Entering the last three weeks of my Ph.D..
21 days of work if I want to meet the official deadline of October 1st.
I’ll be exhausted by the end of it, but it’s also one of those times where everything is connected. The smallest break immediately brings 10 ideas that I rush to write down. It’s also a kill your darlings-moment: I see all the brilliant flashes of insight that I can’t put in my Ph.D.; it’s unlikely I will have the time to explain why Auerbach’s Figura enlightens us on the interpretation of Super Mario Sunshine. The small amount of procrastination that I do get done is conveniently spent playing relevant games. Real procrastination is then to play irrelevant games, though my mind picks up strange connections anyway.
I am past Tim Henman and Jim Courier in Virtua Tennis on my NTSC Dreamcast, 4th seeded in the world, but beating King is really, really hard. This was meant to be a pure waste of time, but I’ve already written about how Virtua Tennis is a stylized simulation of real tennis in that many aspects of the real sport has been removed: You can’t leave the court; the player automatically positions himself for a smash. And is it cheating to quit a game in career mode if it’s not going well or should you play it to the end?
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My name is Jesper Juul, and I am a Ludologist [researcher of the design, meaning, culture, and politics of games]. This is my blog on game research and other important things.
Good luck on finishing up the PhD and getting to the next level in career mode.
Hello Jesper! For what it?s worth: I have just started on my PhD (august 1st) (on literary hypertext and hypertext reading) and I really looking forward to reach the situation/stage that you are in the middle of. The tension, the rush and the enormous feeling of being productive.
Good luck!
Hans Kristian