A Hero's Journey, You've Had One

Name: VG Date: 10/22/14

Journey of a Hero, It’s Happened to You

The final Action Project for this term is ready for submission, and here’s what it’s about. In the literature class “Stories”, we have the final Action Project which relates to a hero’s journey, a specific series of events. There were many difficult parts such as attempting to find a real hero/idol of mine to interview, but I am proud of my choices for both the fictional hero and the real hero. 

The hero’s journey, according to Joseph Campbell, usually starts with the call to adventure, including a mentor, guide, or ally, that has unfamiliar territory, challenges and trials, an ordeal, a road back (or rebirth at times), atonement of what has been lost, and the return to a normal life. Those are the 8 most basic stages of a hero's journey, but they don’t only happen in stories. This order of events happens in common life too, such as joining a sports team, in which the call is our interest; joining the team, the challenge and unknown would be being nervous, and any ordeal may be not joining the team, or failing the trials (tryouts).

The Heroes

The Fictional Hero:

For my fictional hero, I chose the famed Batman, but which one? Batman has had many adventures, incarnations, and retellings; it would be impossible to cover them all. That’s why I chose the specific journey our hero has in Batman: Arkham City, which is the 2011 video game, sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum. In Batman’s journey, he experiences all of these stages, and all witin the first half of the main focus of Arkham City, too.

Batman's call to adventure happens when Bruce Wayne is abducted and kept in the major penitentiary project known as Arkham City. Professor Hugo Strange is the director of Arkham City and he was the one to order the TYGER guards to take in Bruce Wayne. After obnoxious rambling and going on about Protocol 10 making him a hero, Strange reveals that he knows Mr. Wayne is the Batman. Obsessed with becoming a hero like the Dark Knight, Strange releases Wayne into Arkham City to determine if his plans will succeed. Wayne then climbs the Ace Chemicals building to reach his about-to-be-delivered Batsuit. Batman's allies as of that moment included Alfred, his butler, and Catwoman, who decided that the idea of Arkham was indeed, quite crazy (especially if it interferes with collecting her valuables). Soon after, Barbara Gordon, daughter of police commissioner Gordon, (codename Oracle) has joined the intercom channel with Alfred, assisting Batman in analysis while Alfred takes care of remote deliveries and general advice.

He faced many trials along this extentsive and confusing path. Gang wars for claim of territory between Two-Face, Penguin, and Joker, each one with a grudge against the Night himself. His greatest ordeal was having the Joker's now poisonous blood in him. Joker's blood got infected from the unstable formula for "TITAN" -a chemical that enhanced venom, which is the super steroid Bane uses, TITAN was featured in the predecessor game, Arkham Asylum- which ultimately failed back on Arkham Island when Joker attempted to take it over.




Now, with a great disease, and 9 hours left until Protocol 10, Batman must track down Mr. Freeze so he can synthesize a cure. Unfortunately, the Penguin captured him so his live Iceberg Lounge gallery in the museum is one more exhibit closer to completion. "Penguin" Cobblepot aims to add Batman to his collection, but it's obvious that won't happen.

Of course Batman does what he does and frees Fries (Dr. Victor Fries {fre•ease} aka Mr. Freeze}. Yet another trial awaits him...
The new mission? Batman must retrieve a DNA sample featuring a certain enzyme that only Ras Al Ghul's body contains. To infiltrate the League of Assassins HQ and then get close enough to take a blood sample from the leader himself? Such a smooth evening it's going to be...

Batman's challenges are ever growing, and on a time limit, he needs to stop Protocol 10, find a cure, and shut down Arkham City, all in one night. It will truly be a Dark Knight for the world's greatest detective. And if that's not hard enough, there's a multitude of crimes, murders, assassinations, kidnappings, and hostage taking in Arkham City. If Batman can't do it, who will?

The Real Hero:

Now for my real hero, I chose my father seeing as how I’ve always looked up to him. He believes that assisting others is simply natural; he always knows how to react to things, and he is indeed a hero in my eyes. The following recording tells of when he had a journey of his own, starting when he was washing a car in Brazil when he was just a teenager. ––To air dry the car and make the job go faster, my father drove around the block, but then he saw someone he recognized. His neighbor was on the sidewalk, head down, lying on the ground. His first thought was that the man was drunk, but knowing his neighbor, he dismissed that thought and instinctually went to see what happened. The man's wife and daughter were rushing towards him, telling my father that he was actually sick and is in need of medical attention immediately. My father used common sense and rushed into the car, despite not having a license yet, and transported the man and his family to the hospital. Unfortunately, the closest one that he traveled to was closed, no service was there, and the next one was a mile and a half away. This only drove my father to act even more quickly. Once the man was there, he was treated, or at least, the doctors tried to assist him. The man unfortunately passed away, since nothing close to the idea of our modern technology was available at the time. While in the long run, it didn't affect my father's life too much, he definitely won't forget what happened on that day.––

Explanation Transcript:

VG: "Hello and welcome, today we have a recording which falls along the lines of a hero's journey. Now, you may be thinking a hero's journey is pretty simple; some princess gets captured, and then they go out to save them, but a hero isn't always the same thing. At times a hero can be you yourself. The hero's journey falls along these simple steps; There's always a call, something that inititates the missin or the challenge, something that starts everything. Then there's the mentor, the ally, the guide, someone who helps along the way of the initial quest. As the third step, [or stage], we have the unknown, [sometimes called] crossing the threshhold, this is when we travel through unfamiliar environments or try something new. The 4th stage of the hero's journey [is] the trials and tests, there can be as many trials and tests as possible, but it's essentially the challenges we go through during the journey.

5th stage is the ordeal, essentially what you may have lost [along the way]. [Next] we have the reward and the road back, sometimes known as rebirth. When the hero of the story [completes his objective or gets revived] somehow. The 7th stage, atonement, [--] is when the hero learns to accept what he's lost, and more importantly, how he [overcomes] (goes through about) losing it. Then we have the return, the final stage, [and it's] when the hero -well- returns, when the hero goes back to [their] original life, even if it is a little bit different."

Conclusion/Summarization:

You see, both my father and Batman have common relations, such as both having a call to help (an)other(s) in need. Both also had to get through certain challenges to save the one(s) they know. Another incident they share is the loss of the one(s) they knew and tried to protect, as well as dealing with these losses. You don’t need to be a hero to have a hero’s journey, it’s a part of everyday life sometimes, whether it’s us, or the protagonist in a story.

Thank you for reading, and remember that right now, you could be having a hero's journey.


**Information citations
Batman: Arkham City, Rocksteady, DC comics and Warner Bros., Unreal-Technology, Oct. 2011

The Mars Animal Division entry; Alaskan Husky

The second Action Project for my math & science class, "Population", and this one revolves around Mars. The assignment was to choose a common pet, but a specific breed, and tell why we believe it could survive on Mars (granted basic food & shelter is provided). Naturally, I chose the Alaskan Husky for quite a few reasons; one- it was the semi-unique choice, even when every one else did indeed chose a type of dog, two- Mars is incredibly cold, seeing as how it is more than 54.6 million miles away from Earth, meaning 54.6 million more miles away from the Sun. Some challenges I ran into include collecting data, it was tough to find a unit that could be measured well by at least 11 other breeds/animals, and then applying it into the standard deviation was also long process... a long process which had lost itself, so unfortunately I couldn't include a picture for those calculations. Despite those slight troubles, I'd say I'm proud of the area of Mars I chose, cold, but warm enough to survive, which is explained further in depth below, hope you enjoy.

Unit 2: Action Project

POP

Mars One: Animal Division

"Water ice clouds hanging above Tharsis PIA02653

black background" by NASA/JPL/MSSS

1. After watching the video on Mars’ climate, where do you think the colony will settle?

Somewhere in the warmer regions like mid Mars since it’s a frozen desert, cold sand, but also near the ice caps.

2. What climate features are the most important to address in that area?

The ones that include water, such as icy temperatures that have frozen water.

3. What traits would be best suited to this kind of environment?

Blubber, fat, lots of fur, and so on.

4. What traits would be worst suited to this kind of environment?

Carnivorous teeth, not exactly any life on Mars to consume.

5. Of the animals you observed, which breed of animal would have the best chance for survival in the new environment? Give several reasons why.

Alaskan Husky, their fur coat is thick and warm.

6. Insert a photograph of the breed you chose.

7.Insert a transcript of the 60 second proposal and include supporting evidence.

To the Mars animal division: The Alaskan Husky is a winter dog, so of course it would be more suitable to survive on Mars than an animal that may require a lot of heat, like a lizard. The great husky may not have the best claws or teeth for this environment, but a thick coat is really what helps it survive, even if there’s not any meat on Mars to consume, or snow for those claws. If we’re listing the less useful traits, then those long legs aren’t the best to keep the warm blood to the core. But if there is food provided, then an alaskan husky can easily survive in the equator region of Mars, where the temperature is around -20°F, a temperature that’s feasible on Earth. Assuming there is ice, the dog can use it as a water source for drinking. It has great tracking skills, so getting lost won’t happen to this pooch.  That is why I believe the mighty winter dog know as the Alaskan Husky is a prime candidate for the Mars animal division.

8. Which trait did you choose to analyze on your FE?

Age by months

9. Copy your data here:

(displayed in numerical order and rounded to nearest half of month)

0.5 (1/2 month), 0.5, 2, 2, 2.5, 3.5, 4, 4, 12.5, 14.5, 16, 17, 21.5, 33, 48.5, 60, 60, 60

10. Insert a box-and-whisker plot showing your data here:

11. Fill in the following central tendencies for your data:

Mean:20 (rounded to nearest whole)

Median:13.5

Mode:60

Maximum:60

Minimum:0.5

Range:59.5

12. What is the standard deviation from your data, and how is it significant in relation to the data?

Sample standard deviation is 21.6 (rounded to nearest tenth)

 *this is where I would have included another picture of calculation if I still had it.

And so, this concludes the report, do you think the evidence is feasable? What kind of animals do you think could survive on Mars? I wish to see you again in the next Action Project.

Thank you for reading through!

Honey Badgers and Karma

The second action project calls upon the sophomores of GCE, and this time, we're making a fable. A fable is of course a type of story that contains a moral, or lesson. In the one I have made, it tells the tale of a bad badger who gets his own medicine when Karma intervenes in his mischief. I must say that making this was what I enjoyed, creating the general story was both fun & challenging. Hopefully, the message is clear to see because it will not be directly stated here, or in the story, just to leave interpretations sake. So with this brief explanation out of the way, I hope you enjoy.

Karma’s Been Badgered

“Ben. Ben Badger. A misfit amongst misfits, and no I don’t mean he acts good or proper. Imagine the worst bully you had, multiply by eight, and straight up know this guy’s got no incentive whatsoever. His most frequent victim is Joe the Swan, a bird who can’t fly, can you guess why? Years ago, Ben was being egotistical as usual, and when he saw, ‘Some feathered finch on his turf ’ he instantly slashed those silky wings making him flightless. Joe never went near that maniac again, it’s just a shame others have.

VG, Karma 2014

The poor people of Elwood need to put up with this furry beast everyday, and since nothing about their democracy says there can be an option of exile, they truly are stuck with him,” reads the report, “You know, I can’t believe I’ve overlooked this issue for so many months now…” mumbled Karma.

-Okay, so first things first, you’re probably wondering who, or what, Karma is. Karma is an invisible force of equivalent exchange, simply put; good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. But something to note would probably be how busy Karma is, you know, kind of having to serve the entire world ‘n all… sounds like a job for Santa. Coming around back to… Ben… he never got paid back for what he did to me, I valued my wings just so much, especially since I made a living off of them. I used to be an airdevil, somebird who pulls of tricks of flight for show, but my career came to an unfortunate ever since that overgrown rat sliced ‘em up. So now I’m retired, unwillingly, and am doomed to narrate this story forever… or at least for however many times anybody’s going to be reading this really.-

Moving on, Karma was determined, knowing that it’s been ignoring such a threat only boiled it up some more! The question is, how should Karma play it out? It thinks, and it thinks, and it thinks of it some more, and now the answer is clear. Karma realizes that surely, should every mischievous deed of Ben’s backfire, then he would definitely see them as signs. Unfortunately, only moderately intelligent or smarter creatures get this point… Ben of which, is not.

Searching for the brown, black, and gray troublemaker wasn’t all too hard for Karma, seeing as how the ability to fly comes very useful in it’s job, yet the large city of Elwood is rather, uh, large. “In the multiple reports, Ben has been described as a large Honey Badger, often wearing a leather jacket, skinny jeans, and of course, his valued necklace of a golden number one,” Karma remembers, “So if I was a badger, I’d probably be hiding in my hole, wouldn’t I?”

As Karma searches for the mangy mammal, it finds out that everyone else always knows where he is. Karma heard the Owl cousins discussing that Ben was planning to put up offensive graffiti on the domestic houses, simply to assert his… dominance.

As you probably guessed by now, I truly have a fond hatred for that striped furball, so the best thing I could do after that incident is warn everyone I know about Ben’s horrible acts. It’s just a shame I couldn’t tell Glen about him before Ben decided to prank him. Now Glen is a hummingbird with a swollen chin, and a sprained wing… Ben’s idea of a joke usually consists of a tripwire near some stairs… if only Glen embraced his flight, but he’s not really one of flight, poor guy never learned how.

VG, Ben Badger 2014

About midday in the Birch line ETA stop Simble, Karma finally found Ben. Oddly enough, he was just leaning on the corner of the wall, holding something… “What could it be,” wondered Karma, but then it hit him, that was a graffiti can, it’s obvious that he’s going to spray some other nasty comment on the wall. “Well if someone doesn’t want their property to be sprayed, lets see how you’d like it on yourself,” Karma uttered. Quickly, the invisible spirit vanished into the can itself. Ben says to himself, “Everybody always passes by this stop, so why not spice it up a bit, heh, no one will think of what I have planned, besides, who cares for private property anyway, it’s not stopping me,” as he shakes the can of red graffiti paint, this is when karma acts.

The can explodes, the paint dripping everywhere, but all of it on the wall simply slides off and leaves no mark. Ben, however, is splattered in red, not in a consistent manner either, frustrated, Ben chucks the remains at a car, shattering its window, yet peices of glass fly to his hands. “Augh, what a day,” Ben groans sarcastically, “Stupid can! Stupid car! Whatever, there are still plenty of mailboxes that could use renovation!”

“So,” Karma directs to Ben, “You still haven’t figured it out?” But being a spirit of equivalent exchange, Ben, nor anyone else hears a thing, but the others in the area watch as Ben storms off.

“My beautiful bike, oh how I couldn’t live without you,” Ben says to the motorcycle in his garage, “I’m so glad I found you that day.”

Karma, trailing behind him, notices that this was mentioned in a previous report, but it didn’t related to Ben… “Mr. Brown’s motorcycle was stolen by an unknown alias, he appeared to be skunk like, but Mr. Brown knew every skunk in his family, it’s just unfathomable because they could’ve simply asked. So other skunks are out of the question,” remembered Karma, “Meaning that it must have been Ben who stole it!”

Ben hopped on the bike, revved it up, and pulled out his bat. His necklace is partly spotted from that red paint, Ben, still irritated at that fact, drives of to break some mailboxes. “Venting out anger is good, and smashing stuff is even better,” Ben sneers. As Karma follows it realizes that Ben is about to hit a home run from that mailbox, so quickly thinking, Karma launches itself into the mailbox, strengthening it by, oh lets say, strong enough to withstand Ben holding out his bat while travelling at 35 mph. As soon as there’s impact, Ben flies off his bike, twirling through the air like a ballerina, and falls, banging his head… he’s not moving…

Ben’s spirit rises up from, what was once, his body and sees the strange anomaly known as Karma pop out from the mailbox. “Phew…” Karma sighs as Ben looks down. Frightened, very frightened, Ben asks, “Hey chump, w-w-what’s happening?! Why is my body there???” Karma simply smirks, “Tell me troublemaker, have you ever heard of Karma?” Ben shakes his head. Disappointed, Karma explains what it is and what’s been happening. Ben lashes out, “So that dumb stuff happened to me cuz of you?! I oughta knock your lights out… even if you are just one big light,” Karma smiles and replies, “Listen, have you tried not being bad?”

“Heh?”

“You see, I am equivalent exchange, I make bad things happen to bad people, so if you want me to leave you alone, just stop doing these misdeeds,”

Ben still has a baffled look on his face…

“Okay,” Karma starts, “If you ain’t a jerk, than yo life can be peachy, but keep doing this and Imma hafta make yo life a nightmare homie,”

Ben scoffs, “Yeah right, as if… besides, all I’m doing is having fun and keeping my land, is that so wrong?”

“Should you harm others along the way, then yes, like I said bad things happen to bad people, that’s just how, I, Karma works,”

Hours later, Ben regains consciousness, looking down at his necklace… but wait, it’s not even there. He searches for it, but there’s no luck, and then he realizes, that was no dream. What he was told by that odd little fireball must have been true. Glancing at the damaged motorcycle, Ben walks up to it. “Maybe if something I valued got lost, I’d make a hissy fit… and I may hang out at a spot a lot, but does that make it mine?” Ben contemplates and stands there, until he figures out what he must do.

The Planet of Mirkys

In my other class, "Stories", the first action project was to create, describe, and draw your very own planet. At least three features are needed and the sketch is to visualize the worlds we make, this was a practice for descriptive language and sensory details. My planet is named Miryks, which I will go more in depth on the actual project, but I'm definitely proud of how I was able to develope the planet mentally. Throughout the week of making it, I learned a few different things, such as using adverbs on things that don't normally make an action, like mountains... they kind of just stay there, but I've managed to say to the best of my abilities what my world is like, hope you get sucked into the adventure. Below you can see the hand made visual.

VG, original piece, The Land Known as Miryks, 2014

The Planet of Miryks

The planet of Miryks is an odd world, filled with a plethora of wondrous creatures. Most beings are of a high intellect… that is, they can adapt to culture and civilization. This fascinating planet received it’s name by it’s creator; Miryks. This god was ambitious, and wanted to show off his abilities to the other gods who doubted him. Now it is said that a little bit of these deities’ jealous may seep to the life on that planet, adding up to an immense power. At times, the gods will directly attack the planet’s land yet their intentions are their own undoing, with the magma lava covering itself up as soon as it is exposed. That is how the vast mountain ranges came to be.

Like a scar of endurance, the tall, snowy mountains stand tall, towering the plains, deserts, and other wastelands of Miryks. And speaking of landscape, the many types on this world include plains, deserts, prairies, and many more. The land is expansive as the heavens themselves and truly represent the heart and soul of Miryks’ work. Serine, quiet, fresh, a luscious environment for all to enjoy. Calmly blowing in the wind, the green lands vibrantly shine in all of its glory. Miryks ambitions truly made a wonder as he was sculpting this masterpiece.

Then there’s the skies. Purple, like the ripest of grapes, being our watchful protector. Bright and colorful, the purples skies are said to be one with the gods, for Miryks is depicted with violet eyes, so he is always looking at his creation, slowly changing, for what we call night, is when Miryks slumbers. Glorious heavens shine down upon the civilizations, including what you may call humans, elves (which you are already familiar with), oketins (what you may recognize as humanoids for many of these “mammals” you go on about), gorks (the brutish cave dwellers), grogs (the hairy cousin of gorks who prefer outdoor weather), nailitpers (the scaley warriors), shiviks (the elusive thieves of the west), and the legendaries, who have a story of their own.

Essentially, you may believe Miryks to be similar to your Earth, and in that practical sense, it would be, but there are many lifeforms that you do not know of. The legendaries are a legend themselves, but the myth speaks of those with a color of hair that is unnatural, relatively impossible to obtain. These people appear to be “human” yet they have extreme abilities beyond compare, even the mighty dragons can be slain by a twitch of these beings. It is said they are the result of the gods jealousy, for it is not limited to the world itself, corrupting it’s people… or at least, that is the intent, but the result is an addition to power, a legendary power if you will.

New school year, and echidnas

   Another year has arrived, with that, another Action Project too. My first sophomore project for unit one was to choose an animal from a list, to then research it and create a project about it. The main purpose is to practice taxonomy, which is how creatures are scientifically classified (such as the kingdom animalia, or how a Canis Familiaris is the genus and species for a dog) and goes by the assessment of;

• Kingdom
• Phylum
• Class
• Order
• Family
• Genus
• Species

This is how animals are now categorized today, but there was once a time in which the only way to do this was by just looking at them. Before modern taxonomy, we used a comparison of phenotypes (or physical traits) to identify any relations, yet this wasn't the most effective method... If bugs and birds both have wings, would that make them the same? That's why the modern version is much more accurate, because back then, we couldn't look at a single hair, feather, or scale, and determine what animal it currently is. Analyzing genotypes makes the classification all the better, because if you have an exotic short hair (cat) and your top of the line lion, by appearance you probably wouldn't expect them to be related.

Throughout the project, I'm proud of my collage, especially considering all the spiky spines and quills on an echidna. Yet I learned many interesting facts that I hadn't already known before, like the fact that echidnas can lay eggs, indigenous to Australia, and that their... ahem, reproductive organ for the males has... one shaft and four heads. Why is that so? I really can't even fathom, but it's there...

Below, you may find the full report, which contains this information, and more.

_________________________________________________________________________________

The echidna, it has quills, it has claws, it lays eggs, and it rolls up into a ball. So what exactly is an echidna? Well there’s a special way to determine this using a method that scientists use all the time, taxonomy. Taxonomy is how we genetically list things to identify who’s related to what and so on. General taxonomy goes by a categorization of; Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species (scientific names of creatures is the genus then the species, such as canis familiaris for a dog). An echidna is an odd animal, in the kingdom animalia, it does indeed have a spine, which makes its phylum chordata. In a more in depth visual, I have here a table representing an echidna’s taxonomy.

Taxonomic Level	Your organism’s group	Key characteristics of group
Kingdom	Animalia	It’s multicellular
Phylum	Chordata	It has a spine
Class	Mamalia	It has warm blood (and fur)
Order	Monotremata	It lays eggs (and has a pouch)
Family	*Tachyglossidae	It has quills
Genus	*Tachyglossidae	Classification for echidna
Species	*Tachyglossidae	Classification for echidna

*only results for those criteria of an echidna

Oddly enough, as if an egg laying marsupial wasn’t strange enough already, tachyglossidae is the only classification for the categories of family, genus, and species. In the evolutionary line, an echidna was determined to have split from a platypus from around 19-48 million years ago. Though the borrowing *spiny anteater may be unique as it is, I’ve compared it to 2 other organisms; and potoo bird and an axolotl.

On the left is a venn diagram of the three creatures and the other picture is of an echidna. Similarities between an echidna and a potoo bird include the fact that both have lungs, claws, and are insectivores (a diet of bugs and insects).  Between the three, they all come in brown, lay eggs, and are animals with a spine. Echidnas and axolotls have nothing in common when it comes to just those two.

Another representation for the echidnas, whom of which are indigenous to Australia, is through math. Yes, math can be used, as it is commonly used anyway, to represent taxonomy in a different manner. The follower are terms used to describe an echidna and will have an explanation underneath it.

Echidna e U {mammals}

Echidna is an element of the “universe” which currently consists of mammals.

{Dogs, Weasels, Dolphins, and Humans} n U

Other animals in the “U” of mammals include dogs, weasels, and dolphins.

Echidna≠{reptiles}

Echidnas are not in the set of reptiles.

Echidna e {marsupial, quadruped}

Two other defining elements are the fact that an echidna is a marsupial and a quadraped.

V=echidna X=chordata B=Amphibian

V U X = {echidna, potoo bird, axolotl}

An echidna is in unity with chordata, as well as potoo birds and axolotls.

V (is not an element)≠ B

Yet an echidna is not an element of an amphibian.

Overall, this concludes the report on the fascinating echidna, I hope you enjoyed learning more about this truly intriguing ani-- hm? What’s this… I seemed to have left out some *extra* information. Well there is of course no time like the present, so when it comes to reproduction, the females lay eggs, these  eggs will hatch inside of the pouch that the mothers have. As of the male, their reproductive organ consists of one shaft, like most mammals, but 4 heads. The purpose of this has still yet to be clarified, but it is present, so take that as another, possibly useful, piece of information revolving around the echidna.