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Raney Simmon

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Cover

Rating: 3 stars

Warning: This book review contains spoilers of some of the events that unfold in this book. Viewer discretion is advised for those interested in reading Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

The Eighth Story. Nineteen Years Later.

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London’s West End on July 30, 2016.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

I just recently finished reading this book and I’m not completely sure what I think of it. I liked reading it because I was brought back into the wizarding world and was reunited with Harry and his friends and family. Just starting out, I was enjoying it because it felt so nostalgic and good.

But at the same time, I wasn’t overtly pleased with it either. The plot itself was interesting, making me want to read more. But the storyline also had so many holes in it that I found myself questioning what I was reading.

I enjoyed being brought back to Hogwarts and getting to meet Harry’s youngest son Albus. I also enjoyed Albus’s friendship with Draco’s son Scorpius. I thought they were really great together and loved seeing Albus at least had one friend during his time at Hogwarts.

What I enjoyed about the plot with the Time Turner was how they allowed me to relive certain parts of the series. I love how those moments going back in time allowed us to go down memory lane and relive some aspects of the series for a second time. It made me feel like I was reading the books all over again and put a smile on my face.

I also enjoyed reading Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in another format. As someone who doesn’t read plays that often, I thought it was an interesting way of presenting the story. It made me even more interested in reading it to find out what happened next.

However, I had a lot of issues with the plot and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as a whole. For one, I didn’t like the way they portrayed Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s older selves. With Harry, I wasn’t completely surprised at his inept ability to be a good father figure. I actually expected it. But I feel like they completely changed all of their characters. For example, I felt like they made Ron to be the typical “funny guy,” in the story, but I honestly didn’t find what he said to be hilarious. With Harry being a bad parent, they made him to be a complete jerk towards Albus in a way that I didn’t think was necessary. I get that Harry doesn’t know how parenting works, but I just feel like he was just completely disregarding his son’s feelings and not trying to understand how being his son puts a lot of pressure on Albus. With Hermione, I feel like they made her not quite as intelligent. A perfectly good example is whenever Albus drinks the Polyjuice Potion and turns into Ron so they can steal the Time Turner. Hermione doesn’t realize he’s not her husband during the whole incident even though he does an awful job at pretending. She also hides the Time Turner in her office on her bookshelf, which in my opinion is a stupid move on her part.

I also feel like they completely cut out some of the characters who should’ve been in the story. For example, they didn’t have Harry’s godson Teddy in the story and I feel like his other two children played a very minor role overall. That disappointed me because I thought there would’ve been more interaction between their children. I feel like the lady on the trolley was given more plot in the story than the rest of Harry’s kids.

I hated that there was no real explanation for why the Time Turners were destroyed to begin with. I get that they probably destroyed them because they didn’t want anyone trying to go back in time and bring Voldemort back. But with the way wizards were about going back in time in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I figured someone going back in time to change the past wouldn’t be a real issue at all. Not to say I didn’t enjoy the concept because I did find it interesting. I just wasn’t completely sold on how Thorne carried it out.

I found the thought of Voldemort having a daughter revolting. Mostly because to me, it really didn’t make any sense. Especially when reading the rest of the series and the way he was towards other people, including his own followers. Yes, Bellatrix Lestrange worshipped the ground he walked on, but he never once showed the same interest towards her. The only way I could honestly see Voldemort conceiving a child is through rape, which is what I thought happened until near the end of the play. However, I did like her character and thought she made for a great villain.

I know I need to keep in mind that this story is written in play format so it’s not going to be exactly the same as the other books in the series. But at the same time, its marketed to be the next book in the series so I’m having a difficult time not looking at it as such.

I think the story itself is enjoyable despite all of these plot holes I saw when reading it. I can definitely see some kernels in the story that if expanded would’ve made Harry Potter and the Cursed Child a much more enjoyable read. But I also get this story is meant to be a play so Thorne couldn’t expand on the story as much as I’d like. I definitely think looking at this book separate from the rest of the series will help you enjoy it in the long run and I hope as time goes on I’ll be able to do that myself.

 

 

11

Book Review: Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, A Woman, and the Wild

Shadow Mountain Book Cover

Rating: 4 stars

After forming an intense bond with Natasha, a wolf cub she raised as part of her undergraduate research, Renée Askins was inspired to found the Wolf Fund. As head of this grassroots organization, she made it her goal to restore wolves to Yellowstone National Park, where they had been eradicated by man over seventy years before. Here, Askins recounts her courageous fifteen-year campaign, wrangling along the way with Western ranchers and their political allies in Washington, enduring death threats, and surviving the anguish of illegal wolf slayings to ensure that her dream of restoring Yellowstone’s ecological balance would one day be realized. Told in powerful, first-person narrative, Shadow Mountain is the awe-inspiring story of her mission and her impassioned meditation on our connection to the wild.

This book is an amazing read. This memoir weaves together an amazing story about a woman and her love of the wild. Through Askins’s eyes, the reader learns more about her upbringing and how she was introduced to wolves for the first time.

I enjoyed reading Shadow Mountain because Askins really brings to light subjects a lot of us don’t talk about. She talks about the wild by providing her own definition of it, but also realizes that we can’t stop an animal from being wild because it’s a part of their nature. Askins also talks a lot about her personal life by telling us stories about her dogs. But she connects these personal anecdotes to her work with the Wolf Fund and her understanding of how we contribute to the state of animal populations. I enjoyed seeing these type of discussions in her memoir because it continues bringing to light topics we don’t openly discuss, such as how we try and take the wild out of our pets and pet pageantry. Both of these things are something we ourselves sometimes do and don’t realize it. So it was nice to have someone openly talk about these topics.

I found this book enjoyable because I wanted to learn more about the subject matter. As someone whose favorite animals is wolves, I wanted to learn more about the author and how she contributed to Yellowstone. But I also wanted to know more about wolves and their behaviors around people. I wanted more understanding of what our society is doing to help bring wolves back into the wild and what we are doing to make sure they are safe. And I found the information Askins provided to be very helpful in getting a better understanding of her organization and how she contributed to the restoration of wolves in Yellowstone National Park. The information she provided in Shadow Mountain shows she did a lot of research while doing her work, which helped me a lot in better understanding her perspective and the way the world perceives wolves.

My favorite part of this memoir was reading about her relationship with Natasha. I enjoyed reading about that relationship because I feel like it gives readers a better understanding of wolves. I also feel like when Askins was talking about Natasha she would talk about the wolf pack hierarchy, which I always found interesting to read about. I find learning about wolves and how they perceive others to be useful information in getting a better understanding of them. I also found it interesting that Askins voices an opinion that I myself believe to be true, which is that we as humans tend to fear things we know very little about. She talks about these things and calls them the “other,” something which we tend to do quite a bit ourselves when talking about things we don’t agree with as a society. I agree that wolves tend to be talked about in this way because they are creatures people don’t understand. So instead of trying to understand them, people kill them because they are scared of them.

While I find Shadow Mountain to be a powerful memoir, there are times when I feel like Askins does too much telling in her memoir. Her overall message to the reader is beautiful. But sometimes I feel like she’s telling story after story to get her point across instead of providing the reader with facts as to why we should be working on restoring wolves into the wild. While I get that this issue is very close to her heart, having all of these stories in her memoir made it a little of a slow read for me at times. When those moments came, I would’ve preferred to have facts as to why restoring wolves is a good idea for the whole animal population. I feel like that would’ve helped get her point across and provide the reader with even more information and understanding.

Despite this aspect of her memoir, I really enjoyed reading Askins’s book. I feel like it really helped me understand the challenges she faced while restoring wolves to Yellowstone. I also enjoyed hearing about her upbringing because it allowed me to better understand why she involved herself in this restoration effort. I look forward to continue reading more books about wolf recovery efforts in the near future and recommend this to anyone else interested in learning more about wolf restoration to Yellowstone National Park.

 

0

Creative Academy Chapter One Assignment: The Girl With Two Fandoms

Screenshot 2016-08-03 14.04.14

Hello everyone! I’m excited to announce I’ve officially posted my first post on the site I’ve mentioned, which can be found here for you guys to read and check out too. It’s actually a post I wrote for the online class I’m taking Creators Academy.

Creators Academy is an online class that will teach you how to be a better online writer and allows you to better familiarize yourself with their platform’s tools. The class has a total of ten lessons, each divided up into readings that you can enjoy at your own pace. With each of these lessons is a writing assignment that you have to post on the site before you can start the next chapter.

Since I decided to take the class, I figured I’d start off my posts there with the writing assignments from the lessons. The first lesson focused on why a person writes and had some of their writers talking about why they write.

The first writing assignment was to talk about something your passionate about in a unique way. So I decided to talk about The Hunger Games, my second favorite series next to Harry Potter. I focused on writing about why I enjoy the series, but tried making it brief so the post wasn’t too long.

Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted it to. But it’s the first post on their site after all so I know with each post I’ll continue to improve my writing. I emailed the person who told me about their site because he asked me to send him my first post once I had it published. He offered me some suggestions of ways I could fix it or how I can expand on my topic for my next post, which I found to be very helpful and definitely hope to take his suggestions in the near future.

While I don’t know just yet if my next post on their site will be about The Hunger Games, I’m looking forward to continue taking this class and working on improving my writing even more.

0

A Year of Blogging: My Reflection on My Blogging Journey

One Year of Blogging Image

Hello everyone! I’m excited to announce that today marks a year since I started writing on my blog Vook: Books + Video Games. I started this blog because after graduating from college, I wanted to continue writing no matter what. But I didn’t know what exactly with writing I wanted to do. After much thinking and contemplating, I decided to start a blog so I could showcase my writing to the world. I also started this blog because while in college, I had taken a blogging course and found that while blogging on Healthy Body Peace of Mind I really enjoyed what I was doing. I found that while I enjoyed writing about heart health, it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to write about once I decided to get back into blogging again. I thought about my interests and passions and decided to create a completely new space where I could safely write about all of my passions with the freedom blogging provides. And that is how Vook: Books + Video Games was born.

Since I first started my blog, aiming at creating mostly posts talking about books and video games, I’ve found that my blog has grown far from that. While I try my best to focus on blogging about those two topics, I’ve found comfort in using this space to share some of my own works as well as talk about my personal life because I feel comfortable sharing my whole self with you.

Since blogging on WordPress, I’ve felt nothing but a warm welcome from the few people who I’ve managed to talk to. One of the many things with blogging I’ve been hoping to do is get involved with fellow bloggers and converse and I feel like in the one year I’ve been on here, I’ve been able to do that. While I know the WordPress blogging community is vast with a wealth of blogs, I’ve discovered during my time here a majority of people are friendly and I enjoy the short exchanges of interaction I’ve had from fellow bloggers who share the same love of blogging as I do. As I continue blogging here on WordPress, I hope that will continue in the time to come and hope to talk to more bloggers in the near future.

Even though I’ve only been on WordPress for a year, I feel like I’ve learned a lot from this short period of time. I know one of my biggest strengths in my writing is passion. I find that whenever I’m writing on a subject I’m extremely passionate about, my writing shines through in ways I never expected. This post is no exception because I’ve found in this year that I’ve really started to love blogging even more than when I first started on this journey. When I took the blogging class at Columbia College, I knew I enjoyed blogging and could feel that I was pretty good at it. But when I started this blog, I discovered many months into it how much I enjoyed what I was doing. I discovered I found myself looking forward to coming up with something to write about because it meant I had something else to share with my readers.

I found that I was not only writing for myself, but for others too. And that was exactly what I was hoping for because I don’t want to write posts on my blog only for my own benefit. I want those who read my blog to feel safe and welcomed. I want my readers to enjoy the content I’ve created and feel inspired to create stories of their own. Because every person has a story of their own to tell. But it’s up to them how they want to tell it and whether they feel comfortable sharing it. My blog is a part of me that I feel comfortable sharing with the world. It’s not all of me because I know I’m a complicated human being and still have more of my story left to tell. But it’s a part of me I keep close to my heart yet am willing to share with the world.  I want my readers to know how much I enjoy writing and know they can find a friend in me.

As I continue my blogging journey, I hope my readers can learn from me. I hope they can benefit from my work and that they enjoy reading it. Blogging has been a big learning process for me. I’ve found that there’s still a lot I have to learn, but I’m willing to continue blogging in order to improve my writing.

I’ve only been on my blog for a year, yet it feels like no time has passed at all. As a writer, I’ve discovered my writing has improved since being a part of this blogging community. I’ve discovered how much I really enjoy writing on WordPress and want to continue doing so in the many years to come. I definitely see blogging as a potential career path for me and want to use it as a way for me to continuously improve my writing as I progress. But I also want it to be a learning tool, as a way for me to always have something worth working on and goals to complete so my blog can live up to its full potential. I know there are some things with my blog I need to be working on and I hope to do that in the many months to come.

Right now, the main thing with my blog I plan on changing in the foreseeable future is the main design. I think the look of it right now is okay to start off with, but it’s not exactly the way I want my blog to look overall. I hope to make some changes soon so that it looks exactly the way I want it to. But for now, I’m going to play around with the overall look and see what I can do to make it even better.

I hope you all enjoy reading my blog. Thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to come on here and read my posts. You have no idea how much it means to me that people enjoy my writing and find inspiration from it. I still can’t believe it’s been a year already but I am proud of what I’ve accomplished so far and can’t wait to see where this blogging journey continues to take me.

1

The Realization That It’s Over (Poem)

Sailing-ship In Time Of Storm

It hits you like a tidal wave,

As if one of your blood vessels is about to pop open.

 

You find yourself drowning in your own pain,

Not exactly sure what to do.

 

You hold on to the sinking ship that is your heart,

But simultaneously realize the storm has yet to pass.

 

You take a few breathes,

And get ready for what is to come.

 

You know it’s over.

You know the battle you’ve fought so hard for has finally come to a sinking end.

 

Your heart skips a beat,

But only for a single moment.

 

As you quickly realize you haven’t drowned,

You find your spirit soaring in celebration.

 

The pain hurts,

But you know you’ve faced much tougher circumstances than the ones now placed before you.

 

And each time,

You’ve come out on top.

 

This time won’t be any different,

You’re sure of that.

 

So you get up to assess the chaos all around you,

And begin to fix the broken damage placed within the center of your wrecked ship.

 

And realize that while the battle may be over,

You’ve still come out on top once more.

 

5

If We Were Having Coffee: A Week of Opportunity

If We Were Having Coffee Image Nine

Hello everyone! I hope you’ve all had a good week, that it was everything you wanted it to be. Wow, this coffee picture looks absolutely good. While I don’t normally drink coffee, it looks like something I’d enjoy. Be that as it may though since it’s coffee, I’m unfortunately going to have to pass.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you it’s been another good week. I’ve continued obsessively to play Pokémon Go along with playing Pokémon Blue too. Because of playing this game, it’s really made me in the mood to play other Pokémon games as well. This week I’ve become obsessively in love with Pokémon all over again.

Pokemon Blue Version

I hate to say this but until now, I thought I’d grown out of Pokémon. Not because I didn’t love playing it anymore, but because as I continued playing the newer games, I found myself getting tired of the same repetition. Of seeing new Pokémon being created with no creativity and having to continuously grind each time I wanted to get my team to a certain level. But now that Pokémon Go is out, I’ve found myself remembering why I enjoyed playing Pokémon so much. It was the thought of becoming the best trainer that had me playing the games when I was little and Pokémon Go was able to bring that reality to life for me. And ever since this game came out, I’ve loved Pokémon again like I did as a child and know I won’t be turning my back on it no more.

I really enjoy Pokémon Go because it’s motivated me to take up walking again. As someone who has a high amount of cholesterol, walking is a good thing for me to do because it allows me to exercise in a way I enjoy and that will help with my heart health. Its motivated me whenever I’ve felt the need to just sit at home to go outside despite the conditions and try to catch them all. Whenever I get an egg from a PokeStop, I find myself curious about what Pokémon is inside it and want to walk the necessary miles to find out. Even when it’s a Pokémon I already have, I find myself excited at the prospect of hatching an egg because it means I’ve done quite a bit of walking and feel as if I’ve made some progress in leveling up my trainer. This is important because I know I have a health problem but I also know I have a hard time breaking bad habits. And having a game like this is a good way to motivate me to walk more because it allows me to work towards a goal I enjoy completing and doing it in a way that satisfies me. It allows me to feel happy about myself and what I’m doing because I’m enjoying every minute of it. I find pride in myself every time I’m able to catch a new Pokémon or whenever I’m able to evolve the Pokémon I already have on my team and want to celebrate it because it means I’m doing something I love that’s also benefiting my overall health. As I continue playing this game, I’m finding myself happier with myself, wanting to do the best I can to continue moving forward in life to become the best person I’m meant to be. I know this game isn’t the sole responsibility for that necessarily, but I think it’s definitely helped and I know I’ll continue to play it to see how far I can go to become the best trainer that ever was.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve also been playing Spyro Year of the Dragon too. When I’m not busy catching Pokémon, I’ve also been playing this game, trying the best I can to continue progressing to the end. And so far, I’ve been enjoying playing this game from my childhood just as much because its brought back so many memories that bring a smile to my face.

Like when I played the previous Spyro games, I also wrote a blog post about this one, which resulted in hearing about an opportunity I didn’t expect. Someone commented on the blog post, mentioning a video game site and how they are interested in me becoming a writer on the site. Now while you all know my blog isn’t just video game content, video games are something I absolutely enjoy playing so getting a comment on one of my blog posts about doing something like this made me happy. I really enjoy playing video games and have looked into doing that type of writing for a site before, but was nervous about whether I should actually do it or not. Not because I didn’t want to do it, but because most of my writing content with video games tends to focus on much older games that I played during my childhood more so than newer games that’ve just been released. I do play newer games whenever I have the chance, but I don’t play them as much because I can’t always afford to play newer games due to not having any of the newest systems released. The newest consoles I currently own are my PSP and Nintendo DS even though I do want a PlayStation 4 of my own one of these days. And most video game websites tend to focus on new releases than on anything that’s been out for a couple of years. However, I’m still interested in it and have already reached out to the person who commented on my blog to find out more about this opportunity. So hopefully this works out a whole lot better than the two job interviews I’ve had. Because I would love to write for a video game site (or any site in general for that matter) and think it would be a great way for me to get even more exposure as a writer.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that while I haven’t been doing too many blog posts, I do have some writing ideas brewing in the back of my mind. One of the posts I plan on publishing very soon is a poem I wrote the other night just before I went to bed. I have it saved on my phone right now because I didn’t have paper when it popped into my head so I wrote it down through the only means I had available at the time. I actually plan on publishing it tomorrow so I don’t have to worry about losing it. In a couple days (July 28th to be exact), I will have been writing on my WordPress blog for a year. I am so happy that it’s almost been a year since I’ve started my blog that I plan on doing a post about it as well. I also have a fiction story in the back of my mind that I want to work on sometime soon. I don’t know when yet, but I hope to publish that on my blog as well, depending on when I decide to do it. So far that’s it with blog post ideas. Because I could do another Pokémon blog post, but I don’t know if I really want to do another one yet.

Other than that, I don’t really have anything else to talk about with you all. Mom and I went downtown yesterday because I’ve heard that there are a lot of PokeStops in cities and I wanted to get more Poke Balls and catch more Pokémon. But other than that, I haven’t been up to too much this week. Just hoping to continue on my Pokémon adventure and see how far it gets me.

What about you guys though? Are any of you playing Pokémon Go? If not, what’ve you been up to this week?

2

Reliving Memories: Spyro Year of the Dragon

Spyro Year of the Dragon

Spyro Year of the Dragon is the third Spyro game I enjoyed during my childhood. Released in 2000, it is a platform, gem collecting game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment.

The story of Spyro Year of the Dragon focuses on an evil sorceress stealing the dragon eggs in Spyro’s world and bringing them to the Forgotten Realm where magic no longer exists. Spyro must now go to the Forgotten Realm to collect as many of the eggs as you can and defeat the Sorceress.

Spyro Year of the Dragon continues adding more of the abilities you gain while playing Spyro in the previous game. This is one of the best things about this Spyro game. Not only can you swim, hover and many other abilities, but Spyro also gains four new allies in his journey to collect all the dragon eggs. Each of the allies you obtain in the main worlds you go to by paying Moneybags for their release. You then play as each of these allies in order to collect more eggs and progress further into the game. I enjoy this aspect of the game because it introduces you to more characters and allows you to play as someone else for a little while.

Spyro Year of the Dragon 2

Spyro Year of the Dragon also allows you to play as Sparx, Spyro’s dragonfly throughout the game. The game considers these levels as bonus levels that are unlocked after defeating the boss you have to face before going to the next world. These levels are considerably different from the rest of the game because Sparx has his own unique moves that involve shooting in order for Sparx to defeat nearby enemies. But once you clear these levels, Sparx gains a new ability that will help Spyro on his journey.

Spyro Year of the Dragon 3

These levels are quite a bit of fun, but also challenging at the same time. Controlling Sparx is difficult at times as you try the best you can not to let your health sink. But they are rewarding because the abilities you gain after you clear these levels are worth the trouble.

I also enjoy playing this game because the levels are a lot of fun to go through. As a child, I remember playing this game and having a lot of fun with it as I tried the best I could to get all of the eggs in each of the levels. I still enjoy it now as much as I did then, trying to remember where all of the eggs have been placed.

One of my favorite things about Spyro Year of the Dragon is the things you have to do in order to get the eggs. In some levels, you have to carefully maneuver on the platforms to reach them while other levels you have to overcome races or different games, such as skateboarding. I find these challenges to get the eggs to be pretty enjoyable because they are a lot of fun to do. I enjoy the skateboard ones in particular to be enjoyable because I enjoy seeing a dragon on a skateboard and being in control of his movements.

Spyro Year of the Dragon 4

However, there is one aspect in Spyro Year of the Dragon I’m not particularly fond of. Even though they are a little bit easier, I still don’t enjoy the speedway levels all too much. While they are easier in this Spyro game, they’ve also added races and challenges with Hunter you have to overcome to get more of the eggs. I don’t mind doing these things all too much other than I feel like it puts too much into the game. I do enjoy them because they can be fun, but whenever they are too challenging to me, they can be irritating to put up with. I’d rather just have one of the three in order to get an egg instead of having to do all three things.

But overall, I’m still enjoying this game as much as I did as a child. While Spyro Year of the Dragon isn’t my favorite out of these three Spyro games, I still get a lot of enjoyment out of it and will be sad once I clear it.

2

If We Were Having Coffee: No Pain, No Gain

If We Were Having Coffee Image Eight

Happy Sunday everyone! I hope you all had a good week and that your weekend is everything you want it to be.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you it really does feel nice to be back home. I remember last weekend when I mentioned my trip to Nashville that I wasn’t at home for most of last week. So this week has mostly been me adjusting to being back at home.

What I can tell you about this week is that it hasn’t been that productive of one. I only did one job application throughout the week. It was a job application for a volunteer opportunity with AmeriCorps. I heard about this opportunity from one of my professors at college who saw they were looking for people and let me know to apply. So I did the application and quickly heard back that they were interested in conducting a phone interview with me for the position. So now I’m just waiting to find out when our phone interview will take place. Speaking of jobs, one of the applications I did way back in May I heard back from this week too. They were also interested in doing a phone interview with me for the position, which I did on Thursday afternoon. I don’t know how I feel about that interview. I know it definitely could’ve gone better, but I’ll just wait and see. If they are interested in me any further, I’ll be hearing from them soon. If not, then I did the best I could and will just have to accept it’s not meant to be.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about the two cold sores I have on my lips. I don’t know what exactly happened for them to get there, if I bit my lip or what, but they really hurt. Have been the biggest pain in my butt this week because they make it difficult for me to eat and do things like brush my teeth. So I’m just trying to do everything I can to ignore the pain, but we bought some cream I can put on them yesterday when we went to the store. I think that’ll help with the pain and hopefully clear them up. I just wish I knew how I got them so I could make sure it didn’t happen again. But there’s not too much I can do about that now. Just have to do everything I can to make them go away so I don’t have to deal with them anymore.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you it’s really been a good week. Besides this mouth pain, I’ve had a good time at home. I continued playing Spyro Ripto’s Rage and am almost done completing the game. Just have two worlds left before I fight Ripto as the last boss. Planning on getting through that soon. But I’ve also been playing Pokémon Go quite a bit too. It’s becoming one of my favorite video games because I just enjoy it. Reminds me so much of playing Pokémon during my childhood and battling to become the best trainer in the world. I also love it because it’s gotten me to go out and walk around, both in my neighborhood and other places. When I mentioned to Mom that I needed to go to some PokeStops because I ran out of Poke Balls and needed some more, she immediately took me to the nearest walking trail by our house. She took me there because one time when we’d gone out, I saw on the game that there were some PokeStops there that I could go to. So we went there to walk instead of doing our neighborhood so I could get my Poke Ball inventory back in order. We actually went there twice to walk because Mom suggested us going back there the next day. It is a pretty great place to walk. The trail goes so many different directions that you could go any way and end up somewhere you didn’t expect to be. But one of the places we went to on our first walk since Pokémon Go was so beautiful I couldn’t help but take a picture of it.

Harbison Recreation Center Water Fountain

It was such a beautiful setting and such a beautiful place to go that I wish I’d taken more pictures of this beautiful water as I saw the ripples cascading around me. Another aspect of Pokémon Go I’ve found myself enjoying is that it allows people to explore the world around them. To see all of these new places you might’ve never gone to before. It makes me want to find beauty in the world around me that I know does exist. This game is also a strong motivation for me to walk, something I normally enjoy doing but don’t do as much as I should. I know part of the problem is the temperature outside because it’s so hot that I can feel the heat as soon as I step outside. But Pokémon Go makes me want to face the heat anyway, want to walk and explore the world around me despite the weather outside. But it does it in a way not at all criticizing the player but rewarding them for their hard work. It is something I really appreciate. There are so many people who criticize gamers so much for spending hours playing video games, for doing something they enjoy that having a video game that rewards its players for what they are doing is a great motivation for them to continue doing that task. I also enjoy this game motivating me to walk because I know I need to. It’s something I know I should be doing every day and having a game that brings one of my childhood dreams to life is one way I know will help motivate me to continue walking whenever I feel like giving up.

I’d also like to mention along with playing Pokémon Go I also finished reading Into the Woods and have started reading Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild, one of the books I had bought at 2nd and Charles a little while ago. Into the Woods was overall an okay read for me. It wasn’t the worst book I’ve read, but also wasn’t the best book I’ve read either. I enjoyed the mysterious circumstances surrounding the main character in the novel despite the disappointing aspects of the story that didn’t endear the book to me. I think the book I’ve started reading though will prove to be a much better read to me because it’s about an animal I enjoy learning more about. But will just have to wait and see to know for sure.

If we were having coffee, I’d also mention that we are getting close to the day I first started this blog last year. I plan on doing a blog post on this because I want to talk about my experience with blogging so far and what all I’ve learned since I created Vook: Books + Video Games and what I hope for as I continue blogging. I know a lot has changed for me since I first started this blog, and can’t wait to talk about my experience so far with you. I know there are some things I want to do in order to improve my blog, which is something else I plan on talking about with that post. I hope you all read it and tell me what you think because I want as much feedback as I can get on how to improve my blog. But I also want to hear other’s stories about their blogging journey and what they’ve learned along the way. Along with this post, I’m figuring out what else I want to post next in the days to come. I know I still have the one fictional story buzzing around in my head yet to be written so I’ll try to get that posted as soon as I can for you all to read and enjoy. Hopefully it’ll be as good as it is in my head, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

But for now, I think I’ll be going. There really isn’t too much else for me to say here about my week. It’s mostly been reading, watching YouTube videos and playing video games, the normal stuff you all should expect from me now. But enough about me. What all have you been up to lately? I want to hear all about it.

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First Impressions: Pokémon Go

Pokemon Go Video Game 2

Pokémon Go has quickly become one of my favorite newly released video games of the year. It is an augmented reality free mobile phone game that allows the player to catch Pokémon and walk around in order to get to PokeStops, where the player can collect the items they need to continue catching Pokémon.

Using GPS to track the player’s location, Pokémon Go allows the player to interact with Pokémon in the real world. While catching Pokémon, they each have Combat Power (otherwise known as CP in the game) that you can increase with candy. The higher the CP, the stronger the Pokémon. But the candy can also be used to evolve your Pokémon as long as you have enough of it to do so.

Pokemon Go Video Game 3

There are also locations where Pokémon Gyms are set up so the player can go and battle other teams in order to take over the Pokémon Gym. In these battles, the player attacks by tapping on their phone screen and dodges by swiping with your finger to the left or right. In order to take over a gym, however, the player has to defeat all of the Pokémon protecting the gym. Once these Pokémon are defeated, your team will be in possession of the gym so you can set up your Pokémon with the highest CP to protect the gym as well as train them to become stronger.

Pokemon Go Video Game 4

The first picture depicts what the gyms look like on your map. The second picture shows what a Pokémon battle looks like in Pokémon Go. And this last image is what your inventory of the Pokémon you’ve captured looks like.

When going to PokeStops, the player acquires various items to help them continue collecting Pokémon, such as Poke Balls, fruit and eggs. The eggs you get at PokeStops have Pokémon inside them and the only way you can hatch them is by walking a certain amount of kilometers. The larger the number of kilometers the better Pokémon you get. This is one of many features I enjoy about Pokémon Go because the player has to do quite a bit of walking in order to hatch all of their eggs.

As you continue playing, your character levels up and gets different rewards each time. Once you reach level five, you have to choose which team you want to be on before you can battle at Pokémon Gyms. In Pokémon Go there are three teams: Instinct, Mystic and Valor. Choosing a team doesn’t have any bearing on what happens in the game, just allows the player to battle other teams to take over a gym. But each team is uniquely different because the leaders each have a different way of looking at Pokémon.

Pokemon Go Video Game 5

What I really enjoy about Pokémon Go is that it’s brought one of my childhood dreams to life. As a child, I played a lot of Pokémon games and always dreamed of becoming a trainer. Of getting Pokémon of my own, battling gyms and becoming the best there ever was. And now this game has brought that dream to reality, allowing me and many others to go outside, capture Pokémon and have fun while doing it.

I also enjoy playing Pokémon Go because players have to be physically active in order to play it. While I have been able to catch some Pokémon while at home, if you want to get other types, you actually have to go out to find them. And I think that’s a really cool feature for this game. It gives players who normally aren’t active a chance to explore the world around them while having fun at the same time. I love it because I enjoy walking and it gives me one more reason to want to go outside even when I necessarily don’t feel like it.

But there are a couple of things with this game I don’t particularly like. For one, it’s more of a collecting game than anything else. Unlike its predecessors, the player only battles other Pokémon at the gyms. To me, that’s a little disappointing. I enjoyed in the other Pokémon games I’ve played being able to walk around in tall grass, battling other trainers and Pokémon to level up my team. Instead, we battle other Pokémon in gyms, which isn’t as much fun as previous games. And another issue I have with the game is the amount of bugs. When I first started playing Pokémon Go, there were a lot of issues with the servers going down and the game freezing while I was catching Pokémon. Now, it’s not as much of an issue but when I do have problems, it’s really annoying because it’s always right when I really want to play. However, I also understand Pokémon Go is such a popular game. Almost everyone I know is playing it because it’s been a part of their childhood like it has been mine. So I understand why the problems with the server are happening. Just can’t wait for the issues to stop so I can continue playing.

But despite these issues, Pokémon Go has quickly become one of my favorite games this year. It’s definitely a game I’ll always be playing because it’ll help motivate me to continue walking. But also because Pokémon holds a special place in my heart.

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