Zombies at Penn State

1

Usually when one is waking back to their dorm after lunch there is not much to be scene. Fellow students, occasionally some facility, the many friendly squirrels that inhabit the Penn State campus. However over the past two weeks some people have been experiencing a different sight on Penn state lawns. Hordes of students, all donning green bandanas. The game Humans vs. Zombies is in full swing and has created an interesting occurrence around campus. Just last week I was walking back to the Beaver dorms in the Pollock section of campus when I looked up and saw over twenty “zombies” gathered together in front of the building. The students were planning some sort of attack on a group of humans that were attempting to complete a mission. As they hung around talking and planning a group of five students, wearing orange arm bands and carrying nerf guns came into view. Soon enough a shout went out from among the zombie students as they took off chasing the small group of survivors as other students passed by. While the chase was the main attraction it was bystanders who were the most interesting part of the moment. Some walked by with a disgusted look on their face, some laughed, some ignored them, some even asked how they could join in. Within a few minutes of the charge, both the humans and the zombies were out of sight and the campus quickly returned to normal, as if the entire even was forgotten.

2. Q: “So why did you decided to participate in the Humans v.s. Zombies game?”

A: “I don’t know it seemed like fun, I’m not sure you need another reason” (Scott Moser, 1rst year Penn state student.

Q: “What else does the club do beside HvZ?”

A: “Oh there are a ton of other games in the club, Humans vs. Zombies is only a one event that the club runs, there is other stuff going on every week.” (Lee Diase, second year student)

Q: “Why does the club use nerf guns?”

A: “Probably because you can’t really hurt someone with a nerf gun, and there’s no real way you could mistake it for a real gun” (Lee Diase, second year student)

a. The urban gaming club runs the following games, capture the flag, manhunt, territories, and assassins, Humans vs. Zombies, scavenger hunt, and many ad, hoc games.

b. The Humans vs. Zombies game tracks its participant’s status (i.e. who has been tagged and who has tagged the most people) by having all of their participants signed up electronically with a custom game code.

c. The urban gaming club occasionally runs charity games to raise money for worthy causes.

d. Humans vs. Zombies is not a Penn state exclusive game, there are many games held at many universities all over the country.

Sources

Humans vs. Zombies | The Official Site of the Humans vs. Zombies Game. Web. 30 Sept. 2011. .

Penn State Urban Gaming Club – Nerf™ Battles, Humans vs. Zombies, Assassins, and More at PSU. Web. 30 Sept. 2011. .

4.

Two areas I feel I need to do more research in are in the inner workings of the clubs. I would like to know if the club has ever met with any opposition from the campus administration, as this is common in other schools. I would also like to learn how the club got started and who first thought of the idea. To learn more about these two areas I will likely have to interview one of the senior club members. This may prove difficult however as many classes have exams scheduled in the next week and people may not have time to meet with me.

Drinking at penn state podcast

The podcast "Number 1 Party School" provide an interesting story about the drunk actions of students at Penn State. The main issue of the piece is to examine what the title of "Number 1 Party School" really means. The main issue the podcast is that the title of "Number 1 Party School" is not a positive title when you view it from the point of view of the professors, the staff, the police force, and the community it is a very negative concept. The reason why this issue was investigated seems to be to attempt to spread awareness about the actions of drunken students and the affects that they have on the people around them. The podcast is primary aimed at students. I believe that parts of the story are aimed at students who tend to binge drink. It forces them to take a cold sober look at the actions that they have and might take again and forces them to consider how absurd it can be. It also speaks to the dry students and the community of state college, telling the story from their point of view and sympathizes with what they have to go through on these "drinking weekends". A particularly powerful part of the podcast was in the beginning when the listener gets the chance to experience all the events that were witnessed in just that half an hour period. Another well put together piece was when the interviewer shadowed a police officer on patrol. The audience not only got to see things from the officer’s point of view but also got to hear the stories of what the officers have to deal with on a regular base. The conclusion drawn by the end of the report was that Penn State does have a drinking problem, but that it is a problem that is not easily addressed. The podcast lists many attempts by the administration to curb drinking, all of which have failed. It is also brought up that success in this matter is very hard to examine as there is no real way to know if what you are doing is having an effect. The research that was included in this report was mostly gathered first hand through the use of interviews and investigative reporting. Other information that played more of a secondary role in the podcast was mostly statistical data, percentages of students who drink and what the drinking numbers where for certain years. The narrative techniques used were very impressive. Since the entire report was presented through audio the reporter was able to weave sound bites of his interviewees with his own exposition. The smooth transitions from to topic to topic and from section to section really improve the listening experience. The last thing I will say about the recording is what really impressed me was the stance the article took. It didn’t look down upon or condemn drinkers as being lazy slackers and it didn’t attempt to portray the administration as tyrannical. It let the leader make their own opinions about each group by listening to each groups own words, and it really made the piece into something special.

Bird by Birds Advice on Writing

Anne Lamont offers many pieces of to aspiring writers. Everything from "don't write for success" to how to deal with critics, but the one piece of advice I found to be the most important was when she addressed the topic of how to start. “Just start writing” As someone who has always had some sleight desire to try my hand at fiction writing, but lacking the experience to put together a long story this particular piece of advice had a huge impact on me. Don’t think you have experience, “just start writing”, not sue if it’s going to be any good, “just start writing”, don’t have the faintest clue what you want to write about, “just start writing”. Whenever I write I tend to try to get the perfect version of my work in the first go and as a result I will often spend a lot of time sitting at a computer screen until I have things worded just right. The idea of just writing, no matter how bad or unimportant the writing is was completely foreign. But as I experimented with the style I found it extremely helpful. As further explained in bird by bird if you just start writing you might write three paragraphs that are absolutely awful, but paragraphs 4-6 might turn out to be gold. The simple statement of just start writing is also extremely helpful in dealing with writers block. A bad case of writers block can be as aggravating as banging ones head against a wall. But if you just start writing, even if you write complete nonsense that has nothing to do with your paper, it suddenly becomes much easier to segway back into what you are trying to write about. After using this style of writing my papers have taken much less time without experiencing a significant drop in quality. If anything they have gotten better since I can now spend more time on the second half of the paper, which previously always had a rushed and unfinished feel to it. When I wrote the rough draft of my personal memoir required for my English class I felt it was is was by far more balanced then a lot of my previous works. I believe that by immediately starting to write a distinct style begins to appear in ones writing. The style of the writing in bird by bird has a good flow to it; its transitions are consistently natural and have provided appropriate segways to new topics. I believe that when an experienced writer gets out of a block by just writing, they become very experienced at making appropriate transitions from paragraph to paragraph. Even if every paragraph you create in this process ends up being cut from the final draft, a lot of time the transitions you created by free writing from paragraph to paragraph have a natural feel to them and can be used to great effect in the finished product. So in total I feel by following the simple 3 word piece of advice I am able to vastly improve the efficiency and timing of my writing

Shirtworthy

The story "Shirt Worthy" by David Giffels attempts to convey to the reader the significance of a concert. The man theme of the story was a separation of a tee shirt as something you just bought and the tee shirt that was worn and "battle scared" effectively making it a badge of honor. Mr. Giffles starts his memoir by introducing the concept of a shirt as a badge of honor by telling a story about his brother’s favorite shirt. An interesting thing to note here is that David has had no experience with his topic at an early age, but can still establish the topic by starting with stories about someone else’s that still relate to the overarching theme of the narrative. The story then shifts to many years in the future. Mr. Giffels announces this change in the time of his story by going into a bit of vague detail about his later life and then reestablishing his story to when he had children. By continuing the story "when I had children" Mr. Giffels immediately puts his reader in a mindset that many years have passed from the start of the story. This essentially divides the story into two parts, one relating to a young David Griffels and the other relating his older years after he has grown up, married and now has a family of his own..
Now in the second part of the story Mr. Griffels tells us about how he finally got his "badge of honor shirt”. The most interesting part of the story was when his son comes back from playing in the yard and is in tears that he ripped the band shirt his father had given him on a fence. The boy is clearly upset Mr. Griffels reaction (to his son at least) is nothing short of baffling, exclaiming that his son has essentially done what he couldn't when he was a boy by imbuing a shirt with a deep personal experience. What’s more is that Mr. Griffels ends up keeping the shirt and getting his son a replacement. In the end the shirt means so much to him not because of his own actions, but because of the actions of his son. This adds a nice touching ending to an otherwise light read.
I think that strongest part of Mr. Giffels writing lies in humor. He is very good at delivering little quirky one liners in the middle of his story that are short enough not to distract the reader from the point, yet still give a brief moment of humor to the reader. This is a very hard line to walk while writing, if you make your joke to long it distracts your reader from the generally point of you story, but if you make your joke to short it lacks humor and just makes you seem desperate for the reader’s attention. Mr. Giffels is able to walk this line consistently throughout his writing and I believe it really adds something to this story.