After releasing the final version in 2016, Paladins has been relatively in the shadows compared to larger games. However, it is severely underrated, through its constant updates, seasonal events, and new characters. Even after all these years, it still provides a fantastic gaming experience and sets a great example for other games with its diversity of characters and stories, no matter how unpopular it is.

Paladins is a third-person shooter that revolves around 44 champions, with 4 different classes to choose from. Each character has different upgradable cards that you can evolve throughout the game, which adds a huge amount of variety. Due to its variety of characters having different appearances, different personalities, and coming from different places, the game is sure to have someone perfect for everyone. Each character offers something unique, both in terms of actual identity/background and game-play. Although you might be hesitant of trying new heroes, you could actually find them enjoyable to play.

After investing hundreds, or even thousands, of hours into the game, it still offers moments of absolute joy. Clutching up, making a great play, and finishing the game single-handedly gives you a giddiness like no other. The game is also extremely accessible, which means that you and your group of friends can still enjoy a game together, even if your experience levels are differ greatly. I myself have played countless hours with my friends, and the experience never gets boring. Even if you have played for years, the game’s staggering cast of heroes with different, intricate mechanics will make sure you are always learning something new, and the ability to play with friends reinforces the fun.

Game not looking so good? If you’re having trouble with the enemy lineup and they seem to be constantly steamrolling you, you can swap characters whenever you like. Seem to be dying too fast? Pick a tank and laugh at your enemies attempting to take you down. Team dying too fast? Pick a healer. It’s a dull and unappreciated role, but becoming the selfless giver and sustaining the team makes you a crucial part of the team. Just bored of playing a hero? I can simply walk back into base and switch, giving you the great feeling of playing something fresh.

All of this is further supported by Paladin’s actual feel and game-play. Every time I fire a bullet, rocket, hook, or laser and it lands on the enemy, it connects with a satisfying impact and sound effect. Hitting a head-shot plays a sound and gives me a satisfying feeling. Hitting multiple in a row will give you the delight of watching your opponent’s health deplete and hearing the cheers and encouragement of your fellow teammates. Even just healing your teammates and hearing their thanks could make the game worthwhile for a lot of players.

Released in 2003, DOTA is one of the first multiplayer online battle arena games to come out, and it has been widely successful since. Through its predecessor, DOTA 2, even almost 10 years later, it still holds as an example of what a great MOBA game is. It has an amazing variety of champions (almost 120) and each and every one has their own unique lore, backstory, quotes, and special abilities.

The game is played on a huge map called Summoner’s Rift. The map has many obstacles and lanes to fight and skirmish with other players. Each different area has a different environment and objects which you can use to your advantage. This adds an element of surprise and strategy to the game.

Playing with a couple of friends also makes this experience better. The game allows playing with friends to be extremely easy, and you can get into a game with your buddies within seconds of launching.

Each character is full of personality and interesting powersets. They feel alive and often shout out one of their unique quotes or battle cries, which greatly adds to the immersive aspect of the game. All champions have a passive effect and 4 other abilities, all of which are completely different. These passive effects can give them a quick edge over their opponents, and their flashy abilities can turn huge fights easily and make the characters memorable. From simple slows to enormous nukes that shake the map, every ability has their own use, whether it is for a small cause or it is game-changing. Aiming precise skillshots to destroy your enemy while dodging all of theirs is another one of DOTA’s many thrills – the best players in the world are known for being able to dodge numerous skillshots at once.

Ingame, in the shop, there are hundreds and hundreds of items that your champion can purchase to enhance their fighting abilities. These come in all shapes and sizes and all give different stats and unique passives. Each character has an infinite amount of different builds and play styles that you can associate with it.
DOTA is popular due to its free-to-play structure and competitive, intense gameplay. It has lasted for almost over 15 years, which is older than me and is now the most played game in the world. The community is immense, and having a friend join you in some games can amplify the fun even further.

Most people prefer, or at least used to prefer, a skinnier body over a bigger one. Fashion industries also prefer this. However, nowadays, it seems that these larger people are flipping the prejudice against the skinny people. On social media, these “plus-sized” women hassle and make fun of slimmer women. This can put a lot of pressure on them and make them self-conscious.

Recently, I watched a video that really opened my eyes as to how delusional some of these people are. Some openly call themselves fat and say that is fine and healthy. I would be completely alright with that, but they were measured over 500 pounds. I have no problem with people with chub, but if you are on the verge of death and you are encouraging others to accept it because it is “healthy”, you might need to reconsider.

This bullying online of body types should be stopped. I have no problem with larger people at all. However, some people are beginning to accept their obesity, which is very unhealthy, but saying that it is alright and healthy somehow. Just search up a video on fat acceptance on YouTube. The movement portrays no people who are simply slightly overweight. They are morbidly obese but still happy and encouraging this. It is the complete opposite of healthy. There are 500 pound women on the verge of death and they somehow think it is healthy to accept this. Moreover, these people straight out were MAKING FUN of slimmer people. How can you talk about prejudice towards body types then make fun of others for a different body type than yours?

Others simply refuse to acknowledge their size and ridicule others. A model got extremely insulted because someone did not call her “plus-sized”. However, later on, she was caught talking about “overweight” men, although she took offense to these kinds of words herself. How come others are called overweight, but you can be portrayed positively as “plus-sized”?

Last Thursday, I went to a Taiwanese restaurant for the first time in my life. I had no idea what to expect. My sister was telling me that it was actually quite different from typical Chinese food. However, I remained quite skeptical, as up to that point, I associated China and Taiwan as related, intercultural areas.

I ordered a pork bowl, pork cutlet, and popcorn chicken. I definitely was expecting these foods to taste sub-par, as they come from origins other than Taiwan. However, on first taste, I realized that I was wrong.

The pork cutlet originates from Korea, and on appearance, it was readied in the same manner. Nonetheless, the taste was quite unique. Korean pork cutlet has more of the fried piece, and ends up being saltier. However, the restaurant served the cutlet with much less of the ‘fried piece’, and it was hardly fried. This meant the meat was a little softer and had a more pleasant texture. It was not as seasoned as I liked, but it was still enjoyable.

Popcorn chicken originates from the United States, and again, it looked normal and looked similar. Nevertheless, in my experience, the restaurant served it in a much better way. The dish was very spicy and burned your mouth after a few bites. However, it was still super delicious, and it had amazing seasoning.

The pork bowl was very simple, and consisted of just rice and pieces of pork. It was very soft and basically melted in your mouth, which tasted and felt amazing. The rice was layered in a light soy sauce, making it appetizing too.

Overall, my first experience with Taiwanese food was quite enjoyable. I realized that it was prepared in a much different manner than Chinese food, and apparently, it is actually quite insulting to call Taiwanese food “Chinese food”, as they also regard it differently.

These days, almost 65% of Americans graduate from college. Each year, over two million high school kids enroll in a college. Many jobs require at least a bachelor’s degree, and some higher end jobs even require a master’s degree. Because of the need for an advanced degree, most young people think that a bachelor’s degree is the only way to get a decent paying job; however, college is not necessary to make a living.

Countless jobs that pay adequately do not require a college degree. Most of these jobs are not exceptionally challenging, and can be accomplished with only a few years of studying and experiencing work life. Additionally, many of these jobs pay more than a lot of jobs that require college degrees that are available. Some popular jobs that do not require a degree are medical assistant, insurance sales agent, and MRI technologist. There are a lot of blue collar jobs available which do not require a college degree and have their own challenges. These jobs can be picked up after less than a year or two of training/studying, instead of going through several years of college. As a doctor starts his career, the policeman would have already been established, since he would have been making a steady income, while the college graduate would have been accruing debt. Thus a monetary analysis yields the result that between a high school graduate and a college graduate, the high school graduate often gets a leading role.

Applying and paying off college is tremendously expensive, considering all the costs that go into it. A few of the leading factors related to college affordability include the net tuition (how much you pay for number of years), the student loan debt, and the college major. For private schools, the net tuition is over $150,000 dollars for 4 years of studying, and public schools require well over  $80,000. The student loan debt can also lead to thousands of dollars of debt that students need to pay off. During that time, high school graduates can earn money and outpace college graduates in salary and perks. This can take upwards of 10 years to clear. During this length of time, students with a job that do not need a degree can save up a huge amount of money. For example, policemen have six months of basic training and then can start earning money while a college student would have three and a half more years to stay in college.

Becoming a college graduate does not even guarantee a sufficient salary. Nowadays, numerous college degrees/majors pay very little money. For instance, a teacher could spend her entire life chasing a six figure salary while a fisherman could make that money in a single season. Although a handful of majors are lucrative, it can take up to 10 years to master these jobs, since after the four years of college, they must become an intern and/or residents to experience the field. Because of this extensive training, many young people do not strive for these jobs, and simply desire an easier kind of education. However, many of these kinds of jobs have a very low annual salary. What is equally discouraging is that the salary of someone in these fields will barely increase even after 15 years of continuous work in the profession. Some examples of the areas that remain static are child and family studies, social work, athletic training, and (surprisingly) music and art.

Going to college is not mandatory for all students who simply wish to make a living. In fact, many people who choose not to pursue a degree in higher education can outperform as their college graduate counterparts. The belief that all jobs with good salaries require college degrees is a myth, as these days, many high paying jobs do not require a college degree.

These days, the number of corrupt police officers committing crimes while out on the field is at an all-time high. Videos are surfacing all over the internet showing these police officers planting evidence and assaulting innocent civilians. Police brutality is especially prominent among the African-American populations in urban areas resulting in the killings of innocent black men such as Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. The controversy surrounding these events demonstrates a need for police officers to wear body cameras in order to protect both innocent civilians and police officers.

Police body cameras give other benefits such as fewer instances of violence, less money spent annually, and cases being closed promptly. These cameras reduce the number of use-of-force incidents, which translates into significant cost savings. Both citizens and police officers are safer from attacks and they actually end up profitable due to the money and time saved from incidents. They also lead to more transparency with the public, which leads to more trust between citizens and officers.

Body cameras can also easily disprove allegations made by citizens, which can save an officer’s life from being ruined. The number of people falsely accusing police officers of actions such as sexual assault or planting evidence is quite common nowadays. For example, a Texas woman became angry at a state trooper and alleged that he had assaulted her in the car. However, the body camera showed that the officer has acted appropriately and had not touched her in any inappropriate way.

Numerous studies and data point to the fact that police body cameras should be required on a national level. The power of police body cameras to instantly disprove an allegation and serve justice further reinforces its practicality. With rising crime rates and the number of criminal officers surfacing, police body cameras are not merely an accessory, but rather a necessary instrument to protect the lives of both police officers and citizens. 

The majority of students are greatly influenced by parents academically, who usually play a major role in their career and study choices. However, this should not be happening, as parents should not interfere to this extent with their children’s careers.

There are, of course, cases of almost companion-like parents that support their children in whatever they wish to spend their time or life doing. On that side of the spectrum, there is a small handful of parents that are very lenient toward their child’s career planning and helping them base that around what they’ve always enjoyed doing. 

However, based off of the statistics alone, most parents try to steer their children toward a financially stable path than the ones students are actually passionate about. One way or another, this way of parenting leads to many unhappy children (especially when the options are practically endless).

Take a community like Diamond Bar for example. Here, the pressure is set even more so in Asian households than any other ethnic group. The demand to do whatever possible to attain certain high-paying jobs in the future is seen as a bare minimum requirement for children of Asian background. 

The majority of the asian student population play the piano or some musical instrument to a certain level. It is also likely that the majority of these students attend an after-school tutoring class or have personal tutors to help them with certain subjects. These efforts are then expected to be paid off by the student going to a highly respected UC school or perhaps a prestigious private university. 

The continuous mantra that is repeated all throughout our lives is then more heavily implied in college, where the choices we make play a major part in our paths in the future. 

Parents really do mean well, but what happens, as explained by professor Larry Nucci of UC Berkeley: “Excessive parental control regarding adolescents’ occupational decision-making results in negative outcomes,” he wrote in Mothers’ Concepts of Young Children’s Areas of Personal Freedom. “Parents should be cautioned against imposing their own goals on to their children or seeing their child’s accomplishments as a reflection on themselves.”

Often, students, are seen as a second chance for parents to make the right decisions, and that more or less leaves an unhealthy expectation that that was never our own in the first place. These expectations-turned-pressure leaves many students with a career that they find little satisfaction with, and thus, starting the cycle all over again.

Most of the food that schools serve apparently do not even meet the proper health standards met by fast-food restaurants. According to an investigation by USA Today, the majority of the nation’s fast-food chains have higher safety standards and higher quality food in general over school food. This unmistakably shows that we still have a long way to go.

The actual items on the menus are not much better. School food programs offer quite limited foods, and usually only include unhealthy foods such as hot dogs, burgers, or fries. The low variety of food may influence a student to simply skip lunch or the horrible taste and quality may make them throw it away immediately after buying it, which is simply a waste of money and resources.

As for the milk, it lays on another level of low-quality, and personally, I never accept it and have rarely seen others accepting it. If one ever bothered to look at a typical school milk carton, they would see the unwholesome amount of sugar and calories, which, paired with the taste, do not make for a gratifying experience.

They also come in very restricted portions, and, in my experience, do not leave the consumer satisfied most of the time. The food is hardly enough to meet the needs of a grade school student, much less a stressed out high-school student that still has 3 hours of the day left to go through. One of the most ridiculous examples of this is the “Clux Bowl”, which appears to be a scoop of mashed potatoes and cheese combined with 4 or 5 chicken nuggets on top.

The unhealthy, disgusting choices of foods and small portions combined lead to an even worse problem. Junk food. Since the food sucks and there’s so little of it, why not just grab a few bags of chips and a cookie and call it a lunch? This is becoming a prevalent problem, and even if one does not eat only junk food, almost always, they will have some sort of unhealthy snack in their tray, alongside their crappy lunch. It has been a while since I have seen my friends grab a lunch without a cookie or a bag of chips.

One may argue that schools are trying to improve their meals and add foods with more nutrition, such as vegetables or fruits. However, the ‘vegetables’ or ‘fruits’ that they serve usually hardly meet the minimum requirement. The salads taste and look like cardboard, and the fruits look unwashed. They should at least have some sort of wrap or protection on them, as I have witnessed many people touching them and leaving them afterwards.

Every day, billions of kids and even adults ask this question. Everyone has their own opinion on it, but the primary purpose of school is to help students slowly mature and grow into an independent lifestyle and mindset.

        At school, students are continuously reminded to thoroughly consider all of our decisions and to not be rash. During solo projects, they must think about what they will do to complete the assignment well by themselves. During group projects, they are encouraged to take charge of the situation. They are influenced to learn how to think for themselves and make good choices in order to become leaders instead of followers.

         School prepares students for the workforce and helps them to discover their future jobs. During school, students must partake in and study a variety of subjects. Some of these subjects are science, math, social studies, and language arts. These are all crucial for figuring out the personal preferences of a student and to help them learn what they would like to do once they are older. For instance, if someone discovers that they enjoy studying biology, they could become a biologist. If one prefers math, they could become a mathematician or simply teach others.

      School teaches students how to live independently. Schools teaches kids many important lessons that are crucial to life. This can be done through different activities or lectures. A staff member might walk by a classroom every now and then to give a short presentation on something as simple as mental health. Ted Talks are often held at schools to send students helpful messages and can be an example of a lesson in itself.

The subjects taught in school are also important to students. For instance, math is used almost everywhere and is required for many important responsibilities such as taxes. It is used in calculated percentages and sales, which are seen in everyday life. Science may help students to experiment and memorize information. Students are also taught how to make reasonable choices so they do not end up committing crimes and wasting their life. It is a primary place for them to mature.

        

As mountain climbing is becoming a favorite hobby for many people around the world, rescue services are also required to ensure the safety of these people. People ranging from as young as 13 years old to as old as 80 years old climb large mountains just for the challenge and exhilaration. Because of the numerous risks and dangers that come with this, many rescue services, such as lightweight helicopters, are now available to the public.

Many argue that rescue services should not be available because of the danger it puts the pilot and it has little margin for error. However, these rescue services provide both the pilot and the person in danger many benefits.

People may claim that the cons of rescue services severely outweigh the benefits, as there have been many deaths of pilots after attempting to rescue climbers. This is false, as rescue helicopters have saved far more lives than taken them, and the services can be crucial for many people’s survival. A new technique in Switzerland has little risk and is able to literally pluck a climber out of a situation. The new Swiss technique is also extraordinary reliable and it makes rescues quick and easy.

Rescue services can provide a quick and easy escape route for mountain climbers, which is essential when they need to escape a dangerous circumstance hastily. To prove this, there are many articles out there about treacherous mountain situations that ended well due to helicopters. For example, in the article “Helicopter Rescues Increasing on Everest,” it is stated that four people had been trapped inside a crevasse, but were able to be quickly rescued with minimal injuries, other than a few scratch and bruises.

Knowing they have an escape route if they are stuck in a dangerous situation gives climbers a sense of security, which can assist them mentally during their climb. Rescue helicopters can often give climbers a sense of security, which makes them more willing to take risks and also calm them if they are stuck in a bad situation. People are influenced by the safety net of a helicopter being available for them, which can assist their mental state greatly.

The need of money to pay the expensive bill of the rescue helicopters and to make a profit is also important. Helicopters cost about $2 million apiece, and they are usually quite expensive to operate. There is a lot of pressure to keep the helicopters functional in order to bring in profit. If these copters are simply put away, the millions of dollars would have been put to waste, instead of constantly saving mountain climbers’ lives.