
Digital Mythology
"Considering this phenomenon of narrativization with respect to games, it then becomes important to understand that games as a medium are currently ideally poised to take center stage as the most ubiquitously widespread, appealing, and potent forms of storytelling and narrativization that human society has yet witnessed. We contend that games have the very real potential to become the new classics of the 21st Century. The field of Literature has its classics: the epic poem of
On writing paragraphs
I have just today realized that, as a habit from my undergraduate days when I was able to really solidify my writing style, I must subconsciously favor a certain paragraph size in my own writing. In drafting my thesis, I just caught myself finishing a paragraph, stepping back to check it, then catching that my final thought (which was more of a sentiment than an actual thought) was that "OK, that's a goodly-sized paragraph." The size of a paragraph is not really that importan

Random and Obscure Facts about Me
(This originally took place on Facebook, but as it is a good account of these occurrences and a good sample of my writing style, I have migrated it here to this blog of posterity's sake) I have been tagged in a Facebook game/activity, where I am supposed to spout 5 obscure facts about myself. And like vampires who are reputedly compelled to count anything that is strewn about in their path, I must commit to this action before trying to avoid facebook again. So, here are five
How to Read a Paper
For all you grad students: This paper has been floating around the lab in some digital form or another for a while now, and especially recently since the start of the new semester. This is a good, recommended method for reading academic papers that can save you a ton of precious time. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1273445.1273458 #writing #thesis #gamestudiescurrently
Remain Wary of Assumptions
From the California State University Dominguez Hills "Guide to Writing and Research in the Humanities": "Every time we write we employ a set of assumptions about how the world works. The facts do not speak for themselves, nor is any interpreter completely objective. Sometimes we're conscious of them, sometimes not. The more conscious of our assumptions we are, the more careful we can be that our assumptions serve us well, and the more honest we can be with those around us abo
Yes, I want to actually write a thesis someday
In my lab every graduating season, there appears to be a custom of placing the graduating PhD candidate's thesis near the daily newspaper for everyone to check out. This season is no different. I browsed the PhD thesis placed there, felt the negligible heft of it in my hands. To think, this was a person's life for several years, their every working thought bent towards the production of this binding of pages. I continued to silently regard the thesis this way for some moments

Japanese Draft
やっと、3月の学会の日本語の第一の原稿はとりあえず終了である。まだネイティブチェックされていないけど。先生に出した際にめっちゃ恥ずかしかったわ。「ちっちゃな子供っぽい日本語で書いたらしいと見えるかな」って怖い。10年前の教えた播南の生徒が英語のレポート、宿題などを出した気分と同じだろう。 My Japanese draft for my upcoming conference in Kyushu is finally done. I stress the word "draft" because it is a first effort and I am really afraid that it sounds like it was written by a little kid. This must be how all my Japanese students felt when they turned in their essays and assignments. #acecombatzero #conference #digrajap

Verbose Verbosity
This is the word analysis portion of zeebly.com's assessment of my Facebook wall. Apparently I'm extremely verbose. In my senior year in high school, one of my classmates shoved me into a wall because he had heard that I chuckled when I heard that he was not able to do more than a certain number of pull ups. "Verbose" was one of the insults he threw my way shortly after shoving me into said wall. Thinking back on that memory, I don't think that I have ever considered verbosit