It all began when I went to download the application and had to download another plug-in that my computer was missing. Once I finally got all the downloads configured and set up an account, I logged in and began playing. I vaguely knew what to do from the video in class the other day. 

The first thing I tried to do was gather wood--I went up to a tree and punched it A LOT and got nowhere. I went online and watched a YouTube video and it showed punching the tree. I returned to the game and tried punching the tree. Again, continuous punching and NO wood. I went to another tree and FINALLY it worked! I got one block of wood. I continued punching the tree and couldn't get any more wood. At this point, I had been playing for about 25 minutes and was yelling at my computer. I had to stop because I was so frustrated. 

I may go back and attempt to continue playing but right now, I'm too annoyed. I'm unclear on the purpose and focus  of the game. I know that when you pause there is a bar for achievements but what is the ultimate goal? I'm hoping that the panel on Tuesday will help enlighten me on 1) how to play and 2) the purpose of playing and 3) the ultimate goal. 

The images that really caught my attention were jo’s and sdane’s images that compare meals between public schools and prisons. When I was in high school, I had heard a rumor, or what I thought to be a rumor, stating that the same company that distributed our school lunch was the same who distributed lunch to prisons. After all the readings we have been doing and seeing these images, I am appalled at the reality of these connections. The reason why these images hit so close to home is because these look exactly like the lunch I was receiving. I was eligible for free lunch but I honestly feel as if it was a waste of an opportunity that was given to me specifically, I barely went to lunch – in fact I can count the times I have gone into the cafeteria all four years of high school.

(provoked by Christine Sum Kim):

past senior row on Wednesday morning, when I saw

a red-tailed hawk (entirely undisturbed by me) making her breakfast of a squirrel.

Craving-

Bay scallop leaves

Harbor for boiling water, bay leaves

White wine, yellow onions, potatoes, corn, butter,

Cream, garlic, salt, pepper, parsley, and

More thyme.

The not last taste

Overlays scallops and corn

Of Zea mays var. saccharata out

Of season, there is no sexy way to say I miss you

Words discarded with shells at Jetties parking lot

The shellfish

Is always selfish in chowder. 

Still, try to see the blue bowls garnished with parsley,

And pats of butter on beautiful cold days. 

Recipe for a specific experience. 

Oh Iowa sweet!

Become my yellow-white bouquet summer man.

I was surprised when my peers got confused about my pictures of prison and school. Immediately, I realized that the longer I looked at these two postings, the more they looked alike. I was absolutely shocked by such an observation because school and prison really should not be equal in any senses.

Honestly, I have my assumptions and impressions about prison. I believe that prison exists for a reason. No matter how problematic the prison system is becoming, prison primarily serves to be the correction facility for people who made mistakes under justice system. People are sent to prison for something that they did wrong in most cases today.

On the other hand, in most people’s mind including mine, school ought to be a divine place. Ironically, the administrations and certain policies are compromising the purity of this place. However, no one can deny the paramount role that school and education play in any individual’s growth and success. 

How did such two distinctive places get mixed? I will start my conversation from the two pictures: my high school gate which really looks like locked-down place from outside and women prisoners sitting together who look like typical Chinese students are studying. These two pictures together showed two places strangely but interestingly intertwine.

My trip to see mountaintop removal coal mining in southern West Virginia gave me a new perspective of the connection between schools and prisons that parallels discussions we've had in class about the war on drugs and over-surveillance, and the ways in which public schools set certain students up for failure and oppression by the system. I hadn't expected to see such a connection, as I, like many, have a tendency to forget that all issues of oppression are inherently connected and stem from upper-class white male control as it dominates society; to see that the schools are about as confining and the war on drugs about as harsh in these poor, white, rural Appalachian communities as they are in the poverty-ridden, predominately black inner cities. In looking at the various images we all posted last week, HSBurke’s pictures particularly hit me, one of a man standing against the bars of his prison cell, the other of a little boy standing similarly against the bars of the school yard fence. Both people were white, which really made me think of how the over-surveillance in “third world USA” (WV) is less an issue of race than class.