Ender's Game Response Part 3

“Ender’s Game”, by Orson Scott Card, is a really confusing book to read. The beginning was interesting, whereas the middle gets boring and then toward the end, it gets interesting. This whole book somewhat revolves around a typical school life of bullies and groups. Ender suffered being bullied and isolated due to his intelligence surpassing boys who are older than him. They were all sent to the battle school, ‘kidnapped’ from their families, in order to train and compete to be a future commander or hero. With everyone competing, everyone would hate the fact that there is someone younger than them who are more brilliant. So out of jealousy, the guys in the battle school will gang up in groups and attack him or harass him. Throughout the book, it only explained how Ender slowly understands technologies and learning new techniques. This is weird because only toward the end, that the book finally showed actions and showed a real battle which ended with a couple of pages.

My group discussed how most of the book drags on about Ender’s training and skimmed through his battle. One of my group members suggested that it was to help the readers understand the technologies because this story is set into the future. The things discussed in the book would be too confusing for us to understand if the author skims through battle school and just talked about Ender’s battle and the adventure afterward. We also discuss about how this book is somewhat amazing because the children in this story acted so mature that we had to constantly remind ourselves that the protagonist is an eleven year old boy. Overall, my group’s discussion revealed some things that I had never considered before such as revolving around a typical school life. It was interesting and the topics were things that I easily overlooked in this book.

            We also discuss about whether the buggers forgave humans or wants the humans to forgive them. Part of what I didn’t really mention in the discussion is that Ender is trying to help the buggers repopulate because he wanted to atone for his sins of killing an entire species.  The fact that he is somewhat like Peter still haunts him; he didn’t want to be a killer, didn’t want to be the person that he feared the most but he killed the buggers. He was afraid of becoming more vicious than Peter so he probably helped the buggers to compensate for what he had done to their species.

Response Post to Kristine

I found this in Kristine’s post, What Has Society Come To?:

“Whether someone is gay, lesbian, bisexual or anything else, they are still human beings. Nothing can change that. America is supposedly the country in which anyone is accepted and anyone has the same rights as everyone else. But look at where we are. Look at all the people around you anyone you know who has a different sexual orientation than the "norm" of society. They are not getting the rights they deserve. They fight and fight with everything they have in them and they are being neglected because they are different.”

I agree with this issue because America is where people go to start a new life or to find a better life but instead, they faced discrimination. America is the land of freedom from the Whites who ran away from England in order to seek new lives, but other than that, it isn’t freedom for anyone else. Many people are discriminated by their gender, race, religion, and many other things. Although America did change to how it is now, discrimination is still here. It’s like a new factor that makes America. Because America is a mix of cultures, people would compete to see who’s better. African American was once discriminated, and even when they still are, many other races are being discriminated against due to the prejudice.

            I think that people should stop putting others down because difference is the one factor that helped us survived as a species. We can’t help the fact that we are different because of geography. We have to change in order to adapt to the environment as us. We also couldn’t communicate with each other around the world before technologies existed so different thoughts are bound to happen. We are all individuals who may think alike with some group of people but also think differently with other groups of people. I think that we should all just accept the difference and deal with it. It’s not like we are a different species just because we act, think, or dress differently. We have different perspectives and it is an advantage in some situations.

Response post to Nawara

This is a response to Nawara's post, You're Beautiful, Know Matter What They Say, which I found interesting and is actually true:

“I don’t know why people assume it's fine to critize people's appearance to they world, why do they think it's okay? … Back where my parents are from, Eritrea, there are two types of people: Adults and Kids. I believe this "teenage" generation is just all in our heads. American's psychotically made this up. These “teenage” groups of people were created to increase America's wealth, economically. That is all.”

          I agree with Nawara. Due to greed, we put others down. In television and internet, we show images of skinny people, saying that by purchasing some products, we can be like them. We all want to be pretty so we can get someone to like us but being pretty on the outside won't help if we aren't pretty on the inside. Everyone is beautiful, no one is ugly. Those who thinks that someone is ugly is ugly themselves. Prettiness is just a term, like a cage, that we put around ourselves. The meaning of beautiful and pretty varies from people to people. In some cultures, fat is defined as beauty.

          I think that companies used us to help them profit. They only care about money. They don't care about their customers' health; they only care whether or not they will buy it. Having these impossible images as our goal, we began to do what others do and act like how others act. We are individuals for a reason and that is not to copy others like monkey see monkey do. I think that we all try hard to be someone else. Everyone is pretty no matter what others say. I think that we should spend our time and money on perfecting ourselves instead of copying others. No one is ugly in this world. Pretty clothes, pretty style pretty skin, it doesn't define who we are. What we do and our decisions define us. Our identities aren't always necessarily about looks. I know it's repetitive, but our identities are who we are inside, not what we look like. We are all humans so of course, we will look the same. We don't need to be so skinny that our health would be at risk. 

Ender's Game Response Part 2

           In our discussion, we discussed about “Ender's Game” Orson Scott Card, and about the monitor in that the government installed in Ender's neck. We debated about how the I.F., or International Fleet, was able to hear about the fight and went to Ender's house even though they took the monitor away from Ender. A brief summary of this book is that it takes place in the future where many technologies have greatly evolved. Kids have monitor in them when they were born. The monitor connects to the brain, so that the government can observe how they think and their view. If the government thinks that they were capable enough, they will be sent to space in a battle school, to train to be a future commander. This is what happened to Ender. His older siblings, Peter, the oldest, and Valentine, the second oldest, had monitors on them and they showed great potentials. Having more than two kids is breaking the law, but because Peter and Valentine showed great potentials, the government allowed that family to have a third child. Ender was the third child and he was nicknamed Third. His classmates doesn't like him and even Peter, his own sibling, doesn't like Ender.

           Ender grew up isolated and only receiving love from his sister, Valentine. Valentine became so precious to him. After his monitor was taken off from him, Ender didn't have the government's protection anymore because they won't see what will happen to him. He went to school as a normal kid, but the other kids hate him. Hate, will of course lead to bullying. Ender, when he was finally able to go to school, encountered some bullying. He attacked Stilson and continue to attack for self defense and also to prevent future bullying. With no monitor on Ender, the government doesn't know if the kids bullied Ender and if Ender beat them up. But the thing that was in question for our discussion was whether they took the monitor off him or not. If the government really did take it all off, then they wouldn't know about the fight. A normal fight at school will be dealt with from the school but having the I.F. Going to Ender's house was really suspicious.

Ender's Game Response Part 1

“Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card, is a story about a futuristic life where aliens have invaded Earth and due to the fear that they might come back, the I.F. scouted boys to be part of a ‘game’. The boys will be monitored when they are three and if they have the qualities to become a commander, they will go to space where they train. Their training is a game where competition is the only thing. Ender is a young boy, six years old, who went to space to train and the book talks about his experience.

            In my group discussion, we mainly focused on government and Peter. The government is recruiting children who are six years old. This is cruel because they should be playing around, trying to discover their identities rather than being sent up to space, secluded from Earth and their families. I think that the government in this book doesn’t see their people as humans but as tools that they can easily use and throw away. From how I see it, the government used the invasion to get people to fear and be paranoid and use that to train an army of abnormally talented kids.

            Peter is Ender’s older brother and the eldest of the three children. He is considered dangerous and he despises Ender. He would beat Ender and torture him. He has nothing nice to say about Ender or to Ender. Peter invited Ender to a game, and the result was that, “He lifted his foot, took a step, and then knelt on Ender, his knee pressing into Ender’s belly just below the breastbone,” (12).  Peter didn’t hesitate to fight Ender and he attacked Ender as if they were truly enemies. Peter is a murderer and he is willing to show it. While reading, I thought that Peter is fifteen, but he is actually ten at that time. It surprised me how he is smart enough to deceive adults and to have such murderous intent. But the reason why we discuss about Peter is because of what he told to the pretend sleeping Ender, “‘Ender, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know how it feels, I’m sorry, I’m your brother, I love you,’”(15). This part is surprising to me yet I knew that it will happen. My group members said that even if a person hates their siblings and wants to kill them, they would still love their siblings. We all agree that our sisters or brothers can be a pain in the ass and would make us go crazy, but despite that, we still love them a lot. I think that Peter is proud of his brother, but at the same time he is jealous. He’s the oldest and it is an embarrassment if the youngest is better than the oldest. Ender is the living proof of what Peter can’t become. I think that Peter is proud so he acts mean toward Ender out of jealousy but is trying to help Ender as well. Peter is intelligent so he must understand Ender’s position. He might be trying to protect Ender by being the cruelest person so that Ender is prepares for any kind of obstacle. I think that this is how Peter shows his love toward Ender, his little brother.

Response to Shiyun's "Future"

I found something on Shiyun’s blog and I feel that this relates to me and other people as well:

“I think the meaning of life is to experience failure at one point and learn from it. Nothing can stop you if you once failed, you can always stand back up and start a new day and be successful. That's what make life great. If you failed, it doesn't mean that your future will be bad, it will just mean that you need to try harder. Nothing can be decided right now, we will just have to wait till the time comes.”

I agree with Shiyun about mistakes. None of us were born super perfect. We are only perfect if we perfected ourselves through experience. If we were all perfect to begin with, the world would be super boring and I would die from being too crazy. Failure is an experience that we all need to be better. If we are all perfect, we would try to be more perfect than another. There is no real meaning to perfection and failing once won’t mark a person as stupid. Everyone failed at every single new experience. When they are doing something such as skiing, they won’t be a pro at it. They have to fail and get injured many times to master a move. They need to get use to it until they can do it while multitasking. It gets us to try new things and be content with it because we worked hard for it. The future is an unknown path to us, even if we already decide the future. Many things can change it or something can go wrong. Our future can be determined by our society and by ourselves. Nothing is decided. We have to decide for ourselves.

I make mistakes every single day despite practicing and working hard. There are mistakes that I regret but I felt that I am also happy about making those mistakes. Each of them taught me a lesson and showed me what I can improve on. Even when I tried every single day on one thing, I still make mistakes. This shows that even if we are good at something, it doesn’t mean that we can change it. We can make it more perfect and much better than it can. I think that living the best of the best through hard work is always the satisfying life.