About Me and the Media I Consume

     I'm an English major and unsure of what I'd like to use my degree for. I decided that a media class might be a good idea.

     Nope! Not a journalism major!

     I'm honestly not sure. I just want to learn what I can from the course. I tend to avoid the news because I find it depressing and it's difficult to tell the truth from media hype at times. That's a bad habit that I want to get rid of.

     Outside of college, I'm really fond of music. I started to teach myself piano at seventeen and I can play a little bit of Beethoven, Muse, Evanescence, Linkin Park, etc. My music tastes vary to a pretty insane degree; I like a little bit of everything but jazz and blues. Feel free to judge me for that, but my ears just don't happen to be tuned that way.
     I love to read, I probably spend 70% of my waking hours reading or writing, but I'm really picky about what I'll read.
     I have a very deep love for animals. My boxers are my babies and I'm not sure what I'd do without them.
     I am a huge nerd and usually pretty proud of that. I also talk a lot. If I start to bug you, feel free to shut me up.  


     I'm not really much of an online gamer. The closest I ever got was probably a brief flirtation with Words With Friends. I got tired of that pretty quickly because it took people so long to make their moves and my attention span can only handle so much waiting. I'm much more of a solitary gamer: Fable, Legend of Zelda, Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, The Sims, COD Black Ops on story mode, etc.

     It's a little difficult to come up with an honest opinion on this subject in my case because I'm exposed to the less social side of gaming more often than not. I'm very aware of how damaging gaming for the sake of gaming can be and I have to be careful to limit myself and cycle through my other interests in between. I can see the potential for the world to become a more social place and driven place if we can find a way to apply McGonigal's principles to the real world, but I'm still unsure how she plans to accomplish that goal.

     Like most other things humans seem to enjoy doing, gaming is about moderation. Some people just happen to be better at moderation than others. Sometimes you can be excellent at moderating a certain aspect of your life and terrible at other aspects. As an example; there is a history of alcoholism on both sides of my family going back three generations. I choose not to risk my susceptibility to that problem; therefore, I don't drink. However, I have been known to blow off class-work in favor of sleep, reading, or playing games. I don't believe video games are inherently good or bad, it's all about the personality of the person playing and their ability to step back once in a while and rejoin the real world.