Do Games Count!?

     Within every group of friends, there is always a lucky one, one that talks a lot, one that nobody can stand, and the one that barely talks.  In my group of friends, I am the one that everyone considers lucky and good at every video game.  Growing up, we played Nintendo 64 and up until this day my friends are convinced that I have put a listening chip inside my game system because during the game Mario party (board game), you have to roll a dice and I would call every number I would roll before even rolling the die.  When we played super smash brothers, I would always be the one with the most kills and my team would always come first during team battles.
     The past couple weeks, our class has been talking about video games and how literature can be expressed through games.  I have been very interested in every piece being presented toward us because not only am I a visual learner, but also I love video games.  When I’m not playing video games, I’m researching about the game I’m currently addicted to or just thinking about playing.  Although I have been entertained with the past couple game readings, I haven’t learned much from them which goes to show that I don’t think video games are a replacement to a novel or story but would be a good recap.  By this, I mean that it would be a better concept to “play” the game before reading the novel/story then actually read the piece and go back and “play” the game after.  By doing this, you are able to visualize the game while reading the novel and after reading it the game would help with a closure.  With games such as “Intruder,” I was more involved with the gaming aspect that everything I was reading and trying to interpret would quickly be forgotten when the next game would be projected onto my screen.
     I don’t consider myself a 4.0 student but I do consider myself a very smart person with great knowledge.  I can successfully say that video games have helped me through my real life basing my real life experiences through stories I have been through in the “gaming world.”  Every couple of months, violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto find themselves on the news because kids blame their act of violence on video games because the game “portrays” it is easy to get away with committing such crimes.  Video games have their positives and negatives within our society but within the next couple years, they will takeover and have different meanings.

A day in the life of a UPJ student

            I am a senior graduating college in December and currently commute to University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.  I started using this computer lab when I was a freshman living in Laurel Hall without a printer.  The only time I am on campus now is when I have class, or when I am in the Blackington computer lab shown in the picture above.  This computer lab has been saving my life since freshman year because it is always open and is convenient for not only mac users, but windows users as well.  This lab provides us with a printer, a stapler, and a scanner, which I recently used for the first time.  I still don’t have a printer at home so being able to print my papers before class starts at this computer lab has prevented me from a lot of late assignments.  There is a separate printer outside of the room incase you want to print in color, which I had to do for a marketing plan last year which consisted of 105 pages.  Two weeks ago I presented a case study with my partner for my Leadership class and we had to use the scanner to scan the case study from the book for our class to read before we presented our opinion on it.  Another reason this computer lab is reliable is because when we were on fall break this past week, I had to work on homework the Monday we didn’t have class and came to Blackington to see every computer lab locked except the computer lab shown in the picture above.  Because this computer lab was open, I was able to get one of my History papers finished and printed and stapled ready to be turned in for class on Thursday. 

            For all the positives this computer lab has done for me, there are also quite a few negatives about this specific lab.  For example, the positioning of the printer is in the very right corner of the room and no matter where you are sitting, you will distract somebody else while walking to the printer because of how small the actual room is.  Being a business major, we are assigned numerous group projects and this room isn’t very convenient for those because you don’t want to distract other people and don’t have enough room to think.  If you are sitting on one of the macs that face the window, you can see numerous people going up and down the stairs, which causes another distraction because its hard to not stare at somebody walking in front of you who is more than likely staring back at you.  Overall, I would rate this computer lab a 7/10 because there have been more positives this lab has brought to me then negative but nothing is perfect.

I Have Multiple Homes

     I feel gifted to say that I can read this blog post, look at any of the bullet points above and be able to go to sleep at night comfortably knowing I can call any of these places listed as my home.  The reason I chose to talk about my life for this google maps project is because I thought this was the perfect time to plot different bullet points around the world and not only see how far my family has come from where we started, but the action my family takes to be able to make sure our cousins get to see each other whenever it is possible.  With the use of new technology such as being able to Face-time and Skype, our family is able to communicate a lot easier not having to go through international phone calls, but simply downloading an app which lets us communicate digitally.

http://goo.gl/maps/nfdeC