Magic: The Gathering - My Favorite Board/Card Game

A creature

     For a while now, I have been avidly playing a game called Magic: the Gathering. It was the first trading card game, beating pokemon (I hate it) and yu-gi-oh (hate this one too), making it the best. It is a strategy/creativity/a-little-luck centered game, and I love it. I play with my friends, I play with my brother, I play with my dad (sometimes). Basically, you (and everyone else playing) have 20 life points. the goal is to beat everyone else, usually by putting their life total down to 0. The simplest way to do this is to attack them with creatures, like the one to the left. To do this, you must first cast spells. Each spell has a "mana" cost to play it. Mana is magical energy (more on that later). There are five different colors of cards, which need a different color of mana to play. There is green (which is sort of nature-y), blue (which is about confusing/annoying your opponent and changing the rules of the game), red (which is about doing quick, direct, unblockable damage to your opponent), black (which is about evil, infection, and resurrection), and finally, white (protection, life-gaining, and justice). To get each color of mana, in order to play your cards, you have to "tap" land cards. Forests give green, islands give blue, mountains give red, swamps give black, and plains give white. So if I was playing the card above, which costs two mana, one of which needs to be white, I can tap one plain and one of any of the lands.
   

This makes one blue mana.
Not all island look like this.

     There are a few types of cards: there are lands, which supply mana; then there are creatures, which attack, block, have a power and toughness, and have nifty abilities. There are enchantments, which either alter the game rules or alter the abilities of another card. Then there are sorceries, which are like one-time, cast-then-goes-away spells. They can only be played on your turn, and often say, "Until end of turn, insert-whatever-the-card-does-here." There are instants, which can be played anytime, even on your opponents' turn. There are artifacts, with are like gadgets that have some purpose. Finally, there are planeswalkers, which are sort of like another player, except existing on a card. As a side note, to tap something, you rotate the card 90 degrees. Once something is tapped, you can't untap it until next turn.

     Creatures, like the Silvercoat Lion above, have a power and a toughness. The "2/2" in the bottom corner is the power and the toughness. Power on the left, toughness on the right. This matters when creatures attack and block each other. If I attack with a 2/2, and my opponent blocks with a 2/2, they both do damage to the other one's toughness equal to their power. So each of their toughnesses equals 0, so they both die. On the other hand, if I attack with a 1/3, and it's blocked with a 1/3, neither would die. But, if my opponent doesn't block, then my creature deals damage to my opponent equal  to my creature's toughness. If my opponent has 20 life, and I attack with my silvercoat lion (above), my opponent then has 18 life. Now this sounds simple, but creatures often have abilities. For example,  a creature with flying cannot be blocked by creatures with out flying. For another example, a creature with vigilance doesn't tap when it attacks.

     The main reason I like this game is because there are cards that have abilities that interact with each other in different ways, which prompts creative and strategic card interaction ideas.

I-never-know-what-to-write-here-so-usually-I-don't-write-anything-other-than-

Max

Braces!

   


     This morning, I went to the orthodontist and had braces attached. I'm sort of unhappy, but it's for the best, so I'm glad I have them. Currently, I have a small, dull pain in my gums, which gets really bad when I bite down or touch my tongue to certain teeth. I will have to get them tightened every four weeks, which I hear is the most painful part. On the list of some of the things I can't have are caramel, popcorn, and meat on the bone. Oh well. Judging by that I've had to have 10 teeth pulled (that's right, double digits), I think I can say that I don't have good teeth. I'm hoping I will have straight teeth by the time I get the torture devise off. The process of getting the braces on was fascinating, though.

     First, when we entered the building, I got in very fast. This surprised me, because at previous times I have been there, I have had to wait half an hour. So, I walked into the special braces room and sat down. The chair lowed to a bed-like thingy, and I opened my mouth. I had to bite down on the big rubber thing that stretched my mouth and was sort of uncomfortable. The first thing that happened was the woman who was putting on the braces cleaned my teeth with some sort of fancy toothpaste and suction-thingy. Then, over a while, she put glue on each brace and stuck it on my tooth. Then I got to pick what color I wanted for my braces. Because of the upcoming holidays (halloween and thanksgiving) I went with orange. She somehow put the orange thing on my brace, and then she attached the wire on my teeth. She then called in the the doctor, who is in charge of everything, and had him check the braces. He okayed it and I was off.

     The weirdest part about it is that to close my mouth I have to sort of curl my lip around them, but I assume I'll get over that. Also, they sometimes scrape the inside of my mouth.

Uncomfortably,
Max

   

Homework and Classes Overview from the First Week of School

   My dad requested that I do a blog post with some information on my homework from the first week of school. I got homework in math, english, science, and social studies. Every day, I have two math classes, a science class, a social studies class, an english class, and a spanish class. I like all of my teachers,some more than others. Some of the classes have been interesting, although most of them were meh. I think the homework we have done has been okay. Overall, I still am rating my school as 6.5 out of 10.

     In math class, we have been working with pieces of the 6th grade textbook, supposedly to help remind us about last year. Because I am ahead of my grade, I don't feel like doing sixth-grade work is really helpful for me. Maybe it's helpful for some of the other kids, though. We have been watching some vi hart videos, which I've really enjoyed. I also learned how to use a protractor,  which is a skill I think is very useful.

     In science, we've had some pretty cool homework. In class, we've done two experiments. In one, we put a plank of wood half on a table, half off, half on. We then laid down ten (all the way unfolded) pieces of newspaper on top of the table. When my teacher donned a thick glove and whacked the wood very hard, the wood broke instead of launching the paper.  The other experiment we did involved my teacher filling a cup with water, putting a piece of paper on top of it, and then flipping the cup upside-down. The paper does no fall. For both experiments, we were instructed to write why it happened, as well as later (after variations of the experiment were done) to write, based on more facts, why we think it happened. I think this homework was very good.

     In English, we've have written a persuasive letter over a few days. We read an anti-television persuasive essay in a textbook, and have either written a letter to the author of the article (saying that he's wrong) or a letter to the CEO of NBC (saying that he's wrong). I think that this assignment was interesting, and I definitely liked it more than the standard reflecting on some aspect of some character in some boring book we were forced to read essay. Although I don't love writing in general, I am hoping that the writing we do in this class will be more compelling than that of previous years.

     In social studies, we have been doing some homework which I assume has been to warm us up for the work we'll be doing all year. I've done some text-marking, I've done some connections homework, I've done some writing what pieces of text mean. So far, we've pretty much covered the basics. No prediction on how social studies will be. It being one of the few subjects we didn't have at CSCL, I'm hoping it will be good.

     Spanish is one of the few classes where I'm with a different group of people. There  are 30 kids, which is a bit chaotic. I really like my spanish teacher, and I like a larger percent of the kids in the class. I also like learning spanish. Also, we don't get much homework, which is definitely a plus. Spanish is a class I look forward to.

My class still has a few friends, a few really irritating kids, and mostly people I don't connect with. Still okay in general. I mostly like my teachers. My classes are okay.

Hopeful for the best,
Max

First Week of School

     Last week, from Wednesday to Friday, I went back to public school. I was not excited to go back, and the three days I was there I rate a 6 1/2 out of 10. Overall, the teachers are better than I expected, but I don't love my class. Although I have a few (few meaning 2 1/2) friends, the majority of my class I just don't connect with, with a few people that I dislike. I don't like having a rigid schedule, and would rather have the looseness I had last year. We haven't really done any classwork yet, doing mostly rules and forms and other start-of-year stuff. Next week, I'll see what I think about the actual subjects.

A Quick Overview of my Summer

     I have had a great summer since my last post. I have done all sorts of exciting things. In my first two weeks, I interned at The Boston Harbor Association, where I took video and pictures of me and other people having fun at Boston's waterfront attractions. It was sort of fun, but the day was two long for me. Then, for all of July, I went to Maine. For one week I stayed with my family on the island of Vinalhaven. For three weeks after that, I stayed on Dog Island Point, very close by to some of my family's friends. After I got back from Maine, I stayed at my grandmother's house for a week, with my cousins. Also staying there were close family friends. After the week I spent at my grandmother's house, I did a week of boating camp t the Arlington Boys & Girls Club. It was mostly kayaking and not enough sailing, so I don't think I will go back next year. after boating, I did a week of sleep-away camp at Camp Wildwood, a Mass Audubon camp in New Hampshire. That was fun, and I will go for two weeks next year. All last week, I did fencing camp. That was tiring. this week I will go back to public school.