The Start of the Summer

So, today, with blatant disregard to the list I had made earlier this week, I started reading Orson Scott Card’s novel, Ender’s Game.

It’s one science fiction novel that I actually sit-down and read. I can’t say that I usually enjoy Sci-Fi, but I can say that this book is way cool. Briefly, it’s about a young boy, Ender (duh), who is a six-year-old genius who is being trained to become a military leader in the art of war. Aliens have already attacked the earth twice, and it is up to young Ender, who already knows that time is running out, to save the planet.

Corny Sci-Fi plot aside, this book is worth reading because of the voice of the young protagonist. Even though he is only six, the mental capacity and awareness of this kid is amazing. It’s cool how Orson Scott Card develops the thought patterns of Ender. I just started the book today, it’s about 325 pages, and I’m already more than half way through it. It’s a good read, and I recommend it.

In other news, my friends and I went to Brooklyn for the weekend. It was Kathleen’s housewarming party. Good times. Besides drinking warm Blue Moon’s on the train, I would say the best part of that night came with the 4AM trip to get sandwiches. Who knew a three dollar sangwich could be so delicious. I was skeptical, so I didn’t get a sandwich. But, somehow, I think I ended up eating way more than one sub. I split half of Eddie’s with Brooks, and I ate Andy’s other half. There was another mayonnaise-infested sub that I also think I ate too much of.

When I got back after, eating the sangwiches, I proceeded to drink an entire Yoo-Hoo in about one-tenth of a second. Bad idea. After sleeping for about 30 minutes on Kathleen’s oh-so-comfortable kitchen floor and waking with a Doritos chip in my hair, I decided to just go ahead and get some of that out of my stomach. Nah, honestly, I didn’t have much of a choice. I’m sure all of the booze didn’t help, either.

Anyway, that sounds horrible but I did have a good time. It would have been better if Kathleen, and the cabbie for that matter, had any idea where she lived. Ha.

Since I’ve been home, I’ve been eating incredibly healthy because of my parents’ diet. This is good and bad. It’s good for obvious reasons, but, I’ll tell you, if that Doritos chip was still in my hair, I would love to eat it.

I’m going to go try to find it. Cheers.

So THIS Is What Blogs Are For

The past eighteen hours or so have become unfortunately stressful for me. It seems that, although I am slightly excited to travel home for the summer, packing and cleaning is more than I bargained for. My roommate has already left; however, there is so much work left to be done (after I spoke with the landlord) that I’m not going to be able to come home until really late tonight (probably tomorrow). Right now, I’m just so frustrated that I’ve decided to sit down and blog. Just to get my mind off of things for a while.

I still have to polish up an essay for publication into the English Journal. I’m excited that my professor is encouraging me to submit it, but I’m not particularly excited about spending MORE time on schoolwork. Ultimately, I just want to head home and, maybe, go to the city tomorrow. That's not going to happen if I end up stuck here again tonight. Eh, I guess I’ll try to be optimistic… I am going to go. I am going to go. I am going to go.

Another piece adding to my bitterness is the fact that we handed in the cable box, and et cetera, only to be left with a really, really crappy connection. Now, this wouldn’t have been a problem if I were to have left yesterday as planned. You all get the point.

So, in thinking positive, I’d like to focus on some of the books that I want to read this summer. I always look forward to summer reading. This year, I think I’m going to catch up on some YA titles, as I said before. I’ve never read The Outsiders or Twilight, so I want to tackle them. I just ordered Paul Shirley’s book, The Contortionist’s Handbook, and Slaughterhouse-Five. Those will be the first to be read, probably in that order. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

I was able to chat with some really influential people this week, and I would love to write more about it, but I’m going to wait until after one more meeting tonight. For now, I’m going to work on this paper for the Journal. Hopefully I’ll be online from my house tonight.

Even if I leave tomorrow, I bet you I can still make it to the city… maybe.

Cheers

"It's Something Unpredictable"

Whew! It’s all over, I think. Well, for this semester in any case. It’s funny, though. I’ve never quite enjoyed school as much as I am now. I’m learning some truly remarkable things. It makes me look forward to my future. Awesome.

Anyway, I understand the blogging has been sparse; however, I assure you that I’m back. There are a lot of things that I’ve failed to blog about that are important to me because of my hectic semester. As it turns out, taking four classes, doing an assistantship, and helping teach was tolerable. I guess it’s just because I’m enjoying it all. It looks like my GPA will be fruitful, also.

So here are some of the things that I want to make my priority this summer. First off, I want to make sure I read a lot. There are a lot of…well… YA books that I feel that I’m obliged to read as a future high-school English teacher. And to be honest, they all seem like they’re going to be pretty Rad, anyway.

Also, given my interests in technology and the teaching of English, I’ll be talking a little about Second Life (See picture above). I’ve been doing extensive research on it, and I’d love to tell you folks (DAVE, you skeptic) about what the REAL deal is. So, I’ll take you on a journey or two in the next couple of days. I’m not a big video-gamer or anything, but I see potential in this. Also, I went to a couple lectures and see that a lot of higher-Ed. people are buzzing about it. And… who knew! Steve’s in SL, also. I’m being vague intentionally. I don’t want to spoil future posts.

One of my really good friends, Eddie, is moving to Florida in a couple of days. I’m happy for him because it seems that he is genuinely excited about the up-coming experience; although, he is scared of crocodiles, and I’m not sure if Florida is the best place to go to avoid them. I guess it really doesn’t matter… if things go according to plan, he’ll only be there for a year or two, and then we’ll be moving to California to form our own little version of Entourage. That’ll be sweet.

So if you get the chance, you might want to go out of your way to meet Eddie before he moves away. This way, when he’s famous, you’ll be able to say you once knew “the man.” Oh, yeah, also, if you think “E” is pretty cool too, then you should find me; that’s right, that’s going to be me. Inquire within for the positions of Johnny Drama and Turtle. I’m the manager so applications go through me, kids.

Paul Shirley’s book came out yesterday, and I really need to get it. What a great writer...

Cheers

Just A Tease

Alright, I admit it… that was a bad idea. I was just feeling bad for not posting, so I figured that re-introducing old posts would suffice. My bad.

Anyway, it’s the end of the semester now. These are not fun times, I assure you. I have two 15-20 page papers, one with an annotated bibliography, two seven pagers, one project on the program Comic Life, one book project (which includes making a poster, duh), two seven page (single-spaced) responses, two books of literary criticism to read and teach, and one Lit. Circle book left to read and discuss all of which are due in two weeks. Additionally, I have to do all of this while upholding my responsibilities to my Assistantship and ENG 307. I don’t like to think about it.

A while back I wrote a post about Bruce Coville’s visit to my 619 class. It was a well-developed and inspirational post; however, I couldn’t post it the day I wrote it (because Blogger was being Lame) and is now officially M.I.A. If I come across it again, I’ll post it.

I also want to write about my new-fangled experiences with pedagogical classes, such as Issues in the Foundations of Education. It seems like those education majors are a different type of breed than that of what I am used to. I would love to explain more but doing so now would only postpone my work on the aforementioned list; it would also be detrimental to my G.P.A. I won’t allow it.

Plus, I’m already assuring myself to have most of this done by next Friday in order to attend the Brand New concert here at good ol’ Cortland.

For those who missed me… this post is for you.

Cheers

A New Idea

Because I am so busy, I've decided that it would be a good idea to post some of the ideas that I've discussed on my previous blog, ray's so-called career. I won't be publishing to this blog anymore, so I don't want to lose the ideas that I had; therefore, it would make sense for me to do this.

Also, as you probably noticed, I've decided to re-name this blog. I figured that this title is much more appropriate. And, considering that I'm combining the two, t just made sense.

So, here's a post that I published about a seven months ago. I thought this was interesting; let me know what you think.

I'll also include the original comments and it's original location.

Grammar Blaster?
Tuesday, September 12, 2006

While I was reading Grand Theft Education, all I could think about was the game Math Blaster…

It’s a ‘B’ Day*, seventh period, there’s only ten minutes left, everyone’s squirming out of their seats… but why? There are still two, long, periods left in the day, before they can go home.

Well, eighth period was more-or-less like another lunch period; every student looks forward to lunch. After History with Mr. INSERT NAME I FORGOT HERE, the pupils who had Computer Lab on ‘B’ days would dash over to room 110C. In this classroom, we would have the opportunity to take part in a few select activities. It wasn’t like the other classes, not as tedious and uninteresting. Today, in Computer Lab, the kids were practicing using Microsoft Word. And, if they accomplished their exercises with time remaining, they were permitted to play Math Blaster.

Math Blaster was a dreadfully straightforward video (computer) game in which students would guide their hero (an admirable space traveler) through the galaxy by adding, subtracting, and multiplying. If you were clever enough to bring our hero the entire way, to the last level, you would be challenged even further: fractions…

It was an uncomplicated fixture; however, it was extremely entertaining. I don’t actually know if I, personally, ever got far in this game (Probably not, I suck at Math), but I do remember that it was a competition—we all enjoyed it.

Now, I don’t know how popular this game ever became outside of our computer lab walls, but I do know that our school definitely treasured it. It was put into practice accidentally, but after the teachers saw how effective it was, they decided to keep it.

Now that I am learning about technology in the classroom, I can see the advantages to video games. They could be very useful tools when teaching our students—especially when it comes to keeping them interested in the material and expanding on multiple literacies.

Maybe there could be The Great Gatsby: The Game. Students would need to read the book in order to progress in the game. Symbolism and Irony, etcetera, would serve as a way to guide Gatsby through this adventure.

Ha, I know that’s a giant stretch. But, in all seriousness, I’m convinced that there is a way that video games could be implemented—and the article Grand Theft Education has helped me to believe that. I must admit that I was a little bit of a skeptic at first. But, it all comes down to what Zengotita said, “Everyone in the overdeveloped world will have the tools they need to create this amazing stuff, whether it be blogs or films or games" (39).


*In Wallkill Middle School, where I was educated, the students had to adhere to the each day as either an ‘A’ day, or a ‘B’ day. The classes were different depending on which day it was.

2 comments:

Jenn said...

I had the game "Math Blaster" at home. My parents got it for us when they bought our computer. It was a fun game even though, I too, suck at math.

Side note: Does anyone else know or did anyone else have a game console (like nintendo or sega) called "Socrates?" You didnt put "games" into it, but it did have its own games on it, stored in what Im guessing now is a hard drive, that where all educational. I remember playing it growing up and learning many things on it from math to spelling.

(As you can tell my parents were big on the educational entertainment in my house. I blame my nerdiness on them)

I agree a Gatsby game would be interesting. Maybe before we get into our own classrooms we'll see it happen.

9/12/2006 2:19 PM

natalie said...

I think the most important thing mentioned here is that even people who didn't do well in math and who probably didn't like it all that much managed to like "Math Blaster." The same could happen in a literature classroom. Students who dislike reading may be motivated to do their work if they can play a game to show/demonstrate what they have learned. I think that there's a general belief that learning and fun don't mix well. Clearly, this is not the case, and i look forward to incorporating games any time I get a chance to.
Nat

9/13/2006 10:16 AM