Sick Day

No school for me today. It's worse to be sick when its hot outside.

I apologize in advance for the schizophrenic nature of this entry. you will just have to deal until I become well again.

Upon explaining my current illness to the handsome and brave Mr. Casey James, he proclaimed that I am sick far too often. To which I replied that he is never sick. The formidaitable Mr. Casey James resounded saying, "I am unbreakable". Which for the most part is true unless it is early in the morning and by early I mean with 4 hours of his waking time or if he is hungry.

Enjoy the photos of the day...

1. The Clifs at Torrey Pines - the bird literally flew in at the exact moment I pressed the shutter.

2. Torrey Pines State beach - where I held back Scorched Squirel from stealing all the rocks.
3. From the Garden Walk on Saturday.

Award of the Day

Goes to.... drum roll please....
Safe Banana

No comment needed. Just pure brilliance and awe.

new new new

Oooooooooooo...




Yes!!! I have a new laptop and it likes to take pictures of me!







Ahhhhhhh......







It can take videos too, I'm sure you are on the edge of your seat waiting for the first video blog. Be patient, it may take a while!

Totally unrelated and not at all a photograph taken with my new laptop.

My favorite flowers, renuculas!!! Taken with my new favorite camera, Canon EOS Rebel xTi!!! I love them both equally.

Fell free to send me a bunch anytime ;)





More photos to come... today I went on a shopping trip with Jen and we got ourselves into all kinds of trouble, like wanting to purchase nearly everything in Pier One and scheming an elaborate plan on how to steal the giant tortoise from "Pet Kingdom" without the store clerk recognizing. Well, admittedly the tortoise scheme was just me, but it was nevertheless a fun trip.

I bought a lovely new bowl for my James, my schizophrenic beta fish, and a decorative elephant whom now graces our mantle!!! I love both and will post photos soon! Hopefully, I will be purchasing/acquiring a turtle or tortoise in the near future and consequently this blog my become a shrine to the glory of the shelled creature that I will love and cherish forevermore... no matter what Steve says about raccoons stealing him/her away for dinner!

Devil's haircut in my mind

Back to school... Spring quarter has begun.

This is the first quarter (since I've been at UCSD) that I am really excited and interested in all of my classes. I am getting used to this place, slowly but surely. Although there are still areas of the campus that I have never stepped foot on- this place is huge! And I'm still not used to the fact that there is not graffiti in the restrooms :) and no hot oatmeal in the price center :(

One of my classes is called "Computer Game Studies". And no this is not an April Fool's joke. It's a legitimate course and a legitimate field of study. As I learned today the first dissertation on gaming was actually written at UCSD in 1985 and since then research in this field is slowly becoming integrated into the academic system. And the course I am taking is the first offical gaming course offered at UCSD. Oh yes, I am part of history in the making! Most people whom I tell, "I'm taking a computer game studies course at UCSD" think I am joking. And most of the guys, that is after recovering from the fact that I am not in fact messing around, have this great expression on their face and I can tell what's running through their mind... "What!?! I am totally at the wrong school! I would Ace that class and Does this mean I could major in computer game studies? That is my dream!" It's quite entertaining. My roommate and boyfriend were both interested in my text books and I have a feeling I will be asking them both a million questions as the course continues.

So today, I go to the first lecture, convincing myself that I will be ok in class of mostly men. Surely, I will be one of the three females enrolled in this course. And it is most probable that the one or two of the other females will inevitably drop out before long. Leaving be to fend for myself in representing all of woman-kind. Well, quite to my surprise there is actually a good portion of female enrollees! The girl who sat next to me, immediately turned to me and commented that she was relieved and amazed that she wasn't the only female in the room.

I have never been in an academic course quite like this one... the amount of excitement in the air could be cut with a knife (or should I say a laser or some sort of WoW weaponry - which I will come to know very well in the next few months). When the professor began to divulge names of some of the games we would be playing, discussing and analyzing, the students would erupt into laughter, shocked by the fact that, yes, indeed we will be getting credit and earning a grade by discussing Mass Effect, playing WoW and yes, even further... we get free accounts (provided lovingly by our corporate sponsors Sony). The greatest reaction of all came when the professor announced that while we are expected to play games in the lab during our designated times, we would also need to play at home. The class erupted into laughter and professor continued to apologize saying, "...that's just the way it has to be... everybody has to do some homework now and then".

velingIt was quite entertaining to watch my classmates (males mostly) literally sit on the edge of their seats, hanging on every word that came from the professors mouth, marveling at each new announcement of games to be played. Even more, I have never been in a class where in the first session someone asked a question every other minute. Usually the first class meeting consists of the introduction of the slybus and a short lecture where virtually no student volunteers to speak whatsoever, expect for the occasional "Do you grade on a curve?" and "What's the format for the midterm/final?". No sir- my classmates couldn't wait to dive right in... within the first five minutes the professor asked if anyone had questions and 6 people raised their hands.

As the class went on, I found out that the girl sitting next to me was taking the course mostly for the same reasons I am. We both took a previous class in which we had to read a study on narratives in gaming and listened to a lecture about gaming, both of us are communication majors and both of our boyfriends play RPG's/MMO's and other video games) Luckily we are both in the same lab class together! So tomorrow we get to play Spacewar! and Adventure. I'll let you know how that goes!

So, one of the other reasons I am taking this class is because I am interested in studding the social networks that are created through gaming environments. And, the more I think about it, the more it makes me want to research this topic. I personally, would not in any way, consider myself a "gamer". I am not competitive and some games simply bore me. I think that is why I am so attracted to this topic, because it is something outside of my realm. A friend asked me yesterday if I was planning on going to graduate school. My immediate response- "NO WAY! I am already tired of school!" but, hearing what some of my T.A.'s are studding makes me want to reconsider the idea of grad school. One of my T.A.'s is studying the social constructs within country music and how this genre of music creates its own culture. You can literally study anything you want.

So great what does this mean? More school! Ooooooo that sounds so painful. Yet, the more I talk to friends who have graduated, entered "the real world" and become professionals, all tell me how much they miss school and how hard/exhausting/demanding their professional lives are. So who knows... now I am actually thinking about reconsidering grad school. And while reconsidering this I have even begun to reconsider my career too, maybe I don't want to go into PR or event planning.... if I go to grad school maybe I will want to become a teacher at a community college. I've always said that bad teachers have inspired me to become a teacher, knowing that I could prevent even just a few students from having to take a course with a teacher who is uninspiring, boring, abusively slow and the worst public speaker you've ever encountered who gives lectures that make you wish you were in a prison camp than sitting in class.
This has been a strange day... all within the course of a couple hours I am suddenly re-thinking my academic career and my future. All because of a computer games course and my friend who asked me if I was going to grad school. Life is a stange thing and it's a good thing it's not predicitable because if it was I would be bored out of mind. Yeah, I've got the devil's haircut in my mind.