Can You Even Name 6 Yu-Gi-Oh! Monsters

     People always say how good it is to try new things, and I would agree with that. Although I don't usually go way out of my comfort zone, like eating a tarantula or opening up about my feelings, I like to explore new hobbies, which I think all people can benefit from. Even if it's not something that one can profit off of, new hobbies can give one a sense of purpose and may even prove useful later on in life. An example of this could be playing games. It's likely that one gains satisfaction after being ranked number one on a leaderboard or absolutely annihilating their friend in a one vs. one match online, and, at least in my case, this process has also allowed me to believe in . 

    Another hobby could be watching a show... about a game! Take Yu-gi-oh for example, on the surface it's just a cute kids show about a card game, but in reality it is teaching life lessons and good humor! In case you've never seen Yu-Gi-Oh!, allow me to give you some insight. The show follows a teenager named Yugi on his quest to become the king of games by winning You-Gi-Oh! tournaments. The first episode starts with Yugi explaining how to play the game to his friend Joey. Each person starts with 4000 life points and must summon monsters and activate spell and trap cards to get their opponent’s life points to zero. Yugi wears an ancient magical Egyptian relic that his grandfather gave him around his neck which the show refers to as the millennium puzzle. This puzzle is in the shape of a pyramid and traps the soul of the nameless pharaoh. When mentioning that his grandfather owns a card shop to Joey, a teenager named Seto Kaiba overhears this. Yugi also mentions that his grandfather has a secret rare card which sparks interest in Seto Kaiba, who follows Yugi and Joey to the card shop. Once the grandfather reveals that the card he has is the rare blue-eyed white dragon, Seto Kaiba begins to bargain millions of dollars in order to get this card. As luck would have it, Kaiba is a CEO of a major company in the Yu-Gi-Oh world. After Yugi’s grandfather refuses Kaiba's offer, Kaiba leaves then hires people to go kidnap Yugi’s grandfather and steal his blue eyes white dragon card. Once Yugi learns of this, he is forced to go confront Kaiba. Once Yugi enters Kaiba’s building, he finds his grandfather wounded on the floor and Seto Kaiba with the blue-eyed white dragon card in his hands. Yugi demands to let go of his grandfather and the card which, of course, Kaiba declines and rips the card in half. Then Kaiba explains that has three copies of this card already in his deck and wanted to make sure that nobody can use it against him. This leads to Yugi and Kaiba's first duel where Yugi uses his grandfather’s deck. At the start of the duel, the spirit of the nameless pharaoh possesses Yugi and begins to duel for him, but Kaiba is still winning. Kaiba's strategy resembles his personality as all his cards are strong and are meant to be used with pure aggression; on the other hand, Yugi’s cards are weaker, but can get stronger if they are used correctly with his other cards, which also symbolizes how friendship and teamwork mean everything to Yugi. Throughout the duel, Yugi continues to draw weak cards that look (literally) like just an arm and just a leg which forces to play on the defensive side while he tries to think of a plan. Kaiba, however, keeps adding pressure on him by destroying everything he plays. When all hope is lost, Yugi puts all his faith in the heart of the cards and draws his card. In this situation, if he doesn’t draw something to make him win he loses everything. He draws the card Exodia, the forbidden one, and this card will let the user automatically win as long as they also contain his two arms and two legs (the cards Yugi was drawing throughout the duel). So, Yugi wins the duel, saves his grandfather, and episode one is finished. 

    This duel sets up the main theme of the show which is that individually, like the arm and leg cards, people will struggle and be more unlikely to succeed; however, through the power of teamwork and friendship, people will be able to overcome obstacles because they can combine their strengths together, like how the limbs were all together and Exodia was drawn, and its true power came to light.

    I don't think it's a stretch to say that we can all learn something from Yu-Gi-Oh!, but this isn't the only way. Sometimes some great lessons can come from places that most people wouldn't expect, but that's why trying new things is GOOD! No matter what stage a person is in their life, there is always room for improvement, and what better way to see what could be improved than with a little experimentation? Everyone deserves to feel like the best version of themselves, and even if trying something new doesn't help, I hope people also learned that it's an act of strength in itself to lean on other people for their strength and doing so may just help make it easier for one to survive the next battle on their own.

                  

-Celeste

Over 5 years later..

        In a semi-recent statement by the current Arizona governor, Doug Ducey, the necessity of college degrees in the current job market was highly emphasized, and Ducey proposed a plan of increasing the amount of Arizonan's with a degree in order to put them in a better position to get jobs and to help employers find more candidates (Gov. Doug Ducey, The Arizona Republic). As a college student myself, I  think that higher education throughout the state is definitely beneficial, but not for the same reasons that the Governor does. 

            To elaborate, Ducey mainly focused on the economic benefit of a higher college education, but I'm more concerned about the personal benefits that people gain from going to school. All my life, I've seen movies and heard people talk about how college was an experience that pulled them out of the ordinary box shaped mold that they were forced into during the earlier years of their education. Perhaps it's the newfound freedom most students have after joining college that allows them to be more open to outside influences and more willing to try new things, but whatever it is, it's a good thing! The same way that traveling is beneficial because it allows people to broaden their perspective, college allows people to pick new experiences, such as a new sewing class or party, that will help them grow into their own person. 

            Additionally, I had a hard time putting faith into Ducey's plan to help people get into college, seeing as though his method appears to be giving for money to schools, and I can't help but wonder how the money is being distributed. This is because I remember last year my high school sent an e-mail to all student and parents explaining that they weren't sure if we could finish our senior year because the funding that they had been promised was "on hold"and waiting for approval by the state. Now, my school did get the funding in the end, and I was able to do all the senior things I wanted to; however, if Ducey wants us all to go to college so much, why are schools like mine facing so much uncertainty? Some may call me a speculator, but I think it's pretty safe to say that Ducey either doesn't truly believe in what he said or he doesn't have the determination to make it into a reality because this situation is something I had never before experienced and also goes against basically everything he's said before. 

            Higher education is definitely something that would benefit Arizonan's individually, but to expand this opportunity to everyone we need a better plan than just more funding. Also, if Ducey wants to help Arizonan's gain more opportunities to join the labor force then he needs to find a more tangible way to keep people in their classrooms. 

-Celeste

Sources:

Gov. Doug Ducey, The Arizona Republic. “Ducey: Why Arizona Needs More College Grads.” The Republic | azcentral.com, 17 Sept. 2016, eu.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2016/09/17/arizona-needs-more-college-grads-ducey/90363958.

4ever influenced by the past

       I think it's fair to say that most people don't see any importance in learning about history. This makes sense as they are all dead already and knowing what year the Declaration of Independence was written isn't really relevant to today's world. However, I want to implore you to consider that history may actually extremely relevant to society despite how long ago it was. 

If you get rid of the way that school taught you to think about history (dates, eras, battle names) and think about it only in terms of what happened, you might be able to see how the past developed the foundation of the world we have today. 

As an example, let's discuss the Mongol Empire. In the early 1200s, tribes that were previously at war with one another were joined together by a man named Chinggis Khan. They had a population that was less than a million people, yet they had managed to conquer almost all of China, Europe, and East India and have the second largest empire in all of history. Although their methods were incredibly brutal, as they would give villages one chance to surrender then massacre all people (including women and children), this isn't what gave them a leg up on other countries. It was simply the organization of the military that allowed the Mongols to conquer others so quickly. Khan separated his people into units of 10,000, 1,000, 100, and 10 so that communication was more efficient, and new people who joined the tribe (conquered people) could be easily added into these units. Before he knew it, Khan had an entire empire that was loyal to him and in turn there was widespread peace across the empire. Despite having conquered so many places and people, the Mongols didn't add much of their culture into the world except for this military structure, which was then used by nearly all nations after their empire had fallen (Black plague). Although the Mongol Empire existed hundreds of years ago, it was able to lay a foundation for something in society that allows for one's country to be seen as strong and gives the people in that country a sense of relief since outside invaders are not a threat. 

Fun Fact: The Mongols killed so many people that it lowered the amount of carbon being released and cooled the temperature of the Earth!

While this was just one example, this can be done with anything, such as the beginnings of economic thought, social hierarchy, and belief systems. History teaches us about how things have began, and how they have grown to be what they are now. Understanding this process of a system or belief will allow one to be able to analyze how it works, how it fails, and how it can be improved. 

-Celeste

3 TV (Not Really): A Report on Reporting???

From the text you just sent to the Twitter threads about celebrities cheating and the other thread about the great scheme of capitalism, people are constantly distributing information. Maybe it's valuable information or maybe it's just interesting, but either way someone in the world has access the things that we put out there. However, how often do we think to analyze the information we're given? Even if one were to go to all of their personally trusted websites, how can they tell they are being given credible information? 

Some people may say that they can tell information is credible if it is found in multiple sources or if it just makes sense logically. However, even information that is factual and logical can be skewed by personal bias, which can create slanted reporting. 

For instance, a news article in The Independent Arizonan, was discussing the amount of education funding that is available. Specifically, the article said that "Arizona's schools and teachers thought they had finally received  the funding Arizonan's voted for... Governor Ducey included $1 billion in new K-12 education funding that should have been available to Arizona schools on July 1, 2022" (Arizona). Although the article is not blatantly saying what they want to happen in response to this issue, their use of the words such as "finally" and "should" add emotion into what their saying, which leads the reader into feeling a certain way about a topic. 

This kind of reporting doesn't automatically make people believe one thing or another, but if people are unaware of how the wording of an article may be leading them in a certain direction, then they are more likely to be influenced. However, if more people can learn about how to spot slanted reporting, then they're more likely to be able to develop their own opinion rather than borrowing someone else's. 

-Celeste

Sources: 

 “Arizona Schools Waiting on Funding.” The Independent Arizonan.