Class Week Seven: Terror and Horror lands upon Arkham!

[This will also be posted at http://terranova18.multiply.com]

It's been a most fateful week for all of us as I finally received my copies of Arkham Horror's core boardgame and its many expansions - as of the moment my collection spans the core boardgame itself, the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh mini-expansion, and the major-expansions Dunwich Horror and Kingsport Horror. All of them prove to have challenging content and I find even myself challenged by these games.

So far I've held three games since the time I received it - since preparation took a VERY long time and I had to take the utmost measures to ensure that each and every single piece and card is well-protected from outside nasty elements. I've held two games at two of my students' homes, having won one and lost the other, and one 4-player simulation I held with myself resulted with a win.

Round 1: Ithaqua's Wrath

We held the game at Celine's house along with her co-students, all of whom just new to the genre of boardgaming and to the genre of the Mythos itself. It started mostly with movements and tactics that were so grossly out of place that defeat was already imminent from the moment the game started - but that is ok, since we were all beginners anyway!

The time consumed in learning / playing the game proved insufficient to constitute a properly-played game so we agreed to wake Ithaqua (the big boss) pre-emptively. It proved to be an even worse mistake, as it resulted to a catastrophic loss with four investigators devoured whole. So much for Arkham on this round!

Round 2: Nyarlarthotep's Defeat 1

A self-simulation I held on my own followed right after the catastrophic battle against Ithaqua and this one proved fruitful as I controlled four investigators into victory, sending the Ancient One to bed by performing one of the essential conditions for winning.

It was also during this time that I managed to form the basic and essential tactics needed to properly play Arkham Horror!

Round 3: Nyarlarthotep's Failed Vengeance

Held at another of my student's house, Rosalyn, we played the game with several students who had played earlier and some new ones as well. Again, defeat seemed imminent since most are quite inexperienced with the genre of boardgaming, and an overrun of monsters in Arkham resulted to Nyarlarthotep waking up without further ado.

Almost lost with hope, we never gave up though and managed to send him packing with a team of four Investigators, each one surviving up to the very bitter end.

Round 4: ?????

There is a plan for this coming Wednesday to hold the fourth Arkham Horror round (3rd for the students' version) and there are already openings for up to 8 players! (me included as 1 already).

Who knows what may happen in these horrifying times? Who will threaten Arkham this time, and who will stand up to confront it?

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Four, Term Two: Arkham Horror - An Insider's Peek

Greetings and salutations once again, I promised to continue my previous post with my own experience in this game, and commit to that promise I shall! Allow me to present in this blog post my own introductions, explanations, and insights regarding the new game I intend to start with my students, friends, and gaming buddies: Arkham Horror!

The following games below all fall under the Arkham Horror boardgame series, with one core boardgame (the town of Arkham itself), and as to date, five expansions (the fifth still unknown when to release), each expansion either contributing a new horrific storyline to the series, or an entirely new location also plagued in similar to Arkham's horrifying events:

Arkham Horror: The Core Boardgame

Arkham Horror: The Curse of the Dark Pharaoh Expansion

Arkham Horror: The Dunwich Horror Expansion

Arkham Horror: The King in Yellow Expansion

Arkham Horror: The Kingsport Horror Expansion

Introduction and Pre-Play

First of all, Arkham Horror is a fairly easy game to play for players who already have backgrounds regarding table-top gaming, as most of the terminologies used in the game are recycled and restated in some form or another in many common table-top game series. Terms such as skill checks, dice rolls, successes, difficulties, and the like are quite easy to understand for veteran players but almost self-explanatory for novice players. Worry not, for I do not intend to run games such as these without completely clarifying first what these thingamajig terms mean to complete novices or first-timers to the craft.

The story follows thus (from my own perspective of restatement):

The main setting of the core boardgame is in the town of Arkham, Massachusetts, a fictional town in the Cthulhu (pronounced K-thul-hu) mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. Here, dimensional instabilities surge across the town and every so often spawns forth a gate leading to one of many parallel dimensions. Left unattended, monsters often cross these instabilities and wreak havoc and terror on the town.

The only force that stood up to these abominations were a select number of "investigators", people with remarkable skill and courage with the definite motivation of bringing down these beasts, sealing off Arkham from these dimensions, and keeping the Ancient One from ever awakening. This Ancient One, if sufficiently satisfied to awaken, might just be their end - or the end of Arkham itself.

The story is pretty straightforward and gives everyone an idea of what they should do to win this game - they are to either prevent these dimensional gates from being opened too long by closing them off and/or sealing them permanently, or if the inevitable happens, engage the Ancient One (which is like the big boss of every RPG) in combat and defeat it. One such Ancient One, though, already spells doom once he awakens, for once he does, the game is over.

Game setup and introduction can take at least 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the players' capacity to learn and follow the instructions. Setup itself takes time, so it is best that the players helped in doing the setup as well. They are to freely select an investigator identity from a pool of at least ten or more investigators (more if the expansions are factored in the mix) and set its initial assets (money, skills, items, spells, etc). It is recommended for new players to select according to what they think is best for their personality, while more expert players are strongly recommended to choose characters that they think would serve some use. Characters were made balanced, thus there is no superbly strong character and there is no useless one. Each works according to how the player makes use of it, which often produces different (and even surprising) results.

Once the assets and players are set up, the Ancient One is randomly selected, or if the players so choose, they can even select the Ancient One they wish to have for that "episode". Each Ancient One has its own horrifying consequences of awakening, and a corresponding doom track meter, which when filled, would awaken it and thus force the investigators to engage it in combat to win.

After setup, order of players is decided by the leader of the group going first, then by the player to his left, and so on until all players had taken their turns.

The Game Mechanics: Phases

There are several phases in Arkham Horror: Initial Phase, Movement Phase, Combat (if applicable) Phase, Arkham / Other World Encounter Phase, then culminating with a Mythos Card Phase. For beginning groups, each phase is resolved by all players first before going to the next (unless a Combat Phase is necessary to allow Movement, which will be explained when you sit down to play the game itself).

Initial Phase

Each character, to start with, has a set range of status points and "focus". There are six status types, coming in pairs: Speed / Sneak, Fight / Will, and Lore / Luck. Speed determines how many locations your character can move at one movement turn (that is, if you have speed 3, you can move for up to three or less locations on the Arkham Map). Sneak determines how well you can slip past monsters if there is a need to go past them during a Movement phase. Fight determines how well your character deals damage when fighting a particular monster. Will determines how resistant your character is from being terrified by the presence of a monster in front of him / her (thus this refers to one's nerves of steel). Lore is a special status used in resolving turns that require analysis of certain texts or stories. Lastly, Luck is an almost self-explanatory status used to resolve turns that require certain feats of luck to accomplish.

These status points are resolved using dice rolls, which is the heart of any role-playing game. With the absence of actual action, one can never really tell if a person's attack killed a monster or not, right? That is why dice rolls were substituted for these moments. Probabilities of getting successful actions depend on a player's dice roll on one of the status types. Therefore in fighting a monster, a player would need to roll dice equivalent to his Fight (along with modifiers) and determine if he is successful or not. In this game, they use 6-sided dice, and a value of 5 or 6 typically means a successful move. Sometimes more than one successful move is required, and thus the player's difficulty of that action increases.

A character's focus is a fixed value on his character sheet that determines how much he can modify his status points every turn. Therefore a focus of 2 means that a character can perform two one-point modifications to his status, which often results to one status being enhanced, and its pair being diminished (such as focusing on Fight / Will, which can give +1 Fight but -1 Will). Players need to take into account these changes, as these can make the difference in the game depending on the need to do so.

The initial phase normally consists of just the focus phase, along with the un-exhaustion (resetting) of used cards, and it is necessary before any movement can be done.

The Movement Phase

Once done with focusing and un-exhausting, players will then need to move their character for up to at most their current Speed. Thus a character with 3 speed can move for up to 3 locations across the Arkham Map. He, however, can choose to move only 2 locations, 1 location, or even not at all, which means he stays in place. But he can never move more than his speed.

In the event that monsters are along a character's movement path, the player has the first option of performing a sneak check. This means he will roll his Sneak (factoring in the monster's sneak modifiers, which can either add or subtract dice). A successful sneak check means that the monster "fails to notice" the player passing by and thus the player can move further. However, failed checks mean that the monster "notices" the poor player and thus the player is left with no choice but to fight (more on combat later).

Sometimes a combat phase can follow a movement phase of a player before another player may move, for strategic purposes (i.e, Player 1 attacks a monster that is blocking Player 2's movement path).

Once all players have moved and movement-related combat has been resolved, the encounters will follow.

Encounters Phase (Arkham / Other Worlds)

Depending on which non-street tile the player landed in, he can either follow the special instructions on the location itself (if ever any is written on the board) or he can choose to have an "Encounter" in that particular location. This means that he has to draw a card from the encounters to that location group (since each location is separated into Neighborhoods, which in turn is a location group) and resolve whatever the card instructs. Sometimes this can be in the form of benefits that will give the character items or bonuses, or even unfortunate events that can result to a lot of bad possibilities (combat not excluded).

It can also happen that players in Arkham can get sucked into the Other Worlds, which are dimensions that are on the other side of an open gate. When that happens, their encounter will be dependent on which Other World they are in, and it is resolved as normal. Downside is that they have to stay there for a short while and perform several more encounters before they can return to the real world.

Once every player has performed an encounter, combat may possibly ensue!

Combat Phase (May either occur during Movement or Encounter Phase)

The combat phase may occur either during a player's movement (when a monster blocks his / her path) or during the encounter phase (when a card explicitly states that a monster pops out at a player's location). In which case the following process is performed:

• Horror Check: A monster appears, and therefore you will be terrified! Only nerves of steel can resist such horrific sight and such nerves require lots of Will. Therefore, a player makes a will check modified by the monster's status. Success means that you are unmoved by the horrible sight, while a failure damages the player's sanity, removing a certain amount of sanity depending on how powerfully the monster can traumatize the player (indicated on the monster itself.) It is to be noted that players completely losing Sanity will end up in the Asylum (or Lost in Time and Space for Other World encounters) with half their assets (Items, Skills, Spells, etc) GONE. But they will completely recover afterwards.
• Combat Check: Should the player maintain sanity or resist being terrified by the monster, the player proceeds to fight it, making use of his Fight, modified if he has weapons / spells / items / allies with him. Note that each combat check exhausts any used items, meaning that they cannot be used again should the player enter another combat in the same turn. Success is measured by the monster's toughness, and the player must make at least that number of successes to "kill" that monster. Failure to do so will mean the monster will counter-attack and damage the player, while Success means the monster is killed, and its carcass is awarded to the player as a trophy. It is to be noted that players completely losing their life will end up in the Hospital (or Lost in Time and Space for Other World encounters) with half their assets GONE. But they will completely recover afterwards.
• WARNING: Bear in mind that IF both Sanity and Stamina (your life) drop to 0 at the same time, your character is considered DEAD BEYOND REVIVAL. You will be forced to create a new character.

Once combat has been resolved, the final phase commences!

The Mythos Phase

This phase will determine the next outbreak of horror in the game. It will dictate at which location a dimensional gate will open (thus enabling another channel for monsters to roam Arkham). Gates are special passages to Other Worlds that, if left unattended in great numbers for so long, can either lead to an outbreak of monsters that will ultimately awaken the Ancient One, or tear Arkham apart so forcefully that the Ancient One is shaken awake by such disturbances. Either way, it spells DOOM to have so many gates open!

The only way to prevent such a catastrophic defeat is to close or seal the gates before they become a major problem. Gates can be closed by first traveling inside the Other World within that gate, perform encounters there, make it back to Arkham safely, and then perform closing rituals on the gate, which involve several tokens or a special item, and maybe a point of Stamina and Sanity as well (the gate-exploration experience takes its toll on both mind and body). Closing off gates hinders the Ancient One's awakening, thus making everyone safe, but gates that are not permanently sealed will still have a chance of re-opening, given sufficient conditions. So do not relax one's guard!

The Mythos phase also dictates how monsters in the map will move, and indicates if more monsters would appear. Afterwards, that current turn ends and a new turn begins, starting with a new Initial Phase, and so on.

The Doom and Terror Tracks

Specially-numbered tiles on the board and on the Ancient One's card depict the Terror and Doom tracks respectively. These counters represent the deadline by which players need to accomplish their mission. The Terror Track indicates Arkham Town's general impression - how terrified its citizens are and how horrifying Arkham is as a place to stay in. Generally, the more monsters there are roaming the field, the worse this terror track gets, which can ultimately lead to the closure of several essential shops, and if it gets really out of hand, the resulting insane terror can tempt the Ancient One to awaken prematurely!

The DOOM track is an even worse entity, as it dictates how the Ancient One reacts. Each gate opened results to one additional counter to this doom track, and more counters add as more gates burst open. Gates closed using special means decrease this counter, while temporal seals do not diminish this value. Get it to the maximum, and prepare to meet the Ancient One itself in combat!

The Ancient One

If players ever get to the point of not closing off gates or fending off monsters in time, their last chance of survival or winning is to destroy the Ancient One itself - with the exception of one, Azathoth, whose very appearance will trigger the end of the world, thus destroying everything and guaranteeing instant defeat to everyone. Other Ancient Ones, however, are at least, killable.

The Ancient One is a formidable monster whose life is far more than any monster in existence. Players will engage the Ancient One in regular combat, discarding certain cards as its conditions to perform an attack. Failure to do so means that the player is out of options to assault the Ancient One, and thus the giant monstrosity proceeds to devour the living hell out of the player (creepy!), leaving the group with one less player to destroy the giant thing with. All players devoured = game over.

The life meter goes down with each success scored by investigators during their fight checks, and once the damage accumulated takes out the Ancient One's whole life, then it dies and it spells victory to the players! Hooray!

Whew, that tired me out in typing a gist of the game from my perspective of playing through almost 1/4 or 1/3 of it and from reading reviews and gists of the rule books. Hopefully I can provide a clearer perspective of it once I get my hands on the rule book and once my players sit down in person, in front of the board game, in front of the Horror.

Hahaha!

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Three, Term Two: Set Free!

I make this post as one of two posts that I will be doing for tonight. There's so much in my mind right now and most of them aren't borne from the current depressions of life or the stress of work. No, I want to discuss happiness and euphoria today and no force can stop me!

What I'd first like to do for this blog post is to marvel at how much my life has changed ever since I made one big decision in my life: enter the world of Online Gaming. As the flag banner of this blog (and it's title) states, it's a Gamer at Heart. Ever since I became a full-blast online gamer at college, I had delved deeply into its communities and secrets and gained such a thorough re-understanding of myself - never again was I the completely introvert (just partially now LOL) geekish brat who buries himself in books and literature and makes a complete genius out of himself in class. No, well it did teach me things I never was supposed to but still, it made my teenage life burst open and join in my habitual intellectual lifestyle. Suffice to say it added spice to my life.

Then came another door bursting open in my life when I decided to take my gaming experiences to another level and take up the interest of indulging in Table-Top RPGs. As opposed to online games, which are MMORPGs, TTRPGs delve deep into the lore of stories wound by people with rich imaginations and put you as the person into the shoes of the character itself, your decisions and actions powered by your own imagination and intellect, while you enter the stories of your gamemaster and altogether create a harmonious and colorful atmosphere of gameplay amongst your peers.

It requires a lot of imagination, yes, and I believe that these games are good havens for training one's imagination and thinking. People might think that these games are somewhat psychologically disturbing, as most of their content can be quite inappropriate if taken seriously, but everything is just in the mind or stays within the story. Sure, people might go overboard once in a while but in general, these things strive to better enhance one's mind rather than debilitate it.

Right now, with the support and encouragement of my ever-loving students, which I am slowly growing a deeper outside relations with, I'm taking my gaming experiences and knowledge to an even deeper level of "enlightenment": I'm henceforth forming Sir Dave's gaming circle! It will be composed of my students who are interested in learning about these games and want to have fun out of it, and as it turns out, they already have had fun with my wargames before, they hsva started to like the intriguing Inkognito game, and they're now curious as to what Arkham Horror is going to turn out to be!

Worry not, for it follows in this next exciting post! Keep yourselves reading!

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Two, Term Two: A Point of Stillness

It's been quite some time since I made a blog post, and a lot of things has happened since then, both in my academic / teaching and work life. And I must say, QUITE a lot has really happened. We're currently entering the third week of the second trimester of my teaching and already I'm filled with work and things to do that I barely manage to make blog posts lately. Or maybe it's just my procrastination coupled with a natural desire for playing games more than working seriously that keeps me from making blog posts nowadays. Oh well, got to change that soon LOL.

As I said, we are almost at the third week of the trimester and it's a lifting, if not almost common, experience to be teaching the same class twice in a row in the same day at consecutive periods. Yes, I once again man the decks on AC81 both BEFORE and AFTER lunch, with two monumental subjects that I consider quite the challenge to teach and also learn. While I try my best to incorporate what we have been doing in the past term to them on this new trimester, I am faced with several challenges as to how to properly execute them, resource-wise. It's sad to note that there are several limitations to technology that even I cannot mend in an instant.

Which reminds me, I had engaged myself with my usual hobby of watching the movies and after watching Eagle Eye, I had several thoughts regarding the full power of information and technology if there is to say, an entity existing that holds the absolute union of both worlds. To those who might not have watched this exciting techno-driven movie, better hold back on the reading as I lament on this cool stuff.

The movie has this certain computer system named ARIA, a secret project by the US government to spy on imminent threats to the government, from terrorism to crime to everyday activities of almost every single entity that can carry electronic and wireless signals. This device can practically tap into any device that its power can reach (the only ones not being those without batteries, power, or any form of outside interaction) and use it as a means to gather information (i.e, tapping into the security cameras of a convenience store to gain vision of that area or perhaps controlling the traffic lights to orchestrate a harmonious flow of traffic).

Then again, when the system gets opposed by human interventions, as the usual case SHOULD be, the absoluteness of this system takes it to the point that it has to eliminate its human master and instate a new one, as supposedly dictated by it's "programming" (it being given the programming of how the US government chain of command should work and how it should act when the chain of command has been maimed). Its intelligence reaches a tremendous point that it actually manages to hatch a scheme that could eliminate the heads of the US government and reinstate a new one, all while blackmailing under cover of patriotism, two innocent civilians who somehow were "activated" by this computer while tapping into their phones and using their private information or loved ones as hostages to its evil plot.

While the movie holds more juice than what I have described above (which I will recommend for watching), it makes you wonder about how IT and computers are progressing nowadays and the usual "what-if" question of how the future would look like if software and hardware became more and more complex, or even "human-like". Would it also end up like ARIA, fulfilling its programming directives to the very letter even if it meant ignoring its master or user, or would it eventually take control over humanity with its absoluteness and drive us into that futuristic hell that is often portrayed in other movies? Whatever happens today is dictated by what people do in the present, and I hope we don't go that far.

With that I take my leave, goodnight everyone :D

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week One, Term Two: Surprises, surprises, surprises!

It's Friday yet again and classes have resumed at full swing! It's quite interesting that time passes so quickly around these parts that the vacation season's really over and it's time we donned our professional images again and enter the classrooms in a haze of new subjects, new and old students alike, and also new things to teach / learn! It's quite lovely as well, to meet up with my old students once again in the classroom and to encounter new students alike, hoping for a very healthy relationship with them as we move along this new trimester of joy and excitement. Not to mention the upcoming Christmas celebration by the end of this all!

Surprises, surprises, surprises... yes, this week has been riddled with surprises since I had succinctly enjoyed surprising my old students into giving them a false sense of security that I am not their instructor. MWAHAHAHA! It was fun while it lasted and I must admit that even I tingled with excitement as I approached their classroom at their appointed time for me.

I was also surprised just now as I had a sudden plethora of problems to deal with with regards to my teaching load, as apparently some emergencies came up and I had to fill up some of the vacant positions at the expense of some of my subjects. It's quite regrettable to let go of some classes but I hope they get happier at the hands of better, more accomplished (and more enjoyable, hopefully) instructors. That means I have yet another surprise in store for me next week! Another new class, LOL.

I never truly realized how easy it is to teach Mathematics until I found myself in the middle of the classroom teaching it. It was quite fun to teach, especially with my methods as an instructor, and I really hope my students come to appreciate and enjoy Mathematics with as much excitement and enjoyment as I used to have with it as a student :D

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Post-Class Lamentations 5: Saddled up for Tomorrow!

Whew! It has been quite an interesting two weeks of vacation season for everyone, I suppose (not for us faculty, as we have been plagued endlessly with continuing work and post-education stuff). Days pass quite fast, since we're already entering the second trimester and entering my second term of teaching here in APC!

It all feels so surreal that I've survived the first trimester with flying colors and even enjoyed the experience out of it all. I'm really looking forward to my new students for this term, new subjects to teach, new headaches to have (ahahaha!), and hopefully new challenges to face not only with school, but with work as well.

I will make this a rather short and sweet post, closing off my post-class lamentations and opening up a new term of blog entries lamenting on my experiences and stories as I pursue another three-and-a-half months of entertainment (hopefully) and excitement. I'm currently under a new department for this trimester, having been unable to obtain certain subjects I had wished to obtain, but I hope that I enjoy being under this department as well. Maybe in the future I can engage myself in two departments! LOL

I still wonder, though, after these five lamentations, if my secret message can finally be perceived. This very same blog post actually closes off the secret that I've long concealed from my students *winks*

With that, I bid everyone a warm evening, I hope everyone's quite prepared for tomorrow! Enjoy the new term guys!

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Post-Class Lamentations 4: Gamer's Tribute

The vacation slowly creeps up on the bored and tired mind and after running around the school for nearly the past two days while having nothing at all to do except arrange things here and there, I find myself in the middle of this insidious thing called boredom once again - our manager's gone off overseas and has left us all here with not much reminders, so we are free to do as we please (oh, joy!), but next week might kick-off once again with new action as the next trimester starts to rear its ugly head.

With the looming boredom over, under, and all around me, I just decided to play around with a concept that my beloved students had contemplated amongst themselves as a class slogan and a sort of class banner. Along with the miraculous artistic powers of Adobe Photoshop, I have come up with a wargame-ish rendition of my students' interpretation of their section - AC81 :D

It looks a little messy, doesn't it? I had to play around with so little space x_x

I hope you like it guys, and I hope it serves as a reminder never to lose your linkages and wacky experiences with one another as the trimesters progress and you guys enter the deeper stages of your academic education - no one else could provide you better support, consolation, and comfort than the company of your classmates and instructors :D

Now I really wonder if someone's been getting the meaning of all these lamentations~ *whistles at himself*

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Post-Class Lamentations 3: New Classes?

The start of the vacation week welcomes me this Sunday afternoon as I prepare this blog post that paves the way for the events of the coming week. With the end of the first trimester and my very first term of teaching, our efforts are now concentrated once again on our projects for our company JQITC and with more projects coming in we're all forced to let go of some teaching load to accommodate our responsibilities. Hopefully it doesn't affect our overall load though and I still hope to teach the subjects that I want and (hopefully) the sections I like.

With that in mind, with my continuing nagging or persistence with the Math Department coordinator (who had been one of my most favorite Instructors in Math subjects, Trigonometry for one), I think my wish for a Mathematics load will be granted for the following term! I'm sure it's gonna be another exciting experience to have since it's really been quite some time since I sat down on a math class xD.

Well I guess that's that for this week. I'm making my lamentations-after-classes rather short since these weren't meant to state my thoughts in the first place anyway. Oh, wait, did I just say that? Pretend you didn't notice anything. Hahaha.

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Post-Class Lamentations 2: Anxiety Subsides

Several days follow my previous post and already tension has mounted in myself and in our workplace. I do not want to share it out here, but instead I'll just lament on how I feel now that most of our fears have been slightly abated.

I ask first, for forgiveness to my students whom I might have inadvertently lashed out at in the previous days through Yahoo! Messenger as I was deftly caught in my own stream of anxiety and bothersome mood. At least it was best for everyone to know that even Sir Dave gets his share of problems sometimes. I thank those, though, who did offer to help out in whatever problem I may have despite them knowing it. I really appreciate that guys! :D

I am just glad that we're all sticking through together (we classmates / co-workers) despite these critical times and I hope we all pull through with this somehow. We've had worse problems in the past and I'm sure we're gonna make it and solve this problem in the near future. We're not that quite easy in losing hope, and thank goodness we have supportive seniors looking after us.

With regards to the next trimester, still shrouded in due mystery, I find it still tough to secure the subjects that are convenient for me to teach given the constraints that we new part-time teachers have been imposed upon. I pray that with my discussions tomorrow with our Assistant Program Director clears some matters up and hopefully, in my favor. Then I can run off to the Math Department and clear up some matters there as well. If all goes well I should be quite excited to teach in the coming term *smirks*

And my crush? No one will still know. Bleah!

~Sir Dave~

Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Post-Class Lamentations 1: Begging for Mercy

Finally! The term has almost ended (for the nth time I might be announcing these past few days) and my grade computations have almost been completed. I must say that everything looks somewhat good for my students and I congratulate them for quite a wonderful performance in class. It was their doing anyway that brought them to such grades and in my honest opinion, they are quite deserving of those marks, whether high or low.

As the term now draws to a close and a momentary period of calm moves in for the Instructors and the students (paving the way for yet a new trimester), it is also time for us Instructors to settle our own ends of the trimester (grades, evaluations, stuff like those), and right now I've been running like a headless chicken across three floors in the school in just settling my status for next term.

As the blog post title for today implies, I'm literally almost on my knees begging for mercy. Well, not quite exaggeratedly, but there's something that drives me to desperation throughout the waning days of the old trimester and the coming new one. I just hope whatever it is that happens by the end of this week brings favor to me and gives me convenience for the coming three and a half months.

With that I will end this rather relatively short lamentation. Cheers and have a great term break, my students!

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Fourteen: Intrigues

Quite an interesting turn of events prompted me to write this rather short and taunting blog entry to my AC81 students. It's already past 1 in the morning and after humoring my students in the Yahoo! Messenger conference rooms (courtesy of a good friend of mine who played his role quite exceptionally well), the thought has sunk deeper into my brains compared to the shallowness I've given it.

It all started with a simple note on paper. I never even expected why I would be writing that on their assignments. I just figured that aside from the assignment comments that I regularly give out, I would be giving a little of myself as well to the class and thus turn a somewhat simple and useless sheet of paper into a collector's item (LOL). Then again I wrote some good trivias and not-so-known facts about myself, until my pen slipped and let loose one provocative tidbit: *insert what I wrote on that paper here*.

Now the thought incited quite a lot of remarks and comments when the papers reached their hands, especially that piece of tidbit I just tactlessly let loose without much thought. Now I am faced with nearly the entire class's eagerness, all waiting for the answer to that lovely little question - So who is it?

I won't tell. HAHAHA!

Point taken, I've already had my fair share of bitterness before when it comes to falling in love. Sure, I may tend to get emotional every now and then, but eventually there comes a time in my life that I lose it (pardon the bluntness). I do not know why I lose it, but the moment it comes back, it's already too late. It has somehow traumatized me in the arts of falling into a relationship.

Yes, it's been almost a year since my last fated day when cupid struck me with his enchanted arrows. But the darkness took me in months later until my life ended up in a maelstrom of misery and sorrow, twisting and turning along with the stress that is schoolwork, then emerging into the calm before the storm. By that time, I've already made a mess of my life, and it's already irreparable. It's something I'll live to regret for the rest of my life.

Maybe that's why I don't want to say it. I don't want to make a mess of my life and of someone else's again, especially in this situation where a known barrier separates me and that particular someone. This one's not gonna be easy, I know, but I really do not think I'm ready to be expressive of my feelings yet. Or maybe just a little.

But then again, it's quite satisfying to see my students persisting to know the answer to the mysterious question, despite my adamant resolve. I wonder if come tomorrow someone could dare try to break open a little hole in my shell and peek inside to get a glimpse of what runs in my mind? *winks*

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Thirteen: Field Trips and Farewells

It is with great heaviness that I now prepare this blog post I have - probably the last I'll ever have with my current students for this trimester. I still do not know what the future holds for all of us, for we have been advised in our faculty meets that the new instructors might not get any teaching load next term despite our requested schedules and subjects. I am still being optimistic on the matter that at least one or two subjects of my request would be granted to me and my fallback plans of getting a teaching load this term become a reality.

But enough of the gloomy moment (I pray it won't be as gloomy as it seems in the coming days) , let me share what has transpired in my little brother's field trip down Laguna and Tagaytay - sure it was an exhilirating experience, one that even costed me a trip to what is supposed to be my regular Table-Top RPG session (hurray for my very first absence ~_~). We trekked through two production factories - one of Gardenia's factory-spanning bakery and Lucky Me's Noodle Factory. Both are quite exciting places and they showed the process of how most of their flag products were done.

Gardenia's bakery - or giant bakery, rather - housed a very exquisite production line that is completely automated - computers are powering the whole process and the bread-making is completely managed by automated machines with little to no human intervention. Their motto is that the bread is untouched by human hands, as demonstrated by the mixing machines, the conveyor belts, automated placement to fermentation and baking, and the only human interactions I seem to see where when the bakers are poking / turning the baked loaves of bread (which are surprisingly equal in size, all of them) with spatulas. That's as close to human touch as those bread will get! LOL

Lucky Me's noodle factory was another exciting experience in production, as I am amazed at the pace by which my favorite pancit canton delight is being produced from the mixture of egg and flour all the way down to the stringing of the noodles themselves and packaging in their familiar-looking packets with the seasonings. The tour wasn't as comprehensive as the one in Gardenia but at least the experience was interesting - although I cannot seem to get over the fact that the produced noodles there seemed smaller than what I am accustomed to seeing whenever I cook them. Either it's just the fact that we're observing from a far point or that they really have cut down on noodle size. LOL

After the two megafactory tours we went to a trek in Taal Vista in Tagaytay - an open space that offers a breathtaking view of the Taal Lake and its Volcanic craters. It's quite amazing to see Tagaytay once again since it was already almost twelve years since I last came here, and the memories were starting to get hazy, even unrecognizable. I was fortunate to see it again and I intend to loot my mother's pictures that she had taken of the exquisite view of the lake and the volcano. It might be a little foggy in view but at least the view was extremely classic!

The latter part of the trip was spent in buying souvenirs in Tagaytay (I opted to get a dagger keychain with an intricately shaped hilt that I failed to recognize was starting to fall off - need to do some mighty bonding with that) and then spent the rest of the day in the Mall of Asia and on a rolling cruise tour around the CCP Complex and Luneta Park. Overall the trip was fantastic!

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Twelve: A Return to the Past?

It has been quite a tremendous week for me, what with work and all, but in addition there were several thoughts that raced across my mind as the eleventh week of class closed down upon me, opening a new vista of experiences with the coming of the twelfth week. Good Evening to all of my patrons in the great great blogosphere (and the plurk-verse too!), I hope you find my lamentations tonight of interest or even of meager relevance to my interactions with you guys.

During the fifth or sixth week or so of class, as I entered the classroom I was struck by a rather large and thick, hardbound black book that depicted a pair of pale hands holding out a vivid red apple. The apple's redness was quite vivid since it stood out quite a lot in the pale white of the hands and the rich blackness of the background. Then the title struck next, giving me several relationships as to my current life now. Yes, those familiar with my descriptions might have already gotten what I'm driving into now: It's Stephenie Meyer's Twilight.

Enthralled by the fact that not only my fangirl-like ladies of the ABMA class are hooked into the seemingly romantic plotline of the book, but also my AC students were into the story as well! Both classes have claimed that it's something to read for romantics, and out of curiosity (and boredom from lack of anything to do), I then opted to drop by at the local bookstore today after watching a movie and decided to buy a paperback copy of it. Hardbounds would be nice if it weren't for the steep price. Maybe I'd just request from my aunt in Canada to send me a hardbound copy. Hahaha!

It appeared to be a story about love, but crosses an almost parallel line with a story I have long abandoned... from what I had heard, it is about a vampire's love. Yes, among my viewers now one or two might get what I am driving into... but enough of that. To delve too deeply in those aspects is to unearth a past that I wished better to be forgotten.

Sometimes I wonder if the path I've forged from the past was a decision well-made... or a decision well-thought of. While I do not want it revived anymore out of fear of what may happen - fear of making the same mistake and causing even graver damage, I just can't help but contemplate sometimes that somewhere along the way there are things that I could've done better to avert it. Well I guess it was all in the past now...

I'm now looking into the option of continuing the story as a fully-fledged novel by itself (for those who do not follow my train of thought, I'm referring to the Vampiric Chronicles of John), but then again I need to set my priorities since I'm also looking into the really serious option of releasing my Fantasy novel Terra Nova in the local publishing world. First I'll need a really good-quality publisher to carry out such a task. Even if it will cost dearly, it's a risk I'll need to take.

But before all that, I need inspiration. I need to revive the dead writer inside me that I've long unused and abandoned. Perhaps with my new experiences I can reforge a sword long rusted by age and abandon and show it to the rest of the world as a pristine weapon that will take the literary world by storm!

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Eleven: THUNDAGA!

Sure, sure, many might wonder at the queer blog post title, but it just so happens that it strikes a very interesting point of discussion by which we will be drifting off to for tonight. But before that, I greet my patrons in the blogosphere a very warm and rainy evening! It's quite comfortable to sleep tonight with the cool winds and the refreshing aura surrounding the city now.

But rainy days are not complete without a light show or two gracing the skies and creating magnificent arches of light in queer zigzag patterns that seem to split the dark sky in two - of course, I speak of no less than the stars of the show - thunder and lightning!

The post title actually refers to a Final Fantasy trademark spell, Thundaga, which is a third-degree thunder magic considered as one of the most powerful in the tiers of Black Magic (its predecessors being Thunder and Thundara). The strength of this spell is already comparable to what I and some of my ABMA students experienced as we were headed to a local mall.

There was lightning and thunder (yes, these things come in pairs, and lightning always comes first since light is faster than sound) along with a heavy downpour of rain and we were quite soaked to the clothes. Not even the umbrellas were able to protect us and sad to say, in my efforts to protect my own belongings from being destroyed by the rain I ended up being soaked myself. As it is, we were fortunate to have reached the mall still partly dry.

As we travelled, the light shows grew more and more intense we thought it was going to hit close anytime soon. Not that it would really happen in the first place, but the intensity of some ranged to rumbling noises like a roof being rippled up to the point of breaking noise that just seems to make your ears ring and make your hair stand up on end (static electricity effects? LOL)

But now that we're home and refreshed, it is time to get ready for tomorrow's back to back campaigns with my two classes! I have decided to return the wargames to my ABMA class (after depriving them of it for quite some time) and my AC class will resume our usual clash of armies as they both integrate quizzes within the entertainment! Now that's what I call edutainment.

With that I bid everyone goodnight, and I pray none of you get scared badly by the lightning and thunder tonight... if ever it will rain hard *giggles*

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Eleven: Plurk and Legos

Greetings to the Blogosphere! My apologies for my sudden loss of contact with the blog world, as I suddenly got myself tangled into a very interesting social networking site... the online timeline of life called PLURK!

What is plurk, you say? Well I may have been one of the most backward / delayed people to tell this now (as the rest of my friends and blog mates have already blogged about it more or less), but it is an online timeline of your activities (and quotes) and through a vast social network you can also see what your friends and mates are up to (thinking, doing, wanting, whatever!), and all in real-time at that! That means you can actually relate to most of what they are doing or thinking and enjoy a healthy conversation.

It actually does a lot of miracles and transcends social networking and discussions as people know it. It's a unique design and I will honestly admit I have been hooked into it!

For a sample of how the system of Plurk works, you may visit the Gamer at Heart plurk at http://www.plurk.com/user/terranova18

Moving on to my next interest for this week, I recently procured a small Lego Train that I bought as a Lego Creator brand - one of those designs made by someone then submitted it to the Lego world as a formal design. Well I started out with the train since I found it interesting to revive my old likes for the Lego System, and guess what? After several more purchases my little collection has started to expand with three additional racer cars from the Lego Racers brand!

I really can't figure why I suddenly got engrossed to Legos again after all these years - maybe it's a second childhood bursting inside me, I suppose. Or maybe it's the wanting to build a personal collection - you know that typical thing people do that involved collecting something as a part of a "collection" per se - coins, stamps, etc. Maybe this is what I am eventually destined to devoutly collect and showcase like a display or an exhibit. LOL

That ends this rather hurried post I suppose. The Plurk-verse is demanding its attention as I am getting unread replies from other plurkers. Later!

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Ten: All Dolled Up!

Wow! What a night! It has been quite an eventful evening for us instructors as we joined quite a thick number of students last night in the school auditorium to watch one of the grandest fashion events that has traditionally graced our school for years - the search for Mr and Ms APJMA 2008!

As I mentioned, the auditorium was packed tight with students, guests, instructors, and even alumni graduates as we all watched a spectacular display of fashion and beauty in its finest with the program theme "Barbie and Ken: All Dolled Up!". It's quite a catchy theme to have as well, given the fact that those two names had been the most popular among the throngs of children and girls all over the world who are into dolls (although it was mentioned there that they had broken up after a 48-year long relationship. LOL)

With such a theme in mind, the contestants - two of whom were my students in class - paraded with a showcase of dolly outfits that made the audience howl and cheer with delight and support. I must say that they were all quite lovely last night and as the host says, it was fortunate that no one among them nor the audience was made to judge such an event, and I'll have to agree - with the way the program went, it would be quite hard for just anyone to judge who the winner would be!

Moving the discussion to my two student entrants, I was glad and proud to say that both of them made it into the final three in the Ms APJMA competition - 2nd runner up and 1st runner up! You don't get that much students in your life so I was quite fortunate to have them in my classes :D - there's the Barbie Princess and the Million-Dollar Barbie. Quite interesting names, no?

The Barbie Princess dressed up rather fashionably (after half-dragging me and my friend down Gloriettas 1 and 4 just to look for a suitable dress and asking us for opinions at that) and also won the award for Ms Congeniality, meaning to say that she is one person that can easily be approached or befriended. Well I can say the same - she even strikes a friendly relations with us instructors! - well that part may be because we had been friends with her since our last year at the same school as students LOL. It's too bad she didn't get the best in theme wear though. I guess our fashion opinions really sucked! XD

Now the Million-Dollar Barbie, as I now fondly call her and will continue doing so until Monday's class next week, got the award for Best in Formal Wear, as proven by the pearly-white sheen of her formal gown that seemed to radiate across the half-darkened auditorium like a beacon of light. No, really the white gown took me with awe since it was quite well-made for a person of her posture (and she carried it quite well too!). Match a similar white choker on her neck, and it completely accentuates the title I gave her - had she been a true barbie, she'd be worth a million dollars! XD

I guess that's what culminates this week's post! If there's one thing I'm sure of by the end of this week, it's this: I am going to enjoy having my classes next week. >:D

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Ten: The Haunting of Tomorrow

Weeks pass on and quite a long time has already elapsed since the first day of term. Everything seems like a long and distant memory as I now recall everything I had done on those early days - meeting my students for the first time, conducting my first lessons, handing out my first activities, and giving my first exams. And now we're on the tenth week, with barely four last weeks remaining until the first trimester rears its ugly head and the college shifts tides to the next term.

As my students progress to doing their pre-registration of courses for the next term, we Instructors have also taken to noting what subjects we want to take for the next term - from schedules to subjects as per our availability and capacity to teach. It's actually a convenient thing to let us choose since it enables us to select subjects that are suitable for our working schedule (especially for part time ones) and at the same time perform some... erm... hidden agendas.

Next term, I've noted what subjects I desire to take up, and most of them are IT-related subjects as expected. Although I've tried my best to avoid subjects that are situated at the 8:00 range (seeing that I very nearly end up LATE whenever I attend those subjects, even as a student LOL), sometimes it cannot be helped when the subjects you want to teach are at those times. I am also waiting myself if my request to another department would be approved so I can also handle subjects that are from that area of education. Oh, how I will love teaching next term!

I call this post a haunting, since the future holds quite a lot of interesting surprises for me. Not that it's THAT surprising anymore, since I already have a vague notion of it happening. Hahaha!

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Nine: The Campaign's Onslaught

It has been such a while since I made my last post, as apparently I somehow contracted a queer sickness over the past week and since then I had been unable to conduct my classes properly, often ending up in fits of coughing much to my own displeasure and annoyance. Then it swelled up into a fully-fledged fever over the weekend and I was forced to stay at home, chained to my laptop and DS because of my body's yearly dues: health-wise dues, that is.

Thankfully it's all behind me now, and as I face the ninth week of my students' education (I cannot believe we already are in the ninth week! It all just seemed so yesterday that I first entered a classroom as an Instructor!), heavier tasks and challenges are at hand for them to discover.

As of the moment, my mind is still indecisive as to whether I should or should not present the new setup of the wargames to my ABMA class. It is not that I am judging classes, but I feel that these guys of art are more to putting their attention to other matters that are - shall we say - a little less trifling. Therefore it will still remain on hold until I find a suitable moment for them to reintroduce such an activity.

My AC class, however, remains as rowdy as always. With the introduction of the new setup of the wargames, they are now quite keen on banding together and destroying the one new enemy that has stood between them and a Finals Exam exemption - me. Oh yes, the wargames has made a completely different turn and everything now focuses on the class beating their Instructor in a battle of wits, strategies, and teamwork. Oh how I love this activity!

The new motif of the wargames shall follow a campaign-wise structure, with the entire campaign split into several maps, each requiring a certain degree of teamwork and strategy aside from the expectedly required fact that everyone has to be prepared for the questions to occupy territories in the map. With new twists and turns, I'm sure tomorrow's campaign will be yet another interesting challenge, with probably a resounding cheer.

I wish I could say the same for my SSE class, but I'm afraid programming comes with a really hefty price, and the challenge of building programs by themselves has already set upon their eyes now. I've laid their Finals Case Studies before them today and as much as I do not wish to group them, I feel it best that they learned from one another more than they learn from their Instructor. It is the fate, I guess, of every CSIT student to be more self-reliant than dependent on what their Instructors can teach them. It's not enough learning from one's teachers; sometimes your classmates, friends, and even parents and seniors can assist in cooperative and constructive learning exercises.

Whew, that's quite a mouthful! Well, I will be seeing everyone tomorrow in class. Enjoy the IT Week!

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Eight: The Point Halfway Through

Hello once again to the small number of devout individuals who maintain a steady relationship with me and my little blog here! It has been a grueling and most trying week for me, and up until now I am already up to my neck in things that I need to get done.

To start things off, my duration of employment in Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) has formally ended as of last Thursday, July 17, 2008. With that I bid farewell to the company that has contributed quite a numerous amount of experience to my career in web design and development and I hope that future endeavors might cross my path with it again. It might not work out as things are now but I hope the future holds better opportunities. Of course, I pray I don't get tangled up in a mess if that is to happen again, though. Hahaha!

Regarding my classes, I have just finished administering and computing most of my classes' midterm grades, and they should be getting the results by the coming week. I must say that most of the class generally made it through with flying colors, albeit there are some who were just within the acceptable ranges and quite a few who - shall we say - made it at any rate! XD

The Midterms finally closes its curtain with that event, and as I move on to the Finals I hope that my students would continue their good work and maintain the grades that they will acquire for the latter part of the term. The Finals is always the most difficult half of any trimester and it is also the time when the Instructors go all out - all out in giving grades and also all out in taking them away >:)

Well, it will just be a short post for today as I haven't any interesting thoughts to add yet. Keep yourselves posted everyone! :D

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer

Class Week Seven: The Midterm Week

It's quite interesting to note in the post title for today that we are actually halfway through the entire trimester. How fast time flies, and how fast indeed when the classes are having fun with their studies! :D

As it is, let me share my lamentations over the end of last week and of the entire weekend. I actually failed to watch a movie today (supposedly Journey to the Center of the Earth) thanks to the overwhelming fatigue that settled me in - I was on a table-top role-playing session last Saturday and thus I ended up oversleeping for six extra hours today. I barely get any time to rest with my work and all *sighs*.

But that is beside the point. Instead of checking my students' papers tonight (which I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUSYING MYSELF WITH INSTEAD OF THIS), I figured to devise better means to reach out to their comfort zones and make the class more interesting for the later part of the term. The Finals is supposed to be the difficult hurdle since it will determine if you can push through to the next term subjects or not.

Allow me then to smooth out here my plans for my classes - to my avid students who might be reading in from time to time, here is a sneak peek:

ABMA83 - Due to popular demand, the wargames will be retained. However, there is a n additional activity that you guys can busy yourselves with (and hopefully enjoy doing it too), and it will involve a little of your exquisite... er... talents.

AC81 - Ah, the hyperactive class. Never have I seen a more rowdy bunch of students to deal with since my student days itself! But I do not take favorites guys, note :P. As it is, being devout supporters of the war, I am retaining the wargames as a continuing class activity, but this time around there shall be a twist. More details will follow once the Midterm exam lapses.

SSE81 - Of course no one misses out an equally rowdy and amusing class! For the Finals, I had mentioned that I will be setting group activities for everyone to work on, and that path will remain so for my programming students. I pray to promote cooperation and teamwork among you guys as it is necessary to survive in the School of Computer Science and Information Technology.

Mmm.. interesting. Let me share a small anecdote: Our Instructor in Software Development actually favored collaboration of ideas and concepts - the concept of Knowledge Sharing. Eventually we (the ever-hopelessly-enthusiastic SSE41) opted to put a new definition to Knowledge Sharing... whenever we copy one another's assignments. LOL!

And, yes, back to the discussion, I am going to issue a Midterm exam. It may take place either Wednesday next week or Friday next week, whichever is most convenient for everyone. Not to worry, I pray it will not be as hard as hell, hahaha.

With that, I bid my students goodnight as I head off to bed to sleep - or play with my DS a little before I do so. XD

~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer