The main reason I am not getting work done these days has nothing to do with an impending wedding. Instead, it is...
Scrabulous.
I cannot believe how addictive it is. For those of you still living in early 2007, Scrabulous is an online version of Scrabble you play through Facebook. So not only do you get to play Scrabble (fun!), you get to do so with all of the random friends, semi-friends, colleagues, random people you met at a conference, and even the occasional enemy. Myself, I have developed something of a specialty of losing spectacularly to my friends' boyfriends. One boyfriend beat me 428 to 166. Another boyfriend, whom I haven't even met in real life, has now beaten me four times, usually by large margins.
My losing is not limited to boyfriends. I've been beaten by my mother (twice), by my partner's high school best friend, and by various and sundry colleagues. I've managed to eek out wins against my sister and a few friends, but by and large, I am pathetic.
Why is this? According to Microsoft, the dissertation chapter I just presented to a reading group was about 12,000 words. My largest chapter tops out at about 16,000 words. That's a lot of words. I have one bachelor's degree, two master's degrees, and hopefully a doctorate by the end of the school year. As a teenager I used to read bad poetry at open mics. I read 1984 for pleasure in seventh grade. I was in AP English, damn it! Why am I so bad at Scrabble?!
And so, I keep playing.
1 year ago
6 comments:
oh man, let's not even go down this road...a bachelor's, an MA in English of all things, speak four languages or so, working on yet another master's, F'bright, etc., etc...
am just about the worst scrabbler there could be. so let's not fool ourselves that external markers like the above have anything to do with internal markers like skill. (in fact, some of my most shamefaced losses were to that very sister when she was like 12 and i was in college...)
I was an English major and I stink at Scrabulous. Do you want to know what I think it is? A strange combination of luck and practice. Boo! Let's play again sometime and you can beat me once more.
Yes, you are pretty bad. haha. But actually, I bet it's the fact that you're looking for big words that penalizes you! Scrabulous is all about the two-letter words. But I guess you already know that, since I think I just beat you with a two-letter word. Haha.
I will destroy you. But you will finish your dissertation before I finish mine.
As someone who got their dissertation done at the end of the planned semester I think you'll be okay. I had to delete suduko from my computer eventually, and about 15000 words from the chapter I was stuck on, but it all works out.
Luckily for me, I don't actually like Scrabble.
Oh, I completely empathize with you!! I, too, am rather horrendous at Scrabble, yet hopelessly addicted to Scrabulous. And yet, Must. Not. Stop. Must. Keep. Playing. I did manage to get a 40-point word on "AXE" tonight, though. Yes!
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