Alec Bondi's Blog

Step 1: In his documents, the first thing I notice is that I cannot read his handwriting, or very barely can read his handwriting. I can only pick out a couple words, all mismatched. For example, near the bottom of the documents page, I was able to make out "Come now we will see what you are made of." Other quotes I was able to make out are: "whether there is any this in you," "welcome the trial," "Ship of the world - ship of humanity," and "the last war." I can't make out the words and sentences around these because either I cannot read cursive, which is very likely, or Walt Whitman has even worse handwriting than I do, but I think he may be brainstorming for poems he was either thinking of writing, or for poems that he did write. The pictures in the notebook, however, are relatively easy to make out. The first picture is of Walt Whitman himself, but just his face looking off to the left. Another is him again, with almost the same...

To me, the American Dream is having an abundance of opportunities that would allow a person to soar above the average person, allowing them to gain happiness above where they were before, and possibly even gain a large amount of wealth. And by wealth, I mean having an abundance of money or valuable possessions, like jewelry. Almost every American wishes to become wealthy sometime in their lives. It seems to bring happiness to those who have it, which makes sense because they won't need to worry about material problems, like bills or debt. Some wealthy people, however, don't say being wealthy solves all of your problems, rather they say it can cause more problems. For example, those people could possibly have thieves constantly trying to take their money, while others may have family members who only like them anymore because they believe they will give them money. Once you have money, it seems like all of your problems will go away, however, it can cause some unforeseen consequ...

Prep: Passage: IOC: Grade: A: 5 - Because I show adequate knowledge of the text and points are usually backed up by the passage. B: 4 - Because I have some awareness of the literary devices, however, I have few references on their effects on the reader. C: 4 - Because the IOC is well organised and the structure is mostly coherent. D: 4 - Because the language is appropriate and there's good grammar. The style is also effective.

First Translation: This translation is the shortest of the four translations and is also the least descriptive. It also changes the character's name from Gregor, like in the original and other translations, to Gregory. This translation also just throws you into the conflict, immediately saying he woke up as a giant bug, without any description of his situation; meanwhile the other translations have at least one word before his name to make it more of a complex sentence. The use of "giant bug" also is not very descriptive compared to the other translations, like "gigantic insect." Second Translation: This translation is much more detailed. It lets us know that he was transformed into an enormous bug, which gives us a better understanding of how big he is, unlike the word giant. It also lets us know that he transformed into the bug in his bed, which lets us know that he didn't possibly sleep walk somewhere else while transforming, and also lets us know he wa...

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TED Talk: How video games turn players into storytellers https://www.ted.com/talks/david_cage_how_video_games_turn_players_into_storytellers#t-501271 The TED Talk I chose is "How video games turn players into storytellers." The speaker is a video game developer for a popular action-adventure game: Detroit: Become Human. In the talk, the speaker talks about how film, TV, and book writers write stories that are very one-sided, stories that don't have any choice, because the writers are the ones who made all of the choices. He details how storytelling is supposed to mimic life and cause the audience to feel emotions. However, there is a part of storytelling that the conventional storytelling methods can't reproduce, which are choices. He argues that choices are a huge part of our lives, but with the conventional storytelling methods, the audience only watches as the characters deal with the consequences of their own choices. Video games, however, present the ability to...