This Will Probably Work

     Before I began writing this blog post, I spent some time trying to think about what I think is “funny”. My initial thought was when something unexpected happens. The first few jokes I’ve heard were structured as questions such as “What do you call a…?” or had me asking the question (knock knock jokes). I quickly realized the flaws in this because lots of unexpected things can happen without being funny (an athlete breaking a world record, a jump scare, finding out you have a quiz when you didn’t study, and more). The more I thought about it, the more I realized that humor, something I’ve taken for granted my entire life, is an intricate concept to define. Since I don’t think I can define my humor, I’ll use this blog to explain why I find a specific thing funny.  I’ve been seeing a lot of song parodies while I doom scroll, and I think I laugh at them because of two main things: absurdness and cleverness. There is no doubt that many of the people making these paro...

The show Avatar: The Last Airbender follows a pretty generic “Hero’s Journey” plot: our protagonist, Aang, is a peaceful monk living at the Southern Air Temple, but the rapid changes in the world (Fire Nation wants world domination) force him to embrace his identity as the all-mighty Avatar and travel the world with his friends to master all four elements to defeat the Fire Lord to bring peace to the world. In my opinion, what makes this overused plot line work for the show are the characters and relationships that developed in the prolonged rising action (the episodes where Aang is training). A character who shows amazing growth is Toph. She was raised by overprotective parents and joined an underground wrestling group to escape her parents’ grasp, so she is extremely reluctant to rely on others. By only relying on herself, she can regain the freedom that her parents took away. This mindset, however, causes tension with others because of the selfishness that comes with it.  It is ...

  It’s Christmas.  I rush downstairs, eagerly guessing what my Christmas present this year might be. I see a large rectangle, and after ripping off the wrapping paper, a large LEGO Brick Box is revealed. The pieces became additions to my existing LEGO sets: I created my own version of a Bat-Plane, though it was a bit off-brand with the mixed colors instead of black. Great battles, tragic love stories, and space adventures formed a story in my head that filled my evenings. Although I didn’t have the LEGOs, my dreams continued the plot that only a third grader could create.

     During one of my play dates with one of my friends in elementary school, my friend and I began imagining that we were superheroes. My superhero name was “SurikenGhost”, pronounced “Shuriken Ghost” (yes, I know I spelled it wrong). This made-up persona of mine has served as a secondary identity to me for most of my life (I don’t behave differently though; I don’t have split personality disorder). For most accounts I create online, I will use the username “SurikenGhost”.      People have told me that this name appears childlike, which I acknowledge is true. However, I don’t think being childlike is necessarily a bad thing.       Growing up means gaining a greater understanding of yourself and the world around you, not losing the creativity and emotions you had as a child. Unfortunately, the professional world that adults pursue careers in hinders creativity because of the risk trying something new has for failing. I also fall victim t...