The Story of the Old Man with the Xbox: "What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy" James Paul Gee

While browsing through our class's Goodreads bookshelf, I was looking for things that particularly deal with gaming. I'm trying to focus my topic on the value of gaming and the real world applications for things like the workplace. There's a lot of different stuff I'm passionate about, but divided focus leads to no work done. James Paul Gee it is. His book seems to be about how video games can give us learning skills. I agree. I wouldn't be so good at handling my money if I hadn't spent hours with RPGs.

Diiiiiiiiiiiiigo to bed

I'm starting to really like Diigo. I've been using it for all of an hour maybe, but I'm already realizing how curating my 7 tabs open at any given time can help me direct my research rather than bog it down and get distracted by side-quests.

1. Highlighting - I do this in my head anyway, but I love love love being able to highlight directly on a webpage. I don't understand why I'm enjoying it so much, but it's like a great part about paper things has finally manifested in my digital world in a beautiful way.

2. Bookmarking - I know I could bookmark using Google's built in bookmarking function, but somehow that seems cluttered, and I like to bookmark pages on my browser that I visit a lot, not an article for school. I don't want it filled in automatically while I'm typing. idk.

3. Saving Pages - I can save all those little articles that I'm just browsing for background info. Now they don't just become closed tabs lost in the ethereal world of my half-memory. Normally I disregard pages that aren't rich with helpful stuff. This way I'll be able to look at a lot of little things to build a bigger picture.

BOOKMARK'D

I think this is a great tool for academic research. I was thinking of making a wiki, and that might be better for further organizing information, but for right now I'm mostly trying to just round up a lot of information and highlight the heck out of it. Diigo is great for this.

Office Workers, Run!

Since I have started my cubicle adventures at an insurance company, I have experienced the joys of earning more than minimum wage, certain paid days off, and not lifting heavy things. I was certain this was the kind of job I wanted after years of work hauling stuff around at various jobs for little money and little appreciation. (Though bosses do like hard workers.)

The longer I have worked in insurance, though, the more I've started to see some of the frustrations that come with 8 hours a day in front of a computer. A health article on Yahoo goes into more detail, but basically it'll jack up your body if you sit at a desk all day and don't move around your body like a normal human being. It also isn't great to stare at a screen all the time or eat desk-candy. I used to think my dad was crazy for standing up sometimes when we watched a movie at home. "I've been sitting at a desk all day," he would tell me, "I don't want to sit anymore." I didn't used to get that. Now I get that.

Is the root of this problem computers? 

Computers have been really helpful for the insurance industry. Thanks to going paperless we now consume negligible amounts of paper. Before, we would have to reprint every page of a form with a mistake and everything had to be put in big file cabinets. Having everything on a network not only makes collaboration faster and easier, but allows for happy whales in the ocean of "quit using so much paper".

I saw an article in the BYU newspaper about this zombie app for a smart phone. It encourages people trying to make running goals by narrating a zombie story in which the main character is the runner, being chased. The best part is that if the runner isn't running fast enough, she gets caught. And it's part of the story. There is also music.

Not saying that we should be running at work, but there is an issue. In some ways, computers tie us to desks. In the way of this app, it takes us outside and helps us get real exercise. I would like to see more technology do that.

I also really like hearing about how gamification and using it in the workplace to help make work less awful and more like a fun, happy game. I haven't done a lot of research, but I feel very strongly that if people are going to spend the majority of their lives in front of screens, can we at least make it as fun as Candy Crush Saga or something? Pong?

Not sure how the insurance field would feel about gamification because these are very serious contracts that have to be taken very seriously. Lighten up, guys. Jeez.

Past the Gatekeepers

After talking to Professor Burton about an old project of mine, he asked that I post about it. I'll be brief because it's a pretty long story and encompasses the work of about four years. I have actually published a book called Bubblegum Psychology. 

I became somewhat monomaniacally obsessed in my grade school years with publishing before leaving teenagehood. That by itself is a long story. Let's just say that I did a lot of writing in my free time. I was becoming frustrated with a long time book idea and decided that I wanted to quickly pump out a story, completely unconnected to anything I'd done before. I gave myself a lot of deadlines and made myself finish it without dragging things out. The first draft took about a year (I was still in high school). Editing and figuring out business stuff took about another year. The book is not phenomenal, but it's good. It feels good to have a real, physical copy of something I wrote to put on the shelf. 

The current process for publishing a book is arduous and frustrating for a first time writer with no connections. I had already learned about querying and rejection from previous projects. I got a lot better with writing concise letters, but it still wasn't enough. No takers for this project. I realized that I was running out of time to meet my goal of publishing as a teen and decided that nobody was going to stop me from this goal, even if it meant publishing it myself. 

I didn't want to go to a vanity press. I ended up reading a great book by Aaron Shepherd called "Aiming at Amazon" which introduced the idea that you could make a living by skipping a publishing company altogether and getting yourself a contract with a print-on-demand company. 

Here are some of the things I did:

• Artwork - including the painting you see on the cover as well as pencil illustrations inside the book. Worked with Gimp (a photoshop-like program) and Adobe Illustrator as well
• Formatting - You really don't think about things like how to set margins and what size font your story should be until you're staring at your MS word document and realizing your novel can't be published as an 8.5X11 without looking like a dingus. Also it's better if it's not in Times New Roman. This thing has to look polished, like a company put it together
• Editing - My family's not really into reading. My best friend helped edit it. No other takers. Every time the word "lose" appears in the first edition, it's misspelled. 
• License - In order to be a publisher, I needed to file for a license to do business in the state of Ohio. I think it was $25. You also need ISBNs, which make the most sense to buy in a batch of 10. 
• Printer - I signed a contract with a company that had a print-on-demand service, meaning I wouldn't be left with 1,000 unsold copies of my book in my garage. 
• Publicity - Facebook page, traditional posters (which my best friend posted around the Ohio State University and they kept getting stolen - that's good, right?), and a home website were some of the ways I tried to get word out about my groovy new book. Took copies of it and posters to libraries and asked if they wanted them. 
• Reviews - Submitted a copy to Flamingnet, a popular YA review site. Got a great review :) Also tried to contact others who would review the book (mostly bloggers).  Also tried to get some motion with Goodreads.

And yet you have probably never heard of Bubblegum Psychology before. That's probably because 

1. I didn't really interact with writing communities. I built my mill away from the stream.
2. I don't know what I'm doing

I've already moved on to more projects because I realized that BP was becoming like my last failed project: the more I worked on it, the worse it got. So I've already written a new book. I'm hoping to use tools from this class to better integrate with writing communities and bring more people to a phenomenal home site, which I will have to create. I just need more content. Lots and lots of content. Then people will believe that I'm a whole company, and not just some doofus in her basement pretending she makes books. 

This was art from one of the posters

Additional content included 2 short stories involving a side character

I can still build on what I've done. I will build a great big
tower of "Hey look, I wrote something." 

Paper Ideas

I had a few different ideas for a paper, because there's a lot you could talk about with Moby Dick. I've thought about

• Moby Dick as a sort of travel blog by Ishmael. How to connect this to how early novels and pamphlets functioned much the same way as blogs. 
• More about symbolism of the color white. (See past post.)
• Some tie-in to video games. 

As much as I like the first two topics, I can always talk about video games. For hours, if need be. I mentioned to my teammates that I was looking for a way to make that connection and it seemed like kind of a stretch until Cheri mentioned that Ahab's obsession with Moby Dick is a lot like a video game addict's obsession with a game. That is something I can gladly write about! I'm very passionate about the dangers of video game addiction, even as an avid gamer. Ahab and gamers have a surprising amount in common in this analogy. 

1. Ahab is spending a lot of time on something that he deems mega important and which other people don't care about at all (killing a specific whale)
2. He enlists others for his cause, much like group gaming. This is much more possible with networks like Xbox live, LAN parties, or just playing online. 
3. Ahab posts a reward for spotting the whale. Gamers earn points. 
4. Not satisfied when he kills whales that are not Moby Dick. Hours and hours of gameplay can be frustrating if they come to no end.
5. Ahab and his crew are all crushed in the end. More and more increasingly (actual statistics would help strengthen this argument) innocent game players become genuine addicts. They quit their jobs, drop out of school, or are otherwise not participating any more in the real world. 

I'm mostly looking for ways to develop my video game argument. I will probably only focus on two or three points, but I listed what came to mind. I'm also open to ways to develop my other ideas if they are, in fact, better. 

I wish I could have that Moby Dick flash game embedded in my paper :)

Meaning in Moby

Blog posts so far:

• Call Me Oatmeal Proposes topics for introductory material
• Answer Your Own Questions Things about Heidi.
• The Machine Had some problems with the video viewed in class. It looks pretty and is an interesting way of presenting an essay, but did not find the content radically insightful. 
• Enter Starbuck Our team mascot is in the book now! 
• Other Uses Interested in the common man's ability to create very polished products using technology that has filtered down. Uses Adobe Illustrator as an example. Also mentions how unusual niche communities can appear, such as creators of "chiptune" music. 
• Oh the Whiteness Discusses the significance of the color white in certain passages of Moby Dick. 
• Science for Science's Sake Maybe Moby Dick really is just about a whale, okay?
• Credibility Artists with a presence online can move into more traditional print forms after gaining a following. This is a great way to allow someone publicity who might otherwise stay obscure. 
• Reconciling Digital Connection with A Life Outside My Basement Online collaboration is great, but sometimes I find there is no substitution for face-to-face interaction. 

I think that the last two posts I've written have really expressed my current relationship with digital culture. As tech-savvy as I like to think I am, I'm actually very resistant to certain trends and ideas. Twitter is the best example of this. I have firmly believed since it came out that it is the biggest waste of time on the face of the planet. I'm also not fond of smart-phones, which keep people glued to them constantly and allow old women to show you pictures of their grandchildren on-the-go, unwarranted or not. Another big thing is trying to share unfinished ideas online and publish professional content online. (Does this not spoil the content for a potential "real" publisher?)

I realized after remembering a big project of mine from a few years back that part of the reason I've been resistant to the ideas of sharing big ideas through social media is because I had a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to share a big idea. I was frustrated with the medium and have turned to more traditional ways of refining my work. This doesn't have to mean that I give up on blogging, though. I'm still exploring.

Although I'm resistant to the idea that blogging will replace some traditional means of sharing information, I'm growing more used to it. Really the current means of sharing ideas in academia are indeed prehistoric and could use the same vivacity we assign to social media. I'm resistant to the idea that Twitter is worthwhile in any way, but seeing how General Conference ideas are shared through Twitter has been really eye opening for me. There is a place for this kind of sharing and in class we've talked about how it makes a bigger impact in certain ways.

Even though I don't warm up to ideas right away, I think it's most important that I'm being exposed to them. A million English classes later and I may still never like Transcendentalism. A million tweets later I may still find no use in Twitter.

I guess my question is whether it's best to integrate your content online in every way you can find possible to give your work more exposure or whether you ought to concentrate on making quality content for just a few different platforms. Is it silly to stick with traditional mediums when there are newer, "better" online methods? Does it make any sense to continue putting out traditional posters and billboards?

Reconciling Digital Connection with A Life Outside My Basement

As I've experimented with a personal blog outside of class and as I've developed ideas on our class blog (as well as considering all the different ways to share content and connect with people in other ways introduced in class) I've come to better understand how sharing content online can be a great growing experience and an excellent opportunity to develop your ideas, no matter what they're related to. Derrick's post as well as Danielle's from Team Queequeg (along with many others from our class) have discussed the idea that posting content regularly is the best way to stay connected with online ideas.

The thing I'm struggling with the most right now is the fact that this is time consuming. To really develop a quality idea and put out quality writing, it takes more than just spilling some words from your brain and leaving them online for someone to glance over later. 

For my personal blog, I made a goal to post about three times a week. It turns out, I end up spending anywhere from 0.5 to 1.5 hours on a quality post, and that's kind of a commitment. When I'm done staring at textbooks and worksheets for the day or typing insurance policies in a stuffy office, I want to be outside of my house. I want to go talk to real people face to face. I want to have meaningful relationships and participate in real activities like painting or even going for walks.

"Heidi, you can take your computer outside." Technically that is true. Not my point.

Do I really need to bounce ideas off the universe? One of my best creative periods was the year after I graduated high school and worked before heading to college. I only worked 27 hours a week and spent the rest of my time biking everywhere, writing, and reading my writing to my best friend. We would sit in her basement for hours and talk about everything and then I would read her my writing. When she laughed, I knew I had written something good. When she made "ugh" noises, I knew I needed to change something. During that time period I also tried sharing my writing online in a couple different ways and the feedback I got was nothing compared to those little "ugh" noises from my best friend. 

Biking to the library is a great way to find information outside of Google. It also helps keep your muscles from atrophying. 

Obviously, you shouldn't modify your writing to fit what one person likes or dislikes, but immediate feedback from a real person can be very powerful. I also took a creative writing class that felt similar. Even though we shared our writing online, we met three times a week in person to discuss things and evaluate each other's work. 

Is this bad to want to connect only with people nearby, or is it better? I think it depends on the person. When I was in middle school, I felt like the only people who understood me were online. I could have found some specific people to workshop with. Dr. Burton has showed us that it is possible to collaborate online and make real things that are good. If not done well, though, I feel that often leaving work online for someone to find can be unproductive and not yield good feedback.

I wanted to add, though, that I really like the idea that blogging is a more effective way of sharing literary ideas and research papers rather than traditional methods. I don't know how that works into the rest of this post. I keep changing it. Every time I read it through it doesn't sound right. I'm going to chalk it up at this point to an "unfinished idea" that I want to share anyway.

Credibility

I was sort of surprised when Dr. Burton introduced the idea that unfinished work and works-in-progress should be posted online. I was mortified. Of course you don't post unfinished work online!

But why not?

I always felt that when people post things that aren't finished or that are in progress, it's sort of a half-baked effort to produce a "real" book, comic, or article. I've felt like it's only proper to produce finished works. If you want to be taken seriously, you show that you can finish something.

As I thought about it more, I started thinking about creative minds that I really appreciate who have a big online presence who haven't necessarily published a great American novel or contributed to a huge movie. In particular, there's an artist named Emmy Cicierega who my brother and I have sort of followed for a while now because she has a distinct art style and posts frequently. Her work on DeviantArt has led to collaborations with other artists. She and a group of artists also got an amazing amount of funding for their Kickstarter, which was for a collaborative art book. She has a variety of real, physical things now published!

The reason we like her is because she posts a lot of brief, entertaining cartoons like this:

 

 These goofy sketches lead us to look at her real work, though. 

There are also a lot of webcomic artists who have followed the formula of producing content online until they know they have a following and enough product, then producing print forms of their digital content. I don't know if any of you read Megatokyo back when it was popular ten years ago, but it was picked up by Tokyopop and published because there were already fans.

This is like Green Day refusing to sign with a label until they know that they are going to get a good deal because they can say, "We're bringing a huge crowd of fans along with us, what are you bringing to the table?" They could afford to ask for more because whether they got signed or not, they were going to keep playing shows and having their fans. To me, Green Day has been extremely smart business-wise. That's probably why they have a musical and an Xbox game and not just a garage band. They also have produced a huge amount of content over the years. 

I know this isn't really related to academic blogging specifically, but this post is really interested in the "Launch" aspect of Dr. Burton's post about academic blogging. I'm more inclined to think about this in ways that will benefit my future hypothetical career of dealing in creative something. (Writing? Artwork? Product design? Who knows.)

Science For Science's Sake

I 'm a little sad not to incorporate more links to other people's blog posts, but when I get an idea of something I want to write about, I'm going to write about it okay? Though before I start I do want to point out that there's a Moby Dick flash game that Mary Layton posted a link to and I recommend you all go play it for hours and hours with no moderation.

I've been going a little crazy while reading this whale story because in class we've talked a lot about why Herman Melville would write such a long story with so much detail about whaling. What could he have meant by it? What is it that he's trying to tell us about the world through his depictions of whales being slaughtered and boiled down into oil?

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

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I've encountered this issue in many an English class and there have been many teachers who have asserted that certain texts are meant to mean certain things. There are way too many Jesus allegories that have been found and it is my assertion that sometimes we think way too hard about something that can be simple.

 Are we closed minded to the idea that maybe it doesn't mean anything deeper and this guy is just really interested in whales? Maybe the story of Ahab is not so much the focus, but a vehicle for delivering his much-adored whale facts.

"But Heidi, this is a 500 page classic literary piece. There must be way more to it than just a whale story!"

You might be right. And I'm sure as Melville was writing, his beliefs and his code of living have seeped into the text to make it more than just a whale story. Let me tell you, though, that there have been times that I have written things or painted pictures with nothing more in mind than to write a simple story or to paint pictures of clouds and my teachers and classmates have read much more than what I intended. In some ways, this was good: I was able to see more in something that I had created. Their perception of meaning created more meaning in the subject for me. In some instances it was frustrating because they were creating meaning where I had not intended any to exist.

I also point to an example from my younger years: I, like many other children, loved to read animal books. I would drink up all the information I could from animal programs and animal encyclopedias. This love of inhaling information everywhere around me branched into other subjects and led for an inevitable need for frequent regurgitation of information. My mom, whether she wanted to or not, became well acquainted with a working knowledge of a beehive and the peak speed of a cheetah while chasing a meal as well as the other volumes of information I would repeat. (I actually really liked the chapters about the dissection of the whale and the harvesting of blubber and the process of turning that blubber into oil. I was genuinely interested in how the heck they would deal with the whale once they caught it. What I really need as a companion to Moby Dick would probably be a whale Eyewitness book.)

When you like to read a lot, it has to go somewhere. Melville clearly liked to learn about whales. He spent time on whaling ships and he read so much it would almost seem a waste not to spend entire chapters detailing the significance of a whale's blow hole and the peculiarities about the bones in the fins.

My friends and countrymen, couldn't we all use a little more science for science's sake? Some facts that will not make us wiser, but which will tell us everything we never wished to know about whales?

I say unto you, yea. 

Oh the Whiteness

I wanted to take a post to talk about the significance of "white" in Moby Dick so far, at least from what I'm interpreting. Shelly also posted her interpretation in case you want her perspective about Moby as Diety.

I started talking about my views in class and I just wanted to reiterate them here. I've tried doing a few simple searches to see if I could get some supporters to back my white whale ideas but the searches didn't turn up much. I even tried a couple searches through the sources at the BYU library but apparently I've already lost all the MLA database savvy I gained last semester from my literary criticism class because I was unsuccessful there as well.

But look at this passage for a minute:

In chapter 69 the killed and hung whale is described thus: "The peeled white body of the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre" There is also the mention of the white bones of the dead whales.

I feel that this version of the cover is both white AND unsettling. And in the creative commons that's right yes.

In his chapter about whiteness, after describing holy associations with the color white, Melville (as Ishmael) states: "The elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror tot he furthest bounds." 
He goes on to name some scary white things like sharks and polar bears.

To me, Melville's descriptions of Moby Dick are certainly divorced from holy associations. In my sightings of the color white, it's also strongly associated with death. He almost seems to be a ghost of a slain whale come to seek revenge on his killers.

This strange, unholy whiteness is reiterated in the chapter about The Albatross, the white ship that the Pequod encounters. When the crew of the white ship tries to communicate, their speaking horn falls overboard and they awkwardly pass by each other in silence. If whiteness is associated with death, does this show Ahab's inability to listen to what the dead might be trying to say? His monomania with killing Moby Dick prevents him from perhaps hearing the dead whales crying out against him.

Is the author against whaling, then, that he would send spectral dead whale symbols after his Ahab for revenge?

It's difficult to tell! On the one hand, he seems truly interested in the business of whaling. He finds no problem with eating a whale by the light of its own oil. He goes in to great, non-judgemental detail about the process of using the different parts of the slain whale. He seems, like Ishmael, to enjoy whaling and the occupation of being at sea.

On the other hand, he seems to almost worship the whale. Is it not true devotion to spend an entire chapter specifically on the spout of the whale? On the tail? It was especially in his observation of the whale community during a hunt that I felt like Melville was stuck in a very strange place where he was trying to kill the whales and love them at the same time. Pg. 347: "Like household dogs they came snuffling round us, right up to our gunwales, and touching them; till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly domesticated them. Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched their backs with his lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the time refrained from darting it"

Can someone view these whales with such a degree of affection and still appreciate the business killing them in herds, then dissecting them for their oil?

To me, Moby Dick could be read as the white ghost whale seeking revenge.

Also, a real life white whale! But not a sperm whale.

Other Uses

I really feel like last class was a mind-broadening experience. It really got me thinking and on the train ride home from school all I could think about was what I could do more than what I'm doing now in any way, shape, or form. I usually try and find projects to work on in my free time (if I have any) that are thoughtful and creative, like painting or writing. When I'm bogged down with work or school I usually end up spending all my free time watching cartoons because I can't handle anything else.

Sometimes, though, I'll get a creative spark and finish a project. I really liked talking in class about how so much technology that used to be inaccessible is now something you can pick up at the store. I've gotten really into Adobe Illustrator because you can make any kind of custom merchandise you can imagine if you turn your art into a vector. Adobe products are a little expensive, but with it I've made some really cool presents for my family because I'm a broke student and can't afford anything else:

This was for my sister and her husband. I took two halves of a heart and made a tattoo-style logo with their names because Bobby works as a tattoo artist. I had the design put on mugs for them, and I think I got a deal so each mug was just $5.00. Super cheap but also thoughtful present. It's a few steps up from macaroni necklaces. 

I'm excited about all the different collaborating efforts online that we talked about. I've looked into Threadless before (since I like designing stuff). What really inspired me was talking about music collaboration. I really like singing but I've had trouble figuring out what to do with it.

That got me thinking about how (well duh) I could collaborate with my husband (who likes writing music). We've talked about it before but never really finished anything. He wrote me a song for my birthday last year:


Chris likes to write chiptunes, which is like the music they would write for Gameboy and other early gaming systems that couldn't handle elaborate, symphonic music. As electronic music has become more popular, you can hear elements of the chiptune style in popular music, like Lady Gaga's "Starstruck."

I thought that kind of connected with how we talked in class about different ways to use technology. I mean, who would have thought to take chiptunes and play with them so much that you get a whole genre? I always assumed we would just move on to orchestrated video game music when we had the hardware for it.

So on the train home I tried to write some lyrics and Chris and I are going to see if we can make anything cool. We have a robot love song we need to finish. 

Enter Starbuck

This is the moment we've been waiting for, team. Our mascot has been revealed! Chapter 26 finally introduces the first mate, Starbuck. I'm glad he's our namesake because he's got it all:


1. Brains and courage in the correct combination. His attitude for whaling was described thus by the narrator
      "...I am here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs..."

      "...he thought, perhaps, that in this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted."

2.  A dark past - his father and brother were both killed by whales, yet he persists in the whaling business anyway.

3. Great skin. "His pure tight skin was an excellent fit"


Getting through this book is slow going for me right now, particularly the cetology chapter. I do really like the descriptions of dining time, though. Especially Dough-boy getting harassed by the harpooneers! And poor Flask has to eat so quickly because he comes in last and leaves first. These lively moments make my husband say, "what? what?" when I start laughing while reading. Then I have to go back and read the passage to him.

 

 

I'm just going to stop here for a minute and take a break.  It's cool, I'll still get the reading done.

Aw man how am I going to get through this book in one month. I can barely keep my mind on food long enough to eat.

The Machine

I was excited to see Kristen's blog post about the reliance of XML on HTML. The video we watched for class made a lot of claims in an interesting way. It was interesting to see the creator type his essay within the source codes of different websites. At first I thought he was altering the code in an interesting way and would show us the results, but he just kept moving on to the next thing. I didn't feel like he made a very good argument for his points. He really just presented his essay while jumping around the internet.

The creator of the video claimed that we are teaching the machines and they are using us. I felt like there were a lot of things he could have talked about to expand on this idea. He could have given examples, like, "The average American spends such and such amount of time on the internet a day," or "Such and such number of new iPhones were sold within the first ten minutes of being released" to try and show that technology controls our buying habits and what we do with our time. He could have talked about how disposable cameras are a museum item because of the difficulty posting such pictures to our Facebook accounts.

But this creator did not. He simply stated that, "Machines are using us." I feel like this is very similar to the claim that we must "Save Rock and Roll" from unidentified, imaginary threats. (The link is to my personal blog. You are welcome to explore it. I mostly talk about my fish.) Without any facts or further explanations, I feel that this video is incomplete, or at least unhelpful. I'm really surprised this came from a professor.

Good job, video creator, you know how to use the "view source" function!

Sorry for the late post. My husband and I are working on fixing my laptop which is suddenly having a fit.

Answer Your Own Questions

Thank you girls so much for your introductions! Here is a little about myself (Heidi) :

1. I love buffalo wings so much it should be a crime. One of my favorite things to do is to go to Applebees with my husband during happy hour when the wings are half off. Then we drown them in buffalo sauce and have a spicy happy feast. 
2. I crossed an item off my bucket list this summer - See Jimmy Eat World live! They are my favorite band. I've been listening to their records for a long time but I'd never seen them live because I had a no-concerts thing for a while. It's complicated. I kept stalking their tour date page to see when they'd be touring in America again and as soon as a Salt Lake date came up, I bought tickets. They played my two favorite songs and now I can die happy. Except I shouldn't until later because my husband would be sad. 
3. Why did I even come up with this question. I don't know the answer. Let's say Nicholas Nickleby for arguments' sake. I saw the movie when I was younger and I thought Nicholas was cool and hardcore so I named my car after him. I finally read the book this summer. It's stupidly long, but worth the read. Dickens has a lot to say and he says it well. 

I have short hair now but I don't have any pictures of it yet.
But this is what I look like. 

I also love Moby Dick's portrayal in Matilda ;)

Call me Oatmeal

Hello and happy semester start to you! Welcome to team Starbuck.

This is probably him. I know nothing about Moby Dick yet. 

I've been assigned as your team captain, and I'm excited to get to know this crew! We will be sure to sink all the other ships. And by sink the other ships I of course mean, "engage in an enlightening discussion and not try to sabotage our classmates." (But of course, why assign us as ships if we're not going to battle? Come on.)

I'm personally a little intimidated by this book, no lie. I wish to overcome this intimidation by getting overly excited about Moby Dick. Even if I don't really get it on my own, I can do my best to read and then come to class with questions.

In case you didn't get everything in the emails and the syllabus (I know I tend to skim things that are more than a paragraph) our assigned blogging days are Wednesday and Saturday. Please make sure to post something about yourself so that I can get to know you! I'm sure you've heard the same "What's your major?" "Where are you from?" questions on campus and you are welcome to answer those. What I would like to know is:

1. What is your favorite food?
2. What's a cool thing on your bucket list?
3. What is your favorite book?

I would also like to know why, but you don't have to get crazy.