I remember having a heated conversation with Maithili about transportation in NY when we were creating our service/app. We talked about the whole mess of a map for the MTA subway and all the good ‘ol delays and reroutes on the trains.  Even though we have so much technological innovation going on, there’s still no significant change to the types of transportation here. Change is hard and it’ll take time to work and be accustomed to, but as long as it’s for the better, for example, like something self-sustainable so we don’t have to pay for transportation. I mean we already have electric-charged buses so maybe we can with trains too? I’m not really sure how the MTA works, but if it were a free service (or maybe you pay for an initial fee to get your all-in-one MTA card for your personal use) would it become a government paid job? I wonder if this change would increase the number of passengers though and if the platforms and vehicle being used would even be big enough for the new amount. I know it’s already hard to implement changes (I’m looking at you MTA with all your delays and reroutes), but maybe we could spread out and try our ideas in a country who would need better transportation. Ideally, it would be a win-win situation because we’d be able to test out ideas while helping the people who live there. Of course, the drastically different climate would affect the type of transportation as well so this wouldn’t be a direct solution for us as well.

Yesterday was my first Games 101 class and my teacher opened up by talking about the transformation of games throughout different time periods. From chess and other intricate and sophisticated games to board games like Monopoly for heaps of fun to the modern technological age of Virtual Reality. There can be all kinds of games. Games for entertainment or for a storytelling experience or even for education. My reason for wanting to go into game design is because I want to express myself through

storytelling. I never really thought of games as a way to express myself until my Games 101 teacher said he believed it was so on the first day of class. Especially because through storytelling, something formed from my experiences. There are many people who believe games to be a waste of time, which is why the games you play should be worth it. So towards game makers as artists, how can they make what they make with purpose? On a global scale, virtual reality could have an impact on education. Games could be a simulation for what they want to practice or learn. However, if its a simulation, it seems to be more of something active rather than academic, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing,

That day when I was commuting home, there was a person next to me who greatly smelled like marijuana and it was really nauseating for me. I grew up not liking the smell of cigarettes because I understood the consequences of it (my brother and I would always run when we smelled that smoke). That’s why I had always begged my dad to stop smoking when I saw him hanging out with his friends. That same friend now still smokes when he has his own child, which is unfortunate and I understand these addictions and habits are hard to break and that rehab is pretty useless in some cases, but still I wish tobacco and marijuana wasn’t something people smoked. I wish it wasn’t something easy to become addicted to. I guess that’s where legalizing and regulation comes in.

                                                      (the clouds are supposed to resemble smoke)

People say that marijuana will only become accessible when legalized, but I imagine that there will be more laws in place to prevent easy access to unwarranted addictions. However, after the regulation is placed, what happens to the people who need their fix and are outright refused for it. Should they be forced into rehab or just left to suffer? Maybe before setting these laws, we should look into why these addictions happen, perhaps because of poverty or simply mixed into a group of people who smoke and try to prevent these situations from happening. It’s a very complicated situation since it involves so many aspects if regulation were to be implemented, which is why it shouldn’t be enforced without any thought behind the whole process.