Dead Peots Society Reflections

Dead Poets Society
Reflections on the film

What is the film’s attitude towards youth? How does the film deal with the theme of ‘growing up’?

This movie is a classic film about teens against grownups that just don't understand. The teens in the film are normal, just like all teens, shy or bonded by their parents’ or school’s rules. They were inspired by Mr. Keating to seize the day and do what they want. As they “grew up”, they started to explore relationships with girls and of course, try to deal with the death of a close friend, Neil.

How does each of the boys below choose to ‘seize the day’? What is your opinion about their individual choices?

(a) Neil Perry

Mr. Keating was a hero to Neil Perry. Neil looked up to Mr. Keating's philosophy of life and the way he encouraged the students. Neil was a boy who was under the control of his father's constant command, and didn't dare go against his father's wishes. Everything Neil wanted in life was the complete opposite of what his father wanted. Neil was inspired by Mr. Keating to seize the day. Neil was full of life and ambition and was tired of his father running his life. Neil had a passion for acting. Mid Summer Night's Dream was all that Neil was thinking about. He was so ecstatic about the try-outs and making the role main role he wanted. Neil displayed Carpe Diem when he went immediately back to his typewriter and began forging a letter "from his father." In this letter Neil was pretending to be his father and saying that Neil is given permission to participate in the play. When Neil seizes the day it has a negative and positive effect. The positive outcome is that Neil for filled his dream of being in a play.

(b) Charlie Dalton

Charlie seemed to be no stranger when it comes to following the saying Carpe Diem. Charlie is an example of a character that displays Carpe Diem in such a way that it turns out to be negative. He does not think about the pros or cons and nor does he think about the consequences. In Dead Poets Society Charlie's choice to publish an article in the school newspaper was his mistake in seizing the day. He published an article saying that Wellton Academy should have girls and signed it DPS. The faculty was outraged and immediately wanted to put and end to the DPS. When the faculty held an assembly in the church Charlie “seized the day” once again. But this time Charlie pushed the limits too far. The phone rang Charlie picks up and shouts out loud: "Phone call from God, he thinks we should have girls." The two major examples is the phone call from God and when he punches Cameron in the face which leads to his expulsion from Wellton Academy

(c) Knox Overstreet

Knox was someone whom just threw himself into romanticism and used that as his interpretation of “carpe diem”. Knox’s “object of desire” was Chris. His entire existence revolved around her (his thoughts, poetry, behavior, etc) He broke rules to see her, competed for her attention with her boyfriend, and sacrificed his relationship with his family and with the Dansburrys. After that initial meeting, Knox does everything in his power to win her over. He rides his bike to a football game to see her. He calls her, exclaiming first “Carpe Diem… even if it kills me,” and is elated when she invites her to a party that Chet is having. At that party and after a few drinks, he makes a move on Chris when she was asleep; he sees his act as “seizing the day” too.

(d) Todd Anderson

At first, Todd is very quiet with not much to say. He is the only student who sufficiently grasped Keating’s teachings and discovered his verse. After the first day of class, Todd writes “Carpe Diem” on his paper, dreaming of what it would be like if he, too, could contribute a verse and be great like those in the picture. His insecurity gets the better of him, though, and he throws out the paper believing he has nothing to contribute. Later, in class, after being asked to write a poem, Todd tells Keating he never completed the assignment after he spent many hours writing and revising his poem only to have thrown it away before class. Keating sees through Todd’s fear and first makes him yawp, and later makes him say whatever comes to mind.

I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately.
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life
... to put to rout all that was not life; and not,
when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
- Henry David Thoreau

What does the quote suggest about the relationship between man and nature? How does the film reinterpret this idea?

Thoreau went into the woods to live a bare, spare, and essential existence... no modern conveniences to help him make things easier, nothing to lighten his load. He went into the woods to learn what it meant to really live this life as it is, free of all the man-made accessories that take the life out of life. Put in a more modern way, Thoreau wanted to live without the remote control. The film reinterprets this idea by telling us that we should “Carpe Diem” or seize the day. We should do things that we want and no be controlled by others. Mr. Keating in the movie tries to tell the students how to be freethinkers and not be bonded by rules or others.

What have you learnt from the film about conformity to societal conventions?

Many people, especially parents, force their children to do what they think is right and beneficial for them in the future, but in the process, they unknowingly give their child little freedom and great pressure. They do not care what their children really want and make them do what they think is “the best” for them. By forcing them to do these things unwillingly, these children will start to hate their parents and themselves and maybe commit suicide to escape their problems, just like Neil in the movie. Through the movie, I learned that conformity and social conventions have a great and negative impact on the victims

Compare your own relationship with your father (or mother) to the relationship Neil has with Mr. Perry. In what ways are they similar / different?

My relationship with my father is rather casual; we are somewhat like close friends, just that he is much older. He does not force me to do things which I don’t want to hence I have more freedom as compared to Neil, whom is practically “caged” by his father’s rules and beliefs. Their relationship is very serious, there is a distinct level of authority for his father, Neil is never allowed to talk back to him.

Compare the friendship you share with your friends to that of the relationship the members of the Dead Poets Society have with one another. In what ways are they similar / different?

I have a close relationship with my friends, we joke around and are willing to share what we have with one another. We help one another when in need and support one another. Just like in the Dead Poets Society, the members supported and encouraged Knox to read the poem to Chris, they felt happy for him when he managed to do it. My relationship with my friends are similar to that of the members in the Dead Poets Society, we care and support one another, we share whatever we can with one another and though we fight or quarrel at times, we are stills friends.

Which of the poems quoted in the movie left the greatest impact on you? (Find the poem on www.poemhunter.com and attach it to this reflection.) Why?

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Act now to make the most of your life. In other words, says the poem, aggressively pursue a goal rather than sitting idly by waiting for good things to happen. Be proactive. Take a risk. You can't dream your way to your goal. This poem supports the movie’s main theme, ‘Carpe Diem’. This quote has left a great impact on me because it tells us to seize the day and not to waste away your youth.

Task II

Spatial / Visual:
a. Draw a map of Maycomb (think google map!). Take into consideration the locations of the homes, the streets



Well, I made this map of Maycomb with "Paint" so it doesn't look too appealing but I hope it is acceptable. =P


Intrapersonal [pick one]:
a. Who would you want to be friends with in the novel? Explain.

Well, I would like to be friends with Jem as he is a very caring. He defends his family and friends from lots of things, be it insults or even danger. For example; "The following Monday Jem and I climbed the steep front steps to Mrs. Dubose's house... 'So, you brought that dirty little sister of yours, did you?' was her greeting. Jem said quietly, 'My sister isn't dirty and I ain't scared of you,' although I noticed his knees shaking." Here he defends his sister after getting insulted by Mrs Dubose although he himself is scared. Another instance is when he, Scout and Dill was escaping from the Radley's house when they heard a shotgun shot. He held open the gate and lifted up the fence wire for them to escape and get to safety first before him. This shows his selflessness.

Another good quality about Jem is that he has the ability to put himself in other people's shoes; he can truly understand what other people are going through. He puts himself in their shoes and feels for them. A good example of that would be the scene where Jem prevents Scout from beating up Walter Cunningham. He felt bad for Walter Cunningham because he understood his family situation and pulled Scout off of him. In the end, he even invited Walter to his house for dinner.

Jem is also extremely courageous. While Dill is often the imagination behind Scout and Jem’s early attempts to draw out Boo Radley, Jem is the always the only one who takes action on his schemes. He’s the one who overcomes his fear to run up and touch the Radleys' front door, uses the fishing pole to try to leave a note on Boo’s windowsill, and looks into the Radlay’s house in midnight.

Lastly, Jem acts like a gentleman. He helps Scout understand how to get along in school and reminds her to respect Atticus and their other elders. He also constantly tells Scout what is right and what is wrong.

Hence, I believe that Jem would make a great friend.

Multiple Intelligence Test

As you can see, the graph shows that I am "Picture Smart". So most likely Mindmaps or anything with pictures will be very useful for me to remember things and I am worst with numbers...( That explains why I'm so horrible at Math.) It seems to imply that I am illogical too... This Multiple Intelligence test has shown me what are my strength and weaknesses. I can use this to change my studying techniques, maybe from now on I will start drawing more pictures in my notes =D.

Somehow I feel that the test might not be accurate because I can only recall 1 or 2 questions about numbers. So the result shown might not be accurate. I'm not saying that my Maths is good and that the result for "Logical" is totally wrong, but how can it be accurate with so little questions? Or maybe there was more and I don't remember...

But in overall, I think that the result for the test was accurate as I DO feel that I am better with pictures and stuff but not with numbers... D=

Halo Combat Evolved PC

Halo: Combat Evolved takes place in a 3D alien environment, and takes place from the character's eye view (First Person Shooter). The player can move around and look anywhere. The game features vehicles, ranging from armored jeeps to tanks, alien hovercrafts and aircrafts, many of which can be controlled. The game switches to the third-person view when in a vehicle or on a mounted gun.



The game consists of a Campaign mode and a Multiplayer mode. In the campaign mode you will be following a storyline in which your ship get invaded and destroyed by aliens... Yea, so as for the multiplayer mode, you can join or host games to fight against other players.

Your character will be equipped with an energy shield. The shield's charge appears as a blue bar in the upper-right hand corner of the game. When the shield is fully depleted, the player is vulnerable, and further damage reduces the character's health level. Fortunately, the shield will recharge if no further damage is taken for a period of time.




Halo consists of futuristic weapons. For example, there are plasma guns and sub-machine guns. Plasma weapons need time to cool if fired too rapidly, but require no reloading. In contrast, sub-machine guns cannot overheat, but require reloading and ammunition. All weapons may be used to "melee" enemies, which allows you to silently kill opponents without alerting other nearby enemies. Players may carry only two weapons at once. There is quite a limited amount of weapons though...



You can carry up to eight grenades at once: four fragment and four plasma grenades each. Like the game's weapons, the two types of grenades are different; the fragment grenade bounces and detonates quickly, whereas the plasma grenade takes longer to detonate, and has a smaller damage radius. To me the plasma grenade totally "fails" because it takes a long time to explode, doesn't bounce and can't stick to the enemy. You would think that it should have at least some good points somewhere but noooo.

Halo Combat Evolved consists of a Campaign mode and a Multiplayer mode. In the campaign mode you will be following a storyline in which your ship get invaded and destroyed by aliens... Yea, so as for the multiplayer mode, you can join or host games to fight against other players.



Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 9/10
Content: 9/10 (The Campaign is fun, but quite confusing for a beginner as you might not know where to go.)

Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops: PSP

Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops Plus is a stealth game, you control "Snake" from a third-person perspective. In the game, you can recruit allies and form a team. Before each mission, you must compose a four-man group.( You can choose not to too, but it will be harder as you have less players to control, meaning that you might lose more easily.) The group is then sent into a mission. Each member should have his own strengths and weaknesses. Some units are best on the battlefield, others may specialize in producing items, healing allies, or providing information for each of the game's maps.


(Lots of actions which you can do by using simple key combinations.)

During gameplay, the player controls only one member at a time. The others not in use hide themselves inside a cardboard box, and can be swapped into play when you find a hiding spot, where you can hide in your own cardboard box.

Characters who are killed in combat are eliminated from the your group permanently, unless they are "unique characters", such as Snake. Unique characters also include team mates that are bosses or supporting characters in the story. If a special character's health is reduced to zero, they are sent back, in order to recover. Or you can also abort the mission and return to the pre-mission state.

A there are numerous methods for you to expand your squad. If an enemy character is tranquilized or stunned, they can be dragged to a waiting vehicle and be captured. After a period of time, the captured soldier will become a member of your team. Also, enemy characters can be dragged to an ally waiting in a cardboard box, where by hitting the cardboard box, they will be ordered to transport the enemy for the player, saving stamina. Alternatively, by using the PSP's WiFi feature, soldiers can be recruited. It is quite hard to get soldiers by Wifi though as you have to click some buttons quick enough at the right time to get them, or else they will just run away. However, the first soldier that you encounter using the Wifi feature can be easily recruited, but you must have a member with "Headhunter" as one of their speciality in your group. Do not worry if you do have one, you can put one in your group and go back to the Wifi feature to find that soldier again. All soldiers that you encounter will appear again if you failed to meet his requirements on the first encounter.


(Dragging an enemy to the truck.)

Some of the your recruits might include former enemy soldiers or personnel, hence they can walk among the enemy undetected as long as you avoid suspicious actions. (For example, suddenly crouching in front of your enemies, pointing your gun at them, sneaking and sprinting and dragging an unconscious soldier.)


(The Blue Icon at the top left hand corner shows that you are blending in with your enemies.)

Another new feature is the surround indicator added to the game's HUD. The surround indicator allows you to determine the rough distance of enemy soldiers by the noises they make. The surround indicator is composed of two circles; the outer circle displays the noises made by enemies and inner circle displays noises made by the player himself.





Graphics: 9/10
Content: 9/10
Sound: 10/10
(MY　ＦＡＶＯＵＲＩＴＥ PSP GAME!!!) The game is hard to understand, but once you get the hang of it, you will be hooked on!

Digimon World: DS

In Digimon World DS you control a Digimon tamer and embark on a journey to discover, tame, raise, train and command Digimons. Digimon World DS's gameplay still continues after the character collection is completed. You can build Digi-Farms to raise, evolve and communicate with their Digimon.


The Digimons can be equipped with items and weapons. The weapons allows the Digimon to use new special attacks. Some weapons are for certain monster types, and others have level requirements. In addition, armor and accessories can also be equipped too. You can have up to six Digimon in your party. The first three monsters are the ones that enter into battle. How many Digimon you have in their party will determine the number of enemies that appear. Having the first three slots filled often means the monsters will be battling three enemies at once.





Unfortunately, there are no "digiballs" used to catch new monsters. Instead, every time you encounter a Digimon, it gets scanned and data is gathered on it. After around 8-10 encounters( Every encounter with a digimon gives you a ~15% data scan), you should have enough information (min. 100% data acquired) to convert the scan data into your own Digimon. Some of the rarer Digimons will take some time to collect, since it will be a while before you encounter them enough times.



Graphics: 7/10
Content: 6/10 (Every 20-30 steps you take in a map, you will encounter a Digimon battle. Which is very irritating if you are rushing somewhere. The storyline is very interesting, but the bosses are quite hard to defeat, the maps are hard to navigate, it is quite hard to train your Digimon and they don't give you a clue as to where or what you are supposed to do after a quest. I had to follow a guide to complete the game...)
Sound: 7/10

God Of War: Chains of Olympus PSP

Chains of Olympus is a third-person action adventure game where you get to heck and slash your enemies. There are little puzzles here and there for you to rack your brains and solve. For example, you sometimes have to move statues and other items to reflect light or activate a pressure switch to open doors. Kratos(you) collects red orbs to power up his weapons and abilities. He also collects Gorgon eyes to increase his health points and Phoenix feathers to increase his magic points.

God of War's weapons include Kratos' trademark Blades of Chaos, and the Gauntlet of Zeus, a magical gauntlet that allows Kratos to unleash powerful punches on his opponents. There is also a Sun Shield that Kratos picks up that allows him to block most attacks, parry an attack that stuns the opponent and also deflect projectiles back at enemies. Kratos also acquires magical spells throughout the game that help him defeat the enemies he faces. This includes the “Efreet” spell, which knocks out all nearby enemies with fire, the” Light of Dawn”, which allows the player to throw balls of light, and “Charon's Wrath”, which inflicts damage on several enemies.


The "Efreet" spell.

The controls are generally quite good. Kratos can make light and heavy attacks using his blades of chaos, and you can perform combos by pressing specific, simple button patterns. Eventually you'll get a second weapon, the Gauntlet of Zeus, which is a giant glove that Kratos can use to smash his foes. It's a ton of fun to use. It's just too bad that it's the only alternate weapon in the game. Magic spells are a bit limited as well, but you'll eventually acquire a few other abilities. The most useful to me was the first one you get, the “Efreet”, which damaged all nearby enemies; the other abilities were of little use. For every successful kill, you're rewarded with red orbs that can be used to learn new attacks as well as upgrade weapons and magic. Once again you can find hidden treasure chests that contain red orbs, as well as others that offer gorgon eyes and phoenix feathers.



Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 9/10
Content: 8/10 (Can finish in 7 hours, some puzzles are too hard to figure out too.)

Assasin's Creed Bloodlines: PSP

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines has a third-person gameplay. Altair(You) travels to the island of Cyprus, where he must hunt down and assassinate a remaining group of evil Templars. Cities in the game are divided into districts, with short load times when moving from one district to another.

Your targets are generally boss characters which must be fought head-on in order to kill. The character is free to wander around and accept side missions, or attempt to collect coins scattered around each of the districts. These can by saved up and used for health and skill upgrades.

The controls are quite easy to use, because they enable players to pull off stunts with ease. Although the key combinations are easy to remember and press but you need to be quick as you have to press the key combination quickly to activate a stunt. For example, if you need to jump from a ledge to another ledge, you have to push the analog stick and press X and Square. However, X is used for sprinting, so if you are standing on a small area and you attempt to jump to some other ledge, you have to press X and Square quickly and not hold X for too long or you will just run off from your standing position and drop down. There are some opportunities for rooftop-jumping in Bloodlines. But often at times, there are only one or two routes open to the player, as many buildings cannot be scaled.






Graphics: 9/10 (Pretty good for a PSP)
Content: 10/10 (You can replay the missions over and over again. The missions are quite fun too.)
Sound: 8/10

Gunz

GunZ is an online third-person shooting game. It is currently free to play, however some special items are available which cost real money. The game allows you to perform exaggerated moves, such as wall running, dashing , tumbling, and blocking bullets with swords.



In Quest mode, players in a group of up to four members go through parts of a map for a certain number of stages, which are determined by the quest level. In each stage, you are required to kill all the creatures, and the game ends when every member of the player team dies or completes all of the stages.

Players can increase the quest level by sacrificing some quest items that can be bought from the shop or hunted from monsters. Quest items in-game are stored in chests randomly placed around the map, certain items may be dropped by those monsters. By sacrificing certain items in combination, players can enter a boss quest.

Scoring kills in GunZ earns a player "bounty", which is the currency of GunZ, and EXP which contribute to the player's level. The amount of EXP and bounty a player receives for a kill depends on the level of the opponent defeated. If a player is killed, they will lose EXP if they are at least level 21 and their opponent's level is 10 or lower. Excessive EXP loss can cause a player to delevel. A player may also lose EXP through killing themselves with a grenade or falling to their death. You will not lose EXP when using the "/suicide" command and this death will not affect the player's score.

Here is a video of me exploring Gunz:



Graphics: 8/10
Content: 8/10
Sound: 8/10
Community: 7/10 ( Those people are quite arrogant. Occasional cursing. And quite some hackers D=)

Pokemon FireRed is the enhanced remake of the original Pokemon Red video game. You control the player character from an overhead perspective, and participate in turn-based combat encounters. A new region the player may access have also been added. Throughout the games, the player captures and raises Pokemon for use in battle.

When the player encounters a wild Pokemon or is challenged by a trainer, the screen switches to a turn-based battle screen that displays the player's Pokemon and the engaged Pokemon. During battle, the player may select a move for his or her Pokemon to perform, use an item, switch his or her active Pokemon, or to flee. All Pokemon have hit points (HP) when a Pokemon's HP is reduced to zero, it faints and can no longer battle until it is revived. Once an enemy Pokemon faints, all of the player's Pokemon involved in the battle receive a certain amount of experience points (EXP). After getting enough EXP, a Pokemon may level up.

During battle with a wild Pokemon, the player may throw a PokeBall at it. If the Pokemon is successfully caught, it will obey you. Factors in the success rate of a capture includes the HP of the target Pokemon and the type of PokeBall used: the lower the target's HP and the stronger the PokeBall, the higher the success rate of capture.

Personally, I play Pokemon FireRed on the PC. There is even cheat codes for it. You can get some from here: http://www.neoseeker.com/Games/cheats/GBA/pokemon_firered.html



Graphics: 8/10 (Pretty good for a Gameboy)
Content: 9/10 (Lots of Pokemons for you to catch and place to explore)
Sound: 7/10 (Quite basic sounds...)

SuddenAttack

There are two teams in the game, red and blue. Teams are pitched into various types of gameplay matches in different maps such as deathmatch, bomb defusal etc. They both have to battle each other to win the match. The game can contain up to 16 Players. Players earn experience for battles which they participate in. The max rank is 5 stars.



There are two types of currencies: cash and points. Cash is based on real money and can be charged by cell phone billing or home phone billing etc. Points can be earned from playing games. Points and cash can be spent at the in-game shop. Points are used for buying weapons. Cash enables the purchase of special bonus items, along with special team-specific outfits.

It is quite similar to Counter-Strike, where you can plant/defuse bombs and have to kill each other to win. However SuddenAttack has more content, such as "Item retrieval" and "Asset protection". For item retrieval, you have to retrieve 2 items from different locations while the other team will prevent you from doing so. For asset protection you just have to prevent a location, that you have been assigned to protect, from getting invaded by your enemies.

Here is a video of me playing SuddenAttack:



Graphics: 7/10
Content: 9/10
Sound: 7/10
Community: 8/10

Counter Strike Source

Counter-Strike: Source involves a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in a series of rounds. Each round is won either by completing an objective (such as detonating a bomb or rescuing hostages) or by eliminating all members of the opposing team. Shooting while moving dramatically decreases accuracy, and holding the mouse button down to continuously shoot will cause severe recoil. The amount of damage done by a bullet varies dramatically depending upon the body part the bullet hits, a shot in the head a one-hit kill.

Aspects of the game that have changed from Counter-Strike 1.6 include the behavior of the grenades, the physics engine, and the weapons' recoil. The smoke grenades in Counter-Strike: Source spread much more slowly than the ones in Counter-Strike 1.6. The recoil in Counter-Strike: Source differs from the recoil in Counter-Strike in that while Counter-Strike 1.6 has an almost perfectly consistent recoil, the recoil in Counter-Strike: Source is more noticeable. Furthermore, the addition of ragdoll physics marks another difference between Counter-Strike 1.6 and Counter-Strike: Source.



There is a wide variety of different customizations and add-ons that can be used with the game. There is a large fanbase for the game that creates customized sounds, textures, weapon skins, and player skins.

In Counter Strike: Source and Counter Strike 1.6, you can choose to create your own server and play with bots or play online. You choose the difficulty level for your bots and also choose the number of bots in the game. There are lots of custom maps made by players which you can download online. One of which I like the most is "fy_poolday".





Graphics: 10/10
Content: 9/10 (Not much to do other than killing and defusing/planting bombs.)
Sound: 10/10 (Realistic)
A very nice FPS game, you can play offline with bots or join an online server and play with other people. I just love the physic effects.