Sugar, Sugar

Have you ever known someone so brilliant that they had absolutely NO common sense?  Or maybe the reverse ~ someone who is not particularly book smart but seems to have an uncanny underlying logical, if insanely so, train of thought?  My parents are the perfect picture of both of these scenarios.  My mother has a genius IQ and a Master's Degree in Nursing, yet often leaves me bewildered by bizarre everyday common-sensical decisions.  My father has nothing more than a high school diploma, that I am told my mother was instrumental in helping him achieve, and has one of the wildest yet most logical thought patterns I have ever been privileged to learn from.  I am hoping that I have managed to inherit something of the middle ground, but some days I wonder.

I once took one of those online IQ quizzes just for the fun of it.  I don't remember exactly what the number was, but I do remember that it was about 10 away from genius.  "Wow," I thought, "I'm either a stupid smart person, or a smart stupid person."  Some days I wonder.

Like today, for example. 

Last night, I had fitful sleep, and though I can't say I had nightmares, my dreams were anxiety provoking and certainly not restful.  Some days, the only constant in our office is change, and today was one of those days.  My lunch was shifted to accommodate a patient, which is nothing I get upset about, but it does tend to mess with my snack schedule.  Needless to say, I was a little off all day.

According to my running schedule, I was supposed to run 2.5 miles of hill intervals today.  I got about 15 minutes into a run that usually takes about 26-28, and I was having a hard time keeping a pace that let me catch my breath.  I chalked it up to running in the woods with humidity.  At the 19 minute mark, I crashed.  I absolutely could not continue running.  What was up?!  I had run this path before - many times - and though it was challenging when my energy level was lacking, this was something different.  I walked for 2 minutes to catch my breath and tried the run again.  Two more minutes later, I crashed again.  Frustrated, I slowly began to realize what I was experiencing - severe low blood sugar.  It finally dawned on my that it had been over 6 hours since I'd last eaten, and my blood sugar had bottomed out. 

Determined to finish with some degree of strength, I power walked the last mile(ish) and was satisfied that I had finished without strolling.  However, by the time I reached the car my vision was blurring, and I was worried I might not be fit to drive.  Thankfully, my head cleared and I hit the road home.

I needed to stop at the store on the way home and, though I knew waiting to eat was going to make the trip interesting, I decided to stop anyway.  I walked from one end of the store to the other 3 times because my head was so foggy that I kept forgetting what I was there for.  By the time I pulled into my driveway I had a solid headache.

Oddly, even eating dinner didn't help much to recoup my sugar level.  I still felt very loopy.  It took an additional snack, along with a Bailey's and chi, to get me to a point where I began to feel human again.  I concluded that the combination of lack of rest, fatigue from an odd work day, and a severe lack of blood sugar, contributed to my shredded evening.

Now, here's where I feel like a really stupid smart person.  I have dealt with low blood sugar for 16 years, since I was pregnant with my first-born.  One would think that by know I would be in a solid pattern of when to eat.  Obviously, such is not the case.  It took a crash to remember to eat ~ how pathetic is that?!  To look at me, one would not assume that I am a person who forgets to eat.  Unfortunately, I only forget to eat when it is most inconvenient.  And the worst part about all of this is that I know better.  Not feeling like a smart stupid person this evening.

Here's hoping for a better night's rest and better memory for tomorrow.  Maybe I can be a smart stupid person again.

Essay 3

This is still the rough draft and I could probably use a stronger conclusion, so again, comments and constructive criticism are welcome.

“What a day!  I’m headed down to the Man Cave to pwn some newbs.”  This is an all too common phrase at our house.  The “Man Cave” is our lower-level recreation room and is announced by a sign at the bottom of the stairs that reads:  Hibernating in Man Cave.  Do Not Disturb.  “Pwning newbs” is what I call geek-speak for beating new players.  My son is a gamer.  As are the vast majority of his friends.  And  most of our adult friends.  I seem to be the lone misfit because I myself am not a gamer.

If you are not a gamer, I can almost read your mind as an outsider looking into the life of a player.  As an outsider, you might be hovering just outside the door with a preconceived notion of who awaits you on the other side.  You may think it is probably some fat, slovenly, out of work middle-aged guy who hasn’t bathed in days because he has been glued to the computer.  Litter probably covers the floor except for a swath that serves as an unobstructed path to the kitchen and bathroom.  You  might expect this guy to look strung-out, hooked on the drug that is online gaming.  The keyboard will show excessive wear on certain keys, the ones most used in the game, and the computer chair will more than likely suffer from a permanent indentation that perfectly matches the gamer’s hind-side.  Such is often the visual non-gamers have of gamers.

            As a non-gamer watching my son grow up as an avid online role-playing gamer, this was sadly the vision I once had of his future.  My greatest fear was that he would lose himself in the virtual world to the point that he would not be able to function in the real world.  Among people who do not play, this is a common concern.  And in fairness, there are instances when such is the case.  My husband at one time had so fully immersed himself into the imaginary role-playing world of EverQuest that he would grab some snacks, take up residence in his computer chair, and forget that any other world even existed.  While I was out of town one weekend, my husband came home from work with a pizza and case of Mt Dew, and settled in for a gaming marathon that lasted right up to the minute I walked back in the door – two days later.  If memory serves, he was still in his work clothes.  This is the same man who would not turn away from the game long enough to read a bedtime story to his 5-year-old son and neglected his marital relationship to the point of threats of divorce.  Thankfully, my husband did finally come to his senses and put away his obsession with the fantasy role-playing game.

            Though, most online role-playing gamers are not such extremists.  Yes, a typical gaming session can last a few hours and even turn into an all-nighter.  Yes, the visual of snack wrappers and soda cans scattered at the feet of a gamer hunched in a computer chair is often close to the truth.  But it is not usually obsession that draws most gamers to the digital world.  It is something much more basic.  It is a sense of belonging, a sense of connection, a sense of having a common ground with others, a sense of community.

            Our oldest son, Ty, has always been a socially awkward child with only a handful of real friends.  I was never a fan of videogames, and therefore kept a tight rein on how much he was allowed to play.  As he watched his dad play EverQuest (EQ) and World of Warcraft (WoW), his interest shifted from first-person games to massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG).  Mother was not pleased.  I had already seen how these games are capable of sucking a person in, and I was not ready to give up my first-born.  But Ty let me know that online gaming was a social outlet, and that he was much more comfortable socially in the virtual world than in the real (Boyer).  He seemed to have more friendships online than off.  He would joke and laugh with his online buddies, and he seemed genuinely happy with the arrangement.  He had found the sense of belonging that eluded him on this side of the keyboard.

            “Ultima” creator Richard Garriot was first exposed to the original pen-and-paper “Dungeons & Dragons” role-playing game in 1977 and experienced a social connection that he strived to recreate in the digital world (King and Borland).  Since their humble beginnings, role-playing games have advanced by leaps and bounds into rich virtual communities.  In his book “Synthetic Worlds”, Edward Castronova describes how the real world is very accurately represented in the digital realm, from choosing a trade to bartering for goods, from forming friendships to developing leadership hierarchies within working alliances (Castronova).  In MMORPGs like EQ and WoW, when a “newb” creates a character, in addition to determining race and gender, the player must also choose a trade, or career path, if you will.  Players then utilize this trade to earn money to buy needed gear and gain skill.  Eventually, they “level up”, get promoted, so to speak.  As they take on bigger challenges, players are often required to pull together to accomplish a common goal and mutually benefit.  This sounds akin to a power hungry CEO climbing his way to the top of the corporate ladder.

Despite being a fantasy world, the settings in MMORPGs also often parallel real world scenes.  In EQ and WoW, the playing grounds alternate between natural setting and towns or villages, much like I would imagine medieval Europe.  Traveling between destinations, characters encounter one another, just as people’s paths cross as we commute.  The scenery flows and changes as characters move about and change direction.  Characters can even hitch rides, albeit on mythical beings that look like ostriches or flying dragons, much as their real-life player counterparts might ride a horse or fly in a plane.  It seems ironic to me that what some people use as a mindless diversion from their daily grind so closely resembles it.

However, not all gamers play solely as a means of decompression or escape.  A major draw to MMORPGs is the fact that players from everywhere in the world are connected to one another via the gaming platform.  For Brian, playing Diablo is a mindless decompression, but also a way to stay connected to friends as life moves them on (Reinicke).  Annika was drawn to City of Heroes because of the comic book content, but then she “got hooked because of the social interaction” (Gibson).  In his study “The Gaming Culture Revolution”, Lo Min Ming claims, “The heart of gaming is in the community that is formed with gamers worldwide.  We no longer just play games for the fun and excitement, but also to satisfy our social needs” (Ming).  I think Ty as a socially awkward kid and Brian as a single guy living alone could testify to this statement.  It is in within these massively multiplayer games that they have found community.

Of course, no community would be complete without its own lingo.  Even an outsider will easily pick up “1337 speak” pretty quickly.  “1337” is “leet”, short for “elite”.  It is all “geek-speak” to me as a non-gamer.  I did have to ask for interpretation a time or two, but the explanations make sense in the gaming realm.  “Newb, noob, and n00b” all refer to a new, inexperienced player, or someone who is playing like one.  “Lewt” is reward for victory, gear or valuables taken from fallen opponents.  To “rez” or “respawn” is to have a character’s life restored.  Killing the same monster repeatedly to continually gain the same lewt is known as “farming”, and repeatedly killing another character simply because you can is called “ganking”.  A “guild” is a group of allied players who regularly work together to complete a common goal.  Guild members benefit from having a pool of players to draw from when larger numbers are needed for a task, but also from a sort of social ranking.  I like to think of guilds as high school cliques, a smaller grouping of similar people banned together for the benefit of social status and survival in the larger community.  It all comes back to community.

Community.  Merriam-Webster defines community as “an interacting population of various kinds of individuals … in a common location” (Merriam-Webster).  As unlikely as the location may seem, millions of various individual gamers interact via the World Wide Web.  Ask the average person what they first think of when they hear the word “community”, and they may say their church or neighborhood, maybe a school yard, or even their office.  Ask a gamer what first comes to mind when hearing the word “community” and he would probably say his guild or his raiding group.  It is the same rule, simply on a different playing field.