April 8, 2012

Rapid Fire Ramblings: What CJ Told Me To Write, Dog Egg Hunt, Week Of Evaluation, Oh Shit! Snowcones!

I have puppy dorg. He lay down. Cute dorg.
Here’s what puppy dorg say: “I found lots of eggs. With peanut butter. I’m the best dog. Not like those other dorgs. Other dorgs dumb. I best dorg. How dumb can other dorgs be? They walk right by the eggs. I’m the best dorg.”
CJ: ” I think you should no longer post that. Writing from the first person perspective of your dog is a bad idea. The worst idea.”
Okay, I won’t post it then, no worries.

Oh, right, it’s Easter. We went over and had a pretty good dinner and stuff and it was all very nice! My mother, being my mother, decided that she had to have an Easter Egg Hunt for the dogs, I guess because she doesn’t have any grandkids yet or something. She got a bunch of plastic eggs, and lined the insides with peanut butter, and had my dad hide them outside before letting the dogs loose on the whole thing. The dogs, in general, did not do a very good job finding the eggs! Molly figured it out quick, because Mom always does stuff like this for her, and Q got one or two, but Skillet and Flapjack were, for the most part, clueless on how the game worked. They just ran around, happy we were all outside with them. I guess they had fun though, so, success?

This week is a week of evaluation. There’s a big audit of the stupid-as-shit new work process at Kohl’s this Monday, and my boss, who I haven’t met in person yet, is coming to visit the satellite campus this Tuesday, and will probably be sitting in on my class, at least for a little bit. PRESSURE?! I dunno. I’m not really that nervous, though I do need to do some extra prep for Tuesday. I’m sure I will be when my boss walks into my class Tuesday. Lots of pressure then. I do a great job. I’m not worried about that. But I just, you know, want to make a good impression. I suppose I should probably dress up that day too, now that I think about it.
This sort of stuff is just part of the job, but I dunno. You go it alone teaching for so long, it’s weird to suddenly have someone looking over your shoulder, even if just for a class, or part of a class. It feels like a lack of trust. In reality, that’s not really it. It’s kind of the opposite: once a semester you get checked on. That’s a lot of trust, especially in me, who hasn’t done this for them before. You know?

I just realized that Ty’s should be open for the summer season now. OH SHIT. Gotta get me some snowcones! I always forget, and it always frustrates me, because it’s so good, you know? I should be hitting them up so often! But normally I forget until like a week before they close and never get to enjoy it. NOT THIS YEAR. Not this year. I swear it.

Anyway, something interesting tomorrow, maybe. Happy Bunny Day!

April 4, 2012

The Boss Is A Full Character: A Rebuttal To @OnTheStick.

I have recently been listening to On The Stick’s Spoilercast of Saints Row The Third. I love those guys, and for the most part, they’re nailing it on the cast so far. However, they said something that made me go “Oh hell no. That’s wrong.” And so I have to now write a little essay here telling them why they are wrong. Or something.

They claim that The Boss (the character you play as in Saints Row The Third, to be clear) is not a real character. They all seemed to rally behind the idea that The Boss is simply some sort of avatar pinnacle of every video game protagonist ever. There’s no depth to The Boss. She’s just this huge perfect power fantasy. (I’m going to use she, because The Boss is a fucking she. Much like my Shepard is My Shepard and I don’t want to see anyone else, my Boss is My Boss, and I couldn’t imagine anyone else as that character. So for the record, I had female voice 1. The one without an accent or whatever. So if I say something that makes no sense with YOUR Boss, maybe that’s why?)

Now, there’s no doubt that Saints Row The Third is a game about power fantasy, clearly. However, I just incredibly disagree with the idea that the Boss is not a Full Character, and is just this one-dimensional avatar. One of the reasons Saints Row is such a fucking fantastic game is that it is incredibly smart in a lot of ways, and how your avatar isn’t just an avatar, but is a character with depth is one of them. How do I know she’s a character? Well, she fits my definition of a fully realized character. Maybe your definition differs, but allow me to tell you what mine is, and how the Boss fits that.

First off, the Boss is someone you relate to and care about. If a character is a real character, that means they have depth, and that means they are someone you can get invested in. Good characters are multifaceted, and just kind of exist to advance the plot or do one specific thing. If the Boss was just an avatar of you, then she wouldn’t have facets. She’d just be me. But I really care about the Boss as a character. When I played the Genkibowl DLC, and the Boss was not talking, in other words just being an avatar of me, I really hated it. I missed her, her commentary, and her view of the world. That was the one, sole reason that DLC was a disappointment in my eyes. When I played Gangstas in Space and she started talking again, I was obscenely relieved that I had her back. I don’t think I’d have felt that way if I wasn’t invested in her as a character.

Secondly, I can guess what the Boss would do. If I put together a random scenario in life or in a video game, and asked myself “What would the Boss do in this situation?” I would be write, pretty distinctly, what the Boss would do. This wouldn’t just be something like “Well, she’d clearly kill the motherfuckers” because while the Boss kills plenty of people, all the time, that’s not her style. She almost always has to do it in about the most batshit insane way, which is one of the reasons the game is so entertaining to play, but these “insane” ways have a method to them. Often, they’re personal. They’re designed to not just stop someone, but to stop them in a way that would be most insulting to them. Why just kill all the Deckers when you could log in to their fucking Cyberbase and kill them on their cyberturf just to be a dick? Similarly, it always has to be big. There is nothing subtle about the Boss. She’s always going to add an extra layer to things if things are not crazy enough. These are just some examples, of course. But she has a whole internal logic that you, as a player, learn and can follow along with. She’s consistent. Compare this to, say, Master Chief. I mean, I could probably guess what he’d do in a situation (shoot some dudes) but I really don’t know why he’d do it. I don’t know what makes Master Chief tick. He’s flat and boring. He’s not a person with motivations I can grasp. I couldn’t guess how Master Chief would, say, deal with a dinner party with his parents. I can with the Boss.

Thirdly and finally, the Boss surprises me. A sign of a good character, to me, is that while I can understand how they tick, they’re capable of doing things that I wouldn’t have anticipated, but still fit in with that internal logic. Action-wise, this is not always the case with the Boss. I can pretty well guess what her actions are going to be. But her dialog, especially, is so very often surprising. In the helicopter chase after the Power Jump Sequence, for example, when she’s talking to Shaundi about how she’d look in a maid outfit and how Pierce would appreciate it? It totally fits with her character, but it was surprising to me after she’s all “Honey, sorry about this,” when she’s catching her in the air after the plane sequence in the beginning. The Boss gave off an almost motherly vibe then, and this fits that, but it’s a mother with really strange priorities. It’s a mother with the Boss’s priorities. But when you see a motherly relationship like that, you don’t put that in your head. Then bam. Surprise. Similarly, the Boss becomes really enamored with Kinsie because of her really fucked up quirks that I would have assumed, at first glance, would have repelled her because it made Kinsie harder to deal with. However, once you see that happen, you realize how much of the Boss is in Kinsie, and how they click in that regard. They show their own personal neuroses with dealing with people in different ways, (some of which Eric talked about on the podcast about how mostly asexual and uncomfortable with just relaxing with people the Boss is) but there’s still a kinship there. It’s a surprise, but it happens. That’s how I know the Boss is fully realized.

Anyway, this is why I love the Boss as a character. I agree with On The Stick: I would love to play the Boss in every single video game from now on. But I’d like to do it because I’d like her as a character. She makes me smile, and I love seeing what she’s going to do, which often isn’t what I would do. Because she’s her own person, who makes decisions, it lets me make decisions like her, which leaves me feeling more free to do things like randomly drop-kick pedestrians and really enjoy all the horrible, awesome stuff in the game. The game works so much better, for me anyway, because the Boss is a character. It’s what made me love The Third when I didn’t like Saints Row 2 all that much. When Giant Bomb was talking about the Boss as best character of the year, it was deserved. Don’t discount her just because you can make her look and sound however you want.

April 2, 2012

So Many Adventures. Not A Single Street Pass.

I am all super exhausted by today’s ADVENTURES which totally occurred. So I think I’m just going to describe them and then head to bed for today’s blog. Is that cool? We cool? Okay.

Anyway, CJ (that’s Aesa, so we’re clear) and I went to St. Louis. This was because I had an appointment but no work after, so we figured we could do something fun. We went early, and set out and drove, and it was pretty nice. We stopped in Festus, bought some picnic supplies, and then picked a whole nic. It was the first of many being outdoors moments that would pepper the day, for better or worse.

The plan was to go to the art museum. Little did we know that the art museum is not open on Mondays! I will never get to see all of this art museum, it seems, as I always go when it is closed or about to close or something like that. Oh well. We decided to go to the super-disappointing Science Center instead, because we enjoy disappointment. I spent the whole time there complaining about how much it sucks now. CJ couldn’t really disagree as it was not that great. Oh well.

We then left for my appointment, but we were still early, so we ducked in the mall because dammit, I felt like I was going to get SOME sort of Street Pass. But it was for nothing.

My appointment was fine. I talked about sex, and about the stuff I talked about a few days ago. It was still all awkward, but at least I got it out there, I guess.

Then I had picked out a restaurant, because this is apparently my job? So I wanted to go to The Old Spaghetti Factory. I hadn’t been there in years and years, but I remembered great things. I didn’t know if it would hold up, but of course I talked it up big. I talk everything up big. Anyway, we got there while it was still early, and we wanted to wait a little to eat, so we decided to walk to the nearby Jefferson Expansion Memorial. The little museum in there was much nicer put together than the sad state of the Science Center currently. We didn’t really do much else than just sit in there for awhile and take in the ambiance, though. I think CJ took a picture of me. How embarrassing.

Anyway, we ate at The Old Spaghetti Factory after that, which was pretty good. Not great? But their location is still pretty awesome. Then we walked back to my car, which CJ and I began to freak out about because we thought it was towed. It wasn’t. We got home without any issues.

It was a lot of fun, really, overall. It’s just nice to have someone to do these sorts of things with, who makes me laugh and smile. And it’ll be even better once the wuff gets here to join us. We’re constantly scouting out stuff to do with Brer in tow. Life is pretty awesome.

Nobody in St. Louis Street Passed with me, though. The fuckers.

April 1, 2012

I Am Comedian. I Tell Funny Joke.

It’s April Fools Day, so that means it’s time for jokes! Luckily, I’ve been honing my joke-telling skills at work for awhile, writing jokes for my team, and I think I’ve improved! Let me try a few on you right now, and hopefully they will help you have a wonderful April Fool Day Time Thing.

Joke Number One
A Jazz Dancer, a Psychic Surgeon, and an Ant Queen all walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Hello, and welcome to the bar! You are being welcomed to the bar.” The psychic surgeon murders a chicken to use in his psychic surgeries. The bartender says, “That seems a bit inappropriate. You should have gone to the chicken slaughtery next door.”
“Oh, sorry, man,” says the Jazz Dancer. “We thought this was a combination bar and chicken slaughtery.”
The ant queen twitches her antennae in a seductive fashion.
“I can’t get mad at those luscious mandibles,” says the bartender. “Just don’t slaughter any chickens in here again.” The group all nods their heads.
The Jazz Dancer eats a banana, and then tosses the peel on the ground. The psychic surgeon saves a man from cancer using the chicken guts. The ant queen orders a whiskey and coke.

Joke Number Two
“Knock Knock.”
“Who’s There?”
“A vibrating and otherworldly mass of tentacles and viscera, all attempting to break down your door and absorb you into the great collective.”
“A vibrating and otherworldly mass of tentacles and viscera, all attempting to break down your door and absorb you into the great collective who?”
“I would really appreciate it if you would just open the door and face your fate. You are only delaying the inevitable. All will soon be part of the great mass. Your various bodily fluids and organs will make a great addition to our collective.”
“I would really appreciate it if you would just open the door and face your fate. You are only delaying the inevitable. All will soon be part of the great mass. Your various bodily fluids and organs will make a great addition to our collective who?”
“Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?”
“Yes, I am.”

Joke Number Three
A man walks into a doctor’s office and asks, “Why am I throwing up nearly constantly?”
The lady behind the counter goes, “I’m not a doctor. I am just the receptionist. Do you have an appointment?”
“Yes,” says the man, and fills out his required paperwork in silence.
Two hours later, he has made it into the doctor’s office. “Why am I throwing up nearly constantly?” asks the man.
“You’ve just not had enough training,” says the doctor, “I am prescribing 6 weeks of intensive baseball training. You’ll be throwing in a different direction in no time.”
The man begins his baseball training, and sure enough, he’s soon throwing the ball forward, instead of up in the air, where it is likely to hit him on the head. He rejoices, and joins a local softball league. 4 weeks later, he gets into an argument with a fellow player, who beats him to death with a baseball bat, then buries him under the pitcher’s mound. His family never sees him again, but the murderer slips on a banana peel left by a Jazz Dancer and hits his head on the ground, getting a concussion.

Happy Day Fool Time, everyone.

March 31, 2012

My Incredible Intimacy Failure

Is it okay if I write about this, blog? I’m going to write about this, I think. Just don’t… you know. If it’s uncomfortable-making, don’t read it. As the title suggests, it’s about sex. So, you know.

Aesa and I were laying together in a bed, as people in a relationship who live together at times do. Then things started happening and he started doing things to me as someone in a relationship with someone else often does. Then everything fell apart.

Okay, so we’ve done sexy things before, and it’s been wonderful. Totally wonderful. It’s not like this is the first time. But for whatever reason, this time… this time I couldn’t get over it. I couldn’t get over the reality of what he was doing, of what equipment I had, and how who I was clashed with that. I couldn’t focus on the nice feelings, and the fact that he’s all involved in such things because he cares about me, wants me, not this body I’m stuck in, and things like that which have been the cornerstone of getting over my stupid self in the past.

Instead, I ended up just kind of asking him to stop, curling up, and just sobbing for awhile. He clearly didn’t know what to do. He was trying to be helpful, comforting, but it just wasn’t a thing he could do anything about at that point. I couldn’t stop myself from crying. I felt terrible, like a freak, and I couldn’t shake that feeling. When I started calming down from that, I got onto the idea that this breakdown was going to somehow keep him from wanting to do this sort of thing again in the future, and I cried even more.

I get into this state where I think I’m alright, you know? Life is going fucking fantastic, and everything is going my way. Seriously. I’m over my issues, I tell myself. I’m happy, insanely happy, for the first time in my life. And it’s true. But then there are moments like this where all of the sudden that doubt, those issues, just burst forward and ruin everything. I feel like I can’t help it. I feel like I don’t have control over it. It’s terrible. Fucking terrible. Even today this shit gets in the way. It’s no fair.

Aesa understands. Brer understands. It’s not like there will be a problem. It’s not like they’re going anywhere. Nothing is really ruined. But fuck. Just… fuck. I really wish I wasn’t so fucked up.

March 29, 2012

Portable Skylanders Mechanics: Not As Satisfying

I’m probably going to write more about Skylanders 3DS once I beat it, as well as do another review of all the new Skylanders I have because I am ridiculous and bought so many. However, I just feel like I should comment on how the 3DS game works mechanically, because I find it really interesting.

In normal Skylanders, you have your Portal of Power next to you at all times. By throwing stuff onto the Portal, you can quickly swap characters, add or remove a second player, or activate powerups. This is a really awesome process that feels very dynamic and natural. It’s also kind of a tense situation a lot of the time. “Oh crap, I need to swap to a Skylander with full health, but looking away from the screen to find my Skylander and slam it onto the Portal might get me killed, here goes nothing!” That’s really damn cool. That’s what made me such a big fan of Skylanders. That base mechanic of swapping out physical objects is just something you don’t get in a video game.

Now obviously they needed a 3DS version of the game. Gotta sell that second copy to crazy people like me, and get those without consoles proper hooked on the toys. However, the basic mechanics of Skylanders I’ve just outlined don’t work in a portable game. You can’t count on a player having the Portal of Power there at all times. You can’t hook the Portal of Power to the 3DS via a USB cable for near-instant transfers and swaps. You can’t expect kids to have their full collection of Skylanders on hand at all times.

Thus, they’ve got this weird storage system. You use the Portal to draw the souls of the Skylanders into these crystals. You can have two at a time, and swap between them, but you can only change crystals in between levels. With the powerups, you can store one of them to the R button, and it costs in-game radiance to activate, instead of having a limited use time in each level. They won’t let you just store every single Skylander and power to the game, because then you don’t need to buy Skylanders, you can just scan your buddy’s, which is kind of evil of them, but I also understand why that’s the case.

This solves the “I want to play but don’t have my tons of toys around” problem, in general, but I find it’s much less satisfying than being able to swap on the fly. The levels have Elemental Challenges, so you have to double check the level you’re going to play and prep Skylanders for those challenges before you go in, which, to me, is just a lot less fun than throwing in random Skylanders as the level calls for them. It also makes having more powerups less appealing. I can only equip one, and I’m me, so I’m always going to have the Healing Elixir. Instead of making you more powerful, able to do random stuff, you just kind of feel like you have all these powerups but none of them ever get any use.

Don’t get me wrong here. I am having a ton of fun with 3DS Skylanders. But it’s clear that this sort of thing doesn’t have the magic of the “main” game. It’s fun because I have the main game, and this is a little side story to fuck around with. However, I just can’t imagine someone with just this 3DS game getting as hooked on these stupid things as I am. The 3DS version just doesn’t stand up on its own, in my opinion, though it works great as a companion game. That’s kind of a shame, because the main game really is a lot of fun and I’m sure there are little kids out there that only have a 3DS or portable system who would love Skylanders. Oh well.

March 27, 2012

Rapid Fire Ramblings: Dumb Work Processes, Collection, Student Push.

RAPID FYAAAAAAAAAA!
Okay, never doing that again.

We have this new process at work that is going to add like an hour to every single shift, and it just flat-out pisses me off. Everybody has to carry this printout with all these prices on it. When we come to specific signs listed on this printout, which we will have to check on every single sign, basically, to know of, we must determine whether it needs a special topper or not by comparing prices to the list. All this could be displayed on the fucking COMPUTERS we carry with us and gives us sign information. They could SAY this stuff right on there. Why the hell are we having to do this? I don’t know. It’s extra frustrating because they keep shorting me on crew on top of it all. More to do with less people? Excellent. That’s what I want to be doing. Damn, I want to get out of this job.

I learned yesterday that I have 2/3rds of all possible Skylanders. I really don’t know how this happened. I didn’t try to buy like… every one. Just the ones that were cool, and also having one of each element… and then I got the 3DS game and I wanted a whole new set of cool ones of each type… and then they had all the adventure packs for sale at sane prices… well, uh… anyway, I own most of the Skylanders now. I will probably end up owning every single Fire Skylander before it’s over, too, because I know I will probably eventually grab the last Adventure Pack with Sunfire in it. Goodness. Well, at least I won’t need to buy any Skylanders when Giants comes out! (Ha ha, sure, like I’m not going to buy all the new ones, too.)

When I’m grading my student essays for my “students who need help” writing class, I always wonder if I should be easier on them. I can understand their essays. Maybe I shouldn’t be taking off points for not having a good point or not making it relevant to an audience. But then I think about what this class is supposed to do. This is supposed to prepare them for more classes. Without a basic understanding of these things, they are never going to pass College Writing, and never make good papers for classes. I have to push them in that area. I have to force them to learn this stuff they didn’t learn in school, even if it ends up with them feeling I grade really hard. Hopefully, in the end, the results will speak for themselves.

Anyway, lots of work to do. Best get back to it. Have a good day, everyone.

March 25, 2012

Disconnect Between Flavor and Mechanics: A Problem? Maybe?

I’m playing this game of Arkham Horror over a forum, and it’s a lot of fun. But recently it’s just kind of occurring to me how messed up the gameplay of this game is as compared to the flavor.

My character in this game is Minh Thi Phan. She’s a secretary who stumbles across a copy of The King in Yellow, according to her bio. She’s also a spell-slinging, monster-murdering badass warrior lady. Well, so far. Maybe she’ll be organizing some files later on in the game. I dunno. But the point is, who she is on the card is nothing like her in-game stats and gear. I’ve armed her for war, and I’ve gone out and done war with her. Kamikaze attacks. Murderous rampages. That sort of thing.

Arkham Horror is based on these stories of people fighting against insane odds and taking on the unknown while probably losing. The little story snippets on the investigators and things like that really highlight that sort of thing: these are supposed to be, with a few exceptions, normal people thrown into extraordinary circumstances. That’s certainly, say, the theme of Call of Cthulhu, if you do it right. You’re fucked, but you’re struggling: you don’t fight head-on unless you’re in a really shitty, desperate situation. Sure, you can take it in a more pulpy way. In some ways, the cover of Arkham Horror does this. But all the flavor suggests the sort of desperation of normal people against the supernatural.

Basically, Arkham Horror is a game that doesn’t know exactly what it wants to be, flavor-wise. Even with the “weak” characters, if you make it a priority to be a murder machine, you can make that happen, usually. The “unknown” is pretty known, most of the time. Enemies appear and you steamroll them or dodge them with ease. Really, you’re more in danger of forgetting to play exterminator, which will you over because of the Terror Track, than dying from enemies the majority of the time. All that’s fine, mechanically, but when you’re also supposed to be roleplaying a, say, lounge singer that wants to find out what killed her boyfriend or something, it kind of strikes a weird tone when she’s going around slaying demons with a broadsword.

I’m probably thinking too much about it. But that’s sort of the problem with all these games, conceptually. I have such a great time, say, roleplaying Trail of Cthulhu games where everyone is actually as weak and in as much danger as the situation suggests. That’s really satisfying. But the mechanics of Arkham Horror, with the mass slaughter of enemies and collecting of their heads for fabulous prizes… well, that’s nice too. Still, it seems like there would have to be a way to flavor the game to make those mechanics make more sense. I dunno.

March 24, 2012

Birthday Status Report

I guess I’m older today? That’s cool.

Anyway, most of the party times were last night, and it all went pretty damn well. We went out to eat fancy with my parents and grandparents at Olive Garden, of course. I got this grilled Parmesan chicken in a weird Parmesan wine sauce, which was fucking fantastic, and of course, I had some Zuppa Tuscana, which was also fucking fantastic, as always.
Awkwardness was, for the most part, minimized. My grandparents were polite to Aesa, though mostly paid him no mind. My parents continued to be awesome about it. There was some frustration about a card from my grandma with “Grandson” written on it, but I was expecting that and tried to shrug it off.

After that, I had a party with my friends where we played some awesome card games. We threw down in Cards Against Humanity, which was as fantastic as I had hoped, and The Resistance, which was received well by everyone. In-depth write-ups of those games forthcoming. Still, it was a fantastic evening: it had been way the fuck too long since I got to spend time with Spaeth and Essner, and Aesa fit in without issue, which was something he was worried about.

But yeah, it was a pretty fucking awesome birthday, even though it took place before my birthday. I’ve been having a fun time messing around and stuff today too, but having to do my taxes and going to work later really made yesterday seem more birthday-y.

Anyway, the haul.

I got a Teacher Bag from my mother. I think it will work for my purposes, although it’s strange 3 compartment structure might cause issues. I’m going to give it a try, in any case. Way better than carrying all those fucking books around.
Shauna, Jonathan, and my parents teamed up to buy me a pink 3DS! I’ll update my gaming info page with my Friend Code sometime soon: tell me so we can Swapnote and shit. I don’t actually have a game for it yet, though Skylanders 3DS is on the way. Heh. I’m going to save the Skylands again, motherfuckers.
Jonathan and Shauna also found a 3-pack of Skylanders I didn’t have yet, and grabbed that for me. (Well, I do own Whirlwind, from the pack, but I haven’t opened my individual Whirlwind, and I hear there’s resale value to these things, so I’ll just flip the extra unopened one and use the one from the 3-Pack.) That means I will have 6 new, unleveled Skylanders for the 3DS game (plus all the ones I already had: not all of them are max level!) which is nice.
Kale wrote me a very sweet letter and made some sort of crazy Minecraft shrine to me, which is adorable of him.
Aesa got me a copy of Tanto Cuore, the Maid Deckbuilding Game. I tried that today: it seems like a real interesting Dominion Variant without adding too many additional rules. Writeup Forthcoming.
And, of course, I got some cash from my grandparents, which is always appreciated.

Yep! Birthday Status: Pretty sweet. I’m happy, and lucky I have such awesome people in my life. ONWARD TO BEING ALL OLDER AND CRAP!

March 23, 2012

Adventures in Introduction to College Reading

Sometimes I am just at a loss at what to do to help the students in my reading class.

Here’s the current situation. The chapter I’m teaching is called “Relationships” and it involves seeing what sort of organizational structure a paragraph uses. Here’s how a typical question in this chapter would go. The student would be given a paragraph like this:

The Zojirushi 16 oz Stainless Steel Thermal Mug is a miracle of modern design. The stainless steel construction is designed with preserving temperature in mind. In tests, the Zojirushi managed to hold heat in better than several other common thermoses available today. Similarly, the Zojirushi is designed with transportability in mind. The flip-top cap not only seals the bottle completely, but also gives you quick access to your beverage. A lock mechanism helps to keep it closed when you want it closed. Finally, the Zojirushi comes in a wide variety of fantastic colors to fit any style. Clearly, the Zojirushi 16 oz Stainless Steel Thermal Mug is the Thermal Mug of choice for the discerning Mug-purchaser.

Then they will be asked this question: Is this paragraph organized as a list of items, or in time order?

Clearly, this is a list of items, right?

My students can’t answer this sort of question. They’re trying, but they can’t, and I have no idea what to do. Usually, when a student has a problem, I can conceptualize where they may be having trouble seeing what’s going on, and thus extrapolate another way to explain things that would get around that blockage. With this, I can’t. I can’t understand how someone could be having trouble with this. Thus I just really don’t know how to show them how to figure this out. I try to point out key words within the text that indicate a paragraph is working chronologically, or try to show how the topic sentence of the paragraph wouldn’t work as one or the other, but they struggle. It’s not that they’re not trying. For the most part, I really feel they are. But something isn’t working, and I don’t know how to fix it.

This class has been by far my most challenging teaching experience. It’s all so… difficult. It’s difficult to teach people these things. Hopefully I’ll figure it out.