My Word Coach hates me

I’m a word nerd. I like words and I like word games.

In January or February I used a Best Buy certificate from Christmas to buy “My Word Coach” for the Nintendo DS. Since then, I’ve done the various word games on most of my commuting days as well as some others.

My word coach has different drills for spelling and vocabulary. These are meant to build your “Expression Potential,” which is stated in terms of a percentage. I forget where I started those many months back, but I had recently worked myself up to an expression potential of 99%.

It took a while to get to 99%. Each higher expression potential seemed to take longer to achieve. The move from 98 to 99 took months. But I’m a person who likes to finish things. I had to see if I could get to 100%.

Because it took so long to get from a 98 to a 99% expression potential, I knew it would likely take a while to get to 100%. A friend questioned whether it was even possible to get to 100%. “There will always be a time that you can’t think of the right word.” That made sense to me, but the game gave no indication that I was done. It told me that I was nearing a new Expression Potential. So, on the train, on the bus, I kept playing.

During the last week, the coach within my word coach has become increasingly negative. The artificial intelligence behind the games comments has never been as good as “Brain Age.” I would sometimes be lauded for a horrible round or derided for a pretty good one. But over the last few sessions it seemed that I got negative feedback for everything. My coach questioned whether this was important to me, whether I was taking his advice, whether we had a communication problem. Over and over he expressed his disappointment. Still, I assumed that this was just a coincidence. I played on.

But today something else happened. Something bad. After completing my daily word quota and being chided for each exercise, I was given my current expression potential. I’m so used to seeing 99% that I barely noticed that it said…98%! I had lost a point!

The game made no comment on my demotion. Granted today was not my best day in terms of performance, but I’ve certainly had worse. But never before has my potential gone down! Has my performance degraded so much that I no longer deserve a 99% expression potential? Or, did the game designers not anticipate someone trying to play to the “end” and I hit some sort of glitch?

As frustrated as I am to have lost progress, I sort of want to see what it will do next. So, yes, I will keep playing. At least for a while.

Just tell me when

I like schedules. I not so obsessive-compulsive that I can't work without a schedule, but if I am given a date and time, I take that to be firm unless told otherwise. I make other plans based on the given date and time, which is why it is frustrating when that date and time turns out to have been tentative at best.

I also tend to relate specificity with rigidity. If you tell me something is going to happen in August I'm less surprised if it happens in July or September than if you said it would happen on August 15.

This is a particular problem when submitting plays. Some theatres don't say when they'll respond. I'm actually okay with that because I don't have any expectations. Some theatres say they'll respond within three-months. I'm not surprised if three-months turns to five. In any case, I'm always happen when I hear back. Even if it's a rejection I know that at least I can mark that inquiry as closed.

Festivals, however, are when I can get frustrated. Unlike an open call for scripts, a festival is usually a scheduled event. Assuming it is a legitimate festival that is actually going to happen you know that the scripts need to be chosen before the festival date. At least there is an end in sight. but with timelines come expectations.

Because there is an end date some festivals also state dates for other milestones, such as notifying the winners. If that date passes I assume I am out of the running. However, theatre peoples don't necessarily work like project managers I have on occasion been surprised by a festival I had written off that notified me late. (Maybe someone else pulled their script. Maybe they were just late. It's hard to tell.)

Because the notification dates may not be as firm as implied the best way to know that if you are definitely out of the running is to look for a formal announcement of winners. If the winners have been announced and you're not on the list, you know you're out. (Actually, one time that's how I found out I was in. I had already checked the web site before my director got around to notifying me.)

This brings me to my present frustration.

I submitted to a festival to which I thought I had a good chance based on the theme and other restrictions. The web site said that winners will be announced publicly by the middle of August. As a result, I thought that the winning playwrights might be notified before then (early August), and perhaps they were. But now it is the 19th, and I'm getting impatient.

The definition of "mid month" is admittedly variable. Perhaps it means the middle third (10th-20th). Perhaps it means the middle two weeks. Perhaps it means the 15th plus or minus a certain number of days. Regardless, they are still potentially "on time." But I know how these things work. As the middle of the month becomes the end of the month there is even less certainty about when an announcement is made (other than before the festival, which is still a few months from now).

Honestly, I'm more annoyed than usually because I've been holding off on travel plans in case I end up being in this festival. Thinking I would know (either way) by now gave me a reasonable amount of time to plan. As days pass I think that I should just make my plans, but my fear is that I'd get the "good news" the day after booking my trip.

I should be more patient. But I just want to know!

Great Minds

Great minds may think alike, but coming up with the same answer as someone else doesn't mean you think alike. It could be luck or coincidence or you could have copied off of their paper. Coming to a correct answer doesn't make you a great mind. It just makes you correct. Once.

In Junior High I got good grades in Geometry, much to the chagrin of my teacher. You see, I never could remember the formulas. Still, somehow, I could force my way through with the formulas that I did know and come up with the correct answers. I couldn't be accused of copying because we had to do the proofs. My proofs clearly showed how I came to the answer. Each meticulous step. You see, when you know the correct formula your proof may only take a few lines. When you don’t know the correct formulas you can get there but it takes 10 times more lines of proof.

I got a good grade in Geometry, but that doesn’t mean I’m good at math. It just means I passed the class.

You can pass a lot of things, but it doesn’t make you a genius.

Greed

One aspect of our currently shitty economy that really bothers me is the mortgage crisis. I hate the greed of the banks to approve huge mortgages without even check people's income. I hate the greed of the people who needed homes that were obviously out of their price range. Sure, a lot of people got hurt when the home value decreased or when when they got laid off. They could have planned better, but it was largely unexpected. Others couldn't pay when the variable interest rate went up. They should have better understood the deal, but they couldn't have known exactly how high the rate would end up being. But others admit that they couldn't pay the mortgage to begin with. What were those people thinking? The only explanation to me is greed and materialism. They wanted a nice house and were too blinded by that desire to think it through.

Today, I read this story in The Washington Post. Apparently, the biggest home built by the TV show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" is being foreclosed on. How could that happen? The family didn't have to pay a mortgage. They were given money to pay the property taxes. They were even given money to put their kids through college. They should have been happy and financially stable. Why then the foreclosure? Well, apparently, they used this gift home as collateral on a $450,000 loan that they now can’t pay. Pure Greed.

Now, I must admit that I’m a quite the consumer myself. I’m often buying stuff I don’t need. I’m trying to be better about that, but it’s how I was raised. With stuff. However, I was also raised not to go into debt. I use credit cards, but I pay them off monthly. My car is currently paid off, which is why I don’t intend to buy another for a while. Sure, I used to have a mortgage. (It was pure luck that I sold before the market crashed.) But I had bought a home that was no bigger than what I needed (an 800 sq. ft. condo) with a mortgage payment that left plenty of extra income for other expenses as well as discretionary spending. I always “pay myself first” by having retirement and other savings pulled out of my bank account before I even see it. I have lots of clothes, but few are designer (unless bought used or on serious sale). I have a modest car.

I’m not a good representative for minimalism. (Something that, largely for environmental reasons I’m working to change.) But I can be an example of living within my means. And I'm proud of that.

Too many people look at debt as a fact of life. I like to look at debt as a last resort for something important that I couldn't otherwise have right now: an education, a home. And even then, just because I can get a loan doesn't mean I should take it. If you are going to sign up for a 30 year mortgage you should start by making a rough financial 30 year plan. You say you can't think that far ahead? Then you shouldn't be taken on debt beyond time periods you can imagine.

People say renting is throwing money away, but those people must not be looking at the truth in lending page of their mortgage document. Interest payments are throwing money away too. At least with renting I can walk away with 60 days notice.

Shameless Self Promotion: Silver Spring Stage One-Act Festival

My play "Claire's Departure" will be performed August 21-24 as a part of the Silver Spring Stage One-Act Festival in Silver Spring, Maryland. The play premiered at the 2007 Pittsburgh New Works Festival.

Silver Spring Stage 2008 One-Act Festival information

I guess I’m a Bikram convert

I started doing Bikram yoga about 3 weeks ago. Hot yoga. 90 minutes in a 105 degree Fahrenheit room yoga. Despite recommendations to use my new member unlimited pass to take class 4 times a week to start, I only go about twice a week. I like it, but days I go to Bikram have little opportunity for anything else. I work all day. I take the train to the studio. I work out. I shower. I take the bus home. By that time is 9 PM, and I’m exhausted. I make myself a light dinner and go to bed. Still, I like it. I’m just not obsessed with it.

Or so I thought.

I had a Dramatist’s Guild meeting on Monday, so I went to Bikram on Tuesday. It was a good session. Normally I struggle to get even during bow pose, but on Tuesday I got a long even extension. I felt good. I cleaned and repacked my yoga gear and brought it into work with full intentions of going Wednesday night as well.

Wednesday was a busy day at work. That sort of stress is the sort of thing that’s nice to follow up with something as cleansing and relaxing a Bikram is for me. (After it’s over that is. At the time it is not relaxing. It is hard work.) Still, I was tired. Plus it was extremely rainy, windy, and nasty when I went to work. It was a pain getting to the train. I decided that I just wanted to get home.

But when I got home, I immediately regretted not working out. I decided to do one of my old yoga DVDs. I couldn’t find it. I think I’d loaned it to someone. My husband handed me one of the yoga DVDs he got from his sister, so I decided to give that a try. I had to stop after twenty minutes. It was just too annoying. A lot of slow, sleepy, “focus on your breath” stuff. Long repeated sequences always returning to downward dog. Boring and slow and cultlike. (The guy and his followers were all shrouded in white.)

I was upset at myself for skipping Bikram. I was still tense. I did 10 hard minutes on the Versaclimber until I sweat almost as much as at Bikram. I took a shower. I felt somewhat better.

The nice thing about not going to Bikram was being able to spend the evening with my husband. We watched a movie. We drank wines. These are the things I don’t like about nights that I don’t get home until after Bikram.

However, last night taught me what a significant impact Bikram can have on how I feel, and the converse reaction to skipping it. I wish I could go tonight, but I’m going to see a friend’s show. (It’s having a life that keeps me to 2 Bikram classes a week.) But I’m going tomorrow morning before my 4th of July plans. Would it be easier just to spend the morning sleeping in, watching tv, and making my pasta salad? Of course. But I will feel so good for going to Bikram I can’t resist. I guess I’m addicted.