Month: January 2014

I would very much like to punch Sarah Palin in the face. I’d like to think that Dr. King would take one look at her and say, out loud, “Bitch, please.” His non violent approach would forbid him from punching her outright, which is why I’d do it for him. Palin, and those like her try to turn any person of color into a racist, just because we identify and reflect on the fact that there are some who will view us differently simply due to the color of our skin. I’m used to that, but for her to do such a thing while invoking the ‘I have a dream’ speech on MLK day is straight up wrong.

Here’s the thing: I have it a hell of a lot better than my ancestors. I have it better than my mother by a long shot. I am in a world where being black is almost trendy in some places. It isn’t status quo, as being white is. I still face racism. I still live in a world where people scrunch up their mouths when my wife explains she is married to a black man. This is a tolerable circumstance in the face of Emmett Till and the Watts riots.

Here is the other thing: Racism did not miraculously disappear or even plateau because we have a black president. The fact he is called a black president when clearly his mother is white is proof that racism is far from gone. One drop black still means black, even in 2014.

This day I’m remembering Dr. King for what he would have done as much as what he did. King’s legacy is that we all carry with us this dream of a better tomorrow. We see the worth of hope and it makes change easier to sacrifice for. Sarah Palin ought to tweet that, and leave the quoting of King himself to those who are driven to pull his words out of context.

I’m constantly inspired by good writing. This evening The Following premiered season 2 and I broke the seal on Dr. Sleep. It is only coincidence that I was deep in thought about next semester’s theme at the time. The English/Sociology LC is focusing on the idea of Modern Tribes. We’ll be in a MMO format playing a game called Wartribes. The other LC I’m involved in this fall is a combo English/Critical Reading course. I have a partner for this course and the way we work is we both bring ideas to the table and figure out what works best for the students. When I thought about the fall course, the idea that this day of horror and death ushered forth is one of, well, horror and death.

If you follow TV, you may notice that the majority of shows involve murder, death, and afterlife. This theme follows through most shows and in most shows murder itself is seen as a simple act, given complexity or gravity only if the character is a longstanding one or the act of murder itself is particularly interesting.  This obsession with wickedness intrigues me. I wonder how it would fit into a nuanced research course? There are a lot of directions to be travelled in the study of the macabre. There is opportunity for real understanding of media and the human psyche. Above all else, there is real possibility to research, read about, and write something very interesting.

That there is the key to developing a love for the craft.

There is so much about the universe we don’t know that I find it hard to fully accept the notion that anything we dream or consider isn’t, somehow, real somewhere. I used to limit this philosophical notion to the idea of mutants, dragons, ghosts, goblins, and the occasional Decepticon. These days I suspect the very idea of God may in fact arise from something concrete. Misunderstood, to be certain, but certainly concrete.

God, as preached in multiple religions, is the singular entity that created Adam and Eve. The hows are buried in convoluted metaphor, which makes sense because the idea of a God is an entity beyond the reach of our imagination and thus understanding. There is no reason an entity of this sort couldn’t exist. It is no less likely that an entity with the power to create a people in its own image exists than it is likely that we exist. While I don’t personally  subscribe to any of the cloud of social rules attributed to this entity (I don’t much believe in a petty God, unless the purpose of mankind is to be running a set script for a purpose or to be a sample set for some galactic experiment), I do believe that such an entity could both exist and feasibly have decided to manipulate a planetary situation in such as way as to create children.

I’m just musing here, but it sure is fun.

When I was a kid I was on the razor edge of technology. I cradled my commodore 64 like a Shadowrun Cyberdeck and bled BASIC. As I grew older the tech curve shortened into a wheel and rolled away from me so fast that I can barely see it on the horizon. Last year I picked up my first iphone, a 4s that was utterly outdated even as I was signing the receipt. Still, the device supports many of the newfangled applications all the kids are using these days. Of course, I’m not a kid anymore, so I’m lucky if I’ve even heard of them let alone used them.

Today being a cool kid means having access to a secret world of technology that us grown-ups wouldn’t even imagine. When we finally do imagine and, have mercy, discover the tech, the kids abandon it like Titanic rats. Twitter, Facebook, Google, all are the hot stuff in the media and dead space in the mind of the digital pioneers. Heck, even snapchat is reaching the end of its quiet lifespan, having recently (and regrettably) turned down a 3 Billion dollar buy out bid from Facebook. I’m left to wonder what is next?

A friend just turned me on to Glide, a video text service–one that operates outside of the facetime standard. It leads me to believe that there are other things out there of this sort, and, not for the first time, how deep the rabbit hole goes. For a time hackers made their name known by breaking high security sites. These days coders are running the same hustle–coding alternative social media connectors in an effort to be noticed and dip into the enormous wealth and buying capital of the kids of the world. The next wave of social media applications will be smarter, faster, and totally alien to former Commodore hacks like myself. Given the surprising financial accessibility of the upcoming Google glass, it is likely these future apps will also be incredibly visual.

Augmented Reality, here we come.

Some time ago I mentioned I’d give a novel to the site. I’m ready to break ground on that novel, starting with the core conflict as I see it now. Of course, in all writing a project does evolve over its lifespan, so what you see here are the first baby steps of a plot.

Okay, I’m done qualifying.

The novel is a world story, so the world itself and the changes that unfold is a focal part of the story. We see this change through two primary focal characters who are both people out of place.

The first, Elin is not of the race of man. He is a being of another kind (still unnamed–haven’t found anything that feels right). His kind are avatars of a much older race, and the magic of the world flows through his veins, warping him and giving him a visage that immediately sets him apart from others. He is only able to hide this because of the reluctant help he receives from the Thane’s mage. The mage casts a glamour on Elin so he may walk among men, but that glamour–all magic really–has devastating effects on his body and his mind. He is often wracked with pain and vivid dreams that are, in a sense, premonitory, but are so layered in symbolism that it is impossible for him to decipher the dreams. Of course, he will need to decipher the dreams at some point in the story in order to advance the story.

Tharsis Drennan is the second character. He is also a man out of place. An orphan, adopted by the man who murdered his parents, Tharsis was raised around royalty and born to grasp the mantle of Knighthood. He is not meant to walk among the Paladin, the Kings holiest of knights, because to take the blood bond would prove that he is not of the blood of the people and would ensure his death and his father’s ruin. Yet, his prowess as a warrior and as a military commander has caught the eye of the crown and Tharsis is being shoved towards the path of the Paladin–a path he is honor bound and name bound not to refuse.

My story centers around a murder that pits these two characters against each other to uncover the culprit before an even darker truth emerges and plunges the world into a chaos it may never recover from.

In teaching these game classes I’ve stumbled into rocky terrain. I’m presently having to build and restructure a wealth of assignments, lessons, etc. Gamifying (its a word, dammit) a class means more than just adding the competitive element. You need to create themed scenarios that simulate real world experience and then quantify the value of those experiences in a way that leaves room for success in competition. On the positive, it forces me to look back at the work and teaching I’ve been doing and, in reframing, improve the quality and clarity of what I am producing.

There’s the life lesson I’m taking away from this: Doing the same thing over and over again doesn’t necessarily make you good at something. It makes you skilled in doing something that may just suck.

Tomorrow my classes are entering the character creation phase of the game. I’ll be getting to know them a lot better and they will be getting to know each other a lot better. By Tuesday we’ll be deep into project based learning.

Hopefully i’ll be ready.

The upcoming slate of games have been on my mind, and knowing that after tomorrow’s flag practice the last thing I’ll want to think about is Football, I opted to test the waiver wire tonight. I find myself in the uncomfortable position of having to revise my Super Bowl picks. I still believe in the Seahawks, but I am starting to doubt the defensive possibilities of the Broncos. Quentin Jammer is next man up beside fallen cornerback Chris Harris. Without Harris, the Broncos are due to be shredded by Brady’s pinpoint accuracy. So, instead of a sure thing, the Broncos are walking into a potential shoot out against a defense that is starting to come around.

Patriots over Broncos
I don’t think there is enough offense to get the job done for Manning. I hope dearly that I am wrong about this.

Seahawks over ‘The World’
They aren’t playing lights out football, but they are playing at home. The 12th man advantage will be more than enough to quell an upstart Niners offense–that is if Optimus Prime can keep Anquan in check..

My body sure chose a perfect time to get sick.
The first week of class is where students get to link up with the teacher and gain a deep understanding of what the class and the in-class relationships are going to look like. Needless to say, being sick and absent messes up that dynamic and creates a strange if not strained relationship for weeks to come. I’m not in so deep that I’ll miss class, but eating seems a distant memory.

I wonder if my health is linked to my writing, because I have struggled for topics for weeks now. Its part of that cycle of writing. Sometimes you have great things to say. Sometimes you have tonight.

My initial excitement for the semester has turned to a sense of trepidation as I struggle to prepare for tuesday’s load of classes. I’m good for monday, at least. In fact my partner and I have projected out several weeks. She’s the organization arm in this operation–a skill I’ve yet to completely master. I wasn’t ready to go back yet. Two weeks and three days is a drop in the bucket to someone used to a month of vacation after every semester. That month is enough time to switch gears and become the full time writer and dad that I’m not during a 16 week semester.

The vacation was short but it ended well. I’m pleased about the way the flag football season started. I’m inspired to step up the practices in order to really drill down on some of the weaknesses I saw the kids have and build more on the strengths that got them through the game. Confidence was something I really worried about after an abysmal scrimmage, but confidence ran very high through all three teams, and infected us coaches. Now the challenge is making sure I’m getting everyone involved in the situations that will make them most successful.

One headache going into the new school year is the constant specter of trying to do too much. I’m aware of it now. I know it lives on my shoulder. The key will be controlling that urge so I can give my energy to the handful of tasks I know I can manage.

It is no secret that students hate English class. The bold ones will remind you of this fact on the first day… and the second… and three weeks in once they see their grades. The challenge as an instructor is to create a compelling learning environment that forces them to engage with text in all the necessary ways, but also keeps them excited about learning. In my experience the only thing I’ve found that keeps people excited and engaged for that long a period of time is a video game–specifically MMOs. So, obviously, I turned my class into an MMO.

I call the game Dominion. The backstory is that control–of ideas, values, virtues–has been taken out of the hands of the people and quietly placed in the hands of a cadre of corporations who control various aspects of the social message through movies, books, religion, etc.

The students start off the game (the first day of class) as freelancers taking jobs from these different corps. The jobs involve writing, research, and rhetorical analysis. They are being asked to deconstruct arguments, create marketing campaigns for specific audiences, even propose specific actions in regards to local and global situations. Each job is worth a certain amount of experience, which leads to students gaining levels. The higher their level, the higher their grade. Those who make it to level 10 will earn an A.

I’m conducting this game in two learning modes. There is an online class doing the game and a two face to face classes doing the game. This will give me small sampling of the student experience and help me make any relevant changes to the model this summer (for online) and fall.

I’m pretty excited about the classes. I even assembled an opening video with animoto to get them hyped for the game. You can find that here.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Flag football went as well as it possibly could. 4 games and 4 wins with the kids playing their tiny hearts out. I’m a proud dad after that effort.