Here’s one that didn’t make it from my laptop to web…

I was struck by the irony of reading Hairston’s The Winds of Change for a class in a process program which exists in, arguably, a “post-process” world. At the same time, I find myself wondering how far into a paradigm shift we are since FSU has a fair amount of multimedia composition included in the “process” curriculum/FYC strands. More importantly, I find myself intrigued by questions I think a process oriented classroom raises for multimedia compositions. I’m interested in what a “draft” looks like and how we can teach our students to offer constructive criticism on, for example, a web site or a prezi or comix composition. Clearly, reading and commenting on the textual features will be rather straight forward but some of the other rhetorical choices the author/designer/creator makes might be more challenging, especially if there are symbolic choices made and/or limitations with the free versions of the programs.

In Shaping at the Point of Utterance, the idea of “projective structuring” and “retrospective structuring” caught my interest because I think these terms present an interesting dilemma for me as an instructor and are activities I see students engaging in. First, I give my students the assignment, write your digital media narrative (fleshed out significantly more than this!). However, I am the primary audience, the paper has a length requirement, and the purpose of the paper is to earn a grade. Some of my students asked questions that were clearly in the “tell me what to say so I can earn an A” vein while others (relieved of the 5 paragraph essay?) talked about their favorite music videos, games, and web sites. The latter students were, in some ways, more fun to work with because the assignment involved more “retrospective structuring” as they sought to convene their meaning through words alone…no vocal tones, facial expressions, hand gestures, or emotions…just words. The former present a more challenging group because I want want to know what they think rather than have them regurgitate what I said in class. So my role of audience needs to influence them to embark on this journey (if only for the grade) so they can start to experience the joy of “retrospective structuring” and pehaps learn something about themselves along the way.

Perhaps I’m stretching and trying to make the theories we’re studying relevant to my classroom practices… but thinking about Tuesday’s class discussion and the strand I’m teaching in ENC -1101, Engaging Cultural Mediums: Multimedia Texts, I can pull threads out of the articles and see how they are enacted in my classroom. Obviously, my concern is if the students can and are making some of the same connections. That is, are or will (some of) the lessons transfer to other classes and to the workplace? Specifically, I’m thinking of the ad analysis assignment I used this semester. An interesting moment occurred when I broached the rhetorical triangle – ethos, logos, & pathos. Most of the students were familiar with the terms from their high school English classes and had used them to discuss literature; however, a surprising number balked at the idea that advertisements used the same methods to influence their viewers/readers. Only after looking at several ads and discussing how the designers used elements such as texts, images, colors, lines, and shapes as well as placement– foreground/background, top/bottom, left/right–and overlaps did the students start to “buy into” the discussion. A great discussion started after I pointed out the Nike Combat Pro ad in the ESPN magazine. The ad was placed in a September issue shortly after 8th anniversary of 9/11. The ad was eight pages long with pictures of athletes with a “body armor” overlay. When I mentioned the “coincidence” and suggested the ad was playing on the body armor issued to our troops overseas as well as the past questions about why all the troops weren’t issued body armor before being deployed, a lively discussion ensued. Some students saw the connect, some argued against it. But for a (brief!) moment the intersection of school, politics, sports, and advertisements existed and allowed at least some of the people involved to see how the various systems interacted and influenced each other, how ideas circulate between different systems.

Los miembros de F(x), Amber, Krystal y Sully han sido diagnosticados con la gripe porcina.

El día 22, las tres miembros, presentaron los síntomas de la gripe, por lo que fueron a hacerse exámenes al hospital y fueron diagnosticadas con la gripe porcina. Las miembros Luna y Victoria, no han sido afectadas y están actualmente sanas.

Desafortunadamente para F(x), cancelarón su participación en el ”K-Pop Night concert” en Shangai, China, prevista para el 25 de noviembre.

Ever since he successfully ditched a plane in the Hudson, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and his wife Laurie have been having what she calls “hero sex” – Sully himself calls it “rock star sex” – Read more

I wonder if they’ve ever joined the mile high club… (sorry, couldn’t resist)

from January 19, 2009

Game Of The Year? Muy posiblemente lo verán tus ojos.

Bueno, ahora le toca el turno de tener su OverVierw al juegazo de Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

A estás alturas la mayoría de ustedes, tal vez ya lo hayan jugado, si no es así, no se qué esperan para ir a rentarlo o de perdida pedirlo prestado a quien más confianza le tengan.  Y una disculpa por la tardanza, pero me quise dar mi buen tiempo en disfrutar esta joya.  No quise dar un OverView rápido sin haber jugado de pi a pa todo el juego, ahorita me encuentro enganchado con el MP y estoy dándole la 2ª vuelta a la campaña.  Bien, empecemos.

Historia

“I have only told the half of what I saw!” Marco Polo en su lecho de muerte.

Bueno, quisiera darles una pequeña idea de que trata tan fabuloso titulo (sin darles spoilers), para que entiendan un poco más la nueva aventura que enfrenta Nathan Drake.

Tenemos que en esta ocasión Nathan Drake se encuentra en la busca de la flota perdida de Marco Polo;  la cual, según los registros constaba de trece embarcaciones, de las cuales sólo se supo de una.   Pero lo importante es lo que en ellas venía abordo, o mejor dicho, de “donde” venía.

Para dicha aventura, Nate es seducido para ayudar a Harry Flynn, amigo de Nate, y Chloe, el cual ha sido contratado por un “cliente” para encontrar dichas embarcaciones.  De ahí en adelante todo se convierte en traiciones, mentiras, giros de historia innesperados,que te harán estar al filo del sillón.

La verdad, la historia me sorprendió bastante, la forma en que te la cuentan es sensacional, inicias con un Drake moribundo y desangrandose, dentro de un vagón de tren colgando de un precipicio y tirititando de frío. Te muestran la historia de por qué estás donde estás, a manera de flashbacks hasta ponerte en el mismo y justo instante en el que empezó el juego.   Los giros de la historia son de lo mejor que hayamos visto, el final les dejará un gran sabor de boca, no es como los finales pinchurrientos  a los que ya nos estamos acostumbrando a ver cada vez más en los juegos, donde sí no dejan la puerta abierta  a una continuación, no están contentos.    No, Uncharted 2, te lleva de la mano episodio trás episodio
desde el inicio hasta el climax de la historia, cuidando los detalles para cerrar con broche de oro su aventura.

You think they are a couple?

Gameplay

“What is that saying? Fortune favors the bold… yeah right…  Lucky me!” Nathan Drake.

Tal y como lo dice Nathan.  Mejores palabras para describir el gameplay no puede haber.  A estas alturas, para nadie es una sorpresa lo que la gente de Naughty Dog es capaz de hacer con las ideas de otros juegos y para Uncharted 2 se arriesgan y se se atreven a llevar esas ideas a un nuevo concepto, creando una amalgama de ideas
bien manejada.

Qué quiero decir con esto?  Pues que el gameplay de Uncharted 2 tiene un poco de todo lo visto antes en diferentes juegos;  Un sistema de cobertura soberbio, el cual será de mucha ayuda y sobre todo inteligente, una vez que lo dominas cualquier pared, mesa, carro, etc, será perfecto para acabar con los enemigos y sobre todo en el modo “crushing“.

Trepar por donde Drake pueda, es otra de las cualidades, es decir, te puedes subir y bajar a donde quieras, el juego no te pone límites.  La idea principal del juego
es “piensa en vertical”; al estar colgado igual puedes disparar, pero únicamente con tu arma secundaria, es decir pistolas, uzi o escopetas de mano, al igual que lanzar granadas y seguir brincando hacia arriba, abajo o a los lados.

Además que no siempre te resultará fácil adivinar hacia donde tienes que realizar el próximo salto, es decir, la calidad gráfica está presente en todos lados, y no te hará sencillo tu trabajo; normalmente en un juego puedes ver claramente el camino a seguir (éste está pintado de un color diferente, resalta del escenario, en
ocasiones hasta tiene cierte brillo delatador), no así lo es en Uncharted 2, pero para ello tienes que poner mucha atención hacia donde mira Nate.   Ejemplo:  Al estar colgado desde el filo de un edificio, mueves el stick L hacia la derecha y nada, lo mueves a la izquierda y Nate mueve su mano como si quisiera alcanzarlo, por lo que presionas X y a duras penas logra dar ese salto necesario para llegar al otro edificio.

Briiiinquele caón!

El sistema de combate también resalta en Uncharted 2, siendo este de los mejor vistos hasta la fecha.   No siempre ataca de la misma manera, depende mucho del daño que le hayas realizado antes con un rifle o pistola y lo rematará de diversas formas.   Incluso si no le has realizado ningún disparo, te le vas a golpes y de repente te bloquea el último golpe o te hace una llave y empieza la interacción y tendrás que presionar el botón preciso en el momento preciso para safarte y después volver a atacar para cambiar de tipo de golpe y lograr rematarlos.

Así mismo, el juego te da la opción de jugarlo en modo “stealth”, es decir, irte hacia los enemigos sin que estos adviertan tu posición o si quiera que sepan que están bajo ataque.  Incluso puedes estar cubierto detrás de una caja y un enemigo está dando una ronda y se aproxima hacia tu posición, esperas, atacas y realizas una variedad de ataques simplemente excelentes.

Vengache pa´acá!

El sistema de disparos es fluido, sencillo y muy práctico.  Sí eres de los que se frustraron con Resident Evil 5 por no poder caminar y disparar al mismo tiempo, Uncharted 2 te va a encantar.   La variedad de armas le da a Nathan muchas posibilidades de atacar, como siempre el Sniper es la forma más segura de acabar con los enemigos por la distancia, pero si eres valiente y audaz tomarás un tanque de gas con una mano, lo lanzarás hacia los enemigos y lo harás estallar en pleno vuelo con tu pistola .45 para que veas a los enemigos salir volando por los aires… awesome!

Los puzzles no son nada del otro mundo, resolver acertijos para seguir avanzando, lo que sí sorprende es el tamaña de algunos, siendo algunos del tamaño del escenario donde te encuentras.

Gráficos

A estás alturas para nadie es una sorpresa escuchar que los gráficos de Uncharted 2, son los mejores vistos hasta la fecha en una consola.  No lo digo solamente yo, lo dicen muchos , muchos, muchos sitios especializados, y comparto la misma opinión que ellos.

Uncharted 2, no tiene comparación gráficamente hablando.  La última palabra la tendrás tú cuando lo juegues como debe ser, conectado a una HDTV y me dices cómo se ve.

El diseño de los personajes es sensacional, puedes apreciar esos pequeños detalles en cada moviemiento, cicatrices, gestos, sangre, etc, etc.

Drake tiene la posibilidad de interacturar con casi, casi cualquier cosa en el escenario, botes, cajas, etc.

Los Cinemas son de lo mejor, presentados a manera de una película de hollywood.  Tomas interactivas, que cambian y se colocan dándote el mejor ángulo de la acción, poniéndote inmediatamente en la acción, de tal manera que no diferencías una secuencia de cinema a cuando ya tienes el control de Drake. Ejem:  Ves a Drake correr de frente hacia a ti en el cinema, y al fondo un camión lo persigue con ganas de atropellarlo, acto seguido ya lo estás controlando y tienes que presionar el stick L hacia a ti para que siga corriendo y tienes que disparar presionando R1, todo esto mientras esquivas cajas y obstáculos que salen de repente y obvio no los ves venir, ya que la cámara va hacia a ti.

Pa que me entiendan es esto:

Y momentos como ese hay muchos.  La verdad es simplemente “jugar una película”.

Puedo enumerar muchas, muchisímas cosas que me siguen sorprendiendo mientras vuelvo a jugar Uncharted 2, pero las resumiré un poco:

El Fuego Azul. Ese efecto dejará a mucha gente con la boca abierta.  De mi se acuerdan.

Nepal desde el punto más alto. Increíble lo bien detallado que se ve, a pesar de ser grandisimo.

La nieve.  Los escenarios de la nieve son claramente uno de los puntos fuertes de las gráficas, lo podrás ver en las botas de Nate.

Los diferentes atuendos de los personajes. En ocasiones traerás un atuendo y este tendrá que cambiar conforme avanza la historia, desde el atuendo de ladrón, pasando por el atuendo de un Drake moribundo ensangrentado de pies a cabeza, hasta uno con su chamarrita para el frío.  Y esto no sólo aplica al personaje principal.

Las luces.  Ver las montañas nevadas con esos efectos de luz me hicieron olvidarme fácilmente de los efectos de Killzone 2.

La interacción de Drake.  Al tocar o sumergirse en el agua, tu atuendo cambia a un atuendo mojado, que conforme pase el tiempo se secará.  Además de los acercamientos que tenga Drake al fuego, podrás ver como se cubre el rostro porque éste le afecta.

Música/Sonido/Voice Acting

“If I see a zombie around this corner…” Nathan Drake

Simplemente al nivel de los mejores soundtracks ganadores de un oscar.  Su música me recuerda mucho a películas que por su OST son inolvidables.  Le añade ese toque mítico a la historia y te tiene al filo de la butaca en cuanto escuchas que ésta cambia.  Cada nivel, cada situación va de la mano con un excelente soundtrack.

Gracias al camarada Bridge por habernos dado el OST del primer Uncharted y del segundo.  Admito que lo descargué y se me sigue haciendo de lo más chingon

Y el voice acting, qué decir?   Es genial.  Ante cada situación, cada acción, cada respuesta podrás ver el excelente timming que tienen todos los diálogos.  Puedes apreciar los gestos de los personajes al recitar su dialogo, como su cara se frunce, se ríe, etc.  Realmente transmite la sensación según sea el caso de cada situación.

Además que si le entiendes al ingles (no lo he probado en español), te sacará 2 que 3 sonrisas por sus disparatados diálogos.  Ese Nathan sí no se está dando un chingazo contra una pared o se cae, está diciendo una babosada que fácilmente te hará sonreír, al igual que los otros personajes.

Extras

Te interesa sólo la campaña?  Bueno, pues hay buenas noticias.  Una vez que lo hayas terminado, podrás volver a hacerlo pero ahora en modo Crushing (eso sólo sí ya lo terminaste en Hard).  Pero ahora con todo el dinero que hayas juntado (realizando ciertas acciones, encontrando tesoros, desbloqueando trofeos, etc) podrás comprar nuevos skins para el personaje principal.  Quieres jugar como Sully?  Pues compra el atuendo en la store del juego y activalo.  O como el Villano principal (oooh sí, tenemos a un malora hecho y derecho), los secuaces, Chloe, etc, etc.

Quieres munición infinita?  Activar el modo de cámara lenta? Filtro como el sephia, poner todo de cabeza o a manera de espejo?  Estos son sólo unos de los cuantos extras que tendrás en la store.  Créeme , hay muchos incentivos para volver a jugar la campaña.

Multiplayer

Del multiplayer, ya  les había hablado, sigue siendo igual de bueno y adictivo que cómo lo fue en su modo beta.  Obvio, éste se encuentra un poco más pulido y detallado.  La idea principal sigue siendo la misma, con modos de juegos clásicos que le agregan horas y horas extras al juego (al menos que seas de los pocos que no aprovechan el mutiplayer cuando un juego cuanta con éste).

Lo único que cambia y es para bien, es el co-op.  Esto debido a la limitación del demo.  Ahora en cada escenario cooperativo tendremos cinemas exclusivos, alusivos a la campaña, los cuales explican un poco esos pequeños vacíos de la trama principal en la campaña.  Todo esto va de la mano con la historia principal, como rescatar a cierta persona dentro de una aldea, llegar a cierto punto en el mapa, etc.

Excelente la decisión de Naughty Dog de darle ese aire de campaña al co-op, se agradece.

Bueno, hasta aquí con el OverView de Uncharted 2. Espero les haya gustado y lo hayan leído.  Sinceramente le doy un 98 y eso tan sólo porque me hubiera gustado que el juego tuviera coop slit screen.  Ya que la historia se presta para ello, en ciertos momentos, cabe aclarar. Falta ver lo que ofrecerá Modern Warfare 2, porque sinceramente tengo bien puesta la camiseta de MW2… pero Uncharted 2 puede ser el Game Of The Year muy fácilmente.  No quiero ni saber lo que pasaría si el GOTY fuera una exclusiva de PS3 (Caos, Trolls, etc).

De ahí en fuera, no le veo falla.  Tiene todo lo que pudieras pedir en un juego: acción, aventura, triángulo amoroso, muertes inesperadas, suspenso, sustos, risas, momentos de seriedad, traiciones, giros de historia, tooooooooooodo!

Sí no tienes un Ps3, te recomiendo que te acerques a alguien que lo tenga, se lo pidas prestado y lo pruebes.  Es un juego que nadie se debería perder.  De los mejores de ésta generación.

Para finalizar los dejo con uno de los mejores trailer que me haya tocado ver sobre video juegos.  También lo pueden descargar desde la PS STORE a su PS3 para que lo disfruten a 720p y 1080p.  Es la mejor prueba de que todo lo que dije anteriormente es sin duda verdad, sobre todo por la música.  Disfruten del trailer COLOGNE!

Y recuerden… “FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD!”

Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger

“I messed up.  I placed a tenant into an owner’s home and they wound up tearing it up and not paying rent.  There is no way they will ever hire me again…”  (Charlotte Property Manager)

“It was crazy, you see.  I took off and then two hours later, I landed in Charlotte.  I guess technically you could say that I did my job.  But the guy who crashed into the river, no, he’s the hero.  It’s weird, right?”  (Bitter Captain Roger Baines, played by Jason Sudeikis- Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday- 10/2/09)

Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger came to fame as the pilot who flew the 1/15/09 US Airways Flight 1549 from New York to Charlotte.  Most people remember the story; it became national news for weeks because the plane went down in the Hudson River minutes after takeoff.  You would figure that if you were on that flight, you’d be really upset!  You paid money to be in Charlotte in roughly two hours, but instead, you were heavily delayed, drenched, your luggage was ruined, and your life flashed before your eyes.  All meetings you had that day had to be cancelled.  Your plans were shot.  Your life was endangered.  You could have been thinking about who you could sue.  You would certainly never fly US Air again! 

You’d appreciate Captain Baines “good pilot” joke later in the SNL skit:

Q:  What did the good pilot do when he saw the flock of geese?

A:  He avoided them and continued on to Charlotte where he landed seven minutes early

However, Sully became a national hero.  What???  Though he saved the lives of his passengers, he still did land in a river which has to be viewed as a failure.  Was he a seasoned public relations professional who spun the story well afterwards?  Hardly.  Sully comes across as a soft-spoken guy.  His “speech” to the passengers before the crash was a brief and hardly eloquent, “Brace for impact.”  Inexplicably, it didn’t matter.  The passengers loved him.  They were thankful and effusive in praise.  No one said they wouldn’t fly with him again; in fact, most would rather have him captain their flights in the future.  Many Americans said the same thing.  How could this have been?

The simplest answer is that most people know that things go wrong.  It’s inevitable.  Sully could do little after he hit the flock of geese that caused the engines to fail.  As Charles Swindoll said, “Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it.”  Sully calmly put the plane down and salvaged what he could out of a tough situation.  His passengers knew he was in control and would work to ensure their safety.

In property management, picking tenants who will always pay and treat a rental home with respect is an inexact science.  You try to mitigate risk by performing credit and criminal background checks, verifying income and employment, and calling past landlords.  You collect security deposits and drive by houses to see if they look okay.  At the end of the day, however, you don’t live with them and can’t force people to fulfill their obligations.  It’s tough.

But when bad things happen (and they will at some point), it can be a positive as well.  It creates an opportunity to show your clients that you care, it allows you to learn more about them personally, and lets you demonstrate that you have a plan to correct things.  Most of our clients receive their monthly rent (directly deposited into their account) and we rarely get an opportunity to talk to them outside of our initial meeting.  But when issues arise, we get to build a bond with them while working to get their properties back on track.

Paradoxically, the clients whose homes we have had an issue with tend to be life-long customers, while those who receive their rent smoothly every month are the ones I worry about losing.  Relationships require give-and-take and often form out of adversity; without this, you can become a faceless entity that has no emotional connection. 

Out of a disaster, Sully built a bond in one day with his passengers that few, if any, pilots will ever have with theirs, even their frequent flyers.  Think about it.  Who was the pilot of your last flight?  Of your last ten?

So don’t cringe when something goes wrong.  It will give you an opportunity to get some of that lasting “Sully Love.”

Brett Furniss is the President & Owner of BDF Realty, “Charlotte’s Most Innovative Property Management & Investment Company” (www.BDFRealty.com and www.RentToSell.com).  You can follow his Twitter thoughts on the Charlotte real estate market by clicking on http://twitter.com/bdfrealty.  He is the author of the FREE E-Manual entitled “How to Rent-To-Sell Your Own Home” (http://www.renttosell.com/RTS-Book.html) which details how to get the most potential buyers to your home in this challenging real estate market.

In light of our class discussions last week, I’ll start by saying that during the past week or so I’ve bumped into a couple of terms that give me reason to pause and to consider my “teacherly” self, my apprentice professor self (and how does that differ from my teacherly self?) as well as my “grad student” self. Specifically, I’m thinking of the terms “rhetorical listening” and “rhetorical agility.” In some ways, Kill’s article is simply a rehashing of the issues we discussed in Prof. Coxwell-Teague’s class during the summer. However, now that I have a couple of weeks of classroom experience with two classes with day & night “personalities,” these topics have a renewed sense of importance to me…my rhetorical situation changed from a soon to be practicing but a still theoretical position with basically no experience to a practicing position, granted with limited experience.

I found Kill’s discussion of uptakes rather interesting even though in the back of my mind I was thinking her discussion reminds me of “invention” and “arrangement” from the classical canons of rhetoric. Specifically, Kill states that “by determining what this is the take up, a speaker’s utterance sets the stage for their interlocutor’s response” (219). At the risk of beating a dead horse, this sounds like invention and arrangement as well as style and delivery while relying on the interlocutor’s memory to form a “correct” uptake. Focusing on Kill’s discussion of uptake and the two examples she provides, her reading of the student responses to her prompt intrigued me because she offers two different interpretations/reactions to her students’ writing. First, while she claims to view the responses as valid acts of resistance, she still abandons the prompt for a survey which limits the students’ uptake to the particular uptake or uptakes with a range which she determined. So I find myself questioning why she stopped using a prompt that provided the material for this article. Furthermore, even though she discusses the weaknesses in her prompt, moving away from the student deficit model of evaluating writing, I’m troubled by her discussion because, in light of her shift to a survey, she seems to operating from the rhetorical position of the ideal text. Specifically, she appears to be trying to formulate an “ideal” or “universal” prompt. I see her switching to the survey as a type of the “defensive resistance” to maintain the status quo (216). And in fact acts to dismiss the range of rhetorical knowledge her students have especially if she truly believes that the one student who mentioned literature six times even though Kill’s syllabus and course catalog listing never use the word was not miss reading the prompt but engaged in an act of resistance, sort of reminding her what she is “supposed” to be teaching.

It has taken me a day to settle down from my harrowing plane flight.  I’m not afraid of flying, but flying in the high winds that hit the West Coast of the US yesterday was not a joy ride I enjoyed.  I was sitting there in seat 12F mentally writing my own obituary about how I was rushing back to Northern California to my cousin’s funeral, my second of the week, when my plane went down in the SF Bay.  It was one of those flights where you hear that whistle.  You know the sound.  It’s the one you hear in the movies where the plane makes that soaring screech before it hits the ground?  We had to abort our landing twice as our captain told us that the wind shears were too violent to provide us with a predictable path to the runway.  Inside the plane, we slammed against each other with each turbulent drop and rise of our plane, trying not to act worried.  The woman next to me grabbed my arm subconsciously and I didn’t even want to look at her  for fear I’d get scared too.  I tried to distract myself with the newspaper only to read about the great confidence we should have in the pilots of today, an article about Chesley Sullenberger, a local hero, and someone you would have wanted at the helm of our plane yesterday.  We eventually landed and everyone rushed to the men’s room full of relieved tension.  Even the pilot came rushing in to a bunch of smiling and relieved faces.

The quote for this post is a  thought provoking one from the Reverend who presided over my first funeral I attended this week.  I just wish I didn’t need these reminders.  Seriously, so far two funerals for dads under the age of 55 this week and I get the message. I get it , I get it, I get it.  I sat there yesterday listening to my son’s classmate singing “100 Years” by 5 for Fighting and I just about lost it.  I could not see my son singing next to my casket like that.  Every other dad in the church must have been thinking the same thing.  I looked around and I’m sure people were thinking “That could be me”. 

Kids with C-3PO

I stopped myself as I asked myself if I would rather have more time to plan my death or go quickly in my sleep.  What?  I can’t live life like that.  I need to live life every day for the sake of happiness.  As soon as these recent deaths came in fast sequence last week we didn’t need to say anything.  My wife knew how I was feeling, “There is solidarity and certainty in death.  We’ll all die some day, but let’s not live to die, but live to live well”.    For the first time I can ever remember, my kids came to visit me at work and all of us went out for lunch.  Just so nice to see your family together to break up the day.  It was just the beginning to the start of a great family weekend.

Saturday was our normal soccer Saturday as a family followed by the President’s Cupgolf tournament.  The President’s Cup was chilly but a great way to see the best golfers in the world in an intimate setting on our local home course.  Golf is unique because of how close you get to the players and the fact that you are actually walking around on the playing surface with them, not like most sports where they look like gladiators in a pit.

Tiger Woods

My 7-year old daughter doesn’t play golf yet, but I loved it on Sunday night when we ask everyone in our home what was their favorite part of the weekend and she chose to say that seeing Tiger Woods in person while snuggling close together as a family sipping hot cocoa was the best.

Sunday was followed by early morning Little League baseball again on a cold and blustery day.   It was another coffee and cocoa morning. The evening was finished with a trip to see Star Wars in Concert.  This was my son’s favorite event as he got to see all the costumes from the movies and watch the movies unfold to an orchestra which played the famous score that won many accolades and the Academy Award.  Seeing his eyes light up and his feet tapping to the music reminded me of myself at his age.  My wife and I caught each other watching our son and smiled that knowing smile that he was having a good time and enjoying himself.  It was a long day, but he was so excited to watch that he didn’t want to take a break to get food because he didn’t want to miss a thing.

Yes, the Reverend Alan Jones was right in saying that funerals and death bring us together to reflect and remember on those who have left us and to help celebrate their lives.  He was also very right in saying that love binds us too.  Spending a wonderful weekend with my family and exposing my children to some great experiences that they will never forget is something I will always cherish.  It is love and great times spent together which bind a family in experience and spirit.  It is those pleasant memories which we will use to grow and to help us remember the best of times at the worst of times… like when we are sitting on a plane with some crazy stranger grabbing on to your arm so tight.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves came out on Monday and I picked up my pre-ordered copy of the game directly after work! The copy I have is a Region 3 one but it’s OK, it’s the game that counts; not the Mandarin text on the packaging. Naughty Dog’s latest chapter in the ongoing tale of treasure hunter Nathan Drake is a blast and I’m liking it so far.  Mua ha ha ha ha ha!

I’ve already been playing it some and it’s a little different from the original especially when it comes to fisticuffs. Multi-player’s good fun too and for the first time in my life I actually enjoy deathmatch games.

Thanks Gamer’s Hideout for the excellent heads up via SMS, Facebook & Twitter. The up-to-date news was really helpful and I couldn’t help but be excited for most of Monday despite being tired at work.

Nathan Drake is back!

Stay tuned as I play through the game over the next few weeks. It’s gonna be slow going though cos’ it’s peak for me at work.

Check back often!

August & Baxter, Baxter & Cole, Cole & Elliot, Elliot & Franklin,

Franklin & Gulliver, Gulliver & Hugo, Hugo & Ira, Ira & Jude,

Jude & Leopold (Leo) Leopold (Leo) & Montgomery(Monty),

Montgomery (Monty) & Nicholas (Nick), Nicholas (Nick) & Orlando (Orlan)

Orlando & Peregrine, Peregrine & Russell, Russell (Russ) & Sullivan (Sully),

Sullivan (Sully) & Theodore (Ted), Theodore (Theo) & Willoughby (Will),

Willoughby (Will) & Abraham (Abe), Abraham (Bram) & Henry, Emmett & Jasper,

Jasper & Malachy, Malachy & Rupert, Rupert & August (Gus), Indigo & Saul,

Silas & Reed, Barnaby & Miles, Oakley & Rowan, Rowan & Arnold, Arnold & Hector,

Beckett  & Paul, Archibald & Benedict, Rowan & Joel, Steven & Gulliver, Edward & Julian.

The US Air airplane driver returned to the job he loves and is pretty darn good yesterday…flying a A320  (the same type A/C) on the companies flight 1050 from Charlotte NC back to NY’s LaGuardia Airport…… the company had advertised Sullenberger flight back out of LGA as his first flight back …….but he surprised everyone and started one flight earlier ………one happy passenger  on board the first flight related……..”He’s a celebrity now. He could have retired. It’s neat he came back.”

The pilots of US Airways flight 1549, the airliner that miraculously landed safely on the Hudson river, will be back together in the cockpit on Thursday. It has been over eight months since the incident, which took place on January 15, when Sullenberger and Skiles piloted the aircraft for a safe landing on the Hudson River in New York City.

Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles will fly the same flight they were supposed to: New York-LaGuardia to Charlotte-Douglas, NC. This will be the first flight for Sullenberger as Captain of a US Airways flight since the miracle on the Hudson. Skiles has been back flying for the carrier since April.

Sullenberger recently finished a book, “Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters,” with co-author Jeffrey Zaslow. I know I’ll be reading this soon, and from what I hear, it will be a good book. The book will hit shelves this coming October.

• The Facebook event!
• My Sister is in Love Again (an excerpt)
• More sample pages!
• The Conundrum Press page

"Front cover. A lovely matte finish. SO orange. Oh, and Sully is me! That's my comics nickname. I like having a nickname because it's like how they have nicknames in the mob. Also, Sully is my dead cat, who I still miss." - Sully/Sherwin

As I thought about our class discussions from last week and in particular the table we constructed, I was struck by the parallels between our profession’s development and what we’re asking our students to teach/accomplish during the semester-not in the activities per se but how we’re asking our students to develop as writers. In other words, I see a direct mapping of our profession’s groping for the “best” way to teach writing in our students as they learn to write.

Our students enter the classroom in the Current Traditionalist mode. They want us (the instructors) to or hope we will tell them how to produce the “ideal” text which for them is an “A” paper in our class. It’s all about product; however, their idea of product is the grade not the paper except perhaps as the paper relates to their grade. It might be an interesting study at some point to discover know much knowledge making (at a FYC level naturally) actually occurs in FYC. So we, in our post-process paradigm, attempt to shift them out of the CT mode. OK, so I’m using we and perhaps I should shift to me or I because I haven’t observed a lot of my colleagues here and my experience at my previous institution was a bit different.

First, I have some sort of “warm-up” writing exercise. This semester, I used the first journal entry as a pre-writing assignment. In some sense I’m reinforcing the CT paradigm because I using a somewhat linear model to start. Then using this journal writing as a springboard, I give my students their assignment and urge them in my best Peter Elbow imitation to make a mess, to write what they’re thinking—to move into the Expressivist mode. As the drafting continues, there isn’t so much revision as  “further growth of what is already there” (Sommers 324). So we backtrack to the cognitive mode and talk about ideas and I ask questions and I attempt to get the students to link a string of ideas together. And then we do it again. And finally, a draft is ready to be graded but first we need to do that 70’s meta thing…I mean write a process memo…

Although every activity I use in my classroom has a pedagogical purpose, it’s clearly a mishmash of techniques from several paradigms and interestingly enough, my goal is rather CT in that there is a linear progression to my lessons (though I think we call scaffolding now) and my purpose is to teach the students how to produce, through the process of drafting and revising, a paper that expresses their ideas in a clear and succinct manner.

Fishman and McCarthy raise some interesting points for me in their essay. First, is the question in their title. Clearly, they argue the answer is no and some 18 years later I’ll add my “no” their list since I’m using Strand 1 and asking my students to write a narrative with an analytical—arguably a social constructionist—aspect. While this strand might be dismissed as the residue of an earlier emphasis, the fact that it ties into digital media suggests that it isn’t and that Expressivism still has a role in academia.

A more important aspect of this article for me was the incorporation of Expressivism in a Philosophy class. While this idea includes the theory of writing in the disciplines, I think Fishman & McCarthy raise and answer pedagogical questions surrounding the issue of best practices. Namely, Fishman engages his students in the material, introduces the “required” canon while relating it (the canon) to the students’ writing, and prompts his students to engage in critical reflection so that learning occurs with the students taking responsibility for their learning. Equally important is Fishman’s statement of the class being a “high wire act” (654). His statement suggests both the preparation and skill needed to successfully teach students. Additionally, he gives pedagogical reasons for making the choices he made when he constructed his syllabus.

I love the fact that Fishman and McCarthy breakdown the barriers between two schools of thought and demonstrate that even seemingly ideologically opposed theories can actually support each other in practice.

Sully

Jack-  Bede, Bruno, Cabe, Cole, Evan, Moss, Nate, Rufus, Rex, Silas, Saul, York, Zeb & Zed.

James- Beckett, Conrad, Ewan, Elroy, Hugo, Roscoe, Harvey, Homer, Humphrey, Jago & Quentin.

William- Abraham, Ezra, Ephraim, Nicander, Willoughby, Oswald, Oxford, Quinlan, Rutherford, Cillian & Winston

Samuel- Arnold, Archibald, Lemuel, Ieke, Lazarus, Morrison, Moses, Mordecai, Samson & Solomon.

Joshua- Joel, Josiah, Jonah, Jedidiah, Roderick & Spencer.

Riley- Adam, Dexter, Dominic, Emmett, Emery, Remy, Fergus, Guy, Miles, Gatsby, Monty & Oakley.

Liam- Emerson, Elias, Grant, Gus, Abe, Bram, Theo, Sully, Ciaran & Ossian.

Benjamin- Ambrose, Arthur, Barnaby, Bartholomew, Hezekiah, Nazareth, Pascoe, Sullivan & Preston.

Daniel- Jehiel, Dalziel, Dashiell, Ezekiel, Washington, Raphael, Thaniel, Zaniel & Zachriel.

While reading Crowley’s essay, I noticed hints of “process” in her discussion of Hill’s take on Genung’s invention process; however, this hint seems to have morphed into the idea of outlining – of knowing what you’re going to write about before you write it. Given my 21st C. perspective, this strikes me as absurd. At the same time, I was amazed at how long some of the ideas such a aparagraph with three supporting ideas has hung around. But I think what really caught my attention in the readings was Young’s discussion of “Paradigms and Problems.” I’m not sure if I define myself as process or post-process but the idea that a discipline develops in response to “elaborations, clarifications, and applications of paradigms” seems sound (401). However, since every program I’ve been involved in has been process orientated with invention being discussed and strategies being taught as well as our culture being in the midst of a paradigm shift from the page to the screen (and I’m not sure how far we are into this shift), I find myself wondering if we’re on the cusp of or if we’ve entered a new crisis due to the expanded scope of composition or “writing.” In some ways, I see pressure being applied to the “rediscovered” canon of invention as composition moves beyond MS word into more sophisicated programs that allow us to compose “arguments” that include text and/or images and/or sound and/or hyperlinks. So I guess I’m wondering how our theories of invention wull need to be modified to accommodate these changes.