The Final Grade of UC 256

The class of UC 256 has come to a close and I felt it was necessary if to share my feeling about this course. There have many blog post and class presentations about the good and bad that many had experienced throughout this semester. Personally, I didn’t think this class was so bad, and compared to classes that I have taken so far, it is definitely one of the better ones.

What I liked most about this course is that variety of content that were presented. I know this an interdisciplinary course and consequently required but I felt the ones they chose for the most were pretty interesting. The only thing that I wasn’t really thrilled about was how we didn’t engage deeply into those topics. Yes, we had reading quizzes, and opportunities to blog, but I thought it would be a little more interactive. To be honest I’m not really sure how we could change that, but maybe with a smaller class size, if that is even possible.

Another hot topic of this course was the discussion of the grading system. I don’t think it was necessarily unfair because there were so many options to get the points I needed instead of like most classes where your whole grade is based off of three assessments. Also, those assignments were not hard and really long except the major quest, so the workload for the class wasn’t really heavy.

With that being said and going off the topic classes and grades, I want to award UC 256 with a grade of a B⁺. This course would have gotten an A if it were more interactive and not just write about them in blogs or answer reading quizzes.

More Perspectives on Drug Testing in Sports

http://www.cagepotato.com/mma-steroid-busts-definitive-timeline/

I recently read a very interesting academic article on doping titled “Blue Sky Steroids”1 from the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.  In that article, Geoffrey Rapp introduced a very interesting perspective on drug testing.  Cleverly refuting several anti-doping arguments and citing the ineffectiveness of drug testing, he argued that doping should be allowed but subject to a full disclosure policy similar to the so-called ‘Blue Sky’ laws enforced on corporations. 

The ‘Blue Sky’ laws force companies to give shareholders full disclosure of what they are doing with their money.  So, though there are few direct limitations on what corporations can do with their investors’ money, they do have to take into account ‘market values.’  No want will want to invest with a company that makes foolish or overly risky decisions. 

Rapp believed that disclosure of players’ drug use would similarly subject team owners to ‘market values.’  If fans actually disapprove of doping, players who dope would loose their support.  I think that Rapp’s view deserves a second look because it allows for judgment on a case-by-case basis by the people whose opinions actually matter.  After all, the problem with doping is that detracts from the meaningfulness we find from success in sports, and meaningfulness is a matter of opinion.  An example Rapp used was that fans might disagree with a young, healthy player’s use of human growth hormone (HGH) but OK an older player using it to recover from an injury.

However, there is one problem I see with this solution.  If fans disapprove of doping then won’t athletes will simply go back to doping in secret and won’t we have the same drug testing problem all over again?  What do you think?

1. Rapp, Geoffrey. "Blue Sky Steroid." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 99.3 (2009): 599-618. Web. 14 Apr. 2012.

Hockeytown: The Home of Playoff Hockey

                Motown?  Hockeytown?  Whatever you like to call it, Detroit is home to the greatest hockey team in the history of the sport.  The Detroit Red Wings have made the NHL playoffs every year since before I was born.  That’s 21 straight seasons, with 4 Stanley Cups in that span.  The Wing’s playoff streak is the longest in all professional sports. 

I have been a Red Wings fan as long as I can remember, and am used to them always reaching the post-season.  This year is no exception, however, something was a little different.  The Wings are in the playoffs as the 5^th seed because this season their division was incredibly good.  Usually they are one of the top four teams and earn the home team advantage.  Four of the five teams in their division made the playoffs which has never happened in this division.  

Currently they are playing their division rival Nashville in the first round of the playoffs.  I think that this is going to be a great series.  The atmosphere of playoff hockey in Detroit is electrifying and with a rival in town it can only get more exciting.  These two teams have always had a very competitive and physical rivalry which makes for a great series, but more importantly just great hockey!  Despite the Wings being down 2-1 in the series I think they will pull even in the next game and take the series in 6 or 7 games.  GO WINGS!

The Final Game

As the end of the semester approaches, students are rushing to finish their assignments and are vigorously studying for exams.  Final exams are used by teachers in order to evaluate their students based on how much material throughout the course the students have actually acquired.  Personally, I find finals to be too stressful of an event to determine the student's accurate acquisition of knowledge throughout the course.  Because finals create unnecessary pressure, students often are under too much stress, and therefore "break" and perform subpar on their exams.  Especially after class and hearing the presentations of how to redesign the structure of the university as well as the individual course, I find finals to be an inefficient method of evaluation.  The final exam period at the university can easily be looked at through the lens of gaming.  Because the stress and pressure creates a rigid and tense atmosphere throughout the entire campus, students are competing with others to study more, do better, and eventually receive the better grade.  Each student is its own player, making strategic moves in hopes of outsmarting others and eventually "winning the game", or getting a higher grade.  I cannot wait for finals to be over so I can finally relax and not feel as though I am a player in a high-risk game!

Psychology in Hunger Games

     The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, was undoubtedly an exciting novel with action-packed adventure, but I have focused more on a perspective that many others may have not.  When reading this novel for my book quest, through all the different twists and turns that the story took I felt there was a very prominent aspect of psychology within the games.  There were many instances in which the characters were forced to make decisions in the game that often entailed very positive or negative consequences.  The many factors and motives that went into the characters' decision making led me to my emphasis on the field of psychology and various mind games.

Katniss and Peeta

     A very common theme throughout the Hunger Games was the obvious connection between Katniss and Peeta.  Prior to the games even beginning though, Katniss was immediately faced with the obstacle of being selected alongside Peeta, who had previously saved Katniss' life when they were children.  Katniss felt like she owed him, yet she was now expected to kill him in the games which really forced her into a dilemma.  By the end of the games, Katniss and Peeta were the only two left.  It seemed as if it was now inevitable that one of them had to die now that the newly established rule of same-district winners had been revoked and it was secretly the plan of the Gamemakers all along.

    This was a prominent point in the book that facilitated my focus on mind games that the characters had been a part of.  With the devotion to her love for Peeta, Katniss comes up with the brilliant plan for them eat the poisonous berries together and then pretend to be deeply in love with Peeta in order to both be declared winners and not be held accountable for their actions.  With stunning acting, the both pull it off and convince everyone that they are truly in love.  This both has an affect on the audience and spectators of the games as well as Katniss herself.  They had now escaped their biggest problem and most importantly death, but now Katniss was unsure if Peeta actually had a real love for her.  This was just another instance of how manipulative the characters were throughout the development of the Hunger Games.

     A very interesting speaker we had in our class that always stands out in my mind was Stephen Garcia who lectured about psychology of competition.  The struggle between Katniss and Peeta as well as their focus on winning the Hunger Games was a situation where psychology played a major role.  One of the main concepts he expressed that was very evident throughout the book was social facilitation.  This concept states that competition and motivation on a given task increases when you work in pairs or small groups as opposed to alone.  This can be exemplified by the many alliance realignments such as Katniss' alliance with Rue and the on-and-off alliance with Peeta.  I can agree with this with first-hand experience that working together with someone is always more tempting.  It gives you a sense of reassurance when you think may be incapable of reaching your goal, ultimately providing more motivation.  Additionally, Dr. Garcia discussed the role of situational factors on competition.  Such examples included time, resources, and perhaps even the role of love, which all can profoundly impact the course of a game like it did in this book.  With the scarcity of food and supplies as well as the relationship between Katniss and Peeta, the level of competition in the games were without a doubt altered.  The love Katniss and Peeta may have had for each other completely changed the course of the game as an alliance between the two may never have even existed.  As far as I see it, the Hunger Games would have been a completely different story without the various psychological factors that were clearly put in play.

     I believe my understanding of the Hunger Games was enhanced by my prior knowledge surrounding the psychology that goes into competition and games.  It offered me a perspective on this story that probably would not have even crossed my mind.  Rather than simply following the storyline and plot, I was able to pick apart the motives and psychological mechanisms of the characters.  Katniss' love for Peeta as well as the strategy going into the various alliances formed contributed to my complete comprehension of the story, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Can There Ever Be Equal Competition?

I’ve recently been reading a few blogs and comments about how many think the NBA is unfair and uninteresting to watch because of teams that are “stacked”. Like the Miami Heat with the Big 3 and also the Boston Celtics and their big players, like Allen, Garnett, and Pierce. The same goes with the disappointment people feel with the NCAA basketball tournament and champions the Kentucky Wildcats and how those players aren’t really student-athletes and how it’s unfair to the rest of the teams and tournament.  Not to offend anyone but I think it’s all ridiculous, and there is no way to regulate or fix this without taking away from the game. No matter what sport you play there are going to be people, teams, or countries that are going to have an advantage over others but what those advantages are can be different in each case.

We should also look at this from the standpoint of the coaches, because for them if they don’t win games and win champions they are out of a job. They have to get the best or the better players to increase their chances of winning. By recruiting the top ranked players isn’t violating any rules and it doesn’t hurt any of the other players. So why should coaches be punished for be able to get the big players.

 This is true with any competition in life that we face, whether it’s in sports, school, or with work. It is unlikely that everyone has the same chance and ability to be successful and nothing can change that.  Like with school there are competition between students for better grades, exams scores etc.  and there are also students who have advantages over others with tutors, natural ability, or even with cheats which aren’t allowed. With jobs and competition within the workplace but also between companies and businesses, and they all try to get an advantage other them, some even illegal, just to be successful .

I think in whatever we do there will be people who have the upper hand and it can actually fuel the fire of competition. Yeah, I know it can suck going up against those team, cause I have for sure, but it doesn’t make the games less interesting or take anything away from the other players. Including me, people just don’t like to see their team lose.

The Fun of Anti-Language

We recently had guest speaker Robin Queen come into class to talk about the games we play with our own language, and by languages it included both verbal and non-verbal languages as well. The thing that stuck out the most for me during the presentation was when she talked about anti-languages.  Anti-language is mostly used to distinguish members from a certain group or to communicate in way that only select few are permitted to hear.

This got me thinking about if there were any anti-languages that I heard of or used. The first think that I thought of was the abbreviations that we used while texting or chatting online. Like the use of “lol”, “smh”, “idk”, and many more. I feel this is a type of anti-language because if you’re not part of the generation that has adopted this type of language you will have a hard time understanding what is being said. It defiantly isn’t as complicated as the example she mentioned in class like Polari or the cockney rhyming slang, but when these saying are used you can get a better understanding of what type of group or generation they belong to.

I then realised that I also used anti-language as a way to be secretive and that was when I was younger and with my friends to try and be “cool” but at the same time not get in trouble with my parents. As with most my parents were defiantly not okay with me swearing so to try and be sneaky we would say  “shut the front door!” or “what the french toast”.  Our parents had no idea what we were saying but we felt so cool because to us, that was the same thing as swearing.

Here is a funny Orbit Gum commercial that uses some of that disguised swearing I was talking about.

The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome

Spoiler Alert: contains key plot points from The Hunger Games Trilogy

http://www.jensc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/HG2.jpg

One of the things I noticed while reading The Hunger Games Trilogy was the numerous ways in which the Capitol resembles ancient Rome, probably the most obvious being the gladiatorial like games that they hold for both the punishment of the defeated and for their own entertainment.  However, the resemblance goes much deeper than this.
Something that struck me almost immediately was the first names of the Capitol's citizens: Cinna, Caesar, Plutarch, Flavius, Octavia, Venia, to name a few.  The first name of every person from the Capitol is a traditional Roman name.  I decided that the author, Suzanne Collins, was purposely trying to create a connection in the minds of her readers between the Capitol and ancient Rome, and so I began searching for more similarities.

http://thehungergames.wikia.com

I then realized that both ancient Rome and the Capitol had penchants for excessive wealth that they relied entirely on their providences/Districts to provide.  A very specific example occurs in Catching Fire when Katniss is disgusted by the Capitol practice of making oneself puke at a dinner party in order to make room for more food.  The Romans also indulged in this disgusting habit.  I later discovered in Mockingjay, that Plutarch directly compares the conditions in the Capitol to the 'Bread and Circuses' of Rome.
There is also an interesting correlation between President Coriolanus Snow and the emperors of ancient Rome.  In ancient Rome, the emperors often gained and held power by whatever means necessary.  In Mockingjay, Finnick Odair reveals the brutal tactics that Snow used in his ascension to power, including a Roman favorite, poison.  Readers are treated first hand to the threats, torture, and executions Snow uses to maintain his position.
There exist many more examples I could point out but instead I'll ask a question.  Why is Suzanne Collins making these comparisons between the Capitol and an ancient civilization from thousands of years ago?  In Mockingjay, Plutarch mentions that Panem had once been a republic, another quality it shares with Rome.  Now think of the implications when considering that in the first book, Katniss relates that Panem was once known as North America.

http://www.crystalinks.com/romerecreation.html

Carl Becker stated in Everyman his own Historian, "to be prepared for what is coming to us it is necessary not only to recall certain past events but to anticipate the future."  I think Suzanne Collins trying to use her vision of a dystopian future to warn us that we need to learn from the mistakes of the past.  This is why she ends The Hunger Games Trilogy with Plutarch's expression of hope that the people of Panem will learn from their recent history.