Evolution of Gaming Needed

Anyone seen the YouTube sensation Judson Laipply's Evolution of Dance? Well, I think we should work together to describe the Evolution of Gaming. How did we move from active teenagers to inert Facebook spuds?

The only "games" I enjoy these days are the ones I play with my kids (Wii bowling, Rummicube, Blokus) or on my computer because I no longer want to get hot and sweaty in the South Georgia heat with tiny, black gnats flying up my nose and inside my mouth. It's been so long since I've had to use the up-blow (you know, that quick burst of air that shoots from your mouth, bottom lip pushed out over the top lip so that the air hits your nose and eyes) to rid my face of gnats that it is probably ineffective by now.

So how did I get from playing a sport every season as a teenager to wasting away in front of Facebook's Pathwords--hey, can I blame Facebook? Everyone else does. This would be a good week to vent at FB because everyone is mad about the format change. But I digress. How did I evolve from that happy-go-do-everything teen to can't-wait-to-sit-down adult?

(Aside: I'm looking forward to meeting many of you this summer!)

Game, Set, and Match

Actually, this is my first post to the blog, and I do not know how to play this game. Surprising, as one of the technical liaisons, I am suppose to embrace all new technology; however, bits and numbers are more comforting in some ways than revealing the self. How does one play at technology? My students do it all the time (even during class if I don't stop them). What is the attraction of twittering, blogging, Facebooking, and texting?

Texting . . . have you tried walking across campus without having to dodge students so intent on texting that they don't even watch where they are going? Is it a new status game that they have concocted, saying I have the technology and I must use it as I am so cool? Have they read the reports that texting rewires the brain? Are they hoping for that? Even in class, they hold their phones down below desk level, hoping that it won't show that they are not paying attention. It is their game of putting one over on the teacher. What is so important that they cannot show the slightest bit of respect to the teacher? Oooh, I'm venting now, hence, the attraction of blogging, laying it out there for potential readers.

Actually, tweets are more attractive to me in that they are so compressed in size if I would learn how to do it. I am not really interested in posting what I am doing every minute of the day. That doesn't stop some people. Why do some of our legislaturers feel that they are doing their constituency a service by twittering away their day and the current status of bills that most people are not paying any attention to? Venting again. I will try to stop.

Facebook, which if you are a Catholic, you should give up for lent. What does that say about the use of the site. That it is indulgent? Sort of eating too much chocolate? Even though I have started a Facebook page with the hopes of reconnecting with my widely dispersed family, it is not anything like chocolate to me. Therefore, it must be the attraction of social competition, a game to see how many friends you can accumulate and who has the most outrageous post. Limiting my Facebook page to my relatives has really left that game kinda flat for me. Oh well. On that flat note, I will end my first post. ;-)

Game, Set, Match

Rebecca's been playing on the Wii, and I've been avoiding it. It was supposed to be my fun exercise, but I've been traveling too much, and it's a bit bulky to take with me. I've been back since Tuesday and haven't been on it except to weigh, which is really not fun after traveling a lot. Apparently, I'm still superstitious, believing that calories don't count when I travel. Plus, we just finished a round of BWP interviews, which usually involves eating out, drinking lots of coffee, and stressing myself out over the decisions we have to make. And surely everyone knows that stress prompts stupid eating. Let me just say that I excel at stupid eating. Other people may kick butt at Monopoly or Wii bowling, but not me, although I did earn over 400 points in Wii soccer (just to give you a new goal, Rebecca).

I'm not sure where I'm going with this except that I feel compelled to write on the blog since I missed Write Night. I think it's the first one I've missed in the three years of Write Night. Shame, shame, shame. Of course, even worse than missing Write Night is inviting new BWP Fellows without setting them up to be able to write on the blog. To make it even worse, I didn't have Internet access, so no one could get in touch with me to fix the problem. When I mess up, I do it right. (Go, Donna, it's your birthday--actually, it's not, but I like that little chant.) Well, I have since invited all the people who asked me to do so, and I hope that takes care of the problem for a while.

What else should I write? I don't know. I'm rambling incoherently and on the Internet for everyone to see. That's smart, isn't it? In addition, I'll print this entry and put it in my notebook for my 1101 students to see. Oh, my 1101 students, I don't want to go there right now. Some of them are breaking my heart--or at least scarring it just a little.

Usually, I write longer entries, but so far this entry is making me feel like a failure, so maybe I should wrap it up. No point in depressing anyone who bothers to read it . . . Can you tell today it's midterm at VSU? Last day to drop the class. I keep checking my 1101 class in hopes that some will do so. I will miss them, but I want them to save their GPAs.

Hmm, let's see, I've complained about my weight, about traveling too much, about screwing up Write Night, about students who make bad grades. Surely, I can find a good note to end on.

I went to the beach. I went to the beach. I went to the beach. I love the beach. Granted, it was very cold, but a cold day at the beach beats a warm day in Valdosta. Plus, I bought some new shoes, spent some lovely time with friends and family, and hung out in the hot tub at least once every day. I went to the beach! Yay, me.

Games

Well, when I was a child, I didn't like games, too afraid I would make a mistake or look foolish. Now, I have learned to be myself, and hide those insecurities where only I know they still whisper. As I have gotten older, I find I am not just more willing to take chances, I am actually competitive and have to be careful.

When I had my kids, it was like a new beginning for me. I could be silly and I had an excuse. Kids didn't care whether I was worried about how it looked, in fact, for them, the sillier the better. So, my kids allowed me regress as I got older and in the process learned to enjoy myself.

A few years ago, my sister visited, and on a whim, the calling of the trampoline was answered. Well, you never saw such a sight, both of us were a little larger than we should have been, but neither had ever been on a trampoline. Those pictures were burned LOL The following year, I got on again, this time with my parents, well, you never saw such a spectacle. In the process of allowing myself to play and have fun, my own kids have kept their ability to do things that might not be just so so for teens, but they know it is great to have a lairy five minutes and enjoy moment.

I always bought board games for my kids at Christmas, but as they got older they were more into video and electronic games. I have a hard time with those, since I am about blind in one eye and can barely see out of the other. I like to play scrabble and backwords, but no one else I know will play them they say I cheat LOL Of sourse I don't, but I also do not like to lose and definitely expand my word base as needed.

There are some scrabble games online, but I haven't had a chance to play lately. I took on 3 classes and am playing at catch up. I swear one day as I came in the back door I saw my rear end head out the front door. . .

Of course there are a lot of other games I play, but fornow I will keep those to myself *wink, wink* LOL

And on that note, I had better be off and go play at being a student and write these blasted drop in lesson plans for the reading class. Do those professors really think we can pick and choose and rearrange our schedules at their whim?? Evidently, the answer to that is a resounding yes. Good this the first degree you ever get is in BS, we need it to survive the rest.

good times

Hmm...games, yes, I knew what the topic was ahead of time, but I don't know where I want to go with it, so...

-Anna looking out the window today, saying, "Pway ba!" (Play ball-the neighbors kids were playing basketball.)
-Deciding at ten o'clock Friday night that we would drive to Tampa Saturday (and back) to see a Braves spring training game.
-Going on road trips with the IBTC in high school to watch baseball games
-passive-aggressive games people play when they don't want to just come out and say something
-games at Diana's house hehe!
-Survivor games in class
-"pretend"

Okay, we'll go with "pretend." When we were little, my cousin Lauren and I were the queens of "pretend." Every year we went on vacation with my Granny to either Disney World or St. Augustine. On Saturdays and during the summer, we could be seen riding up and down the driveway on our bikes, either holding hands in the middle or one behind the other, and we were normally saying, "Parents please take all small children by the hand when exiting the tram. Once aboard step away from the doors; they will close automatically. Upon exiting the tram, be sure to gather all personal belongings. Thank you and enjoy your day at the Magic Kingdom!" I have no idea how many times we heard that on the monorail ride at Disney, but we knew every line by heart. We made stops at the oak tree and the cow field to pick up passengers. And every now and then, the monorail would get stuck-in the kitchen of course.

Another Disney game we concocted was to be from another country. I remember waiting in lines and thinking that it was so cool that all those people could speak different languages. Here we were just speaking boring old english and with a southern accent to top it off. So,we decided that we would speak German. I knew some German from staying with my Oma when I was little. The plan was for us to hold hands as we waited in line. I would ask Lauren a question in German, and she would answer in German, yes or no (the only two words I managed to teach her in line at It's a Small World) depending on if I squeezed her hand or not. If there was anyone around us that spoke German, I know they got a good laugh out of hearing us. My questions were things like, "How old are you?" and "Do you like blue?" Followed of course by, "Do you like green?"

It's funny to me now to think that when we were little, we wanted to be different, but something about growing up seems to steal that desire from a lot of people. It's too bad we can't stay little where the games are fun and pretend, not real and manipulative. I think one of the greatest things about having a child is that I have regained the right to play games, to pretend and imagine without making excuses or explanations to anyone.

My own topic, y'all!

The word “holiday” itself is a kind of misnomer if you think about it. It comes from “holy day.” Back in the early modern that happened a lot to words. It makes me laugh for an atheist to say “goodbye.” What they’re really saying is a compressed form of “God be with you.” Anyhow, holidays are all well and good, but I forget about them most of the time. I forgot Valentine’s and was none the worse off. Oh hell, I just realized that this is last month’s topic. What the heck? What is March’s topic? I think it should be…

“Meditations on Birds, Rainbows, Elves, and Ponies.”

I never had a pony when I was a kid, but I had a bird once but it flew away. It was a yellow canary, and one day when we got home from school the bird was gone. Now I’m not saying that my dad released it on purpose, but that would fit his ways to a T. I had another wild bird once that I named Martin. I found it on the playground at school. I should have known that any bird worth its salt wouldn’t have let me pick it up. Anyhow, I took the bird home and put in the now vacant canary’s cage. One night we got back from somewhere, and the bird was stiff on its perch. OK, enough about birds. My mom claimed it probably froze to death, but it was summer. I knew better. The air conditioner was on though.

Once I saw a rainbow; I chased it far and wide. No pot of gold sat at its end. The clouds waxed clear, and the rainbow disappeared. Ah, “welladay.” That’s what the nurse said in Romeo and Juliet. Leprechauns used to live under my house and beat on the floor all the whole knight through. With their hot little hands they rapped upon the wood! And not a knight should pass but what I might ask him to seek out these small-bodied men; that’s what Leprechaun means in Irish you know. Rainbows make me happy because they guarantee that the earth will never be flooded again. ROYGBIV. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, these colors comprise the rainbow. “Arco-iris” is Portuguese for rainbow. I have a picture of a Brasilian rainbow over Pernambuco on the beach. Maybe I can go there for a holiday.

And some will say that Elves do not exist, but I will not force your divinity. I just ripped off Chaucer. When he was talking about how the witch Phitonissa raised Samuel from the dead in the Bible, he wrote, “And som wol say it wos ne hee, but I wol not fors your dyvynytee.” Anyhow elves pervade the Faerie Queene to such an extent that I now believe in them. Red Cross Knight and Sir Guyon were elfin knights. Spenser said that Faery Lond might be out there somewhere, a place where elf and man live side by side. They had just found Peru in 1590, so why couldn't a land of elves exist? I say Spenser was probably tossing back Irish beer when he wrote most of that stuff. I want to think elves have pointed ears, but that may be just a conflation with Spock’s look. Pointed ears might be cool to have. I bet there is someone out there who has had plastic surgery to get them. So the Leprechauns would keep me up every knight. A gentle knight finally came riding by the house on day on the way to buy some fertilizer, and I asked him where the Leprechauns came from. He said, “Ireland of course.” Well, then I’m like, “how the heck did they get here?” And although I was only seven or so, I had memorized the atlas already. I knew that it was very far from Georgia, the whole Atlantic. So he really just thought he could fool a little kid. So I told the knight to get the heck away from my house. I took out a 30.06 over and under shotgun and shot those little bastards on December 12, 1983. I never heard from them again. But I bet Phitonissa raised them from the dead and sent them back to Ireland to run with the Banshees.

Games Elmores Play

When I was growing up, board games were outlawed because a certain member of the Elmore family was a little too competitive.  (I'll let you guess who the Elmore is in question.)  One of our favorite games to play before it was banned was Monopoly.  (My mother was the one to ban it after a certain Elmore threw a tantrum after losing.   She had had enough.)   There were many a night spent traveling around the board, buying up property, passing "Go" and collecting $200, then collecting rent when someone was unfortunate to land on your property.  I reveled (sp) in acquiring large sums of money albeit fake money.  It's a wonder that I didn't go into real estate or some other cutthroat business.  (But if I was losing NOBODY had any fun.)   

As a pre-teen and teenager, I never got into video games.  It was probably because I lacked the hand-eye coordination necessary to be successful at them.  Instead I found solace in books. Occasionally, on Friday or Saturday night my best friend and I would go to the Fun Factory in the mall and play a few games while we scoped out guys.  We didn't always get the guys, but at least we got tickets for Skeeball, which we would redeem for some ridiculously cheap prize that we thought was so cool.

Just recently I bought a Wii for my parents.  (Seriously, they use it more than I do.)  But when I do get to use it, my competitive streak comes out.  I find myself wanting to do the soccer ball game until I beat my best score 120- something or hula hoop until my hips fall off to best my record to best record. (Yes, Donna.  I finally did it.  I scored 300- something!  I'm not lying!) 

My father, who is disabled, gets frustrated when he is not able to do something right away, and my mother is always quick to remind him of his daughter.  "How do you think Rebecca is able to do what she does?  She keeps doing it."  My father took my mother's advice to heart and has been diligently playing Wii everyday.  One Saturday I came home to him practicing his bowling skills.  Daddy got a little too overzealous and as he swung his right arm, threw himself out of his motorized chair.  As a result of that day, we always make sure that he is buckled into his chair.           

I am my father's daughter, so I you've ever wondered where I got my competitiveness, now you know.              

          

March Topic: Games

While the boss is away, the mice will play.  (Insert evil laugh here.)  Write about your favorite childhood games, games people play, or as Donna always says,  "write about whatever you want."