I'm Extremely Sorry!

If you're like most people, you have played, or at least have heard of, Crazy Uno, a twist on Mattel's classic card game that assigns special powers to some of the cards to make the game more interesting. Again, if you're like most people, you have played, or at least have heard of, Parker Brothers' Sorry!, a 2-4 player game in which players attempt to move the pawns from their start around the board to their home, trying to avoid getting sent back to start by an opponent. But what if the classic simplicity of this childhood favorite was replaced with an extreme competition of ultimate revenge inspired by the insane elements of Crazy Uno. This is Extremely Sorry!

After I read the original Sorry! instructions as a formality and brainstormed a list of extra rules to add, I was ready to start preliminary testing with my family. The basic concept I followed was to only add "extreme" rules to cards that already had special powers, meaning a 12 still simply meant you move a pawn forward twelve. But a backwards four, for example, could now be used on an opponent's pawn as well as your own. I also altered some of the fundamental rules of the original game, such as the safety zone... safe no more. After playing a three-player game with the first draft of rules, we made some changes and offered up various alternatives to try. In two other games (with two players and four players respectively), we decided on the best alternatives and final rules.

Overall, the integrity of the original game was preserved. No matter how close someone got to winning, everyone still had some chance until the very end. It did however increase the length because players were given more ways to send an opponent's pawn back to start. In our tests, a two-player game took 25 minutes, a three-player game took 45 minutes, and a four-player game took a little over an hour. 

I encourage you all to dig out your Sorry! boards and try out the official Extremely Sorry! rules, linked here with your families and friends. Special thanks to my family for testing the game with me and my dad for coming up with this idea. Read carefully and good luck.

Zooming through the Quarantine

As one of the most popular forms of video communication, you have most likely heard of, if not used, Zoom Video Conferencing at some point during this quarantine. I, for one, highly encourage it as a way to connect with groups of friends or family to talk to and see one another. As I have had time to hang out with people over Zoom, I have found fun and interesting activities in an attempt to imitate normal interactions.

Games:

I greatly enjoy playing games with friends or family and in big groups or small, so I was pleased to find that doing them over Zoom is not all that difficult. There are, however, some games that work better than others and even some that are more unique to Zoom. Trivia games are possibly the easiest games to play over video as they are speaking based. For games that are based on cards or a board, it tends to require all players to own the game and often difficult or awkward camera angles. Taking this into account, games that require just a normal deck of cards are relatively simple, as most people own a standard deck. Apart from plenty of free online game options, there are some games that can be played without anything but your device. One of my favorites simply uses the chat feature in Zoom and works well with large groups: Without planning who is going to go when or establishing any pattern, attempt to count in order in the chat, one number at a time without repeating. Overall, be creative! Find games that are relatively hands-free and try them in a call, or come up with new games using the features in Zoom.

Practical Jokes:
[Disclaimer: These jokes are not intended to be used to hurt or offend and should not be used in such a way]

Most weeks, on Friday afternoon, I have been meeting with a group of my friends from school over Zoom to chat, check up on each other, and just hang out. Within a tight group of friends, there is nothing quite like a harmless practical joke to get a good laugh going. If you are the host of a meeting, you have certain powers in a Zoom call. One of those powers is muting other people. Say your friend is telling a funny, but lengthy story about his/her past week. He/she has stopped looking directly at the screen and is sitting back in a chair while telling the story. Surely they won't notice that the microphone in the corner of their image now is red with a line through it and that they are in fact muted. Laugh with your other friends at the silent expressions and speech of the muted one until he/she finally realizes that they've been muted. You don't have to be the host to have some fun, though. Anyone can rename themselves under the participants tab. This can lead to everyone doubling over laughing. Try renaming yourself "connecting to audio..." so it looks as if you can't hear your friends and then talk about specific things someone said after renaming yourself to your real name. Freaky. You can also name yourself the same as someone else. Soon everyone will catch on and no one will know who is saying what in the chat. Either that or one person seems to be very indecisive:

Ben to Everyone
Did you know Cold Stone is doing delivery now? I got it the other day.

Ben to Everyone
Oh that's cool! I haven't had Cold Stone in forever...

Ben to Everyone
Me neither, but ya know... I don't really like ice cream.

Ben to Everyone
Oh yeah! I remember you saying that. I LOVE ice cream. lol. 

Group Projects:

Being a "people person," some of my favorite things at school are group activities and projects. Additionally, I just appreciate having a project to work on in general. Unfortunately, doing a music project with friends over Zoom is impossible due to the inconsistent delay. There are, however, features in Zoom that make other projects possible. Specifically, I would like to highlight the ability for the host to record the meeting (both video and audio). So, you can get a group of friends together and do a little skit, changing your virtual backgrounds to fit the setting of the story. I took advantage of the ability to record the audio by writing and producing an audiodrama over Zoom. You can find the finished product here. There is also a whiteboard under the share screen tab, so artists can show their friends their ability to draw with a mouse (impressive!). 

What Else Can You Do Over Zoom:

I am very grateful for the ability to connect with friends and family in this way, despite certain quarantine restrictions. I'd be interested to know some ways that you have been using Zoom to hang out with friends, work from home, or anything in between. Let me know if you have any ideas or how some of the ideas above worked for you. You can email me at cgottry22@gmail.com and maybe I can add you to my Zoom story!

You're Welcome!

Imagine this typical interaction at a birthday party: A kid, who I will call Billy, opens a present from Uncle Randy. Billy thinks this new toy is amazing, but as he goes to unbox and play with it, his mother stops him and says "Billy, what do you say to Uncle Randy?" Then Billy stops and says "Thank you, Uncle Randy" and then goes off to play. What did Uncle Randy say? Nothing. Who is there to say, "Uncle Randy, what do you say to Billy?" Nobody. Why not? 

Think about it. We all know why it is important to say thank you: an expression of gratitude. I believe it is just as important to say you're welcome: an acknowledgement of the other's gratitude and an expression of your heartfelt willingness to give. It is almost as if you are saying "you are welcome to ask for and receive what you want or need." 

Now let's talk about one common alternative: no problem. Though often a more common response when thanked, it does not satisfactorily acknowledge the other's gratitude. In fact, it either dismisses it entirely or invokes a selfish expectation of it. It is almost as if you are saying "Why are you even thanking me? I didn't do anything that would inconvenience me." or "It didn't bother me to help you, but yeah, if it did, you should be thankful." 

What should we do now then? For me personally, I have made it a habit to say you're welcome and I hope to encourage and kindly remind my family and close friends to do the same. Remember: politeness is not overrated and there is a response to thank you.

National Limerick Day!

For many years, poets and others have recognized May 12th as National Limerick Day, created in remembrance of the humorous works of poet, Edward Lear. A limerick is often a laughable over-the-top dramatization of current events or public disagreements. So, today, I decided to try my hand at this jovial art form...corona edition.

There Was Once a Day Without Gloom

By: Caleb Gottry

There was once a day without gloom.

Then COVID forced me to my room.

Just inject me with bleach, 

Then decide to impeach.

I'll talk to you later on Zoom.

Poetry Part II

Between homework, going outside, and playing games with my family, I enjoy relaxing quiet time alone with my guitars. I took it upon myself to learn some acoustic guitar "Classics" from the likes of the Beatles, Eric Clapton, and others. My one minute covers of these classics can be found here under the playlists tab. When I received my prompt for the next week of poetry, being "Consider something that happens over and over again that you enjoy," I planned to write my Terza Rima on my guitar time.

A Terza Rima has an endless form and was used by great writers, such as Dante, to write much longer works of literature than what I will present, such as The Divine Comedy. The tercets follow a rhyme scheme of aba/bcb/cdc/ded/efe... so on and so forth, until the poet decides to end it with a rhyming couplet (two line stanza), rhyming with the second line of the final tercet. In this case we were instructed to write four tercets before our closing couplet. I have chosen to compose my final tercet so that I can repeat my first line in my couplet. As with the Villanelle, it is written in iambic pentameter. 

Time Spent Picking
By Caleb Gottry

Again I find myself on carpet floor. 
I’m holding finished wood; I strike the steel.
I play a song I know I’ve played before.

I am no longer here alone, I feel,
For Eric, Johnny, Paul, and James have come,
Providing songs that make this day ideal.

Unhappy minors that match my glum
Turn into merry melodies anew,
But can one’s mood be changed by simple strums?

Or is it the guitar that shakes the blues,
Providing joy in isolation, or 
A choice instead of boredom that I do.

For being so alone is such a chore,
Again I find myself on carpet floor.

Poetry Part III

As I mentioned in Part II, I have been spending a lot of time outside to take breaks from homework. I greatly enjoy biking and find myself free from a lot of the worries that this time has brought. My poetry teacher challenged us to write about a personal triumph and given my recent successes on my two wheeler, I embraced the five senses and wrote my sestina.

A sestina is by far the most challenging of the three traditional forms I was tasked to write. First, the poet must choose six end words, all concrete nouns (nouns that you can touch, taste, smell, feel, or see). Each line in the sextet (six line stanza) is seven to ten syllables in length and must follow the order of the end words, which is offset by one each stanza. The poem ends with a tercet where all the six end words are used, two per line. The sestina is typically left untitled. 

Sestina
By Caleb Gottry

Out from the garage he takes his bike.
Then, he starts down the concrete path,
Seeing clouds that might soon drop water.
Apart from his own, there are no faces
As he pedals alone, like a lost child,
Hoping to return to a lemonade.

He rewards himself with that lemonade,
For the work he did on his bike,
Pedaling next to the cars on his path.
For now, he quenches his thirst with water,
Waiting at the light with other faces, 
Maybe next to another lost child.

He hears a “Good morning” from the child
And he wonders if they want lemonade.
He returns the greeting from his bike
And then focuses again on the path,
Along the canal filled with water,
Joined by unfamiliar faces.

The wind blows against these faces.
Among men, he feels like a child,
But he soon forgets the lemonade
And moves past one unfamiliar bike.
A group in line; all focused on the path
Is what he sees, sweating drops of water.

Now he rides through dirt and water,
Conquering this challenge he faces.
Passed by a man, he, just a child
Sees their shirt: yellow, like the lemonade.
Them on faster wheels, but he on his bike,
Together, they forge a new path.

Stop before crossing the asphalt path;
Cars fueled by oil– him, just by water.
The tinted windows hide their faces
And their machines could crush a child.
He’ll have to wait for his lemonade
Until he can cross on his meager bike.

Carried home by bike before sky water.
A phone lights up faces, showing his path,
And the child drinks his lemonade.

Poetry Part I

During this quarantine, I have been learning online from my teachers through Google Classroom. One of my classes has brought forth some creative opportunity during this time: Poetry. For these past three weeks, I have been assigned to write three different poems in three traditional forms. The first of which is a Villanelle.

A Villanelle uses repeating lines in each stanza. In the first stanza, the two repeating lines are introduced separated by a third line that does not repeat, making the rhyme scheme AbA. The rhyme scheme for the following four tercets (three line stanzas) is abA, with the repeating lines (A) alternating each stanza.

The poem ends with a quatrain (four line stanza) with a rhyme scheme of abAA. The poem is written in iambic pentameter, with ten syllables per line alternating unstressed and stressed. The prompt I considered to write my Villanelle was this: "Consider something that happens over and over again that you dislike."

Alarming
By Caleb Gottry

So shut my ears to that unwelcome sound– 
No longer in the crazy world of dreams.
“Why must my eyes be open?” I now frown.

Dark figures sometimes cloud my nights around.
They haunt and scare and cause no sleep for me,
So shut my ears to that unwelcome sound.

Or, in a world where glories do abound,
I find myself in charge of great regimes.
“Why must my eyes be open?” I now frown.

Awake, but I’m not moving from my down.
My dark blue blanket shields the cold extremes, 
So shut my ears to that unwelcome sound.

Asleep in perfect comfort– how profound!
Forgetting abnormality that teems,
“Why must my eyes be open?” I now frown.

Returning to my bed each night, unwound,
I hope to sleep ‘til safety is a theme, 
So shut my ears to that unwelcome sound.
“Why must my eyes be open?” I now frown.