It Begins...

I have a very difficult problem that I need to resolve and that's on how to start a blog entry. I was forming some ideas in my head on how to start off with a basic statement that brought no attention getting words to the reader (as if this is going to do any better) and to rather start the blog entry on-topic, I felt that it would be more refreshing to rant on in one huge paragraph about a recent topic that I was reading in Runescape Community that troubled me yet made me think. Even though I have a grudge against that forum, I do enjoy reading it while playing Runescape. Or I normally read some random Wikipedia articles while playing Runescape. I'm not going to bother leaving a link to the topic as they might do another mass prune again and wipe that topic along with any other topics such as the ones in the suggestion forum that people worked hard on writing and didn't save a copy of the BBcode on their hard drive, like myself! Anyway, the topic was about gold farmers of Runescape and how this individual had a little PM chat in-game with a 17-year old Chinese individual who was a gold farmer. Now, what is a gold farmer? If you're familiar with the MMORPG community or JoyStiq, you might have heard of this phrase being related to World of Warcraft, but gold farmers are in fact in Runescape. A gold farmer is somebody who gathers up the gold pieces (gp) in the game, and then exchanges the pixel money for real world money. A nice way of getting money, right? Wrong. It's against most MMORPG game rules, including Runescape, and will result in a ban if found of doing such an action. Well, these gold farmers, in this topic, are seen killing green dragons in the wilderness for their dragon bones, and then they'll stock up on the bones and sell them for gp. You might start to think that these people who do such are probably greedy individuals who want to ruin the economy of a video game by getting a massive amount of a product in-game and then in the end ending up with some nice real world money, but that's not the case here. These people actually rely on this real world money to support themselves and to live. The value of staying alive for these people is in a video game -- a video game that most people in developed countries play to enjoy rather than to have a job on and be forced to get gp on it. Yes, they're forced. These people are not the ones getting the 42 USD (United States Dollar) for a million gp, but rather 2.50 USD. These people have a boss that they give either the bones or gp to, and in return the boss sells these pixels for real world money and will get a lot of money, but will hand out merely 2.50 USD to the employer. And yes, that's $2.50 a day, not 2.50 USD for every million, but for a good and successful day of dragon killing and hopefully not getting pked. I don't know, I feel bad for these people. I mean, here we are sitting on our asses all day playing Runescape for the thrill and joy of the game, and in general for fun, while on the opposite side of the Earth we have people forced to play for what seems for us to be very little pay daily while their 'boss' is sitting around on a leather sofa reading some expansive book. Doesn't that make you feel like playing Runescape? Well, just be careful next time you're pking green dragon hunters. You might be killing a pixel avatar, but you might also be killing a real life person who can't eat for the day.

And now that I got that off of my chest, I will go on about more personal topics, such as my life. Excited, eh?

It begins. What begins? The midterms. This week at Lakeland Jr/Sr High School, the midterms began to take place and fellow students were stuck in class taking a test that would affect 10% of their overall average in that class. Throughout the year, if you do bad on a normal test (normally referred to 'bombing' the test such as if you did good you would 'ace' the test) then you would be able to make up for it on the other tests in that quarter, but for the midterms, that's impossible. One test equals one grade, and that single grade is plopped right on your report cards. No exceptions and no getting around it, and definitely no altering grades. The midterms is one of the top three worst test taking periods of the year. The others include the final exams and any standardized tests we have to take, such as Terra Nova's or the PSSA's.

I really hate the midterms. Why? Because when my sister went to school (she graduated in 2000), she never had to take midterms because Lakeland did not even have them. Heck, you didn't even have to take the final if you had an A or higher. Now everything is mandatory. We must take both the midterms and finals. What I hate about the midterms is that they're positioned at an awkward time of the year right after Christmas vacation. Really, Christmas vacation is what splits one half of the school year from the other, even though the second quarter doesn't end until another week or two from now. Most students do not remember nor study during this vacation, as the very word in 'Christmas vacation' indicates such. It's a vacation, not an extended study period. Do most people (and I'm not being stereotypical and saying all, because some do for fun at the high school level) study during summer vacation. Besides having to read three novels for the advanced Englishes, you're not going to study for Spanish 3 or AP Chemistry, are you? Summer is time to get away from school, so is every other break we have throughout the school year, including Christmas and Easter. Therefore we should not be concerned with midterms during Christmas break, yet there they are waiting to devour us at the end of the break, right at the smack beginning of the new year. And then it begins...

I personally think that we should be pestered with the midterms before Christmas break. Why is that? Here's something for you to think about: Would you rather get your homework done at three-thirty and then do whatever you want for the rest of your day, or do it at nine at night, and having that thought in the back of your head all day bothering you that you have homework to do, and that you can't go to bed or relax until it's done. Same case here. Would you rather want to take the midterms early and get them over with, actually taking a well-deserved vacation from school and then coming back to school the next calendar year with new material to learn rather than reflecting on older material that sort of floated away from memory over break, or would you want to take the midterms later and having that thought it the back of your head that reads, "You have to take midterms when you go back to school and then there's no break afterwards and you must continue your regular pattern of school until Easter." ?

It's the same reason why I don't understand why people skip school or class to skip a test. Wouldn't you rather just want to get rid of the test early and on time rather than having that horrible test in your head for a day or two later, annoying you and haunting your dreams?

I was actually supposed to devote this topic to what midterms I took this week and my thoughts on them, but rather it turned into a much better post that had a rant and a little bit of Runescape-related information. In the end, it was a successful write. I will get around to posting that second episode of the "Life of Foote" sometime soon. This weekend (I have Monday off -- yippie!) I'll be focused on writing an essay on some poems and a report paper on ancient Athens that are considered parts of the midterms for the corresponding classes, so hopefully I'll get around to editing it and uploading it to the internet. I also want to say that I recently got 80 HP and attack in Runescape, my third and fourth 80's yet. My strength and defense are both 79 so they'll be next.

Well, I have no daily blog special for you because I wrote so much and I have to go review over the material for my biology midterm and feed the lizards some mealworms, but I'll leave this topic with the following:

Happy Birthday Caitlin!

Merry 16!