The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

My class is quiet.

I don’t know, I mean, I suppose that’s to be expected. It’s an 8 AM class. Nobody is awake. I’m only awake because I wake up like 2 hours before so I can warm up to it, and I still have to down some caffeine beforehand. So It’s not like I can really blame them.

But man, I dunno.

As a teacher, I want to bring to the classroom what was effective for me. And frankly, until I realized that reading the assignments let me talk in class, and talking in class was where the education and the entertainment in education was… until I realized that, I hated literature classes, and I hated a lot of how they went on. Then, suddenly, when I could contribute, the classes became mine. Well, not just mine, but ours, It belonged to everyone in the class. It was a group journey. That’s just infinitely more entertaining.

I want to bring that to my class, to get them started on the right foot, because if they get used to that early, maybe they won’t fuck up like I did, you know?

But I am unsure what it is. Maybe they don’t think they can contribute anything. Maybe they’re coming right off of high school where they never had to say anything in class. But sometimes, it just really isn’t happening, and I can’t get anyone to say anything. Even in their responses, where they are supposed to be free to write whatever, and I keep writing comments constantly saying “TELL ME YOUR IDEAS” they just keep summarizing over and over. Bleh.

I mean, it’s early in the semester. Maybe I’ll get them to understand later. It’s silly to think everyone is going to start out perfect. It’s silly to think that my dream classroom is just going to come together before me, especially in a freshman-level core requirement English course.

But I can hope, eh?

Let’s talk about sexual attraction in a round-about, not as specific as I should be way.

When I first got into the whole “being attracted to people” game, I was pretty much a complete n00b and getting into it significantly later due to the whole “unsure about my gender, thus unsure about who it was okay to like” thing. So I really didn’t have any touchstones. I didn’t know what I wanted. I feel like I’m still figuring out what I want as I go along. And one thing I realize, more and more, that I want is realism.

Not like, I don’t know, the art movement. But just… I’m realistic here. The person or persons I am eventually with are not going to have perfect builds. Not that I don’t think I couldn’t find someone who was a model, perfect bodybuilder, or something if I really wanted to. But that’s not what’s really important to me. I want someone, a someone I like. A person’s body is really more a nice afterthought, it’s what’s in their brain that counts.

I like to think I have a nice brain. One people could like. I also know that I’m always going to be a little pudgy. A little soft in the middle. Whatever you want to say. Not like, fat, perse? But I’m never going to be thin and athletic either. And there’s a strong chance that my partner will be the same way.

I found that once I took that into account, and I just kind of embraced it, that not only did I feel much more attractive, but I found images of people who similarly accepted their builds and are just going with it equally attractive. Being seductive is all a frame of mind, and if someone shows me that they are, well, it doesn’t matter that they don’t have a six pack of abs or whatever the fuck, you know?

The internet lets you have basically any fantasy you want, and I love it for it. But at the same time, reality has its perks, because you can actually have that, you know?
It’s… nice.
It’s very nice.

So this first week had me pretty exhausted. Not because school was particularly draining or anything. It was simply because I was waking up really, really fucking early, and I am simply not used to that.

BUT IT APPEARS IT SERVES A PURPOSE!

I have been getting up early, and going to my office, and working on stuff. I’ve graded papers, done some planning, did some homework in my classes. I did stuff!
But on Thursday, I got distracted with certain nice conversations with certain nice people. So by the time I got to my office, it was already 8. I didn’t have time to get everything done! There were 3 papers left ungraded! Gasp! So I swore I’d come back around noon, and headed to the university press.

When I get back, instead of the completely empty office I am used to, I was greeted with an office with people in it. An office filled with people who are social.
Now, I’m glad that people want to talk to me. That’s neat. I’m happy to help people out with their computer issues and such. That is also neat. But goodness, it took me 45 minutes to grade those three papers. I had some nice conversations, but I wasn’t getting anything done.

So that’s why I’m going to keep waking up early, I suppose. I really don’t want to have to do that kind of work at home. It’ll help me relax better if I don’t. And I’m not going to get much done while visiting with people. So I’ll get there early when I’m the only one there and bang it out.

It is interesting, actually being in a real office enviroment like that, though. I’d love the visiting if it was just a matter of “work X hours and you’re done.” For better or worse, though, teaching does not work like that. So, you know, what are you gonna do. Gotta get my shit done.
Probably.

People on the Podded Casts had mentioned that Roogoo was not shit. I had played the demo of it on XBLA, and gave them props for trying to create a new kind of puzzle game, but it didn’t hook me. Still, hearing a bit of the hype about it, I decided to throw the new stand-alone version, Roogoo: Twisted Towers for Wii, into my Gamefly queue to see what was up, and if it would really hook me.

I still have to give them props for creating something original, but dammit, they really went out of their way to fuck this up.

Quick description of the game: Children’s shape blocks fall from the sky through little discs with proper sized holes. You have to constantly rotate these discs to get the Star to go through the Star hole, and the Square to go through the Square hole, etc. It’s a different kind of matching gameplay, but still standard puzzle fare, in the end. If you let too many shapes bounce off of the discs and fall into oblivion, you lose the level and have to restart.

It is no secret that I hate with the burning passion of a thousand suns pointing at the screen with the Wiimote. I figured there would not be any of that in this game, besides perhaps the menus. It was a puzzle game where you rotated little discs about. That happens with buttons. I didn’t think it would be a problem.
However, the developers decided that this was a Wii game, so you had to do Wii things. Constantly, little butterflies fly about the screen, and you have to point at them with the Wiimote to catch them in your net. Bosses will do all kinds of things that require you to point at the screen to shoot at them, or will fog up the screen so you have to run the pointer over where you want to see to wipe the screen clean. This is all extremely annoying and extremely frustrating, as you have to do most of this while still trying to play the game normally.

Mixing it up in a puzzle game “story mode” is all well and good, but in the end, you need the basic puzzle gameplay to be there. It needs to be something that I can pick up and play mindlessly for an hour or so while listening to a podcast. It needs to be something that can get me into a groove. All these constant stupid Wii-styled distractions just ruin this for me. I can’t stand it. It just makes the game less fun.

Maybe on XBLA, where the game probably has less gimmicks, Roogoo would be better. However, I would have a very hard time recommending this Wii version to anyone. It just fights you every step of the way. It is unpleasant. If the developers had just tried to make a good game, as opposed to trying to make “an amazing Wii game that uses all the Wii features amazingly!” then they probably would have caught and fixed these problems. As it is, it’s just kind of a mess.

Cthulhu wins.

There, I said it. Are you happy, Great Old Ones? Are yah?

But I suppose I should start at the beginning. Essner was all like “We haven’t played Arkham in forever!” and I was all like “How about Wednesday?” and everyone was all like “That seems like an okay day to play!” So we played.

I ended up playing Mark Harrigan, the soldier. Normally, anyone who starts with a Flamethrower is going to be an asset in combat, but with Cthulhu as the great old one, Mark was really way too fragile with his 2 Sanity. Of all things, I ended up being the main sealer of gates. I got two, and almost had the last gate needed before Cthulhu was summoned to the table. It was kind of frustrating like that.
Everyone did a pretty good job holding their own, though. Spaeth was not completely useless, though he was probably the most! But no, he sealed a gate and did some stuff, no worries. Essner, strangely, barely got into any combat at all, and mostly ran around and sealed things as well, though he stalled on a gate at the Black Cave for like, 4 turns.
Jonathan, though… he got a Healing stone, took a beating, but kept on going and going. He got a madness and an injury, and still managed to kill over ten monsters and close (though not seal) at least 3 gates. He was a monster. Darrell Simmons had never done so much, let me tell you.

The weirdest thing, though, was Cthulhu’s stronghold at Miskatonic U. At one point, the Miskatonic U streets had 6 monsters on it. They just kept constantly piling up. It was a bit ridiculous. It took most of the game to clear them out and get to the gate at the Science Building which had been open the whole time.

In the end, however, we just couldn’t keep the damage up against Cthulhu’s healing ability, even with my Grapple skill. Me blowing 5 clue tokens without a success didn’t really help, either. So, you know, as I said, the world’s destroyed. Yay.

What’s more important, though, was a very significant loss. Molly got into the game box, which Jonathan was leaving on the floor for no reason, and managed to destroy several game pieces, most notably the piece for everyone’s favorite researcher with a nice rack, Mandy Thompson. It was a sad night. We will persevere, though. Somehow, we will continue to fight the forces of darkness.

Somehow.

Oh, it’s going pretty well. Thanks for asking, title.

I mean, my first day went pretty well. I had some people write. I mangled some names on the roll. I went over a syllabus. You know, fairly normal stuff.

As per usual, I had some extreme performance anxeity right before I went into the room. I assumed this would be just like acting, and it was. I was really nervous. I paced around Grauel for like, 40 minutes, walking up and down stairs at extreme speeds and whatnot. And yet, once I got into the classroom, I was cool, casual, and did what I came there to do with no real hesitations.
For whatever reason, my students seemed pretty attentive and untalkative. But, you know, that’s to be expected at 8 in the fucking AM, isn’t it? I do hope we’ll be able to have some class discussions in the future, if for no other reason than I feel like I got more out of those class discussions than anything in my college career. A good class discussion is better than any other class activity, you know?

But yeah, I think it’s all going to work out fine.

I already got an e-mail from a student too, thanks to issues with textbook acquisition. That’s what I get for assigning things so quickly, I suppose. But I answered that like a champ.

I am a champ.
Maybe.

Okay, probably not, but I’m going to do a good job, okay?

So, who cares how good a job I do, right?

All that matters is that I’m dressed up, in proper, masculine fashion.

Who gives a shit if I’m engaging my students, or helping them learn to write better, or any number of actually important things. No, all that matters is that I am not allowed to be comfortable in my own skin. I can’t just be me, who is an intelligent, fun, and effective teacher. I have to be someone different, someone who is probably worse at a lot of things, but damn, they look good, don’t they?

That’s what’s important in life: Being a false person.

Ugh. Arg.

So, on a complete whim, Essner gets invited by Mason, one of his awesome Film class friends, to go see Inglorious Basterds. I was in the middle of purchasing a Birthday present for my mother months early and then renting a film with Spants, so we decided just to switch over and join them and watch that. And, of course, Essner sat in the stupid front row of the theater grr. But so it goes.

In any case, I thought I knew exactly what to expect from this film. I figured that I would see lots of pointless gore and that there would be many Nazis killed, and that there would be some humor, but it would mostly just be a sort of crazy mindless action thingy.

I was completely wrong.

Inglorious Basterds is all about dialog. Long, long bits of dialog, drawn out longer and longer for dramatic tension until you can’t even stand it anymore… and then there’s a gunfight that’s over in about 2 seconds. That’s basically what you SHOULD be expecting. I mean, there’s plenty of points of humor in these long, long bits of dialog, but it’s mostly a dramatic device.
Another thing you may not realize about this movie: Brad Pitt’s character is not really the main character. Even though he’s the one in all the previews, on the movie poster, and so on, it’s really a story much more about The Jew Hunter. (I forget his character’s actual name. I am so awful with names.) The movie is significantly more about his exploits in trying to further his own agenda than it is about Brad Pitt’s band of Americans kills Nazis. And those exploits are pretty awesome. They have an almost Death-Note-like quality, where it’s all kind of ridiculous mind games, but presented in a way that you’re constantly riveted, even though you know it’s a bit ridiculous.
Granted, there is still plenty of over-the-top violence. Nazis are scalped right in front of you, knives are stabbed into people… I had to look away from the screen many, many times throughout the course of the film. But that wasn’t the focus.

I’m really unsure what to say about this movie. On the one hand, the fact that the movie surprised me, and turned out to be more about things that I like than over the top gore and violence pleased me. On the other hand, I don’t understand why there wasn’t more with the Basterds, more humorous introductions of their characters, and more focus on them. I loved the crap out of Mr. Jew Hunter’s character, and I rooted for him. But at the same time, there are going to be plenty of people walking into that theater who aren’t going to want to accept him as the protagonist, and are just going to be left confused as to why the “main characters” have such a small role in the film. The people that the trailer would have brought in to see the film are more than likely going to hate the long, drawn out bits of dialog. The movie seems to fail at what it’s trying to be.

Still, I was very pleased with my decision to go see it. It’s one of those movies I never would have even considered viewing if my friends hadn’t dragged me along, and I left the theater surprised and entertained. I probably never need to see it again, but it was a good experience. If it interested you at all, and the fact that there is gallons upon gallons of dialog in the film doesn’t immediately turn you off, it should be at least worth a rent.

Hey, it’s my first day of teaching.

Wish me luck, okay? Or leg-breaking. I guess it’s kind of like acting, right?

Here’s something to expect from here on in: Me talking about teaching. I have to write a daily teaching journal for this assistantship anyway. I would expect that a lot of the less boring entries from that will end up here, if only to make it easier on myself while I do so much. While I adjust, you know? Plus, they’ll hopefully end up being vaguely interesting.

But yeah, expect rambling about teaching. It’s all new shit, and I’m sure I’ll want to talk about it.

Well, here I go. Wish me luck.

I haven’t touched a Broswer RPG since my classes started up again.

Blasphemy? Maybe. I don’t know.

But at some point, I told myself “these are for entertainment. If you don’t think they’ll be entertaining that day, you shouldn’t be playing them.” So I didn’t play when I didn’t feel like it, and kept it from being a commitment every day. It worked out well.

But goodness, it’s been so long. It’s especially been forever since I played Twilight Heroes, at least a month or two. I mean, I guess I should feel lucky that the farming grind kept me going in that game for as long as it did, and I’m sure as hell thankful for the awesome friends I made in the game, but every time I think about trying to play it, it sounds unappealing, so I don’t.

KoL has been similar. Ever since I got into a holding pattern due to the world event stuff, I just haven’t wanted to play, which I suppose is kind of ironic because the idea was to wait so I could play this new stuff, you know? And yet, I just don’t want to.

Even Improbable Island, which I just found and is still fresh, has no appeal for me at all right now.

I mean, it’s not something to fix, but it is interesting. It also means that, I dunno, there may not be IoTM reviews this month (not that anyone particularly cares, but it’s always something to write about) and such.

I don’t know. We’ll see. I assume at some point I’ll be suddenly all over them again.