TED Review:

After watching the video of Keith Barry marvelously fooling the audience, I was fascinated how human brains work. He successfully managed to prove that our brains are often tricked, and these cryptic tricks remain as unexplained enigmas. After watching this video, I became a zealous fanatic of neuroscience.

           So, how did he demonstrate that our brains are much more fascinating and exciting to explore than we think? He asked for two volunteers, and he showed the audience how he can fool one of them using the other. After covering one of the volunteers’ eyes, Keith Barry manipulated her sensations, and when he touched the other volunteer’s body, the first volunteer reacted. Even though it looked amateurish and fallacious, it was true; Keith Barry was able to fool the first volunteer’s brain. After watching the first volunteer saying how Keith touched her back when he only touched the second volunteer’s, I started to doubt: maybe, the things we see, hear, smell, and touch around us are all hallucinations our brains engendered. Maybe, there is someone out there who is controlling all of our sensations so that we believe this world to be real.

           Not only that, Keith demonstrated psychokinesis too. The volunteer was able to break a glass bottle using a single glass shard without exerting any force in it. According to Keith, the volunteer transmitted all the negative forces and sensations into the shard, granting it force that can break the bottle. Even though seeming impossible, the glass bottle, which did not break when dropped, separated into pieces by the shard. At first, I was full of disdain when Keith talked about psychokinesis. I mean, who would not be dubious when someone talks about brain power which is neither tangible nor visible? According to the internet, psychokinesis is power that is generated by the brain; it cannot be explained by physics as it is not a matter. It does not have any mass, and it I am highly skeptical whether it can be explained by neuroscience either. 

Keith was not just being pretentious; he did not just try to be extolled with his saccharine voice. This neuroscience experience was not just an ephemeral demonstration that can be condoned. His exemplary experiments proved that neuroscience is not just a hypothetical, tentative idea. This video was a revolution. It was a novel idea that was just too esoteric.

Review: Defense of the Ancient [DOTA]

Welcome to DOTA, or Defense of the Ancient. It is a game one can either enjoy alone, or with teammates. More accurately describing, it is a map of Warcraft, the game created by Blizzard.  

           What is this game called DOTA? It is a game that is categorized under tower defense, where one chooses a hero and defends his base. If one of the bases is destroyed by the opposing team, then that team loses. One team consists of five people, and you can also play against computers, or bots.

           DOTA is unbelievably famous and notorious in foreign countries, especially in Chinese provinces. It is extremely addictive that people, mostly teenagers, just get soaked in. In Singapore where I used to stay, high school students all know how to play DOTA as if it is a kind of sport that they enjoy. It is impossible to stop playing when you learn how to play.

           How is the game played? Firstly, you choose a hero you want to play with. There are three types of heroes: strength, agility, and intelligence. For a hero that is categorized under strength, HP is the most important; that is, per one strength point, the hero gets its maximum HP increased. An agility hero has its advantage in attacking speed, movement speed, and armor. An intelligence hero is able to use strong spells. Then you have to earn gold by killing the minions. You have to make sure that you whack the minion with the last hit; otherwise, you do not get the gold for that particular minion. Using the gold earned, the hero is able to equip items he bought in item shops in his own base. These items strengthen the hero, allowing it to destroy towers and kill other heroes with ease.

           This game requires an accurate fingering skill. You can only receive gold when you whack the minion for the last time, so you have to be always clicking the mouse. You have to make sure that your timing is accurate, in order to earn gold necessary to get stronger. For me, I took a very long time adjusting to only whacking the minion with the last hit. It might take you a year to master this skill.

          

           Teamwork is also necessary in this game. In DOTA, you are unable to solo-play throughout the whole game. You need your teammates to back you up, and you have to specialize in one particular job. A tanker should build on his armor and HP, and be the shield when fighting. A carry has to build damage and attacking speed so that he can deal the most damage to the opponents. In order to gang the opponents, you need to team up with your companions. Sometimes you will fail to coordinate with your teammates, and the opponent might try to use that chance to counter-attack you. If there is no teamwork present in your team when you are involved in a mass fight, the chance of you losing is extremely high.


           However, in order to play with your friends, you need to use a program called 'Garena', where you can meet a lot of people around the world. Battle.Net does not work, because everyone has different pirated versions of Warcraft. You can play alone with computers, or bots, but you will soon realize that you can easily out-level them. Then, you will have to play with other players who are much better than bots. 


           I am writing a review on this game, because I was really impressed how perfect the balance among the heroes was. One hero cannot overpower other heroes with its skills, and all heroes require some techniques to play. For me, as I have tried all kinds of different heroes, I usually played 'random', where I randomly get a hero assigned. That proved the other team that I knew how to play all heroes well, and it was always exciting to guess what hero I would be selected. 

           For me, I am going to give DOTA 10 stars, as I really enjoyed playing it in Singapore with my friends. It was the only game I played, the only game I became addicted to.

Mr. Moon's assignment: 3 words

Zealous, meticulous, ant

           What do ants do? They work in summer time so that they have enough to eat in winter, when they cannot go out to gather food. Like always prepared ants, I can endure whatever hardship that I face. Like a zealous ant which prepared for winter with passion, I complete my assignments with ardor. Like a meticulous ant which cares about every step it takes and every piece of bread it picked up, I always make sure I take the right step, and follow the correct route.

Reading Journal #2: after reading "The Body"

This is the second reading journal of Stephen King’s “Different Seasons.” I have read the first 30 pages of “The Body”, and I have to tell you in truth that I was indeed confused. King’s writing style for “The Body” was quite, I have to say, unique. As the story progresses from the perspective of the narrator who is a teenager, the way he writes sounds like so. Therefore, there are some slangs included that are quite hard to comprehend unless you have grown up in the United States.

           The plot is as interesting as “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”. However, “The Body” is quite different from King’s style of writing. Instead of a horror story, it is about four boys who venture into the woods where they find life, death, and clues of human mortality. I am quite sure “The Body” is one of the few stories King wrote that is not based on horror. Even though the first 30 pages do not reveal much, I can tell that the story is not going to continue onto that King’s typical theme; instead, I believe “The Body” will focus more on themes that are related to intimations of human mortality.

            I can say that “The Body” is as impactful as his other horror stories; in fact, it is even scarier. As the main theme is death which all of us are afraid and unknown of, readers might find it more closely related to. The fact that King chose boys as the protagonists also adds up to form a better developed storyline as teenagers are more ignorant about such ideas. They are too young to understand and accept such concepts as death seems, to them, very distant. These boys are also quite illiterate, which shows that they do not understand the concept of human mortality. They are also playful about finding the dead body of the boy from another town, which shows that they consider death lightly. I think this also introduces another theme King wants to talk about: human ignorance.

           When I was reading the part about two teenagers having a sexual intercourse, I basically freaked out. The description was too detailed, and it was indeed shocking when I realized that Mr. Garrioch wanted us to read this. The way King penned it down was so realistic, so horrifying, and so weird.

           I cannot really say that I have enjoyed “The Body” so far, maybe because the story has not progressed much. However, it approached me in a new sense that I have never read before, and I am glad to continue reading it.

Reading Journal #1

First of all, I apologize for posting this reading journal so late. I should have written this before the mid-term exam to organize my thoughts about “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”. However, I still need to write about it, and therefore in this piece of work, I will tell you how I felt while, and after reading this story.

           Just to give you a brief summary regarding the story outline, Andy moves into prison where the narrator stays. The narrator was arrested for accidental murders, and Andy was wrongly accused. Andy, who does not want to be powerless in jail, refuses to obey to the Sisters. Then a man who really killed Andy’s wife and her lover gets arrested, and Andy desperately begs for retrial. However, his implore is cruelly rejected, and he plans to escape. He buys a tool to dig out the ground and a Rita Hayworth poster to hide the hole from the narrator. He slowly begins, and eventually escapes, leaving the narrator a message. After the narrator is freed, he goes to visit Andy.

           The plot was indeed interesting. Even though some parts were quite disgusting to read such as the Sisters trying to rape Andy, those parts made the prison life more realistic, and the suspense when Andy planned to escape from prison, the friction caused between the Sisters and Andy etc. were all important components of the story. It is known that Stephen King visited the real prison to write this story, which can be shown in the realistic description of prison life.

           Another interesting fact is that Andy is the main protagonist. Even though the narrator is also there, the story progresses as Andy makes a move. The narrator is observing Andy, so the perspective is third person observer. I am quite sure that if the story focused on the narrator instead of Andy, “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” I know would not have been this much fun to read. . Andy is a dynamic character and his actions get the readers nervous, cheerful, and even bring them on feet. .

           This story, unlike other stories of Stephen King, is not really a typical King novel; it does not contain any horror or gore. Instead, it focuses more on adventure, on how Andy carries out his plans. Therefore, it is much more interesting to read as King broke the stereotype and wrote a story that is considered novel.

Metafiction: My miserable, yet potential life

“James, could you please focus?” a sharp voice woke me up. I was daydreaming during English class, and it was Mr. Frost, our boring teacher who shrilled at me.

           “I am so sorry sir,” I apologized and stared at the white board. However, I was unable to concentrate as a thought bugged me. It stopped me from carrying on with my English assignment which led to Mr. Frost shouting at me again.

           I am a sophomore in Overseas Family School which makes it hard for me to cope with the heavy burden of workload. But at the time I need to focus the most, I began to become all nostalgic. It was not even gradual; the thought of my childhood just hit me all of a sudden and started disturbing me since then.

           Sometimes I get buried deep in my own thoughts till I suffer from extreme nostalgia. Why did my childhood pass so fast? What have I done during my childhood, when I was so pure, so ignorant to realize the true side of the world? I only believed in the facets of what I saw, which seemed mystical and somewhat related to my destiny.

           It seems that I am unable to get out of this. I keep thinking of my primary school friends whom I lost contact with since the graduation ceremony. I can even clearly remember my best friend, Gregor, and my first love, Joel.

           “James, what is wrong with you today?” Another sharp voice ringed my ears. Waking up, I found out my assignment was all wet with drool. I quickly wiped it off, and started finishing off the assignment. I was quite sure I would get a grade lower than C for sure as I wrote not more than 150 words for an essay. Sighing, I desperately implored Mr. Frost for five more minutes. His glance told me that not even one extra minute is allowed, so I folded my assignment in half, and threw it into the dust bin. I gave Mr. Frost a look that got him really annoyed, and walked out of the classroom.

           I went out of school, but had nowhere to go. I just walked home, sat at my desk, and began to look back at my miserable life.

           Even at this moment I'm thinking about how I should have studied harder. It won't make any difference in my life, but that's what I do regret. Right now, with a cup of coffee in my hand, I'm looking out the window of my house. There, in the backyard, is an old tree. My father used to tell me that it had been planted by my great grandfather when he first bought this house. Well, that's not what I want to talk about today, though. What I want to talk about is my childhood friend Gregor.
   When Gregor and I were seven, we used to climb the old tree. We climbed up and jumped down from the lowest branch. We used to.. until that day. I clearly remember the day he fell the wrong way and cracked his skull. Poor fellow.. I heard he is still in the hospital.

           Yes, Gregor was my best friend. He was even there when I asked Joel out for dinner. He had always been on my side no matter what happened till his parents declared I was not allowed to go near him after he fell off from the tree. He was my only friend, and I was able to confide all my secrets to him.

           Ever since he moved into hospital, I went back to my normal life; that is, talking to no one and smiling at no one. I believed that all the people around me are enemies and therefore, not trustworthy. I believed that friends are useless, and all they do is sucking out my money and time. However, this faith did not last for long. As time passed by, I became lonelier and lonelier, and no one was there for me.

           Even at this moment, I'm regretting my hermitlike life. I regret that I didn't make any friends. I especially regret that I never had any girlfriend. I can still remember when Joel, a girl I met at my elementary school, turned me down. I can still remember the exact words.
   "Jong Hyun, you are nice, but you are not my type." That got me so depressed that I became reluctant to make any more friends. Now, I know that I should have been more active. I should have asked more girls out.. Or wait. Maybe it's not too late yet. I will hit on every girl I see from now on.

           I stood up, changed into my favorite clothes, and strolled out of my house. As I walked down the narrow alley, I saw a lot of women in their various ages. When I passed by a girl around my age, I smiled at her, showing my bright red gum. When my target was an old woman, I accosted her and asked her politely whether she needed some help. My plan was to be nice to every girl I see, and put them all on my side.

           Okay. I'm going to make this real good. I murmured to myself as I opened the door to the outer world, the door to end this creepiness dwelling inside of me that drove everybody away. I will now reborn as a Casanova, the king of chicks. Although it is challenging for me to change my habit so abruptly, but hell, my decision is as firm as the good old Berlin Wall. You chicks just wait and see, I will be there in no time.

           It would not be easy. I had always been alone, so it would be really tough for me to change my hermitlike personality into an amiable one. But I will make sure I try my best. I will try my best to become gregarious, and fit into the society.

           From now on, I will attend every party held as long as there are girls. From now on, I will learn the techniques of asking girls out from my best friend, Peter Si, the greatest Casanova of our era. I heard that he fell in love with Joel, so I guess I have to let her go as i is impossible to compete against this guy. However, my golden age begins today. I will take over the world, with every girl on my side, and we will march together arm in arm.