"skiena" | friday | march 6, 2009 | 11:01 am

APPY BIRTHDAY TO MY VERY TALENTED FRIEND, KEVIN. Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!

In other news, video games class got written up in the UW Daily student newspaper. The story is by a former student of mine and features classes about video game studies at the school and the Critical Gaming Project @ UW.

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"gredge & sf" | monday | march 16, 2009 | 9:01 am

APPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SWEETHEART, my babe, my Greg. It's been a big year for you. A lot has happened since your last birthday. And I'm really happy I get to celebrate this one with you. Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday! Much love, many hugs, many kisses, and lots of birthday wishes!

We had a good weekend past, actually. From Thursday through Saturday, we popped down to San Francisco for a short trip. I wanted to see my sister and to get out of dodge for a bit. We left really early Thursday morning, flew Virgin America for the first time (it was swank), and stayed at the Hotel Triton again. I had to cut my winter quarter short by a day so I could go to SF to present a paper and have a mini-vacation. I put together a panel called "Save Points: Gaming as Writing, Production, and Play in the Contact Zone" for the Conference on College Composition and Communication (otherwise known as the 4Cs or just Cs). My friend Jamie Bono from University of Pittsburgh and my sister, Alenda Chang, were part of the panel. It went really well. I did my whole "Gaming as Writing" thing. Jamie presented a paper on alternate reality gaming. And Alenda showed a short film of hers called "Confessions of a Woman Gamer" and talked about game design. I thought we were going to have a small audience given that our time slot was Thursday afternoon from 4:45 to 6:00 PM, right when everyone wants to go to dinner or go out or in our case go to the Bedford/St. Martin's gala. Speaking of which:

It seems every year as part of Cs, Bedford/St. Martin throws a huge schmoozefest for conferencees. This year they rented out San Francisco's city hall for two hours of eating, drinking, boozing, and networking. It was awesome. I met some new peoples, other grad students into video game studies. I ran into other grad students from UW. And I ran into the illustrious Geoffrey Sirc, who came to my panel and who continues to treat me with grace and respect. I did feel a little like a dabbler, an interloper, a poser since I am not in rhetoric/composition. But as I say in my teaching portfolio, I am interested in pedagogy, in teaching reading and writing, and in rhetoric. The party was a lot of fun. I left stuffed full of food (which was decent, though every time I go to a catered event I always think about Top Chef catering challenges) and full of liquor.

After the party (Alenda went home, Jamie moved on to another publisher's party), Greg and I wanted to go out and see the gays. So, we went to the Castro, met up with one of my sister's grad friends, drank, chatted, and then ended up meeting up with another Berkeley grad at one of the diviest gay bars in SF: Aunt Charlie's (133 Turk Street @ Taylor). As soon as we got there, I was like, "Everyone here looks like a Seattle hipster...except they're actually gay." By that time, I was already several sheets to the wind. And I got one of the strongest drinks I've ever had. So strong, in fact, that I could barely drink it (even at Greg's constant insistence). Hilarious. Fun. Blurry. And the walk home through the Tenderloin was fun, too.

Alas, sleeping in was not on the menu the next morning. At roughly 9 AM, the hotel's fire alarm went off. And kept going off. We had to drag ourselves out of bed, get dressed, trundle down the stairs from the fourth floor, and head out of the buildling. At first, we thought it was a drill or some sort of disaster simulation. Five fire engines showed up. There was a lot of running to and fro, dragging equipment and hoses and ladders. But no one seemed to be freaked out. It turns out there was a fire on the fifth floor. The firemen dragged out a half-burned, totally soaked bed, linens, and headboard. Either someone was smoking in bed (dumbasses) or left the iron on or something. Luckily, no one was hurt. It was a mild inconvenience (though the hotel did not give us a discount or anything). But it was really interesting to watch the whole process:

Friday day, Alenda, Brian, Greg, and I went down the coast. Alenda and Brian drove us to Pescadero, CA, a little town south of San Francisco. We went there for lunch at Duarte's Tavern. It's a strange little place: part diner, part bar, part restaurant, part saloon, part tourist attraction. It's known for artichoke soup, which we did not have sadly. It was tasty. The seafood was good. Greg and I tried a calamari steak sandwich -- basically two squares of battered and fried calamari sort of po-boy style -- which was yummy. Then we went to the nearby beach. It was super windy, foggy, and the tide was rolling in. There were tide pools with fish and sea anemones, mussell covered rocks, and pelicans. I love, love, love the ocean. It was a nice little day trip:

Friday night, we went out in the Castro again. This time Alenda and Brian and a bunch of Alenda's grad friends came out, too. We went to Moby Dick. Again, more drinking. It's actually the first time that I've seen my sister really drunk. Hilarious. Gregarious. And fun. Fortunately, we didn't stay out too too late. Greg and I had some late night pizza and headed back to the hotel.

Saturday morning was all about getting packed up, getting some brunch, and meeting up with my sister to go to the SF MOMA. It turns out that morning was the St. Patrick's Day parade in SF. It hadn't started by the time we were up and about. But Market Street was closed and there were lots of people walking around in green. We skipped the parade to go to food and museum. We met up with my sister at the Powell Street BART station and then walked to eat. We had brunch at a little place in SoMa called Triptych, which was pretty yummy. I had really wanted to go to Absinthe, Jamie from Top Chef's restaurant, but there were no reservations available. After brunch, we went to the MOMA. We only had a couple of hours before Greg and I had to head to the airport. So the walk through the museum was fast but really neat. Then it was goodbye to my sister, goodbye to the City, and back to the rain and chill of Seattle.

I love SF. I miss SF. There will be another trip there soon, I'm sure.

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"king of all tas" | monday | march 18, 2009 | 3:10 pm

OLY CRAP! I really mean holy crap! I was just minding my own business, flipping through emails, trying to keep my inbox pruned, trying to recover from the night before of too many Irish car bombs for St. Patty's Day. When I get to this email buried under announcements, student queries, a grade challenge, and spam:

I am actually astounded. Stunned. Shocked. Speechless. The first thing I did was instant message Greg with the words, "HOLY CRAP!"

I was nominated last year for the same award but didn't get it. A friend of mine, Rachael, got it in my department. So, this year, I was nominated again. Upon nomination, I have to collect five letters of support from professors and students, a letter from my chair, my CV, a list of all of the classes I have taught at UW, all of my course evaluations, and a short packet of teaching materials. When I asked my chair for his letter, he was actually conservative about my chances for winning -- not that he didn't think I deserved to win -- but that it was unlikely that they would give the award to the same department two years in a row. Alas, as my high school creative writing teacher discovered when she doubted me, my chair was wrong. Boy am I happy that he was wrong.

The awards were announced in University Week and on the UW Teaching Academy website (though there's a typo, which I emailed them about, in my departmental affiliation: it seems I teach in "Englih"). A fancier article is supposed to appear with pictures later on. It also seems there will be a blurb in the upcoming issue of English Matters, my department's newsletter.

I am beyond thrilled. And I am thankful for all of the good teachers I've had in the past -- from Mrs. White, my kindergarten teacher, to Mrs. Etze, my sixth grade teacher, to Mr. Schuma, my high school architectural drawing teacher, to Mrs. Abeshouse, my high school creative writing teacher, to Theresa DiPaolo, my college academic advisor, to Michael Olmert, my college mentor, to Kandice Chuh, my graduate academic advisor at the University of Maryland, to my Ph.D. committee at UW Tom Foster, Kate Cummings, and Eva Cherniavsky. And everyone in between. I have always modeled myself after the best teachers I have had and continue to strive to be the kind of teacher I would want in my life. I am thankful for all of the wonderful teaching, mentoring, advising, and administrative opportunities I have had at the University of Maryland and here at the University of Washington. I am also thankful for all of the students I have gotten to know, gotten to teach, and gotten to learn from and practice with. Special thanks to my letters of support writers, to my friends who support all of my endeavors, and to my family.

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