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September 28, 2006

Baltimore High School curbs dropouts

From today's USA Today:

Baltimore High School Curbs Dropouts

Posted by Nakia at 11:39 AM | Comments (1)

September 19, 2006

Apparently, I am Dr. Geek

I was just interviewed by a student for an article on Dungeons and Dragons that will run in next week's issue of the student paper -- The Johnsonian. Some of my student gamers are friends with a reporter, so she developed a story idea and they told her to come talk to me. It was a good interview, I thought. I talked about what role playing games were, the role of the game master, and did my best to counter the usual gamer stereotypes. I'm anxious to see the article.

Posted by Nakia at 09:58 AM | Comments (4)

September 18, 2006

British School Opens in New York

A private school modeling the traditional Briish educational system and curriculum recently opened in New York City.

The article can be found here.

What's interesting (and relevant to recent discussions in 110), are the headmaster's comments that one of the goals of the school is to create "citizens of the world." How does that compare with the mission of schools to transmit culture? Is there a "world culture"? What does it mean to be a "citizen of the world?"

Posted by Nakia at 09:22 AM | Comments (1)

September 11, 2006

A good gaming weekend

It appears my sleep troubles were a one time thing. I slept fine all weekend, thank God.

Friday night I began what will hopefully be a long-term D&D campaign for some undergrad guys here at school. We have five good players and, if scheduling works out, I can see us having a fun, consistent game. For me, there was a bit of quality nostalgia as I watched these guys get all excited about the game, make Monty Python references, and crawl around the dungeon. All the players are pretty new to gaming, so they embrace all the things that tired, jaded players like me have almost forgotten. It's great. (We're playing the Age of Worms adventure path, btw).

Saturday we mucked around the house, cleaning and doing laundry. I cut the grass. We balied on our household duties early to go watch football at Lukes. Robbie joined us for awhile. Then we went over to some new friends of ours -- Jeannie and Jason -- for some poker. Jeannie is a new sociology professor at Winthrop and Jason works in Student Activities. Jeannie is also a Furman grad, class of 99, and we know a lot of the same people. We had a good time playing poker, although I was a bit distracted by the football games. Jeannie and Jason have a nice projector setup, so I watched the Ohio State/Texas and the SC/Georgia game after I busted out.

Sunday was church and IHOP, then the grocery store. I graded some papers while Sarah did an open house. Watched some of the Cowboys game and some of the Manning Bowl, but am just not as interested in pro football.

Now it's back to work. I have lots of writing to do as well as papers to finish grading. I'm working on an article called "The Hegemony of Google" and a paper on ethics and assessment.

Posted by Nakia at 09:27 AM | Comments (2)

September 08, 2006

We Do More Before 9 AM. . .

It's 7:23 AM. This has been my day thus far:

3:30 AM -- Wake up for no apparent reason. Try to go back to sleep.
4:00 AM -- Unable to go back to sleep because of too many thoughts in my head, get up to make a list of stuff I need to do or am thinking about ("open loops" in Getting Things Done parlance)
4:15 AM -- return to bed
4:30 AM -- Still unable to go back to sleep. Get up to do a couple of things on that list I just made. Send an email about gaming.
4:40 AM -- return to bed
5:00 AM -- Realize there is no way I am getting back to sleep. Decide to get up and start the day, with hopes of getting enough stuff done to take a nap this afternoon.
5:00 AM -- 5:45 AM -- Send more emails, balance checkbook. Get paper as it is being dropped off. Eat bowl of ceral while reading paper.
5:45 AM -- 6:30 AM Shower, get dressed, get stuff ready to take to the office. Realize that I am completely ready to go to work, as well as having accomplished a few minor things, by the time I am normally about to get out of bed.
6:45 AM -- Arrive at office.

Thus far, I've finished grading a set of exams, as well as averaging and entering them into the gradebook. I've got an 8:30 meeting. I wonder if I can accomplish enough by the time of that meeting to go home afterwards. I was pretty awake and energized after breakfast, but am starting to fade a bit. This would be coffee time, if I drank coffee. And it's still too early for a Coke. *Yawn*

Listening to: David Gray White Ladder

Posted by Nakia at 07:27 AM | Comments (5)

September 05, 2006

I Don't Ever Have This Problem

I like games -- all kinds of games. Board games, Role Playing Games, Card Games -- all kinds. For Christmas, Andre and Heidi gave us Scene It, a movie trivia game that comes with a DVD. We've played it a few times and have always had fun when we've done so.

The problem I don't have is ever seeing myself in one of those DVD clips. Wil Wheaton apparently, has this problem.

His blog is great, btw. He's a good writer and seems like a really cool guy.

Posted by Nakia at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)