And they wonder why our schools are failing

According to a report a few days ago, more seniors are failing the high school exit exam. Now, there's not a lot to be surprised here until the California Department of Education includes a sample test question, which surprisingly NO ONE has noticed the problem.

Let's look at question #2. If you figure out the question the way the testers want, you will multiply $200.00 x 0.08 and then multiply it by 3 (for three years). This gives you $48.00, which is C. All good, right?

No, it's not. That's NOT how interest works. If you figured it out by normal interest rates, $200.00 x 0.08 gives you the interest of the first year ($16). Then you have to add that $16 to $200, so you are now going to have to multiply $216 x 0.08 which equals $17.28. Adding that to the total gives you $233.28 x 0.08 (for the last year), which equals approximately $18.66. So the interest (and that's not counting daily interest accrual, just if the amount was frozen after each year) equals $16 + $17.28 + $18.66 = $51.94, not $48.00.

Why this really bothers me is the element missing from our educational system is critical thinking. We've dumbed down the mathematics and aren't even capable of dealing with real world problems with real world answers.

(Additional: Some people might misunderstand the criticism here. The question is asking for "simple interest" in a situation where "simple interest" has never existed. If we want to test our students on real world questions, then we need to make the questions reflect real world situations.)

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Way overdue for an update

I realize it has been over a month now since I last added an entry, so I figured I'd just kind of recap what's going on.

1. No real job so far on the horizon. I've been trying, and I have not been very successful. I keep ending up as the "second choice" of colleges, but never the first choice. San Francisco State went with one person over me. Casper College went with the other person over me. Pacific University in Oregon went with the other person over me. They often call me to tell me that they wished they could have chosen me, but in the end, they didn't choose me. My prospects are looking really dim these days. I almost got Hillsdale College, and I probably would have got it, but I had problems with my flight, so they ended up having to give it to one of the other people who actually showed up for the official interview in Michigan. I don't really know what to do at this point. I'm not finding any success, and it's almost August now.

2. Working temporarily. I'm working for EF, which is an English teaching school that works through the University of Phoenix. It is one of those jobs that lasts only a month, and by the end of this week, I'll be completely unemployed again. Before that, I was working a temporary month or so job with the county as an election trainer. That, too, ended, so little by little my little gigs are drying up.

3. Overseas might be my only hope. I'm currently looking into working in South Korea, teaching English or debate. We'll see how that turns out.

4. My computer stopped working last week. Apparently, my power supply decided to stop working, or blew itself out. I had to take my computer to a shop to actually get it repaired. To be honest, even though I've been a computer technician before, I misdiagnosed my own computer and didn't realize it was something as simple as a bad power supply. So, I replaced that and added another gig of ram to my computer (bringing it up to 3 gigs of ram). Cost me $200 that I didn't really have, but what can I say?

5. My writing hasn't been going very well lately. I am at one of those stages in my writing where I have a novel formulating in my head, but it's not ready to come out yet. This happens to me a lot with my novels. Unfortunately, it leaves me wanting to write, but not feeling comfortable enough to write yet. I have a working title of this next project that seems to be around the corner, entitled: She Talks to Penguins. Believe it or not, it's actually a very serious project, and something a bit different from what I've tried to tackle in the past. Considering I've tackled adventure, suspense, science fiction, fantasy, epic comedy and romance, this is more of a slice of life kind of novel, which I never actually imagined I would be writing. I guess it is more consistent with some of my recent work, which included my short story "Simple Girl" that took second place from the Stockton Arts Commission this summer; for the record, my romance story, "Buried Memories," took first place from the Stockton Arts Commission the year before. "Simple Girl" was more of a moralistic type of story about a stereotyped girl who everyone seems to ridicule behind her back, but in the end she was really the wisest character in the story.

6. Relationships. None. That's never really changed. I had a conversation with Kat yesterday when we went out for a beer at BJ's, and we talked about that same subject. I guess I don't really know what it is I'm looking for these days. In the past, I was involved with some pretty strange women, dating anything from a crazy girl from Hong Kong who desired to kill everyone in the human race, fondly referring to me in a loving manner as "the last victim"; a professional dominatrix who didn't understand why men found her so intimidating; a seriously toxic semi-supermodel who used to leave the table after we eat to vomit up everything she just chowed down; several best friends with whom I may have or may not have been actually dating at the time (just couldn't figure it out and blatantly asking just gave me vague replies); a couple of 18-20 year olds, who put out airs that they were much more mature for their age until we started dating and then suddenly they were really 18-20 year olds in maturity as well; and well, a couple of others that were great but just weren't either looking for me, or not there when I was finally looking for them.

So, we somewhat concluded, or at least I did, that I'm looking for someone intelligent who can stimulate me intellectually. I don't find myself looking for the same thing other men are looking for. Sure, an attractive woman is great, and I'll spend an eternity looking at a beautiful woman (Shania Twain, I'm looking at you right now...), but there has to be more to it than that. And that's so hard to find because I think too many women are socially stigmatized by what other men are seeking that they're all convinced that most men are interested in them only for sex. And that bad disposition gets reinforced by bad choices they make in trying to find that guy who is "just like you but not you".

There have been a couple of women who have come along but they're just not interested in me, or in a relationship at the moment. Some of them have been perfect for me, and I felt I would be perfect for them. But those relationships have remained strictly friendships because they're seeking someone else, even though I sometimes suspect that they don't know what they're seeking either. What's funny is that no matter where I go, and I do go numerous places in my life, I always end up with at least one or two really close female friends who are never interested in anything beyond friendship. And my jury is still out as to whether or not that is a good or a bad thing.

7. The Shoulder. It still hurts. I can barely move my arm still, and the pain has actually spread to my right shoulder as well, so I have little full mobility, and it hurts when I try to stretch my arms behind my back, like when I try to put a belt on my pants. With that said, the pain has become lessened somewhat, and I do feel that I've been able to get a bit more sleep at night than I use to. I am heading in for a surgery consultation this afternoon, and then in August I'll actually have the surgery itself, where they stretch the shoulder into a position and then supposedly, that "fixes" the problem of "frozen shoulder". I'm hoping so because it's been over a year, and this situation has really sucked a lot.

8. Tabula Rasa. It means "clean slate" but it's also the name of the game I've been playing religiously with the spare time that I have every day. It's an online game, like World of Warcraft, but it's so much not like World of Warcraft. And that's what I was seeking: Something NOT World of Warcraft. The premise is that the Earth has been conquered by an alien race called the Thrax (or the Bane), and we've regrouped on other planets where we're trying to win back our freedom from Bane oppression. It's so much different than other games I've played, and it actually feels like you accomplish something when you play. Plus, the important thing for me, is that it has a very rich story interwoven into the fabric of the game. That's rare. The game was designed by the creator of Ultima (and Ultima Online), Richard Garriott. Great game. I highly recommend it.

9. The Thesis. My second draft was given to Marlin almost two weeks ago. I haven't heard back on it. It's 115 pages approximately, so I can see why it would take some time to read through and correct it. I'm hoping there's not much more to do, because I really want this over and done with. I've been in school way too long. Plus, I need the stupid degree so I can show that I have something in return for the two years I spent here at the University of the Pacific.

That's pretty much it for now. Wish I had more to add, but that's a mouthful alone.

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Pushing forward on the thesis

The thesis is taking a lot work, but I'm pushing forward with it. Today, I finished the first draft of my biography section, which was kind of difficult because my biographies require 9 different people, and for some of them there is very little information available.

My next step is to begin the analysis of the artifacts (texts) themselves. It's very time consuming, and it really leaves me exhausted at the end of each day. I've been checking out a study room in the library every day and just working nonstop there. I've discovered the library gets FREAKING COLD, so I've actually had to start bringing a jacket to wear while I'm in the library. Yes, it's roasting outside, yet I need a jacket in order to study in the library. I mean, air conditioning is nice, but an ice box is really not necessary.

A few days ago I read Steve Martin's Born Standing Up. I've always been a fan of Steve Martin, and I was a fan back when he was actually doing stand up, before he did his first movie, The Jerk. I was surprised at how good a book this really was. You think you know a lot about someone, and then you read his memoir, and you find yourself completely surprised. He's a great writer, and he has a great sense of humor, obviously, but the story of his rise and then retirement from stand up was just downright amazing. I am so glad I read this book.

I'm still getting somewhat paranoid about the fall because I don't have any job lined up, and I'm not anticipating anything showing up either. Part of the problem, I believe, is that my MA degree does not get awarded until August, and I get the impression that that makes HR departments think "he doesn't have the required degree". But then I've also applied for jobs in political science, for which I already do have the degree, and I've received nothing but paper thin letters of "thanks but no thanks". A couple of the others, like Bakersfield College, never even got back to me after stating they had the whole application. It's really frustrating. I'm not sure what to do as I get closer to the fall. I am running out of money, and I don't see anything getting better. I've applied to other jobs, like city jobs and all that, but for some reason I can't get past an HR department. I applied to a job in Michigan (for the company where I was before), but I've had zero response from there, even though I am completely what they could use for the position.

It becomes really depressing. My shoulder has also been getting worse and worse every night. It makes it really difficult to sleep, and sometimes my other shoulder tries to compensate for the bad shoulder, and by the middle of the night that shoulder is hurting, too, so there's not a single side I can sleep on without throbbing pain. I'm not sure how much longer I can continue living like this. I contacted Kaiser, and they're setting up an August date for surgery, but I honestly don't think I'll make it that long.

Well, that's about it. I came up with an idea for a screenplay I want to write one day when I get some free time to do just that. The idea keeps growing bigger and bigger in my head, even though I suspect it may be one of those projects that lasts longer than I will.

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The FOT paper accepted at NCA

My paper I wrote with Kat, "The Friendship Over Time (FOT) Model: A paradigmatic shift into a new theory of cooperation" was accepted at the National Communication Association convention in November. I used a mathematical matrix process to develop an additive model that shows how international relations can be grown over generational contact between hostile nations. I kind of thought they'd turn it down because it doesn't use the same old methods of negotiations that everyone else seems to like. I'll be on a panel with an admiral and several other professors from Harvard and Stanford.

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Job interview in Wyoming went well

It was my first academic job interview, so obviously I was nervous. But I think it went well. I didn't throw up on anyone, and no one died during my teaching demonstration. Well, one person, but it wasn't because of the teaching demonstration. Damn Wyoming ninjas and their blood feuds!

Everyone was pleasant. Found out the money was better than originally quoted.

Now, I'm just waiting to hear from them. Hopefully, it's good news. Either way, it was good experience.

The traveling, however, took a lot out of me. Nothing bad happened, but my itinerary consisted of driving to Sacramento, taking a plane to San Francisco, taking a plane to Denver, Colorado, getting a rental car (upgraded to a SUV! Thanks, Budget Rent aCar!), driving 5 hours to Casper, Wyoming, sleeping, doing the whole job interview and teaching demonstration thing, driving 5 hours back to Denver, Colorado, taking a plane to Sacramento (with a very nice woman who works for the military, whose husband is in the military, and whose kid made it very difficult to sit in the window seat with him jumping up and down on me, but hey, it happens), and driving back home to Stockton. Fun fun fun.

Anyway, there was this restaurant they took me to for lunch, and let's just say that if I end up moving to Casper, Wyoming, it might be my new Carl's Jr (my every morning eating place). It's called Eggs(something), and it's a medium scale restaurant, and I can have breakfast at all times of the day. Woohoo! Okay, maybe I'm just tired from the trip.

Anyhoos. Back home now. Have to work on a paper Kat and I are finishing so I can present it for us tomorrow at the Gender and Science Conference (she can't attend because she's at a debate tournament in Denver); I even flew out on the same flight as them Wednesday. Then I have to start putting real behind to chair as I start to write my thesis proposal. It needs to be done yesterday rather than tomorrow.

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I passed my comprehensives today

Well, I participated in the oral part of the comprehensive examinations today, and I passed. I just have to say that it felt REALLY good. I stumbled over one question, but it was all okay aside from that.

So, my next step is to put together my thesis proposal, and then to write the thesis. Looks like the story of the 1991 August Coup is finally going to get its place in academic thesis work.

Woot.

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Latest novel

My latest novel is called Why Charlie Died. For me, it is a special novel, because it is my first mainstream novel. It is my first mainstream novel, and it is based on a play I wrote called "Never Alone". I can see a lot of great energy for this novel, and I'm really excited about it.

This evening, I watched the third Lord of the Rings movie with Kat. It's kind of cool having someone to watch those movies with because it's just not as fun to watch these movies alone.

Kat also covered my class this evening. I'm curious to see how my students respond to that. I'll be covering for her class next Tuesday.

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Weird teaching schedule this semester

Aside from usual debate practices, I'll be teaching a public speaking discussion section from 7:00pm to 8:20pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Haven't taught an evening class before, so this should be a bit different. It also clashes with debate times, so that will be a bit inconvenient, but in the end it should all work out.

I'm starting to actively look for a job now. I'd like to line something up LONG before I have to actually start a job, and let's just say that this isn't the easiest thing to do. I've been considering teaching overseas just for the fun of it, but that's still very much up in the air right now. I was thinking of starting paperwork for the State Department, but it's one of those long drawn out processes of paperwork that is designed to keep people from wanting to apply, so we'll see.

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Appealing to all can mean losing them all

This idea can easily be used in politics, and I'm sure if someone was intuitive enough that person could take what I say and cross apply it to the election manifestations that are going on right now. But I'm going to keep it simple, based one something that's been bothering me for awhile from a very, somewhat, innocent source.

If you've ever gone to school, and I hope we all have at one point or another, you've probably come across Classmates.com, which purports to be a resource to get people back in contact with their school mates from previous institutions. It's expanded a bit, and it's trying to appeal to be a social networking site for a lot more than schools, but whatever. Unfortunately for Classmates.com, it is coming up against both Facebook and Myspace, which both are free, and while Classmates charges money for the more useful services it offers (like actually being able to contact someone you want to contact), it has zero chance whatsoever of making people think it is in any way superior to either Myspace or Facebook.

And why is this? Well, one thing that Classmates USED to do well was it would divide up schools by the years you attended them, and then whenever someone else showed up on the site from that school, it would notify you. Well, realizing that the chances are slimmer rather than normal that someone is going to find Classmates.com on a regular basis, so you'd get lots of notices of people in your networks signing on, and showing the system is worthy of your dollars, they decided some years back to lump years together. So, I graduated from Moorpark High School some years ago. Let's just say the date was 1992 (which it was not). I used to get notices about other people from Moorpark who signed up, mainly if they were from the class of 1992. Well, Classmates, trying to make it look like the system is much more used than it really is decided that they'd do something stupid, like lump 1992 into 1990-1996, or something like that. So, now whenever someone from those years signs up, they send me an irrelevant message that doesn't concern me in any way whatsoever. I don't care if someone signed up who was from the class of 1996, but I have to sign on to find out that someone I don't know, or would have ever known, is the person they're notifying me about. So I just stopped using Classmates.com.

But they still send me notices, and I think that's just stupid. They made their own service so useless yet think somehow they've made it more relevant.

Which brings me to Facebook. I hate when someone changes something that already works. One thing I liked about Facebook is that when I clicked "Friends" it would show me all of my friends in detail. Now, it shows me JUST the ones who have updated their profiles. I don't care who updated his or her profile. I can find that out if I want. Now, without multiple clicks, I can't get that full detail version anymore. Well, maybe I can, but they didn't make it intuitively obvious.

So, Facebook, trying to appeal to even more people with a new "feature" have dumbed it down to an annoying presentation. So now I don't even sign onto Facebook unless I'm really, really bored, or someone like my friend Kat has signed on and tells me she sent me a message.

Myspace has gotten so annoying over the last few months, I almost feel like canceling the account. I receive invites over and over again from people trying to spam their sex sites. I deny each and every one of them, but it requires me to sign onto my Myspace account just to find out Tina is not the Tina I knew from high school, but some 19 year old slut who wants to sell me pictures of her going at it with a vibrator. When are these people going to realize that most of us just aren't interested in this trash? If someone's paying for this stuff, I guess I understand how they spam everyone hoping for success, but I can't believe anyone is that stupid to pay for that kind of crap. And if it WAS the Tina I knew it high school, I'd feel even worse, kind of like the feeling you'd get going to a strip club and seeing a dancer who turns out to be a close friend you lost contact with because she was having trouble paying bills and had to "take another job to pay her bills". Yeah, I guess one can say something about going to a strip club in the first place, but there was a time back when I was going to San Francisco State where I was dating a woman who worked at one of the very popular strip clubs in San Francisco, so I used to pick her up at work, and you'd be surprised how many women from school I used to run into who were "paying their way through college". It's kind of sad, actually, but that's not the point of today's memo.

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Pretending to read

One of my major pet peeves in graduate school is when someone claims to have read something and then spends a class period "winging it" through the discussion, pretending to have actually read the day's readings. It's a complete waste of time for everyone in the class, including for the person winging it. But people do it all of the time. They'll listen for a short period of time as someone who HAS read the text talks about it, think they've got the basic idea of the text, and then they'll start to "critique" the text they haven't read yet. Often, they'll introduce "new" readings to the conversation that goes something like: "Yes, I agree that the interpretative perspective of Melville was most likely normative, which reminds me of this write up on Bruce Willis I was reading in People Magazine the other day...." or something tripe like that.

But I was in Barnes & Noble earlier in the day, and I came across a book in the creative writing section that was titled, How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard, a professor of French literature at the University of Paris VIII. The book essentially tells you how to "wing it" through conversations about having read important scholarly works. Needless to say, I was immediately in peeve mode when I saw this book. And it would not surprise me to find a whole bunch of college students picking up that book so they can somehow "fool" the professors yet another semester.

Whatever happened to actually just reading the required text?

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Heading into home stretch for semester

I know I'm not the only one, but oh my I have a lot of work ahead of me during the next three weeks. I have so many papers, so many tests, and my comprehensive examinations all ahead of me in the next three weeks, and I'm not even sure how I'm going to be able to get through all of it. I know I probably will, but it sure doesn't feel that way sometimes.

I'll be dedicating practically every day from this point on to finishing all of these projects. I haven't had a lot of time regardless, but now I have even less time. But I have to keep trucking because it's almost over; I just have to make sure I keep moving forward.

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Second Life...should be "get a life"

For my mass communications class, we are required to create a character in Second Life, the online massive player computer game. Somehow, although don't ask me how, we're supposed to create some kind of ethnography from our experiences in the game. Well, here are my initial observations that might make this more difficult than I'd desire.

1. In my initial travels, I have discovered nothing but scams galore in this game. Some months ago, I wrote about the massive propensity of surveys that scam companies use to sell products to people who have no actual money to spend. It works like this: "Fill out this survey, and with enough surveys filled out, you'll earn money." What they don't tell you is that every one of these surveys really is an advertisement for a company that requires you "try" their product and then decide whether or not to spend even more money on their products. Somehow, this gets called a "survey", which no dictionary would ever equate with that definition whatsoever. Well, in Second Life, if you want to earn any money, the whole survey thing is available as a way to earn "fake" money, which they call Linden dollars (to be used in the game). Yet, you have to do these same surveys you'd have to do if you were being scammed by people outside the game. The only difference is you get game money instead of the possibility (translation: You're never seeing a dime) of real world money. I've tried to figure out how to make actual money in the game to buy things, but you either have to spend real money to the owners of the game or you have to participate in this really cheesy scam/survey thing.

2. There's no one in this world. No one. Not a soul. Okay, there are a few, but no one speaks to anyone else. It's like a game where you walk around with no one to speak to (unless they want to hit you up for simulated avatar sex) and with nothing to do because the game doesn't actually have anything to do. In the tutorial area, there was a little driving simulator (to teach you how to drive a car in the game), but I couldn't get anywhere because the only other person driving decided that driving in my path over and over again so I couldn't move would be fun. In other words, the game is so boring that he had to grief someone who was as bored as he was in order to actually have any fun.

3. The game is all about kinky sex. Several years ago, I tried playing the game. And all I found in it were business establishments that sold kinky outfits and offered S&M parlor entertainment. Of course, with no one there because as I said before, there's no one in this stupid game. I quit the game because even though a kinky sex playground sounds like it would be fun, it's not really fun when basically you're walking through a ghost town of areas with no one present.

4. So, I don't know what's interesting about the game because no one else is in it.

5. On a positive note, Kat and I created Furry characters. I'm Marty Wrigglesworth and she's my wife, Maeve Wrigglesworth. We're two furries and we'll probably run around doing stupid things, but it would be a lot more fun if there was actually a community in this game, but so far I haven't found it.

I know there's this whole community of people who are trying to build industries in this game, but I'm wondering why. It's not exciting. It's really boring, and so far nothing about the game has been interesting. My professor seems to believe that sites like Myspace and Facebook are going to end up giving into marketplace forces like Second Life so that all social networking will be much like Second Life, but I just don't see that happening. I was playing this game two years ago, and it was nothing but a sandbox for weird sex. Now, it's a sandbox for weird sex and a possibility of economic speculation. But who is going to continue to want to buy into a world where no one else is joining? I just don't see people flocking to Second Life because some people latched onto it at one point whereas the rest of the world went to worlds like World of Warcraft that continue to dominate computer gaming worlds online in unbelievable numbers.

In conclusion, I think what makes Second Life so uncomfortable is the very nature of what makes it unique. Everything in the game is player made. But the only real goal of the game is self-rewarding economics, and what's the fun in that? Why spend your time trying to get rich in a game where getting rich is all you can do? Why spend a great deal of time in a game trying to socialize with people who go afk (away from keyboard) and spend their time online getting money for the game while outside of the game (doing surveys or other ridiculous stuff like that)?

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Finally a reprieve

Debate had been going for about 4 weeks in a row without any rest, and now I finally have a few weeks where I can finally breathe in and try to catch up with my normal life again. The last two days have been really nice, although somewhat surreal as I'm not used to moving at full speed and getting nothing done.

The Internet is up and running at the new house finally. This is my first blog entry from the new place. In the next few days I'll probably transport my main computer over. Right now it's still at the old place.

I have a meeting later this week to talk about the near future for my comprehensive examinations and my thesis proposal. The rhet crit part of my comps will cover Burke and Black, which I somewhat expected, so that's not a problem. There will probably be two more questions on communication education and documentary work in political communication as well.

I went to a group therapy thing yesterday and it was really a complete waste of time, unfortunately. It was a group of people who have trouble speaking up for themselves, and it really wasn't the group I really should have been in. Unfortunately, the depression group meets on one of the days of my hectic schedule, so I've been unable to sign up for that class. I'm probably going to drop the group therapy class I started Monday because I felt really stupid being there as none of the problem being discussed were anything close to what I need work on.

My shoulder's been really killing me lately, mainly because nonstop tournaments have made it difficult for me to work on the exercises my physical therapist wants me to do twice a day. I've worked on them twice today, and it hurts A LOT, but I'm hoping it will help in the long run and lead to this pain lessening some. It's really hard to sleep at night.

Last week, I forgot to mention that Kat and I saw the movie Dan in Real Life, and I'll have to admit that this is one movie I definitely identified with. Kind of sad actually, but at the same time it was a really good romantic movie. I really enjoyed seeing it as it had been a very long time since I've even seen a movie in a theater.

That's pretty much it for an update. Nothing special going on in my life at the moment. I've been getting a really antsy feeling lately, which tells me it's probably going to be time for my next novel to start being written. I did start writing a new play called, The Corruption of Justice Girl, a tongue in cheek superhero story that serves as a metaphor for the us versus them dichotomy in much of American political rhetoric. Recently, I've really gotten into Charles Bukowski's poetry. I'm not sure why, but it's hitting me really hard these days, and I wasn't much of a poetry reader in the past.

Current list of future papers to be written:
1. Gender in computer game lengths with Mariela
2. My synthesis of strategic versus tactical international relations with Kat
3. Narrative vs. Counternarrative (the 1991 August Coup) which I sent to ICA
4. My thesis, which is also on the 1991 August Coup tracing agit-trains to individual dissemination of messages.
5. A paper on the usage of Pastiche involving hip hop in iconic documentaries.

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Thesis committee

Well, the paperwork has been signed off today for my thesis committee. The three professors I want on my committee all signed off on joining. This means that my comprehensives should be coming around the corner, and then I will start putting together my thesis proposal. I will be doing my thesis as a rhetorical criticism (most likely) and it will cover the agit-train phenomenon through its evolution to mass dissemination by using the events of the August 1991 Soviet coup.

Fun, fun!

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Myspace paper

The Myspace paper I wrote with Qinweng Dong and Mark Urista, "The Impact of Emotional Intelligence, self-concepts , Self-esteem, and Self-image on Romantic Communication over MySpace", is currently going through the review process before publication in CyberPsychology & Behavior. Nothing wrong with adding yet another publication to the Vita.

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The Exam from Hell

We took the exam yesterday, and I really felt uncomfortable taking that one because the professor never gave us any readings to start with, and basically he taught the content right off of Power Point slides. We all did the best we could, but I really don't like taking a test that I go into it wondering if I even have an inkling of what the subject matter is. And that was the problem. I don't even really know what the purpose of the course is, and we're coming on the halfway point of the course. We still don't have books.

But whatever. I'm not the only one suffering in this class. My other class is much more enjoyable, and I'm actually learning some good information from it.

Which brings me to my thesis. I've actually completed the work of putting together my thesis committee, of which Dr. Bates will be my chair, Dr. Bergman and Dr. Schamber will the other members. I've decided to continue the work on my rhetorical criticism from last year concerning the August 1991 Soviet Coup, which I used as a narrative versus counternarrative approach studying the rhetoric of Yeltsin's protest. The thesis is going to deal with the same events, but instead of focusing on narrative, I am going to develop a further thesis along the lines of explaining the dissemination methodology of Yeltsin's speech was a carryover of Agit-trains from earlier periods of Russia's history.

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The state of education as interpreted by the concept of "Calvin Ball"

One of my courses is somewhat bothersome because to be honest, I can't figure out what I'm supposed to be learning in it. Half the time, I suspect the professor is incorrect on information, and the other half of the time, I'm convinced the professor is wrong on information. Yet, I have a test coming up in the very near future, and I'm not even sure how to study for it as we have no books that have been ordered for the class (and no assignments from the books in case we're astute enough to buy our books online anyway. A few of us are getting together to study for the exam, but how do you study for something that doesn't make any sense?

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Roommates, Cars, Women and Moving On

Over the years, I've had various roommates. Some have been okay, some have been horrific, and others were just regular. One of them was a blind Palestinian freedom fighter who dated 10,000 women and wanted me to give each one of them a different story as to why he was not "available" while he was "dating" someone else. But I digress....

I have three roommates now. All are okay. One of them I like a lot. She has a great attitude about everything, and I'll occasionally drive her to the store or to school. Another roommate I haven't seen in weeks, but his car shows up every now and then, so I know he's still living here. My other roommate is the one I've known the longest, and for some reason she's stopped talking to me. I don't know why. It's one of those things where I'll say "hi" and get one of those cold under the breath responses that don't develop into anything beyond that. So I go away thinking it must have been something I said, or did, or didn't say, or didn't do. I have this bad habit of wanting people to like me, so when I run into this sort of thing, it bugs me to no end. Strangely enough, I get along great with her boyfriend.

So, why does this bother me? Probably because lately everything has been bothering me. I don't date anymore, which leaves me lonely. I'm around people all the time, but they are arms-distance people who are in my proximity but not involved with me. So I'm essentially alone in the presence of other people.

My social networks are nonexistent. My closest friends live in El Cerrito, and I really don't have the opportunity to get to see them. I really live too far away. There's a theory in Interpersonal Communication that stems from social theory, and that's that people need intimate touch in their lives. One prominent scientist conjectured that people need 5 intimate touches a day to sustain a healthy life. I haven't been touched by anyone, aside from my physical therapist, in ages.

My life has hit a bizarre stage of frustration lately, especially concerning events that I just can't fix. This last week, out of the blue, I found out I can't register my car because the State of California says there are some problems "in Michigan" and that I needed to call "Michigan" to straighten it out. The number they gave me was to a disconnected phone, which didn't help any. I really don't know who to call or what to do about it. I don't even know what to do once I contact "Michigan" and figure it out. California won't register my car, not Michigan.

I get a nonstop avalanche or rejection letters from publishers, agents and editors. My writing career isn't happening.

Relationships haven't really worked out for me because I just live a lifestyle that's really not normal, and finding someone really hasn't been successful for me. I'm really not happy unless I'm in a relationship where I'm making my partner happy. I lived for many years thinking I was lacking in the attributes necessary to attract a partner, and now that I've managed to actually build a repertoire of skills and abilities, it seems like I'm too late, that all of my prospects have passed me by. The few women over the years to whom I would have surrendered the world for a chance to be with them never felt the same way in return. Yet, I see so much of the opposite all around me, and it makes me wonder if somehow I missed a connection in a train station I never realized I was traveling through.

Stumble It!

Another academic publication

I found out today that my article (with Dr. Dong and Mark), The Impact of Emotional Intelligence, Self-Concepts on Romantic Communication Over Myspace, has been accepted for publication. That will sure make the Vita look better.

I'm quite possibly going to be working on a rhetorical criticism on dissemination of messages with Dr. Bates (it was a logical progression of a paper I was working on last year). At the same time, I've approached a colleague in the grad program to assist me on a synthesis paper (of 4 theories: Two game theoretic processes, one interpersonal communication concept, and my own personal strategic/tactical process application). I chose her because I think she has the philosophical foundation I need to turn this idea into a viable synthesis/research question for future study. The personal theory I generated is the harder one to develop, but she gave me some ideas for how we could work this into the literature review (as there is no literature on this as my idea is completely alien and original) by focusing on historical events rather than previous scholarly linkages. Anyway, I think I made a wise choice in collaborating with her.

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The Academic fascination with all things Internet

Okay, I know that academics like to think of themselves on the cutting edge, but what I've been noticing over the last year or so is this HUGE fascination with all things Internet by professors and the academic community. Yes, I'm guilty of it as well, as my last paper was on romantic communication involving self-esteem and Myspace.

But there's another layer to this fascination that I'm finding equally fascinating only because I was one of that unlabeled generation that grew up adopting the Internet as it was happening, not pre-Internet or post-Internet. To explain this further, let me take a virtual world that seems to be overwhelmingly talked about in both academia AND the political sphere. I'm talking about Second Life, a massive mulitplayer online role playing game.

People running for office think it is important to have an avatar (a character in the game that looks like them, or whatever they want to represent them) running around in Second Life. Currently, I'm taking a course on mass communication that will involve all of us creating characters in Second Life, interacting with each other, and then writing a paper on our second life persona observations/interactions. Well, as someone who grew up with the infancy of Second Life, there's a little underbelly of a secret that no one seems to want to talk about: Second Life used to be nothing but simulated pornography. People would create avatars and then "hook up". Gambling used to be the highest grossing activity in the game, and I mean real world gambling with real world dollars being played with an exchange rate of Linden dollars (the in game currency). But again, what was fascinating is that there was so much sex going on in the game that most of the businesses set up in this sandbox are sex businesses. And people are selling animations (because they code them and then put them up for sale so you can use them yourself), and those animations are...well...quite sexual and extremely explicit in the variations they use. If bondage is your thing, you can walk down any street in Second Life, and there are bondage dungeons set up all over the place. What you won't find is other players. For some reason, the place exists like a ghost town, no matter what promoters like to say about it. The only time you're really going to see a group of people is when something from the outside of the game has announced that is going to happen inside the game (like a press conference, or some publicity generating activity from an already established real world corporation). So, what academics really have the opportunity to study is momentary expressions of people interacting based on events fueled outside the world, or they can study peep show pornography, if they're lucky enough to catch some embarrassed player in the act.

Stumble It!

School is back in swing

This was the first week of school, and it was an extremely busy week. The first part of the week was spent stressing over financial aid, but that may finally be solved, and hopefully by next week I'll actually get money. I probably don't have to repeat how sucky this whole summer has been money-wise.

So far, it looks like my Tuesdays and Thursdays are nightmare days. My Wednesday has a few things happening, like debate practice at 6pm until about 9 or 10pm, but so far, I've managed to keep Monday and Friday free, although that might not be the case on weekends when I have to attend tournaments, of course.

Haven't had much time to do any Stickman over the last few days. It's hard to find any time to do anything these days, but as the semester is starting to settle in, I'm hoping to add more curricular activities to my life.

This semester I'm taking Documentary Film in Political Communication and Mass Communication as my two grad courses. I'm teaching interpersonal communication and acting as the senior TA for public speaking. I taught my first interpersonal class today, and the students seemed okay. They laughed at the appropriate times. Well, most of the appropriate times, at least. I also have to start to get in gear for taking my comprehensive exams in November. It's amazing how fast grad school can go.

As for my writing, I sent out a ton of short stories the other day. I have to keep convincing myself to keep trying, or I'll just blow it off and then get nothing done.

Stumble It!

Writing woes, school financing and, of course, Stickman!

I spent a good portion of today just getting a bunch of short stories ready for sending out. I've been kind of trying to occupy my mind because my financial aid may be seriously screwed up due to some error that was overlooked on my part because I didn't even realize it was a situation. As such, if this doesn't get fixed, I may have to drop out of school. The person who may be able to help me fix it doesn't answer her phone and is located at San Francisco State University. I've left a LOT of messages for her, and I can't get through to her or to anyone that can help me any further. My fate is left in the hands of one person who doesn't actually answer her phone (it goes to her message stating she's on the phone instead).

But regardless of that, here's Monday's Stickman.

Stumble It!

It depends upon who reports it....

The California High School Exit Exam results are in and the results are either students are doing terribly, students are doing great or we're doing average. Yeah, that's the reporting from three sources all from the Bay Area and San Joaquin County.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle: Scores are up for 2007.
According to the Sacramento Bee: We're failing for the Class of 2008.
According to the Stockton Record: SJ high schoolers are near peers statewide in exit results, but gap persists for minorities.

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The Stickman Hiatus

People keep asking me when there will be new Stickman comics. I've been kind of swamped lately with the before school crap/stuff, which kind of sucks because I feel like I've been working full time, and I'm still not getting paid yet. My goal is to work on a few more of the adventures over the next few days, as I've been wanting to move to the next part of the story, which is the actual introduction of Stickman, which kind of got introduced, but not to the level that he deserves. Plus, there will be the new characters added, which will be the Legospaceman, and my favorite Bigfoot Gumby. Yeah, it'll make sense when the story moves on.

Stumble It!

Fame at last! Oh lordy, I'm Fame At last!

An article that Mark, Dr. Dong and I presented in Reno last year is being referenced in The New Atlantis, a journal of technology and science. Our article, Look At Me Again & I'll Bust Your Stupid Face In, is going...oh wait, that's not the article. Our article, The Impact of Emotional Intelligence, Self-Concepts on Romantic Communication Over Myspace, apparently made a bit of an impact.

So, there's that.



Countdown: 363 days

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Teaching Practicuum

I had to teach a subject in my education class today, and even though I've probably taught in the hundreds of classes, I actually felt nervous this time around. I was teaching Miller & Steinberg's Developmental Model, which I integrated with the Johari Window, and it went really well. I had decided to integrate two separate subjects of interpersonal communication into one, using one to feed into the other, and even though it was not the way I had learned it, I thought the connection would be interesting for an audience to follow. It went well. I was very happy with it. Sure, I can improve on little things, like when I was explaining the cultural implications and integrating them into the M & S model; it could have been a bit more clear, but that's why we do these assignments, to learn how to improve our skill in teaching college courses.

All in all, I was pretty happy with it.

Later on in the evening, I worked with the individual events people who are going to NFA next week in Atlanta (where I'll be going for 8 days for nationals), and I'm happy with their progress. I've always been about the educational product of the discipline, and I'm seeing vast improvements and higher levels of confidence with my students. That, alone, makes it all worthwhile.

Not much more to say. Relationships are kind of stagnant for now, and I have a feeling they're about to become nonexistent again. Oh well.

Stumble It!