Author: drfrank Page 3 of 5

Throwback Thursdays

On March 8, 2018

freedomlogsnap I started blogging way back in 2005 and was fairly consistent until I completed my PhD in 2014. My main blog was Freedom Log: the musings of a pastor swimming in the deep waters of political theology. That was a fairly apt description for me at that time. A lot has changed, I am no longer serving as a pastor and while I do consider myself a political theologian, I think I’m somewhat more than just a political theologian. I thought it would be a great exercise to look back at my blogging career and comment on how things have changed. Freedom Log still exists, although I no longer post any new content there. (I will simply use links for those interested in the old posts.)

Let’s start from the beginning. My first post was called “Starting Out…” and gave a brief introduction to myself as a (then) new blogger. I had previously published articles on my personal website (I was an early adopter), but the site no longer exists except maybe in a way back machine.

In my first Freedom Log post I start by describing my role as senior pastor for Freedom Vineyard. Freedom was the second official Vineyard in Ottawa, Ontario and my wife and I currently attend the third official Ottawa Vineyard. Our own church closed a few years back after a good run of 10-11 years (depending on how you measure it). On the whole there is a lot I celebrate about our pastoral work, but there are also a lot of things I would do differently today. Pastoring is not for the faint of heart. I still love encouraging other ministers and do a bit of relief preaching around the city. But we have moved on from traditional pastoral ministry and my main focus these days is my teaching career.

When I talked about my theological interests of course I mentioned my favourite theologian Jürgen Moltmann. That is still true, I am definitely a Moltmann fanboy. My doctoral work put Moltmann in dialogue with evangelical eschatological theologies. I was tickled to see that 2005 is when I first read The Crucified God. I am reading this text again as my Lenten devotion and am amazed at how many ideas in my own theology owe themselves to this text. Some things don’t really change much.

Then in the post I try to sum up a bit about my diverse interests:

I am also a gaming buff – fantasy role playing, miniatures, etc. A philatelist – even though having little kids makes it hard to pull out my albums to work on that. A book collector with something like 500+ titles in my growing theology library. I am also a bit of a hack musician playing guitar, harmonica and a bit of keyboards. I sing also, but really should take some lessons. I have done a bit of song writing but nothing published – another area I still need to work on.

I am still a huge tabletop gaming nerd. In fact, I run the same biweekly D&D (now using Dungeon World) group that I ran in 2005 and now I have another regular group that meets up to play boardgames almost every week. Additionally, I regularly run games at local conventions and most recently have been exploring the educational use of games. I recently did a short presentation on using ethical role playing games in theology which I’ll have to post about here.

I am still a philatelist, but I find that I have a lot less time for stamps these days. Stamps are a great activity for when you want to think deeply about something. Personally I need to do something to occupy a certain part of my brain to be free to ponder, this is simply how I am wired. For example, I read best while I am pacing. When I do pull down my albums it is because I’m doing some thinking work. However, the hobby I spend more time on these days is carpentry.

Carpentry is something I’ve been interested in for a long time but had no easy way to get into. In our old house I had a small workshop, but it wasn’t really a well planned out space, and my workshop was so small that I could not work on an large projects or work with large material. One year I did build an easel for Freedom Vineyard using pre-milled lumber from the Home Depot and treating my friend’s drill press like a router (sorry Tom). The easel turned out quite well all things considered. I remember buying my first table saw although it sat barely used until we bought a house up the street and decided to spend the summer renovating our old home. That was when I got to know my friend Robert Sykes who is still a student at Saint Paul University. Robert is a real carpenter (master carpenter actually) who offered to help with our renos. I learned tonnes and have since gone on to help him with some of the historical restoration projects that he does for a living. I’m on my second (better) table saw and longing for a real shop saw. I have inherited and bought a lot of tools and am learning how to maintain them. I’ve even started to do some maker videos. Carpentry is now my go to hobby when I want to do some serious thinking.

office from window My book collection has continued to grow, by about a 1000 titles. I do try to keep the collection under control, purging out the books that no longer serve me. It is not an easy task though as I think of my books as old friends, many of whom have advised me well through the years.

Finally in terms of music I am still most competent on guitar. Additionally I play hand drums at church (with harmonica when it fits). I did not have regular access to my keyboards for a few years, but now that I am in my new office a keyboard is set up all the time and I’m slowly getting my chops back. I’d love to get a keyboard with weighted keys, but it is hard to justify that kind of expense (my tastes in keyboards are unfortunately a bit pricey). I still haven’t published any of my own music, nor have I taken any singing lessons.

So somethings change, but much of it stays the same. This is what I expected. I do imagine that much of my thinking on specific subjects has changed so this thread of posts will be a great chance for me to see just how much my thinking has changed.

Norms and Narratives

By drfrank

On March 7, 2018

In Spirituality, Theology

1009182_10151711017229666_438046983_o Sometimes I hear God in the conversations I have with friends and family. It is like there is an overarching message, something God is trying to speak that challenges me. Because of this I tend to pay attention to the kinds of conversations I am part of and what might be the message that I need to hear. The last couple of days have been filled with conversations about what we can and cannot say to each other. In some ways it is Taylor’s soft-relativism that stilts our conversations, but I think there is more to it than just getting caught up in political correctness gone too far. (Political correctness is really about respecting each other and making space for the other, but when it goes too far it is about being afraid of offending each other – offence will come, but that is not an excuse for being a jerk.)

I was watching the very first episode of Kim’s Convenience with my nephew, I thought it was a great story where fun is poked at the misconceptions we straight people have about queer and gender-queer people. My favourite scene was the dad’s interaction with the drag queen named Therese which starts out super awkward but Therese hangs in there long enough to recognize that the question was an honest one. This led to a conversation about what kinds of questions are acceptable. I love it when a sit-com can spark a serious conversation.

We mainly talked about relationality as being an important approach to understanding each other. But the issue that I felt God was highlighting for me (and had come up in a few other contexts) was the effect of narratives in creating the norms we are subjected to. When we interact with others, we tell stories about them. I’m not talking about gossip, but the internal narratives that help us to reconcile their place in our lives and our worlds. Those stories are not always healthy. For example, racism internally makes sense to a person because it fits their story about what they feel is normal. So a racist person is more prone to confirmation bias regarding the stories they internally tell about the other. I think this is part of what happened with John Stackhouse’s recent uncareful words about settler-indigenous relations. I’m not saying John is racist, he’s definitely an important voice in evangelicalism today, but his comments on this particular issue required a lot more care than he gave them. (EDIT: Since I crafted this post a moderated conversation between Terry Leblanc and John Stackhouse has occurred, it is very helfpul.)

Unfortunately the worst offenders are those of us with privilege. This is a product of our narrative frameworks. We are taught as North Americans that the end justifies the means and that being successful is the most important thing. We are also told that we alone are responsible for our success. All of this is toxic to our social nature as humans. When we believe these things we become blind to the way our privilege underwrites our success. We miss the ways that our narratives are constructed to exclude the other, especially the other that dares to take pride in their exception to our norms. We want to guard our success so much that we have to de-normalize the other. And eventually we close off the spaces where we might have real conversations that could lead to real understanding.

So my answer, and I feel this is evolving, is that we need to strive to challenge our own narratives by becoming self-aware and by giving normative space to the other. Let me unpack these ideas.

Self-awareness is not easy. Our narratives are what holds our sense of self together. We tell these internal stories not for the other, but for ourselves. These stories are how we understand ourselves and how we navigate our experiences in life. So to deconstruct or even critically examine these narratives feels terribly risky. I once likened this self-deconstruction to pulling the core of my self out to dissect on a table. I’ve taken a few university courses that actually invited me to do such a thing. When our selves are laid bare like that, we can feel like we no longer know who we are in the world. That is a terrifying feeling. But when you’ve deconstructed and then reconstructed, something gets better within us. We somehow find an ability to hold those narratives a little less firmly and we allow our horizons to expand.

I’ve also watch many a friend refuse to deconstruct until life forces them to deconstruct painfully. I have a dear friend who has been in the throes of this kind of deconstruction for years now and it is painful to watch. He’s got bigger horizons in some ways, but he is far from the man I once knew. I think many of us are good at holding back that kind of turmoil, but I am not convinced it is any healthier than having the rock of reality fall on us, crushing us completely.

The second aspect is only really available if we are willing to continue the work of self-awareness. This work is creating normative space for the other. By this I mean that we become deferential to the other by allowing for their sense of what is normal. Notice I’m not saying accepting. My wife and I have taken this approach with many friends who suffer from depression, accepting their view of normal isn’t often helpful, but giving our friends space where they do not have to justify their experience is priceless. It is about being willing to lay down the defense of our own norms so that the other can have the breathing room to find their feet and take their own journey to self-awareness. But that journey isn’t something we can make another, it is simply something we can help them make space for. This is also really hard work and things like depression are not easy to overcome. But not having safe spaces makes that even harder.

What I’ve discovered is that I do not always agree with what others find to be normal, and I might have good reasons for that. But mostly my reasons have to do with me and not with the other. So trying fix the other is simply an exercise in alienation. What is a better course is to allow the other, and their stories, to challenge my own narratives and let me grow as a person. This changes the narrative from isolationist success at any cost to a humanizing creation of community where difference is not a barrier, but something that we see as an opportunity for all of us to grow as people.

The image is another Richard Dufault photo, I love the quizzical look on my face as I’m reading a boardgame manual. I think questions are good.

Sometimes I Crack Me Up

By drfrank

On March 6, 2018

In Carpentry

So I put my second maker video up on YouTube. I wanted to have a second camera running to capture the details of what I was doing, if that footage had turned out I would have been able to put together a really decent video. As it was I ended up with a hilariously painful (think Ricky Gervais awkward) video of me fixing a lamp. I should probably script some of my maker videos because my off the cuff commentary is not always helpful and I often get technical specifics wrong. This imprecise way of talking is quite the opposite of the scripted talks I do for teaching. But that off the cuff approach is what has me doubled over in laughter whenever I watch my videos. It is like the realization of a cooking program I always wanted to make called “My Messy Kitchen: Cooking in Real Life” where I cook in the chaos of living with (then) young children and where the meals sometimes turn out amazing. The key word is sometimes.

I’m still learning about the process of editing these videos. This time I threw up the video I made only to realize that the rendering process cut off much if the text I had added in. I have a fixed version, but by the time I had re-rendered the video I already started getting comments. A couple of the comments are priceless: One person wrote that they were 1 minute in and the lamp was still broken. I’m not sure if I can just swap out the video now.

Watch this video at your own risk, it has funny bits all the way through, but it does drag on towards the end (it picks up again if you can persevere). This video is a pretty accurate account of how I do most of my carpentry/fix-it work. I start with an idea and just run until it is realized or I realize I cannot complete it. Sometimes it works out awesome, other times it fails. But almost always I enjoy myself. And, yes I do talk to myself when I work.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vUFEXCVE9k&w=560&h=315]

The picture is the finished lamp project all ready to be mounted on the wall in our dining room. Sharon is very pleased.

Inter-religious Work?

By drfrank

On March 5, 2018

In Theology

A funny thing happens when I’m asked what I teach at the university. I’ll say theology in general and often have to correct the assumption that I’m a Biblical scholar, I am not. But when I talk about the courses I teach and mention grad and undergrad courses on ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue that is when things often get interesting. If the person asking is an evangelical, which is my tribe, then you often get the sidelong glance or their attempt to inject that I must mean some sort of apologetic approach to other religions (by which they usually mean why our religion is the right one.) Leaving aside that I’m fairly critical of contemporary apologetic approaches, I thought it might be helpful to talk about why I believe inter-religious work is so important.

We Live in a Plural Context

The most basic reason why inter-religious work is important is that we live in a plural context. Unless we make herculean efforts to shelter ourselves and our families we North Americans cannot help but see the diversity around us. I really appreciate that my own kids are in the public school system and have very diverse friends. They are prepared for the challenge that pluralism brings to life. We’ve had to navigate food restrictions, meal blessings, and even the ways that religion can be toxic (some of their friends live heartbreaking realities). In fact my kids have interacted with both good and bad representatives of many world religions, so they are not naive about the functional reality of religion. The good examples help encourage their own religious questing and the bad examples show them what they do not want to be like. Pluralism is a blessing as well as a challenge. However, just because pluralism is our reality does not make inter-religious work an imperative, it just means we are limiting ourselves when we choose to pretend it does not matter.

Our World is Full of Problems Bigger than We Can Address Alone

Another approach to establishing the importance of inter-religious work is to look at the scope of problems we face in our world today. Ecological issues, human trafficking, racisms, fundamentalisms, are just a few of the big issues that we face today. No one religion is up for the task of dealing with these issues because the issues themselves spread out to all of us regardless of our religious orientation. Even though our religions can also get caught up in the systemic aspect of injustice, they also contain tools which allow us to confront those injustices. Thomas Berry taught us that we cannot solve the challenges of our day with religions in their current forms, but we also cannot do it without them. The fact that we need to cooperate to address the challenges of our day is a crucial reason to pursue inter-religious cooperation. However, I am convinced there is still another reason that makes inter-religious work personally compelling.

We Grow Best when we Spend Time with the Other

It is through inter-religious conversations that our faith grows the most. It is exactly this sort of attitude that gives my evangelical friends the most pause. One of the unfortunate aspects of our evangelical heritage is a tendency to see other religions in an adversarial light. So when I make the audacious claim that having deep meaningful conversation with folks of different religions it is understandable that I face some resistance. So let me explain. I’ve included a video that I used in a grad course on ecumenical and inter-religious work. It is part of a series of short videos that were meant to pose provocative questions preparing the students for a weekend learning intensive at the university. I’ll refrain from assigning readings, but I will encourage you to give the video a watch.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eV-dRj07xk?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

I am blessed with a diversity of friends, including a few deeply religious friends who happen to not be Christians. I love conversations with these friends, especially because none of us are afraid to talk about religion and even to talk about our own personal faith. There are two things that happen in these conversations.

First, I come to respect and understand the depth of character these friends have, especially those who take their religion seriously and live it out in the world around them. There are always bad examples of every religion, the news is full of them. But having relationships with non-Christian friends of deep faith has opened my eyes to the ways their religions can be a force of good in the world. I come to love and appreciate them even more as they share those things that are precious to them.

The second thing is that I am personally challenged through my relationships with my non-Christian friends. Seeing the faith of the other moves me to examine my own faith. For example, as I listen to stories of the hospitality of Ramadan I am reminded, and share, about the beauty of Jesus’ table fellowship with his followers. Additionally, I am pushed to question how my own Christian faith encourages me to be hospitable. It is when we deeply examine our faith that we learn better why we are committed to our religious faith. Personally these relationships challenge me to ask what that means to call myself a Christian. These relationships inspire me to be as faithful a witness to my friends as they are to me. It is in this deep, examined faith, that I grow most as a Christian.

So here is my question for you: do you have friends who truly challenge you with their difference? I would love to hear the stories.

The video and slide are from my 2016 running of THO5108W: Christianity and World Religions offered at Saint Paul University, Ottawa.

Dread Review (re-post)

By drfrank

On March 3, 2018

In Gaming

11707494_10155836841970145_1046464270554890796_n Note: This review was originally posted on my old Jovial Gamer blog. I will move a lot of that content over to this new blog but in light of yesterday’s post I thought it fitting to include sooner rather than later. If there are games you would like to see reviewed let me know in the comments. I am always interested in trying out and talking about new games.

I’m a huge fan of the horror genre in gaming. The Call of Cthulhu RPG is a staple in my gaming group. One thing that is hard to do in a horror game is achieve a consistent sense of tension. Dread does this brilliantly by using a Jenga® tower (or reasonable facsimile) to resolve every risky move. Every pull from the Jenga® tower is full of tension, and this tension builds with every twist and turn in the story.

I’ve had a chance to not only play the game, but to run a few games. Using the 13 scenario as well as a couple scenarios I have developed myself (Madame LouLou’s Haunted Wax Museum, Arctic Fight or Flight) I have sent a couple different groups on suspenseful gaming romps. When running 13 I was amazed at how much fun the group of teens had even as their characters were being brutally slaughtered, animated clown doll riding a spider anyone?

In Dread your character is all narrative, you simply answer up to 13 questions about yourself (the character self you want to play). Based on these questions, known to you and the GM, you have the parameters for engagement and integration into the story experience. The last question is always, what is your name? This approach should give you a hint that this is not a statistics based system. In fact Dread runs more like a scripted Fiasco.

The game is broken into several acts. Each act contains its own set of dangers (where the players need to make pulls on the tower) and clues that move the story along. While there is often a happy ending that is possible, it is not likely to happen for the bulk of your players. But that is what makes this game charming. Each act has scenes, basically set-ups for little story happenings. For example one of the scenes in my Madame LouLou’s scenario involves a description of a room (enough to make them want to look around) and then an event that when it happens puts one or more of them at risk. The final act usually has some sort of showdown with lots of danger but also the possibility of a satisfying resolution.

The one drawback to this system is that Dread eliminates players. When you topple the tower your character is eliminated from the game in some way. A good storyteller will find ways to keep them engaged in the story until the end (especially the player who dies first). But this requires imagination and confidence. The Dread manual is a veritable smorgasbord of tips to help run a great game and is definitely worth the purchase even if you just steal the ideas for other games. I highly recommend picking up a copy of Dread especially if you are new to high-concept role playing games (those are games where the gamers are given broad concepts over specific tactical moves).

Likes: Best horror role playing experience ever.
Dislikes: There are a lot of ways an inexperienced GM could create a less than satisfying game experience, this is probably not the game for every group.

Fun: This is story telling indie role playing at its finest. With the right group the game is hugely fun and satisfying.

Quality: The rulebook is excellent, the game itself is simple and contained on a four page cheat sheet downloadable from the Dread site, but the rulebook gives you 92 more pages of pure role playing gold.

(re)Playability: The scenarios are not easily replay-able. There are only four official scenarios available. I’ve found a few online so they are out there, but this means creating your own scenarios. Fortunately, this is not too difficult. It requires a bit of work though. At conferences I aim for three hour one-shot sessions which basically works out to three acts. I wrote the bulk of Madam LouLou’s in a day, but a full day. This game is not really conducive to campaign play.

The picture at the top is from running 13 for my older daughter’s friends. I’ve since run other Dread scenarios for these teens and Elyssa has developed a few she has run herself. Testimony to how great a game Dread really is.

Safety in Gaming

By drfrank

On March 2, 2018

In Gaming

10393686_10153056519594666_7596765948625093144_n One of the things I appreciate about role playing gaming is how it can create a space for everyone to let down their guard and enjoy telling a great stories together. I was quite disturbed to read about Mysty Vander’s experience at her local gaming convention. (Here and a follow-up Here.) I felt furious reading about how Mysty was treated, but not at all surprised. I think my lack of surprise is the part that bothered me the most because I have run into the kind of jerks who belittled Mysty at gaming conventions and even in local gaming groups. As a cis-white-male I am never the target in the same way as Mysty experienced, but I have felt the unmistakable arrogant response to misunderstanding a rule or choosing a non-optimal move. The bottom line is that people who devalue the experience and contribution of others are a big problem in gaming and really have no place at the gaming table. Gaming is one of those hobbies that celebrates diversity and creativity and it should be a safe place for all people to have fun and feel normal no matter what other turmoil is going on in their lives. No one can let down their guard and join in a great story if they feel unsafe.

cangames-18

I am planning on running a number of games at CanGames this year. Always on my table you will find an X-card. John Stavropoulos’ X-card lands on my table whenever I play role playing games with new groups of people. What the X-card does is allows any player to redirect the story should they feel uncomfortable with how it is unfolding. I’ve been using the X-card ever since my friend Jason Pitre introduced it during a running of Dread. He dropped the X-card within reach of everyone at the table and told us that we just needed to touch the card and whoever was telling that part of the story would simply adjust the details away from whatever was triggering the gamer who touched the card. In fact it did get used that game. Dread is a horror/suspense RPG that brilliantly uses a Jenga tower instead of dice to resolve situations. It is a fantastic game, but it can be somewhat dark at times. Jason was describing a harrowing escape by a player and mentioned that the big bad took a swipe and ripped their clothes. The player found that a bit uncomfortable so they reached for the X-card. Jason masterfully re-framed the scene and omitted the ripped clothes part. It was an easy fix, but had there been no mechanism to know that player was uncomfortable their experience of the game and even the convention might have been spoiled. Better yet, no one at the table felt off put by making that one player feel safe. In fact I think seeing the X-card in action was liberating to the players, allowing them to let down their guard and lean into the story. Personally, I’ve only had the X-card used once at my own table in several years of gaming with it, but every now and then I do need to re-direct the narrative a player starts to weave. The point is that there are always ways to make the gaming experience safe and inviting for all.

The last comment I’ll make about Mysty’s experience is that I have observed that often the worst offenders are those gamers who feel marginalized and socially awkward outside of their gaming community. For some twisted reason they take the acceptance of the gaming community as permission to make the gaming experience unsafe for others. All of us at the table are a bit insecure. All of us have some degree of social anxiety. All of us arrived here because we found acceptance and camaraderie. When we do not pay the graciousness of the gaming table forward when we make the experience unsafe. I happen to think that creating safe accepting spaces is worth fighting for. I want my gamers to feel safe enough to let down their guard and enjoy telling great stories. I want them to have a space where they do not have to justify their existence and participation, simply wanting to be there is the price of admission. So if you treat people with disdain at my table please expect to be asked to leave.

The picture above is me running Dungeon World at a local gaming convention, I am pretty sure this is from before I discovered the X-card. I love the diversity of players that end up at my gaming tables. The photo was taken by Richard Dufault.

Writing Papers Professors will Enjoy Marking

By drfrank

On March 2, 2018

In Theology

paper marking As a theology professor I end up marking a lot of papers. The process is not really that difficult – however, a poorly written/formatted paper can take me three or four times as long to evaluate as a paper that follows a few simple rules. Believe me, there is nothing to gain from making a professor work hard simply to determine if you understood the concepts enough to pass a paper. In addition, as I often teach first year courses, I do take it on myself to help students write well. So I thought I would capture some of the more common problems that I run into as a head start for students wishing to get great marks.

1) Read The Question

Nothing makes marking more difficult than when a student ignores part or all of an assigned essay question. Before I mark even one paper I will take the assigned question and create a rubric or marking scheme. This rubric will include all the key concepts – dividing up the points for the demonstration of understanding for each concept. What a professor is trying to determine is not how creative you can be, but that you are able to understand and to articulate the concepts from the course.

A great strategy to demonstrate having read the question is to make an outline and to check each part of that outline against the question. An outline should be a series of simple sentences ordered to accomplish a goal. The outline also dictates what you should include in your introduction and conclusion. The introduction tells the reader what you are going to do and the conclusion sums up what you actually did in the paper. An outline not only keeps your project on track, but it can be checked against the question to make sure that you are covering all of the points needed and not spending time on points irrelevant to the question asked.

2) Write Academically

Writing an academic paper is about expressing precision and clarity. The language you use is an important part of being precise and clear. Good writing is actually hard work. It involves thinking about each sentence and asking if the sentence demonstrates adequate understanding of the subject.

One common problem that students run into is missing steps between ideas, how does one idea get you to the next? In the paper this looks like they have shifted topics mid-paragraph. The thing is the arguments are connected in our heads, but we simply push them out onto the paper and sacrifice clarity. Nine times out of ten I can ask the student a few question and find out they actually know how the ideas connect, but at that point the paper has already been marked. Remember a professor can only mark what is on the page.

What works in casual conversation will not work in an academic paper. For example, it does not matter how many articles you have skimmed online about Karl Barth, you are not on a first name basis with him. Think formal and handle the ideas in your paper with respect. Most professors have invested many years of hard study to deliver their courses, so how you set the tone of your papers matters.

Here are a few common writing problems that should be avoided in formal academic writing:

Do not use contractions.
Do not assume your clever turn of phrase will convey the meaning you intend, write plainly what you desire to communicate.
Avoid gendered language when talking about humanity.
Avoid gendered language when talking about the Divine. The big problem here is that we do pay enough attention to the language we use, especially when talking about God. I have no problem with choosing certain god-talk language based on carefully articulated theological reasons – but no undergraduate student has this luxury. (If you want an example of how to articulate a justification for gendered god-talk Miroslav Volf makes such a case in Exclusion and Embrace.)
Check your spelling and your grammar. If you are not using a modern word processor many of the schools have student writing services that are there to help you improve your writing skills. Even after you do satisfy the word processor’s spelling and grammar checks, it is always a good idea to read your paper aloud to make sure you have the right correctly spelled words (bellow and below are both spelled correctly, but mean very different things) and that your grammatically correct sentences say what you actually intend for them to say.

3) Cite Strategically

It is really important that you cite any material that you use. However, many students seem to believe that citing is for direct quotations. I actually discourage the use of a lot of direct quotations. It might well be that the scholar you are citing expresses an idea far more elegantly than you, but direct quotes do not demonstrate your understanding. A better strategy is to put those ideas into your own words and then cite the source. By integrating the ideas into your prose you demonstrate your own understanding of the ideas.

4) Use The Style Guide

And on the topic of citations, please use the Style Guide for your professor’s faculty. I realize this can be a pain, but not much is worse than a system of citation marks that does not do what they need to do. In the faculty of theology where I teach we use footnotes (Turabian/Chicago) which allow me, as the reader, get right to the page you are citing from to see how you drew the conclusions you have drawn. Yes, we do use those citation marks when we evaluate your papers. The Style Guide will also tell you what kind of front matter is expected, proper font type and size, as well as how to construct a bibliography for large papers. As a bonus, the faculty usually chooses a citation style based on its journal, so if you write a paper that a professor feels could be turned into a publishable article you will not have to spend time reformatting your paper for their journal.

5) Spell Your Professor’s Name Correctly

I know this one sounds a bit strange, and perhaps it is my vanity speaking. You should know that most of your professors are at least a little vain. So getting their name right sets the tone you want when they read your paper. Sometimes it is the little things that can make the biggest difference.

This is a post I’ve been meaning to finish for over a year now. I plan on doing some videos about academic life and work. One of the things I enjoy most is seeing students grow in their understanding and ability to communicate that understanding. It is a beautiful thing.

The picture is from a recent bout of marking for the course on revelation and faith I am currently teaching. No identifying details remain, but my name is spelled correctly.

Coding with my Daughter

By drfrank

On March 1, 2018

In General

codecapture I’ve really been enjoying helping my oldest with her high school computer programming course. I’ve been teaching her some of helpful tricks like tracing variables and talking about how computers actually work (it all comes down to peeks and pokes). I am rediscovering that there is something quite enjoyable about putting together a piece of code, something beautiful about well written elegant code. I’m a bit out of practice, but it is like riding a bicycle. I love the thinking aspect of trying to find a simple, yet compact way of doing a task. Of course her the project is super simple, she’s making a program that lets you play hearts. Tonight we will work together on a few of the next functions she needs to code – I’m going to code a different card game, something similar but different enough that we can work out the ideas and she can implement them in her own way after.

EDIT: This morning I was looking through my code and it struck me that this would be so much simpler with more advanced programming concepts, but the challenge of restricting myself to what Elyssa has already been taught is quite fun. I went with a game of Crazy 8s

Satisfied Shelfie

By drfrank

On February 23, 2018

In Gaming

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It has been a really big week! Big in the sense of getting a lot done but still feeling like there’s a heck of a lot left to do. The great news is that I finally have a new game room, my old game room will become our TV den and we’ll actually be able to use the fireplace. Yesterday my Ikea order arrived and this is the larger shelving space which I have dedicated to larger boardgames. There are about 30 or so large games up at the cottage that will eventually have a home here (at least when they visit). I have another unit that is half this size which is currently full of role playing accessories and small games. It looks disorganized right now so I’m thinking I’ll put doors on most of the cubbies to clean up the look. I also have a book shelf that is full of role playing games, everything from indie RPGs to Dungeons and Dragons (3.5 and 4th). The only thing I do not currently have space for is all my Injurious games terrain and miniatures, I will have to get creative for that challenge. I am thinking that I could build a bench with storage that will pull double duty as seating at my gaming table. The other idea is to build an insert that will slide into the back of my desk, I might even build both because storage is an issue at this point. Even if I purged my boardgame collection I will not have logical space for big pieces of terrain in the gaming room. Also I need to think about where to put our big Dominion box (currently on top of the RPG shelf). Sharon thinks I should build something to let us hang it on the wall, after all it is our favourite game. For now I’ll make due and enjoy building a solution in the summer.

So tonight we will try out the new gaming room. I am looking forward to hosting my bi-weekly Dungeon World game that has been on hiatus for far too long. I still need to clean up some of the painting supplies that Sharon left out, take out the boxes from the shelves, and clean up my old gaming table so that it can be brought downstairs. Oh yeah, and I still have a tonne of marking to do for school. But that should be doable for the day. I’ll post pictures when the room is all set up.

First Art!

By drfrank

On February 21, 2018

In Carpentry, Gaming

IMG_20180220_205816 Another big day and the trim is done! Well almost all done. Tomorrow morning I will caulk and fill in the brad holes. Tomorrow evening Sharon wants to paint the trim that we didn’t have a chance to pre-paint. The most exciting part is that there is no more cutting in the basement, my chop saw is back in the shop. I have a small paint station set up in the hall downstairs, but I swept up all the sawdust and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new shelves.

To celebrate I hung up a picture that my awesome daughter Chelsea drew when she was just starting out. Yeah, she was talented like that from the start. I have another whole wall to decorate when I find the right pieces, but I’ve had this picture in a frame since we started the build in the basement. I think it looks fantastic.

You can bet we will be gaming in this space Friday evening!