I'm done. My last final was yesterday and it probably went well. I felt like I knew what I was talking about. There was one question that asked if video games were character driven or plot driven. I said character driven because the player experiences the game through the avatar and any emotional impact comes from the character, but in retrospect I could say that games are plot driven because the story and the environment define the character's actions and are shaped to reach a specific end and there isn't anything that the player can do to change the conclusion. Yup. This is like undergrad in that I keep thinking "you're letting me major in this?"

Here are some highlights from the semester:

• Arriving for the first day of grad orientation and finding out that I get a kickass graphics computer with a monitor as big as all outdoors.
• Finding out that my friend and former high school speech duo partner is enrolled in grad school here as well.
• Being pounced upon by Michelle while waiting in the buffet line and learning that I would be seeing her in every class, thus beginning the Meyers-Briggs mayhem of my existence here.
• Living next to Gerry, which means that I always have someone to read comics with, watch movies with, and hold my spare key so that I can get back into my apartment when I'm locked out in a t-shirt and pajama pants a half hour before I have to be ready to go to the Wynton Marsalis concert. Not my proudest moment.
• HCI class, where I had the distinct pleasure of being among a disparate group of geniuses for a few hours each week, often followed by a post-class trip to Scotty's.
• The narrative theory class where we did an ideological criticism of GTA: Vice City, and I got to play as the whole class watched. As I meandered around the game, I asked how antisocial I should be, and Michelle called across the room for me to "punch a hooker!" Grad level class. The matriarchal amazon woman in the class who is a good deal older than I was horrified that it was possible to do such things in a game. The look of horror on her face when she asked me if I enjoyed the game was priceless.
• The Halo 2 party.
  

For now I need a rest. I can't think of anything more to say, and I have a stack of good books from my friends to read.