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I just got done with my third and last exam of the week; this one, geography. It largely shared formats with the anthropology test; a lot of multiple choice and a few-fill-in-the-blank. This one had more short answers than the other one did, but in both cases I was able to choose ones that I was pretty familiar with and had no problem. I did get hung up on a question or two about which specific ethnic groups had made their way to certain parts of the US, but I think I made up for that with the extra credit questions.

So, at the risk of counting my chickens before they're hatched, I'm pretty confident of how well I'm doing in three out of the four classes I've had exams for.

The one I'm not quite as certain of is Spanish. I guess I'm finding it a little bit difficult to know the right way to study a foreign language. Though I was studying Japanese for a good chunk of time in Chicago, it wasn't quite as formalized an environment as it is here. I feel like I at least got a B on the exam; there were a couple things I feel like I didn't quite nail in terms of remembering vocabulary, or knowing grammar. But the last part of the test (the paragraph for a social networking site) was kind of fun, and I think I did well there, and that was a few points. I think I'm going to check in with the tutoring center and see whether there's a group studying Spanish, or if I can find someone to set up some times to at least just converse in Spanish for a while. I think I'll drop in next week Tuesday on my lunch break and see what I can find out.

I'm slowly coming up on due dates, about a month out, for some of the larger projects my classes will be requiring. In anthropology, I have to write a few pages about a recent published article of my choice and how it relates to what we're studying in class. In history, I have to read a book about honor and slavery in the antebellum south and write an essay arguing either for or against it's premise that honor of 'southern gentlemen' and the institution of slavery became inseparable. And for geography, I need to write a biography of an American from an ethnic group that faced discrimination now or in the past. Most of those are due in November or December, so this weekend I'm going to make sure I know what's due when and that I have a plan of attack for each of them.

I still want to come out of this semester with straight As. I'm not getting overconfident. Believe me, I'm still more than a little anxious about how well I'm going to do in all of these classes! But I do feel like it's possible. And it's a goal I'm going to make every effort to attain.

So, while spending six or seven hours yesterday playing with Dwarf Fortress was a hell of a lot of fun, and probably a break that I needed after doing so much studying these past couple of weeks, that kind of thing is going to continue to be very much a rarity.

This weekend, I'm going to be driving out to Aurora to visit my beloved cabbit again! We'll probably play a game or two of Arkham Horror, maybe go out to eat somewhere nice if she still wants to and is feeling better (she's been sick lately), and best of all, just enjoy being around each other in person. There may even be hair brushing involved! *bounces* But I'm also going to spend some time figuring out a plan for the rest of the semester and maybe looking around for resources for the upcoming projects. I'll feel better about things once they're all started and on track.

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I'm not quite sure why it is that I'm so attracted to these sorts of sand-box games like Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress. DF is only a recent distraction; I've seen my brother, akreaveter, playing with it for a while, but I was put off a bit by the learning curve and a certain lack of time. Minecraft hasn't been at the forefront of my interests lately, but there were times when I could easily sit in front of a computer for many hours straight, building my theatre. There was one day where I did just that, working on it for literally over ten hours straight, and I can see doing that with Dwarf Fortress too.

I showed this game, with all of it's ASCII-graphiced splendor to my love danaeris who said that she couldn't understand why I would spend so much time constructing things in systems like Minecraft and DF when I could instead invest that time in learning to use something like Google Sketchup and end up creating things that are actually pretty. And to some extent, I agree.

But I also disagree. See, while I used the term 'system' in that last paragraph to describe these games, I think there are other equally applicable words. As well as games, I think they could even be called forms of media in themselves. Consistent, if ever-changing, canvases on which to create your own strange art. In truth, I've spent something like twenty or thirty hours, maybe more, in Minecraft, constructing my mid-twenties-inspired Art-Deco movie palace with 1100 seats, a full flyloft and curtains, a projection booth, a fully trapped stage, a green room, a scene shop, and more. I think it at least qualifies as something artistic. Maybe even a work of art on its own, if you look at it the right way.

I don't see Dwarf Fortress as having quite the same artistic appeal, but I do think the landscape has a certain mythic beauty. Once your brain manages to begin parsing all the little green single-quotes, brown-shaded playing-card suit-symbols, blue wavy-looking things that flow along a path, and little letter 'c's and 'd's wandering around the place into things like grass, trees, flowing brooks, and wandering cats and dogs. My fortress, for instance, is cut into a small platform of relatively flat ground on the side of this amazing notch-valley that descends swiftly down toward the south. A small brook flows along nearby, hurtling into a precipitous drop down a waterfall into a narrow eroded chasm that parallels the larger form of the valley. As I look southward down the slope, I find a few places where deposits of hematite come to the surface, and I attack the stone there with pick and shovel, digging small caves into the walls of the valley a score of meters below where my fortress sits on the higher ground to the northeast.

I have a pasture where I put my cows and yaks and chickens. I've built a defensive ditch and a working drawbridge across it to get out. The bridge, as well as the fortified wall, full of arrow slits for my defending crossbowdwarfs to fire at attacking goblins through, are made of fine marble that I have extracted from a quarry I've dug from a large layer of the stone that I've found a few levels below the fortress proper.

Within, I have a furnace for burning wood and making charcoal to fuel my smelters. I have smelters running continually, processing tetrahedrite ore into copper, and hematite into iron. I have a gem cutter to work the various precious and semi-precious stones I've come upon in my excavations, like spinel, agate, tiger iron, and even a rare bit of jade. I have carpenters making bins and barrels, as well as beds to furnish the living quarters I've constructed upstairs for my ever-increasing population. I have one dwarf who brews alcohol for the fortress, and another who cooks fine meals (though, sadly, he seems to have this fondness for putting tallow in everything. And I mean everything. Eww.)

Sometimes there are problems. My brewer kept canceling his brew drink job. Turns out my hunter and butcher were working so well together that every time my carpenter produced a new barrel, it would immediately get filled up with, um, rendered fat. Again, ew. I really need to get a dwarf making soap. But making soap requires lye, and my furnace is too busy making charcoal to fuel my smelter and forges to spend time making wood into lye. So I had to build another carpentry shop to have two people making barrels, in the hope that eventually there would be an extra one to put some beer or something into. Meanwhile, fat was piling up on the floor of my butcher shop, eventually rotting and stinking up the place, making my dwarves unhappy about the smell, because there was nowhere to put it.

And I was laughing the whole time. This game is just funny sometimes! And that's without even starting on the randomly generated names that, on occasion, just have me in hysterics.

I don't know what it is about these games that's so appealing. I love to organize things. I love to see things come together under a plan. I love to feel like I'm building this functioning organization. And I love finding things to laugh about while I'm doing it. And with that, I have to get to class. I'll leave you with a parting link to the game. Maybe you can figure out why it's so appealing. Or maybe you can take a look at it and tell me that you cannot conceive of anyone actually enjoying something like this. Either way, It'd be fun to see other opinions.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/