It is coming down to the wee days of the semester so I’m pretty busy with coursees and teaching. In fact right now I’m taking a break from grading before I go to a group meeting! On the bright side, I am sitting outside working on my laptop and using the university’s wifi, proving that Indiana University is, indeed, the most unwired college campus.
On the gaming studies front, I got my paper, “Gaming Mind, Gaming Body: Mind/Body Split for a New Millenium” into the Digra conference a record day early. Then I noticed that I had somehow been removed from the schedual, so I had a mini-panic attack and emailed people and got put back on. Of course, now I seem to be on a panel with game design people, which is odd, but at least I am on the schedual. Now let’s just see if I manage to get into the proceedings book rather than just on the DVD with the rest of the riff-raff!
On a related front, I’ve been told that my long in press essay in the Doom: First-Person Reader book from the Ludologica series is still in the works. Maybe some day I will get to read my own work in print. Except the book is in Italian… and I don’t know Italian… Of course that means that I can still put it on my vita with some confidence that an US jobs I apply for won’t be able to see how bad it is!!!
I did manage to find time to finish FarCry. As friends who have played it assured me, it did get better. It is interesting how a game grows on you. There’s a paper topic right there! Also it is interesting how a certian small feature can make or break the game. For me, the binoculars that would locate the enemy on the radar and the sniper rifle were essential to my enjoyment of the game. Before I had those, I hated the game. Once I got them, the game became much more fun.
OK, 9 more papers to grade and an hour and a half before my meeting. Think I can get them done before the meeting? Me neither. But I’m giving a test tomorrow, so I should be able to finish it during that.