Personal
Personal reflections, comments about things I've been doing, etc.
TGNaNoWriMoIO
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 12/02/2007 - 19:21Thanks God, National Novel Writing Month is Over. Yup. That’s the party Kim and I went to this afternoon. We sat in a room with about twenty other NaNoWriters and their significant others and talked about what worked and what didn’t in our novel writing experiences. We ate Mexican food, joked about “quotation” marks and misused apostrophe’s. We glanced at the omnipresent televisions in the background and our choice of watching The Nutcracker on Ice, with the great Mice on Ice section, he-man carrying cars and kegs in some bizarre strong-man competition, or wiry men arm wrestling on what must have been the Arm Wresting Sports Network.
Meanwhile, the ice was starting to form on the roads at home. Our ride home was tense, with more slipping and sliding than I would have liked to have seen, yet we got home safely. Now, we need to tune into WFSB and see if Darren Sweeney will declare a “snow day”.
There is a stereotype of novelists as being slightly eccentric and the lunch, at least for me helped reinforce that stereotype. Between the jokes, you could here potential themes for more novels than novelists at the table. It was great fun and inspirations for next year’s novel writing. I hope some of you consider giving NaNoWriMo a try next year.
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit, and a blessed Advent
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 12/01/2007 - 09:52Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit. A new month starts off with the traditional lapin petition for beneficence. Fiona’s first request this morning was for that calendar with the chocolates in the windows, you know that we do every December. Yes, December. Advent. A time of expectation and longing.
Normally, as we enter Advent, I would find myself humming Joni Mitchell’s river,
Its coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
Yet these years of hoping for a miracle has left my ability to hope somewhat dull and blunted. Nonetheless, hope remains. It is rekindled by emails I receive, like one from the ‘Social Issues Games’ mailing list I’m on. The writer highlights a few different organizations that he felt were worth pointing out during this season of giving.
Coming from a list of people interested in using games for positive social change, it isn’t surprising that the first charity listed is Child’s Play. This is a charity that delivers video games to children in hospitals, led by a group called Penny-arcade. Bill France, who wrote an article critical of video games is quoted on their website noting,
Penny-arcade published a letter from one of its readers. He is the father of a 5-year-old boy who had spent most of the previous five months at Children’s Hospital getting chemotherapy for lymphoma.
Almost every parent can immediately identify with that father’s distress, and with his heartfelt "thank you" to Penny-arcade for its Child’s Play toy drive.
The email went on to note that
Child's Play has also given support to programs that look at behavior
change (such as maintaining your visit schedule for dialysis) and
Robert Khoo biz manager for Penny Arcade/Child's Play attended last
year's Games for Health Conference.
A similar group is Get Well Gamers which accepts online donations through Network for Good.
Another site highlighted is One Laptop per Child. They have a program where you can donate $399 to their program and they will send a laptop to a developing country and one to you. These are not the typical laptops you get in the United States. They are specially designed to perform in areas where there is little access to electricity, WiFi and educators. The laptop gets mixed reviews. People used to the powerful laptops that many Americans have access to complain about its limited functionality. Yet the laptop is much better than having nothing.
So, we wait to celebrate the miraculous birth. We wait for miracles in our own lives, the lives of our friends and the lives of our nation. Yet we can celebrate the little miracles, the joy of children opening the their Advent calendars, and the charity of people who are helping out children in hospitals and children in countries where laptops are not easily accessible.
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit, and a blessed Advent.
Debriefing Process Drama in Second Life
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 11/29/2007 - 09:11So, this morning, I got up at 4:45 so I could participate in an experiment in Process Drama in Second Life. About a dozen of us gathered on Godot Island to act out how our characters in the fictional town would have reacted to efforts to impose Internet regulations in response to the famous Serenity Now bombing of a World of Warcraft funeral.
For those not acquainted with the bombing, the short version of the story is that a woman, who was very active in World of Warcraft, died of a stroke in real life. Her friends organized a funeral in a player versus player combat area in World of Warcraft. Members of a rival guild attacked the funeral. You can read more about it, along with various reactions in this blog post.
In process drama, the focus is on pedagogical outcomes as opposed to the therapeutic outcomes of psychodrama, but in my mind, these are fairly similar goals and I invited friends from the group psychotherapy world to participate or follow along.
Following our bliss
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 11/27/2007 - 12:42Last week, I receive an email with the question, “Christian asks: Has anybody seen my bliss? I was following it but I think I fell too far behind.” Christian has a good job. He’s published a book. He’s newly married. I would have expected him, of all people, to be keeping up with his bliss. Perhaps it is endemic of how hard it is to follow your bliss these days. Perhaps some of it is that people aren’t even sure what their bliss looks like anymore.
Being the geek, I thought I would check out mybliss.com. Here’s what I found: Links to Teen Magazines, Bliss Magazines, Matchmaker sites, Free Chat sites, Horoscopes, Wedding Dresses, and Teen Fashion. It that what bliss looks like?
I’ve used the excuse of following my bliss to try and explain my current situation. Consulting to political campaigns and non-profits just isn’t on the same pay scale as working on Wall Street. The other day, I received a job offer from a non-profit I really like. It was less than 10% of what I used to make on Wall Street. It was less than what it takes to support my family, and instead of being insulted or disappointed, I tried to find ways to make it work.
I’ve thought about the fancy dinners that I used to have when I worked on Wall Street, yet they pale in comparison to the wonderful dinners my wife prepares, especially for those special times when the whole family is together. I’ve thought of all the trips I used to take to Europe. Most of the time was spent in conference rooms and it isn’t as romantic as it seems, but it is probably the travel that I miss most.
So, I sit, I write, and I hope that somehow, I’m having a positive affect on the lives of those around me. Sure, I’m not getting anything fancy or expensive for my family and friends for Christmas this year, but hopefully, I can find something more meaningful to give them. Yeah, there are times that I have my doubts; too many times like that, but still, it’s life’s illusions I recall.
So, I’m not sure where Christian’s bliss has gone. Perhaps it is walking down the street, talking with my bliss, stopping to befriend a homeless man, spending a little time helping a teenager find her voice, and doing a little social networking to help other people find bliss that is more meaningful than talking about fashion, horoscopes and the desire to find Mr. Right in an Internet chat room.
Multiple Identities but One Life
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 11/25/2007 - 11:55In the continuing email discussion with my group psychotherapists, one of my friends observed that we have multiple identities, but one life. It is a great way of looking at things and illustrates an issue that the formation of our online identities poses. Writers often recognize that their words can have lives of their own, and sometimes, these separate lives can get out of hand.
We present ourselves in different ways based upon different contexts. We emphasize aspects of our lives that we think our interlocutors will find most interesting or appealing, it all takes place in the moment. Yet when we describe ourselves online, people interact with those words independent of the original moment or the contents’ original context. Posting a scantily clad picture of oneself holding a bottle of beer might be okay for the context of having fun with friends, yet that picture may find its way into a different context, like a job interview, where in most cases it is less acceptable.
Calling school administrators ‘Douche Bags’ may be perfectly acceptable in a context of venting amongst friends about something stupid people in the school administration have recently done, but is probably less acceptable at a school board meeting or a candidates forum. In either case, it should be viewed as protected free speech, but that’s a whole different issue.
The here and now moments of our lives are all that we really have to work with. They draw on our past and they shape our future. As our words and pictures find new permanence and searchability in this age of digital media, the words of Walt Whitman, written over a century ago, find new meaning.
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.
