:A Sagacious Surmise

For our scratch project, we created and worked on the game  “Gun Shooter”. The game is easy and simple to play–you just have to shoot as many balloons as you can and avoid missing more than ten balloons–but making the game was a lot more challenging. Renevee and I divided the workload: Renevee made the shooter, instruction page, backgrounds and sound effects, while I was in charge of the falling balloons, including the costumes and the scripts, and shooter’s bullet.

The first thing that I worked on, was creating the various colored balloons used in the game. I decided to use Paint to create these balloons, however I later resorted to Adobe Photoshop after finding out that if I imported the objects I made in Paint onto a Scratch document, the image will still retain its background. Adobe Photoshop allowed me to delete the background of the object. After I was able to import the images into Scratch without any inconveniences, I started working on generating the scripts for the falling motion of each of the balloons. This was not that hard for me, however it did take a long time trying to perfect it. Returning back to Adobe Photoshop, I made the bullet for the game. It was fairly simple, because it was similar to making the balloons–except that it was smaller. I ran into several problems in the process of creating the scripts for the bullet to shoot. At first, it did not shoot. Then, it only moved when the mouse-click was held down, then it only followed the mouse. Finally, after much aggravation, I had finally worked the bullet so that it shot in any direction desired by the player.

On a further note, as a response to whether I enjoyed it or not, I can honestly confess that I did not like using Scratch that much. In my opinion, I think that Scratch requires a lot of logic and sequenced minds– something that I obviously lack. That was why, for a lot of the times using it, I ran into a lot of trouble. I think that as a suggestion for next year, i would like Mr. Bertoia to guide the students more thoroughly on how to use this software, as many students (like myself) may find it hard to understand without a guide. I’m not saying that using this program is totally impossible, no. As you can see, I think we did fairly well on our game. However, I just wanted to say that Scratch isn’t a program for everybody– and I know for a fact that it isn’t for me.

Aside from that though, I think I had a relatively good time learning an introduction to programming!

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In this game, there are a series of balls that float down from the sky. These balls are to be shot by a small shotgun centered at the bottom of the screen. The shotgun maintains itself at only one position throughout the whole game, however the nose of the gun can be rotated to shoot the balls (following the position of the mouse). Although this game does not have any levels, each ball will be shaded a different color to represent a certain amount of points obtained when shot at. Balls that are not shot at will not count against the player. Because there are not a lot of obstacles in the game, it  will be fairly simple, and easy to create.

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Comparatively similar to The Rules of Survival, Lucy Grealy’s candid novel Autobiography of a Face incorporates a wide array of literary features to add enrichment to her stunning piece. Two literary features that I would like to highlight in this novel, is the author’s profound usage of dramatic irony and ambiguity.

As a young girl, Lucy Grealy had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called Ewing’s Sarcoma. In order to contain the cancer, the doctors had removed one-half of her jawbone, resulting in a blatant distortion to the lower portion of her face. What had really caught on with me as a reader, was that throughout the entire section when Lucy had described her being in the hospital, and contending with the innumerable amounts of injections and operations, she had still not come to realize that what she had was potentially a terminal disease.

The dramatic irony in this situation, between what the readers knew when reading the book and what Lucy knew when going to the doctors, had portrayed a thorough emphasis on the youthful innocence of the child. I believe that this use of irony, was one of the more grappling hooks that had motivated me to read more and finish this honest account of the author herself when she was a child.

My second point, ambiguity, also plays a large role in the themes of this novel. Two examples when I see ambiguity being used by the author, was when Lucy recounts the occasions when her mother had reprimanded her for crying during her chemotherapy sessions— telling her that she was disappointed to see her daughter cry because of the injections, and also when Lucy admits that she felt utter despair when she visited her father only once on his dying bed at the hospital before he died.

These two examples combine together as one to illustrate the constant lack of communication among the family members (which also relates back to why Lucy did not know that she had cancer before), and how it had led them to much needless pain and anxiety to each other. I firmly believe that the ambiguous approach that the author used was to create a vast amount of tension between each individual family member, and to spark inquiry from the readers to make the novel more engrossing.

Autobiography of a Face was a intricately woven tale of a little girl’s battle between beauty and acceptance. A fantastic novel. I would recommend this book to those who enjoy indulging themselves in sincere reading on the nature of true life.

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Truth be told, I had originally thought that the novel I was reading was purely based on fiction. However, much to my dismay, I had soon learned that the novel was actually based on the author’s life. No, not based. The novel was the author’s life— the life that was drowned by the misery of fate and acceptance into our cruel, arduous world.

“When I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what feeling ugly felt like.”

In Lucy Grealy’s heartbreaking memoir, Autobiography of a Face depicts the life of the author herself when she was a young girl, finding out for the first time that she had been diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer that required her to remove a portion of her jaw.

The novel at first demonstrates the feeling that many of us have encountered at least once when suffering a simple illness— the feeling of self-indulgence in the splendor of receiving attention from our family and friends, and the notion of great elation when reminded the fact we do not have to attend school. In this case, Lucy portrays a strong sense of naïveté when she becomes aroused with the excitement of receiving special treatment from her family members and her friends, regardless of the reality of the situation at hand.

As the story escalates, Lucy begins to fully accept the severity of the situation when she painfully realizes the clamor of disgust made by her peers about the distortion of her jaw. She is alone. She has got no one but herself for consolidation. This feeling of insecurity had led her to believe that when her “face is fixed [she] will start living,” emphasizing the extent on how much she desires to have a perfect face in order to save her from the perpetuating taunts of her fellow classmates and the unnerving stares of the adults around her.

I believe that this book bases its theme from the contrast of true beauty, and the conventional form of beauty. Before the operation, Lucy Grealy was an ordinary girl who yearned for everything that just about any child yearned for. Succeeding the operation on her jaw bone, and changing the way she looked— it had ultimately caused her to deviate from the traditional view of normality. So even though she once was a girl of great beauty, she is now considered abnormal and is socially rejected because she does not conform to the expectations of society. This tears her heart. But not only hers, it tears the reader’s hearts as well—teaching them the unfathomable meaning of beauty in the perspective of those who are not beautiful.

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In Nancy Werlin’s The Rules of Survival, a wide array of literary features had been used to illustrate this novel of great dysphoria.

The first thing that I would like to mention, is the protagonist and antagonist of the story—just to help make explanations clearer further on. It was evident that Werlin had used Matthew Walsh to be the protagonist of the novel, clearly expressing this through writing in the point of view of Matthew himself. In the novel, Matthew takes on a role of protecting his sisters from their abusive mother. Which leads us to the next portion of the introductory—the antagonist of the novel. Clearly, the antagonist is someone who strongly opposes to something or some one. In this case, the antagonist is Nicole Walsh (Matthew and his sister’s mother) as she is portrayed in the novel as a fairly aggressive, bipolar woman who regards her children as her own “property” rather than actual individuals.

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The entire novel actually starts out with Matthew writing a letter to his youngest sister Emmy telling her that he is about to recount, in this letter, about all the past events that have caused them to live the kind of life that they are living right now. He begins the story with the oldest memory he can remember, and that is how the story begins—with a flashback. Actually, I would say that the whole novel is a record of memories of the past told in the perspective of Matthew Walsh. The reason why I say this has been made very obvious through the narration of Matthew. Throughout the novel, Matthew would occasionally refer back to Emmy—asking her if she would remember certain memories and such, making it more believable that this is actually just the main character retelling what had happened before.

Speaking of something believable, I would have to strongly add that the tone of the author was crafted with great skill. When reading the novel, I noticed that the tone was not of someone who was in their late thirties, but more of someone who was in their early adolescent years. Such examples of this would be various syntax errors or occasional hyperbolic phrases to emphasize some extremities during some parts of the novel. So I think that the tone was really something that was exceptionally demonstrated by the author in this novel.

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This novel has a very clear example of what a flat character is, and what a round character is. Roberta O’Grady, also known as Aunt Bobbie to the younger children, is the definition of a flat character. In the story, she is quite simplistic and fictional, in a way that no one would pay much attention to her part in the novel unless it truly focuses on her. Aunt Bobbie remains the same throughout most of the novel, showing indifference towards the abuse of her nephew and nieces by their mother, her sister. However, towards the climax of the story, Aunt Bobbie finally comes to an epiphany that she must save her kin from the terrible mess her sister had created, showing a dramatic twist in the irony of the novel. Murdoch McIlvane, friend to the children and ex-boyfriend to Nicole Walsh, proves to be much of a round character. In the novel, he takes on many roles of being the hero, the friend, the boyfriend, and the perfect father. His motifs and attitudes in the novel show much development and intricacy. It is him that is the actual driving force of the novel to reach the climax, for when he saw what Nicole had been capable of, he decided to take action to protect the children from her.

Speaking of Murdoch McIlvane, in the novel he is perceptibly juxtaposed to the children’s father Benjamin Walsh. Benjamin, who had been driven out of the family by Nicole, lives alone and sends money regularly back to the family to help support his children. Albeit, he does not spend much time with them and does not act compassionate about the monstrous situation they are in—even though he is fully aware of what is happening inside the walls of Nicole’s territory. On the other hand, as mentioned before, Murdoch McIlvane acts as a loving father and friend to the children, giving them as much attention as possible. Irony has it, these two men eventually work together against Nicole Walsh to free the children of their mother’s custody.

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All in all, I truly believe that this story depicts a high level of verisimilitude—due to the fact that not only is the story believable, but also because of the tone of the author. I want to fully emphasize on tone, because this is the main stimulant that provides the basic foundation of how true I found this story was to real life, even though I knew it was fiction.

Pictures Cited:

http://www.coebrownacademy.com/images/2009SAA/images/Krystal%20Costa%20Dysphoria_jpg.jpg

http://www.mnn.com/sites/default/files/scared-kid.jpg

http://atlasnetwork.org/toolkit/wp-content/uploads/letter-writing.jpg

http://www.mscod.state.mn.us/cd/docs/RS_images/mentaldis.jpg

http://www.betterbaking.com/UserFiles/image/OLD%20LADY%20ROLLING%20DOUGH.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/adaptiveblue_img/books/rules_of_survival/nancy_werlin

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Due to a dispute with the nation’s government and internet censorship, Google had announced the postponement of the launch to their new Android cell phones in China.

Publicized just one week after, the leader in internet search engine stated that it was ‘considering pulling out of China’ immediately after detecting a series of cyber-based attacks aimed towards accessing the e-mail accounts of various human rights activists both in mainland China, and abroad. Those who had been hacked were not only the Chinese people themselves, but were also expatriates in China.

According to the Foreign Correspondents Club in China, “at least two Gmail accounts of foreign journalists in Beijing, including one at Associated Press television, have also been hacked.” The fact foreign citizens in China are susceptible to being invaded of their own privacy [possibly by the Chinese government themselves] is truly, very alarming.

In defence to Google’s flamboyant accusation on the Chinese government, Chinese rival Baidu claimed the retreat to be duplicitous and ‘financially stimulated’—seeing as how Google right now only claims approximately 24% of the Chinese search market where-else Baidu claims over 61%. Adding to the media stir, in the US trade that week, Baidu’s shares rose up by 13% and Google’s down by 0.57%.

Just recently, furthering the constant allegations between the two companies, Yahoo! Stepped up and sided with Google to emphasize the severity of internet security, stating that Google was not the only company that had been targeted by the attacks, but also another twenty large companies from a series of different industries. Yahoo! Also revealed that it had “no choice other than to comply with a request from Beijing to share information of active journalists.” This was in 2007. The journalists that had been handed over are now sentenced to ten years in jail.

If the business giant continues to strip internet privacy to obtain what ever they feel will benefit them, they are showing that they still cannot accept digital modernization.

Works Cited:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/google-china-dispute-grows-hacking-claims/story?id=9599223.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/13/technology/Yahoo_Google_China/index.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8467491.stm

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“There are those in the world who mean you harm, and sometimes, they are the ones who say they love you.” In her novel, The Rules of Survival, Nancy Werlin portrays a deeply captivating tale of a boy in his ventures to protect his two younger sisters from their abusive mother. She tells the story in the view of a young pre-pubescent child named Matthew Walsh. Throughout the novel, the audience learns how Matthew and his sisters have become well accustomed to living under a roof indulged in fear. Fear in which no child should ever be allowed to contend with.

As Matthew describes it, “Fear is your friend. When you feel it, act.” By this, he implies that many people act the way they do because they are submissive to fear— just like how a mother can pick up a whole end of a car when her baby is stuck underneath. It is the adrenaline rush powered by fear, that stimulates a person’s action. Throughout the novel, Matthew feeds off of this fear. causing him to make irrational decisions such as inviting a man into their family—potentially endangering both the man and Matthew himself.

“Protect the little ones” was the excuse that Matthew had used when he brought Murdoch McIlvane into the Walsh household. By inviting this man into the family, Matthew was lead to believe that he finally found sanctuary from his venomous mother. However this was not the case. Sadly, this was never the case. With much pain and anguish, readers will shed many tears in reading this horrific account of a young boy’s prevaricating actions to obtain the necessity that he needs to provide protection for his sisters and himself against their mother.

In my opinion, the reason why I enjoyed this book very much was because it was so realistic. Too realistic. Of course, many times when an author attempts to write a book in the views of a person that is other than them-self, they often do not succeed because of their different personalities and such. However, in this novel, Nancy Werlin had created such an eccentric piece of writing, that I almost believed that she was a young pre-pubescent child living under an abusive mother as well. Furthermore, it had lead me to open my eyes up to many children even nowadays, who experience a similar lifestyle to Matthew Walsh.

Engrossing from the start to the very end, I would truly recommend this book to those who know nothing other than the comfort of their own family.

Oh and remember, “In the end, the survivor gets to tell the story.” (M. Walsh, Matt’s Rules of Survival)

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