I am bound to a cruel fate

For my final blog, I wanted to reflect on the experience as a whole. Despite being a bit tedious at times, I feel it was a fun time overall. It allowed me to try to think about writing in a new way, writing for a different audience than a typical essay or school project.  The part that I liked the most about this was with the open prompts. It allowed me to think loosely about a topic and find an interesting way to tie it in together. I enjoyed talking about my traveling for hobbies, because traveling is something I hold dearly. Weirdly enough, I also enjoyed the route I took when talking about hashtags, because I didn't just talk about what they mean, but rather how their use developed over time. The idea of taking a loose prompt and finding creative ways to write about it was fun in the way that it made me creatively think about a topic.  The part I didn't like, however, were the two prompts that felt difficult to put a spin on. The one about college education and having to r...

Media has a large impact on the way I view the world around me. I consume a lot of media with deep philosophical issues, and it causes me to think not just about how it affects me but how it appeals to others as well.  The best way for me to go about this is to debate with others around me who have also indulged in the same media. Several years ago I was discussing a game in which the main character accidentally kills his sister at very young age and then is convinced by is best friend to frame it as a suicide. One of the endings involves the two admitting what they've done to their friends and family, including many who were very close to the sister. It's doesn't ever show how this confrontation goes, however, which leaves it up to the player to decide if they feel the characters should be forgiven.  Discussing this with other people turned out much more interesting than I could've imagined. Surely, even if it was an accident, framing your sister's death as a suici...

In February of this year, I took a trip up north to Sedona. One thing that pops out about this city is its architecture, which is required to follow a strict code in order to preserve the aesthetic of the surrounding landscape.  The Land Development Code, or LDC for short, "plays an important role in preserving Sedona's scenic beauty" ( Land Development Code: Scenic Beauty ). It details many restrictions for its buildings, ranging from what colors they can be, how tall they can be, and the shapes they must be in order to fit the natural beauty of the area. For example, here's a picture displayed on the website with details about the LDC. ( Source ) The best part is, no one is immune to this code. Even McDonald's has to follow it. They were required to change the yellow parts of the building to blue, creating the only McDonald's with a blue Arch. ( Source ) Personally, I really like this, and wish more cities were required to follow similar building codes. Ma...

 A hashtag, in terms of functionality, is just a way of grouping posts about a similar trending topic on social media websites. They have other uses, but this is the most prominent one that is used currently.   At the time of writing this, #MamaJune was trending. It seemed to be about a TV show, because many people were discussing it as if they had just watched an episode where something new had happened. For example, Here are two tweets discussing the hashtag.    Sources: Tweet #1 , Tweet #2 Despite not watching the TV show they're discussing (or caring enough to look more into it), I can still recognize the importance of this feature. It allows for people to post about this show and for others who are interested in it to view their posts about it, potentially even allowing for discussing about the TV show.  Despite being useful, its evident that hashtags have in some sense fallen off in usage due to social media platforms being able to pick up trending to...