(But first: All das Beste zum Geburtstag (and always) to my littlest cousin!) Planning murder mysteries can be an educational experience. You learn how your friends deal with competition, who likes to dress up in costumes, and how to cook for fifteen people. You also learn things that are a little more…
(Unless otherwise noted, all photos are from Sarah and JB. Thanks, you two!) My dear friend, (the letter said) What a long time it has been since we saw each other face-to-face. You have not forgotten me, I’m sure; I know I have not forgotten you. Let us reminisce about…
(Yes, Murder Mystery 2013 was this weekend! That means pics and recaps next week! And also that I’m exhausted. In the meantime…) When it comes to books adapted into TV shows or movies, I often feel as though one can adopt a Pascal’s Wager-style two-by-two outcome grid: Things they changed…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that it is impossible to tell how striking a particular piece of writing is until you’ve read several dozen examples of that genre. This applies to genres of novel as much as it applies to essays and cover letters. Purely in the interests of…
In my last entry on MOOCs, Massive Online Open Courses, I mentioned that one of the reasons I felt that some MOOCs didn’t offer an educational experience as high in quality as traditional, in-person university courses is because qualitatively evaluating the work of thousands of students poses a huge problem…
(Apparently one pronounces the acronym for Massive Online Open Course “mook.” I did not know this until hearing them discussed at a teaching workshop on distance learning.) As a post-secondary instructor and someone who loves taking classes, I’ve been fascinated by the MOOC model of learning, in which universities and experts…
Books MG/YA fiction The Emerald Atlas ( **** – liked) Homeland ( *** – enjoyed) Fiction Body Double (**** – liked) Vanish (**** – liked) Daybreak (**** – liked) The Sisters Brothers (**** – liked) Non-fiction Outliers: The Story of Success (**** – liked) The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How…
I can’t explain why I have a problem writing exposition without sounding like a jerk, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.
So I noticed that for a show I love particularly for its female characters, this list has a large proportion of men. Huh. I do love main characters like Diane and Kalinda and newbies like Robyn and judges like the “in my opinion judge” and the military judge and antagonists…
Third entry in my process notes on developing a murder-mystery weekend! If you missed it, you can also check out the second installment. When I first started planning this hunt, I wanted to solve what seemed to me to be the main problem with all the murder mysteries I’d played in…