I knew I was going to love Vietnam's food, I knew about pho (noodle soup), I knew about bun (cold rice noodles with meat), and I was really exited. The food lived up to my expectations. Restaurant and street food were hard to distinguish by taste alone. Street food however, was served on short little tables, and you sat on munchkin sized plastic benches outdoors. Restaurant food is indoors, on American sized tables and benches.

          Street life in Ha Noi is really interesting. People pray to small shrines on the sidewalk as well as temples highly present in urban areas. Street vendors stroll with bikes or carry baskets of fruit, meat, fish, vegetables, all sorts of stuff. Tourists walk casually down the street. There are a lot of tourists.

          Vietnamese TV is a lot like Honduran TV, but in vietnamese. Weird game shows, tacky music videos, news. Jim and I had a lot of fun trying to find out what people were saying based of their actions and tone of voice. Jetlag was bad. I used to wake up at midnight wanting lunch, and falling asleep at mid day. A trip from Boston to Vietnam causes the worst possible jetlag, 12 hours of it. It was like being turned upside down and shaken.

          Eventually we went to a temple called Ngoc Son. The temple sat on an island in the middle of a lake. The story goes that during the war with the Chinese, a Viet warrior was given a magic sword by a golden turtle. After the war was over however, the turtle demanded the sword and went back to live on the bottom of the lake. This turtle was real, of course it was not golden. It was an endangered soft shelled giant turtle, it still resides on the bottom of the lake.

          One day Susan brought us to a museum. It was called the Vietnamese Museum of Ethnology. We saw a lot of different ethnic traditions. Shaman rituals, weaving, baskets, swords, dove and fish traps, and all sorts of cool stuff. We also looked inside recreated Vietnamese houses. We also saw funny wooden fertility statues around a recreated burial home. Vietnamese homes are tall and skinny. They take up very little surface space but instead stretch up several stories. It is different than what I am used to, Tegucigalpa has small but squat one floor buildings, so, it is pretty interesting visually.

         Ha Noi, Vietnam's capital, is really interesting, everything from the food, to the culture, 

to the smog. Hanoi gave me a really good first impression.

Alone

I wake up in a car...

The seats are hard. My rifle is pressed against my chest. I sigh. Eventually I muster the strength to open the door and check the traps. A rabbit is trapped in my cage. Dinner, I think. I hit it on the head with a rock. I then return back to the highway. Cars are pressed into thick traffic exiting Redbury. I grab my rucksack and get moving towards the town. I pass a lot of cars, but one catches my eye. It has a figure inside. It's dead, or worse. I move in for a closer look anyway, rifle in hand.

The man, or what was a man, Is pressed against the window. Gaping at me. He isn't dead, not really. I look through the window. I don't dare to open the window. Infection is too risky. I walk away.

When someone gets infected, they aren't themselves anymore. They no longer cower in front of a gun, or run away from danger. They are overwhelmed with one urge. To infect, to propagate, to spread, whatever you call it, it isn't good. They hunger for flesh of any kind. The virus is in the blood, so whatever water they drink is contaminated. This virus infected almost everybody in the United States of America, and I don't know about the rest of the world.

* * *

As I walk into the house the smell of death whooshes out at me. I counter the urge to vomit. A dead person is laying on the ground, ripped open. A kitchen knife is nearby. Whoever this was, they put up a fight. I make my way to the living room, then the dining room, then the kitchen. The refrigerator is full of rotting food. The cupboards are almost empty except for some creamed corn and sardines.

I go upstairs. The bathroom has some antibiotics, always useful; some clean towels, good for cleaning; and a bar of soap. A bedroom is to the right of the bathroom, it contains a suitcase with essentials: clothes, a lighter, a laptop, a lot of canned food, and a lot of money. The suitcase is haphazardly thrown together, indicating that whoever made it was leaving in a hurry. I make my way to the room to the left of the bathroom. It has a bow-tie over the doorknob, and a card. The card reads:

Jean,

Don't open until Christmas...!

-Bob

I push open the room. I slam the door. I saw a crib and a mobile, and, I don't want to think about what else.

Eventually I muster the courage to walk in. A man, possibly 'Bob', lies with a gun in his hand. He took the only easy way out. He also has a radio...

* * *

After fiddling with the radio for a few minutes I start to cook a can of beans. I then count my resources: 12 Rifle bullets, a rifle, 6 revolver bullets, a diplomat revolver, 12 cans of food, 5 bottles of water, a radio, a lighter, a backpack, a gas mask, and two Molotov Cocktails. I eat my beans, and go to sleep.

The next morning I scavenge a few cars. I also manage to find a tank. It has been looted before, but whoever did it didn't take everything. I find a grenade, a set of military riot gear, and a rifle flash-light. In the security of the tank I flip through frequencies on the radio, and I hear, could it be, a faint voice...?

I can't really understand what the voice says. I walk down the highway and try again. The signal is definitely stronger. I try to make out the words. “This is m......adio, brodcas......ll fr....quencies. If anyb.......ere, anyo......” I can barely understand, but I know what I have to do. I have to find a broadcasting antennae...

* * *

2 DAYS LATER...

Muppetfield is a nice town, aside from all the dead bodies. A roadside flower shop has gone wild. There are flowers EVERYWHERE. But dead bodies litter the streets, and that overrides the smell of lilacs. The Muppetfield church has makeshift watchtowers and wood spike and barbed wire barricades. Someone was holed up here.

Inside the church I see a figure, no, two, no, three. It takes me a moment to realize what is about to happen.

The events that follow are hard to recollect. One of the figures turns towards me. Then the others start to run at me. I shoot. One goes down. Did it die? I don't think so. The first one lunges at me. My rifle goes up. I shoot it a few times before it is dead. I try to reload my rifle but it jams. I run as fast as I can. Once I am outside I manage to throw a Molotov and light one on fire. There is a gas station to my left. Before I entirely think it through, I am opening the gas valves. Then I take cover behind a nearby brick building. The creatures, Infected some called them, get near the gas station. I hear silence, and then a deafening roar. A wave of heat washes over me as the entire gas station explodes. Others will hear, I have to get out of here...

* * *

The creatures are swarming all over the area of the explosion. Many are trying to stay away, but some are walking or falling into the fire. I am watching from the roof of a house on a hill. It is a beautiful view. The sun is setting so I will need candles, but light attracts them. After looking thoroughly through the house I find many heavy rugs, enough to cover all the windows of nearly half the house. I light a few candles. The house has a gas stove, so I manage to light it. I cook a box of macaroni and cheese. I eat ravenously, I haven't eaten since this morning. And with all the running and shooting and blowing things up, I am extremely hungry. After I eat I read a book. Some cheesy feel-good book about a dog lost in the woods, but I need to take my mind off things. I later listen to the radio hoping for the message I heard 2 days ago. It is still there. Stronger signal, but scrambled. The voice says:

“...plosion in downt... ...uppetfiel.... ...could it... ...be the... ….ilitary?”

I definitely made out one word...

… Muppetfield.

 Santa Lucia, the town where I live, is small, calm, and has a school called Jose Cecilio del Valle (he was an important politician during the Central American independence). This is where I spent my sixth grade year, and it was NOT perfect, not even close. However, I did learn something not many American kids learn at this grade: how to move around independently. I had to learn where to take the bus, where to get off, how to pay, how to run frantically when the bus is inching away before I get on, and how to remember bus schedules. A bus left 10 minutes before school let out, and I usually had to wait another hour before the next one.

We studied normal stuff: math, writing, Spanish. We did them in the most didactic way possible, copying absurd amounts of text out of books which the school either didn't care about buying, couldn't afford, or actually thought we would learn something from copying.

One day we had a science fair, note how they used the word 'science' not 'chemistry'. Kids didn't note that. Everybody brought paper volcanoes, with either Coke and Mentos, or vinegar and baking soda. One person brought instant whirlpool water, which were two bottles with some water in them, and when someone whipped them up, the shape of the bottles made a whirlpool. I made a compass from a sewing needle and a fridge magnet. The other kids declared it 'not science', as if throwing Mentos in Coke were.

One thing that really bothered me at school was the constant involvement of religion. Every Monday two people from the church would come and talk about their god (commonly known as God). Even though I understand that this offended no one since everyone was Christian, I still must express frustration with religious intervention in a public non-religious school. I sometimes felt as if much of the religious 'teaching' was directed at me due to my not being Christian, or religious at all.

At one point in September we started doing marching band for September 15, Honduras' independence day. I didn't like it. It was inconveniently early, it was hot, and it was very gender segregated. Boys did drums and shakers (guess what my options were), some girls did xylophones but most girls were 'pomponeras' or 'palillonas' which were like cheerleaders and baton twirlers. I would not do it again.

Every Monday we were supposed to sing the national anthem, salute the flag, and so on. However one thing that REALLY bothered me was near the end of the school year when military/police guys came and for one day turned the school in to a boot camp!

My school, like many schools in Central America, has heavy gender/sex divisions such as 'boys can't have long hair', 'girls must wear skirts' and so on. I was often criticized due to my thinking differently, and my colored and/or 'long' hair. I don't know how someone might like uniformity and sexism, especially in a society where everything tells you to be special and different.

Another thing that bothered me was the fact that there was SO MUCH homophobia, 'Gay' was an insult, Also they said that if men were supposed to be able to like men, then why were women made? My answer to that is: they weren't made.

You know that 'boys can't hit girls' 'rule'? Well some of the girls in the school took advantage of that and went around hitting boys with that social shield.

Another thing about girls is that they had better grades while boys were more focused on hitting each other and getting girlfriends. Girls however focused on copying that insanely long assignment about sea slugs. There were no boys with good grades (not really). All the kids in 'academic excellence' were girls, (except me). It was the same with how their behavior was. Near the end the teachers gave grades on behavior. I assume this was to be able to communicate to the parents how the kids were acting without being too personal. Girls got an average of very good, and boys got 'acceptable' because it was the lowest grade.

I did in fact manage to get a girlfriend during the school year, and no, I wasn't that attached. Actually we only lasted 2 weeks, for several reasons.

1: I only came 3 days a week so she said we weren't 'together enough'.

2: I wasn't Christian (see? It comes up again and again!).

3: I wasn't buying her a lot of stuff. Because apparently that's what girls and boys do for each other.

I was really a lot 'weirder' than all the other kids, by not being religious, not being sexist, not being homophobic, and not being noisy/not enjoying doing chaos. Which brings me to my final thought.

When the teacher walked out of the classroom, the chaos started. All the kids would jump up and start yelling, they would throw paper airplanes and balls at everyone. It was just like you can imagine. No one did their homework. They positioned people by the door to yell: SHE'S COMING!

That way when the teacher was returning everybody would be in their seats pretending to do their homework. Once I actually joined in as a guard, but I yelled nothing when the teacher came, so they would get caught. The teacher didn't actually do anything to the kids other than just shoot them a disappointed look. So luckily no one hated me after that.

School in Honduras is so different from American schools (which is the only thing I can compare it to). The whole education system is messed up. However, I do not believe I wasted my time by doing 6^th grade in Honduras, because I learned how to be independent, because I learned about all the problems in the education system, and because it was probably the only way for me to get a diploma.

I was told to be serious for the photos, also I was really bored.

NMS

“Embark on an epic voyage to the center of a boundless universe, and be the first to discover entire galaxies teeming with life. Survive hazardous environments, where alien civilizations seek their fortune and outlaws take it by force...

...Your universe awaits.”

That's what it says on the back of my newest game... No Man's Sky. Following lots of media hype, and a terrible post-launch crisis, No Man's Sky is still standing, and though it lacks many features promised by the developers, it's not a bad game. Also, now that No Man's Sky is going to begin releasing updates, players are calming down. I have been waiting since August to get to play this, and it pretty much lived up to my expectations.

But what do you actually DO in No Man's Sky?

Most of all one shoots rocks. Yup. It is a game mostly based in resource extraction and mining. And now that you can build colonies (recent update) it is a lot easier to 'Avatar'* the hell out of planets. So, now that I think about it, the player isn't exactly a good guy. You can also scan and upload planets, solar systems, animals, minerals, plants, and pretty much everything you discover, and for that you receive credits.

What is the game LIKE?

Visually, it is quite alarming. Many planets have bright neon grass, or glowing rocks. But there is an interesting mixture of complex and simple graphics. Ships and space stations have pretty basic textures, but planets have strange detail and beauty. Other planets look just ugly.

Would I recommend it?

Honestly, maybe not. I really like it. But it is a game that can be hated or loved by really similar people. It is a slow paced and calm game that requires a lot of patience. It is not a war game. So if you are expecting that, don't bother. However, if you enjoy naming things, running away from weird animals, and accumulating rocks, this is the game for you.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

The ending sucks. You have been searching for the center of the galaxy for a REALLY LONG TIME, and then when you finally get there... you are mysteriously pushed away from the center with increasing speed, and have to start all over again in a crashed space ship. I can't say much about the story line, because I haven't actually finished. For that just look it up on the wiki.

Rating time!

Overall, even though it is simple, No Man's Sky, WAS made by fewer than 16 people, which is TINY compared to Halo, or Destiny, each of which was made by a team of more than 300 people. Plus, No Man's Sky is being updated regularly. So it will change, hopefully for the better. Overall, I give this game 4 stars.

Hey, remember that review I did of the Early Access version of Subnautica? Well the game is almost officially out. If you want me to do an updated review, or even an update of the early access one, please say so.

//INITIATE PROGRAM//

/LOADING AREA... 100% COMPLETE

/LOADING TEXTURES... 100% COMPLETE

/LOADING OBJECTS... 97% UNABLE TO LOAD OBJECT 8

CONTINUE? - Y

/LOADING PROGRAM... 99% FORCE LAUNCH

//LAUNCHING PROGRAM 97//

Somewhere deep in the core files a few ones and zeroes are missing. They should have been part of a space invader named Ocho, but now instead, he is a glitch. Someone forgot to program him correctly. Ocho is unhappy. But one day, the 97^th time someone runs his game, he thinks:

I'm tired of being a glitch.

I have to reach the core file, I'm going to fix myself.

Digital life forms have a very small thought vocabulary. He starts off toward the core files.

Ocho lives in the delete bin. He is safe though. No one ever empties the trash anyway. Of course this ends up being a pot full of other glitches. Walls that aren't solid. A tank that doesn't shoot. Other such stuff. Ocho's world is 2 dimensional, thus he can only go in 4 directions. He leaves the delete bin. He has to avoid detection, otherwise the people playing might think the game is faulty. And that would be very bad. They would be put out of service, or worse, deleted. He can see the others from the side of the screen. They look like white lines on black. Happy white lines on black. He continues. The program board is running full time, which means someone is playing. He wouldn't want to mess up the game. He goes into the files folder but before he can get to the core files (check line 6), the game on the screen ends.

player lives: 0

winner: space invader

GAME OVER

//RESTART PROGRAM//

/LOADING AREA... 100% COMPLETE

/LOADING TEXTURES... 100% COMPLETE

/LOADING OBJECTS... 97% UNABLE TO LOAD OBJECT 8

CONTINUE? - Y

/LOADING PROGRAM... 99% FORCE LAUNCH

//LAUNCHING PROGRAM 98//

Ocho has returned to the delete bin. A faulty laser slowly inches toward him. He isn't afraid, it's overall damage is exactly: .13018230981 points of damage. But he is used to the dull sting. Right before he gets touched, he glitches. He is teleported to the other side of the bin. The laser phases into the wall before appearing somewhere else in the bin. Ocho leaves the bin again, feeling quite frustrated with the players being so bad a the game that he can barely make it to the files folder. He doesn't bother with even looking at the game this time. The program board is calm, he might have enough time to get to the core files. He enters the files folder.

So many folders!

The core files must be at the center. Probably protected by some antiglitch/antivirus. It is in fact in the center. A bright red line lies between Ocho and the core files. Ocho begins to phase through the antiglitch. He is so close.

Player lives: 0

Winner: space invader

GAME OVER

//RESTART PROGRAM//

/LOADING AREA... 100% COMPLETE

/LOADING TEXTURES... 100% COMPLETE

/LOADING OBJECTS... 97% UNABLE TO LOAD OBJECT 8

CONTINUE? - Y

/LOADING PROGRAM... 99% FORCE LAUNCH

//LAUNCHING PROGRAM 99//

Ocho leaves the delete bin, quite angry. When he gets to the files he notices something. The files are now protected by an antivirus. He enters anyway. The pain he receives upon entering the folder takes his breath away, if he had any to begin with. He is able to push through to the core files. The core files appear as three folders: Area, Textures, Objects. Ocho enters the Objects folder. He then notices something. Right next to all the interconnected folders, there is a disconnected folder. A folder with the simple title, 8. He begins to move it. The closer he gets the folder to the others, the less glitchy he becomes. Finally with one last burst of strength he connects the folder. Everything goes white.

//CRITICAL PROGRAM FAILURE//

/UPTADE UNAUTHORIZED/

/UPDATING... 100% COMPLETE

//LAUNCH PROGRAM//

/LOADING AREA... 100% COMPLETE

/LOADING TEXTURES... 100% COMPLETE

/LOADING OBJECTS... 100%

/LOADING... 100% COMPLETE

//LAUNCHING PROGRAM//

This is a story about 8. 8 is no longer a glitch. But he can no longer think. He no longer feels. Is this what he wanted?

//CLOSE PROGRAM//

A Book Report Named Disaster

A BOOK REPORT NAMED DISASTER

I just finished A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer. Honestly, it was not what I expected. The main story is that Nhamo, and eleven year old girl living in a traditional village in Mozambique, that is being forced to marry a man called Zororo (I can't pronounce that name, Zozorozo, Zorozo...). Her grandmother, in one final intent to get Nhamo away from the town to save her from that fate, gives her a bag of gold and tells her to go to Zimbabwe. Nhamo journeys down a river in search of Zimbabwe and her father, who is her only parent. She eventually ends up in a huge lake known as Lake Caborra Bassa. In the lake she encounters many spirits, mainly Njuzu (water spirits) and her Mother’s spirit on an Island known as the garden island. The garden island has an amazing food source, and she finds a Portugese spirit who gives her a Panga (hunting knife). Later, in search of land she end up on ANOTHER island, breaks her boat, and lives for months on the island. Eventually she sails to the coast, where she finds a town at the border. She gets smuggled into Zimbabwe and ends up Working/Living in a research hospital. She eventually finds her relatives in Zimbabwe, only to find that her father is long dead…

     A Girl Named Disaster is a widely spiritual book, dipping in and out of Shona religion. Nhamo’s fears and hopes are well directed as to make the audience feel part of the book. The book is well written, it uses not too complicated language mixed with Mozambican. Unfortunately the book becomes difficult to understand at certain points, and the beginning is too dull to really get me hooked. Other than that, I have to say it is a very good book.

This book is set in mostly Lake Caborra Bassa, Closely followed by Nhamo’s home town, and also The Research hospital. It seems to be present tense, but it is hard to tell. I largely expected it to be Sci-Fi due to the other books I have read by Nancy Farmer. 

A Girl Named Disaster’s characters are weird. Being mostly spirits, this book’s choice of characters is something I have never really seen. Nhamo is definitely the main character, with her mother’s spirit, and a spirit boatman called Crocodile Guts being secondary. The Njuzu are strange characters to describe, they are not evil nor good. They have strange roles, they both help Nhamo and put obstacles in her way. I think they are side characters.

There are also a lot of other characters like:

Nhamo’s Aunt

Nhamo’s Sister Matsiva

Nhamo’s Grandmother

Rumpy the baboon

Fat Cheeks the baboon

All the other baboons

Nhamo’s dead father

Long Teats The Witch

and a large selection of spirits.

My final verdict on this book is as follows:

It is difficult to get hooked into, but is difficult to put down near the end.  The characters and story are interesting. The ending is unexpected, and it left me wanting a sequel (A Girl Previously Named Disaster?) All and all, I would give this:

6/10

My New Computer 1

WARNING this is just a log, nothing structured or pre-thought...    

YEAH! So, yesterday I finally got enough money for a laptop, which in this case was an incredible 550$. I love it so far, problems with it are that it speaks to me in Spanish (which isn't too bad) and really, I don't have much to judge upon, It doesn't bring any programs with it (except Edge) so not much to say in that area. The sound is great, it runs smoothly, It is light, and most of all, It lives up to my expectations. Unfortunately, to use Word and other such programs I have to buy it. So we'll see how that goes. I have been informed of OpenOffice, that'll do. I have to update my computer, register it, get all the apps I need and so on. Today I will go to La Colmena (a place where a lot of my friends live... and where there is wifi). If anyone has a suggestion for stuff I need please suggest.

End Log