Book Report 6: Tag

“Tag”, a movie that follows 5 different friends who decided that they want to stay friends even when grown up. And to do this, they will play the game ‘tag’ every May. That means they try and find each other and then try and tag each other during this time. And so comes the start of the movie, where we have an average person, a rich CEO, a drug addict, a not-mentally-sound person, and a sports star who runs multiple fitness campaigns. And the main plot, tag the fitness star because he has never been tagged.

The point of this movie is about how friendship will last through many different things, all you have to do is put in a bit of effort. Perhaps it’s always hanging out with them every weekend, or having an end of year meet-up so that you stay connected, or in this case, playing the game tag where you jobs, relationships, and even your life are at stake. 

At the beginning of the movie, we see the the average guy, Hogan “Hoagie” , begin his plan. First, quit his job as a veterinarian. Second, get hired as a janitor at Bob Callahan business. Third, get into his office and tag him. Fourth find and tag Randy “Chilli” Cilliano the drug addict, while trapping him with his really enthusiastic wife Anna. After tagging him, tag Kevin Sable, then, finally, tell everyone the plan of tagging the fitness sport star Jerry Pierce, who is retiring after this year due to him getting married. And so they try multiple times to trap and catch Jerry. During this time they pick up Rebecca Crosby, a wall street journalist as well. And so begins their many attempts to trap and tag Jerry, and like every year, they all lead to failure. In fact, the very degree that Jerry has planned out that year is insane. Like, he has many different body doubles, traps, practised out fighting abilities, a copy of Hogan’s room in his basement, and in general, just an over the top amount of gear to not be it. And so of course, with all these preparations,a Hogan’s plan completely fails. Jerry ended up having to many different tricks, and with an amendment so that there is no tagging during the wedding, Jerry just can’t be tagged. Well, until the end when the fact that Hogan has a tumour on his liver and the fact that his life is going to last for about 3 more weeks after may ends. Which also finally leads to Jerry being tagged, and their friendship being healed.

During the movie, we discover that everyone has their private lives and secrets that no one else knows. For instance, Jerry is going to alcoholics anonymous. And Bob carries around thousands of dollars like it’s nothing. Or Kevin and the fact that he has trust issues, and a bunch of other issues. Or Randy and the fact that he is actually the only really ‘normal’ person there. Oh and Hogan and the fact that he will die really soon but won’t tell his friends because he doesn’t want to ruin the game. What this showed me is how different people can be, and yet still be close friends. And it also showed me an example of people keeping secrets from others and it not really leading to all that much trouble. And so we learn that as friends; you can only be so close. There will always be something that keeps you apart. Which just proves the point, that even if your apart, with the effort you putt in, you can all remain friends, even if the secrets are rather bad.

Another thing I realised from this movie is how damn important friends are. Like, I knew they were important, but these people took it to a whole new level. They decided, as said before, to play the game tag even started the cost of, well, a lot of different things. This shows how they knew staying as friends was important, and that they had to put the effort in. In particular, Hogan definitely knew this. The reason being he kept on saying how “this game of tag isn’t just a game, it is a show of friendship, working together, and knowing each other”. He knew, as the quote says, that the game tag isn’t just a game, it is the effort they put into staying friends. Without it, their friendship will die. So, by playing the game, and putting some effort into it, they are basically saving them selves from loneliness, and keeping themselves happy. That is why Hogan wants everyone to put in so much effort, and created his plan. He knew, they had to do this so as to not only stay as friends, but as to make sure the stayed happy in life.

“Tag”, a movie about 5 friends with many secrets who play tag every may in an attempt to stay close teaches us this: No matter how close you might be able to get, there will still be many secrets between friends. And that even if there are secrets, you can still remain as friends. Then it also taught us how important friends are, and that people want to be together, along with how being with your friends is a great way to stay happy in life. And so from this, remember, put in a bit of effort and you will be friends for a life time. Put in no effort at all, and the friendship will die. And finally, I would recommend this movie to anyone who wants to see a pretty cool friendship in action. 

Book report 5: One Punch Man

“One Punch Man”, by ‘ONE’, is an anime about a depressed superhero who can’t enjoy the only thing he enjoys doing, which is fighting. He lives in a world where monsters are everywhere, and these monsters are constantly increasing, with more and more tough fights appearing for everyone. So why would Saitama(The main character) end up not enjoying all these fights? Read on to discover more about how becoming the best at what you at the thing you enjoy, can actually remove all of the thrill that you can get from it.

The point I am trying to say is that if you’re the best at something, then you might not enjoy it anymore. It depends on what you enjoy about what your doing though. For instance, say you enjoy skydiving, and it’s a thing you can easily do in any airspace. At first, this would be amazing. You would find it so much fun! But then comes the problem, is it fun to skydive when it is easy? Where’s the adrenaline rush from falling out of a plane, and rushing to the ground? Where’s all of the awesome scenery, others will never see? Where are all of the people who are impressed by your career? It’s all gone, or at least, you don’t notice it anymore, ever since you got used to it all. This is the same feeling Saitama has towards fighting monsters. He enjoyed it at first, to the point where he decided he must train to a very large degree so as to enjoy it even more. But then, he encounters a problem. He ends up being ‘perfect’ at defeating his opponent. No one can even give him a fight, so, just like the skydiver, he doesn’t enjoy what he does anymore. And as he doesn’t enjoy the only thing he does in his life, he ended up depressed because he can’t see a reason in what he does. Simply put, being great at something doesn’t mean a sound mind, but someone who is going to miss becoming the best and regret being the best.

During the episode, many things happen, for instance, he goes to the shop. He buys food. The shop is crushed, while he counts out some money. He kills a giant in one punch, after of course having a discussion with him about how much it sucks to be the strongest in the world. Then he goes back home and relaxes. Watches the news. Falls asleep. Basically, his life sucks. Sure, being as strong as he is would be great, but then again, that’s from an observers point of view. As far as he is concerned, life sucks. There is nothing to do, and it seems like there is no exciting future in store for him. All this proves the point, that being the best at something, doesn’t mean being the happiest. Your still just another person, that lives just another life. Saitama being Saitama however, can still be happy and feel all those other emotions, but, well, that doesn’t mean he enjoys life all that much. He just lives it. 

At the end of the episode, Saitama has a slightly prophetic dream. He dreams of a group of monsters, entering the world who plan to kill all of humanity and take over the world. And so through this dream we learn the inner feelings of Saitama. Not that he wants to end the world or anything like that. No, instead it is more like he believes the enemy at least needs to be on the level where humanity is doomed to actually be a threat to him. We also learn that as much as he is a hero, he doesn’t really care if everyone dies. And add the fact that he always says that he is a just being a hero for the fun of it, and you will realize one important fact. Saitama, a being with the body of a God, doesn’t really care about much at all. As far as he is concerned, a good fight, even if the world is doomed, is worth it. Oh, and when he woke up, and saw the fact that his dream was coming true, he was excited for the potential fight. Too ‘bad’ that his brain completely over exaggerated their power. He ended up experiencing a great sadness and annoyance when his opponents weren’t in fact extremely dangerous, but really just weaklings who couldn’t excited him at all.

“One Punch Man” by One, is a anime about a depressed, but stupidly powerful hero. Saitama lives a life he views as boring, and the best thing to happen was that one time he got to talk to someone about how boring being the strongest is. Then he experiences a dream, where he finally realises what is missing in his life, which is the adrenaline rush he gets from fighting, and pushing his body to the limits. All this teaches us the point, that being the greatest, can honestly suck. And finally, I would recommend this anime as a starter to 

2.5 A “Perspectives” Speech Exam.

The most confusing thing I have ever encountered has got to be the emotional part of our brain. Hello everyone, I am Logan Lambert and today I shall be explaining to you all how easy it is to stuff up your emotions, and get confused over all of them. In particular, I shall be describing to you all the perspectives of happiness and sadness. 

To begin, let me tell you a story of a person I know, who stuffed up their emotions to a rather bad degree. This person somehow got this idea into their head when they were young: “I should smile constantly, then I will look better”, which lead to them always smiling. Then they encountered a few mental problems, leading to something like depression, where they forgot what all of their emotions felt like, and add to the fact that they forgot why they always smiled, they thought this: “Since I’m always smiling for some unknown reason, I should be feeling happy right now, yeah? Great to know I am always happy, 100% of the time!” They weren’t happy. Took a few years for him to realise from the moment he first started thinking he was happy; a slightly sad experience where they knew they should be sad; and the decision that they were smiling far too much; to realise this: “This feeling I am constantly experiencing, isn’t it very similar to when I was sad just now? Wait, doesn’t that mean I’m always sad?!” So they learnt that they were experiencing something like sadness constantly. However, here’s the annoying thing that you might of forgotten, they forgot what every single emotion felt like. Because of this, they don’t know how to fix their emotional state. And so they have to guess and experiment with their emotions to try and figure them out. And this is why this speech will be written, because this person I know shouldn’t be the only one that has forgotten what all their emotions feel like. Others will most likely need help to figure out what each one feels like, and I need to get you all to realise this. I also realise that you too might not even of noticed how stuffed up your emotional well being is. None of us will know until you bother to check.

I will now talk about emotions from the perspectives of  happiness and sadness. These two emotions are very important to our well being, and each emphasize the other, following the expression: “You have to experience sadness to know happiness”, which in turn means that you must experience happiness to know sadness. And even though they are so important, they still have problems, for instance: If you’re too often happy you’re a maniac, if you’re too often sad then you’re depressed, and if you switch back and forth between these two, you are bipolar. These emotions can even be confused for each other if your not aware of what each one feels like and no one ever properly explains; which is why today I shall be explaining what they feel like in your head, and hopefully remove a bit of the confusion. 


The definition for happiness when you search it up is: “happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being which can be defined by, among others, positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.”  So that would mean that happiness can be felt in a number of different ways, and in differing intensities. I guess, simply put, happiness is a good feeling, one that clears up your head, and lets you enjoy life(Puts a spring in your step, and a fresh outlook on life). If you don’t know what it is like to enjoy something, then I’m sorry, but I can’t come up with any other explanation. There is no other way to explain happiness besides this.


Sadness when searched up is this: “Sadness is an emotional pain associated with, or characterized by, feelings of disadvantage, loss, despair, grief, helplessness, disappointment and sorrow.” Which is all of the different names for different types of sadness one can feel. What do these feel like? Easy! It is a constant smothering feeling, which stops thoughts from working, makes you rather lethargic, and it seems like a large spike is being twisted around inside of your head(The spike in the heart is guilt, or possibly a feeling of loneliness since no one cares about you. Could also be something just wrong with your heart in general too.). Basically, sadness/depression sucks. Not to say that it isn’t an important feeling, but that doesn’t change how bad it feels. However, sadness is still important, as it can help to remove stress, clear up your judgements of people, and even help with social interactions. And without it, how are you ever going to enjoy being happy?

Please keep in mind that everyones brains work differently. This means that I don’t know what a emotion might feel like for you, no one can. In fact because of this, the only way for everyone to figure out what an emotion feels like is to experiment with them. See what you feel like when you are supposed to feel sad; see what you feel like when your supposed to feel happy. Do this for as many emotions as possible, and learn just how your emotions work. Who knows, you might just discover you have emotional problems. It might also get you wondering a few things about your emotions, like whether or not you can even trust these emotions of yours. And you might even discover that you can actually trust your own brain to make correct judgements when it comes to emotions, which really shows how lucky your are. And if you can’t trust your brain, then it really shouldn’t come as a surprize. If it does come as a surprise, then that truly shows how damaged our idea-of-what-emotions-feel-like is.

“Perspectives” 2.5A Plan

To construct and deliver an oral presentation on a topic, issue, idea, conflict, situation that is thought-provoking/controversial this year.
*You must present at least 2 different perspectives/interpretations/viewpoints on this topic, issue, idea, conflict or situation.
The topic I might do could be: Depression; that emotions are a mess, and we need to learn how to fix them; kids should be taught how their brains work from primary to year 10, just so that they know why they think the things that they do.

Depression perspectives, what is it like to experience depression first-hand. And what it is like for people who are watching it happen. It should provoke thoughts in the listener to look at their own mental state, and just check that they aren’t depressed. The reason being, it is easy to make a mistake their.

Emotions are a mess perspectives, the most easy to identify emotions, and what they are actually like; the reason why we feel them; and what it means if you can’t feel them. The reason because EMOTIONS ARE A MESS AND I WANT TO HELP PEOPLE NOT SUFFER ANY MORE FROM THESE EMOTIONS.

Convincing people about how their brains work, from the perspective of the kid whose brain doesn’t work, but hasn’t noticed and so is suffering without even noticing it(It can happen, trust me here, okay), and for the people whose brains are perfectly fine but who should be taught so that they can help others in a more effective way. The reason being that this would of been so useful for me a few years ago, might of saved myself a lot of problems.  

These 3 topics are all pretty good in their own way, and they all have multiple perspectives, and all that. But which would be best? Depression is the one I am least interested in, so ignore that. And the other two could be combined, by having it so that I teach everyone how easy it is to stuff up the concept of emotions, and lead it to getting everyone to try and add in a class that teaches us how they work. 

Speech:
Introduction(My topic, who I am, a question like, “Who here has a perfect grasp on their emotions?” If all are yes, then “Then you are all very lucky”, and if all are no, “To be expected, emotions are a mess”, or mix, “So a few of you are lucky, and a few need help understanding their emotions, no surprize there”.)

Explain backstory behind point(Talk about a guy I know who got really confused when it came to emotions, but never sought help for reason unknown, and who still dislikes how confused they got(You, talk about yourself))

First point about how emotions actually work(Well, like happiness is a nice feeling, angriness is a maddening feeling, stuff you will have to interview others to figure out. Disclaimer “I don’t know for sure, but from my limited research, this is what these emotions feel like.”) 

Second point(“And how do we make sure no one gets confused about what emotions are like anymore? Simple! Let’s make an extra class that starts in year 7, and goes to year 10 that tells us how brains work.” Then try to convince everyone that this is a great idea, and isn’t just going to waste kids time. Trust me, we waste enough of it already, we can spare a bit.)

Conclusion(Wrap up your point about how confusing emotions are, introduce some places people can go to when they do suffer from mental problems, not that we went, but you know they exist, and, yeah, wait for the applause! I hope)

Book report number 5: plan

For the 5th book report that will be a movie, we can go with one of these movies:

gay computer guy who won world war 2(Dude won world war 2[pretty much anyway], but was drugged until he commited suicide. They only said sorry a few years ago); one where someone nearly died while climbing on a mountain, touching the void?; the genre of eastern novels I currently am reading(I’m sure I can find something, I mean I have read at least a hundred of them now); futurama(Literally watched it all, and it has a lot of interesting ideas within it, like how morals are forever changing between different groups and different times).

So, what will we do? we have 2 reports left to do. One needs to be in tomorrow, the other about 3 weeks later. So we need something to be done by tonight.

Eastern novels then? which ones? perhaps a mix, where I name different ones and use them as an example for some point of view. O perhaps I present it as an opportunity for a whole new selection of books for people to read that you can’t find in a library in this part of the world. Or I name different books and use the ‘meaning’ behind those books to prove the point:(If a person has absolute power, then only problems can happen. Which is why it isn’t possible, or at least shouldn’t be allowed). How? Basically every single one of those books has an overpowered main character, who ends up facing the moral dilemma of “I can do anything, but should I?” where the majority of people end up going: “Who cares, lets just ignore everything else and enjoy myself”, and a few, better people, who go: “I will protect the people I care about, and ignore everyone else.” There’s been like, 2 people out of hundreds who decided to dedicate there power to protecting others and not being psychopathic or sociopathic. Oh, and another thing to talk about with these novels is murder. The amount of killing sprees some of these people get into is just amazing. Seriously, some novels have to increase the amount of people just so they can sustain it. So what do these people think about death? Well, generally, if it is someone they care about, then they will do anything for them, but for everyone else, they will kill them just for a little more power, or it might even end up being because they are bored.
Basically, these novels could be used to try and convince the readers to think about death and how your morals work in a new light. And it will be effective because they destroyed mine. I went from hurting no one and caring about everyone, to only caring about those close to me, and ignoring everyone else.

So it appears I want to do that one huh. What novels then? Oh, and it has to be one with at least 70 chapters, as every chapter is 2 to 3 pages long. How about this one: “Dark net”. Which is about something really stupid sounding now that I think of it; a kid with no power gets lucky and gets the ability to neutralize all powers , then trains a lot, gets really powerful, all in a attempt to kill off the universe sized insect eating everything. His helpers is an army of robots that are literally uncountable by the end of the story, and some plants, a few other humans with cool powers, and dragons. The reason this is a good choice is that it is one of two books where the main character decided to put everything into helping others, I mean he kills his enemies, but those guys where literally trying to wipe out the human race, so, you know, that’s fair. But anyway, he decided to dedicate his life towards making sure some part of the universe survives.

Or how about “Library of heaven’s path”, which is about a extremely arrogant, oddly powerful, rather good acting, teacher. I have read so far 700 chapters worth of a guy being picked, getting powerful, proving the guys who picked on him wrong, and then moving onto the next group of people who pick on him. There are now 900 chapters worth of this, and there will be more. Anyway, the reason this is any good is because it is funny for people who like this kind of thing. This book will allow me to prove two things to other people, to not be arrogant, and that often there can be way too much humor in a book compared to the amount of seriousness that is in it. Like, I like a bit of humour, but some books just get stupid when the plot is humour, and the subplot is a little story line for why the main character does anything.

Then there is the next book, “rattlings” or something. About a guy who enjoys annoying others being killed by some deity, then as a sorry(And so said deity doesn’t get into trouble for killing another deities person) she reincarnated him with a power that allows him to gain more power the more he kills(To put it simply, actually he can level up like a game character). This leads to said deity bringing him into a new world as a rat. So begins the absolute massacre of species and gods as he starts trying to gain as much power as possible, for the fun of it. A good book for it teaches us how having morals can be really useful, because otherwise EVERYTHING DIES. Seriously, he said that, he intends to kill everything on the world he ended up on. So another deity who he was working with actually got scared, and keep in mind that this deity was a god of demons or something. Anyway, learn what it means to slaughter and not feel anything.

Other books, how about “The universe system”, one of the few novels out there where the main character is sane. She (Yes, it is also about a girl, another rare thing), is a universe builder. Or at least that is her new job, as far as I can tell. It can teach us about…

honestly, I have no idea what to do, so I wanted to use the books I am constantly reading, but…they are fun reads, that is all. They don’t have a hidden meaning, they don’t teach you much beyond what it would be like to have a massive amount of power, and the feeling of corruption that you get. So, I need to find something else. It should be a movie, and it should be a good one.  I have to watch the movie, and analyze different parts of it. or perhaps I can do something else, I don’t really know.

Old books and movies I could use:

Can’t think of any. They were all watched or read for the pure fun of it.

So we shall go with the gay computer guy then?  What would be the point behind it? Not that even gay people can save the world, people aren’t that simple minded in NZ. So, what else? That we really should congratulate people who deserve it while they are alive?

So, I don’t know. I can’t think of anything. For all of the books I have read, I can’t think of a meaning. And the few I can think of, I can’t remember the name of the book or movie. So, what am I supposed to do?

IDEA!!!!! One punch man first episode, that is the most meaningful episode. It introduces the man who can beat anyone in one punch. Not a strong punch, just a weak one as far as he is concerned. So, he ends up depressed. He can’t do what he enjoys anymore, which is fighting, so he becomes depressed. You know, the one thing he enjoyed in his life, he can’t enjoy anymore. So let’s use that episode to talk about the point: Find multiple ways to enjoy yourself, don’t just leave it to only one thing. Otherwise you won’t enjoy life anymore, and no one wants that.

Okay, there is no problem with this. The episode is alright, and has no actual issues like the other ones until later episodes. And it includes quite a bit of all of the points I said before.

Oh, and it is very different to all of the other ones so far done. This will be fun just for that one reason.