New blog up

Okay! I have made a new private blog, which is here. Right now it has a bunch of wedding photos up. I've invited some immediate family members whose e-mail addresses I know. I'm not sure, but do you have to have a gmail account to read a private blog? If so, just tell me your gmail address and I can add it to the permissions list. If I know who you are I will grant reading permission. If I don't know who you are I might ask you about that. My current plan is to still post some things to this blog and then link from this blog when I make a new post on the private/family blog. That way you can still subscribe to this RSS feed and get updates of a sort.

in which I get excited about video games

Have any of you read the manga Fruits Basket? In one of the first few volumes the manga-ka (author) mentions how she gets excited about beating Final Fantasy bosses. Recently I have had my adrenaline pumping when fighting enemies in the game Okami. It is a really cute game, which I will prove by providing a screenshot:
You play this holy dog who is the form of the sun goddess Amaterasu. To use your powers you have to "draw" on screen (we have it for Wii (thanks sis!), so it's like drawing with your wrist). You can use these in battle, and you attack by shaking the Wii remote. So there is some extra-finger exercise involved. In one part there are a bunch of bandits you can fight and you have to cross them off the list with the paintbrush. After a battle it's so hard to draw a straight line on screen! I get so excited about killing bad guys! It's like... I have to win! I especially like how plants and stuff grow after you beat bosses. I wish weeding my yard were this easy!

Adam and I are thinking of making a private blog so we can post pictures of ourselves without feeling exposed to the internet. The only thing I don't like about private blogs is that you have to remember to go and check them since they don't work with RSS feeds yet. Would anyone read a private blog (it would be easy to get permission)? It would PROBABLY have more pictures but it also might be more "and THEN, we went to Japantown." If you have an opinion, now is the time to let me know!

PAJAMAS

My grandma gave me some silky polyester pajamas. They're the adorable kind with separate drawstring pants and a button-up top with lapel-like things. Kind of like these only ten times cuter and for women (and not that expensive). The reason I write about them is that I completely underestimated how much I would enjoy them. Tossing and turning  under the covers is so easy in them; my sheets don't get weirdly caught on my clothes anymore. And I feel so cute! Adam is jealous. :-)

Ohs yes!

I love Ohs (Oh!s?). We have a family tradition where for your birthday, you get to have WHATEVER cereal you want. I think I chose Ohs at least one year for my birthday cereal. I was somewhat sad when I came out to college and I couldn't find the cereal at Smith's (I had to make do with Marshmallow Mateys). Then yesterday I was at Fresh Market and saw Ohs! I bought two boxes! I went to bed excited about how I would get to eat Ohs in the morning. I just had two more bowls for lunch. This cereal makes me so happy.

I don't know why it tastes so good. In fact it looks like they've changed the cereal a little since I ate it last. The Ohs themselves are more tube-shaped than oh-shaped like they used to be. One of the nice things about Ohs is that as they sit in your cereal, they only get more pleasant to eat (they are very crunchy and kind of hurt your mouth without a little soaking). But the wait is worth it. Honey and oats, who knew. The only other thing they should change is to put more cereal in each box (these boxes are tiny! It's like 6-8 bowls of cereal in each, which feels very small when you always eat two bowls).

my current favorites

At my bridal shower I realized that some of the things I've said are my favorites are no longer my favorites. For example, Dostoevsky is no longer my favorite author. I don't really think Nabokov is either, but he's still pretty cool. Right now I think Murakami and David Foster Wallace are my favorite authors. And I don't think classical music is my favorite type of music anymore. I still like Shostakovich and Prokofiev, but I get more excited about My Brightest Diamond or Radiohead. Lately I've been getting into soundtracks too, but I don't know if I have ONE favorite soundtrack.

The concept of favorites is kind of weird. It assumes that we like whole things a certain amount. I feel more that I like or don't like different parts of things. Or that I think some music is really perfect for certain functions. For instance, the Chanticleer album I just bought would be good for reading or making breakfast on a Sunday morning. Shostakovich is fun to just sit and listen to, and the Amelie soundtrack is perfect for driving.

Sometimes I think that people are kind of like this too. A roommate is the most convenient (favorite?) person to complain to at night before bed. My parents are good at reassuring me about things weekly. My friends are good for making jokes and playing games with. I guess my fiancé is good for just about anything. :-)

Coveting the bridal way

Why is registering for items for my wedding so hard? I like finding things I want, but I like to take my time at it. I like to read all the reviews and look at multiple items and then say "YES, this particular teapot is the one I really want." This takes hours and hours to do for more than about 20 things. I can't help it! I'm picky! I don't want really deep soup bowls that will take up all the dishwasher space, but I don't want really shallow ones either. Where are the beautiful stoneware bowls of my youth that are perfectly shaped to fit in the bowl part of the dishwasher?

Oh, we're registered at Bed Bath & Beyond and at Amazon, in case you were wondering (I have my own Amazon wishlist and a separate list of things I want to keep track of, so don't get confused!). I've been trying to register for Amazon items that are under $20. Like, for example, this stress-relieving Edamame bean. Only $4.50! I think the funniest thing is the "other people who bought this also bought" for this item: the postsecret book, Maus II, and Dragon Quest IV. So... people who buy it are internet-savvy comic-reading gamers. I may or may not fit this description ;;. Oh, and have you heard of Mameshiba? The little bean that comes out is a Mameshiba... thing. Bean. Check out the youtube video. My roommate L. said it was "like despair.com only cuter."

I tried to think of items that might not be COMPLETELY boring. For example, a pilates ball! Play video games and strengthen your back! Oh, and I found this cute vintage wall clock that should look good in the kitchen somewhere. And a butter dish! Some day I will have my very own butter dish, and I won't have to either keep it in the fridge or precariously in its wax wrapping on my pantry shelf. I tried looking for some items on etsy, but it's either too hard to find things that I want, or too easy to get sidetracked (check out this locket or this owl clock necklace. Why do I want them so bad?). Anyway, I can't believe I spent the whole afternoon on this.

Authorial insertion in text-based adventures?

Okay cats and kittens, if you can, I would like a little help from you. I'm hoping to write a paper on authorial insertion for my American Autobiography class (i.e., author-as-character thing). To do this, I need some material. In fiction it's fairly common - Nabokov's Bend Sinister and Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions use it. I suspect that many text-based adventure games do this. So far I've only been able to find John's Fire Witch (a review on the xyzzy page comments on it). And I guess that would be enough to work with, but I would like to know if I'm making some glaring omission. "Honorarium" and Jason Rohrer's "Passage" and "Gravitation" feature the author as the main character (or at least an autobiographical character), but they don't have words, which makes it a little more difficult to justify writing about in an English class.

edit: apparently TVtropes has a page for this

Non-wedding-related goals for this summer:

 I am taking one class and planning my wedding, but I want to do other things too. Specifically:

1. Start learning Japanese. I've checked out some books from the library, including one of those "complete course"s with audio CD. It helps that Adam likes teaching me. I might not be literate for a while, but I can at least say "I'm sorry, I don't speak Japanese." (I'm still working on "Where is the nearest bus stop?" and "Where is my suitcase?")


2. Read fiction that is not for a class. I started on this one by reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I'm almost done with Oblivion, and then I have some books my professor lent me (which are for fun I promise). I'm also trying to read more "serious" graphic novels so I can have something to say when I read manga. These include The Sandman series and random new graphic novels that appear in the BYU library. Currently Epileptic is one of these.

3. Start research for thesis. This should include playing text-based adventure games... but honestly, they're not my favorite type of game. Usually they are so hard! I think I just have to make myself get used to them. I've also ordered some books that have to do with ergodic literature (interactive text), hypertext, narrative in computer games, and other related subjects, which hopefully will be interesting even not in conjunction with my thesis. I'm excited for the book Twisty Little Passages.  I've also decided that The Eleventh Hour is definitely ergodic literature and as such I should probably spend some time studying it. That and the annotated Alice in Wonderland.

4. Play more video games. Related to (3), I do think that playing video games will help inspire my thesis ideas. I'm still not sure what exactly I can say about how text-based adventure games are cool. Do they use fantasy in a way different from literature? How are the puzzles related to the meaning of the game, if there is any connection? So, for example, Chrono Trigger has some puzzles that do not seem very meaningful. In the prehistoric era you have to refrain from fighting the beetles right away so they can dig a hole in the ground for you, and choosing which hole to go down is pretty much random until you get an idea of what the dungeon is like. But the cooler puzzles are the ones that require time-travel. The one with the castle ghost and Frog is especially interesting. So, you can visit the castle in the present and try to fight the ghost there, but you can't beat him. Instead, you have to go back in time and give some tools to this carpenter (okay, that part was lame) and kill all the monsters there in the past. Well... now that I'm writing it that doesn't really make sense either. Can you think of examples of cool puzzles in video games that contributed to the meaning of the game?

5. Keep up on Latin and Russian (and Spanish?)? This is a more secondary goal that I'm always thinking about and feel badly about when I realize how much I've forgotten. I was thinking of buying Wheelock's Latin (I have Freundlich, which has a gorgeous cover design, so maybe I don't need Wheelock), but instead I found this Latin reader called Lingua Latina and I am SO EXCITED for it to come in the mail. It is entirely in Latin (except for an word index in the back) and tries to teach Latin in a more fluid, organic way, (with lots of pictures) rather than the rote memorization and decoding that I learned in high school (yes, we worked on The Aenied, but I never ever thought in Latin; all the time I was translating it into English in my head). I have one of those silly Latin phrasebooks somewhere I bought on sale at the bookstore, which was cool, but I hope this will be EVEN COOLER.

As for Russian... I have plenty of materials. One time I was at DI and found like three Russian books! I have some children's books in Russian along with a collection of stories, but they're really hard to read! I also have a collection of Russian animated cartoons (which have no subtitles and are also hard to understand). I have a "First 1,000 words" book and that nice book of Russian roots (I love word roots, which probably explains my excitement about Latin). I have some Pimsleur mp3s, and while I appreciate their pedagogical soundness, they are incredibly boring to listen to. I also have a dictionary for foreigners. It defines the word in Russian and also has one-word definitions in English, French, Spanish, and... probably German. The downside is that it's not very fun to read. One of my very favorite books to read has been the Russian Graded Readers I-V. It is so cool! It defines each word the first time it appears, and then gradually introduces more words and tenses. The first one is a story from A Hero of Our Time dumbed-down into all present tense. They add in past tenses as you go on along with more vocabulary. All of the selections are from easily read famous Russian authors with the vocabulary simplified so you're not always looking words up (which to me is one of the most boring parts of reading things in a different language). The tragic thing about this reader is that it is out of print. (One of my Russian profs sent us the PDF files of the first two parts, which I would say is totally fair use. I have my own copy of the reader which I miraculously found at DI. I had another copy too, and I sold it to a classmate.) On the subject of "things I am passionate about" I think we can add "language acquisition tools that take advantage of cognitive science."

Anyway, if you're still there, I still want to know your opinions on meaningful video game puzzles and any amazing foreign language materials you've encountered.

Limited possibilites

When I was a child I didn't think too hard about how furniture and fabric come about. I assumed that everything was easily instantly customizable. I don't know why I thought this - I had been to a fabric store myself, and I knew there weren't infinite varieties. Maybe the sheer variety of types of furniture and blankets I'd seen convinced me that a high variation was possible.

Now that I'm actually kind of shopping for things like furniture and bedspreads, it occurs to me how limited I am in my choices. While the internet adds a lot of options, it also adds a lot of shipping and a lot of "maybe the photo just looks good." Maybe custom designs are possible, but prohibitively expensive. It feels weird to invest time and energy into buying things that reflect my personality that others will buy. I guess that's the price of mass production, and maybe that's why some people like quilting (so they really can make their own designs).

in which I whine again

"When's the big day?" is a phrase many conversation partners have decided to use to replace the question "What is your wedding date?" Does it feel so weird to say that I'm getting married? Is it a way to make a perfectly good question more conversational? Maybe it's hard to make appropriate jokes about me getting married, so my interlocutors must resort to colloquialisms to keep a serious subject light-hearted. Anyway, I think it's kind of weird that probably 80% of the people I talk to about myself ask when I'm getting married in those exact words.

Something mostly unrelated that has been bothering me: I still don't really have an occupation. I don't want to teach freshman English for the rest of my life. I wonder if I could become a bibliotherapist ("oh, well, if you have insomnia, you should try reading Proust, it puts forty percent of readers to sleep within ten pages"). Sometimes my classes just feel like book clubs glorified with some background reading and justified with a degree. It's fine for a hobby (for me). I still don't really understand how literary criticism makes the world a better place (Scottish independence notwithstanding). Maybe a more entertaining place. Also - this is possibly bad of me, but it's such a relief to have in the future a husband who will support me in my entertaining indecision.

quite redux

I didn't give you the whole story about "quite." Quite can mean boy "completely" and "somewhat" according to the OED (American Heritage agrees on "completely" and adds "actually" and "rather").  So in both British and American English, the word can mean opposing things (it reminds me of the Latin "altus," which means both high and deep). I'll go into this in altus detail for the sake of my "you should all know the bottom of this" feeling.

The Merriam-Webster Usage Dictionary makes this note:

By all accounts the subtractive sense is the prevalent one in 20th-century English, but in many particular instances it is hard to be certain if the subtractive sense rather than the intensive sense was intended [...] You would think that the coexistence of these two uses would lead to problems of ambiguity and confusion, but in practice this seems not often to be the case. For although the lexicographer must try to determine the exact meaning of each occurrence of a word, the reader is under no such constraint. The distinction between the two senses is not always crucial to a general understanding of the sentence; when it is, the reader has the larger context for help. And the writer can always use a negative with quite when he or she wants to emphasize a falling just short.

 My future mother-in-law pointed this variance of meaning to me, and her personal usage note is as follows:

When I use "quite" with words which could not normally be accompanied by "very", eg. remarkable, dead, awful, finished, pathetic, stunning, all right, amazing,  -  quite would tend to take the first meaning, one of emphasis. But the rule doesn't always work - "quite good" virtually always means somewhat good, unless expressed in a surprised tone of voice, in which case it means "better than expected" (and one's standards did not start off particularly high). "Quite nice" is dismissal; "quite delightful" is praise.

Could it be that "quite" accompanied by a strong term of praise or disapprobation usually gives emphasis, but accompanied by a weaker term, (nice, good, pretty, untidy, plain) it modifies the term to be weaker still?

This one is going to take a quite a little thought. Quite a little means "a lot" Quite a lot means  "A great deal." One thing I am sure of. Used on its own, "Quite" indicates agreement, but not necessarily friendly agreement. It's all in the tone of voice.

Indeed, tone of voice is important for all sorts of communication (sarcasm, flirtation, anger, etc.), which still makes a written "quite" difficult to interpret. It's one of those ambiguities we just have to live with unless the author is alive to question.

quite

This is quite somewhat embarrassing, but whenever I'm around people with English (or South African) accents, I suddenly use words that strike me as more British. Words like "terribly," "washroom," "rubbish," "nice," and "quite." I don't know why I do this, probably because I'm not a prestige speaker; instead of using a consistent set of phrases and syntax, I imitate the language patterns the people I'm with, or at least, my perception of their language patterns. I say "What!" more around Hobbes and "Good Heavens!" around my roommate, simply because they seem to use those exclamations more.

There is a problem with this, since sometimes I get it wrong. "Quite," for instance, in American English, is a formal way of saying "very," but in British English it means "somewhat" or "kind of." So "that's quite nice" can mean "that sounds fantastic" or "that's kinda alright, I guess." It makes me want to go back and read Austen or Shakespeare with this new knowledge to see if people were actually being insulting when I thought they were being nicely polite. It also makes me annoyed that in the situations I'm most likely to use "quite," I'm most likely to use it in a semantically ambiguous way (or the "wrong" way from the point of view of the hearer).

Part 3: Dating

After exchanging snarky comments while watching international cinema, Adam and I went on another date. We made sausage chowder and played Scrabble together. One night after playing raquetball, I still wanted to spend time with him and he took me to his step-grandmother's Christmas party and I met his dad and sister. We held hands on the way back and I remarked on how cute his accent is. At the end of the semester, he was patient with me while I stressed out about all my final papers. He tried to teach me how to program and I let him read my Calvin and Hobbes paper. I wrote things in my journal like "he is fun to talk with," "I think he's cute," and "he is optimistic and pragmatic."

I went home for almost two weeks for Christmas. I got to see all my family and some friends. It was wonderful. I called Adam to talk to him and we had conversations that lasted more than thirty minutes, which is pretty good considering how much I dislike talking on the phone. I think I asked him if he wanted to keep dating, and he thought it was a good idea. At our family New Year's party my mom told a friend of hers "I think this one's a keeper." I felt worried. Now if things didn't work both me and my parents would be disappointed. On the way to the airport my dad asked if I thought I'd marry him. "I've thought that about guys in the past, who I didn't marry," I reminded him.

In January we kept going out (we ate out a lot), but I wasn't sure if Adam wanted to keep dating me, which made me feel sad when I thought about it. Maybe it was then he was deciding if he liked me enough to marry me. I realized that I wanted to do all I could to help us continue. It's hard to pinpoint when, but we fell in love, probably due to a combination of flirting and persistence. It's very personal to me and I was reluctant to write about it, but I think you have the general feel here.

Part 4: The Engagement

At the end of January, we found we were "in favor" of marriage. I felt so excited and at the same time a little anxious. Was I sure I was sure about this? But I didn't have any complaints about Acius - it was more like the opposite (I had plenty of compliments for him). He and his family are funny in entirely new ways when compared to me and my family (not to say that I'm dull, just that novelty has certain perks, especially w/r/t humor). Acius is really everything I wanted in a man. After a few more weeks I felt really good about marriage. I told Acius I was sure about it and he just said he'd known for a while that he was sure about it. I wanted to tell everyone! Acius said he was more traditional and wanted to wait until he had a ring for me. This almost made telling my parents about my "secret engagement" more fun. I had the thrill of a little guilt in keeping a secret, relief in finding someone willing to put up with me forever, and excitement about starting a new lifestyle (which will include a real shower and our own kitchen!).

Acius is a fan of Japanese food, language, entertainment, and culture. To be honest I've always thought that Japan is pretty cool (although since it's popular right now it's harder for me to admit that). I had two Japanese pen-pals growing up, I spent a lot of time researching Japanese customs online over long summer internet surfings, I made origami cranes obsessively, I watched what anime I could access, and we hosted a few Japanese students when I was young. Acius and I were watching a Japanese drama with his friends and in the show they celebrated Valentine's Day and later White Day. Basically, in Japan, women give men chocolates (or ties) on Valentine's Day, and then a month later, men return the favor with chocolates or cookies. White day is kind of interesting because it was invented by confectionery companies (like our Valentine's Day). So I feel completely justified in adopting a custom that isn't steeped in religious significance. And I think it's more fun to stretch it out - what else is there in March? St. Patrick's Day?

So, Acius was sick on Valentine's Day, which was on a Sunday. I had made these lovely dark chocolate truffles, and I had a treasure hunt that went with it (my mom always made us treasure hunts for Valentine's day; I'm not sure how that started). Alas, it was not to be quite as I planned. I dropped the treasure hunt and  hitched a ride with Adam's parents who were bringing dinner to the temporarily-invalid. It turns out that even a sick Acius is capable of appreciating good chocolate.

With some various hints, I knew Acius was planning his retaliation on White Day (a month later), but I wasn't sure how. He picked me early to have dinner at his parents' house, still in his shirt and tie, and he gave me a box of chocolates. We went to Kiwanis park and walked around (I left the chocolates in the car). After some stalling, Acius suggested going back to the car. I read a nice letter he gave me and he said he wanted to tell me about the chocolates he bought me. I noticed that it had the outer wrapping of See's candies, but not the side seals. I thought that it might be a custom collection and they wrapped it differently. Anyway, I opened them up and there was a ring in the middle. Acius (it's so weird to use his internet moniker) started to explain the chocolates: "These are chocolate truffles, these are the ginger chocolate ones, these ones on the side are different fruit flavors, and this is the will-you-marry-me one..."
"Of course I will!"
Afterwards we told his family and everyone was smiley and happy for us. It seems like everyone has a little advice for how to plan a wedding, but luckily no one so far has weird demands (well, except Acius's sister, who said we should have veggie sushi, but I think we were kidding). I'm sure Acius could tell a long story about how the ring almost didn't arrive in time, and how he had to wrap the chocolates himself - but I'll leave that to him. ;-)

Part 2: Blogs are part of my network

I have been blogging since high school. This is my third blog; the second is quite easy to find if you know me at all, and the first no longer exists online. When I first started blogging, I didn't know anyone else who blogged. My blog entries were mostly a transcription of the day's events. Here's a sample entry from back then:

:P  - 8/9/2001
Had a flute lesson, walked around while Joshua was having his swimming lesson. Read the first chapter of The Elfstones of Shanarra. Prtetty boring day so far... Also earned $$ in Harvest Moon II...

I read strangers' blogs and commented on them, and then they'd feel some sort of social obligation to comment back on mine. This was the entirety of my commenters - internet friends. With my second blog I found that some of my high school friends also had blogs, and we "subscribed" to each other's blogs. I still read blogs of strangers on the internet I had a common interest with, but I became fascinated by, well, internet drama and the insight a little research could give me to the lives of others - others I knew IRL (in real life). Comments became a kind of commodity of how popular my blog was. Now I feel like the dynamic of comments has shifted, at least in my blog-o-sphere. My friends read my blog to keep up on my life, and they only comment if they have something to say, and discussions in comment sections are rare. Discussions are much easier in person or on gchat or even on Facebook (either that or I don't discuss controversial issues).

Strangers do comment occasionally. One significant comment of this sort happened in September. This Acius fellow was somewhat unknown to me, but with our mutual acquaintance and Google's recommendation, he couldn't be terribly weird. I shelved researching this connection until I recovered from my summer fling (recall). When I felt like dating again, I reviewed my possible leads. Acius had a non-annoying, informative blog. With Hobbes's help, I found out that he was single and introduced myself on Facebook (I didn't see how he could find me non-creepily, but women on the internet can get away with more). For our first date (actually I called it "hanging out" but that was just to make it sound less scary) in November we saw a movie at International Cinema and afterwards Acius said "I guess I can give you a ride home." And thus started our knowledge of each other IRL.

Part 1: An Appropriate Background

Many things that later become important to me kind of lurk around in my life. I think I met Hobbes at a Russian 101 review before we were Board writers. He wore a leather jacket and headed up the Soviet Union, a Russian language study group (I kept meaning to go, but never attended). One summer ('07) at a Board party I saw him again. He gave me and Tangerine a ride to the grocery store so we could get buns for the hamburgers. Slightly crazy yet awesome: it's what I expect from other writers.

Hobbes likes to go places and do things to answer his questions. As the Red Team he'd get some writers together on a Saturday and we'd all answer overhours questions together. We went to the courthouse to try to talk to a policeman about some law. We surveyed the grass by the greenhouse and decided which kind was the best to lie on. One day the Red Team was just me and Hobbes and his brother Acius (also back in the summer of 2007). We investigated a huge pile of gravel on 2300 N and Canyon or University. "Yes, it looks like a pile of gravel" was the result of our investigation.  

Tangerine and Hobbes answered a lot of questions together (as team HaT), and I suspect that's how they started dating. Tangerine is a good friend of mine and she told me about how she adored Hobbes's family. She had Sunday dinner with them even when Hobbes was in Russia. She encouraged me to meet his family, but I couldn't think of a non-awkward way to do this ("Hi, my friend thinks we could be friends?"). So that is how I started to meet them.

in which I write about hating writing

Something I don't understand about myself right now is why I don't want to write anything. I dread writing short papers or stories. I can write well, and I've enjoyed it in the past, so what the heck?

My recent theory is that since I've been reading so much FANTASTIC writing, I realize that mine is vastly inferior and have developed an inferiority complex. I don't think this is quite the case. I'm reading about the same amount or less literature now as I did in the past. However, as a writing teacher and a student of English, I do feel much more self-conscious about my writing. Instead of just writing my ideas down, I'll often worry about how to write it. Instead of letting my natural voice take over, I find myself trying to guess what my professor or what other people will want to read. And I really hate that.

I started working on a personal essay (about last year's job) for the creative writing workshop I so stupidly decided to take. I find that the weightier material is actually more difficult to write about (I know other people have said this, but I didn't believe them). I found myself concentrating on the details of events rather than how I felt. It's hard to talk both about my feelings and explain the situations that led to those feelings. I'm not even sure if it's therapeutic to re-visit those feelings. I don't know what the point of writing about hard things is.

Another thing I don't like about my creative writing workshop is that because of my stupid and sudden dislike of writing I never have anything prepared for everyone to read, and I end up submitting something half-baked and now everyone knows how I can't write. And I'm going to have to hear them tell me all the problems I felt so painfully aware of. Instead of addressing my problem of difficulty of expression, we'll be discussing the problems of the things I wrote and what I unintentionally expressed.

I think part of the difficulty in writing about supervising parents was that I felt frustrated about so many things. I felt frustrated that the majority of the time my notes would not make a difference in court decisions. I felt frustrated that courts ordered stupid things. Like that a teenager had to visit with her dad every Monday night when she rather would have been with her friends. Even I didn't spend that much one-on-one time with my parents as a teenager. I felt frustrated that good parents didn't have much time with their children and that bad parents had oodles of time. I felt frustrated that money had to determine how often some parents could visit their children. I felt frustrated that I couldn't stop parents from continually emotionally abusing their children. I felt frustrated that some parents, despite their best intentions, continued to emotionally abuse their children. I felt frustrated that I had to choose between being polite and liked or being assertive and hated and following the rules. I hated how I became less sensitive to the suffering of children.

But I think focusing on all those things I didn't like isn't the whole picture. I became more appreciative of my own parents, and I learned that I want to marry someone who will be a good father (not just a good husband, if that makes sense). And I think in some ways I'm more sensitive to child cruelty. I've decided that I don't want to be sarcastic about my children until they'll understand it, because I know that that's something I could very easily slip into. I still don't know what I think about parental rights. I find myself varying between too extremes ("screw biology!" and "let parents do whatever they want!"), which probably indicates that some medium value is how I really feel. And now you have all the reflection that I should have included in my personal essay, because I was too worried about how it would come out and how all those MFA students would read it.

"experimental" English 150 course?

Among the many exciting things in my life right now, I am excited about my experimental section of English 150. If they let me, I'll teach a class centered around pop culture - its rhetoric, and by extension, our view of it. Instead of doing a weird op-ed on something annoying on campus, students will get to reflect on their experience with a piece of art in their lives (including a Disney movie, if they so wish). Basically I just changed the course content to be stuff in popular culture, but I think this will encourage students to write (or make them hate their favorite TV show, either one). I only wish I had found a textbook of some sort that would guide us... but I know what we want to do, and the current text isn't bad. I'm still hoping to write a text-based adventure game to use in ANY English 150 course, and we'll see if I can get any outside funding for it (even though I know it's a long shot). By a great stroke of luck, Acius seems to have a lot of experience programming text adventures...

Oh, and if you haven't already, check out Braid. My sister bought me a copy and it is awesome.

Making computer games an educative subject

Please nominate for me browser-based games which would be educational to do a rhetorical analysis on in a classroom/computer setting (and/or ideas on how to teach freshman composition in an awesome way). I'm thinking of proposing an experimental section which would use computer games, and while I guess I could require students to buy a game, I'd rather use free ones if I can.

Current candidates:
Level Up!: The "story," characters and game rules mess with traditional game conventions. It "says" things about time and learning. It aims to please multiple audiences.
The Company of Myself: This puzzler gets kind of hard (I'm stuck on the one where they're like "timing is important"), so I'd be reluctant to expect students to get very far, but I like how it also messes with time and repetition. I wonder how similar it is to "Braid" (another game I want to play, which costs actual dollars). I like that it doesn't shy away from being hard; it's not meant to be a mindless game.
Flash Portal: The first few levels introduce the paradigm-shifting portal system. Later on you just have to be fast at making portals, which I find less cool. Their audience is probably, I don't know, fans of Portal or people who wanted to play Portal.
Radical Play: A somewhat annoying racing game. The cool part is you can win by crashing into the other cars or by winning the race. They don't even pretend to use real physics, which is funny, and doing flips to get points or energy (I don't recall) is kind of fun.
Super Energy Apocalypse: Gameplay isn't terribly original, but it has a complex message - we need to defend ourselves but we also need to take care of our waste to prevent zombies from taking over.

Okay, so what would we do with these games in the classroom? It's possible to do a classic rhetorical analysis (RA) - who is the target audience, why are the elements of the game fun (instead of persuasive?) for that particular audience. Are computer games persuasive, and of what? Could writing about computer games prepare students to write in other contexts? Currently we write on a bunch of op-eds for the RA, which seem to me just as irrelevant to most majors as computer games.

Also, I was thinking of just single-player browser based games that a student could beat in one or two sittings, but could a MMORPG be helpful in a classroom context? We could be part of the same guild in KoL, and it would be fairly easy to track student progress... okay this is getting weird, I'm not sure how/if that would work. Have you played Crimson Room? That might be too hard or too easy to get a walkthrough for. Well, now you know what I've been fantasizing about: playing computer games in my classroom.

"It may be cheaper by the dozen but it's potentially wasteful."

I cleaned the kitchen, mostly, and I feel so accomplished.

Acius took me out to Five Guys last night and it was quite delicious. Maybe mushrooms do belong on a hamburger. But it was even funnier to listen to Acius grumpy: "How long do you think it will take before there's a law about food portions?" "It is impossible to eat this much." "In Japan, you can buy a single egg in a box." Haha. ^_^ He's so cute!

This mushy post justified by an upcoming romantic holiday!

Also: I love this photo I took over Christmas vacation. It reminds me of Alice in Wonderland.