#a wider lack of ability to engage with art and understand that when you read or watch something it's to experience art. and not think about

[vraska-theunseen]

i started watching a youtube video about cinemasins that just kind of mocks it for yknow being a content machine and whittling media criticism down to incredibly simple superficial observations like "this things has tropes/cliches" (not even mentioning how a lot of times those tropes and cliches are literally just. customs. things people do in real life, cultural details that someone would include in a story because again real people write things and they live in the fucking world. wearing all black to a funeral for example i remember they called that a cliche a lot) or "the director made choices" or "this thing is in a genre and has scene decoration fit to the genre or meant to convey meaning to the viewer!" like those are bad things instead of how you tell stories and by and large depreciating the ability of its viewers to conduct media analysis and watch things genuinely and appreciate art and meaning. okay the youtuber didn't say all of that specifically a lot of that is my opinion based on how in middle school i watched cinemasins a lot and observations i've made about people the same age as me who i can surmise also watched cinemasins based on how they watch movies and nitpick things like "this thing has tropes" and "this thing would never happen in real life/a person would never say or do this in real life" because cinemasins has distilled in them a lack of ability to engage in a story as a story crucially i cannot say it simpler than that as a story as a narrative someone wrote based on an idea they had because it was cool or to do something or mean something or have an effect and everything that happens is written by someone or a choice made by an actor because these aren't real people and the purpose of art is to AUUUGHHH I GOT DISTRACTED AGAIN!!!! THE POINT OF THIS POST IS i was watching the video and being like haha yeah hate those guys and then they played a clip from cinemasins to demonstrate what they meant and hearing the cinemasins guy's voice knocked me flat i had to pause the video and come write this post bc i had to recuperate

[metalempire]

Fire Emblem Three Houses Review: A Great Game Crippled By Squandered Potential

Now that the clickbait title has grabbed ur dick and engaged the hate boner it’s time to sit down and take a look at the newly released Fire Emblem game everyone loves (including me, to an extent, despite what the title says.) 

I’ll put the whole thing under a readmore to safeguard from spoilers, save dashboards and for anyone who doesn’t give a shit to just stop reading now at a convenient point. As for mobile users, fuck you, I’m a phone hating old man. Read this on an Apple Refrigerator or die.

The TL:DR version is: Game good overall, but not enough variety and near lazy repetition makes both gameplay and story feel a bit disappointing overall once you play all the routes. 

Also you can’t fuck Rodrigue so 0/10 worst game in the series. 

Right now I’ll address the good points about the game since I do in fact have heaps of praises to sing it’s just easier to clickbait with negativity of which I do have but the positive bits come first cos I said so. 

The gameplay is good Fire Emblem, unlike SoV which was ass don’t @ me, as the kids say. Aside from fog of war and a very occasional desert map there’s not too much unpleasant shit and there’s not really any spam which is great since the past few games were getting guilty of that. The maps are a bit plain in layout but they’re not bad either and the enemy placements, choices, map features and terrain are all nicely put together to make a fairly pleasant experience with each one. There are no desert fort maps surrounded by 5 range archers on all sides. There are no cantors spamming infinite terrors or infinitely spawning faceless reinforcements. The weapon triangle might be absent but the breaker skills have been retooled and brought back to allow you to choose if you feel like opting into it or not on your own end. It allows alot of units and weapons to shine and combined with the class freedom the game gives to allow you the wiggle room to make your own playstyle, so if an entire army of Wyvern Lords if your thing then the game is nothing short of an enabler there. Combat Arts are back and nicely well balanced and feel more useful than in SoV, not to mention gambits being a natural expansion on them, Battalions being a positive this game brings to up the scale of warfare rather than it just being Anime Teens VS The World and adds another combat art not tied to a weapon and nice stat boosts and effects to change how you interact with enemies, such as using Assembly to drag a boss off a heal tile, and so forth. The more options the better, and the game is full of freedoms for you to play around with. 

Garreg Mach Monastery is where most of the game takes place and where a good chunk of hours are spent. Being able to train weapon and movement type ranks outside of battle is also great and adds more micromanaging onto a series about alot of micromanaging and helps units keep up with each other, as well as letting you farm your own resources, bond with the gang and do little activities to give you some reprieve between fights. You can tell Koei Tecmo did alot of work on the development of Three Houses since this section of the game reminds me of Dynasty Warriors when you go back to your base and sort things out there and wander around. It also breathes some life into the setting and gives a good sense of permanence to the world and its’ characters. 

The world of Fodlan is also a major strong point, there’s lore, backstory, history, politics, a culture and even clashes and divides. It’s the most well realised world in a Fire Emblem game since Jugdral which it clearly has drawn inspiration from and I cannot praise Fodlan enough for being as well realised as a setting as it is, since the characters and exposition really give you a proper impression of how this world functions on social and political levels. The school setting of Garreg Mach is one I was initially iffy about but it fits surprisingly well and definitely grows on you over time since the game does a good job of immersing you in the role of a teacher. 

Tying into the world is also Crests, which, when combined with the Ability system, is great, making you pay attention to your characters crests, what they do, how they can benefit you, how you could use them, and to pay attention to enemy bosses and minibosses to see what crests they have, and in turn, pay attention to abilities some more too, to both create your ideal units, and keep an eye out for the same on the enemy team. It’s quite well balanced overall and is a sneaky hint of a possible Genealogy remake on the way someday.

The characters are also wonderful, often three dimensional with their own political views, own social perspectives, quirks, oddities, backstories, character conflicts, relationships, and of course, boatloads of trauma. Watching them all interact with each other and reacting to the story events and getting to know them was an excellent experience in proper character writing and interactions that the series has been starved of thanks to the very hit or miss (mostly miss) characterisation from Fates. The main lords are also incredible, from Edelgard and her dark as fuck backstory and her powerful resolve and willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve her wider scale goals, to Dimitri and his intensely personal conflicts and emotional baggage and his journey of highs and lows, to Claude and his boundless charisma and similarly his own ambitions and dreams all wrapped together in a charming package. The characters are all great and I can’t really find myself with any grievances about them that don’t boil down to wanking off over nitpicks over Hubert’s left testicle being out of place in a cutscene or something daft like that. 

The soundtrack is good. Not my favourite one but as always with Fire Emblem it’s good and makes the maps more fun since you can listen to a nice tune while thinking about how to murk the pair of armour knights. My only gripe really is the normal versions of songs all sound better than the in-battle variations they get. I also like that a boss theme or miniboss theme will continue to keep playing on the map itself until you beat that character, so you dont have to dip and dive into chip damaging Lyon to hear The Prince’s Despair anymore. 

The overall story is fairly decent, not as bad as Fates’ writing, or the fairly bland writing of some of the past games like Awakening that play it too safe. It’s willing to go in dark directions and focus in worldbuilding with its’ plot. However I do have alot of negatives to say about it by contrast but know that the overall story of the game and its’ many routes is one that I don’t hate, but I certainly feel wasn’t as well handled, especially in the second part of the game, as it should be. On an individual level, each route is decently well paced, aside from Edelgard’s route which is mysteriously 4 chapters shorter than the rest for no discernable reason at present until developer interviews shed light on that. The plot is for the most part decently well executed on an individual level. 

Now I’m going to insert a very important opinion of mine. I think a game can have a bad story, or no story at all, and still be great, so long as the gameplay is good, because gameplay is what makes a video game a video game, rather than just a dvd with an interactive menu. A game can have a great story, but if the gameplay is shit, the game suffers as a result, and it needs to play its’ focuses very well in order to redeem that. I try not to put as much important on story if I can’t help it, since I’m playing games for the game part first and foremost.

I bring that up because unlike Fates, where you can ignore the plot and have a good time with it, Three Houses isn’t so merciful, due to how much raw time is spent in cutscenes before, during and after battles, as well as engaging with the story at the monastery too, alot of time in Three Houses is not spent in the gameplay portion, but interacting with the story instead, so I have to place importance on the story because the game is, so I have to put more focus than I usually do on it because the game does by necessity of raw amount of time. Otherwise I honestly wouldn’t mind either way if the story was bad or good. 

This is to transition over to the negatives. 

For the bits where I’m not tying the gameplay and story together for reasons seen in a bit, understand that I was wary about the removal of the weapon triangle. While I don’t mind how it’s been handled, I still think the game is missing something for not having it since the beginning, and it’s definitely a core aspect I enjoy about the series, since now you can forgo unit variety and planning weapon level ups and just use whatever to win, and that level of freedom can hamper strategy in thinking on a more necessity based level, which in turn has subtle but noticeable effects on difficulty. 

The amount of time you spend not doing maps is honestly still jarring. Most of the time in these games if you’re ever spending lots of time between maps, it’s usually to get through a mountain of supports you forgot about, rather than spending alot of your time in cutscenes and doing stuff in a monastery. While I don’t hate it, I find alot of my time is spent not doing the Fire Emblem parts of the Fire Emblem game I’m playing and considering the fact that each route is 18-22 chapters long, compared to most FE games which go more than that typically, and you come to realise that the other stuff is sort of padding to distract from the low chapter count overall.

Now this is where I tie gameplay and story together in terms of the more major flaws to the game and what really held it back for me. 

Three Houses has 4 routes, all of which I’ve played; Edelgard’s route, Dimitri’s route, Claude’s route, and the Church route. The big problem here in both story and gameplay is the raw amount of repetition and lack of variation the game has with this. Unlike Fates, where the three routes all featured both unique maps, variations on maps, or if they did share maps, usually put them at different stages in the game, Three Houses doesn’t do that at all. Map variety is something this game is weak in, since paralogues just reuse story maps, and so far, only 2 or 3 maps seem exclusive to paralogues, and even then can be repeated by other paralogues. Worse still, earlier paralogues, like Ingrid and Dorothea’s, can spoil maps later on, and don’t even make sense when you get the context for that location. In every other past FE game, the paralogues all got their own maps. Repeating maps in a single run is already a risky business, but then there’s overall repetition. The first part of the game is exactly the same on all routes, it follows the same story and overall beats, an the only variation is chapter 12, if you’re playing Edelgard’s route, if not, it’s the same for the other 3. And for context, I did Edelgard first, Dimitri second, Claude third and Church last. In hindsight, that was a terrible order, since I basically ended up repeating myself 3 times in a row thinking I was getting something different. When the timeskip hits you expect each route to get different, but only Edelgard’s does. the other 3 routes are all about fighting the Adrestian Empire to save Rhea. That’s it. Dimitri, Claude and the Church routes all follow the same story, and by extension, maps, making you do them all in the same order as each other, with a minor variation here or there like Dimiri getting a chapter to retake Fhirdiad then resuming the static map path. The only difference is in the plot contrivances that don’t come up on the other routes despite following the exact same events to steer you towards a different final boss. Those Who Slither In the Dark are a great example of this. They destroy Fort Merceus only in Claude’s route, and for no reason are barely involved in the fights of the other routes and are never dealt with. They themselves are also wasted villains, with Kronya and Solon shown off once, then killed off in their second appearances, then Thales barely being in the game only to die in Claude’s route. The game sort of forgets about them in the other routes, and, insultingly, they’re fought by Edlegard in her route, but only in the epilogue, rather than having her missing 4 chapters cover that conflict. 

Really, the only point to playing a route is to get a different final boss, and to get some different lore in the final chapter. You only learn about Nemesis right at the end of Claude’s route, you only learn Byleth’s origin story at the end of the Church route. Outside of things like that, you’re just playing the same game, same maps, and same story but with different playable characters over and over again with no real variety until right at the very end, which is highly hollow. Edelgard’s route offers the most variation on all this, and yet it’s 4 chapters shorter than the other routes, so you’re either condemned to play the same shit over again, or you barely get any time with the one that’s a bit different. It really sucks since the map variety really is nonexistent. You play the exact same game for 12 chapters, think you’re getting some variety, then just get the same shit as the last run, or, only get a few maps and then you’re done. Either way, the sheer lack of variety in maps and accompanying story really makes the hyped up timeskip feel like a colossal disappointment in hindsight, and when Fates, a 3DS game, has more map and story variety (yes even if that story was awful) than a home console game, then something is deeply flawed about this game.

The pacing is also fairly bad if not close to terrible. At most the game is 22-23 chapters at the most, 18 at the least, and it spends 12 of these on the Academy phase of the game. The game drags its’ feet with the story for the first half, slow burning its’ way along, feeding you hints of lore to come and setting things up and, to be honest, doing a good job at worldbuilding. Then the timeskip happens and the war phase just rushes by at one hell of a fast pace. The maps being the same across them doesn’t help, but pacing can also damage the routes. For example, Verdant Wind builds up to fighting the Agarthans, it builds up to them but only with hints and setup while you’re busy fighting Edelgard, and then once’s that’s done, you have two chapters left, one of which has you fight the Agarthans in one map, beat them, and then have the final battle with Nemesis, which, while the map itself is arguably the best of the 4 and really feels like a final battle, story-wise comes out of fuckin nowhere just to have a cool end to the game. And then there’s Crimson flower, which steamrolls through the game and is definitely missing chapters, with key events like the battle at Gronder just not being there at all. In general the story pacing is just too wonky and every route really needed more chapters to flesh out the conflicts rather than rushing along the most engaging bits of the game.

Also the graphics are kind of weird looking for a 2019 game and some of the cutscenes are animated so stiffly it’s strange to watch. Honestly the visual presentation in Fire Emblem has never really been very good outside of fully rendered cutscenes in previous games like Awakening or Radiant Dawn, but it’s a shame the Switch’s capabilities weren’t fully utilised, especially with some textures, although Warriors with its’ JPEG stone floor in Hoshido Castle is no doubt to blame as well for that influence. That said, it’s not all that big of an issue for this series, and you really don’t notice it as much, just felt the need to address it since it is there and the Switch launched with Breath of the Wild which looks wonderful and then there’s Three Houses looking like it just got out of bed by comparison.

My main issues with the game stem mostly from the larger segment above, the constant repetition of maps in almost perfect order after each other, the exact same story playing out for the majority of what should be different routes, and the school phase being the most repetitive as well really dragging the game down. The first time I played the game I loved it, no doubt, but the subsequent runs made me realise that alot less overall variety was put into the game than I thought would be, and that hurts the quality for me, to know that 3/4 options have me doing 95% the same thing but with different units, and the other option is just a bit too short to be able to fully enjoy what it has to offer. Fire Emblem is a bigger name now than it used to be, and Three Houses honestly deserved to be a bit better than this overall. 

Also you can’t fuck Felix’s dad so what’s even the point of it all, really. 

 I have no doubts though that people will still love this game, and rightfully so, it’s a great entry in the series, just not the best. I’m sure people who’ve only done one or two routes will think it’s fantastic, but once you do all four of them, I think the honeymoon period will pass by, and the initial spark of excitement of a new game will wear off, and just like how everyone tore into Fates a year after release, I think Three Houses might end up suffering a slightly similar fate as well once people realise that the game really doesn’t offer as much variety as it seemed to be offering. Maybe there are people who don’t mind all the repetition and the sameyness of it all, but for me, it held the game back from being truly great. The Lords are what really carry their respective routes, due to their character strengths, and a certain route definitely suffers for only having Byleth (and Seteth of all people) as the main driving force of that route. 

All that said, I really recommend any Fire Emblem fan or even any Switch owner to play Three Houses. It’s not perfect, and it certainly loses it’s magic over time and really needs some reworking in places and major injections of variety, or a really good DLC,  but it’s still definitely got plenty of good quality to enjoy and the bits that are good are really good and worth sticking through each route to be able to play with. 

The score this game gets is a

Forever Pissed I Can’t Marry Rodrigue/10

[miss-harper-reid]

6 Winning Strategies For Marketing to Millennials

Marketing to millennials has its own unique set of challenges.  

This technology-savvy generation has very different expectations compared to the generations before them.

An effective marketing strategy is a marketing strategy with the ability to adapt to ongoing changes.

If your business is struggling to attract a millennial audience follow these six strategies for marketing to millennials.

1. Prioritize Social Media Engagement

If you want to reach a wider millennial audience social media marketing is a great way to go.

Millennials are the generation that grew up with technology and the growth of social media.

Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have been ingrained into their lives and culture.  

For many young people it’s hard to even imagine a world without social media.

Here’s an infographic to help put the demographic divide in perspective.

When scrolling through social media millennials are bombarded with all types of information.

For your content to be successful online you have to get creative and think outside the box.  

Companies that create shareable, viral content are the ones that connect with a wider audience.

2. Use Humor Using humor is one of the most effective ways to engage an audience.  

Funny gifs, shareable memes and entertaining videos have a lot of impact in social media.  

It’s important that all your content is relevant and relate able to your millennial audience.

When you use humor right you can connect with more people on a deeper level.

3. Create Authentic Content  

The goal of your marketing strategy should be to establish a meaningful relationship with your customers.  If your audience feels connected to your brand, your business will go far.  

This Sticker Came From Authentic Banksy Street Art The best way to establish this connection is to be authentic.  All the messages and videos you create should be true to your company’s values.  

Many millennials can be skeptical of big corporations and their advertising efforts.  

They know when a company is just trying to sell them something. Inauthenticity kills trust and lack of trust kills sales.  Genuininity grows trust and an abundance of trust helps create sales.

4. Make Use of Genuine Influencers

If you’re considering working with influencers to market your product or service, ensure that you are working with trusted and genuine influencers.  

Millennials prioritize valued influencer-brand relationships.  They are more likely to engage with your product if the influencer promoting it is genuinely interested in your company.

Find influencers that are already using your product or service and establish a business relationship with them.

5. Keep it Simple  

Marketing in the online world is a whole different ball game to traditional forms of marketing.  When you’re marketing to millennials online you have to keep things simple.

Everything from your brand logo to your website copy should be minimal.

If you think about it, some of the most successful companies in the world have simple brand messaging.

Facebook, Google and Apple are the most obvious examples.

These well-known companies have clean, simple logos that are instantly recognizable.

The copy on your website and social media pages should be short and scan able. There is so much to see and read online, so you have to get to the point fast.  

If your posts are too wordy your audience will get bored and move on to the next one.  

The user experience on your website has to be speedy too.

Your customers won’t stick around if your website is too difficult to navigate or too slow to load.

6. Move Away from Traditional Ads

Look to create authentic and inspirational online ad content.

Millennials are more likely to engage with and share adverts that appeal to their interests.  

This is where understanding your target audience is key.  

Create videos adverts that appeal to their interests and you’ll be sure to see an increase in audience engagement.

Bonus Strategy: Support a Cause

Any business that wants to improve their reputation could benefit from supporting a cause.  

Businesses that have a philanthropic mindset often attract more loyal customers.

Millennials, in particular, like to support companies that make a difference.  

If your company makes a genuine effort to support a charitable cause, it will leave a good impression on your millennial customers.  

In turn, they may feel more inclined to buy your products and spread the word about your company.

To attract and hold on to a millennial audience, you have to think outside the box.  

Find unique ways to capture their attention and keep them interested, but don’t lose your authenticity.

By establishing real and meaningful connections with your audience you are building the foundation of a strong network that will stand the test of time.

[yasbxxgie]

I am afraid of white people touching my shit. Rather, I am afraid of those who do not have a comprehensive understanding of Black culture and language, adding commentary to my work; it’s like someone going to an NBA game and asking me, “So, when does Tiger Woods come out?” I have seen what white people do to Black shit — to Chappelle and Robeson and Etta. As I write this, even now, a man who is not Black will be editing this piece, and I don’t know how I should feel about it all, writing about Whitetopia, for a platform constructed by White folks, with supported dollars coming mainly from folks who do not identify as persons of color.

There was a piece, the intro to this series, that sat untouched and unedited for over a month. Yes, I lacked time — fatherhood, my professional work, sleep, spending time with loved ones, things take priority. But I knew the real struggle lay in how to best broach the topic. When does the critique of your work have more to do with the cultural differences in language and colloquial speak as opposed to what is deemed good, fair, pretty and readable, writing? They will say they are edifying your work, but it will feel like they are holding lighters to it, they are holding wicker to it, waiting for the ashen parts to show themselves. You and your almost-not-you-anymore piece of work will have new legs, better legs, whiter legs. It will not feel brave, it will feel forced, fake. Essentially, no longer you.

I sometimes think I lack the appropriate language. I wonder if me being the unconventional writer that I am is more of a hindrance than a gift. In that same breath, I wonder how much of the game will I have to play, back down, relinquish control, Black up the tone and voice, to speak to a specific kind of Black; up-talk and downplay the way that I write, me with tangents and commas misplaced but placed where I see they need to be, commas as pauses as breaths as stop signs for thoughts and phrases and sentences. Where does this come from? Whose language do I revere most — Baldwin or Hemingway? Dylan or Nasir? James Taylor or Shawn Carter? Are they equal players in the field? Where have my words gone? There is guilt in submitting your work to a publication that doesn’t speak watermelon, doesn’t fully understand the contextual meaning of jive; yes, for dictionary purposes — for definition and explanation and grammatical reference, yes. But to fully know a culture, it must have been seared into your skin before you could rewrite the history of their roots.

When do we deem a most appropriate time to begin a lie? What are the parameters? When is a good enough time to begin a story, to tell said story, and spread said story like the ashes of those burned for the story to live; spread the story so thick and dry, and spread it to ears and lands, until the story becomes parable, palpable; becomes bible, becomes gospel to the mouths and throats of the tellers and hearers, becomes truth? The truth becomes the basis in which those who live by truth base their moral compass, their value systems and ethics, their foundation on. Some anoint this truth as God, others as the Constitution, the amendments in it as secure and faithful, as sacred as Jonah in the whale, Mohamed feet pilgrimage-ing to Mecca. If you are white and reading this, this is not for you. This is for the other that sits beside you while you read this, who may wonder if you are ally or antagonist, perhaps even apparition, pale skin included; apparition as in neither here nor there, not readily available, or present but somewhere in the in between juggling finance and leisure. What I fear more than death, than the NYPD, than gentrification and high cholesterol? White editors. My art has more weight than my body, my blackness more volume than my physical being. With words, I am anyone — no one will know if I am white, Latinx, Asian, a hybrid of faux post-racial bi-racial splendor…that is, until the colloquialism of Bronx tenement rooftop hopping and abandoned building meets pissy hallway vernacular meet. David Foster Wallace’s dissection of Black English better known as ebonics, is noteworthy here: in it, Wallace dissects language, primarily the English language, the use of dictionaries and the difference in approach of liberal v conservative usage of all things American-speak centered. Wallace concludes that for the Black students in his English course, the harsh reality is that the world will expect them to write in standard English and such that would be the expectation in his classroom, and they do a disservice to themselves by not learning the rules that have been deemed the standard. To this, I can agree. Learning rules affords you the ability to break and bend them as you see fit. I worry that I at times make matters too much of a black and white thing. I often hear the too much from white commentators. What I have finally realized is it is always a black and white thing if you are black and living in America. America, Whitetopia, does not afford you the luxury of separating your blackness from oppression from whiteness; for every success and failure can almost feel inherently attributed to a white stakeholder sitting somewhere comfortably atop the food chain, licking its chops at the grave of your melanin. Earlier, I said I fear white editors. That is incorrect. My reasons for delaying revisiting my work had less to do with fear and more to do with resistance — the ideas that sit with what is deemed readable and not readable, and who is deemer of said attributes. A wider audience, a far-reaching audience, when tackling metrics such as viewership and engagement (shares, likes, reads, retweets, comments, favorites, etc.) is a big deal — eyes on your words = more sponsors/advertisers = more dollars. In this way, quantity can supersede quality, if only because bulk material increases the opportunity for more visibility to one’s work. Furthermore, unless you opted to write in a vacuum, you are writing for an audience. That audience will have demands. And those demands are to be met by publication, by author, and by the editor who edits the author. Those stars are to align to feed publishing babies, author babies, editor babies — wallets and actual babies. In this way, with this model, truth becomes fairy-tale, fairy-tale can be fable, fable can become alternative facts, those facts become Trump speeches, those speeches ignite Charlottesville…this is how fires start.

Being able to cherry-pick who edits, who oversees (for lack of a better term) your work is a rarity, and honestly, a privileged notion as a writer; to think that you can have authority over such decisions when legions of writers in history have not been afforded such a luxury. But, to that point, there were those who shared my features, who maybe also wrote, who could not choose which entrance to use for a hotel, or bathroom; could not choose which fountain to drink from, which lunch counter to sit at, which seat to take on a crowded bus, who to love. Choice has not been a luxury for my people for quite some time. Call it antiquated, call it fussy, or naïve, even silly — I can foresee the vitriol in the responses a mile away, but still… I am afraid of white people touching my shit, my work, my art, my livelihood. History has shown me what they have done to the others.

[man-reading]

When Did Touch Between Male Friends Become Taboo?

Are we too afraid of going outside our own comfort zone to risk having the kind of friendships we long to have? 

Mark Evan Chimsky, ContributorWriter and editorial consultant 04/28/2017 Why don’t men friends touch? I’m not, of course, talking about intimacy between male lovers, but the kind of physical expressions of affection between male friends that was once common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. According to Richard Godbeer’s eye-opening book, The Overflowing of Friendship, it was not unusual for platonic male friends to write tender letters to each other and to hold hands, cuddle, and even sleep in the same bed. Instead of such behavior “causing talk,” it was accepted by their wives (or girlfriends), families, and the wider community as a healthy, even necessary, aspect of their bond. Intimacy was understood to be beneficial to men’s well-being, and it was common for men to share both emotional and physical closeness. “Early Americans,” writes Godbeer, “exalted love between men as a personal, public, and spiritual good.” But that aspect of male intimacy has all but disappeared from our culture. Godbeer calls his book “in part an elegy for a world of love, and even the possibility of love, that we have sadly lost – let us hope not forever.” These days, it’s rare to find straight male buddies who do anything more physical with each other than a “bro” hug. And even though, as a gay man, I feel that society gives me a free pass to be more “emotional,” more “physically demonstrative,” I am hesitant to be physically expressive with my closest male friends, especially the ones who are not gay. Apparently, we live in a culture where it’s okay to have a best buddy, as long as we refrain from almost any physical contact with him. As one friend says, “Everyone craves physical touch but sometimes they’re unwilling to act on the need.” Why did something that was so natural and prevalent between friends centuries ago become virtually nonexistent today? Has all physical contact become sexualized? When did touch between male friends become taboo? Sex between men wasn’t codified as a distinct medical concept until 1869, when the word “homosexuality” was coined. Before that, labels really didn’t exist the same way they do now. Today, in our more “evolved” age, each sexuality is boxed in its own separate silo. But in the 1700s and 1800s, the lack of formal labels in some ways made it easier for men to be physically close without having their sexuality immediately branded. To be sure, there were men who engaged in physical intimacy that was sexual. In his book, Godbeer discusses the intense relationship between Alexander Hamilton and his close friend John Laurens. In a footnote, he quotes author William Benemann, saying “while there is ‘no irrefutable proof that Laurens and Hamilton were lovers,’ there is ‘sufficient circumstantial evidence to render indefensible any unqualified pronouncement that they were not.’” Still, from what we can gather, a majority of the male friends who wrote each other letters of affection and held each other in long embraces appeared to be platonic friends. Then, due to a perfect storm of scientific investigation, expanded legislation, and the scandalous Oscar Wilde trial in 1895, when the flamboyant genius was found guilty of homosexual conduct (“gross indecency”), the age of innocence of chaste intimacy between men began to fade away. Men suddenly became self-consciously aware of how their own loving friendships might be mistakenly perceived by others. At this same time, the death of this kind of platonic touch was hastened by the medical community’s designation of homosexuality as a mental disorder (according to some historians, this was, ironically, a “progressive shift” that was initially intended to protect gay men from criminal prosecution). When I look at early-twentieth-century photographs of male friends in loving embraces or positions that would raise eyebrows today (a man sitting on another’s lap, or a man with his legs casually draped over his friend’s knees) I feel a twinge of sorrow for what we’ve lost. (Check out Brett and Kate McKay’s article “Bosom Buddies: A Photo History of Male Affection” on the Art of Manliness website.) If I can share my deepest thoughts and feelings with my best male friend, why should physical contact be off-limits? To be sure, I bear some responsibility for not rebelling against this new status quo. The fact is, when I was growing up, it was rare to get a hug from my dad (at 92, he’s become much more mellow and hugs freely now). But the combination of being taught to refrain from physical contact – as well as the worry of being misconstrued if I attempt it with a friend – makes me feel awkward about initiating it. Is this how other men feel as well? Are we too afraid of going outside our own comfort zone to risk having the kind of friendships we long to have? Friendships that allow us to express ourselves without fear of being judged – by our friends, our community, and yes, ourselves? We are not so different from our male brothers of another century, but our times are. If we live by labels, then we die by them, too. And something has died. The way we interact has certain (sometimes self-imposed) boundaries that didn’t exist before. But can we break free of them? Is there a chance we can defy this modern taboo of male touch and feel at ease expressing our friendship both physically as well as emotionally? I’d like to think we haven’t lost forever the essential, open-hearted ability to connect with our male friends with a long hug (and not the kind that involves a slap on the back), or a caring hand on the shoulder or knee, or even spooning as we rest and talk. (I was heartened by a study in the U.K. that found that 93.5% of heterosexual male college athletes spooned when they shared a bed with a teammate.) However, for most men in the U.S., it seems that such physicality will instantly be “read” as an attempt at foreplay. This often inhibits even the spark of a conversation about the subject from taking place. In order for contact to occur, do we have to state upfront that it is about love and not lust? Even if promises are made, will there be a constant wondering if a line will somehow be crossed, whether intentionally or not? Do we allow ourselves to risk, to trust, or have we drifted so far from seeing male friendship in physical terms that we will allow that aspect to become extinct? My hope is that we in the U.S. will become relaxed enough with physical contact to make it part of our comfort zone with our male friends. After all, isn’t true intimacy the ability to be on the same page, to respect boundaries, and know that our friends will do the same? Can we bring back an age of innocence when it comes to consensual touch? When I think of all the embraces that are not happening because of shame, and all the tender letters that aren’t being written just because a man thinks it’s not “manly” to express his feelings to a male friend, I get sad. And mad. If things are ever going to change, we have to be the ones to change them. It’s scary, but you know what? It’s time. My Buddy

Life is a book that we study Some of its leaves bring a sigh There it was written by a buddy That we must part, you and I

Nights are long since you went away I think about you all through the day My buddy, my buddy Nobody quite so true Miss your voice, the touch of your hand Just long to know that you understand My buddy, my buddy Your buddy misses you

Miss your voice, the touch of your hand Just long to know that you understand My buddy, my buddy Your buddy misses you

Your buddy misses you, yes I do

Written in 1922 by Walter Donaldson, “My Buddy” was adopted during WWII by the troops as a way to express their deep attachment to each other.

“Boys imitate what they see. If what they see is emotional distance, guardedness, and coldness between men they will grow up to imitate that behavior…What do boys learn when they do not see men with close friendships, where there are no visible models of intimacy in a man’s life beyond his spouse?” - Kindlon and Thompson, Raising Cain

[jeroendstout]

In response to Thomas Grip and his minor remarks on Dear Esther’s lack of engagement

In a recent essay, Thomas Grip (he of Amnesia and Soma) wrote an interesting thesis on planning and its role in engagement (published on In the Games of Madness). I found a lot to be interesting in this essay but unfortunately Grip shortly poses a corollary which I feel does not show as much thought or reflection. He says about Dear Esther that “everybody agrees that the gameplay is lacking” and notes on the observation the game does not allow players to form plans that “we need to figure out ways of fixing this.” I cannot say I agree with either of these statements; primarily because I do not agree with the assessment that its gameplay is lacking, and secondarily because even it if is, I do not feel Dear Esther has to care much about gameplay.

In this response, I wish to argue that Grip’s implied position seems paradoxical and has some hints of an essentialist view of games, which, while not inherently uninsightful, may still curb our understanding of games as a whole in the long run.

I shall use the word ‘game’ rather than this blog’s more default ‘fancy’ to make the argument more congruous with Grip’s essay.

Grip’s essay focusses mostly on three words, which are planning (the central thesis), gameplay (hereafter ‘play’), and engagement. To paraphrase (and intending kindness), it is argued that the ability to plan is important for creating engagement with a game, as planning is at the centre of the human purposeful experience. We may juxtapose a simple linear journey with a complex, multi-faceted one and see that one does not require as much processing as the other. It does not, in other words, require planning, which means the world is less present in the mind. Play which requires planning in this thesis inherently has a higher resulting engagement, which is seen as a good. Planning also means there is ‘more play’, again seen as a good. A simple corollary of these observations is that Dear Esther, being linear and lacking planning, suffers for a lack of engagement and needs to be ‘fixed’.

In what way may we understand the viewpoint that Dear Esther needs to be ‘fixed’? We may say the fault of Dear Esther is that it lacks planning, therefore play, therefore engagement, and therefore it is not good. A rather big obstacle for this line of arguing is that Dear Esther has engagement. After all, its lush visuals, its well-voiced monologue focussing on an inability to accept loss, and the dream-like soundtrack has by many of its players—including myself—been cited as entrancing and consuming. I would say this game is satisfactorily engaging on many of my play-throughs. I cannot immediately believe that Grip thinks nobody could find Dear Esther engaging unless he believes I am delirious, so let us assume the problem with Dear Esther cannot be that it lacks engagement.

We may take a step back and argue instead that it lacks play. This would be hard to dispute. Specifically, it is hard to deny Dear Esther has ‘less play’ than virtually every other game on the market. Its path is linear, fences unnavigable, walking into the water leads to an abrupt set-back. This is all true. However, for us to say that lacking play is a fault, we must somehow argue that play is essential. It is unclear why that would be, following Grip’s thesis. After all, play leads to engagement, but Dear Esther already has engagement. If engagement is the goal, can it matter whether we get engagement from something that is not play?

We could argue that the engagement one gets from Dear Esther, not coming from play, must be a form of engagement which is not ‘play-engagement’. Play-engagement would be a specific form of engagement which we can extrapolate from Grip’s thesis; planning gives rise to engaged play which causes play-engagement. Nobody would with much seriousness argue that Dear Esther has a lot of play-engagement. As such our critique could be that it lacks specifically play-engagement, and that therefore it is flawed.

Is it fair to say that the flaw of Dear Esther is that it lacks play-engagement? I am not sure why this should ever be a flaw unless one claims some sort of monopoly on either the words ‘engagement’ or ‘game’. If we wish to vindicate Grip’s complaint, we must either assume that play-engagement is intrinsically, a priori, superior to any other engagement, or that games have to intrinsically, a priori, have to have play-engagement to be good. Both of these should not sound like unfamiliar arguments.

I cannot assume Grip sees play-engagement as intrinsically better; such a belief would make someone incapable of understanding why any person may read a book when there are games to be played. But perhaps the second option, that games need to have play-engagement, sounds plausible. In this view, something can be engaging, but if it is a game and is not play-engaging, it is wrongly engaging and ought to be engaging in the preferred play-engaging manner.

Perchance this view will resonate with those who did not enjoy Dear Esther, but it hardly explains why there are those who rather enjoyed it. Are these people who enjoy Dear Esther aware that they are enjoying the wrong type of engagement by being engaged with something which is not play-engagement?

We may also draw a somewhat different conclusion from Grip’s thesis: let us surreptitiously conclude that Dear Esther is simply not a game.

A game, it is implied, needs play-engagement to be good, and otherwise needs to be fixed. As we may assume Grip does not have a problem with enjoying media other than games we may assume that he grants (say) film a category of engagement which is not play-engagement. We might say: a film does not attempt to offer play-engagement, so it is a different medium. Then the corollary may be: Dear Esther does not attempt to offer play-engagement, so it is in a different medium. Following this, we cannot really say Dear Esther needs to be fixed, because in this conclusion Dear Esther falls outside of the model which was discussing it. As such, if Dear Esther is not a game, then why would one consider it in an article about planning in games? One may as well bring up goats in an article about horse-jumping and note that goats, lacking the body strength to support a rider, could really do with being fixed. How may we fix goats? To make them more like that which they are not, horses. How may we fix Dear Esther? To make it more like that which it is not, a game. At best, Grip ought to complain between the lines that Dear Esther is said to be a game, but on closer inspection according to his model it clearly cannot be such a thing and therefore it is not relevant to the thesis.

Our paradox: a model under which Dear Esther inherently needs to be ‘fixed’ could probably be simplified to say that Dear Esther is not a game: therefore the model really does not need to concern itself with passing judgement on Dear Esther—unless it also wishes to pass judgement on film, paintings, books and other non-games.

Do I then think that Grip’s error is mentioning a not-game within an essay on games? Perhaps. I do after all propose to drop the word ‘game’ and use ‘fancy’ as a wider, more encompassing word (as I argue in Apology for Saying Fancy). Nevertheless, I would sooner say that the deeper problem is the essentialism hidden within this whole set of arguments. This essentialism is not something I will assert Grip supports, but the hint of it has, I believe, far-reaching consequences.

Firstly, when we idealistically describe games as essentially having certain attributes and we say that Dear Esther ‘needs to be fixed’ or that it is not a game, we are condemning works such as Dear Esther to a form of oblivion. After all, the essayist is no longer responsible for explaining why Dear Esther is enjoyable to many; it has been stated to not be enjoyable. And if not a game, what is Dear Esther? Never mind; the essayist has done his job and moves on to something else. If Dear Esther is not understood in his model, then is not his problem and the artefact may as well be thrown to the wolves. It is essentially culturally lazy to refuse to account for Dear Esther.

Secondly, it may be said that an essayist who does not try to account for Dear Esther’s popularity fails to understand something about their own subject. Games, as I will forever argue, share many prominent qualities with other media, and yet often theory will try to assimilate those qualities under play. Ask, for instance, what people remember about Bioshock, and the answers not involving the gameplay will refer to the art deco environments, the characters and the plot twists—simply, a traversal of plot told in a stylish environment. To throw Dear Esther to the wolves also makes it harder to understand Bioshock, as one must have a bizarre model in which Bioshock, doing virtually the same thing as Dear Esther, is somehow intrinsically different by adding play. If we dig through Bioshock’s play, however, we will find no answers as to why people can still remember, to this day, the opening monologue. There is no clue in the nature of planning our journey through Rapture to explain how the big daddies and little sisters became part of online culture’s memes. These things were highly engaging, and yet they were not play. The popularity of this, I argue, comes down to what-ever it is Dear Esther also offers. The engagement with “I call it... Rapture” is the engagement we find in the opening lines of Dear Esther. To fail to understand why Dear Esther works puts you at risk of not understanding why the opening of Bioshock made such an impression:  it means you avoid the conclusion that certain imagery, sound and narrative cues, traversed through with little to no play, can evoke great engagement, satisfying for its own sake, not needing another form of engagement to be added.

Essentially, I hold that you can never have a complete model of all the intricate and complex parts of what makes games engaging if you think a game without planning inherently needs to be ‘fixed’.

Note, if you want to signal boost this post on Twitter, you could re-tweet my tweet.

[alysaalban]

Reiki Master Dallas Tx Fascinating Cool Ideas

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[seanchou77]

Broken Prams

Death is the scariest thing you could dream about. For other people, it’s falling or being chased. But I hate dreaming about death. And I’ve dreamed of the worst kind - children dying, in the most violent ways. They get run over by trains or cars. I never see blood or their bodies properly. But there was one time when I saw a broken pram getting picked up from the side of the road and you could tell it was run over. It was goddamn awful.

Every beginning knows its own end. According to Sigmund Freud, without death, there wouldn’t be growth; the same growth principle which allows the organism to break out of the constancy principle must eventually resolve its ontological contradiction and die.

With that sentiment in mind, this essay will be discuss about death and what it means, inversely, for life. Discussions on death have taken place in a lot of quarters; while this essay will approach it through mainly a psychoanalytic lens, it will also borrow voices from philosophy and religion to add a more nuanced perspective.

Firstly, death is tied into long-held views about our mortality, impermanence and transitional status as human beings on earth. Whatever views we have on the after-life, it’s clear in our modern day, secular society such views do not hold traction for a lot of people.

Schopenhauer provides a modern perspective on death, through his transcendental metaphysical theory called, ‘will-and-representation’. Arthur Schopenhauer argued that everything in the world could be divided into subjects and objects, but that they were byproducts of an anonymous force called the ‘will’. This creates an active/passive binary, where ‘representations’ are byproducts of a ‘will’ which drives us as subjects; we feel this in our passions, desires and emotions.

As a result of will, we desire and suffer when our will is frustrated. Schopenhauer compared human beings to blind mole rats, digging underground without vision or directionality. This pointless suffering can drive us to despair, disappoint our expectations and leave our desires unfulfilled.

Schopenhauer argues instead we should accept the dissatisfaction of our will; instead of the temperamental and fickle nature of our will, we should accept pain as a constant and practise life through non-attachment. Only through aesthetic experience, in arts or music, could we temporarily transcend our direct experience of space and time towards a more perfect, timeless universe.

Schopenhauer must be understood for our next theoretical steps. To really understand Nietzsche’s work, he must be read in conversation with Schopenhauer. Friedrich Nietzsche followed Schopenhauer in his early 20s but then quickly abandoned him - he cried when he learned he had been living his youth like he was already old.

Nietzsche disagreed with Schopenhauer. He thought he was too pessimistic and neglected questions about power and self-transcendence. For Nietzsche, Schopenhauer was another example of a philosophical ascetic: self-denying the potential for human beings to live self-generative and flourishing lives through the will-to-power. According to Nietzsche then, our understanding of death shouldn’t be understood as just as certainty - this was true, as ‘God is dead’. But Nietzsche understood that it was a greater fault to live our lives as if we were already dead and deny our living potential; instead, we should embrace our heroic drives and attain the Superman status which exceeds previous horizons of outstanding achievement. Thus, through the transvaluation of all values, we can create new values.

The discussion between Schopenhauer and Nietzsche reveals several things about death. Firstly, we should be concerned about what it means for our phenomenological existence and selfhood; it can be self-defining and constructive of wider life missions. Furthermore, it could be understood as a self-transformative process, where the self achieves spiritual enlightenment (for Schopenhauer) or self-transcendence into Superman (for Nietzsche).

So far, the subject/object binary and notions of the self have been taken for granted.

Lacanian psychoanalysis can help to deconstruct these notions. Jean-Jacques Lacan introduced ‘mirror theory’ as a type of mimicry; Lacan argues that the self is introduced to the child during the ‘mirror stage’ between the age of six to 18 months, as an image or signifier which stabilises their notion of personal identity. The self therefore cannot be understood in isolation, but as a construct which must be stabilised within a wider language context of signified chains of meaning.

Julia Kristeva was interested in stages of child development prior to the mirror stage. Kristeva introduced the notion of the ‘semiotic’, of meaning as continuous, undemarcated and fluid - similar to the fluidity of a child being in the mother’s womb.

Both provide contrasting perspectives on death. Lacan argues that death should be accepted and internalised as the No-Thing; later on, Lacan replaced the ‘No-Thing’ with petit objet a (or the ‘object of desire’) and argued that jouissance helps us to overcome transitional, changing desires with permanent drive towards jouissance. For Lacan, drive is the horizon which already anticipates its death but envelops everything into a single plane.

Kristeva however suggests that death is one of many meaning-making exercises. We should be more interested in how the Other is constructed in opposition to the Self. The Self already recognises its death because it sees it in the Other and rejects the Other for that reason; the Abject Other suggests a fear of death is needed to stabilise a symbolic hierarchy of meaning. We could escape this instead by inverting, destabilising and playing with the meanings of things like death which would otherwise indicate notions of permanence and prescribe strict, disciplined action.

Lee Edelman helps us to understand how death can be queered. Death is an affront to heteronormative society, which builds a teleological narrative of families and future generations, who inherit what has been accumulated and preserved for the future. Edelman criticises the heteronormative assumptions of this narrative, which depend on the bio-power, reproductive force of straight, monogamous couples to perpetuate their lifestyles, at the exclusion and Otherising of alternative queer relationships.

Queer experience and identity can be constructed on alternative readings of death. Instead of death fitting into a linear timeline of marriage and having children, queerness means to explore alternative metonymies which can frame our identity: our creative pursuits can be our most powerful voices, but to also fundamentally retain our critical engagement skills to critique a heteronormative society which systematically excludes or assimilates us. Like Adonis, we are born through cycles of life and death and know no generation to inherit our legacy onto; our stories are tragic and beautiful.

But we could find an alternative understanding of death without pandering to pessimism. An an analogy in psychoanalysis on death runs like this: death is the bones which frames the flesh it upholds; without the hardness of death, our lives are supple, docile and lack self-definition.

Ernest Becker discusses this in his thoughts on heroism, as response to (and denial of) death. Becker argues for the need for genuine heroism where the individual is led, through self-acceptance and non-attachment, to accepting the reality of death but feeling inspired by the awe and opportunity of living even temporarily in the wide expanse of the universe and the mystery of the cosmos. We are not driven by the conformity of cultural heroism or the excess of personal heroism, but simultaneously humbled and driven to make the most of our time here.

Thus, this essay has touched on multiple perspectives on death. We could understand it as an elaboration of contradictions in our phenomenological experience; as a semiotic interplay between semantic systems of meaning; contrast desires and drives which arise from death; which lead ultimately to maturity, spiritual enlightenment and acceptance which opens our abilities to self-flourish and be responsible towards others.

***

I’ve had moments when I’ve been too scared to say anything or do anything.

I just feel so self-conscious, like my face is burning and my palms creasing with sweat.

I feel like I’m always being judged and I’m scared I won’t be good enough. It’s moments like that when I don’t want to do anything at all; I just want to feel invisible and hide. Maybe it’s because it feels like I’ve already died inside. Everything now is just the excess you want to scrap off your plate and pretend you never asked for. Actually, I didn’t ask for any of this.

I want to escape from all my responsibilities.

[area2newsviews]

A QUEST FOR EXCELLENCE

4TH QUARTER 2018 PROGRESS REPORT

This 4th quarter newsletter of my 4th year on the SJUSD board of trustees is my last, as my term will come to an end in November. I am very proud to have been a part of this board and school district and would like to take this opportunity to share my reflections of the past 4 years and the progress our district has made in improving student outcomes.

The 30,000 foot/statewide perspective: San Jose Unified is a highly functional and progressive district, led by smart, competent professionals of strong integrity and commitment to high quality public education. Our district is recognized across the state as a model in many ways:

Our strong relationship with the San Jose Teachers Associationresulted in the creation and implementation of a salary formula, ensuring that teachers receive an increase in compensation whenever the district receives increased funding; a robust teacher evaluation process, resulting in an environment of supportive coaching, professional growth and high expectations that are consistent across every site; and the most progressive maternity/family leave policy of any school district in the state.

SJUSD is regularly hailed as a model district for our early adoption of A-G graduation standards, rollout of common core, implementation of the local control funding formula and clear presentation of the state required local control & accountability plan.  We are a district of continuous improvement, searching for newer and better ways to serve and improve outcomes for all students.

SJUSD takes a leadership role in legislative advocacy and the quest for clarity when current law that impacts public education is ambiguous. These actions have resulted in clarity around zoning laws, investigation of charter school practices, and probationary periods for new teachers, to name a few. Leadership is currently advocating for the 11th grade SAT exam to replace additional state testing requirements for high school juniors, maximizing the days available for academic instruction.

The 15,000 foot/district wide perspective: Through the lens of equity, San Jose Unified is committed to the academic success of all students.

We were the first district in the state to administer the SAT exam to all juniors at no cost to them on a school day. In this, our third year of administering those exams, we are also offering at no cost to students SAT prep courses.

We overhauled our Special Education program in order to find better, more effective ways of meeting students' and parents' needs.

We are intensifying our focus on the particular needs of our Latino (male) students, working to engage them in learning with relevant material, scaffolded support and an inclusive environment.

We partner with Strive San Jose to provide professional internship experiences to juniors and seniors.

The 10,000 foot/district wide perspective: San Jose Unified also recognizes the importance of addressing the social/emotional needs of students as essential to their ability to thrive in school.

We partner with School Linked Services to provide counseling services.

We employ the principles of Positive Behavior Intervention to reduce suspensions and expulsions and better understand the root causes of challenging student behaviors.

As a result of student advocacy, we have make available gender neutral bathrooms so students or all identities feel safe and comfortable during the school day.

On the ground school/student perspective: Strong leaders, caring teachers and staff members, parents and mentors create environments where students can thrive.

I have volunteered as a student mentor for 5 years in Lincoln High School's future vision program, as well as a regular story reader and walkathon supporter at Horace Mann Academy, a project based learning judge at and an "ethical community presenter" at Bachrodt, a student shadow at Burnett, a classroom visitor at Grant, a reveler at Hoover's masquerade ball, and an enthusiastic audience member for kindergarten performances at Trace. Getting to know the students, parents and staff members at the 7 area 2 schools has been a great joy and a tremendous education. Beyond area 2, I have attended River Glen fundraisers, organized a year long new book program at Empire Gardens, judged the Young Chef competition at Gunderson, spoke to leadership students at San Jose High School and learned about Pioneer's service learning curriculum. I have been able to effectively advocate for the needs of students and staff because I see what happens at the school sites and I listen to everyone who will share experiences with me.

As I prepare to leave the district, I do so knowing that my leadership made a difference, that numerous processes, policies and outcomes are better as a result of my voice. The final project in which I'm engaged is a district wide effort to better promote and market all 41 schools in our district. Locally, the many strengths and successes of SJUSD are a too-well kept secret and we need to change that. SJUSD deserves to be valued and appreciated for its schools of choice, outstanding programs, relentless pursuit of excellence and caring staff.

Finally, in my continued commitment to engagement and transparency, what follows is my assessment of the developments in the 5 areas that defined my "Quest for Excellence" in my 2014 campaign for this office.

P.S. My Facebook is updated regularly and is the easiest way to stay current with Area 2 news!

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

Nearly 100 parents, teachers, staff members and students came together on September 24 at the Performing Arts Center (PAC) at Pioneer High School for the first Town Hall meeting of the 2018-19 school year. Most of the comments expressed concerned communication: between the district and the schools, between principals and parents, and between SJUSD and the larger community. Everyone who spoke will receive a personal email from the relevant district director who can provide answers to individuals' questions; a general list of topics and responses will be available soon on the district website.

Check out our dedicated Parent Resources page on our website and download our app to stay in touch with your student's progress and SJUSD happenings. You can also visit the parent portal, find volunteer and organization opportunities, learn about family university and so much more. Enjoy the last couple of days of summer vacation!

SCHOOL LINKED SERVICES

Since the school year began last month, board members and district staff have been made aware of and are intensively addressing a deeply concerning trend: extreme behaviors by very young children - kindergartners through second graders. Those with a long history in the district report never having seen situations like this before. This circumstance is not endemic to San Jose Unified. There are reports of younger and younger children across the state and country who are exhibiting violent, aggressive behaviors and signs of mental health crises. School districts must look to expand County/School Linked Services to provide more counseling for a wider range of students, not just during the school day but also after school for our families who are struggling. Please read my blog Little Children, Big Challenges for more insight on this complex issue.

San José Unified is one of ten public school districts participating in a pilot program to expand access to preschool for low income families. I'm proud of the work our district is doing not only to close the opportunity gap but to prevent it from ever taking hold in the first place. Find more information and eligibility criteria here.

CHARTER AND NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOL COLLABORATION

One of the most challenging areas for me as a member of the Board of Education has been understanding the role and impact of charter schools. As a parent, I understand the importance of choices and options for students. As a member of the governing board, I understand that I represent a range of constituents. We have parents seeking new options for their students.  We have parents who are extremely satisfied with their children's schools. We have neighbors who value their local school as an anchor of the community. We have taxpayers who want their resources utilized most efficiently. Many times, the law is a reliable tool for working through a host of different interests and wants. In the case of charter schools, the law is, unfortunately, often quite unclear.

A recent example of lack of clarity in the law concerns Promise Academy. Promise wanted to open a new charter school in SJUSD. The District needs to ensure that our limited resources support San José Unified students. For a variety of reasons that I've discussed in earlier posts, neither our district nor the County Office of Education approved Promise's petition to open a school. Promise Academy eventually received an approval from the State Board of Education of a modified version of their school. Promise Academy wanted downtown facilities. The District offered facilities it had available (also discussed in earlier posts).  The Charter Schools Act, adopted in 1992, did not provide clear answers to some of our 2018 questions. San José Unified, with the support of the California School Boards Association, and Promise Academy have been in court multiple times seeking clarification on the law. Both parties agree that the Charter Schools Act needs to be updated and clarified.

SJUSD will continue to work with the legislative and judicial branches of our government to improve the Charter Schools Act so that we are truly supporting all students, their families, and the communities that invest in our public schools.

STUDENT SAFETY

Check out SJUSDs dedicated Immigration Services page

See here for important Teen Dating Violence resources

Kids of all ages are swiping and scrolling, totally transfixed by screens of all sizes. Welcome to the new frontier of parenting. If you have questions on how to take control of, or at least keep up with, the technology in your kids' lives, check out Common Sense Media.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

SJUSD has experienced declining enrollment since 2013. The unaffordability of the region, gentrification, declines in birth rates and family size are all playing significant roles. Several school sites are smaller today than in 2013 and others are struggling to keep up with growth. The hope is to better spend the funds being used to maintain schools with dwindling populations of children. Growing will require changing if we are to stay in step with our community, families, and employees needs. At the same time, SJUSD strives to remain a competitive option for teachers. The district will be exploring many solutions including building below market rate housing for our teachers. There are no final decisions yet, we are still in the early stages of this process and appreciate your participation as the district moves forward. Read more about it!

One of the primary focuses this school year is on an enhanced Initiative to support Latino boys that focuses on improving instructional practices that make learning accessible for latino students. Principals are being trained in and then sharing with their teachers strategies designed to ensure that all students, and particularly Latino boys,  feel welcome and supported and that the curriculum is relevant to them. 

We are always hiring! Contact our Human Resources Department and job portal here.

BEYOND THE BOARDROOM

My 4 year term on the school board ends in November, 2018. The election for County Supervisor is November 6. I intend to remain engaged with SJUSD, ideally as a member of the Board of Supervisors, where I will advocate for partnerships in areas ranging from workforce housing to expanded mental/behavioral health services for students. 

One of the most rewarding things about serving on the SJUSD Board of Directors has been advocating for and earning the respect of our educators. I am so appreciative and proud to have received the San José Teachers Association's endorsement of my candidacy for county supervisor!

Let's stay in touch - there is always more work to do. And always, Be Curious!

If you are interested in learning more about my campaign for County Supervisor, please visit my website www.susanellenberg.com or follow my campaign on facebook.

[graphicpolicy]

*WARNING*: Minor Spoilers

Coyotes #4 concludes the current arc of the series. As the Victorias raid the secret location of the Coyotes, they need the help of their oldest enemy Seff. In the midst of blood, violence, and lost, Red will rise out of the ashes. But will she become the champion of women and girls? Or another predator?

The fun starts with the cover. I haven’t talked a lot about the series’ covers since the first issue, but here it’s just too gorgeous to ignore. The intensity of the all-red palette emphasizes the danger and action, visually solidified with the images of Red carrying an unconscious Eyepatch, great canine beast behind them. The wavy, often chaotic art of Caitlin Yarsky makes this image stick in your head.

Opening up the issue to the first two pages, and we get splashes that blast the promised intensity of the cover at your face. Here, the art’s aforementioned attributes are in full swing to illustrate the messy, savage fighting. A lot that makes this work is the panel layouts. They are the traditional rectangles and squares but also huge and contain abundant details. It’s a significant departure from many western comics that prefer 5-9 panel layouts. There are barely any layouts exceeding more than 4 panels. It reminds me of manga. Less but wider panels makes a scene appear more dramatic. For comparison, here is an image of Coyotes #4 next to Shuzo Oshimi’s Happiness Vol. 1.

However, these larger panels also cause the pacing of the issue to be too quick. In a manga trade with 100+ pages, larger panels work. But in a 20+ page single issue, you finish in under 10 minutes or so. A smooth read sacrifices a feeling of hefty content. Mind you, most American single issue comics have that problem. Most of all though, I feel like the pacing concludes the current art too quickly. The events that transpire are satisfying and have a logical progression, but there should have been a lot more in the middle. I would have, if not add extra issues to the arc, increased the page count of the single issues. This was similarly done in Sean Lewis’ previous project The Few quite effectively.

Don’t let this nitpick eclipse the greatness of the art. It might be short, but each page is a slam dunk. A new trick Yarsky pulls is more experimentation with color. It has always been there, but grayish colors tended to be the primary palette. Now there are scenes with intense shades of orange and red. Now that I think about it, the presence of red ties back to how red has been an ever present color motif. Deducing the meaning of this color has been a challenge, but if I had to guess, it’s about the growth of Red’s character from hapless orphan to Champion of the Victorias.

Since I’ve mentioned Red’s character arc, it’s time to talk about Sean Lewis’ writing. This issue definitely feels like the characters, particularly the protagonists, are the centerpiece. The Victorias finally face down the Coyotes, and serious power shifts take place. The most significant is of course with Red. She gains higher statues among the Victorias, becoming their champion. This ties back to the power struggle between her and Duchess, where the latter party seemed to have had plans for the young girl but never clear what those were. This lack of clarity gave the impression of nefariousness, an unfair dynamic between master and servant that diminished the Victorias’ feminist agenda. It isn’t clear if Red’s new statues evens it out. Duchess also seems to gain higher statues among the Victorias, which reveals some tension between her and Abuela that wasn’t fully explored due to the pacing. What any of this does to heighten the stakes is for the next arc to expand upon.

I’ve already spoiled enough of the plot, so I’ll try to be a bit more obscure by discussing the feminist theme. This theme has twisted into many directions, but the core is still how patriarchy and toxic masculinity terrify women into submission. Issue #4 doesn’t add another layer so much as it brings this theme to a satisfying triumph for feminism. Watching the Victorias slay the coyotes is satisfying. Hell, the Victorias are so gung-ho that a splash page has them unleashing superpowers, even one popping the claws freaking Wolverine style. Absurdism, the greatest power against patriarchy.

On a more serious note, there are two lines of dialogue from Red that really hit the nail on the hammer regarding these concepts. Free of spoilers, here is the first:

“This is what people do to us. They make us pose. And then they make us disappear.”

It is a commentary on the imagery of harmed women. Mass media is full of these images, from news reports that contain pictures of abuse victims to fiction where a dead woman becomes the protagonist’s motivation. There is a larger discussion on this topic, incredibly complex and too much ground to cover on this review, but there is something sickening about the prevalence of this imagery, yet its consumption is superficial. Women are harmed every day, and while their broken bodies and minds might be remembered (temporarily), themselves as individuals are forgotten. Their suffering, their personal trauma, is stolen and mass marketed to a larger audience without empathy or respect. It becomes a spectacle.

Violence against women is imagery quite common in Coyotes, but often with better context. We are meant to know, understand, and root for these women. Most of all, despite how monstrous it presents the men that commit this violence, it also gets to what drives them: fear.

”Funny when monsters lose their power. They don’t really want to fight. They just want to run.”

I might have mentioned this before, but men’s violence against women is out of fear. Without their beastly forms, the coyotes are just small, weak men. This seems to be a parallel to toxic men in real life, the domestic abusers in meat space and the trolls online. They have deep insecurity in themselves, and women are, for them, easy targets to take that self-loathing out on. They commit their violence while behind a facade of masculinity, but when confronted with women like the Victorias, the facade crumbles even as they act more aggressively. I guess what I’m trying to get at with my rambling is that Sean Lewis is engaging in feminism in an earnest way. It is not perfect, but at least he processes it way better than other men attempting, and failing, to write these type of stories.

That said, the coyotes are a particular case because the coyote forms are forced on them, kind of how like toxic masculinity is forced on us. But are we willing to accept it? The men that become coyotes are on the borderline of how much they just act out to what they are programmed to do vs. inner desires to murder women. It’s a moral conundrum, one that could have been further explored, but, again, the arc was too short. Either way, women should not have to hold the emotional burden of understanding the male violence directed their way, not when it is a case of life or death.

That said, there are men in Coyotes that show positive growth. Detective Frank Coffey goes from cautionary observer to full-blown ally of the Victorias, expressing utter disgust of the coyotes committing violence. Nothing about it seems self-serving. Just like the author Sean Lewis, Coffey is legitimately invested in feminism. Men that engage eagerly with feminism would be an interesting subject for the next arc. Judging by the black and white epilogue of this arc, that might just be the case. I’ll be excited to see how that goes.

Coyotes #4 is, despite minor bumps in the road, a satisfying conclusion to the current arc. The heroes show up and kick serious ass, new possibilities are open up, and Caitlin Yarsky gets to expand on her amazing artistic abilities. I didn’t even go into depth of her amazing lettering this issue.

I think it speaks for itself.

In fact, this entire comic speaks for itself. Go pick it up. Enjoy the action-packed horror, fantasy, surrealism with an earnest feminist message. It’s one of the best sleeper hits of this past four months, and I hope it continues to grow in success.

Story: Sean Lewis Art: Caitlin Yarsky Story: 9.5 Art: 9.5 Overall: 10 Recommendation: Buy

Image Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Coyotes #4 is action-packed horror, fantasy, surrealism with an earnest feminist message @yarrrsky @ImageComics @Coyotes_Comic #comics *WARNING*: Minor Spoilers Coyotes #4 concludes the current arc of the series. As the Victorias raid the secret location of the Coyotes, they need the help of their oldest enemy Seff.

[loverepresentstuff]

01.08.17

Meet Myles Palmer

Since graduating from London College of Communication in 2014 Myles Palmer has toured the studios of London as both a freelance and full-time digital designer. We’ve had the good fortune to place him in a handful of roles where he’s worked on projects ranging in scale from personal projects for photographers and designers, to the online presence of Beyoncé’s signature sportswear brand, Ivy Park—and he’s still managed to keep personal projects going on the side.

One such project of note was his first foray into education; a design summer school run with three friends that sought to fill holes in the education system and foster collaboration between young designers. Now a senior art director at Future Corp London, we caught up with Myles to find out more about how his career’s come together, the pros and cons of working freelance, and what it’s like to work for the queen of pop herself.

Since you left education you've been in and out of freelance and full-time positions. What's been the positive and negative of moving around, and was it an intentional move to get experience in so many different places?

In terms of it being an intentional move, not really, no! It's evolved quite naturally really: one studio closed, another it felt like the right time to move on, and freelancing full-time didn't really feel like it was for me. On the positive side it's given me the opportunity to learn from lots of people, different studio cultures, different ways of working, and it's rounded out who I am. I know how I like to work, what I do and don't like doing, and also what I'm good at and not.

The flip side is that perhaps I haven't felt settled enough, or been anywhere long enough, to really get into a groove creatively project after project with the same people, which I think can be really beneficial.

You've also been involved in educating yourself. Tell us a bit about Registration Summer School and the rationale behind it. What happened after year one, and does it have a future?

Registration Summer School was set up by Callum Copley, Ross Bennett, Andrew Thorpe & myself. It was instigated by Callum and I was brought on from a digital & visual point of view and it evolved from there really. We all got stuck in together arranging workshops, lectures, student applications and things like that and for me it was about creating an alternative look at education and experimenting with that.

I think it presented an opportunity to have lots of practitioners and students from across the world working together over several days, pushing themselves outside of their comfort zone, exploring ideas that perhaps they weren’t used to thinking about, and working with lots of different mediums that were different for people too.

Most importantly for me; it was entirely free outside of a very small materials fee, making it open and accessible to a lot more people than typical summer schools at the time. I think generally there’s a lot more summer schools out there now than when we did Registration, and they are at more accessible prices and explore more interesting things than they used to.

We're all off doing different things now, and unfortunately I don't think we'll be running another, but never say never!

You set up Registration School while you were still studying. Was it a direct response to things you felt were lacking from your own experiences as a student?

A little, I think. For me the direct response was becoming an associate lecturer at Chelsea College of Art. I had a tricky relationship with my university education for several reasons, and because of that I kind of thought “Right, I can do this better myself.”

I understand that education has certain needs to be met, criteria to fill, and it's really hard to cater for a diverse range of students, but I fear that we don't prepare students enough for the reality of graduating. For me it's not about a technical level, but a mental one.

It's really hard for people to not get jobs, get rejected from roles, or do internships for a year or more before anything permanent comes around. It really knocks people for six; they've just come out of a system that has built them up for three years and haven't quite had to deal with these feelings or situations yet, and for whatever reason—be it experience, technical skills or ability—they can't reach the heights or get the opportunities they thought they would.

Being able to tell students how it really is while allowing them to grow and encourage them is actually really hard. A select few tutors had a large influence on me; they were challenging, probing, intriguing and had an edge to them, while having a real sense of empathy and being grounded in the reality of the industry. So I appreciate that a lot more now

How much do you think it's possible for a university education to prepare digital designers for the reality of being a practitioner given how quickly the landscape shifts?

It's tricky. I think that universities should be there to teach you skills that are independent of the medium, and are more ways of thinking and seeing, while grounding you in enough technical ability. There are design fundamentals that you must understand and tools that you should learn to enable you to do your job, but I think designers are diversifying their skills a lot more now.

For example copywriting and strategy is a key part of what I do now; being able to weave narratives and express stories is really key, and that's something I never touched on at university at all.

For me it’s about reading lots. I think if students start to read about historical design methods, and keep up with the current developments in design, they can start to form a rounded view of how to approach things and then apply that. It’s about transferable skills really. People that study design don't just go on to be 'designers' anymore, there's a far wider range of career paths, and I think it's important to note that and celebrate it.

You've worked on some pretty huge projects recently. Aside from the high-profile ones, what have been the most rewarding and engaging?

I think generally the most rewarding and engaging projects are ones where I really learn something, or feel like I'm pushing myself and challenging what I'm doing, regardless of what the project actually is. I think that if I'm working on something and I'm going through the motions, no matter the scale of project, it's not enough for me. I always want to be learning and growing.

Ivy Park must have been a mad project to be part of. How slick is the operation of anything Beyoncé-related? Did you feel at all intimidated to be working in that world?

It was pretty mad, yeah! It was like nothing I had experienced before, really. It wasn't really intimidating, perhaps because it was just too exciting!

The studio (Jonny Lu Studio) was working on the whole of the Ivy Park brand and the website grew naturally from what the team were doing with that.  We came up with some ideas and put a working prototype together that expressed our vision and it was presented quite early on to Beyoncé and it went down well.

Thankfully it was well received publicly, and it's great to see it still going now.

Alongside studio work you also keep a solo practice going, how important is that to you?

It's been important for me over the years to be able to work on things independently to learn and grow. In my own time I can work on things and experiment in a way I can’t always in the pressure of a commercial setting, so I like to use it as a testing ground for ideas and experiments.

I'll mostly work on websites for friends or independent photographers, set designers, and graphic designers. I want to enjoy what I do, create things that I like, but most of all I want to work with people that enjoy working on things together, so it gives me the opportunity to do that.

As someone who spends so much time on screen, do you ever feel like the worlds we create online are unhealthy at all?

Absolutely. I often think about why I’m doing what I'm doing, what's the purpose of it, and our relationship with the internet. I personally feel quite chained to these online worlds we live in.

I feel like we're all constantly in this cycle of downloading loads of information into our brains, and then racing to spew it back out online in some form. There's an obsession with 'the new’—to create something new, to experience something new, to say something new on the internet—and it feels like all we are interested in doing is being 'new' or being 'first' to create, say or do something.

I personally don't feel like there's the space to take something slowly, to explore and to grow organically. It feels like we're always in a hurry and it's pretty exhausting.

[sherristockman]

Breathing Program to Improve Mental and Physical Health in Two Weeks Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola It may be hard to believe, but 9 out of 10 adults breathe incorrectly, thereby impairing their health and exacerbating anxiety and depression. Fortunately, learning to breathe correctly is not a complicated affair. In this interview, Belisa Vranich, a clinical psychologist and author of "Breathe: The Simple, Revolutionary 14-Day Program to Improve Your Mental and Physical Health," shares a breathing program she developed that can help improve your physical and mental health in a short amount of time. Psychologists do not typically focus on breathing. As is often the case with health pioneers, it was her personal health problems that led Vranich onto this path. "What happened is that one year in New York, I woke up and had this dull throbbing pain in my jaw. I went to the dentist and found out I was not only grinding my teeth, I was pulverizing them because of stress … Being someone who sort of thrived on stress, I reached a point where it wasn't working for me anymore … [F]inding out I had to pay thousands of dollars to get teeth replaced and fixed was my [aha] moment. Most people take a yoga class or have a stiff drink. I decided for the yoga class. I loved the breathing we did in yoga … When I left yoga, I tried to find other classes that had to do with breathing. Most of them were vague, as far as their scientific explanations of what was going on, although they were lovely … [C]oming from a science background, I really wanted to know why things were happening … Long story short, I found all types of breathing in sports, martial arts, birthing, singing [and] free diving. I put all those practical elements together and came up with the breathing class I give now. I went back to my own patients [who] had anxiety and depression, and it worked really well with them … They would spend chunks of the session really wanting to do breath work. That's how the transition happened." Proper Breathing Is a Cornerstone of Good Health In her book, "Breathe," Vranich accurately points out that breathing is a cornerstone of good health, and that changing the way you breathe can have an enormous impact, improving your sleep, cognition, eating habits, resilience to stress and more. It can even lower your inflammation level, improve gastrointestinal (GI) function, increase longevity and reduce pain. When you're in pain, you tense up, which in turn affects your breathing, making it shallower. This actually makes the pain feel worse, and can lead to a vicious circle where the pain becomes constant. When it comes to breathing style, there are two basic types: vertical and horizontal breathing. Most people breathe vertically. This type of breathing makes you feel a bit taller on the in-breath, as it raises your chest and shoulders. "Unfortunately, it's anatomically incongruous," Vranich says. "Your neck and shoulders were never meant to be breathing muscles. You're not using the best part of your lungs. You're actually telling your nervous system that you are in a stressed-out state. If you're not already in a stressed-out state, it's going to make you more stressed … Horizontally is the way you see all animals on the planet breathe. They breathe and widen where the biggest part of their lungs are … If you ask a 5-year old to take a breath, they just widen like a little puffing fish … It's their deep breath. It's perfect. You take a 10-year-old and ask them to take a deep breath and all of a sudden, it's completely changed. The 10-year-old will raise their shoulders, puff up their little chests and take this vertical, apical breath. If it doesn't happen by age 10, definitely by age 15 … What they're doing is mimicking their parents and what they see around them …" How to Address Dysfunctional Breathing The origins of dysfunctional breathing can also be traced back to excessive sitting. The average American sits 13 to 16 hours a day, which puts your body into an unnatural posture. According to Vranich, your posture affects as much as 30 percent of your breathing. You may also have learned improper breathing through sports. Constrictive clothing such as tight waist bands, compression garments and bra straps add to the problem. Sucking in your gut also worsens the situation. "Even if you're not pulling in your gut because you think it makes you look thinner, you're bracing because of anxiety. Think about it. That's actually a posture that most of us have very often," Vranich says. "It's this braced middle … because it makes us feel better. We feel like we're ready to run or to strike. The problem with all of those things is that it takes the breath and it pushes it up, [turning it into] a vertical breath … Luckily, dismantling it is fairly easy because somewhere in your body, you remember having breathed horizontally … [and since] it does make you feel better [when breathing horizontally], you start doing it." The book, "Breathe," is a useful resource that provides a variety of different exercises and strategies to address this dysfunctional breathing. One such strategy Vranich calls "rock and roll." You can do it either standing or sitting. Begin by relaxing and unbracing your midsection. Take a deep breath in and actually feel the middle of your body get wider. Let your belly go. On the exhale, roll backward, tipping your hips underneath you while pressing your fingers gently into your belly, giving it a little squeeze. These movements are exaggerated because learning a new mechanical movement is easier if you start by exaggerating it. Eventually, this will teach your body to use the diaphragm to breathe. So, on the inhale, let your belly go. On the exhale, roll back and squeeze. "This is the most important breath," Vranich says. "If you do anything at all, this is the most wonderful one … You want to get yourself trained to breathe that way all the time." Remember to Engage Your Diaphragm When Breathing One of the key things to remember is to work with and engage your diaphragm when breathing, as this will allow you to change your breathing more easily, and make the change permanent. This is what the "rock and roll" breathing exercise teaches you. "[While] the Buteyko [Breathing technique] focuses on your carbon dioxide levels, breathing through your nose, and posits that most people over-breathe … I focus on style of breathing. I really look to see where you're breathing from, because in my experience that has been what really resonates with people and what creates the most change," Vranich says. "Although I touch on Buteyko Breathing in my book, I try to bring in breathing exercises from as many different places as possible, because I want there to be information that resonates with a really diverse group of people. I talk about breathing that happens in singing … in martial arts … In "Breathe," I bring in everything I possibly can, as far as breathing, to really give you a choice to see which of these different exercises works for you. But my main gift, I'd like to think, is that I look at where you're breathing from." You might know that muscles will atrophy from lack of use. If you've been breathing improperly for several decades, it may take some time to retrain your breathing muscles before you can breathe optimally. Even athletes can have weak breathing muscles, because in order to be strong, they have to be worked out separately. It doesn't happen automatically simply because you're breathing heavily, and it has nothing to do with lung capacity. Your breathing muscles include your: Intercostals: Muscles that run between your ribs, allowing your chest wall to move Diaphragm: That thin sheet of muscle that extends across your thoracic cavity below your heart and lungs, above your digestive system Obliques: The largest, outermost muscles of the lateral, anterior abdomen that give you that six-pack look Pelvic floor How to Strengthen Your Breathing Muscles Working those muscles and really engaging them when breathing will have a dramatic effect on your ability to breathe well. Your inhale is governed by your diaphragm, while the exhale is primarily governed by your intercostals and obliques. Oftentimes, feeling short of breath is due to insufficient exhalation leaving excess residual air in your lungs. With age, your intercostals and obliques can weaken, thereby weakening your ability to exhale fully. "When I teach, I teach the extremes so that you understand the mechanics. I make that exhale a squeeze. When you think about exhaling, most people think, 'Inhale, exhale, let go,' and that really messes us up. That idea of 'exhale, let go' makes you relax and flop down when you actually want to be narrowing your body on the exhale … If you can think about your belly button getting closer to your spine and even your ribs coming together, that's a really good exhale, which will obviously make your next inhale much better," Vranich explains. While about 50 percent of people can change their breathing for the better simply by reading the book or taking a single-session breathing class, to really change your breathing for life, most people need to commit to doing the exercises several times a day for one to three weeks. The Importance of Stretching Stretching helps improve your range of motion and flexibility, and proper breathing is an important aspect of effective stretching as well. Conversely, stretching can also improve your breathing. Vranich explains: "Since your intercostals are two layers of muscle on the inside of your ribs, the best way you can stretch them is by inhaling and then stretching … [This opens] up the spaces between your ribs … Add air to the ribcage, on the inside, and then stretch. Add a little bit more. It's called air packing — air packing comes from free diving — then stretch a little bit deeper. You can actually focus on the side that's collapsing and give that a little crunch … Now, I love spinal twists. If you don't have any injuries, if you've been OK'd for doing spinal twists, doing spinal twists on the exhale will definitely get you deeper into the twist using the breath … Whatever chair you're on, taking the back of your seat … and pulling yourself around on the exhale will get you deeper into the twist." More Information "Breathe: The Simple, Revolutionary 14-Day Program to Improve Your Mental and Physical Health" is a really excellent book if you want to explore different ways to improve your breathing. Vranich also teaches her breathing course live across the U.S. and conducts private sessions via Skype, Facetime or Google Hangout. An online course is also being prepared at the time of this interview. Health professionals, such as physical therapists, life coaches, personal trainers, yoga instructors and other coaches and therapists of all kinds can also become certified breathing coaches through her Breathe Certification Teacher Training Program. This year, teacher trainings are scheduled for Los Angeles, San Francisco and London. At present, there are about 50 health professionals certified in her program. You can find more information about this, and a whole lot more, on TheBreathingClass.com.

[battleborntap]

First Person Shooters as a genre have been around since Doom was released in 1993, and ever since, it has been widely considered one of the most liked genres (at least by Americans). With a wide variety of games and an even wider variety to the genre itself, let's take a look at some of my personal favorites!

Please note, these games all take place in the first person perspective, and have one of their main mechanics involving firing a gun or weapon of some kind. Games like Mirror's Edge and The Stanley Parable are omitted on the grounds that they are more First Person Puzzle Solvers rather than shooters, despite having the ability to shoot in these games. Also, I will only be doing one game from any given franchise, simply because I could pack this list with four or five sequels easy with all the games I've played. And finally, I can't say this enough, this is all based on my personal favorites and opinions. If you don't agree, that's fine! We all have our favorites, but this is simply a way for me to talk about mine!

So, without further delay, here are my Top Ten Favorite First Person Shooter Games!

#10. CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS (2010)

Of course a Call of Duty game made it onto this list, and MAN what a game it is! Call of Duty: Black Ops released on Ps3 and Xbox 360 in 2010 to much fan praise, and is often considered one of the last good Call of Duty games. While I am quick to argue that point (Advanced Warfare brought a focus to story for the first time in years and Black Ops 2 had probably, in my opinion, the best multiplayer in recent history), The original Black Ops had all three main modes (Story, Multiplayer and Zombies) on point for the launch of the game.

While the Multiplayer may not have aged well for the game, the Story mode is simply wonderful, and unlike the rest of the Black Ops series, YOU CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING IN THE STORY! If you have to read a plot summary to fully understand what the hell happened in it, it's not a good story. As for Zombies, simply letting players become former presidents and fighting time traveling nazi zombies...what more do i need to say?

Overall, it's an impressive game by all accounts. It helped to prove that Treyarch had what it took to keep delivering on the CoD formula, and while it wasn't World at War 2 like me and several others had hoped for (Still hoping for it, personally), it was a great game to play all the same.

#9. DOOM (2016)

Doom is the grand daddy of all First Person Shooters, and the latest iteration into the franchise really does not disappoint. With brutal carnage kills, impressive graphics, and a return to what made the franchise fun in the first place, DOOM (2016) is easily one of the best games of that respective year.

The story is as basic as it comes; Hell has invaded Mars, and you were about to be sacrificed when s**t goes sideways. You escape, get a Master Chief Power Armor ripoff, and fight through rooms and hordes of Demons to try and prevent Hell from getting to Earth...You know, like the last three Dooms!

The combat in this is where it truly shines, giving you the ability to kill enemies when they are weakened with brutal finishing attacks. The weapons are all fantastic, and the enemies are tough, but manageable. The real problems are outside the story; Multiplayer seems tacked on and rushed, while SnapMap, the mode I was really excited for, is basically just Corridor maker, the more. Still, the story itself is fun as all hell...

#8. BIOSHOCK (2007)/ BIOSHOCK INFINITE (2013)

This one might seem like a bit of a cheat, but hear me out...I personally feel that these games are very much the same thanks to something called "Service to the Brand."

Let me ask you this. Why do people in Bioshock use plasmids? They are a part of a world where everything has gone to Hell, and now they need to do whatever they need to survive, including injecting themselves with chemicals to give them super powers! Now why do they do it in Bioshock Infinite use vigors, which are basically plasmids?...There's really no reason is there? The reason they use them is because the last two games released had Plasmids, and it wouldn't be the same game without them!

This is a common problem with sequels that differ from their original game, and honestly, the only reason I decided to lump them together is that, aside from story and some situations you encounter, they are basically the same game. Well crafted gun play with elemental magics, expertly written dialogue and story, and an all around impressive and fun universe to explore, these games fill me with a sense of wonder each time I play them. If I had to choose one, it would have to be Infinite, but it's by such a slim margin that I felt it best to lump them together. My list, my rules...

Also, We don't talk about Bioshock 2...just...no.

#7. STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT (2015, Fight Me)

I know the original Battlefront games are well regarded and adored. I know many of the people who played this felt betrayed and hurt by the micro transactions and lack of content. I know it just feels like Battlefield with a Star Wars skin...But you know what? I don't care!

Star Wars: Battlefront is the Star Wars game I wanted to play when I first put the original Battlefront into my PS2. Was I disappointed by the lack of content? Sure. Did it feel like a cash grab on EA's part because they has acquired the license? Of course, it's EA. But I still enjoy the hell out of it.

The game play is fun and engaging, as well as more balanced than some large scale shooters. The available content, while infuriating that it's behind paywalls and a slow progression system, are rewarding and fun. The Heroes are overpowered, but not too much. Overall, I feel the game is good for one simple fact; for the first time in years, I felt like I was in the boots of a Stormtrooper.

Also, you occasionally get a Wilhelm scream to occur when you kill someone...so there's that.

#6. LEFT 4 DEAD 2 (2009)

How do you make a sequel to a decently balanced multiplayer zombie shooter? Change only who you play as and what their main quest is, then add more! That's exactly what Valve did with Left 4 Dead 2, and it worked great.

Playing as four new survivors with fun personalities, the game introduced three new special infected to deal with on top of the five introduced in the last games, the addition of choosing melee weapons instead of pistols, and helped to balance old issues and new ones that made the game well rounded and just plain fun to play ,whether you were with friends or a few randoms online.

Then Valve went one step further; They added in new content through DLC, some of which included the original five levels from the first game, where you can play as the first four survivors in the first five campaigns from the original game, but with the new enemies, weapons and everything! In general, Left 4 Dead 2 is just a damn fantastic game is you AXE me! HAHA!!

            I'm sorry...

#5. HALO 3 (2007)

Bungie hit pay dirt with the Halo franchise, and the third installment in the game is where all that effort peaked. Great gun play, multiplayer modes, and engaging story line that (mostly) resolved the conflicts of the last two games and more, the game was damn impressive on Xbox 360 when it came out, leading to it becoming the fifth best selling game on the console!

This was one of the big games me and my friends played for days on end, sometimes literally. It's one of the first games to give me a true love for shotguns in first person shooters, and the rest of the games since haven't felt as impacting to me. They've been fun to play, but this was the last game that made me truly enjoy the franchise in a nostalgic sense.

Maybe I'm just getting old? Maybe...

#4. PORTAL 2 (2011)

Portal 2 is much like Left 4 Dead 2; change little to nothing about the game, but improve the writing, add more content, and fix some bugs from the previous game. Unlike Left 4 Dead, however, this game didn't have a multiplayer mode in the original, so this one added one!

While the first game was a series of puzzles linked loosely together by an uncaring, vindictive god/computer named GLaDOS yelling at you and calling you names, the second game is a series of puzzles linked loosely together by an uncaring, vindictive god/ computer named GLaDOS yelling at you and calling you fat before you overthrow her and put a mentally inept ball in her place who slowly begins destroying everything around you, shoves GLaDOS into a potato and sends you both into a 1950's version of the labs you were exploring to be yelled at by a 1950's style billionaire voiced by J.K. Simmons!

The puzzles introduce familiar and new concepts, keeping them fresh well into the game. The dialogue is on point through out, with minimal dialogue feeling out of place or forced. The humor is even better than the first, allowing for visual gags more than the first game did and a few running jokes to boot. Ultimately, an impressive sequel to an already impressive game.

Also, this game made me fear/ hate certain birds...just sayin'

#3. BORDERLANDS 2 (2012)

how do you top a game that had literally a bajillion guns, a rapid fire sense of humor AND a cell shaded art style set in a semi-unique world? MORE GUNS! MORE HUMOR! MORE CELLS SHADED! AND A VILLAIN!

Yeah...if you really think about it, the first game didn't really have a main villain. Sure you had some minor ones, like Baron Flynt and Mad Mel, but they were more like sub-bosses than anything. Borderlands 2 had plenty of sub-bosses, but also gave us MOTHERF**KIN' HANDSOME JACK, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE BEST VIDEO GAME VILLAIN OF ALL TIME EVER PERIOD! With an actual story to get through, a villain to thwart, tons of fun new characters and old returning ones, as well as giving personality to the playable characters and the first games characters who act as NPC's this time around, the game did everything it needed to and then some.

This game established Borderlands as a franchise that's here to stay, and with follow-ups including The Pre-Sequel (Not bad, but not great) and Tales from the Borderlands (Fantastic Story, weird execution thanks to it being a TellTale game), there's no doubt in my mind that Borderlands is here to stay...

Can't really say the same for Battleborn...which is sad cause I kind of liked that one...

#2. OVERWATCH (2016)

Honestly, how could this one NOT be on this list? What is easily one of the best new franchises in YEARS, Overwatch brought exactly what it needed, and we keep getting more! With new characters and game modes being added, as well as regular balancing updates and more, the game shows no sign of slowing down.

If I had one complaint, it's that the game doesn't have a story mode. That said, we get plenty of information about the world and its characters thanks to digital comics, animated shorts, in-game dialogue and costumes, and a few other means. The roster is rich with diversity and ranges from easy to play to hard to master, and overall just is a fun time for everyone.

Hell, hte game hasn't even been out for a year yet and already we have three new characters, a new map, a new game mode and additional features like being able to make your own game mode ADDED IN FREE OF CHARGE! That's doing it right!

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The following five games are all fantastic in their own right, but didn't quite make my top ten. To save time, I'll only do a quick sentence or two for each, so please enjoy!

COUNTER-STRIKE: SOURCE - One of the first first-person shooters I played. Good combat and lots of customization both in game and in the variety of game modes.

GOLDENEYE 64 - A fun multiplayer title with an okay story mode. Best played with friends split screen...No Odd Job, please?

KILLZONE - I like to think of this as Sony's answer to Halo, but with space Nazi's instead of aliens. Regardless, it really made you feel like a soldier in an army instead of a lone wolf like most FPS games.

DESTINY -  Bungie's follow-up to Halo after leaving their flagship behind, the online, MMO hybrid was engaging, but didn't have much staying power if you didn't have a dedicated group to play with. With that and a lack of a real story, it felt like this was a half bake idea that will hopefully be more fleshed out in the sequel.

TITANFALL 2 - Improving on some of the pitfalls of the first game (Like console exclusivity), this is fun, fast paced, and in general a good game to play, especially if you have a friend or two in tow. Also, the story mode grabbed me with it's tutorial mode...so that says something.

Now, without delay, Here's Number 1!

#1. TEAM FORTRESS 2 (2007)

What started as a Quake mod eventually became the military themed hat simulator free-to-play sequel that Valve won't let you forget about. Tons of games release on Steam with some tie in to this, usually being a hat themed after whatever you're buying.

That said, once you get past the confusing as all hell economy the game has, there's a fun and engaging "Hero"-based shooter underneath. With nine classes to choose from, nearly limitless combinations for cosmetic customization and weapon loadouts. The story to the game is don similarly to that of Overwatch (Animations, comics, in game items, etc) but unlike Overwatch, many of the comics, animations and such contribute to the overall story of the game instead of just add little references to it.

The story itself is long, convoluted and silly, and perfect for the style of game it's trying to be. Overall, it's the game I've spent the most time in since I bought it back in 2007 (That's right, some of us PAID for this game), and it's easily my favorite First Person Shooter!

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! Wat are some of your favorite First person shooters? Let me know in the comments below, and until next time, I'm McNutty891! Have fun!

source : http://ift.tt/2oGhx4Q