Be More Chill is a novel by the author who wrote It’s Kind of a Funny Story.  Ned Vizzini reminds me of John Green -another great author.  I noticed a lot of similarities in their novels, but Ned Vizzini’s novels have a more original plot.

This novel follow Jeremy, and – like most teen novels about guys – he is a social outcast.  Jeremy is tormented by his peers and has only one friend.  That is until one night when he hears about “the Squip”.  The Squip is a fictional, edible, super computer.  It enters the blood stream of the person who ingests it, then enters the person’s brain where it makes mental suggestions to the user.  The Squip is as close to being “all knowing” as a computer can be.  And our protagonist’s life changes when he finally gets his hand on one, but for better or for worse?

This is a great novel that I would recommend to all teen audiences.  Unfortunately this novel has a very vague ending which is one of my pet peeves.  Despite all that, Ned Vizzini is truly a great author and I hope to read more of his novels in the future.  I give this novel a 4.5/5

Cross Country by James Patterson is a recent novel of the “Alex Cross” series.  I had never read a novel from this series until I came across this one, but have heard a lot of good things about the series and of all the novels written by James Patterson.

The first thing I really appreciate about this novel is the fact that I didn’t have to read the previous novel of this series to understand what is going on.  I was able to jump right into the story without getting the feeling that I was missing something.

The novel starts with the lead character, Alex Cross, investigating brutal murders of two families in Washington D.C. one of the victims is Alex’s college sweetheart.  The investigation becomes more and more personal, while more murders of similar fashion occur.  This takes Alex to Africa in pursuit of the heartless killer… but things quickly turn for the worse.

This novel explores the brutality, corruption, and instability in Africa.  It provides the reader with a realistic representation of certain regions of Africa, but at the same time it presents a more human perspective.  When reading this novel I was constantly reminded of the movie “Blood Diamond”, the difference being that this novel more gruesomely follows a much more depressing plot.

Cross Country is an intense experience for any reader that can handle it, but I believe that it’s intended for readers above the age of 14.  This is another great novel and I give it a 4.5/5.

I love taking photos and I love taking awkward family photos.  Whenever I go through my families photo albums I laugh so hard when looking at a photo and asking “what’s happening” or “why is this happening”.  Well I stumbled upon a new website titled Awkward Family Photos.  It’s basically a website displaying peoples awkward family photos.  Here are some jems:

The Hair Salon must have been offering a great deal on perms.

Kids – Check.  Camera – Check.  Goat – Check

Best FB profile picture ever.

While doing research for a project on virtual identities this year, I spent a lot of time over at the Daedalus Project. Nick Yee, a research scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), dedicated about five years of his life to study Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). He’s the expert in the field, and is referenced in virtually every article on the subject.  I doubted that other scientists were doing similar research, so I was surprised when Jane McGonigal started talking about World of Warcraft in her speech on TED this week with regards to how “Gaming can make a better world“.

Jane is a game designer, and her goal for the next decade is to harness the gameplay hours of “Super-Empowered Hopeful Individuals” and use them to make positive change in the real world.  At the end of her presentation she introduced a number of games she has designed to achieve this, the most recent of which is Evoke.  Launched on March 12th, Evoke is a collaboration between Jane and the World Bank Institute that has users “evoke” real-word issues such as food security, poverty, human rights, education, and so forth.  It will run until May 3rd, at which time players who have successfully completed 10 challenges will be dubbed certified “EVOKE Social Innovators” of the class of 2010.  Furthermore, the best of the best will be set up with online mentorships with various social innovators world-wide, and the chance to attend the EVOKE summit in Washington.

If you have a problem, and you can’t solve it alone, evoke it.

Evoke combines all the characteristics of an online game with social networking.  You level up and gain experience in knowledge, courage, collaboration, etc., and create a character like in any other game.  But the character is simply you.  Part of your mission is to piece together your hero story, but it’s really just an exercise in examining what skills and personality traits you possess that will help you as a social innovator. Every Wednesday a new mission is unlocked on the website, and users must “Learn,” “Act,” and “Imagine” to complete them, and they all have social networking components attached.  Most “Learn” components ask you to blog or vlog a response with your thoughts on a source, and how you can use them to change the world.  For the first mission, the “Act” component requires that you shadow a social innovator online, and perhaps even fire them an e-mail or two.  This video is the “trailer” for the game, and introduces many of the key components of the experience.

The great thing about this game is that it’s current.  It’s happening now, and it’s happening with youth.  It’s like going to a local conference and meeting other young activists, combined with gaming and self-exploration.  Whether you’re new to activism or simply looking for more fresh ideas and ways to make a difference, Evoke has benefits for everyone. You can learn more about how to play here and sign up here, but whatever you do, just don’t associate your Ning ID with the name “Sarah”. (The site has some rotten programming that causes accounts with that name to overlap and not work properly.  I was surprised to log in and find that I was apparently a very intelligent 15 year-old girl living in Toronto who had already completed most of the three available missions.)

In Social Studies at school, I’m learning about economics.  We played a game to introduce us to supply and demand and other economic concepts when starting this unit.  In this game, we were able to run our own virtual lemonade stands, where the player controls all the aspects of the Lemonade Stand, from pricing, to quality control, to purchasing necessary inventory.  In addition to this, the player has to deal with unpredictable weather, picky customers, and inventory wastes. If you want to try and run your own virtual lemonade stand, click here.  Try it out!