Writing of Requirement

I'm not ashamed to admit that I was a huge fan of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events in my middle school years. I still own all thirteen books, and the author's Unauthorized Autobiography . Having been around the same age the two elder Baudelaire orphans when I first read this series, I found everything about it oddly comforting. The children were intelligent, and interested in things mainstream culture told us were "odd" or "nerdy." It showed children who were perceptive, resourceful, bright, witty, and who even had a good relationship with their parents (before being orphaned). It also had a very dark side, and the author wasn't afraid to write to the young adolescents the series was marketed toward as emotionally intelligent equals - a courtesy many adults don't afford youth of that age group and which, as a reader, made me feel a certain debt to the author and the characters to prove I was worthy of that respect. This is wh...

I’ve found that when it comes to social networking, it’s easiest for me to focus on just one platform at a time. To be honest, this isn’t surprising as I’ve never been the type of person who could foster or maintain more than 3 close friendships at a time. Despite being an extrovert and garnering energy from social situations, I’m the type of people person who likes to really focus on the person. This is perhaps why Facebook has always been my preferred social media network by far. It allows for so many different types of interactions that I feel as though I get to know the person behind the profile better. Through status updates, photo and video postings, the new “live” feature, links and shares, “reactions,” comments, and messaging, the user is able to express themselves in so many different ways allowing for so many more facets of their personality to show through. While Facebook is by far my preferred social networking platform, I have used others as well. The only other one I...

The current trend in gaming seems to be the use of MUVEs - or multi-user virtual environments. One of these games that has remained popular across a wide range of age groups over the past few years is Minecraft. While my personal experience with Minecraft is quite limited, I am fortunate enough to work in a library which provides Minecraft-centered programming, and have learned a great deal about the many benefits of this and similar MUVEs. One of the reasons Minecraft is so popular among users from elementary school age to middle-age is its ease of use. The premise is quite simple: the user travels around a virtual environment collecting resources and building things. The basic tutorial built into the intro of the game shows the user how to perform all of the basic tasks they’ll need to be successful in the game. Minecraft also allows the user to choose between a building mode and a survival mode for play, which allows the user to mine all the resources they need and build all the...