No Backpacks Allowed!

After school today, I went to Circle K to buy a drink. As I walked in, the cashier didn't say anything which didn't seem like a big deal to me until a few minutes later when a group of mexican high school students came in. As soon as they entered, the cashier told them to leave their backpacks next to the entrance. Here I am with my backpack on and they had to take it off? That didn't make any sense to me. As I walked up to pay for my drink, I was expecting the cashier to tell me to leave my backpack by the entrance the next time I come but instead, he smiled at me and started making conversation with me, asking how my day was, what grade I was in, and other trivial questions. I answered politely but in the back of my mind, I was thinking about his unfair treatment. I didn't stay to find out but I was pretty certain that he wouldn't have been as cheerful serving them as he was with me.

Now, I don't mean to sound judgemental here, but the group of mexicans looked like what someone might call a sterotypical "gangster" with their clothes and appearance. I'm not saying they are. I don't even know any of them. But with the way the cashier acted, it was as if he believed they were, immediately judging them on their looks only. Whereas me on the other hand, in his eyes, I probably looked harmless based on my appearance and nice clothes as I was wearing a fancy sweater at the time. Maybe I'm overthinking things as it simply could be the fact that they entered in as a group and so it would have been eaiser for them steal something whereas I entered in alone but regardless of the reason, at the very least, he should have been fair and consistent with his treatment and told me the same thing as them. As for the cashier himself, he was a white man, not Asian like me which otherwise would have made him seem even more biased although this still does not excuse his unfairness.

This kind of thing has been going on for a long time now and it isn't just Circle K telling teenagers who enter to leave their backpacks behind as almost every store does this. You never see them telling adults to leave their bags behind but they do this to teenagers because they are viewed as trouble makers whereas adults are viewed as more mature. Once again, this is judgement based on looks and appearance. Just because some teenagers shoplift doesn't mean every single teenager shoplifts and just because someone is an adult doesn't mean they won't shoplift. I can't blame them however, as they have to take precautions in order to prevent as many shoplifts as possible but I still think they need to be fair and incorporate this to everyone rather than just a specific group of people.

Procrastination = Mr Brook's Class Am I Right

According to Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at De Paul University in Chicago, and Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, twenty percent of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators. (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200308/procrastination-ten-things-know) If you had Mr. Brooks last year in his AP Human Geography Class and/or are currently taking his AP European History class this year like me then I'm sure you must know the word procrastination. I remember my math teacher one day said that everyone was out of it and a lot of students were blaming Mr. Brooks for it, saying that he gave out too much homework. I'm not gonna lie and say that I don't procrastinate because I do. Although it's mainly Mr. Brook's class that people mainly procrastinate for, it is not the only one as I'm sure everyone procrastinates for all of their classes. And then afterwards, people complain about being stressed out and how teachers give out too much homework, causing them to only sleep for a few hours. Speaking of sleep, according to the same professors mentioned before, procrastination causes health issues as just over the course of a single academic term, procrastinating college students had such evidence of compromised immune systems as more colds and flu, more gastrointestinal problems as well as having insomnia.

In Mr. Brooks's class, he gives out everything a few weeks in advance, allowing you to work on it periodically and yet almost no one does that as everyone waits until the due date is approaching before trying to cram weeks worth of homework into a few days. This however, doesn't just apply to just his class as this is the case for an assignment for any class that isn't due the very next day as people have a mindset where they're like "Oh, I have plently of time!" In my personal opinion, I believe teachers give out a fine amount of homework, maybe a little too much, but nothing to the extrodinary like what many other people say. 

Procrastination is what causes us to complain about the amount of homework we have when in reality, it isn't as much as we think it is. All we need to do is cut the amount of time spent doing frivolous activities. Instead of playing for serveral hours everyday maybe devote at the most, an hour each day on a large assignment that's not due for while. I mean, an hour less won't kill you right? Especially if it means you won't have to sit at your desk for several hours straight and staying up past midnight doing homework, wishing you could be playing or sleeping. Procrastination doesn't just apply to homework however. It appplies to other situations as well and if people are constantly procrastinating with homework currently, then it will become a habit as they grow up. In the end, it's your choice but if you do happen to go the procrastination route, then don't complain since it is your fault.  

Is Nintendo A Bad Gaming Company?

One of my friends said that he doesn't like Nintendo games and his comment inspired me to write this post. He didn't say anything about hating Nintendo as a company however there are actually people who do and I would like to explain my opinions for why this is the case.

People say Nintendo is greedy. An example of this can be displayed through one of their most famous franchise, Pokemon. There is always two to three versions of the same game with a few things exclusive to one version. If you want to get everything, you would have buy all of the different versions even though they are all essentially the same thing except for a few small differences. This allows Nintendo to make more money with minimal effort as they have only make minor modifications to the same game. Not only that, but Nintendo has also made the most consoles out of any gaming company. I just recently found out that there is going to be a New Nintendo 3DS coming to America soon which will incorporate a couple of changes to the current 3DS however, there are going to be games that you can only play on the New Nintendo 3DS meaning that you would have to buy it in order to play those games.

The biggest reason however, I think, for why people dislike Nintendo is that many people percieve their games as "kiddy". Nowadays, it is not uncommon to see many kids and teenagers play rated M games. Games have to be violent and involve shooting, weapons, blood, etc to be considered "good" which are things Nintendo games don't have.

If you want to know what I think about all of this, I personally don't care. I simply buy and play games that I like or seems interesting to me no matter what company made it or what others say about it. Not everyone is like this as some only buy games from a certain company or rely on others to tell them whether or not they should purchase it. It is not easy to make a game much less make one that pleases everyone. If all of your money comes from the number of people who buy your products, then of course you are going to try and find some way to make more people buy it. I don't think that is considered greedy since everyone would do that. People should stop hating on Nintendo. It's okay to not like their games, but people shouldn't be talking about bad about them as a company.

America Is Ungrateful (Free Post #1)

America is not grateful for what they have. In particular, I want to talk about how America is taking advantage of other countries, mainly Japan. A while ago, the Japanese government enforced an anti-piracy act/law which is their attempt to remove illegally uploaded copies of anime and manga. If you don't know, anime and manga are forms of entertainment that started in Japan, but then popularized all all around the world, manga being the Japanese version of a comic book, and anime being the animated version of the manga.  

According to http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136501-Japanese-Government-Enforcing-Anti-Piracy-Law-on-Anime-and-Manga-Update, online piracy has made Japan lose nearly 20 billion dollars. This act is trying to cut the sources of scanlations in order to make it so people buy the manga legally. Scanlation is when manga is tranlated into a different langauge and put online so that people can read it for free. The newest edition of both the Japanese and English version of Weekly Shonen Jump, one of the most popular magazines featuring multiple mangas, is offically released on Mondays (http://shonenjump.viz.com/faq). Previously, people who worked on scanlations would get access to it before its official release and so it would be online around Wednesday of the previous week. This act has not completly gotten rid of scanlations but it has improved slightly as now, the scanlations are online on Mondays, the day of the official release, as opposed to Wednesdays. However, this has caused many people to start complaining about having to wait extra days for the new chapters.

Japan wants us to buy manga, but we don't. We are getting free entertainment and yet we still complain. We are taking advantage of Japan and causing them to lose billions of dollars as they work hard to publish and create manga. It isn't just manga as animes are also steamed illegally and put online for us to watch for free when we are supposed to buy it. We also download roms of video games made not just by Japan, but from many other countries so that we can play them for free. Another example is downloading free music. There are so many other things that we have freeloaded off. America has had all of this free for a long time now but we are still not grateful, as we expect even more.

This post was inspired by a video of an anime and manga reviewer that I watched, with some of the information in this post coming from it. As a warning, the video does have some language in it so don't watch it if you don't like foul langauge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=texORzra1JQ&list=UU_LDTZuy4FWeVcsVU2kfoww 

Response To Community Post #1

Women have been treated differently ever since the beginning. Even today that is the case depsite what some people might say as shown with the majority of Google's workers being male. In a New York Times article, it mentions how Google is upset and uphappy with their gender diversity and lists multiple things that they are doing to attempt to stop this problem like sponsoring programs and studying how they hire people in order to reduce bias but they fail to mention their results of these actions. There is a well known saying that this reminds me of. "You can talk the talk but can you walk the walk?" Google is listing all of these things they say that they are doing but are all of these things actually working? Nobody will know untill Google starts telling the results of these changes they claim they are doing. It is easy for them to say all these things they are doing to make themselves look better, how they aren't just sitting there and doing nothing, but in the end, if none of these things actually accomplish anything, does it really matter?

Google however, isn't the only company to use as evidence towards the mistreatment of women. In that same New York Times article, it says how other companies like Facebook, Apple and Yahoo have similiar results for their gender diveristy. One thing all of these companies have in common is that they are all very popular and well known. Everyone has heard of them but what about lesser known comapanies? If lesser known companies also have a gender diversity problem, we would not be hearing about it. The reason for that is that people would not care about it since the companies aren't as popular. It sounds horrible but it's the truth. When people hear Google, they start flipping out but if they hear some random company they'll toss it aside. This means that there is most likely even more discrimination towards females that we have not heard of. There is already a lot of discrimination but there's actually even more? In the end though, as Lazlo Bock said the New York Times article, everyone is a little racist and sexist. They must be aware of that fact and that it is happening all around us even if it is unintentional before it can stop.