Yay!

I'm better now.

Time to enjoy the weekend before exams!

I'm sick

I don't like it.

I finished my homework last night right around 1:00 (not bad, all things considered) and crashed in bed. But then I was absolutely freezing. I could not laid under covers shivering for a good 10 minutes hoping it would get warm. It didn't. I added two extra blankets. Still not warm. I put on my sweat pants and a fleece sweater and finally, I was warm enough not to shiver constantly.

I still didn't fall asleep very much. I ended up seeing Dave Wood online sometime around 4:30 I think. By then, I figured out that maybe light was what I needed. So I slept out on the futon and fell right asleep. Yay!

Pray for me, please.

Goal: Be less of a preacher.

I have a gripe, a complaint, if you will.

I'm a preacher. I can confront and probe and prod and encourage and all that. Quite directly sometimes. Less direct other times. But never suggestively.

As a future (and current...ish...) storyteller, I must learn to be suggestive in my challenges. Films and novels and comics and stories do not lecture the audience. A character does not say, "Gee, I'm glad I made that decision, maybe everyone else should, too." They... do... something else....

That's kinda my problem. I just don't know how to be suggestive. I'm not good at subtley or manipulation. If I want something, I ask. I don't plant the idea in someone's head, watch it grow, water it for weeks, and then, all of a sudden, they decide to start changing.

I say, "CHANGE NOW!" And if that doesn't do it, I kick them.

So... I'm trying to change that part of me. And trying to not let my brain think that I need to switch back to youth ministry. Because that scares me.

Toodles.

Public Service Announcement:

Wayne's World. Tonight. My room. 8:00.

It shall be glorious.

And now for something actually worth something

The first video game I ever played was Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was six years old. It ruined me. Since then, I have dreamt of little more than designing video games. I would draw levels on the back of my notebooks in third grade. I would write stories for class projects that were directly based on video games in fifth grade. By eighth grade, I had worked up a semi-original story to tell through a video game.

At the same time that I was test driving the idea of being a video game designer, I was coming closer to the Lord. I grew up in a Christian family, was saved in kindergarten, but it was not until 7^th grade that I began to take Jesus seriously and really begin to allow him to control my life. As the years went by and I matured in my faith, I began to consider what it would look like to combine my passion for interactive story telling and my passion for following Jesus and leading others to him. What if a Christian produced a video game of such high caliber as the Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda series and told a part of the Truest Story?

We believe in a story. It is a story of love and of hate, of terrible war and beautiful peace. It is a story in which the hero humbled himself, allowing himself to be beaten and even killed for the love of his enemies, only to rise again, proving his power. And it is a story in which the hero ultimately asks for people to join in his story, fighting in his battles with his own power. What better basis for a video game story is there than that?

Many Christians have interpreted this as meaning that we should “video game-ify” the Bible, retelling the stories of Moses, David, or telling possible stories that unfold out of the mysteries of the book of Revelation. They create games in which the main character wears the armor of God and slings around “Smite” energy, causing enemies to drop to their knees and pray for salvation. Their attempts, while admirable and honoring to God, have been low budget, poorly presented, not marketed, and, frankly, quite unappealing. They sell in Christian bookstores only and the general public never sees them.

While Christian games have their place, I would rather work in an environment that pushes the limits of video games. I would like to be a part of a company that makes games that are not made only for Christians, but are made for the entire public. I want to make games that ask the players questions about life and purpose or show them a bit of truth. As a Christian, I do not believe it is imperative that I present a gospel message in every moment of the game. Rather, I would like to show truth through story, and story does not have to focus on Jesus, Christians, churches, or anything else expected. Rather, it can be told through talking animals, elves, and magical worlds.

From this framework, I have decided that I would like to work in a secular video game market, in order to do the most good, and, hopefully, further Christ’s kingdom. Being in a secular market positions me for three main goals. First, I want to act as a witness to the workers around me. Since high school, I have been passionate about spreading the gospel to those in my sphere of influence. This feeds into my second goal of being a voice against the wave of violence, dangerous escapism, and the waste of a potentially powerful medium. By spreading the gospel, I believe that the game industry can change from the bottom up. Designers will be less and less interested in creating these trashy games and be more interested in creating challenging stories and gameplay. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there will be a larger audience to whom to tell the Truth. The more people buy my games (hopefully), the more people will be led to think about the Truest Story in which we all play a part.

P.S. This is an essay I wrote for my Introduction to Electronic Media class and I hope to send it in for the National Association of Religious Broadcasters scholarship award. Critique is always nice, if you have it.

It's official

My right leg is shorter than my left leg. I told Prindle that and he didn't believe me. Then I showed him and he walked away.

I think that counts as a whole hearted agreement.

Eric says that I can get it fixed. Something about twisting my tailbone or something.

Okay. I'll stop procrastinating now. Bye bye.

Murdochian

I just typed in schedule anomalies into Outlook. (Schedule anomalies being things outside of normal class schedule stuff.) I'm very busy for the next few days. I kind of feel like Murdoch. I don't really like it.

It occured to me today that I haven't done something simply because it would be fun in a while. Or, perhaps more accurately, I haven't done something fun and let it be fun throughout. I decided to do Brad's movie because I thought it would be fun, but now it's driving my schedule crazy so much that it's becoming not so much fun.

I need to sit down and play video games for a while. Summer will be here soon...

P.S. Go to www.purple.com. It's nothing dirty. It's good times.

Why shouldn't I?

So... I was reading an article just now for Film A-Z about fundraising for feature films when you're unknown. It was a very interesting article and I learned a lot from it.

The whole time I was thinking about video games. Or, at least, doing it myself someday with one of my own "projects."

I think I'm going to start a company after grad school.

Why shouldn't I? **mischevious grin**

I am a C... I am a C-H...

So I had a thought today. (Just one. Don't worry.)

I was reading my friend Christian's buddy info and one of his statments is: I'm a Christian - it's more than my name. (Or something to that effect.)

Anyway, it kinda got me thinking. Anywhere else but a Christian college and that would be a big deal. Him being a Christian would be a much bigger part of his social identity. But here, at a Christian college, where it is assumed that everyone is a Christian (or at least buys into the Christian metanarrative somewhat), Christian saying that he is a Christian has little value.

What about that? Is this a good thing? Is it good that at a Christian college our social identity is built more around our interests, friend, majors, and extra curriculars than our adoption into the family of God? Perhaps it allows us the opportunity to really find out who we are in Christ, rather than just saying that we are in Christ and leaving it at that.

I can't help but think that perhaps our loyalties are a little reversed here, though. At a public university, I think I would first be known by others for being a Christian, and then as an actor/Sherpa/video game design hopeful. Here, I am known as a Sherpa/actor/video game design hopeful more than I am as a Christian.

In the original example of my friend Christian, I think of him first as a musician and film enthusiast before it really sinks in that we share beliefs in the risen son of God who came to take our sins away from us. To me, this kinda sounds screwed up...

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Am I alone in thinking this (that'd be fine... I'm kind of a weird thinker sometimes...)?

And... responsego!

Here it comes, a beautiful collision

At least, I hope.

I like David Crowder. His music makes me happy. And thoughtful. And kinda honest.


Only a few more weeks, then I'm home for the summer. I'm looking forward to it, but I have to remember to rest. In my head, I keep coming up with more and more I'd like to do this summer: first May term... maybe another class... read a bunch of books... go hiking... spend time with friends... work at the theater... work at the golf course... volunteer at the church... hang out with the college ministry... teach middle school or high school a few Sundays... That's a lot of stuff. I have to remember to rest this summer. I need it.

I'm hoping to wrangle the Sunday school teacher for college students into "mentoring" me a bit. I need someone more experienced than me at this Christian thing to help keep me accountable to both rest and growth over the summer. The trick with mentors, though, is that I'm bitter about them. So I've got to be careful.

Homework and driving tomorrow. I definitely didn't finish everything I needed to this weekend. C'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?

Night.

Just how many of you are there?

I want everyone to know that Windows Media Player frustrates me to no end. I can't get the furmudgen thing to display my library nicely. It tries too hard to be like Apple and display all of my (nonexistent) album art with my (nonexistent) album organization. GAH!

In other news, I'm home, which is nice. I get to hang out with my family, watch movies, do homework... It's good.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping to go somewhere and spend time with God, but with the weather so bad, I don't know where to go...

Now I'm off to do homework. See yas.

A Real Confession:

Number of true facts in my entry dated 4-1-07:
3 (The decision making thing... Feeling like I'm shortchanging my education... and I love you guys....)

Number of not true at all facts in my entry dated 4-1-07:
the rest of the entire story.

The look on your faces when you read my entry dated 4-1-07: I wouldn't really know, but I imagine it's priceless.

Happy April Fool's day, everyone.

(Now you have a reason to kill me, Michael...)

How I Should Make Decisions

So I've had this theory for a few days about decision making and I'm going to share it.

I figure it this way: as humans, we have three main decision making faculties, right? We've got our heads (logic), our hearts (emotions), and our gut (instinct and intuition). My new way of making decisions (I think) is that these three decision making faculties have to agree. Or, if not totally agree, two have to agree and the third has to see where they're coming from.

Let's use a recent example as an illustration. But first, a confession:


It's finally time I tell you guys something. I've managed thus far to keep it pretty secret, only asking advice of a few select people and telling precious few others. Anyway...

I won't be returning to Cornerstone next year. Some of you know how I've been joking around like I'd transfer for a long time, but the joking has been motivated by some serious goings on in the background. Time for a story:

This past January, I applied to the University of Central Florida kind of on faith. I've thought about transferring in the past, but God gave me a real peace about coming back to Cornerstone this year. Then I decided to change my major last semester to Film in order to pursue video game design. I felt like being a film major at Cornerstone would be decent preparation for grad school, but I still felt like I was shortchanging my education. I would be staying at Cornerstone pretty much just because I have a Keen scholarship here.

I thought I'd apply to UCF to see what God could make happen. I was absolutely fine with staying at Cornerstone if that was God's will and I was also absolutely fine with leaving. So I applied. Long story short, I was accepted and the financial aid and transfer credit wheels started to turn.

I got all the detail-y stuff back about two and a half weeks ago. It turns out that the financial aid worked out to be a little cheaper here tuition-wise, but there's a lot less room and board (I could even stay with relatives). As far as my credits go, just about all of them transfered. Even IDS 100 and Scientific Inquiry, oddly enough.

So that's another part of why I've been so stressed for the past few weeks... I've been praying like crazy and asking advice and looking for options and seeing if other doors open and I think God is leading me to go to UCF and major in Digital Media. This is why I've been really hesitant to do any leadership positions or make any hard committments for living next year and why I've been kind of angsty and burnt out...

So to bring this back around (like I do on this blog so often...), the logic is satisfied by the better education and the working out of the details... The intuition is satisfied because this feels right. Following my dream seems better this way. And... the heart hurts, but it can see what needs to be done.

I love you guys. I'm going to miss you, but I feel like I have to go. I'll be back to visit and stuff, so I'm not dying or anything, but I do have to follow this.

Sorry this confession was online. If you guys have any questions or anything, feel free to find me and ask. Or just kill me. I'll understand that, too. (Mike's planning that for tonight anyway...)

See ya later.