Star Crossed Musing

It's a common practice to make resolutions, but I very rarely do it. For one, I know me, and something promised does not necessarily mean something done in any reasonable time frame. Not that I won't do it eventually, but it's a thing and I'm bad at time managing my things. That said, the beginning of a new semester is an excellent time to shake up my routine and start settling some things into place. So while I won't really set goals for what I want to happen, I will tell you what I'm doing as of next week and certain things I have to achieve over the next six months, at least. Finish my reading list and formally assemble my committee -- due by the end of January, hard stop.  Work workouts into next semester, whether with Matt or on my own. I gained more weight last summer and fall due to the sprained ankle and loads of sedentary work, and I'm not happy about it. I at least need to get back to where I was before all that, and that requires going to t...

Chocolate Dice, courtesy of ThinkGeek So one of the things I get to do next semester is run a game for my gaming group. I've run two in the past, but had to wrap both of them up for school reasons. All my players want to play in these games again, and I'm pondering what to run. 1) Picking my Dresden Files game back up where it left off in Baltimore. This has the advantage of me knowing the system, it being pretty easy to add people in, and everyone's excited about it still when I bring it up. DF is a touch tricky, though, at least in the magic system, and nearly everyone's got magic of some form or other. I'm gonna go back to it sometime, and I've got ideas for it, I just don't know if now is the right time. 2) Non-Westeros Westeros? I ran a one-shot of A Song of Ice and Fire RPG set in a minor house in Dorne. Everyone was a member of the household, and most of them were siblings. It was awesome. The one problem is that nobody at the table, myself in...

So overall this has been a pretty good year for me and mine. The tree that fell on our house last winter was removed and the roof repaired (and insulated!), and we in effect got a new bedroom out of it, which was awesome.  The boys both entered high school and found stuff they like to do, particularly drama club and wood shop.  Si stopped chewing everything. My family is in pretty good health. I finished the fall semester of GAAAH (three full grad classes, man, plus teaching) with 3 As, a conference acceptance, and a prospective novel.  Our company got Tragedy in Five Acts out and in good shape, and it got listed by io9 as one of the best storygames .  My computer died, but I LOVE my Macbook Air, so that's okay. I get to teach classes I really wanted through the next summer, and my co-teachers and I got a grant for the spring. :) There were some less awesome things, but really, we lived through all of them and nothing that bad happened.  I'm re...