Well, I started a month-long written exam yesterday. I have to write 3 papers answering 3 questions. Basically, 1) list pros and cons of games and games culture, 2) describe what others have said about games and learning so far, and 3) design a study on communication in and around MMOGs.

I think the second question will be the most difficult since it’ll mean I have to refresh my memory with a lot of reading. The first one should be much easier as it’ll be more of a persuasive argument essay. (It’s easier to say something than it is to correctly say what others are saying, I think.) The last one was confusing at first since it sounded like what I did last year with the WoW paper, but I’ll be expanding the research agenda in a few ways, so it is still a good exercise.

After I turn in my essays to my committee (which is made up of 4 profs), I will have an oral defense… probably first thing in the Fall, if not this summer. Then, I will finally be on the last step, writing a dissertation.

All this is complicated by the fact that this year my interests have dramatically shifted to an area I feel ill-prepared to write about just yet. That is, I want to look at how groups of people or individuals in MMOGs or games culture, in general, are being marginalized by a dominant culture (which happens to generally be the same dominant culture in off-screen life).

Before I start writing, I’m brainstorming possible ways to tie the last idea into the essays.

And, of course, I still have other obligations to attend to, including classes (and lots of reading for one of them called Educators as Intellectuals–a book a week) and 3 raid nights a week. 😛

A couple of weeks ago, Robin and I went down to Sunnyvale to visit family and high school friends. We ended up hanging out with Gray and Song Gong quite a bit. We also saw my brother Max and his new fiance Nancy, Chris and Hilary (who are getting married on Mother’s Day), Ian and Laura (already hitched), et. al. Oh, and Song Gong’s awesomest dog evah, Daphne. On Thursday, Gray and I drove over to visit Ted and Denine (got married two days ago!) since I wasn’t going to be able to make it to their wedding, while Robin visited a high school friend of hers Liz who recently got a job she likes much more than her last one (grats!). We also saw Robin’s brother Brian, sis-in-law Kelly, and their daughters Jessica and Natalie who are amazing. Okay, enough with the shout-outs… on to the stuff.

We went to a bunch of restaurants including a really good deep dish pizza place in Palo Alto, Pizz’a Chicago. I’d been there before (and they used to serve yards of hard cider) but for some reason this last time, I thought the pizza was fantastic. On the first Saturday we went to La Costena for their burritos (as featured in Sunset like… a decade ago) which wasn’t as good as we remember (from like… a decade ago). On the second Saturday we went to a Shanghai restaurant with my parents and I had a bunch of dishes I’d never had before. It was also very very good.

I bought three DS games while down there, Phoenix Wright 2, Final Fantasy III, and Hotel Dusk. I’ve been playing FF3 fanatically for the past week…

Song Gong lent us Arrested Development which we watched when we had downtime (almost done with the first season now), and Gray lent us Fullmetal Alchemist which I’ve been watching fanatically while playing FF3 (finished on Friday… not sure I like the 2nd half).

While down there, my parents had me update and do routine maintenance on their computers. Only… it hadn’t been done for like 2 years, so I ended up spending hours downloading Windows updates, getting new virus protection and ad-aware installs in place, troubleshooting various problems (each of 4 computers had a different set of problems!), and installing a web camera for my mom to use Skype with her brother in Rochester.

Oh, and last but not least, Lisa and I co-authored a book chapter, taking turns working on it via email. Heh. It’s called “Play my way: The politics of cooperation in massively multiplayer online games” and will appear in Play and politics. Douglas Thomas, Joshua Fouts and Shawna Kelly are the editors. (I wonder if that’ll bump my WoW paper up on Doug Thomas’ Games and Culture journal’s review list.) A draft version can be found on Lisa’s site.

Photos of our Sunnyvale trip coming soon!