Analogies

Welcome to another post of this fabulous blog, today’s topic is about the similarities which can be found in different things, for instance, I would like to start telling you that I have learned things that seemed difficult at the beginning, but thanks to a comparison with another element that shared features I ended comprehending the relationship and then the main idea. The following correlation is about a game and an activity: poker and teaching, respectively.

Poker and teaching have something very important in common, both are activities which depend on the lack of information, this means that you do no not know what cards your opponent have in his hand and you have to make your move based on his actions (body language for example) in order to obtain a favorable outcome. Of course you can make mistakes, nobody is perfect and there is not something such as a perfect record or 100% win rate in a game which involves luck as well. In poker there are several different styles to play, the most popular at the moment is “Texas Hold’em Poker”. Here is a brief explanation of its rules.

One the one hand, If you are teaching to a group of students you have never seen before, is difficult to determine which is the best strategy for them and you will need to observe your pupils’ reactions to your methodologies until you discover which one is the most efficient, developing the ability to observe carefully what they like and what is easier to understand takes time, but in the end it is worth.

On the other hand, if you are facing a group of strangers in table where poker is being played (take into account that we are ignoring the goal of winning money by making bets on your cards), your actions will determine how they are going to perform as well. Observing your opponent’s moves is fundamental to take the right decision at the moment of choosing whether to go all-in or to fold.

Experience is key to be good at both activities, the more you practice the better you become at observing and realizing which kind of opponent/student you have and then adapt your gameplay/approach according to that. You opponents will try to trick you and make your goal more difficult to reach as well the students who do not want to learn. This is understandable especially because in our lives there are individuals who have reasons that collide with ours.

By the way, I am afraid that nobody voted for the right answer to the fishy question L this is because the total amount of fishes was 10, the trick behind that question is the fact that one of the fishes was completely disguised with the exact same color of the background so the only way to find it was by feeding him and then seeing the wave that eating produced. In occasions we trust in our eyes blindly, but sometimes we need something else to see the truth, think about that. J

I hope you liked this entry! To finish it please answer the following questions on the comment section! Do you like analogies? Do you have a favorite one? Tell me about it!

Just a game?

Hello visitors!

This week topic will be related to the impact that games in general had in my life, is well known that there are several arguments in favor and against them, however this will not be a discussion about that, instead it will be a review of the things that I have learned playing during my life.

Let’s begin with the influence that videogames had in my early stages. During the 90s the videogame localization (local adaptation/translation of them) was almost inexistent. Latin Americans were not part of videogame companies’ aim, for this reason videogames arrived only in English. At first, games such as duck hunt (shooting ducks with a Nintendo Zapper ™) were not a problem, but different kinds of videogames demand different abilities to solve certain tasks.

RPG (Role-Playing Games) basically consist in doing quests interacting with NPC (Non-player characters) helping you to complete your adventure or to reach your goal.  One specific example is the famous franchise Pokémon ™ which contributed enormously in my acquisition and motivation towards the English language. Because it included different elements, especially in terms of vocabulary such as items, attacks, elements, colors, etc. 

As a teenager new kinds of games caught my attention, for instance, Graphic novels such as Phoenix Wright (A visual novel with a rookie lawyer as a protagonist) increased my critical thinking and my ability to see one idea from different perspectives, I remember myself spending hours reading and trying to figure out solutions to solve different, unusual and crazy cases.

I challenged what I have learned in English and started playing it completely in the foreign language, in the end it was a worth and valuable experience.

Currently I am trying board games such as Cards Against Humanity, Scrabble, Pictionary and other games to encourage social interaction, creativity, vocabulary acquisition and allowing people to be themselves with a little bit of entertainment.  To conclude, games are a great tools to learn and practice a lot of things, but as the law of diminishing returns states the more technology you get the less you have in return.

Welcome boundless souls!

This is the introduction to the blog, I hope all of you are doing well; since this is your first visit to this place maybe you are wondering what is the theme of this blog. Basically, the topic is “learning from my personal perspective” which means that I will post different elements that have contributed meaningfully in the process of growing as an individual in several aspects.

Incidentally, in case that you are curious about certain features of the blog I will provide you some facts about it, hopefully you will enjoy reading them.

The name of the blog’s URL “delightfulstorm” comes from the combination of one uncommon adjective (for me at least) that I like (delightful), and my favorite word in English (storm).

The reason behind the choice of my preferred word and the rainy template is because it has a strong symbolism for me. For instance, a storm makes me feel insignificant, powerful, refreshed and strangely happy at the same time, furthermore, when I am under the rain is possible to forget my problems and is pleasant to hear it in the nights.

Finally, as you can see in the right side of the blog, there is a little activity that I would like you to solve, please feel free to mark the alternative you think is the correct one, probably in the following weeks the question/activity will be different.

That is all, thank you for your time!