Laze Hero
I don’t know what game my students are playing while I’m trying to teach them the past conditional tense. But whatever it is, I want to play it.
Assorted Game Updates
I’ve been gaming with some regularity. Here are various updates:
In Ur, the party hired a cohort of orc magi and assaulted the ghoul stronghold, where they slew plenty, and one or two of them was nearly slain themselves. They encountered one Helemor the Awakened, but were unable to defeat him. He escaped down to the lower level where strange machines emit eerie lights and a column of pitchlike darkness rises to fill the sky above the complex. They’re peering about, regrouping, and preparing to go below.
Then I started playing in a 3.5 Pathfinder game out in Gyeongju. The game’s a bit more character design oriented than I like, but fun just the same. Here’s Pelican, 16 year old sorcerer, and hillbilly son of a dryad. He likes to burn things for fun and profit:
Next, Dennis ran his own megadungeon campaign and I got to play in that. This game is more my speed with roll 4d6 drop lowest and place in order. In that game, I rolled up a halfling named Paisley Frogsbody, and based him on Glum from the old Adventures of Gulliver cartoon. He’s a hoot to play, and his battle cry is: “I foresee the worst!” So far it has served him well.
Finally, I’m finishing up my summer classes by playing games. I’ve got one class playing Condottieri, and they seem to enjoy it. They know the game’s set in Italy, but don’t really care about Renaissance history. Mostly I’m using it to teach numbers with the lower-level class. What I really like about that game is how it’s simple to learn, but spirals upward nicely in complexity.
My other class I have exploring the Haunted Keep from Moldvay Basic.
No, it’s not actual D&D, but a much simplified creation along the lines of a Fighting Fantasy game or something. I just called it The Ghost Fighter Game, and had them each make a Ghost Fighter. We did character gen one day along with drawing the playing pieces, and then started playing on the other.
They’re my advanced class, and enough of them have taken to it that those not so into it don’t mind getting swept along. They all like rolling dice to open doors, hit monsters, and stuff. Plus it beats memorizing words in English. For my part it’s fun to see them get excited at, well, the exciting parts: can we get initiative and attack first? Who can hit the monster? etc. Two of them are really in character gen and two others are into killing stuff. (The last is just sort of into doing this funny dance whenever she has to roll the dice.) Here’s some of the party:
From left to right, it’s Sparta Ghost Sword, Wolf Girl, Super Blue, and Witch Tiger. Meteor Crocodile, the last party member, can be seen in the other picturet behind Wolf Girl and Super Blue on the left.
That’s all. Vacation begins in 21 hours.
Your Children Are Mutants
Seriously, they are.
Not only do they have warts, topical skin conditions, various physical tics, and other minor abnormalities, but their thought processes are different. They see things you don’t see. They hear things you don’t hear.
They think things you don’t think.
If its a physical thing, you might be in luck. Remember that kid in your class with the deformed ear, or the unsightly mole, or crooked teeth? Childhood is the great era of corrective surgery, braces, and the lasering away of unsightly blemishes. They’ve had that shit taken care – because doing so helps them blend in and walk among us with their weird, mutant thoughts.
It might be your world, but they’re adapting to it. And soon it’ll no longer be your world.
It will be theirs.
The Korean Word For Alibi
Today’s question: “What did you do last weekend?”
Today’s answer: “I killed a chicken with Minsu.”
Followed by…
Minsu: “No. No. I did nothing, teacher. Nothing!”
I Can Tell When My Students Have Seen Star Wars
I can tell when my students have seen Star Wars because they’ll walk up to me and say, “I’m your father!” which inevitably escalates to, “No, I’m your grandfather.”
“No, I’m your grand-grand-grand-grand father.”
“No, I’m — I’m your ghost!”
At which point I look them in the eye and say, “No, I’m you.”
And their minds explode.
These Days
Jin and I got smartphones. There’s the first picture.
Look! It’s Pohang!
This is the end point of the harbor where it becomes a stagnant canal. If you walk straight across the water (what? You can’t?) you’ll pass the fishing fleet on your left, and the ship repair dry docks on your right, then you’ll come upon a few scrap heaps, and the ferry boat landing before passing the lighthouse and going out into the Sea of Japan East Sea.
Lovely, no? The plan’s to extend this canal down to the river. So they’re bulldozing the entire neighborhood behind me, which coincidentally is where I teach.
Speaking of teaching, the semester starts again tomorrow. This year I’ll be teaching 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. It should be… interesting. Of course, I’m not teaching any of the students I taught last year, which, you know, would have made sense. But because of the internal rift between the English teachers at my school I get to start with all new students. Don’t ask. Or do, but don’t suspect an answer other than a shrug and a “I don’t make the schedule.” I don’t quite get it myself. Basically the two English teachers at my school don’t get along, and it’s tiresome.
Still, new students, and they want be all jaded like my 6th graders were. No more listening to poorly executed swears like “Pak you! Shut up your mouse!”
Shut up your mouse. Adorable.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I Give You This
One of my students is on a “portrait” kick. Most of his victims are not amused. Anyway, I sat for him today during the break between classes. With any luck the picture will age while I stay 35 forever.
He then drew one of my co-teacher. It was less than flattering. He wanted to give it to her, but I said he shouldn’t because she’d likely kill him. He did it anyway. My co-teacher laughed, tore it up, and threw it away before chasing him from the room.
For now he lives to draw another day.
My Life Updated
Here’s a post for folks who actually want to know how I am doing (one of the two of you must!). So why don’t you pull up a seat, grab a mug of something warm, and let me fill you in on the latest.
Ready? Here’s what’s going on…
… not much.
I mean, stuff happens, the day to day continues, I certainly find stuff to say on Twitter and Facebook everyday, but as to details, well… *shrug*.
Work-wise, the year is slowly grinding down. My 6th grade classes are almost entirely in open rebellion at this point, and once December gets here I expect to be guillotined in the playground, along with the rest of the faculty, by a mob of 12-year-olds. Some crazy stuff happened where one of the kids “disappeared” for four days after stealing some money from his dad. When he came back to school his teacher sat him down and the kid poured out a heart-wrenching tale involving the suicide of both his mom and his older sister. Sad shit–and it made the running away part sound like the best thing that ever happened to him. (He spent all the cash eating junk food, playing video games, and buying hoodies with skulls on them while camping out on the roof of his apartment building.)
Despite this (well, the fact that I teach at a “bad” school in a “poor” neighborhood) I’ve decided to renew my contract with my current school. It’s been an improvement over my previous school, and I’m looking forward to teaching some of the same kids next year. Maybe consistency will have a benefit, if only in the fact that I already know the troublemakers and can crush them on Day 1.
Other less harrowing stuff…
Yesterday was Pepero Day, a corporate manufactured holiday that succeeded in transforming my workplace into Wonka Land.
Last Monday Jin and I celebrated our 9th anniversary. Craziness. I’m still surprised when I wake up in the morning and find out she hasn’t murdered me in my sleep. Naw. I’m kidding. Besides she told me she’d likely murder me while I’m awake so she could see the look in my eyes.
Writing-wise, I sold a story to Beneath Ceaseless Skies. I’m quite happy about that, since it’s a magazine I love, and the story, “Shadows Under Hexmouth Street”, is one I’m really pleased with. It’s my Joe Mitchell in “Lankhmar” story. Work also continues on Clusterfuck: The Novel, but that’s all I’ll say about that.
Reading-wise, same old same old. I’ve got my nose in five different books at once and can’t help but download/order more when I hear about them. Two of the books are writing books, David Morrell’s The Successful Novelist and Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, one book is 19th century police blotter junk, Felix Feneon’s Novels in Three Lines, one book is short fiction, Maureen McHugh’s After the Apocalypse, and the last is Jane Austen’s Persuasion, since I never read Austen and I feel like I’ve been going through life without having done my homework. What I’m really saying is it’s certainly a chore deciding what to read when I go to the can most mornings.
Sheesh, hasn’t this been the most boring blog-post ever?
Things I Learned From Watching Public School Musicals All Day
- Save the planet by remembering the three Rs: R-something, R-something, and Recycle!
- Never give up on your dreams even when your father beats you.
- Husbands wouldn’t kill themselves if their wives cooked for them more often.
- Don’t be a jerkface especially if you’re Cinderella.
- People listen to reason. It’s really quite simple. Like this:
Villain: I’m going to do this evil thing.
Hero: Don’t do that evil thing. It’s bad and will hurt people.
Villain: Oh, you’re right. How foolish of me. Let’s sing and dance together instead!
- Everyone loves kids with nunchucks!
And Another Quick One…
I was walking back to my classroom yesterday when I passed three of my students carrying a box full of dirt and test tubes.
These three are a rather nerdy trio, so I like them. The dirt and test tubes made me curious and I asked what they were doing. They froze, looked at me, looked at the box, had a quick whispered conversation in Korean, and then one finally looked me straight in the eye and said in the loudest voice I’d ever heard her use, “SCIENCE!” before they all ran off.
It was the best answer ever.
Yesterweird 