Learning and Gaming

Learning: Setting Fire to the Imagination; Learning through Gaming and Play

EDUC 401
Philip Bird, 270928
For Dr. Hanan Yaniv


There is something captivating about electronic gaming.  I am young enough of a fellow to have caught the beginning edge of gaming's frothy surf.  My childhood was a mix of broad sunny prairie, playing Cops and Robbers on bike through the town streets, and beating Ganondorf in The Adventures of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time on Nintendo's N64 console, as well as many other games on various platforms.  To me, these experiences were a relatively seamless part of the fabric of my childhood, but in retrospect, it has been gaming that has consistently captured my attention.
 

Ganondorf

There is a powerful word that describes the world of gaming that all educators should pay attention to, in my opinion.  This word is immersive; Dictionary.com defines it as, "noting or pertaining to digital technology or images that deeply involve one's senses and may create an altered mental state" (Dictionary.com).  The root word, immerse, conjures up the image of plunging into something, deep waters, or more figuratively, a brand new experience.  This sense of immersion is deeply native to the world of games. 

Broadly, play is the heart of games.  It is present just as deeply in electronic formats, as it was in the cross town caper of Cops and Robbers.  Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff describe the five elements of children's play,

    1.    Play must be pleasurable and enjoyable.
    2.    Play must have no extrinsic goals; there is no prescribed learning that must occur.
    3.    Play is spontaneous and voluntary.
    4.    Play involves active engagement on the part of the player.
    5.    Play involves an element of make-believe.

(Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff, 2003).  

The demands of curriculum often proscribe the second goal.  Education often seems not very fun, or involving or anything about what the student is truly interested in.  The power of intrinsic motivation is significant - if there is a way that it can be incorporated into the classroom, targeted, focused and unleashed, it would be potent stuff indeed.  Omrod et. al describe intrinsic motivation as "the motivation that comes from within the individual, rather than from such outside influences as extrinsic reinforcers… one important factor in intrinsic motivation is high self-efficacy: Students must believe that they have the ability to accomplish the learning task successfully" (Omrod et. al. 2010).  This sense of play and the motivation that is part of it comes from an interaction of two parties.  Jane McGonigal notes that, "We like people better after we play a game with them, even if they've beaten us badly - and the reason is, it takes a lot of trust to play a game with someone.  We trust that they will spend their time with us, that they will play by the same rules, value the same goals, they'll stay with the game until it's over" (McGonigal, 2010). Playing with someone requires that value of trust, a sense of boundaries, and a set of goals the players must achieve to win or to accomplish their task.  Playing also assumes a level of realistic success

Gamers breathe and live in this sense of play when they are immersed in their game worlds.  Jane McGonigal describes the four aspects of gamers:  they engage in blissful productivity, they weave a tight social fabric, they embody and convey a sense of urgent optimism, and they search and pursue epic meaning (McGonigal, 2010).  These are all positive aspects that often are overlooked when we as adults scrutinize gaming, and the youth playing the games.  These are things that are worthy of emulation, that can be harnessed for good, and deployed to further their education. 

Some of the environments that gamers find themselves in, including and especially massively multiplayer online (MMO) environments are highly immersive, febrile grounds for learning.  Thomas and Brown describe it this way: 

Imagine an environment where the participants are building a massive network databases, wikis and websites, and thousands of message forums, creating a large-scale knowledge economy. Imagine an environment where participants constantly measure and evaluate their own performance, even if that requires them to build new tools to do so. Imagine an environment where user interface dashboards are constructed by the users themselves to make sense of the world and their own performance in it. Imagine an environment where evaluation is based on after-action reviews to continually enhance performance; an environment where learning happens on a continuous basis, because the participants are internally motivated to find, share, and filter new information on a near-constant basis.(Thomas and Brown, 2011).

The rest of their article is equally salient.  They see these online environments powered by an engine, "the engine that drives learning is a blend of questioning, imagination, and - best of all - play."  Play is at the heart of this intensive learning. 

Utilizing gaming for learning, for education, is something that does occur in unique classes.  During my field observation practicum, I observed a Grade 2 teacher use a simple call and response game through the classroom's Smartboard, to help explore the concept of skip counting in math.  Later, she gathered all the students in a circle sitting on the floor to play a game of "Snap!"  This simple game was played thusly: a skip counting outcomes was described by the teacher, say by 10s.   The children were going around the circle, each person counting up by ones, and every time a person came close to 10 or a multiple of 10, the person would yell "Snap!"  This simple game helped reinforce a mathematical concept, and engaged the kids at the same time. 

Another classroom, this one in a private school in New York City benefited from gaming in the classroom.  Joel Levin, the school's computer teacher created a classroom experiment with Minecraft, a game about exploring, collecting resources and building in blocks similar to Lego.  His experiment

"a rousing success.  Not only did we have a productive and fun unit, but I would say that this was the best project I have ever done in the classroom.  In my 8 years of teaching I have never seen students so excited and engaged.  They run up to me in the halls to tell me what they plan to do next class.  They draw pictures about the game in art.  They sit at the lunch tables and strategize their next building projects.  And not only the boys, but girls too" (Levin, 2011)

This kind of engagement isn't something you normally see in schools. 

Learning is a vital part of gaming.  Gaming creates a kind of learning momentum, a force that propels learners forward, to explore strange new worlds, and seek new vistas.  Gaming captivates the imagination, it immerses its user into worlds that they are intrinsically motivated to understand and succeed.  These are possibilities that can be applied to education.  Education can ride this surf too. 


Reference List:

McGonigal, J. (2010). Gaming can make a better world. TED Talks. Retrieved from: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

Omrod, JE., Saklofske, DH., Schwean, VI., Andrews, JJW., Shore, BM. (2010). Principles of Educational Psychology. Toronto: Pearson Education Canada. 

"Immersive." (n.d.) Retrived November 12th, 2011 from Dictionary.Reference.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/immersive

Thomas, D. & Brown, J.S. (2010). Multiplayer High. Boingboing. Retrieved from: http://boingboing.net/2011/04/28/flux.html

Levin, J. (2011).  A Classroom Experiment with Minecraft. The Minecraft Teacher. Retrieved from: http://minecraftteacher.net/post/3922255282/a-classroom-experiment-with-minecraft

 

It ends

It is over; caput, goodbye, adieu, farewell, le fin, no more, all done. I am breaking up with you.

How many hours have I spent, gazing into your depths, looking for deeper meaning and fulfillment? kijijiAlberta> Calgary>buyandsell>Baby items>Strollers,carriers&carseats, it simply is not with you.

We have had such wonderful times together, bartering, looking at pictures, researching stroller models various seat reclines and color schema. You were the obsession of a grouchy gravida, and the refuge of an exhausted new mother in early a.m. hours. But I have taken all I can from you. I used you, besotted as I was, for your strollers.

This has become an unhealthy relationship; I have been fantasizing of how to convince my friends to have babies so's to justify another stroller mission and purchase from your depths. I also considered buying more strollers, replacing their canopies, and reselling them. My mother has told me that I do not have enough room in my apartment, and that I need to move on. I agree with both points.

Our time was not wasted time My keen interest in used luxury pushchairs has brought me to the following useful conclusions;

The Bumbleride Queen B (2007-2008) is a Hummer – a fortress for baby with solid construction. Adding to the manliness of this stroller is a JOHNDEER color scheme. The vibrant and roomy canopy is without compromise (it even has a peekaboo window), as are the large, all-terrain air filled tires. The seat may be turned around if baby is sick of looking and momma, the handle can be adjusted so a four year old may happily push. Like a Hummer, the Queen B requires muscle and space. With its significant bulk and weight of 32 lbs + baby, it requires either two people to bring down the stairs, or a garage at street level. Or it folds and can be transported with baby in two pieces. Nothankyouverymuch. Needless to say this kijiji venture was not a successful one, and a month or two after aquisition, I return this pram to you, with a brand new carry basket. I give it four out of five hearts, all of which are BROKEN.

New price: $649-$799 Kijiji price: $200

Moving right along....

...footloose and fancy free!

The Bumbleride Flyer, we visited after much deliberation. The 2007 model I viewed is persnickety – the adjustable handlebar means locking and unlocking wheels, and the baby-facing-momma direction steers rather poorly. The footmuff and canopy have useful pockets on this model, but the hesitant orange color is not very appealing (it is a pale orange, almost pastel-esque. Ick). This stroller I did not purchase, and fled rapidly. However it does have a nice folding mechanism and is fairly light. On paper the flyer is perfect for an apartment, but it's finicky wheels and steering do not suit this momma's purposes. This stroller garners two out of five hearts, NONE of which are broken.

New price: $329-$459 Kijiji price: $200

Easily the prettiest stroller I met because of you, Mr. Kijiji was the Bumbleride Indie. This beautiful red jogging stroller is a dream. Light and compact, smooth and pretty, it steers well, can be lifted with baby inside it, and is the mid-range costing stroller. It is under 20 lbs and has an especially compact fold, and is designed to handle light running. With the same tires and the Queen B, the useful pockets of the Flyer, and the sturdy fabric characteristic of the brand, this is the perfect stroller to buy. However, I did not – I found something better.

New price: $499-$550 Kijiji price: $250

I hesitated with this last stroller. It was a Bugaboo, a brand name I associated with wealth and trendiness (two things which I am not). And the model I was to look at was discontinued, and orange. Nevertheless, I committed to viewing a Bugaboo Frog.

This stroller floored me. Steerable with one finger, loaded with accessories (hello toddler board, bassinet, cupholder, mosquito net, rain shield, repair kit) there was no turning back. The fold, while compact, is undeniably fiddly, but it is very light, all-terrain and alright to run with on occasion (!!!!!!). Like the bumblerides, this stroller has an aluminum frame and good sized canopy.

This is what you gave me, kijiji. Five out of five hearts. I need you no longer.

New price (not including toddler board and cupholder): $759-$799 Kijiji price: $350

And that's all, folks. School time!!!!

And so the search continues...

We have found, much to our chagrin, the kijiji Queen B Bumbleride is too big for our tiny apartment.  I have sighed, huffed, puffed, but found that the functionality, beauty and sturdiness of this stroller are not enough to outweigh the obvious impracticality in our 500 sq. foot home.

And so, we are left without a stroller.  My dreams of a Bumbleride come to an abrupt hiccup.  I look longingly at Kijiji, craigslist, and ebay, in the mild hope that an indie will appear in our budget range.  1 a.m. - no luck.  1:30 a.m. - no luck.  1:32 a.m. - feed baby Noelle.  1:38 a.m. - no luck.  1:42 a.m. - sigh heavily with the knowledge that I will not be a fit momma without an awesome jogging stoller.

As we drive back to Calgary this afternoon, I check the Bumbleride facebook page on my smart phone, and find, like Cinderella, there may be a fairy godmother to my bumbleride heartache.  THEBABYGUYNYC GIVEAWAY AAAAAHAHHHHHH.

because I am generous (or mercenary) I will share the link.

http://www.babyguygearguide.com/bumbleridenatural#comment-5785


From what I can tell, this guy is a champ at reviewing strollers.  Maybe, just maybe, our (my) wish for a brand new Bumbleride Indie may come true.  Sigh.



-Hawk

38 weeks 2 days

I have been informed today that the owl has a flock of people that will attend a pity party in his honor.

It would seem that a lady, with child, often reaches a point where she is ready to have an 'outside baby,' but is forced to wait for nature's timing instead of a date linked to her convenience. As such, the lady may become grumpy and impatient, stir-crazy and unpleasant. THUS the era of elective C-SECTIONS?!?!?!!?

I am pleased to report that not only am I not opting for an elective C-SECTION, but that I am also none of the aforementioned negative qualities. My mother expects me to embody these unhappy traits, having carried this baby longer than she any of her six. It is my parents that are sending prayers to the owl, feeling he might be hen-pecked for the next two weeks.

Fortunately this is not the case. This hawk is peppy, happy with the company of my pretty cockatiels, entertained with knitting projects and university course coordination, cleaning things, walking around and waking up the owl at the crack of dawn.

We have a lovely nest ready for the little chick. It is a pretty dark cherry, host to a black bear with an emerald green ribbon, mickey mouse and a little ducky, all perched on a frog/snail/duck/turtle bedding, set beneath a frog/snail/duck/turtle mobile that softly plays the Brahms lullaby.

Ah, me.

The rain fell in soft sheets and stripped away the hours. After a fairly hot July, this unprecedented period of precipitation is appreciated in appropriate portions. Today it was a blissful union of weather, quiet mood and meditative preparation. I am knitting a mint green blanket, but using purling exclusively with no pretty planned pattern.

Needless to say (though I am sure through the incessant blathering it can be gathered) the Hawk is excited for the rush, fear, scramble and energy of bringing a little one into the world, and finds this interim period an interesting test of what is important and core to making a day worth living from sun to sun.

-Hawk

The Most Intense Year and a Half of My Life, Part 2

Part Two: The Long Form Note

So.  I had just been introduced to Violet.  We began by exchanging (now defunct) blog sites, and accepting friend requests on Facebook.  I remember sitting for an evening, reading her material, being absolutely taken by the writing style (grace and brevity), and by the aching beauty of its content.  I remember, the way my heart beat just a little faster when I saw that she was on to chat. 

I remember our first long FB conversation.  I remember it less for the content of the words we said, and more for this tremendous feeling that overcame me.  It was the feeling of a doom befalling me.  Now, dear reader, you would say, "Phil that sounds awfully gloomy, and rather grim and foreshadowing."  But I would reply to you, dear reader in this perhaps somewhat condescending manner, "Well, dear reader, you are correct, if you consider the conventional understanding of the word doom.  But I mean by it a different sense.  Violet was my doom, in the way it was to 'ordain or fix as a fate.'"

I sensed, a moment that stretched for the entire evening, that Violet would become part of the rest of my life.  I think we humans are accorded in this life a few genuine premonitions, and for me, this was one of them.  I knew that Violet, in her careful, precise and delicate words, her curious and forthright manner, was my beauty to win. 

I knew that coming out of a summer where my heart had been scraped over a rough emotional landscape of restraint, desire and betrayal, I had to protect myself, and to hold carefully in my hand the tiny germinating seed of love. 

I knew this, and so I very consciously avoided talking to Violet about the emotions she stirred within me with her words.  I remember feeling how important that sense of discretion was.  I needed to hold my feelings at arm's length.  I wanted to show myself discipline, and in a way, her as well.

We had embarked on a journey of the long form note.  We wrote during our time at school, both out and in class.  We spoke a dialogue of politics, culture, religion and literature.  We asked each other questions.  She had not received the same sense of things that I had about our prospects, we were pen pals - not potential partners, but I had a sense of the trajectory we were on. 

And so, I wrote a letter.  (That's Part Three!)

Working on the Story

This New Year's, I made a resolution to finish a novel before the year was out.  Up to this point, I've got three scenes complete, each nearly about a chapter's length.  I've been reworking the story, over and over in my head, and unfortunately, I've just begun taking notes. 

The basic idea is this:  young adult fiction (if not tween - 10 to 14yrs), in a fantastic setting, comprising mostly of the City of Pearl - a city where magic is so commonplace, it's rare to not have any or not be using any.   The main character is forced from his home into an unwelcome apprenticeship, where he must survive in an unfamiliar city, with no friends but those he makes.

I've got some great ideas and I worked out the plotting for the first chapter (again!), and I think I have the idea of how the initial action is happening.

Tis fun, but hard to find the time these days.  Working Starbucks really helps.  I like the morning shifts they've been giving me.  It leaves my afternoons and evenings to recover, do errands during business hours, and work on writing in the evenings.  Violet's been coming along for the ride, as my creative consultant, and as you can see below, the most interesting blog writer of the two of us. 

My sweet hawk. 

The Most Intense Year and Half of my Life, Part 1

Part One: Words, Wings and Our Wonderful Story

In order to really bring justice to this last year and a half, this period with the greatest density of life changing events in my adult life, I need to go back to when I had just turned 24. Camp had started.  I was helping out as a leader in the teen development program at a local children's bible camp, a wonderful job, in my opinion, probably one of the best in the world.  I had just finished up my second last year of English, well on my newly motivated way towards finishing my degree. 

I love camp.  It was chock full of unique people, all working towards the same objective - making kids and teens feel like they belong in a new and strange setting, and having as much fun as you can have whilst doing that. 

And then there were the really interesting staff, the really cute ones.  And there was one in particular. 

Up to and including this point in my life, I had agonized about my singleness, a course of celibacy enforced upon myself for nearly five years.  I had bought into the idea that to be A Good Christian Man, I must excise all thoughts of lust - which included attraction towards the opposite gender.  While I think I had a very good heart back then, I think some of the principles that I had followed at that point were somewhat flawed.  Now isn't the time to get into the topic of Being a Male In the Church Today, but I hope to later. 

Yeah.  There was this girl.  She was beautiful, captivating, and totally unreachable, due to the strictures of camp.  Not merely that, I knew in my heart of hearts, that she wasn't the one for me.  One of the strange by-products of the Long Night of the Owl's Solitude, was the constant communication God and I had regarding relationships.  It came in two flavors.  The first would be my initial attraction, followed by prayer, and then usually a very strong sense of not for you, Phil.  The second being my common sense kicking me straight up the head.  This was both.  But the attraction lingered throughout the summer camp season, and I had some heavy lifting to do in terms of prayer and getting my head screwed on straight. 

Camp ended.  One of my fellow leaders with whom I co-lead the program with, and with whom I had also confided my attraction, dropped a bomb.  This wasn't like a flashbang, or a concussion grenade.  We're talking shrapnel here.  He was dating the Girl.  It felt like I was in some strange Shakespearian love triangle. 

During this season, I had been writing to my aunt.  Strange, at first glance, but we'd struck up as quite companionable pen pals, as we were both interested in writing, and we'd always got along.  She was also in BC, six hours away from where I was living and far enough away to be an objective third party.   I told her my story.

She replied with not a well-written email, which was common, but rather, with an introduction to Violet, over facebook. 

Little did I know what significance this would have on my life.   But I remember feeling like I was caught up in a strange and wonderful story, the one of my life.  And it was moving in a very interesting direction. 

The Owl

36 Weeks

Today our egg has officially been incubating 36 weeks. It has, thus far, followed proper egg protocol, met all the Government of Canada guidelines for growth and activity, and been in general a good tenant of the Bird's nest. There are suspicions this little creature may be female, but the wording of an ultrasound tech was a cautious "I don't think it is a boy." The chick should crack into this world at the end of July or first week of August, depending on how cramped quarters become.

As we look at our humble abode, we observe, clean and take stock of the things we have prepared for the new addition. I see a pram with an aluminum frame in JOHN DEERE green and yellow. The stroller has a name; the Bumbleride company calls her a 2007 Queen B. Beside the pram is a little blue bassinet, and a Safety First carseat in brown and blue. We have a yellow Rubbermaid of freshly laundered baby clothes from B.C, and a unopened box of bottles.

Our nest is coming together quite nicely.

.................

In the last week or two, I have come to the realization that there are not very many married couples having babies in my social sphere. At 21, my friends are partying, working loads, saving money for trips and handbags, dancing at clubs, studying through the night... In contrast, I am budgeting, finishing up a degree in daytime hours, planning for a new, tiny person in my life, and sorting through what it means to be a good spouse. Is there any common ground here? Is it fair for me to jabber incessantly about baby things with young people far removed from the concept? Probably not. What is the solution to a seeming hole in my social life? Forums? Facebook? My momma? Books? My doctor?

The solution thus far has been a hodgepodge of the aforementioned. I have found new mommies are tired and do not have oodles of time for we incubators. My mum listens well, but lives 6 hours away. My friends are tied up with their own lives, or are not all that interested in breastfeeding and comparative diaper shopping.

Today I decided that I prefer to be excited about baby things and preparations for the baby's sake, and to learn as much as I can independently. The desire for fellow female baby-haver's conversation is not in the cards, or necessary. I can knit and practice my kegels without encouragement, thank-you-very-much!

The Hawk

Absolutely Shameless Owl Post.

My wife and I have been preparing for our great expedition into the wonderful world of parenting.  This is evident due to the previous post!

I've actually found the adventure to be quite fun.  I'm realising that as a man, it\'s important to be involved in these decisions.  I try to see them from the framework of a hunter-gatherer.  We must seek out and destroy- er - conquer - ah - acquire the various means of our survival in the urban setting.

Thus far, it has been the Bumbleride stroller.  My role in its acquisition was to exhaustively... and I mean exhaustively search through review videos, especially from Baby Gizmo, then cross reference the ideal stroller via our local online classifieds.

This mission accomplished, we also hunted down and found a baby seat, as well.

The hunt goes on!

The Owl (phil)

Absolutely Shameless Bumbleride Post ---

So, I have found the ultimate stroller company....

BUMBLERIDE! 

And yes, this is a shameless post, from the Hawk.

This is a stroller that is built with the intention of lasting, not needing to necessarily be replaced in a year or so - I wrote the following on facebook regarding our decision to go with a Bumbleride Queen B;

in the decision to purchase a 'travel system' Phil and I agonized.  Looking at what is available, the least we could spend would be $250 with no clear top end.  The thing is, a carseat expires six years from manufacture date.  As such, multiple children requires multiple carseat purchases.  A stroller, on the other hand, has no expiry, but most are made in such a way that the plastic wheels, frame, steering and design fail within a few years.  The conclusion we came to is that one should put more money into a stroller than a carseat (granted the carseat is purchased new and has passed all the safety tests).  We waited and watched Kijiji, and found a $700 stroller/pram for $150.  It has an aluminum frame, replaceable, inflatable wheels, all metal working pieces, and is adjustable to carry up to two children, from infancy to about four/five years old.  We did not buy the first pretty stroller and carseat that looked pretty, though that is what our impulses suggested.  We waited, researched, and found much more satisfaction in the decision we made.  We also managed to spend $45 less than projected for the lower end travel system available at Toys R Us and Walmart. 

Why am I posting this on our blog as well as facebook?  To get the word out,  

http://www.thebraggingmommy.com/2011/06/24/brag-worthy-summer-bumbleride-flite-stroller-review-and-giveaway/comment-page-32/#comment-201779

Read bragging mommy's review, and you too can sing the praises of the sturdy and sleek Bumbleride brand!

We really love our Queen B, but cannot make any official claims as to its efficacy until the baby arrives (next 3-6 weeks is the best guess....)  In any case, It puts a smile on my face regardless any and all times of the day.

I recommend their website for pictures and an overview of their products,

http://www.bumbleride.com/

Cheers!

Ghetto Farm Kid

Possibly the first of my poems intended in a spoken word vein. 

I'm a ghetto farm kid, trapped amid the bustle and noise of an urbanity, the hard press of humanity

here I have no choice but to breathe gasoline fumes, or the odor that looms around concrete fast food tombs.

so different than the smell of ripening wheat, or the sweet scent of clover and sage... or the hard honest sweat that you get when your sweeping a bin, or pitching the hay in on a hot heavy day

I was never meant to be a farmer, to my parents dismay my course lay instead, in literature, fantasy, the books I had read

They inspired me, widened me, and taught my mind to ignore the simplicity what lay around sowing the ground, the beautiful haunting sound of a chinook wind, or the sight of hawks hunting in the fields where the harvest is coming in

With the row of combines marching in the lines of swath on a land like quilted cloth

Swatches of green and gold, a pageantry as old as Cain, who was the first to put hand to the plough look up at the sky and curse it for its lack of rain

I wanted something more than the duties of the farm chore, I swore, I would travel, experience more than the vista of a plain Albertan plain.

I wanted to imbibe the foreign sights and sounds of something other than my tribe

Learn the tongue from the young of another place, chase down and face the desire to flee my own space, hearth and home

My feet were itchy, you see?

I scratched that itch, and set them free on a plane trip to Germany

I lived in Berlin, away from my kin, in an city so new and fresh to my eyes, there was no disguise-ing my newfound love and care for this city of the Bear

It had an atmosphere, you veritably sense it in the air, in the clothes that my peers would wear, the mohawk hair

Or the red handkerchief slung round the neck hung like a flag ready at the beck and call of a protest at the Berlin Wall which had its fall not too long ago at all

You could feel the history in this city, sketched underneath the skin of the graffiti tag

Feel it as you touched bullet holes in the Reichstag

From a World War where they exchanged one dictator for years of cold slow conflict that raged in this city divided between East and West

You can see it echoed in eyes, hear it in the chest of a people who are charged with:

Lest WE forget Auschwitz, Treblinka, Arbeit Macht Frei,

You can see it echoed in the eyes, the memories of a people who let the Jews die

But there was a willingness to engage, from the people my age in questions political, rhetorical, and cultural,

There was a thirst for debate, a desire to create a dialogue of mind and thought, a language fraught with the willingness to encompass more than the limits of theology, nationality, and blind ideology

They taught me that it was ok to open my mind from the culture I lived in - I had to make the point though, No... I'm not an American –

I found I could relate in conversations late at night in a coffee shop open far past the hour of closing and well on the way to first light

So you see, it was trip whose taste left me thirsty for really good coffee and a company that delights in the verbal spar, the conversation that ranges wide and far – far from the plebeian woes of this city that has no personality as far as personality goes

It was a good trip for this ghetto farm kid

***********

Cat's Paw: Chapter 1

This is my working first chapter.  Hormunder, while not the main character, is certainly significant, and I felt the scene strong enough to start the book on.

     
Hormunder, Magi of the Seventh Circle, Caretaker of the Blue Pearl, and Holder of the Vast Secret, seethed not so secretly.  His frustration was marked on a face that appeared to have strenuously tried to fit a what a magus should look like but hadn’t quite succeeded.  A receding hair line was demarcated by an chaotic frizz, the color of which alternated between dark red and brown attempting valiantly to become grey.  His beard was what his peers called whispy, when they were being polite, and worse things - such as scraggly - behind his back.  Calling a magi’s beard scraggly was one of quicker ways to make an already infamous temper arise to the surface.  
    Hormunder glared at the door to his tower, waiting for it to open and Elric to appear.  Appear and be suitably chastised from the terrible scandal he caused at the Amaranth Court.  Hormunder heard a grating sound and realised that it was his own teeth.  That impertinent boy!  he had no right to attempt to touch the Splinter.  The amount I had to explain to the rest of the Circle, let alone the Slythan embassy!  I will be humilated for years to come!  
    “Argh!”  Hormunder clutched at his frizz.  Small blue sparks crackled and circled around his head.  A headache began to pound, as the sparks manifested into a Achestorm, violently spinning around.  Another distraction.  
    “Enough. No longer can I wait, for that motherless son of a hedge warlock!”  He declaimed to the empty room.  It was a habit of his - making statements addressing an audience, which in this particular moment included a mouse, the cricket it was chasing, and a few semi-sentient sparks that had left the Achestorm to zig and zag their way across the room.
    Hormunder threw open his apprentice’s door with a hand that was not nearly gnarled enough.  He squinted with eyes that were almost requiring spectacles into the half-gloom.  His disappointingly medium sized nose pointed at the pillow of Elric’s simple bed.  Ahah!  A hair or two should do!  He snatched them and scurried up into his study, a mere two flights further away.  Pearl being a city of wizards, magic, and insufferable bearded elderly types, real estate upon which one would build a tower were rather in high demand.  As a result, Hormunder’s tower was actually a four floor squarish building, rather similar to another down the street, had no odd angle’s whatsoever, and his solarium (star room) was inconvienently blocked on the southern horizon by another tower rising into the sky - it happened to belong to Regulon the Incomparable.      “Regulon the Incompetent, more like,” muttered Hormunder.  Upon reaching the study, he hurried to his alchemical instruments.  “I must distill his essence from these hairs, an elementary exercise, I must say.”  This was accomplished with a few vials of this and that, a turn of a knob or three, and one or two “Blast that boy.”  A flame to the bottom of a flask to boil off any waste liquids, and a scrape to get the newly formed residue, and then a careful transfer to a smaller vial.  Hormunder approached his crystal ball - actually rather high quality, for saving up on real estate meant he spent his monies on something of value.  A practiced scatter above the ball and a few intoned syllables of a suddenly resonant voice and the mottled crystal whirled into clouds that formed and reformed.  Hormunder knotted his brow - eyebrows not quite meshing together satisfyingly.  Without warning three green glyphs glowed in the ball till they were all that Hormunder could see.  
    “What in Yrgga’s eight pl-”  The ball cracked, then shattered, the splinters falling to the floor.  Hormunder’s eyes bulged.  Then the splinters rose from the ground, forming a sphere, then an oval, then a face - nonhuman, sparkling, and phosporescing a sick pale green.  A glass tongue snaked out, the shards began to vibrate in the air, humming till it became a pitch that made Hormunder’s eyes water and his ears sting.  The face began to speak in scratchy syllables.  It was casting a spell!  
    Hormunder grasped his chest, at the pouch hung just underneath his robe.  The pouch moved of its own accord, pulling towards the snaking, sparkling tongue.  It couldn’t be!  Not this!  Never this!  Hormunder’s mind gibbered at the consequences of what his mind was starting to realise.  But even if his fears were unfounded, he had to act.  The sibilant voice of the sharded face was rising higher. One hand at his robes, the other scrabbled at the desk drawer, below the crystal ball.   There.  A bottle of redwyrm bonedust.  He popped the wax seal with his thumb, and trailed the dust in a careful circle around him, as fast as he dared.   He scribbled glyphs at the aspected points as the intoning voice grew fervent.  Whatever he had unleashed through his ball was about to complete the spell.   A trickle of dust from the bottle - Just a few grains more!  The voice shouted and the shards flew at the crouched wizard.  They reached the perimeter of the circle just as Hormunder looked up, finger still on the ground, scribing the last symbol.  He saw as the shards angled towards his face, then slowed, then fell as they breached his protective circle.  Most that is, except for the few that made up the tongue.  They whipped at his face - his eyes.  Red pain pierced him, then washed over in a tide of black.  

Spring Sprung Late

Spring Sprung Late

Hello.

This is Phil.  Yes, I am aware of the terrific lag between January when I started this blog and now, which is in the midst of May.  I don't have a lot to say to this, other than to simply shrug my shoulders in something resembling an "Aww... Shucks."  Picture this with a grimace and wince in the eyes.  You're getting close now.  Add a tired and knowing grin, and you got the whole picture.

Why then, am I writing now?  Perhaps it is that I have reached some kind of inner threshold - I can't help but write now.  Writing is the core of who I am, and in the past year (or two or three), my life has happened at such a furious pace that it bears reflection, description and observation and even maybe some prescription.

The next few posts will include:

- the first scene of a YA fantasy novel I vowed to write this year.  The working title is Cat's Paw, and I'm in the middle of my first outline.  I have the broad arc, but there is much to be fleshed out.  That being said, I want to introduce you to the character of Hormunder (or Ormunder - not sure yet - Hormunder said aloud sounds remarkable like whoremonger.... ahem).

- Some selected poetry.  I have a lot, some good, most bad, and some I've performed at slams.

- And, if I can summon the energy, I would like to continue in the theme of many of my past blogs: reflections on life.

This will cover diverse topics such as: impending fatherhood, baptism and whether it means I'll be Catholic (or not), gaming, being married, university, teaching, writing, faith, and other sundry things.

Primus Postus

Here we go again!


Hello friends, Phil here.  I'm attempting to turn over a new leaf in my writing.  My life has become a complicated one, full of joys and frustrations that would have been incomprehensible to me two years ago. 

I'll get to the life updates in a moment.  But first I want to address the purpose of this blog.

I hope for this to be a place where my lovely wife, Violet, and I get to share with you some of our writings, reflections and fiction, and other media.  Both of us being writerly types, and English majors, this a bit of a project we hope to work on together. 

I hope the content I will provide will generally fall into these categories: life updates, reflections and ruminations, and fiction posts.

Although they are rather cliche, after some serious consideration, my New Year's resolution this year was to finally write a novel that I've been talking about forever.  I decided to start small and focus on something YA or early teen fiction in the fantasy setting. 

Anyways, here's a short run-down on life in the last two years:

- I met the love of my life.  We decided we REALLY liked each other and that being together was far better than being apart.  However she lived in BC and I in Alberta.
- I decided I'd better marry her, and I started saving up for the ring while in school, finishing my English degree
- Last year, she moved out to Alberta, staying at friends, while we got to know each other better,  as she now lived nearby. 
- I proposed.  In the Calgary Tower, no less.  She accepted.  It was epic.
- I finished up my time as a volunteer at Camp Chestermere in a CLTD leader capacity.  It was a moment of both poignancy mixed with pride in the kids I got to know, and humility at how God was able to use me at camp in the past few years
- I took spring classes at the university and finished up my degree.
- I worked framing during the summer.
- We got married in October.  It was beautiful and amazing and intense. 
- I lost my framing job due to a downturn in the construction industry.
- I convocated with a Bachelor's in English and a Minor in History
- I began to work at a warehouse job just before Christmas. 
- Christmas happened.

And now here we are, friends.