The first blog I have ever read is “I am a Japanese School Teacher”. This is a blog by an American named Az, an African-American man from California, who moved from the United States to Japan after college as part of a teacher abroad program. The (sometimes) weekly posts chronicle his life in Japan, how he finds adjusting, or how small Asian people react to seeing an extremely large black man walk down the street (a good deal of blog entries deal with Japanese reaction to his physical appearance). When first reading the blog I was entranced by the humor of the situations he has been put in from working at three distinctly different elementary schools. He writes how many children have never met an American much less a Black American and often say racist slurs to him without realizing the true intent of the words. The way in which the kids do this is so absurd it just comes off as funny; it’s the kind of scenario where you just brush the child off as being just that, a child. This is all fine until adults start acting and saying the same things as the twelve year olds do. The blog chronicles an outsider’s view of Japan, but in Japan there is only Japan. People do not concern themselves with other cultures or anything non-Japanese. There is a saying that is motioned in “I am a Japanese School Teacher” that goes Japan is the only country with four distinct seasons. In Japan there is extreme pride in one’s country but with that pride comes a blind eye to the outside world. Az often talks about Japan being a nation against change, but is in fact changing. That’s the point of his whole being in Japan; to bring the outside world to Japan since Japan is not going to go there on its own.

Growing up I developed along with the along with the internet. As I grew so did the possibilities it presented to me. I could watch TV shows on it , play games, or download anything I wanted. At first the pirate program of choice was Kazaa. I started out downloading video games then tv shows, and before I had even realized I was a full-fledged criminal. To be honest I’ve always known what I was doing was against the law, but I did not really care. There were no negative repercussions for what I or anyone I knew was doing. It would remain that way until Bit Torrent came around. All of a sudden the major industries seemed to take knowledge of their products that were being tossed around the web for free. The first time I heard of a person getting in trouble for their piracy was when I was in the eighth grade. This fourteen year old girl was charged with downloading music and was fined ten thousand dollars; at the time I though the punishment was ridiculous and completely unnecessary. Now I can understand the Company’s intention. It’s their product that is being ripped off. It’s their money to lose, and yes people can argue that these major companies are excruciatingly rich so it does not matter if they download a little. However in the end of the day if I had a product that people were stealing I would want compensation for my business, and though we live in a free culture nothing in reality is free. To sleep at night we pay for our home, to prevent starvation we buy our food, to get an education we pay for college. Everything has a price and though that may sound depressing just remember that all those people that make money off of your needs are in the same situation as you.

Social Networking first became popular as an outlet for teenagers narcissism. However as time progressed, it became more of the norm for people of have an internet site completely dedicated to themselves. With the advent of Facebook men and woman of all ages were exposed to this aspect of the internet, and twittered only helped to further popularize it. This ability to share one’s self is made entirely possible by the internet. It (the internet) is something that is considered unnecessary, but in actuality as we continue down the technological age the internet is becoming more of a necessity. With that in mind how can it be that something that is becoming more vital every day is deprived to so many people. Whether they be the homeless of New York City or the impoverished children of Rio the internet is unattainable. Does this not go against what the internet was made for. The creators of Google developed their website to unite the world’s knowledge for all to share, but this knowledge is not something we are sharing. I am not saying that people must have the internet to go on MySpace, but I am saying that the World Wide Web can be a device to help people learn and better themselves. It can be used to help the unemployed find work, a parent to find their child day care, or to help make people aware of the world they walk through every day. To give all people access to the internet is a grand idea, but one could always say are there not things more important. They could say would I just not give them food instead, or help to supply them with clean water. Yes, of course food and water are a necessity but people cannot just be given something and expect them to change. They need a tool in which through they can change. For some people the internet can be that tool, and though us American teenagers may go online to simply waste time we cannot forget the possibilities for what lays in front of us.

When I was younger my favorite television show was Dragon Ball Z. It showed from (seemingly) the beginning of time up until the eight grade. DBZ was not just something my brother and I watched every five o’clock on Cartoon Network it was communal event. At school the next day all the kids would talk about the (two) episodes that aired the previous day. I remember talking to my friends in the third grade about the first time Goku turned Super Saiyan, and thinking that his eyes had poped out of his head. However in reality, they just rolled into the back of his head, and when he set them again his irises had gone from black to blue. This was during the Frieza saga just after Frieza had killed Goku’s lifelong friend and training partner Krillen. When the Buu Saga came around Goku was dead, but since it is impossible to die in DBZ he was easily able to teleport back and forth between the afterlife and real life. This made the coming events a great deal more suitable for the writers as now they have their big hero on scene for the day of destruction. Buu (in case you did not know Bibbity is the father of Bobbity the man who created Buu). The best point of the Buu saga however was Goku ascending to Super Saiyan 3. The power up to this new level took about a whole episode (20 minutes) and entailed mainly Goku screaming in his constipated stance. I say this because when the DBZ characters increase their power level (it far exceeds 9000 at this point) they assume a position not unlike one that someone might find on a person with bowel blockage. Anyway throughout the entirety of this episode there is music playing in the backroud that just suits the suitation perfectly. Finally, Goku has finally ascended (that or he soiled himself) and proceeds to pummel Maijin Buu (his proper name). It winds up being a draw, and Goku goes back to Kami’s (Japanese word for God) Lookout while Buu proceeds to turn the population of Earth into chocolate.

It was once a sign of prominence to be literate. In modern times however almost all people can read, and although the basic grammar still remains relatively similar, the way in which a person reads something has drastically changed. Books or document have always been read from the same device. Be it Homer’s Iliad or an issue of Mad Magazine we have always experienced their stories on paper. In the past few years however people have begun reading books electronically. First on a desktop then a laptop and now there are even eBook readers. These readers allow a person to carry around a device the size of one novel that is capable of storing thousands. Technically an eBook reader like Amazon’s Kindle is superior to paperback books. It is more compact, there is a built in dictionary, and one never has to worry about the dreaded paper cut. Paper books however are loved by people for nostalgic things like their smell or the feel of the pages on their fingertips. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with enjoying the smell of dried ink, but I would say the main reason people would probably choose paper over electronic is due to emotions. When they open a book for the first time, and smell that aroma they can’t help remember the good times they’ve had reading. It is that nostalgia factor that we hold on to, and that will make us keep paper books around. With that being said however, I do not believe eBooks will die down. On the contrary I believe devices like the Kindle will only grow in popularity simply for its convenience. Sure it may not be quite as effective for some people, but when the first washing machine was developed I’m also sure that hand washing was probably still more effective than the machine…But I bet it was damn helpful.

The United States is one of the few nations in the world without a standard language. This stems from the country being a land for all immigrants. Though there is no standard, English has always been the common language of the country. Throughout the centuries things change, and language is no exception. If one were able speak with someone from the past it might be a little difficult, but most defiantly possible. However, this difficulty comes from the change in language over the years. When speaking with someone in a professional setting a person is more apt to use formal language. When I think of formal language I think of it as a classical way of speaking. It is the intelligent manner in which one person addresses another. However some of the words used in this intelligent manner of speaking were probably at one time in the past considered slang. As a slang word gets older it becomes more mainstream. It seems that when something is new it is often disregarded, but if that thing can last a couple of decades it will become more widely accepted. This is also the case with something like punk rock. When it first came about in the nineteen-eighties those who listened to it were considered “outcasts”. Now however punk rock is completely normal with bands like Green Day and Blink 182 being global stars. I do not know if things become more acceptable just because they grow in age, or is it that the people who used those new words or listened to that new type of music got older, and are now in a position to make it acceptable. I do not think slang is necessarily bad, but I do not also want to read “yo” instead of hello in a paper. Times will change and some slang will become acceptable, but overall I feel we will still be able to read the same book a person did two-hundred years ago and not be completely confused.

Womp-Womp

So my first few weeks of college have finished. I suppose there was nothing really spectacular about it, but I can’t think of any reason for there to be. I remember after I graduated from High School imagining what college would be like, and so far it’ pretty much how I imagined. At least the actual classes and the work I’m being assigned is how I expected it to be. My least favorite class is probably European History. The class focuses mainly on the time from the French Revolution until World War I. I suppose the reason I don’t really enjoy it is because it’s like taking Global Studies again. For me at least I get bored when I hear the same stuff repeated. The professor is decent, he seems to have great knowledge of the source material which is cool, but the class is fundamentally lame. It sort of reminds me of that Seinfeld episode when Jerry is dating that woman with all the retro toys so he puts her to sleep every night with turkey and wine while he proceeds to play with her toys. Well to me that class is a giant pile of turkey and I just can’t stop myself from eating it and a box of cheap wine that I cannot help but love. I’m probably making it seem worse than it actually is. I doubt Ill get to the point where my professor starts sounding like the adults from Charlie Brown (I think Charlie had a hearing impairment). So as I try to finish off this blog post I can’t help (well that’s a lie) but think about how long its been since I’ve seen Charlie Brown. Yes, I do know they show a CB movie every holiday season I just never watch them yet I want to…It’s a paradox as intense as the one Fat Bastard suffers from, “I’m fat because I eat, and I eat because I’m fat”.