So, working with the university some more, these students organized a three day game: starting Thursday at 5 PM, and ending Sunday at 5 PM.  The students wanted to have a week-long game, but the university wanted to see how the game would work with people travelling between classes before they allowed that.  I got a Nerf gun for Christmas, and was eager for the game to get started.    I attended the necessary meeting to sign up for the game, and just had to wait until Thursday to start playing.

Now, after the game is over, I have this to say: I can’t wait for the week-long game which is planned for some time in April.  Humans vs. Zombies is not only a great excuse to run around campus with a Nerf gun, shooting people for the fun of it, but also a great way to be social and meet new people.  The teamwork and strategy involved is amazing, and I definitely met some great people I would have otherwise never said hi to.  Needless to say, I’ve been disappointed to find out that some college campuses refuse to allow the game to happen.

A lot of the arguments I’ve seen against the game from universities has been the use of Nerf guns.  Even my university has a policy against allowing Nerf guns in the dorm rooms, but most RAs here don’t seem to mind them, as long as we’re not running around in the hallways and causing a ruckus.  The people on the Humans vs. Zombies website also have some interesting advice to getting around this: never call them Nerf “guns”.  Nerf themselves refers to them as Nerf “blasters”, with foam “darts”, so use this terminology.  It may seem like small change, but I can see how it would make a big difference.

Another issue has been the use of bandannas in the game.  Players must wear a bandanna around either their arm or head to denote whether they are a human or zombie.  However, some universities worry that this can be seen as a gang symbol, and, coupled with carrying a Nerf “gun”, this would not look good to the local police.  The solution the Humans vs. Zombies website has for this is, unfortunately, costly.  The organization sells bright-orange bandannas for use in the game.  It should be clear to most cops that no gang would use bright orange bandannas that say either “HUMAN” or “ZOMBIE” as a gang sign, so there should be no trouble.  Unfortunately, these bandannas cost $5 each.  Hopefully, though, people will play the game once, buying a bandanna, and donate the bandanna to the people organizing the game when they no longer wish to take part in it.  Of course, fundraisers are also an option.

Overall, to universities who want to consider banning Humans vs. Zombies, I say this: please don’t.  The game does not promote gun violence, or shooting people, etc.  It’s a social event that’s a lot of fun for students to take part in, and makes the campus come to life.  If you want to consider banning the game for its violence, you should also ban any video game with violence in it in the dorms.  I urge universities to work with students to figure out a way to get the game going even if they have worries about one aspect of the game.  Students won’t have all the ideas on how to work around restrictions: offer suggestions that would work well for both parties.

As a final note, Humans vs. Zombies would look great to prospective students.  As a senior in high school, if I had visited a college and there were a bunch of kids running around with Nerf guns shooting each other… that would give the school huge bonus points.

Now, after reading this article and seeing the movie, you may feel the movie isn’t good enough to see it three or four times, and that’s fine.  But if you go see the movie and think it was bad, then I think you’re just looking for something to complain about, so you found something.  The only people I’ve heard of not liking this movie are comments I’ve read online.  Every person I actually know that saw it thought it was a fantastic movie.

But, really… Why should you go see Avatar?

1. The plot line

This is the complaint I see most often, so I’m going to address it before anything else.  I’m also fairly certain that this complaint comes mostly from people who haven’t seen the movie.  I’m not going to argue that the plot isn’t cliché, because… well, it really is.  But, that’s a terrible reason to not see a movie.  First off, if the only complaint you can find about a movie is that the plot line/story has been done before, then I’d say it’s a pretty damn good movie. Overall, the basic plot line has little to do with whether a movie is good or not.  Let’s face it: almost all movies have a clichéd basic plot line.  The reason you like a movie is how the plot line plays out: character development, how the end is reached, tests that characters have to go through, etc.  Most people would rather see a story they already know because it’s less confusing, and less to follow.  You know what’s going on, you just have to sit there and go along for the ride.

2. Cutting Edge Animation

Seriously, the graphics are like nothing you’ve seen before.  I’ve heard one person say, after seeing Avatar, that it was “a pretty good cartoon,” and I’m still convinced that we didn’t watch the same movie (it should also be noted that this person complains about everything).  However, remember to not get caught up in the graphics.  If you keep saying to yourself, “Wow… these graphics are amazing,” then you’re missing the magic of the movie.  Although, at the same time, the graphics are so amazing that you do have to convince yourself every now and then that the Na’vi, the Thanator, and the Hallelujah Mountains are not real.  The previews/commercials do NOT do the movie justice.  In the previews, the Na’vi do have a unreal feeling to them, but this is not so in the movie.

3. 3D

Again, this is a revolution in film making.  The 3D in the movie is amazing, and used as a tool to immerse you into the world, instead of being used as a gimmick to have things pop out at you.  Most of the movie happens deeper into the screen, instead of outside of it.  Avatar is also the first movie to be filmed entirely in 3D.  All other movies have either only had parts filmed in 3D, or just done 3D in post-processing.  The 3D experience is amazing, cutting-edge, and greatly enhances the way you are immersed in the movie.

4. The Amount of Work

You should go see it just to see what James Cameron has devoted his whole career to.  Avatar has been the movie he’s wanted to make since he became a director, and the technology finally caught up with him.  No detail is spared in the movie.  The Na’vi language was specially crafted with the help of a linguist, and the details in the plants are stunning.  From bio-luminescence to giant flying banshees (each unique in some way), there is not a single pixel out of place.  Everything on Pandora has a purpose for being there, and the amount of detail put into the movie is incredible.

5. The Final Battle

The final battle scene is just plain awesome.  The last ~30 minutes of the movie is just this insane battle between the humans and the Na’vi, and it plays out beautifully.  Explosions galore, but everything is cut together so you know which character is where.  Girls will love Avatar for its love story, and guys will love Avatar for the battle scenes.  Seriously… it’s awesome.

Overall, it’s a wonderful movie that I’ve only heard good things about from my friends (and I’ve only been able to tell others good things)!  So… if you haven’t yet seen Avatar, you should go see it now.  And, make sure you go see it in 3D, or you’re missing out on the best part of the movie.

You know what class this is?  P.E.  You know what that stands for?  Physical Excersise.

This quote is attributed to a P.E. sub at my high school.  I’m paraphrasing, because I don’t remember the actual words, but believe me: this phrase was actually uttered by a substitute P.E. teacher.  Perhaps this wasn’t the best way to start of the blog post.  Let’s go back a bit.

A couple weeks ago, I needed a form signed so I could go on a field trip.  All of my teachers need to sign a form saying that it’s OK for me to skip out on class, and acknowleging that they realize that I’m not going to be in class that day.  Granted, most teachers just sign the form without looking at the date, but that’s beside the point.

On this form, we also have to write which class we have each hour.  So, for my seventh hour class I wrote the following: Gym.  Seemed fine to me.  I go up to my teacher and have her sign it.  She first crosses out “gym” and writes “PE”, then signs the form (all without saying anything to me).  I thought this was slightly humorous.  I didn’t think much of it because, after all, the form was signed.  However, I’ve started to think more and more of this small action.

To me, and to most of the world, PE stands for Physical Education.  Education, to me, implies that I will learn something.  It could be useless information, and it could be useful information, regardless, I should learn something.  I would attribute a class like Health to this title.  It suits all the requirements: physical — You learn about how your body functions and how to keep yourself healthy; education — did I not just use the word learn?

Let me make this a bit more clear.  Here’s how Google defines eduction:

knowledge acquired by learning and instruction

Once again, the key words here are knowlege, learning, and instruction.  These are the three important requirements in order to have the “education part.”

I would define my “P.E.” class this year as anything but that.  It consists of:

Today we’re playing tennis.  Grab a ball, racket, and partner, and start playing tennis.

No instruction, no guidance, no help while attempting to play the sport, just a: “This is what we’re doing.  Go.”  So, where, then, does the education come in?

Freshman and sophomore year was different: we actually learned about the muscles and bones in our body.  We learned about what excersises work which muscles, and we were taught easy excersises to help keep us in shape.  Once again: we learned.  This was not gym class, it truly was physical education.

So, I suggest a reform of the class.  Because Illinois is the only state that still requires four years of gym P.E. in high school, we must be true to the classes title: teach us.  It doesn’t even have to be individual attention (although that would be nice).  But, at least inform us of the rules of tennis before telling us to play.  If you want to get really crazy, try to make us play by the rules.   If we are going to take Physical Education, let’s keep the Education there.

Although, I’ve heard an alternative suggestion: make P.E. half-classroom.  This alternative would suit Illinois perfectly.  We could still have a P.E. class, but we would actually learn.  Once the program got started, the school could start offering “specialized” P.E. classes, where you can learn about one specific topic.  You could then take the P.E. class that sounded most interesting to you, instead of being stuck in a general gym class.

After all this, I have to question my school’s definition of P.E.  I was always taught that P.E. stood for Physical Education (acronym finder agrees), but it seems the crazy old gym teacher is right: PE stands for Physical Excersise.

Anyway, let me preface this post by saying this: I’m 18.  The following contains my view of things from my perspective.  I could be completely wrong.  In fact, it would be awesome if some economy expert visited my blog and posted a comment about how wrong I am, but that probably won’t happen.  Now, on to the actual post!

I get annoyed when watching TV sometimes.  It’s one particular commercial strand.  From Wal-Mart, at that!  It’s their commercials about how going to Wal-Mart to get food is cheaper than going out, so you should buy food from Wal-Mart, because you need to save money in these poor economic times.  Makes sense, right?

Wrong.  In fact, this advice will only help destroy the economy wrong.  Wal-Mart is absolutely right: our economy isn’t doing that great right now.  However, they suggest a terrible way to fix it: stop spending money.  This is exactly the opposite of what needs to be done, and what the governemnt is trying to get done to fix the economy.

If every person in America took the money they had on hand (and, perhaps, grabbed some from home, too), went out and spent it on dinner at a restaurant, clothes, entertainment, etc., that would enormously help the economy.  The reason the economy sucks is because people have stopped spending money.  Of course, when the economy sucks, people stop spending money, so it’s just a vicious cycle.

The economic stimulus package was designed to do just this: give some large corporations a bunch of money to spend on expanding their business, making new products, or whatever, as long as the companies spent it right away.  But what’s happend?  The companies have said, “Sweet!  The government is giving us money even though our business is doing fine.  Let’s just tuck this away until we really need it, and keep doing our business in the poor economy,” and layoffs continue.

So, how should this work?  Companies need to use their stimulus money to pay, or even give raises/bonuses to people they were going to lay off.  This would give normal people some extra money, they would go out for dinner to celebrate, and money would start flowing again.  It’s this whole idea of  ”saving” that keeps our economy in the dump.

Now, I’m not trying to say that saving money is a bad thing.  Saving money is great, but there are certain times where it is appropriate.  If you are going to save money, don’t save it for “in case of a REALLY crappy economy,” save money to buy something expensive.  Once again, this keeps money flowing in our economy, which stimulates it.  I’m currently saving money, myself.  Both for college, and for Nokia’s next internet tablet.  When Nokia comes out with the new tablet, I’ll buy it, pour somewhere between $400 and $500 into the economy.

However, let me make it clear that I’m not saying you shouldn’t shop at Wal-Mart.  I’m just saying that you shouldn’t shop exclusively at Wal-Mart.  If you were planning on going out to dinner, go out to dinner.  Don’t stay in just because Wal-Mart says you should.  But go ahead and shop at Wal-Mart for most nights, when you just want to make dinner at home.  But, don’t shop exclusively at Wal-Mart.  This leads to monopolies, which also destroys the economy.

To sum things up, the basic question you need to ask yourself is this: what keeps the economy healthy?  The simple answer is just as obvious as it is true: spend money.  Spending money helps shops pay employees, which gives them money to spend, etc. etc.

Being a computer geek, I’ve always found gym slightly useless.  A class where they make you run around for however long they feel like it, for no reason.  Usually, the teacher doesn’t even participate in the activity, or give demonstrations for activities.  Teachers in gym seem to not be teachers, but lesson planners.  They plan what the class will do each day.  Sometimes, as is the case in my high school, this isn’t even up to them.  The department chooses when each class will do each activity.  Although, it’s still up to the teachers to decide how to go about doing this activity.

Regardless, gym has always seemed to be more of a punishment than a class.  This is due to the fact that they only have two punishment options: make us fail (which doesn’t work for one-time offenses), or make us do more physical activity (running, usually).  Because physical activity is so often used as a punishment, we learn to associate it with punishment.  Let me give an example.  Let’s say that you enjoy, or can at least tolerate, doing push-ups.  You can do 30 push-ups without any problem.  Your gym teacher decides to make ten push-ups a punishment for some offense.  You don’t really mind push-ups, so you end up goofing off.  You get “punished” once, twice, three times.  However, you don’t realize that you’ve already done thirty, so keep goofing off.  Eventually, you’ve done forty, fifty, sixty push-ups in a day: way more than you’re comfortable with.  Now that you’ve been made to do the extra push-ups, you associate push-ups with punishment, and now loathe doing push-ups.

This, for me, has happened with running.  My high school gym program works like this: six times a year, we do “fitness testing.”  One item of this testing is a 12-minute run.  If you get 19 laps (for guys… 17 for girls), then you don’t have to run at all on Tuesdays between fitness testing weeks.  If you get under 19 laps… you are punished by needing to get “CV credit” (usually running) on some Tuesdays, instead of participating in an activity like volleyball or basketball.

Now, I understand that there are people that enjoy running, and really don’t mind this.  But, for those of us who didn’t really care for running, this has created the mindset that running is a punishment.  So, we loathe it in high school, but what happens later in life?  I do realize that exercise is important, but using exercise as a punishment can create adults that don’t want to exercise in their free time.

I even see evidence of this now.  Chicago is the fattest city in the nation.  How did this happen?  It seems to me that exercise being a punishment is partly to blame.  Adults who view exercise this way won’t want to go to the gym, or just walk around the block every day, to stay in shape.

So, what can we do to fix this?  For starters, we can turn gym into its official title: Physical Education.  Instead of running around every day, set apart a day or two a week to be classroom time, where we learn how different activities can keep us in shape.  Show us worst-case scenarios even.  There are plenty of health channel specials on people who are morbidly obese.  This is the same scare tactic that taught us we shouldn’t smoke, and I like to think that it worked for most of my peers.  In addition to that, teach us healthy eating habits, and show us ways to build simple exercises into our daily routine: take the stairs instead of the elevator, ride your bike to the post office if you need to mail a letter, etc.

However, the exercise as punishment issue remains.  I have no good idea of how to get rid of, or even reduce the effect of this.  My school has taken a step towards this, however.  There is no possible way to be required to run on every Tuesday between fitness testing weeks.  This insures that you will have one day in gym where you choose what you want your activity to be.

Maybe requiring four years (eight semesters) of P.E. in high school is OK.  But if that is going to continue, a change needs to be made.  Just look at the name of the class for inspiration: Physical Education.  Physical Education does not imply running around a track.  It implies learning about physical activity, and learning to use it as a tool to stay in shape.  Overall, it implies learning.  Something that I don’t see happening currently.

It’s simple really: people are still willing to pay $250 for a Wii.  As long as Nintendo can sell Wiis for $250, and make a huge profit while doing so, they might as well.  While Wiis are becoming easier and easier to find, they’re still flying off the shelf.

It’s worth noting here that Nintendo has, from day one, been making a profit from every Wii sold.  So, it stands to reason that they’re now making a HUGE profit on every Wii sold.  Taking away 45% from $250 means that the Wii should now cost about $137.

But there’s something else.  A small note that’s often forgotten.  Nintendo will have to drop the price of the Wii eventually, so they can boost sales again.  When this happens, Nintendo will be able to drop the price by $100 – $150!  This will be an insane price drop, and ignite intrest in the Wii once more, making them hard to find.  This price drop could put the Wii anywhere between $100 and $150, making it, once again, the cheapest current-gen video game system.

Nintendo has, yet again, found a way to print money.  Make a system that is the cheapest current-gen system when it launches, with the fun gimmick of having motion-sensitive controls.  Then, let the manufacturing price drop while you keep your price the same, and every other system lowers the price.  Wait until interest in your console dies down, and… drop the price, and make it the cheapest current-gen system again.  Nintendo knows what’s going on.

Every week day I get up at 6:15 in the morning (which some of my friends would say is late, even), eat breakfast, and go to school.  While my first class doesn’t start until 7:30, I get there early to have some socializing time/for the convinience of my parents, who drive me to school.  I have classes (including lunch, and five-minute passing periods) until 2:50.  This includes two AP classes, which are, luckily for me, spread out: on in the morning, one in the afternoon.  By the end of this day, I’m pretty mentally exhausted.  But that’s not all.  I participate in the theatre tech crew at my school.  I’ve been a member all four years, and am even getting an award for my work.  So, every day after school, I go to the theatre to work on whatever show we’re working on until 5:30/6:00 on normal days.  On show days, I usually just stay after school until the show, run the show, and get home around 10 PM.

By the time I get home at 6, I’m pretty mentally and physically tired.  Upon getting home, dinner is usually ready, and we eat right away.  We’ll say I take… 30 minutes for dinner (it varies… when dinner is ready, etc.).  It’s now 6:30 PM (I’ve been awake for 12 hours), and my day isn’t close to being done.  I now have to do homework for my two AP classes: AP Calculus BC, and AP Physics C.  Some of my friends have more AP classes, but this is my blog, so I’m focusing on me here .  AP Calculus has homework every single day.  Usually 25 or so very repetitive problems.  Sometimes, these problems even have various parts: a, b, c, …  The difficulty of the problem, and amount of time it takes me to do, depends on what unit we’re on.  The course syllabus said to expect to spend one to two hours on homework each night, so I’ll see 1.5 hours of math homework as a compromise.

It’s now 8:00 PM, and I’ve done my homework for ONE class.  First of all, I usually like to get to bed around 10:00, so I can get a good night’s sleep, and wake up… awake the next day.  This means I have two hours left in my day to finish the rest of my homework, and maybe have some me-time.  At this point, I have to say that I’m lucky: AP Calculus is usually my only class in which I have homework.  However, some of my peers often have more homework than this, and I can very easily see myself, on some nights, having another hour or two of homework.  Oh, yeah, and I haven’t taken a shower yet… I take a shower before I go to bed.

So, after everything I’m required to do in a day is done, it’s somewhere between 8 PM and 10 PM.  As stated previously, I like to go to bed at 10, so this leaves no “me time”.  However, even if I’m done by 8, I’m mentally and physically wiped, and just don’t want to do anything.  I’ll usually watch some TV, or maybe play a video game.  I’d like to do some coding, but I’m usually just too physically tired to work on any programs.

But what about a day where I get in some of those 15 hours a week I work?  I go home right after school, because I usually work from 5-10, usually leave at 4:45, and usually eat something before going to work.  If I get a ride home, I get home somewhere around 3, which gives me an hour and a half (3-4:30, so I can eat something) to… do homework.  Hey! That’s just the amount of time needed for Calculus.  Go to work, get home, take a shower, and go to bed about 10:30/10:45… later than normal.  On top of this, I’ve only given myself time to do Calc homework, so any other homework I have will have to wait until either my study hall (I’m lucky to have one), or my lunch period (assuming the class is after lunch).  Also note that I don’t go to bed at my normal time, and am a bit mentally awake from work, so I’m not able to go to sleep quite at 10:45.  This causes me to lose sleep, and be tired the next day.

What about the weekends?  Lately, I’ve been working from 10 AM – 5 PM on Saturdays.  I like to sleep in a bit on Saturday, and I usually wake up in time to eat breakfast, change, check my e-mail, and go to work.  When I get home from work (about 5:15), I eat dinner, then have the night.  But, wait… I have homework to work on for the weekend, and I need to take a shower.  We’ll say I ate dinner from 5:45 to 6.  This gives half an hour to change out of work clothes, and maybe browse the web a bit.  I then take an hour and a half for homework, which brings me to 7:30.  Woo! Found some free time.  Depending on the day I had at work, I may or may not want to go out, or do… anything, really.  So, my Saturday nights sometimes consist of laying on the couch, watching a TV or a movie.  Even if I do go out, that still doesn’t give me the programming time I’ve been looking for.

On to Sunday.  Church in the morning from 10:30 to 11:30.  I usually get up in time to have breakfast, check my e-mail, and leave.  After church, I have bible study with the church youth group.  This lasts until… about 1:00 PM on average.  Get home, and if my parents don’t have anything planned for me to do, then… I’ve found more free time!  However, some Sundays, there are events with the church/youth group.  So, that takes away from some of my time.

So, what’s the point?  Why go through all this trouble of typing up my schedule in detail?  To prove a simple point that any high schooler could tell you, but parents often forget: there never seems to be enough time in the day.  I have friends that stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning doing homework.  How they manage to be awake the next day is a wonder to me.  We get days off every now and then, but they’re sometimes for holidays, and we fall victim to either work, or the schedule our parents have pre-determined for us.  We’re being overloaded, and I KNOW I don’t have it that bad compared to some of my friends.

How can we fix this? I have no idea.  Expand the weekend by one day? Year-round school (in which a two-week long break occurs every two-weeks, I believe)?  Both lead to longer school years, something which NO teenager wants, and is possibly worse than the current schedule.  XKCD has a proposal for adults: the 28-hour day.  However, this screws with the body’s internal clock, and cuts the week by one day, so would be very hard for a school to manage.  Lighter homework loads?  Teachers are usually hard-pressed to teach us everything they need to as-is, so I don’t see this as a viable option.  Cutting down on extra-curriculars?  I suppose some would say I’m hypocritical.  I participate in an activity I enjoy, then complain that I don’t have me-time.  However, most extra-curricular activities could not be considered me-time because of the extra time commitment they add to schedules.  I also don’t see cutting back on these as a viable option, because they provide the ever-important opportunity to explore new things in high school.

Perhaps, then, this isn’t a problem after all.  We have to deal with the time press in high school, so that time presses later in life don’t seem as bad.  Prepare for the worst is the goal of high school.

At worst, if it is a problem, it is one with no viable solution.  Please, comment if you have one.