Always a shift in gears, as the kids get ready for another school year and the weather starts to cool, I always find myself sliding into a nostalgic frame of mind. Most people reflect on the past year over the holidays in December – custom has convinced us that we are to reflect on our lives at the end of the year. But for me, the smell of a woodstove burning in the cold autumn air is what brings me to the point of reflection.

I love autumn. Never mind that my birthday is in September and I am a big believer in celebrating one’s birthday, but I tend to find myself thinking back to all the Septembers of my life – on all those first days of classes. The new haircuts and crisp new clothes. But this is the first fall that I am not prepping for classes (of my own of course). I am not rushing to find out what books I need and where the classrooms are. It is a strange feeling. Thankfully, having schoolage children allows me to continue to live our that nervousness vicariously through them.

Oddly, as August winds down, it is the first year in as many as I can remember that I am not feeling particularly nostalgic. I am not looking to the past with a sadness for what has past. As the sun pulls away slowly from the earth, (or the other way around), I find myself feeling like something is beginning. Without my ritual of class preperation, I notice that my responsibilites (academically) have shifted. It hit me hardest this summer – when I was writting my chapter. It was the first time that I had honestly felt that I could not slack off. I could not submit hurried work and accept a hit in my grades as a consequence. It made me realize that this – if I choose to continue with my PhD and an academic career (as I plan on doing) is how the rest of my life will be.

As fall approaches, I realize that I am busy as hell with things that will forward my ‘career’. Organizing what has become an international symposium on research methods; participating on a panel at the inaugral Canadian Game Studies Association conference; working on my thesis and applying to schools for my PhD. My ‘career’ has always seemed like a distant goal, one that I thought would never really come. For all the years my family had joked that I would be a ‘professional student’ I suppose somewhere inside of me, I had come to believe it.

So for the first time in my life, at 33 years old, the coming of fall feels like a step forward and not a wistful look back on my life. Stepping forward to a place that I have etched out for myself. Quite honestly, as scarry as it feels – its a great kind of scared!

After a long day staring at my screen, and technically August 16th, I have finished the book chapter that I have been working on over the summer. The crunch hurt more than usual, but I am relatively happy with the end product. Always open for more technical editing – it is off. Holding my breath for feedback, I can take a day’s rest and visit with some out of town company.

As I sit here, typing this post, I am well aware that there are other things that should be penned instead. I am working against a deadline of August 15th for a 5,000 word book chapter (due out in 2007). I am about a half of the way through it, yet I have known (and should have been working in it) since March.

Yet, like everything else I have ever written, I have procrastinated to the relative last minute. Over the past year, as my work load has increased, I have learned that “last minute” has broadened, instead of 3 or 4 days being acceptable, a week is now “back against the wire” last minute. But why can I not work months in advance of a deadline? Surely there is some psychology written about procrastination and productivity. Every time I think I might not make it this time, I accomplish what seems to have been the impossible. And knowing that I have yet to actually fall flat on my face putting things off till the last minute, I continue to take the (calculated) risk.

My justification has often (and is this time again) that if there is no fire under my backside, my creative and intellectual juices just aren’t firing on all cylinders. I wonder, is that true? I know that it forces me to choose my words and stick with them for the lack of time – dilly-dallying trying to find the perfect word, phrase or sentence structure. It (in my opinion) avoids flowery language since I don’t have the time to write poetry while toiling away on some social theory. But how much better would my work be if I took months (or three years!) to work on one project. Without distractions, other papers or articles, thesis’ or extra-curricular academic activities. Would my work be better simply because I dedicated more time to it?

Sadly, my proposed abstract (Finding Ourselves in Play: Identity and Identification in Video Games) was not accepted to be part of an edited collection on cinema and games (linked in the previous post). It was a bitter-sweet rejection. I was excited to be part of this project, and had the entire paper written (to be edited of course) and so I was saddened to be rejected – but on the other hand, the tight deadline of September 1st for the full paper when we only found out today if we were in or out – made my chest a little tight. I am still struggling with a chapter that has already been accepted (and is due August 15th) – so the rejection, I suppose, is welcome in a sense.

Which is always how I feel when I submit something – sad but releived. Although I am quite a chatty, outgoing person in my everyday dealings, my career – or path towards one, is plagued with a fear of public speaking (and a fear of failure – but then, who does not feel that fear once in a while.) So, while I push forward to be a bigger part of something, I am secretly scared to death.

Scared or not, I won’t stop at this book. I am now looking for a journal or two that I could submit this paper to. It is a nice balance between game and film studies literature, as it was originally presented in a department of cinema/film class. If anyone has any suggestions – feel free to post a link in the comments.

Summer is here, and I have made my annual pilgrimmage eastward. Although with more work on my plate than past years, it is still nice to be out of the city – smog and humidity – to be able to breath dry, fresh air. I am working on a book chapter and my thesis proposal, not to mention tying up loose ends of research I have been doing and working on preparing the Trials & Tribulations symposium from a distance – so hopefully with all of that, I’ll get a chance to blog a bit about some of the things I’m working through.

Since posting on the state of video game addiction and it’s rehab centers, I found this link via Gameology.org showing the dark side of addiction.

My daughter started playing this mmorpg – Rose Online, geared towards pre/teens (7 day or 35hour free trial). The graphics are adorable, as you play slight anime children who fight jelly beans, flowers and pumpkins (so far that is). You can play the usual gamut of classes (fighter, caster, healer and vendor). But what I like the most about it, is that although there are quite a number players, given their age range, there is little online in terms of out of game, third party information sites – which makes the exploration of the game a little more fun (in my opinion – a little more frustrating in my daughter’s).

What I find interesting is that she enjoys the rpg game, but is not interested in communicating with the other players. Surely age and shyness has something to do with it, but the odd thing is (imo) is that she is not really interested in playing single player rpg’s that would give her the play she likes without the hassle of other players. Back to the playing alone together theory I suppose.

Some show withdrawal symptoms, such as shaking and sweating, when they look at a computer.

I wonder where the rehab centers for ex-athletic children are. The ones who undoubtedly suffer from a decrease in strength due to the diminished quantity of excercise. I remember when I was doing yoga and working out weekly, if I missed a week let alone two, my muscles felt cramped and I had an increased desire to stretch. Yes – I am stretching the point a little far, but I cannot imagine anyone going into the shakes from not playing a good stretch of WoW. Distraction thinking about missing out on the ‘haps’ in the game maybe – but the shakes?

And I wonder what constitutes “addiction” if you don’t have the symptons? Is it purely defined by “I used to play alot and now I don’t want to?” or must it be accompanied by physical symptons. “I’m sorry sir, you arent REALLY addicted to video games – you don’t exhibit enough of the symptons to fall into that category”.

The article gives a (ludicrous) example of a guy who played games and smoked pot. Thinking he had a drug problem, went to drug rehab. But alas! Silly man! Twas not the drugs!!! it was the video games:

Hyke van der Heijden, 28, a graduate of the Amsterdam program, started playing video games 20 years ago. By the time he was in college he was gaming about 14 hours a day and using drugs to play longer.

“For me, one joint would never be enough, or five minutes of gaming would never be enough,” he said. “I would just keep going until I crashed out.”

Van der Heijden first went to Smith & Jones for drug addiction in October 2005, but realized the gaming was the real problem. Since undergoing treatment, he has distanced himself from his smoking and gaming friends. He says he has been drug-and game-free for eight months.