I got guitar hero three and started out on expert - already making progress - what i'm psyched about though is that now I have two controllers, both kramer strikers, which are my favorite kind. let the games begin! (my left forearm is already sore from playing)
In other news, "Eagle Eye" is a pretty cool movie - tell your friends.
My folks visited this weekend, and that was a lot of fun - I like getting to see them.

Research subject

With no time left to spare, I have finally decided on a research topic: How does the swing dancing community at Virginia Tech differ from swing dancing communities elsewhere and from those of other forms of dance?
It's a mouthful, and I'm hoping that the work shopping process helps me produce a better way of saying that.

Another dance

I went to another swing dance last night. They did something I hadn't seen before called a snowball. It started with two couples dancing, and the DJ started and stopped the music several times. Every time the music stopped, the people dancing went and got new partners from the group that hadn't yet danced. It was an interesting experience, and it was a lot of fun. I'm still getting used to dancing with so many partners per night, but I enjoy it this way.

News Articles

After much searching, I have found many websites about the history of swing dance, but no recent news about it. I don't know why there isn't news, but my guess is that swing dances happen enough that a dance isn't really big news and nothing revolutionary has happened in the swing community.

My Course Goals

1. To do research on a community I’m a part of that other people can learn from.
2. To learn to “show not tell” even in writing nonfiction and research papers.
3. To inspire people to do research on communities they find interesting based on what they read and feel in my own research.
4. To improve my draft writing so that I write with fewer typos, such that my revisions focus more on improved ideas rather than improved spelling or grammar.

Friday discussion

On Friday, my group had very similar views about the discussion questions. The general consensus was that fact does differ based on opinion, with the sole exception of experimental sciences. The point where we did differ was exactly how much opinion influences fact. In some cases involving reasoned logic based on existing accepted truth, out opinions of fact did differ. We agreed that truth depends on context based on how much of the truth is hold and who the person is. When two experts agree, we all agreed, the best solution is to go with the answer that feels more right to you, or even take parts of both arguments, following your gut feeling. We thought that science and math have right answers, but all other subjects can have more than one right answer or even no right answer. Finally, that everything we know might be changing left some of us kind of scared, others excited, and all of us pondering the idea.

Community criteria discussed in class

• Things we will do with communities
• Site visits
• Interviews
• Library research
• Online research
• News research
• Assignments
• Research proposal
• Essay
• Initiating action project

• Criteria for community to work as a semester project
• Visit-able
• represented
• Documented
• Active
• Historical
• Researchable
• Significant
• Beneficial
• Communicable
• Legal
• Improvable
• Definable
• Credible
• Logical
• Local
• Interview-able
• Structured
• Interesting
• Tangible
• Wide-spread
• News-worthy
• Recognizable
• Educational
• Google-able
• Continuable