Wow, I can't get this game out of my head. A board game, even.
The name is "Shadows over Camelot." We played it last night. It's 3-7 players. We played a first half game to learn the rules, and then a second full game.
Now, first, it's a cooperative game. Mostly. Instead of trying to beat one another, you are trying to help each other beat the game.
You start out by giving out characters. King Arthur is mandatory, and then you have knights like Sir Kay, Sir Galahad, Sir Palamedes, and others. They have a certain special thing they can do, but otherwise they're all the same.
The game board is set up with the start place being Camelot and besides that a lot of different locations where one can perform quests. There's fighting the Picts, fighting the Saxons, jousting with the Black Knights, seeking Excalibur, seeking the Holy Grail, seeking Lancelot's armor, and defeating the dragon. With all of these, you have to play certain cards in order to win, sometimes while trying to counter bad cards that come up (I'll explain that shortly). If you win, you get white swords of allegiance put around the round table, gain life and cards, the special item (if you're seeking one) and all is well. If you lose, then black swords and other bad stuff happen.
So all this sounds simple... until you hear what happens on your turn. There are two portions. The first is the dark portion. Either you draw a bad card, you lose one life point, or you put a catapult in front of Camelot. The bad cards often thwart progress on a quest, make people lose good cards, or things like that. Adding one catapult is fine, but they build up, and if twelve catapults are out at once, the game is over; anyone staying in Camelot must try to fight them using cards from their hand and a die roll. Losing a life point hurts, because you start with only four.
Then the second part is where you either move to a quest, play a card to aid a quest, or if in Camelot, draw two cards.
Alright, so the point is to cooperate to complete quests. This is fine, but you must account for an imbalance where one of you might be a traitor. Before the game starts each person gets a loyalty card, which they cannot reveal unless they are accused. An incorrect accusation costs a lot though, so a good traitor can subtly thwart people's plans and sow distrust so that they either accuse the wrong people or are afraid to accuse at all.
Luckily, in the second game we played none of us were the traitor, because it ran close. I was Sir Kay, constantly fighting the Black Knights. Others were only able to thwart bad cards from overtaking the grail quest, Duncan got Lancelot's armor, I got Excalibur by a fluke (played a card to get it so Phil could go back and hit catapults. The situation was actually getting pretty dire, with 10 and 11 catapults consistently, as well as terrible bad cards. Finally, King Arthur (played by Bo) had to sacrifice himself so that we could win the game. So it was bittersweet, but we won by the skin of our teeth.
I'm not sure how much sense that made... but I had fun. It's not something I want to play too often (takes a while to get going in the game, as Leslie observed, and about 60-90 minutes to play), but it's a very friendly game. And it's King Arthur!
Oct 24, 2007
Oct 14, 2007
Whoops
Packing for me always involves both a degree of plannedness and a degree of franticness. I know what I want to bring, but don't always know where it is. Or I know what I want to bring, but will get it ready later. Maybe I have gotten it ready but it hasn't ended up in the right place.
Maybe it's sitting hopefully on the bathroom counter, waiting to be taken.
Or so I conjecture. Earlier I forgot my Roman sandals, a blow to me, but not a very important one. Just vaguely disappointing.
Now I have left my shaving kit. This is a bigger blow with two things that are relatively irreplacable; my retainers and my facial medicine. The former I can probably try without and the latter I have done without before, and can do so successfully with some care. I figure that at the very least I don't have to bring anything of that sort back the next time I go home. In Thanksgiving.
Whoops. ^^;;;
Maybe it's sitting hopefully on the bathroom counter, waiting to be taken.
Or so I conjecture. Earlier I forgot my Roman sandals, a blow to me, but not a very important one. Just vaguely disappointing.
Now I have left my shaving kit. This is a bigger blow with two things that are relatively irreplacable; my retainers and my facial medicine. The former I can probably try without and the latter I have done without before, and can do so successfully with some care. I figure that at the very least I don't have to bring anything of that sort back the next time I go home. In Thanksgiving.
Whoops. ^^;;;
Oct 6, 2007
GRE
So, this morning I was slated to take the GRE Subject Test at 8:30 in the Humanities Building.
I had done an irresponsible thing the night before by volunteering to help run a Bingo table at Vol Night Long, a carnival that happens around midterms to relieve stress. Luckily Dylan was merciful and let me leave whenever, which I did after 12:15. (Until the last half-hour or so, Bingo wasn't really happening... at all. So we played card games.)
But this morning I wake up an hour before, take a shower, eat breakfast, and then show up five minutes before I'm supposed to. (I live on campus, so I can generally end up at a place with a very small margin error in time.) There's no sign of anyone... wait! There's this one guy walking around, and as I enter the door into the "lobby," he asks, "Are you here for the Psych subject test?" "I'm here for a test, but not that one," I say, looking around. "It's empty," he admits, about to go looking down another hallway. I spot a sign at the other door and walk over. There is writing on the other side, the one facing outward to the plaza. It reads, "The testing center has been moved to the UT Conference Center on Henley St. Room 417."
Eyebrows quirk. We start walking. About thirty seconds into it, he says, "They better let us in." "Yeah, definitely. If not I'll be mad." A few more short exchanges pass, and then he remarks, "You know we can't get there in five minutes." "You're right." And then, simultaneously, we start running.
Now, the distance we're running - in pedestrian shoes and pants - is about a mile, but psychologically the distance is larger. We are running to the outskirts of downtown, past the World's Fair Park, across the street that turns into Broadway. I have never been in that building before, and I'm not exactly sure which building they mean at first. So we're lunging down the sidewalk, breakfast churning in our stomachs, ready to fuel us as we splatter our knowledge all over the test.
It would take between fifteen and twenty minutes for me to get there, speed walking. Including our frantic unsureness about where to be (about a minute and a half to two minutes in the Convention Center), and encountering locked doors when trying to get into the conference center, and walking in a circle inside once we enter, we get to the testing room in ten minutes. Panting. The door we encounter is locked, any late tester's worst fear. I knock. After a few glances between others, one of them opened the door. Were we late? Had it started? Why no! They weren't going to start testing until at least 9 o'clock.
I suppose we got to catch our breath and settle down, at least?
... so I did that, settling down and choosing to get some of their graciously offered coffee. Mmmm. I drank it black though, not wanting to consume too much caffeine at once and end up spazzing out over the test. Once it turned cold, that made it even easier to moderate drinking it.
As for the test itself... I can't discuss details or contents. I will just say that there were some things I didn't know, but luckily a lot of things I could guess over and have probability favor me. There were a few things I'd specifically read in certain classes (or out of them), and one in particular that I had read sometime this week! It was difficult and I feel both encouraged and discouraged by the experience, if that's possible... being knowledge and contextual based, it is exceedingly difficult to know them all. (Anything above a 700 is basically in the 99th percentile, and I can almost guarantee you that I was, at best, 650.) But I think that, given what I did know, I exercised it well, and that's the best I could ask.
I just hope that next time someone decides to change the testing place, they say, "And we will start, not at 8:30, but 9, to give you time to get here. DO NOT BE ANY LATER." That would've been... well, less distressing.
I had done an irresponsible thing the night before by volunteering to help run a Bingo table at Vol Night Long, a carnival that happens around midterms to relieve stress. Luckily Dylan was merciful and let me leave whenever, which I did after 12:15. (Until the last half-hour or so, Bingo wasn't really happening... at all. So we played card games.)
But this morning I wake up an hour before, take a shower, eat breakfast, and then show up five minutes before I'm supposed to. (I live on campus, so I can generally end up at a place with a very small margin error in time.) There's no sign of anyone... wait! There's this one guy walking around, and as I enter the door into the "lobby," he asks, "Are you here for the Psych subject test?" "I'm here for a test, but not that one," I say, looking around. "It's empty," he admits, about to go looking down another hallway. I spot a sign at the other door and walk over. There is writing on the other side, the one facing outward to the plaza. It reads, "The testing center has been moved to the UT Conference Center on Henley St. Room 417."
Eyebrows quirk. We start walking. About thirty seconds into it, he says, "They better let us in." "Yeah, definitely. If not I'll be mad." A few more short exchanges pass, and then he remarks, "You know we can't get there in five minutes." "You're right." And then, simultaneously, we start running.
Now, the distance we're running - in pedestrian shoes and pants - is about a mile, but psychologically the distance is larger. We are running to the outskirts of downtown, past the World's Fair Park, across the street that turns into Broadway. I have never been in that building before, and I'm not exactly sure which building they mean at first. So we're lunging down the sidewalk, breakfast churning in our stomachs, ready to fuel us as we splatter our knowledge all over the test.
It would take between fifteen and twenty minutes for me to get there, speed walking. Including our frantic unsureness about where to be (about a minute and a half to two minutes in the Convention Center), and encountering locked doors when trying to get into the conference center, and walking in a circle inside once we enter, we get to the testing room in ten minutes. Panting. The door we encounter is locked, any late tester's worst fear. I knock. After a few glances between others, one of them opened the door. Were we late? Had it started? Why no! They weren't going to start testing until at least 9 o'clock.
I suppose we got to catch our breath and settle down, at least?
... so I did that, settling down and choosing to get some of their graciously offered coffee. Mmmm. I drank it black though, not wanting to consume too much caffeine at once and end up spazzing out over the test. Once it turned cold, that made it even easier to moderate drinking it.
As for the test itself... I can't discuss details or contents. I will just say that there were some things I didn't know, but luckily a lot of things I could guess over and have probability favor me. There were a few things I'd specifically read in certain classes (or out of them), and one in particular that I had read sometime this week! It was difficult and I feel both encouraged and discouraged by the experience, if that's possible... being knowledge and contextual based, it is exceedingly difficult to know them all. (Anything above a 700 is basically in the 99th percentile, and I can almost guarantee you that I was, at best, 650.) But I think that, given what I did know, I exercised it well, and that's the best I could ask.
I just hope that next time someone decides to change the testing place, they say, "And we will start, not at 8:30, but 9, to give you time to get here. DO NOT BE ANY LATER." That would've been... well, less distressing.
Oct 4, 2007
Diagnosis
An Article:
http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/showarticle.php?articleid=51983
The Reply:
http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/showarticle.php?articleid=52004
(I wrote one of these.)
Otherwise...
I get frustrated by something. (Many people do.) Outside the scope of the letter I wrote, though it may be a mutual symptom.
There is a tendency, when a perplexing literary or historical figure is encountered, to diagnose them with some psychosis or other malady that rationally explains their problem as being in their mind, whether having initial cause elsewhere or not.
I have a few examples.
1. Margery Kempe. She had a book written. The Book of Margery Kempe. (Original titles in 1400, yes?) Anyway, this is a biography of sorts. She lives out her life for a while, marries, has kids... and starts having a religious transformation. It's gradual, and she turns away from it for a while thinking herself bereft from salvation, but Jesus finally appears to her and becomes her special vision-pal. She ends up crying a lot in public, constantly bringing up religion to others, pleading to not couple with her husband (he legally could anyway; it is 1400), and so on. Some people think this is extremely devout behavior and encourage it. Others are annoyed by it and scorn her.
Now, there are many fascinating points of exploration here, from the social response to the various gifts she receives from Jesus, to the way she and God become a marriage that trumps the earthly one she has. The way she responds to pilgrimage. The way she's nearly burned at the stake for teaching others religion (outside priestly authority, AND as a woman). But no. She's a hysteric. She's bipolar. Depressed. Pick your ailment, she has it.
She would not have been viewed as sick in her own time. People take her claims of visions and divine insight seriously, whether they believe them to be truth or willful lying. If she is diagnosed, there is no worthwhile meaning in it for the rest of the story. If anything, it detracts from the meaning, because who can try to find meaning in "crazy"? Not me.
2. We had to read "Circumstances are Destiny" by ... I think, Brakehill? Anyway, this is a biography of a woman named Celestia Rice Colby, born in the 1830s and living in Ohio. She loses her mother very young, grows up, goes to an upper school for boys and girls (unusual then), coms home, gets married, and has kids. At first she's happy doing the traditional thing, but increasingly she gets tired of it. She is disillusioned from orthodox religion, from the false platitudes of her neighbors, from the frequent absences of her husband and the pressures of keeping up a cheese-making business and her domestic housework. Through all this, she longs for some intellectual companionship, for which her occasional visiting friends and family, occasionally heard lectures, essay writing, and her avidly enjoyed books give no solace. (Jumbled list, I know.) All of this is detailed in a diary, which is why there's such a personal insight to her feelings. Finally she writes less and less, appearing to be in such a lull that only occasional mentions of her children and other circumstances lull her out of it. After the Civil War and increasingly writing on women's issues, she stops diary writing altogether. While it appears she gains a moderate piece of happiness after her husband dies or leaves her (the history is unclear), we still had to read through 200 pages of emotion-laden text that flowed slow as the Mississippi.
The conclusion from a few people today? She's depressed. Again, bipolar. What have you. And, okay, I think depressed is a fairly good way of describing her, but... that's obvious! There's nothing else to say about her? Nothing? Maybe at least the reasons she's depressed, about how she's trying to fit into a gender role that demands her silence but she wants to speak at the same time? About having a husband that shares her opinion on issues of abolition and such but who doesn't help with the housework? And weren't there many joys in her life besides? (It wasn't all bad, though the author seemed to focus on those bad points more.) If anything the biography showed that it was much more complicated than simply adhering to True Womanhood or not adhering to it, that it was a part of her, but at the same time she was dissatisfied with some parts of it... and as her children noted, she always appeared kind and encouraging to them. This was a multilayered woman, this Colby... not just a medical diagnosis.
_______________
Whenever anyone brings up such a thing, unless it can be developed further, it is just a side point. Perhaps intriguing, but not relevant. It's a shortcut, and by it, one doesn't have to think about the person or the text in a serious way. It is like looking at a piece of art and saying, "Medieval depiction of Jesus! Moving on!" It's a label, at the precise moment we're trying to peel off the labels and, perhaps with their help, perhaps not, see what's going on without the sticky bits.
And that is one thing that general education courses try to do. Rather than just having the model of matriarchal lineage, we can hopefully learn to apply it in discussion, and then say, "Well, this means for the society... dadada." It's not the only thing, certainly, or many would be an enourmous failure.
And I'm not saying that our discussions should always be complete explanations of our positions. Gah, no. Or that all of our discussions should be intellectual, even. Witty, maybe. ^_~ But no. People receiving a college education should be capable of that, though. As Mom pointed out (and I agree), I want my doctor, my lawyer, my insurance agent ... if I ever have to work with them on a personal basis, I want to know that such a conversation can be had without alienating them. I want to know that they are more than "doctor" and more than late-night TV. Perhaps they'll have an interesting hobby and such, which is always nice, but they should have an educated background, just in case... what? We actually have a discussion on something? Never know. ^_~
http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/showarticle.php?articleid=51983
The Reply:
http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/showarticle.php?articleid=52004
(I wrote one of these.)
Otherwise...
I get frustrated by something. (Many people do.) Outside the scope of the letter I wrote, though it may be a mutual symptom.
There is a tendency, when a perplexing literary or historical figure is encountered, to diagnose them with some psychosis or other malady that rationally explains their problem as being in their mind, whether having initial cause elsewhere or not.
I have a few examples.
1. Margery Kempe. She had a book written. The Book of Margery Kempe. (Original titles in 1400, yes?) Anyway, this is a biography of sorts. She lives out her life for a while, marries, has kids... and starts having a religious transformation. It's gradual, and she turns away from it for a while thinking herself bereft from salvation, but Jesus finally appears to her and becomes her special vision-pal. She ends up crying a lot in public, constantly bringing up religion to others, pleading to not couple with her husband (he legally could anyway; it is 1400), and so on. Some people think this is extremely devout behavior and encourage it. Others are annoyed by it and scorn her.
Now, there are many fascinating points of exploration here, from the social response to the various gifts she receives from Jesus, to the way she and God become a marriage that trumps the earthly one she has. The way she responds to pilgrimage. The way she's nearly burned at the stake for teaching others religion (outside priestly authority, AND as a woman). But no. She's a hysteric. She's bipolar. Depressed. Pick your ailment, she has it.
She would not have been viewed as sick in her own time. People take her claims of visions and divine insight seriously, whether they believe them to be truth or willful lying. If she is diagnosed, there is no worthwhile meaning in it for the rest of the story. If anything, it detracts from the meaning, because who can try to find meaning in "crazy"? Not me.
2. We had to read "Circumstances are Destiny" by ... I think, Brakehill? Anyway, this is a biography of a woman named Celestia Rice Colby, born in the 1830s and living in Ohio. She loses her mother very young, grows up, goes to an upper school for boys and girls (unusual then), coms home, gets married, and has kids. At first she's happy doing the traditional thing, but increasingly she gets tired of it. She is disillusioned from orthodox religion, from the false platitudes of her neighbors, from the frequent absences of her husband and the pressures of keeping up a cheese-making business and her domestic housework. Through all this, she longs for some intellectual companionship, for which her occasional visiting friends and family, occasionally heard lectures, essay writing, and her avidly enjoyed books give no solace. (Jumbled list, I know.) All of this is detailed in a diary, which is why there's such a personal insight to her feelings. Finally she writes less and less, appearing to be in such a lull that only occasional mentions of her children and other circumstances lull her out of it. After the Civil War and increasingly writing on women's issues, she stops diary writing altogether. While it appears she gains a moderate piece of happiness after her husband dies or leaves her (the history is unclear), we still had to read through 200 pages of emotion-laden text that flowed slow as the Mississippi.
The conclusion from a few people today? She's depressed. Again, bipolar. What have you. And, okay, I think depressed is a fairly good way of describing her, but... that's obvious! There's nothing else to say about her? Nothing? Maybe at least the reasons she's depressed, about how she's trying to fit into a gender role that demands her silence but she wants to speak at the same time? About having a husband that shares her opinion on issues of abolition and such but who doesn't help with the housework? And weren't there many joys in her life besides? (It wasn't all bad, though the author seemed to focus on those bad points more.) If anything the biography showed that it was much more complicated than simply adhering to True Womanhood or not adhering to it, that it was a part of her, but at the same time she was dissatisfied with some parts of it... and as her children noted, she always appeared kind and encouraging to them. This was a multilayered woman, this Colby... not just a medical diagnosis.
_______________
Whenever anyone brings up such a thing, unless it can be developed further, it is just a side point. Perhaps intriguing, but not relevant. It's a shortcut, and by it, one doesn't have to think about the person or the text in a serious way. It is like looking at a piece of art and saying, "Medieval depiction of Jesus! Moving on!" It's a label, at the precise moment we're trying to peel off the labels and, perhaps with their help, perhaps not, see what's going on without the sticky bits.
And that is one thing that general education courses try to do. Rather than just having the model of matriarchal lineage, we can hopefully learn to apply it in discussion, and then say, "Well, this means for the society... dadada." It's not the only thing, certainly, or many would be an enourmous failure.
And I'm not saying that our discussions should always be complete explanations of our positions. Gah, no. Or that all of our discussions should be intellectual, even. Witty, maybe. ^_~ But no. People receiving a college education should be capable of that, though. As Mom pointed out (and I agree), I want my doctor, my lawyer, my insurance agent ... if I ever have to work with them on a personal basis, I want to know that such a conversation can be had without alienating them. I want to know that they are more than "doctor" and more than late-night TV. Perhaps they'll have an interesting hobby and such, which is always nice, but they should have an educated background, just in case... what? We actually have a discussion on something? Never know. ^_~
Oct 2, 2007
Let us see how much I can coherently type in three minutes.
I had a crazy dream last night. I was going out to walk around campus, so I decided to put on my road warrior uniform, this kind of football gear top all black with a police riot helmet. Anyway, I'm walking around, come to the pedestrian walkway, and there are people dressed up in relative theme with me. They're there for this post-apocalyptic/medieval festival, and so I join them in helping get the food prepared. There's this one person who's chopping vegetables. So I get a cucumber and start skinning it with this peeler. It's not going very well. Suddenly, I look down and the little shredded places where light green peek through, they're turning dark... and fuzzy! Then an emerald green cat leaps from my lap where I was about to cut it again.
Yes. That's pretty much it.
I'm having to read a lot by Thursday. The reason why I'm typing as fast as I can is because I have laundry to get out... actually, right about now, and three minutes was not enough time to start something else.
(I was just reading some stuff by Christine de Pizan. She was an Italian-born immigrant to France, because her father became a counselor to the French King at the time. The Hundred-Year War was going on though, and Christine de Pizan was there just in time to have it turn bad for the French... while her husband and father both died in short time. So she turned to writing for money, an act nearly unthinkable at the time even for men. (If they wrote, they were at a university, were a monk, or were rich enough anyhow... this is pre-printing press.)
Laundry!
I had a crazy dream last night. I was going out to walk around campus, so I decided to put on my road warrior uniform, this kind of football gear top all black with a police riot helmet. Anyway, I'm walking around, come to the pedestrian walkway, and there are people dressed up in relative theme with me. They're there for this post-apocalyptic/medieval festival, and so I join them in helping get the food prepared. There's this one person who's chopping vegetables. So I get a cucumber and start skinning it with this peeler. It's not going very well. Suddenly, I look down and the little shredded places where light green peek through, they're turning dark... and fuzzy! Then an emerald green cat leaps from my lap where I was about to cut it again.
Yes. That's pretty much it.
I'm having to read a lot by Thursday. The reason why I'm typing as fast as I can is because I have laundry to get out... actually, right about now, and three minutes was not enough time to start something else.
(I was just reading some stuff by Christine de Pizan. She was an Italian-born immigrant to France, because her father became a counselor to the French King at the time. The Hundred-Year War was going on though, and Christine de Pizan was there just in time to have it turn bad for the French... while her husband and father both died in short time. So she turned to writing for money, an act nearly unthinkable at the time even for men. (If they wrote, they were at a university, were a monk, or were rich enough anyhow... this is pre-printing press.)
Laundry!
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