One of my favourite activities to do myself is reading. I love it, of course. Reading is cool and I have that printed on a t-shirt. I could take for granted that you already agree and understand, but then this blog post would be a bit too short, so I’ll elaborate. Reading is relaxing and a great way to start a day or end it, it’s a great thing to do to fill time when waiting at the bus stop and it’s a great thing to make time for especially. It broadens your mind, it helps you to be more empathetic, it makes you laugh and makes you cry and because it all happens entirely within your head, reading is a highly personal experience which is different for everybody.
With all that in mind, reading only really makes sense as a solitary activity, right? But somehow that’s not true. While I wouldn’t like to read in a group of people who were otherwise occupied, there’s actually something pretty enjoyable about reading with somebody who’s also nose deep in a book. Against all reason, sitting and silently reading a book alongside somebody else doing the exact same thing, is actually more enjoyable than just doing it alone – or at least it is for me. It’s hard to put my finger on what I enjoy about this and I feel that it might just be down to being in the presence of friends, but if you’ve never tried communal reading before, I recommend it!
I’m not somebody who usually does much for their birthday, but I was particularly excited when I was having dinner with my friend Sophie a few weeks ago and she suggested that we take a day trip for my birthday this year.
The day out was decided to be a visit to London, centered around a visit to the Sea Life Aquarium. I’ve always been particularly fond of ocean life and I’ve never had an unenjoyable visit to London – so tickets to go there were a fantastic gift. You can imagine how excited I was. To make this blog post a little more enjoyable than the usual walls of text that I post, I’ll sprinkle the best photos between the paragraphs.
I find ocean life so much more interesting than animals you see on land, because it’s so different. I suppose a part of my enjoyment is based on escapism, because my mind wanders a lot when watching these beautiful creatures swim around.
When we arrived at the aquarium, there was a big illustration of a sad looking octopus cowering away from a flashing camera, with a message to say that flash photography was prohibited. Sadly, some guy thought it was worth stressing out an innocent creature just for the sake of a picture that he’ll probably look at once and then never think of again, so he was taking lots of pictures of the octopus with his flash on. Sophie and I spent some time wondering about bad things that might deservedly happen to him later that day.
Something I really appreciated, was that almost every exhibit had information about the human-made threats which face these creatures. As much as watching and admiring them simply due to the natural beauty of their existence is nice, it is equally important, if not more so, for organisations like the Sea Life Trust to educate people on these issues. So I’m glad that they were.
Having said that, I wish that more staff members were around so that I could ask questions. There was one penguin, for example, which seemed to be acting strangely and I wish I could have spoken to somebody to find out why or even to alert them to it. I would also have liked to be able to ask somebody about the issue of keeping shark in captivity, because there was one big shark swimming around and it certainly looked alright and it did have the biggest tank, but I’d have liked the chance to talk to someone, as I have heard it can be bad to keep sharks in tanks.
But, overall, I was definitely left with a positive impression. The tanks all seemed to be appropriately sized for the fish living inside them. It wasn’t just fish either, but also some insects, frogs, snakes and other creatures. At one point, there was also the opportunity to stroke a star fish – which was nice. There was a staff member there to make sure that everybody was respectful and not touching it in ways which might be harmful. She seemed very wary of the children there and I’m sure I would too. The starfish curled its arm around Sophie’s finger, but it didn’t around mine.
My favourite fish were the jellyfish – they look so different to anything else and there were loads of lights shining on them to make their bodies look as if they were changing colours. They’re amazing and they’re also the last thing you see in the aquarium – no doubt they knew that they were saving the best until last. If I had to pick a favourite jellyfish, however, I couldn’t do so. Sophie told me that I couldn’t say “Oh my, these ones might be my favourite” at every jellyfish tank we came to.
Other than just listing every single creature I saw and that aquarium and telling you that I loved them, I’m not sure I have much else to say about it. After the aquarium we ate some chips on some grass (tasty), then we wandered around the streets (invigorating), then we went to a toy shop (exciting), then we had dinner (delicious), then we went to a book shop (marvelous) – all in all, a very nice day. Indeed, as days go, it was one of the best I’ve had so far.
Also, all of these photos were taken by Sophie. There’s no way my camera would get pictures this good. I’m very grateful that she took so many, as looking through them all again today, was like revisiting the aquarium all over again. I hope that you have enjoyed looking at the photos.
Super Smash Bros. Melee was the first video game to bring any kind of Fire Emblem content to non-Japanese audiences and I’m glad it did, because it’s become one of my favourite franchises. But as important as that was, it was the Game Boy Advance game Fire Emblem which was the first actual instalment in the series to make the journey overseas.
Fans may have been a bit surprised though, because the two characters we’d seen in Melee (Marth and Roy) are nowhere to be found in this game, Marth isn’t even mentioned! Instead it focuses on a trio of characters: Lyn, Eliwood and Hector (worth mentioning is that Eliwood is Roy’s father.)
In terms of the story, I found it a bit generic by Fire Emblem standards: a small ragtag group of fighters come together to try and take on a evil political power. Along the way they’re joined by lots of different people and there end up being interesting ties to the ancient history of the world.
While the overall plot was not that exciting, I remained invested in it due to the fact that I found the characters very likeable. I’ll admit, Eliwood felt a bit flat, but Lyn and Hector were both very endearing and I enjoyed watching them interact with each other and the people they encountered (even though it’s all text boxes.) I cared about them all and wanted them to be okay – and knowing Fire Emblem, that wasn’t a guarantee!
In terms of gameplay, I cant fault it: it’s classic Fire Emblem. You take it in turns with CPU enemies to move your characters around a grid based map, engaging them in battles with a nice level of nuance provided by the variety of available weapons – you have to manage your weapons and money well though, because the weapons all break eventually. The biggest thing, of course, is that if any of your characters die, they won’t come back and you’re left with that guilt forever.
It’s an example of Fire Emblem by the book in that it doesn’t do anything particularly unusual or innovative with the formula, so longtime fans playing for this one for the first time may be disappointed. But I happen to think that Fire Emblem by the books is still pretty darn good, so I had a good time with this game (though it did get a little too hard in the last level!) You have to keep in mind that it was most certainly created with the intention of being a jumping in point for new players and I think it definitely succeeds at that – we owe Fire Emblem‘s continued presence and success in our country to this starting point and I am very grateful for it for that fact.
What is a friend? I’m sure each person that you ask would give you a slightly different answer – after all, friendship means different things to different people.
My own perspective is that it’s an honour for somebody to count you among their friends – it’s something you can attain by proving yourself to the other person; by being supportive, by helping them out, by being good to them. I realise I’ve just listed three things which sound like they’re all the same thing, but in my head I intend them all to have different meanings.
For me, a friend is somebody who: I enjoy the company of, I know is a good person and has shown in some way that they care about me. I know those are pretty broad terms, but friendship itself is a very broad thing.
A friend can be someone you know for years and years and who continues to be a positive influence on your life, or someone you know only briefly, but who still proves themselves to you. If a friendship only lasts a year, it doesn’t mean it was any less real. The experiences are still valuable and the positive impact still counts, even if you have gone your separate ways.
But what I don’t like, is when somebody lists every person they’ve ever encountered as a friend. In my opinion, just because you’ve met somebody, it doesn’t mean that you’re friends. Even if you’ve had a couple of conversations with somebody and had good chemistry with them. These are just friendly acquaintances.
Knowing someone is very different to being friends with them, because to be friends is to actually share something substantial. I feel like those who count every person they know as a friend, ultimately cheapen the concept. In fact, I almost wonder if they really value “friends” or if they honestly get just as much out of that person they met at two parties as they do from people they’ve met up with regularly for decades. Maybe that’s too cynical of me, but maybe it’s an accurate reflection of a society which doesn’t put much value on friendships…
So, I’m much more wary of using the word ‘friend’ and if and when I do use it, it means I am making a very high commendation of the person I am describing.
The one or two of you who read every single one of my blog posts may have realised that I didn’t post anything on Monday – one of my usual update days. It’s pretty rare for me not to update, but I had a pretty good excuse.
Basically, I was writing something else. There was a period in the day that I had especially planned to be the time in which I would write the next blog post, but then just before that I quickly wanted to write something else and the thing that I wanted to write ended up being longer than expected.
As I was writing, I thought to myself “Should I stop doing this for second to go away and focus on a blog post? I don’t want to deviate from my update schedule, after all. Just look at what happened when I did that with my webcomic…” but in the end, I decided just to keep going with this other project.
As much as plans and schedules are useful for motivating writers, I don’t think we should stick to them too rigidly. I think it would have been rather foolish to stop the flow of creative energy which was spilling out for another project, just so I could do a blog post. After all, all creativity is valuable and it would be silly of me to focus on one thing over another.
So that’s why there was no blog post. I thought I’d share this inconsequential anecdote as a lesson to myself and others: follow your heart and not your rules when it comes to writing.
Assassination Classroom continues into its ninth volume with the conclusion to the quite literally explosive cliff hanger at the end of Volume 8. I found that the resolution was quite satisfying in some ways, but also a bit of a ‘cop out’ as they say, in others. I’ll leave you to form your own opinions about that.
I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that the tension which built throughout the last couple of volumes has now reached its climax and a lot of Volume 9 is about getting the characters back into the swing of their everyday lives. We’ve got the rest of their holiday (which is passed with various light-hearted activities) and then, after that, they head back to school and it’s essentially business as usual.
Though it may not be as exciting as the volumes immediately preceding it, I think it was important to have an instalment like this, because after the intense, emotionally charged events that had just happened, we needed a bit of a breather. We appreciate the normality all the more, because we’ve seen the fabric of their lives threatened.
What I like is that, by now, Koro-sensei has cemented himself as the whimsical, impish delight that he is, whose main and only concern is the wellbeing of the children. For me, he just becomes more lovable the more I see of him. I feel like I’ve said something similar in my review of every volume – but it’s so true. He’s such a well written character.
While this volume may not have all that much of a cliffhanger, we’re left with the thought that time is running out and, no doubt, the hardships they face will only grow in the future… I’m looking forward to the next one!
A lot of people have been talking about the subject of whether or not it’s ethical to teach primary school children about LGBT people and as this is a subject I feel rather passionately about, I decided I’d write a little bit about the subject myself.
For a while, I had believed that the general public was of the opinion that it was perfectly fine to be LGBT – not at all ‘wrong’ or ‘sinful’ as people once foolishly believed, but this ongoing discussion has alerted me to the fact that this is not the case. Ignorance and homophobia/transphobia are the only two logical reasons someone would oppose this.
LGBT people obviously have different perspectives and experiences in life when compared to non-LGBT people, so in order to help children grow to become more conscientious of others and not make their lives difficult, it is important for them to be aware that LGBT people exist. Without this knowledge, they will grow to be ignorant and potentially hold homophobic attitudes of their own.
But, of course, the biggest reason to teach children about LGBT people is that they might be LGBT themselves. By preventing them from having this education, they are essentially condemning LGBT children to confusion and unhappiness. It is 100% homophobic & transphobic, because it is the non-hertrosexual and transgender students who will suffer most from not having it.
And what’s the only argument against this? The biggest one seems to be that it’s the right of the parents to tell their children about these things – and I do actually agree about that. The problem is, that these same people are then saying they don’t want their children to know – so if they’re not going to do it, they’re highlighting exactly why its important for schools to do so. These things will always be better coming from the parents, but if the parents are unwilling or too ignorant of the subject, the schools step in.
To clarify – this isn’t about sex: this is literally just teaching children about the existence of LGBT people. There is nothing harmful about this. When I was in primary school, they showed us how to put condoms onto bananas and tampons into cups of water. What a waste of an hour that was. A class about the LGBT community would have been far more useful.
