I recently started playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. I was never one for MMORPGs before - I assumed most of them were basically the same as World of Warcraft, which I played a brief and boring free trial of years ago. When SW:ToR went free-to-play, I decided I'd eventually give it a try. Recently I did, and surprisingly kind of fell in love with the game. It's not going to be my favorite ever, but it is a lot of fun. I created a Jedi character because I wanted to be able to hit stuff a whole lot, and I went into the game. Because I liked the aesthetic and I generally prefer it, I made my character a woman, and also an alien. No big deal for me. But apparently that put me in something of a minority.
I named my character Jzosaiea, which has a somewhat feminine and somewhat alien feel to it, since I'd joined a roleplaying server. I wanted to have a character that I could enjoy playing as, in the game and in any roleplay situation that might arise. Oh, and in the spirit of clarification, when I say roleplay I just mean speaking for and as my character. My female character.
All went well the first time I started RPing with someone. I made a friend, played as my character, and had a nice time. What happened after got a bit strange, though. I had never said my real name, never revealed anything about my identity, and yet as soon as the roleplay ended, my new friend - who played a male avatar - began to address me with male pronouns. He assumed that the female avatar he'd been playing with was controlled by a guy like himself. And he wasn't the only one. It felt strange to me that most of the players I interacted with addressed me as a man, despite being able to see my female avatar. It didn't bother me, particularly, because I'm a guy in real life, but I did play with people who weren't. I made it a point to not assume who anyone was. If you played a female, I referred to you as female unless you asked me to do otherwise. Which, I feel, is entirely reasonable.
A few days after I started playing, I got into a lengthy discussion with a pair of other players - both female as far as I knew - about the nature of gender roles and sociology in relation to the game. I wish I'd been able to copy it all down because it was as fun to have as it was insightful, and for the most part it made me feel really good about the game. I was dealing with a better crowd than the people who'd helped shoo me away from World of Warcraft. Then, though, someone started to complain. One of the other players decided he'd had enough of our impromptu 3AM sociological discussion and started making derisive remarks about how we were "in the wrong place for a talk about social issues." And he wouldn't stop with those sorts of remarks. Luckily once we'd wrapped up our talk (one of my conversational partners logged off), he stopped harassing us. But that wasn't good enough. It revealed to me the nature of certain gamers, and I think MMOs attract them more than other genres. They don't want anything to interrupt their game, their microcosm.
Gamers like this guy don't want their games interrupted by anything that alters their worldview. A large part of that worldview is the idea that everything is fine. Most of these guys are straight white men of college age. There's nothing particularly wrong with that. College-aged straight white guys have it pretty good, so why should they care about the issues that other people face? Why, in fact, should they assume anyone but themselves play the game? It's their game - no one else matters. So they build themselves a little world without conflict or strife and they bury themselves in it. In a game without a social aspect, that's acceptable. You can do whatever you want when everyone else is just pixels on a screen. But a lot of those pixels come with real thoughts, feelings, and personalities, and that shouldn't be discounted. Just because something doesn't fit in someone's worldview doesn't mean they get to shut it out. The world thrives on diversity, and there's no reason that the worlds inside our games shouldn't be the same. If you don't want to hear what someone else has to say, these games give you the option of ignoring them.
I guess I don't have more of a point than what I've already written. I just wish people were better.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Saturday, April 20, 2013
4/20/13: In Which Language is Actually Discussed
Yesterday I meant to start a discussion about the nature of language as a whole and got sidetracked talking about high school and how I need to get back to studying Japanese. Tangents aside, language is something that has always fascinated me for many reasons. As such, it's going to be a perennial topic on this blog, albeit not using the literal definition of perennial because heaven knows I can't be bothered to stick to any sort of schedule. I want to take today to throw my half-educated ramblings at you on the topic of the use of vowels in linguistics, and the evolution thereof. As a disclaimer, I'm not an expert on this topic, but I will try to sound like one sometimes.
Any English speaker, native or otherwise, should be fully aware that we use (or abuse) vowels in creative and often silly ways. For example, in that sentence alone, I used every vowel in the written language in almost every way it's normally used! All that's missing is a basic long O, which you almost have in "or" but the r changes things because in English following any vowel with an r changes things. But this is my point! To someone who didn't speak English, hearing that sentence spoken aloud should conjure a bevy of images with the varied sounds it brings out. Ahs, ees, oos, ehs, ihs, aies, ows, everything is just thrown around and smashed up with a hodge-podge of consonant sounds to make meaning. And yet, by our rules, we only have five (and a half, but I'll get to that) vowels! They just combine and get modified to make every possible sound a human mouth can wrap around. Well, almost. A few other language families figured out some glottal clicks and the like that Indo-European languages never got around to, but I'm ignoring those for the purpose of this. So, accepting all of this, what's the point? English is weird, but isn't every other language just as odd-ball?
Well, in my experience, no. To put it bluntly, English is so bastardized that we've essentially oversimplified ourselves into complication. Spanish, for example, was the first second language I ever studied (and that makes sense grammatically so don't challenge me). In the two years I got through, and the subsequent snippets I've been able to pick up, I haven't seen a lot of evidence that their vowels get a lot more complicated than what a five-year-old picks up in "donde esta la biblioteca?" O will pretty much always be o, i will always go ee, e will always be eh, and a will always say ah. Oh yeah, u and y are in there as well, and their y only makes one sound from what I saw. I think French gets more complicated, but I'll have to run that by a friend or two who actually studied the language - I never really got a good feel for it. I only know they have a lot more combinations, but even those seem to follow more set patterns than English does. Example: "eaux" in French has always turned out to be "oh" when I've seen it, but "ough" in English is either "ooh" or "uf" or "oh" and it doesn't make a lick of sense. Maybe I'm oversimplifying, and if I am please correct me. I'm here to learn as much - if not more - than anyone who might stumble upon this thing.
Shifting away from Romance languages to my other realm of experience for a moment, I'd like to talk briefly about Japanese. Japanese is a freaking fascinating spirally craptacular dangerfest of a language to learn, but it's beautiful in so many ways. It's why, after (holy crap I'm getting older) six years, I keep coming back to it for another go after it kicks my butt. The Japanese alphabets aren't actually alphabets at all, which, if you know much about the language and culture, is nothing new to you. Instead, they have the hiragana, katakana, and kanji, all different sets of symbols with different purposes. I know about eleven kanji and ten of them are numbers. Those are the Chinese-based symbols that represent entire words and can have multiple pronunciations for each character depending on how they're arranged and they blow my mind so I'm leaving them aside for now. The kana are what I'm decent with, and that's the closest the Japanese have to an alphabet*. Each of their symbols in the kana represents a sound (like "ah, ka, chi, toh, ru, he," etc.), and the kana they draw from depends on whether the word they're spelling out is native Japanese or not. For example, "te-re-bi" would be in katakana, because it's derived from the English word "television," but "ya-ki-so-ba" would be hiragana because the name of the noodles is actually Japanese. Now that the little lesson is over, back to the point!
Japanese vowels are always - repeat, ALWAYS - pronounced as they are seen. Even in combination, if they appear in an "aeo" or whatever, you say each one in succession. Granted, a native or fluent speaker will be able to blend them together enough that an amateur like myself will take pause with it, but each sound is distinctly there. Let's use a (somewhat) well-known figure as our example, the head of Disney-associated Studio Ghibli Hayao Miyazaki. Though you'll often hear his name pronounced "Hi-ow" the more proper pronunciation is simply "ha-ya-o". All that's happening is the sounds are being pulled together for convenience, but every a is ah, every o is oh, and no y will ever make a vowel sound on its own (unless someone really fails at romaji, but that's another story).
So... This was a long and winding post, and I do believe I said something about "another story" or "getting to that" a few times and then left those hanging. I'll probably continue to do that for a while. Peace out!
Any English speaker, native or otherwise, should be fully aware that we use (or abuse) vowels in creative and often silly ways. For example, in that sentence alone, I used every vowel in the written language in almost every way it's normally used! All that's missing is a basic long O, which you almost have in "or" but the r changes things because in English following any vowel with an r changes things. But this is my point! To someone who didn't speak English, hearing that sentence spoken aloud should conjure a bevy of images with the varied sounds it brings out. Ahs, ees, oos, ehs, ihs, aies, ows, everything is just thrown around and smashed up with a hodge-podge of consonant sounds to make meaning. And yet, by our rules, we only have five (and a half, but I'll get to that) vowels! They just combine and get modified to make every possible sound a human mouth can wrap around. Well, almost. A few other language families figured out some glottal clicks and the like that Indo-European languages never got around to, but I'm ignoring those for the purpose of this. So, accepting all of this, what's the point? English is weird, but isn't every other language just as odd-ball?
Well, in my experience, no. To put it bluntly, English is so bastardized that we've essentially oversimplified ourselves into complication. Spanish, for example, was the first second language I ever studied (and that makes sense grammatically so don't challenge me). In the two years I got through, and the subsequent snippets I've been able to pick up, I haven't seen a lot of evidence that their vowels get a lot more complicated than what a five-year-old picks up in "donde esta la biblioteca?" O will pretty much always be o, i will always go ee, e will always be eh, and a will always say ah. Oh yeah, u and y are in there as well, and their y only makes one sound from what I saw. I think French gets more complicated, but I'll have to run that by a friend or two who actually studied the language - I never really got a good feel for it. I only know they have a lot more combinations, but even those seem to follow more set patterns than English does. Example: "eaux" in French has always turned out to be "oh" when I've seen it, but "ough" in English is either "ooh" or "uf" or "oh" and it doesn't make a lick of sense. Maybe I'm oversimplifying, and if I am please correct me. I'm here to learn as much - if not more - than anyone who might stumble upon this thing.
Shifting away from Romance languages to my other realm of experience for a moment, I'd like to talk briefly about Japanese. Japanese is a freaking fascinating spirally craptacular dangerfest of a language to learn, but it's beautiful in so many ways. It's why, after (holy crap I'm getting older) six years, I keep coming back to it for another go after it kicks my butt. The Japanese alphabets aren't actually alphabets at all, which, if you know much about the language and culture, is nothing new to you. Instead, they have the hiragana, katakana, and kanji, all different sets of symbols with different purposes. I know about eleven kanji and ten of them are numbers. Those are the Chinese-based symbols that represent entire words and can have multiple pronunciations for each character depending on how they're arranged and they blow my mind so I'm leaving them aside for now. The kana are what I'm decent with, and that's the closest the Japanese have to an alphabet*. Each of their symbols in the kana represents a sound (like "ah, ka, chi, toh, ru, he," etc.), and the kana they draw from depends on whether the word they're spelling out is native Japanese or not. For example, "te-re-bi" would be in katakana, because it's derived from the English word "television," but "ya-ki-so-ba" would be hiragana because the name of the noodles is actually Japanese. Now that the little lesson is over, back to the point!
Japanese vowels are always - repeat, ALWAYS - pronounced as they are seen. Even in combination, if they appear in an "aeo" or whatever, you say each one in succession. Granted, a native or fluent speaker will be able to blend them together enough that an amateur like myself will take pause with it, but each sound is distinctly there. Let's use a (somewhat) well-known figure as our example, the head of Disney-associated Studio Ghibli Hayao Miyazaki. Though you'll often hear his name pronounced "Hi-ow" the more proper pronunciation is simply "ha-ya-o". All that's happening is the sounds are being pulled together for convenience, but every a is ah, every o is oh, and no y will ever make a vowel sound on its own (unless someone really fails at romaji, but that's another story).
So... This was a long and winding post, and I do believe I said something about "another story" or "getting to that" a few times and then left those hanging. I'll probably continue to do that for a while. Peace out!
Friday, April 19, 2013
4/19/13: In Which I Contemplate Linguistics
I was lucky enough to attend one of the few public high schools I've ever heard of that offered more than two or three foreign language classes to its students. I don't know how it is anymore, since my youngest sibling has now graduated from the school and my connection to it has almost completely evaporated, but in my time at Greenfield-Central I was lucky enough to dabble in two languages: Spanish for my freshman and sophomore years, and Japanese as a junior and senior.
I was not the best student a teacher could have hoped for. I was lazy and irreverent, and when I did pay attention and know what was going on I tended to play the know-it-all. That's not to say I was the worst kid in class, just that I was a B-student who caused a little more trouble than necessary and who honestly should have been acing it. But to get to the point, I didn't make good use of my time in my high school language classes. As a result, by the time I've graduated college and moved out to NYC, I've effectively forgotten almost every lesson from both languages.
This realization hit me hard today as I was... Well, I'm not entirely sure why it hit me today. I haven't spoken I a Japanese person, I haven't needed to know Spanish, I haven't even really watched an anime in a year or so... I'm not certain where the feeling came from, but I decided that it was time to actually, truly do what I've been meaning to do since my junior year of high school and learn another language for real, no matter how hard it gets. The only trick is that now I don't have easy access to classes and teachers who will help me for free (or at least no additional cost over my tuition). It's all on my and the Internet now, and whatever I can buy and borrow. But that's not meant to be the point of this post...
Or maybe it is. This just became a journal update. I was going to talk about linguistics in general, but that can happen tomorrow, or later tonight if I'm feeling particularly adventurous. For now, I have a poker game to get to.
I was not the best student a teacher could have hoped for. I was lazy and irreverent, and when I did pay attention and know what was going on I tended to play the know-it-all. That's not to say I was the worst kid in class, just that I was a B-student who caused a little more trouble than necessary and who honestly should have been acing it. But to get to the point, I didn't make good use of my time in my high school language classes. As a result, by the time I've graduated college and moved out to NYC, I've effectively forgotten almost every lesson from both languages.
This realization hit me hard today as I was... Well, I'm not entirely sure why it hit me today. I haven't spoken I a Japanese person, I haven't needed to know Spanish, I haven't even really watched an anime in a year or so... I'm not certain where the feeling came from, but I decided that it was time to actually, truly do what I've been meaning to do since my junior year of high school and learn another language for real, no matter how hard it gets. The only trick is that now I don't have easy access to classes and teachers who will help me for free (or at least no additional cost over my tuition). It's all on my and the Internet now, and whatever I can buy and borrow. But that's not meant to be the point of this post...
Or maybe it is. This just became a journal update. I was going to talk about linguistics in general, but that can happen tomorrow, or later tonight if I'm feeling particularly adventurous. For now, I have a poker game to get to.
Monday, February 25, 2013
2/25/13: In which a 2-hour layover has me bored
I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport, the specific name of which I neither remember nor have the inclination of learning, waiting for my flight back to New York. I left Chicago a handful of hours ago after seeing my cousin Anslee perform in a musical that was as enjoyable as it was disjointed, which is to say I had a great time so long as I quieted the questions in the writer-brain. I also got to see Book of Mormon while I was there, and holy crap was that amazing. But that's another story.
Or is it?
I feel like talking shop. So I will! This was a very theatrical weekend for me, between Imitation of Life [Anslee's play at a theatre I will fill in later], Book of Mormon, and watching the Oscars Sunday night. It was fun. In a lot of ways it made me realize how much I've missed the stage, but what I've truly missed is acting in general. Almost all of my creative output has been in writing a new web series with John (the roommate, for anyone not in the know) that I'll officially reveal here once we've officially revealed it everywhere else. I actually have a production meeting for that almost as soon as I walk in the door, so that'll be fun. Anyway, that's all about to change. Next Monday, I audition for A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Cheeky Monkey theatre company and I'm going to be bringing out the big guns for Puck. It's a role I've always wanted, and I'm seriously hoping things fall in my favor this time around.
Aaaand... I don't have a lot more to say about that now. More later. I plan to update this a bit more often. Probably not daily yet, but maybe.
Hopefully.
Or is it?
I feel like talking shop. So I will! This was a very theatrical weekend for me, between Imitation of Life [Anslee's play at a theatre I will fill in later], Book of Mormon, and watching the Oscars Sunday night. It was fun. In a lot of ways it made me realize how much I've missed the stage, but what I've truly missed is acting in general. Almost all of my creative output has been in writing a new web series with John (the roommate, for anyone not in the know) that I'll officially reveal here once we've officially revealed it everywhere else. I actually have a production meeting for that almost as soon as I walk in the door, so that'll be fun. Anyway, that's all about to change. Next Monday, I audition for A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Cheeky Monkey theatre company and I'm going to be bringing out the big guns for Puck. It's a role I've always wanted, and I'm seriously hoping things fall in my favor this time around.
Aaaand... I don't have a lot more to say about that now. More later. I plan to update this a bit more often. Probably not daily yet, but maybe.
Hopefully.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
12/5/12 : In Which I Hate Technology Sometimes
I just spent the last forty-five minutes typing a long post that I really liked on my phone, only to have it erased in an instant just before I tried to publish it. So this is my post today. I am angry. That is all.
Monday, November 19, 2012
11/19 : In Which I Cannot Sleep, Again
Why is there a Portland on the northern bit of both coasts? I guess etymologically it makes a little sense, what with it being the "land of ports," but there's a Portland, Oregon and a Portland, Maine. Both are very northern states. Is there a Portland, Georgia? A Portland, California?
I just looked it up. Thanks internet. According to Wikipedia there are only three Portlands anywhere, and two are the American ones I've just mentioned. What is it about the name of this city - these cities - that lends itself to northern climes?
Furthermore, Portland, OR isn't even coastal. It's close, but it's not exactly oceanfront. Portland, ME is, though. Right on the coast. And I guess if the Oregon one's city limits are wide it probably has some waterfront real estate, too. I'm in a weird mood.
My insomnia is getting worse. Lately I've been staying up (by lately I pretty much mean this week) to keep my lady-friend internet-company while she works on her homework, because it sucks to just be working all the time with no connection to the outside world. She has a killer work ethic. ANYWAY, whether as a side-effect or a coincidence, my insomnia has returned. Tonight, for some reason, is the first on which it occurred to me that I should write up a blog post.
I guess the other night I tweeted a lot, and that's technically a "micro-blog" format, so maybe that half-counts, but I did it on my non-Jesse account so nobody who reads this would know what I was saying and none of it was really relevant stuff anyway.
Should I do some "journal" stuff here? I guess I've been working a little lately, though as usual it's not as much as I'd like. My most recent gig was on a show called Zero Hour which was described to me as, and I quote, "Like The Da Vinci Code, but with Nazis," and it was a decent shoot. I thought I'd be working the Scorcese/ Di Caprio/ McCaughnehey (no CLUE if I spelled a single one of those right) picture The Wolf of Wall Street last week, but I wasn't picked for the scene. There's still a good chance I'll work the movie this month, though, and I'm working with John on Tuesday on... something. I wrote it in my journal. It's a show I haven't worked yet. It should be fun. It will likely be our first time actually both doing background for the same gig, so I'm looking forward to it.
John and I were supposed to work together on a shoot this summer for My Man Is A Loser, but he got upgraded on set to a stand-in position so we were separated. This Tuesday will sort of be a milestone. We've worked a lot of the same shows but never on the same day, as is the nature of the business. Not being in the Union (SAG-AFTRA), I can only be called in for certain shoots. Still two waivers away from getting that card.
This got long and rambly. Ummmmmm... I'm suddenly feeling self-conscious, because admittedly this is the most writing I've done in a while. I've been spending too much time on video games lately, but Skyrim is freakin' addictive. Tomorrow, I am promising myself that I will not pick up my PS3 controller for three days. I have decided this. I'm going to write, hang with John, and work. No Netflix, either. Pandora will be my one allowance, unless a new Adventure Time episode comes out. Which is shouldn't...
Woo! Five-in-the-morning blog rambles. Signing off!
I just looked it up. Thanks internet. According to Wikipedia there are only three Portlands anywhere, and two are the American ones I've just mentioned. What is it about the name of this city - these cities - that lends itself to northern climes?
Furthermore, Portland, OR isn't even coastal. It's close, but it's not exactly oceanfront. Portland, ME is, though. Right on the coast. And I guess if the Oregon one's city limits are wide it probably has some waterfront real estate, too. I'm in a weird mood.
My insomnia is getting worse. Lately I've been staying up (by lately I pretty much mean this week) to keep my lady-friend internet-company while she works on her homework, because it sucks to just be working all the time with no connection to the outside world. She has a killer work ethic. ANYWAY, whether as a side-effect or a coincidence, my insomnia has returned. Tonight, for some reason, is the first on which it occurred to me that I should write up a blog post.
I guess the other night I tweeted a lot, and that's technically a "micro-blog" format, so maybe that half-counts, but I did it on my non-Jesse account so nobody who reads this would know what I was saying and none of it was really relevant stuff anyway.
Should I do some "journal" stuff here? I guess I've been working a little lately, though as usual it's not as much as I'd like. My most recent gig was on a show called Zero Hour which was described to me as, and I quote, "Like The Da Vinci Code, but with Nazis," and it was a decent shoot. I thought I'd be working the Scorcese/ Di Caprio/ McCaughnehey (no CLUE if I spelled a single one of those right) picture The Wolf of Wall Street last week, but I wasn't picked for the scene. There's still a good chance I'll work the movie this month, though, and I'm working with John on Tuesday on... something. I wrote it in my journal. It's a show I haven't worked yet. It should be fun. It will likely be our first time actually both doing background for the same gig, so I'm looking forward to it.
John and I were supposed to work together on a shoot this summer for My Man Is A Loser, but he got upgraded on set to a stand-in position so we were separated. This Tuesday will sort of be a milestone. We've worked a lot of the same shows but never on the same day, as is the nature of the business. Not being in the Union (SAG-AFTRA), I can only be called in for certain shoots. Still two waivers away from getting that card.
This got long and rambly. Ummmmmm... I'm suddenly feeling self-conscious, because admittedly this is the most writing I've done in a while. I've been spending too much time on video games lately, but Skyrim is freakin' addictive. Tomorrow, I am promising myself that I will not pick up my PS3 controller for three days. I have decided this. I'm going to write, hang with John, and work. No Netflix, either. Pandora will be my one allowance, unless a new Adventure Time episode comes out. Which is shouldn't...
Woo! Five-in-the-morning blog rambles. Signing off!
Sunday, October 28, 2012
10/28/12.2 : In which a Hurricane Party contains no hurricane
I'm currently standing on my roof looking at the Manhattan skyline with a few friends. We just watched Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (if I ever cite something else as my favorite movie I'm lying) and a few drinks have been shared. It has yet to rain on us.
Tonight has been wonderful. Beautiful and delightful. I'm with friends, have supplies, and the weather's a bit windy but is still holding. All in all, Sandy's been sweet so far.
Tonight has been wonderful. Beautiful and delightful. I'm with friends, have supplies, and the weather's a bit windy but is still holding. All in all, Sandy's been sweet so far.
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