Engineering

URBE, Maracaibo, Zulia

January 2009

References
References are available upon request.




For last but not least, the cover letter:

Christian Meier
-ADDRESS REMOVED-
Maracaibo, Venezuela

February 20th, 2009

Mr. Howard Lincoln
Hiring Manager
Nintendo of America Inc.
PO Box 957

Redmond, WA 98073

Dear Mr. Lincoln:

I understand from your listing on Monster.com you are in the market for a bilingual software engineer with a minimum of one year of experience. I am one who qualifies. I earned my Engineer degree from Rafael Belloso Chacín University (URBE) and I have designed and tested software for Computer Systems in Maracaibo, Zulia. I also served as computer lab, assistant for 3 years there.

My specialty is designing software interactions with users. I am a committed employee with the ability to work as a team member, to lead and to follow, depending on the situation and responsibilities assigned to me.

My experience with the English language dates back from my Kindergarten Education, developed through basic, middle and superior education levels, and has been certified by Yazigi and URBE in years 2000 and 2007 respectively.

My experience with the Japanese language dates from year 2004 in Simón Bolívar University, and has developed through the courses I had in the before mentioned university and in the Japanese School of Maracaibo, and has been certified by the Japanese Society of Maracaibo.

Would you like to meet to talk over this job? I'd enjoy speaking with you in person. Please call me on my cell phone: 058-***-******* to set up an interview at your convenience. Thank you for considering me for this opening and for reading my cover letter and resume.

Sincerely,

Christian Meier

Got to admit, this unit is definitely my favorite one, and it made me feel closer into my way to reach my dream.

EDITION NOTE: Real address and phone numbers were removed from the original post for safety reasons.

-Christian

Unit 2: Advertising

During this unit we learned how advertising companies have to make advertisements oriented to people living in different places and cultures in order to reach the largest amount of consumers they could. Here, we had to post a 3-part paragraph about a TV commercial of our choice, composed of a topic sentence, supporting sentences and concluding sentences.

Mine was about the Nintendo Wii:



I liked this commercial, because it focuses only in showing the
feeling of playing videogames with Nintendo's newest console and
putting a bit of a Japanese touch to it. During the commercial, you
see two Japanese men driving to places inhabited by different kinds of
people from the US, giving their respects and saying "Wii (we) would
like to play", and no matter the age race or life style, the people
they visit do always enjoy playing the games available for the
Nintendo Wii. There's also the touch of Japanese culture in the
background music, the act of bowing by the Japanese men who offer
people to play Wii, and the bowing both i's of "Wii" do at the end of
the commercial. To put it simply, it is a commercial meant to make
people of all groups comfortable about playing videogames.

As an extra activity, we also wrote our comments on a Korean music video and come up with a different ending, here's what I wrote on it:

A Sad Love story...

It's a story about love at first sight, which had a lot of happy moments, along with some sad ones that occurred in their jobs. After the girl gets blinded by a mistake, the sorrow starts for both, the girl feels abandoned by the guy, without knowing where did her new eyes come from nor why did he leave her, and the man feels guilt for what happened, to the point he gives up his sight, job and love in order to make things up to her.

For the final, I would make the girl run to the guy, hug him from behind, and then have them both walking to the sunset, trying to walk on the same path of life once again.

Then, just for crack humor I also showed a "commercial" of the Jesus Christ action figure, enjoy! :-D



-Christian

Unit 1: Journalism

During this unit, we discussed about how in Journalism the right of privacy conflicts with the right of information. Through those discussions, we learned how to work with topic sentences, main and controlling ideas. The topic I chose to write about is tobacco and alcohol advertising on TV, my writing for that unit is below in this post:

Nowadays, when we are supposed to be in a culture that has already assimilated the presence of TV in our lives, we see that worldwide there are groups of people who try to turn TV into some kind of nanny and use it to forfeit their responsibilities as parents and keep their children into some kind of bubble, isolated from the real world.


While I think that some controls are necessary, I think that banning advertising campaigns of tobacco and alcohol on TV is downright moronic. How do those bans actually protect children if there are adults around them (most of times, their parents) who go smoking and drinking in front of them? And the worst part is that the same adults who should take their time and responsibilities to raise them and teach them about the vices reserved for adults, prefer wasting hours in action groups demanding TV networks and politicians to take decisions that relieve them from those responsibilities.


Tobacco and alcohol have been a human reality for centuries, pretending that they don't exist while children are growing is not the solution, allowing children to know about it and also telling them about the damage they cause is the actual solution, both on part of the parents and TV networks.

Well, that's all for this unit.

-Christian

Self Introduction

Hi, my name is Christian Meier, just Christian will do. I was born in Maracaibo and live in -REMOVED-. I'm 22 years old and I study Informatics Engineering in URBE.