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
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
3 comentarios:
thank you for your opinion about my blog! you´re blog is beautifull and very interesting.
Hi, Christian: I have read your article about computer games and I would like to point out something.
I am a teacher and a mother, so I must be older than you.
I don´t think computer games are dangerous if adolescents realize that there is a limit 4 that. You cannot spend hours and hours in front of the PC. I think playing in the street is much more dangerous now than it was 25 years ago ( At least in big cities). I used to spend my afternoons riding my bike and playing with neighbours of my age most afternoons and it was not dangerous. Nowdays it is different. In my humble opinion, balance is the key word. People in general (young and old) should balance their time between using the PC and interacting with real people face to face.
Finally, congrats on your blog.
Very good! Reagards from Argentina!
Mrs. ICAB La Plata, I agree completely on the balance and control part of your comment, I even mentioned in my post that parents have the job of setting controls between the entertainment and studying times of their children.
The ranting I had in my post was directed at the ones who put the blame of violent conduct and lack of studying on videogames. I have grown tired of seeing groups of parents trying to set restrictions and bans on this form of entertainment and yet say nothing about the problems outside in the real world that could actually affect their children and don't seem to even try using paternity to set controls on their children by themselves nor tell them about right and wrong things.
Can't help finding that situation double-standarded so in my comment about videogames I decided to attack that fraction of parents by showing some facts they seem to overlook.
And yes, nowadays the streets, and the world in general have become more dangerous than they were years ago, saddest part about it is that people apparently got used to it instead of trying to find a solution to such a critic situation.
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