Getting Along

It's been a while, so I figured I should drop by and make a post. I just got the last of my grades in today - all As this semester! This is the second time this has happened (though the other time there was a recording mistake and wasn't kept as such, but the prof told me otherwise and that it was her bad, so yeah legitimately it's the first time, but personally it's the second). That made me so happy... and relieved. I've officially made it over the hump now in class difficulty. The hardest stuff from now on will be paperwork and travel to different schools for field experiences. Well, that and sociability. I find it very hard to be able to establish good social connections with fellow teachers when doing field experiences for many reasons.

But it's not time to think about that now. Summer is finally here, and I get my first full day to myself tomorrow since January. Yesteday was my first full day off, but Bethany wanted to hang out all day. Tomorrow, though, is all about me.

I went to see Iron Man yesterday.... it was really good. I also got to see Batman Begins (finally) because my brother rented it.

For World of Warcraft stuff, I've been compiling a list of complaints I have for Blizzard in regards to how the storyline is progressing one complaint and logic fallacy at a time. Seriously, they've fucking ruined the storyline - one of the best fantasy storylines I've come across for a long time (until now), and that pisses me off. But still, Deneb may get his first run of Karazhan tomorrow (well, full run... fingers crossed).

I've also been tinkering with my novel series agian. I'm still not sure of what I want to do in terms of how many stories. I'm thinking of making the tournament and the Forgotten God the same story now, but I'm not sure. I hope people don't think it's taken from Harry Potter... now that I think about it, think of the series alignment story wise. First is the opening stories with mostly fantasy adventure, but in the fourth book, the tournament, things get a lot more serious. I suppose, though, my story will seem as if it ends after the fourth book, so that makes it a lot different.

Anyway, I'm done writing now... I'll babble more later.

The Summer Comith

Well, battle after battle has finally lead me to this weekend. Not counting finals, there is but a single week of class left, and my birthday is on Monday. The only thing holding me to reality is the worry of our group's main page being done by Sunday (he still hasn't said anything about it... troubling), and the research paper for Advanced Composition. I've already gotten a good start on it, two pages and three sources I believe (maybe four or five now that I think about it), and I still have four days off between now and the time it's due. I'm sure I can finish it. The hardest part is, without a doubt, finding the sources. I could talk about my topic - video games and the problems they pose on society - for pages and pages of just opinion, so I'm having trouble balancing it with fact. I've been using a lot of NBC news stuff about psychological studies that show the effects of video games on the brain, and often the violence related to them.

Other than that, though, I'm already making my "to do" list for the summer. One of my goals is to possibly re-write my very first novel entirely. I first wrote it in 2006, and looking back on it, not only have I changed the physics of the world (it's a fantasy world, I've changed certain Gods and magics and whatnot), but now I want the story to go in a different direction almost entirely. I'll be able so salvage the parts I am proud of, but, the primary reason I want to re-write it is because a lot has happened in the past two years. I've done a lot of time just reading and studying literature and writing about it, and now I feel I am far more prepared to write a novel.

I think I'll go tinker with that story some right now. This could be my last weekly post. When summer hits, my blog will probably slip under a few times in importance, but I will try to post every now and then. Anyway, until we meet again internet.

Light at the end of the Tunnel

Yes, yes, yes! I'm almost there!

This past week, I finished both of my research papers for my literature classes, as well as the web page for Advanced Composition, and now there are only two things that stand in my way between now and finals - the Advanced Composition Research Paper, and, the big one, the OGET test tomorrow (state standardized test for Education majors). I'm a little worried about the test... I mean, it is a FIVE HOUR TEST, but all of my friends say it's really easy.

As for the Advanced Composition paper, I've been giving it some thought. There are several topics I've considered. The most interesting I've come up with is the Separation of Church and state, but not purely because of the topic matter. Two and a half years ago in 2005, I wrote my first college research paper over that very subject. Now, I was just curious to see how much I've improved my writing skill by using the same topic. Other things I've considered, though, include video gaming, apathy in society, global climate change, and America's prejudices (perhaps through the 2008 election).

I will say, though, that I'm not going to start on that paper until I'm done with the OGET. To say the least, I've got enough stress on my plate over that test alone.

Well, I do believe it's time to start the final charge to the end of the semester.

*climbs on horsy and pulls out sword*

Wish me luck!

News from the Front

Four weeks to go and the Battle of Spring 08' rages on.

I've taken out everything that is due this week, which included the first research paper of the final three, and the second essay in advanced composition. Last night I finished my classroom analysis, so it's ready to be submitted to my eportfolio right now. I'm essentially left with three big tasks (not counting finals) for this semester; my Southern Women Writers Research Paper (which is going well), and my Advanced Composition Research paper (which... um... isn't going really... hey it's not due until way after everything else so it's taken a bit of a backseat). Of course, the third thing is the OGET test, which is next Saturday, but that's if I even get to take it...

Here's the problem. I've been to the counselors at least four times that I can remember, maybe even more than that, since starting my classes at UCO. It wasn't until this semester in my foundations class, which has a "highly recommended" standing of a junior or higher to take, was I even TOLD about the OGET. I went to register right away, but there was only ONE registration time available before the end of the semester, and that was in April (next Saturday).

But here's the real kicker; I'm enrolling on Monday for next semester, but I can't take the next level of my education courses until I've taken and passed the OGET. Even if I did just wait the week to take the OGET to enroll, endangering my odds of getting ANY of the classes I wanted, that still wouldn't work because it takes a WHOLE MONTH to grade the OGET and get it back to the students, meaning there's pretty much no possible way for me to continue my education courses next semester, which means I may very likely end up being FORCED to take next semester off, or at the very least it is now guaranteed that another semester is being added to my college plan. Congratulations UCO - you may have actually defeated me.

The only possible way I could still "win" is if there happens to be an Educational Psychology course, a quite limited class, still open come this time next month, after the entire college has already enrolled, and it's at a time that doesn't conflict too badly (though hopefully not at all) with my current schedule that will be made on Monday for next semester. Of course, this is the absolute best case scenario, and my brain usually doesn't work that way. The next step down would be that I actually have enough elective credits that need to be filled (fingers crossed) to make a full-time, 12 credit hour schedule, and take nothing but 1000 level courses next semester to clear those credits. This way, I still get to be in school, but it will be officially certain that my college plan is ruined and I'll have to stay longer than 4 years for my undergrad degree. Of course, worst case scenario is that I don't even have enough elective credits for next semester, and I have to take the whole semester off.

I'm probably going to go see the counselors and see if they have any suggestions, but I don't know if I even trust those incompetent boobs any more. Like I said, I've been there four or five times, and half of those times I actually corrected the counselor more times than they corrected me! Not only that, but their complete lack of mentioning the OGET in my "college plan" that they actually sat down with me and worked on! Looking back on all this now, I honestly feel like UCO has been trying to defeat me all along.

Anyway, I've got more work to do, so I'll call it quits for this week before I make myself too mad to work.

Weekend Update

I really don't have that much to say this week. I'm swampped with end-of-semester essays and projects right now. Currently, I've got eight writing assignments out that need to be done, only two in which are completely done. Three of them are research papers which are due in only a week! I hardly consider that the end of the semester!

My plans for this weekend are to get all my lesser writing assignments out of the way, including all my Foundations of American Education work, Essay 2 for this class, all online work for this class (about to finish that up right now), and a journal entry for Ethnic American Literature. That should narrow it to just the three research papers and whatever is assigned Tuesday. I'll be spending all next week working on research papers, because the first one is due at the end of that week, and the second is due the week after (which I'm yet to even start...). Then, of course, there's the project and research paper for this class. I'm not too concerned about the Research paper because it actually IS due at the end of the semester, not the second week of April that other professors claim is the end of the semester.

As for the group project, well, I'm a bit concerned about that

I've got one person in my group who seems a bit pushy. She came up with an idea for the web page, and is dismissing every other idea entirely to promote her own. I'm trying to find some middle ground, but only time will tell if that is possible. To be honest, I don't like her idea. At all. It's making a web page dedicated to charities. It would take a LOT of research, meaning a lot of time, which, as the rest of my post has proven, I have little of. It's not that I'm looking for an "easy way out," but that's just a bit much for me. I'd much rather create a page about something I already know about and am interested in.

Anyway, I need to shower and eat before work, so I'll try and keep updates as this month drags by... wish me luck.

Nostalgia

I loved writing this first essay in Advanced Composition because I love going back to old stories, whether from TV, movies or video games, and applying my analytical skills that I've developed as an adult to them. For the essay, I did the TV show Digimon, and while I was doing research into it I was thinking about how a year ago or so I remember hearing a story about how science is currently working on something very similar to that show. Essentially, in the show, a bunch of computer programmers made computer programs that were programs of artificial intelligence. They weren't simple push button, pull leaver, medial tasks that most programs run - these were actually sentient. Thus, on the TV show, they achieved these programs, and called them Digimon, short for digital monster. Now, I know many science groups are working on creating software that is sentient - capable of thinking and acting on its own. The primary problem posed by the TV show was that the digimon project's funding was cut, and they were forced to delete the programs, despite them being sentient, or even consciously aware of themselves.

Despite the programmer’s efforts, some digimon survived somehow. It never really explains how, but their base programs survived by the effort of the team leader who re-wrote their programs into what is now called an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online Role playing game), giving these digimon a whole world - the world of the video game - to live in. Inside the game, however, as the information was transferred through wireless connections and frequencies around the world, the sentient digimon managed to develop a way to "cling" to but a single piece of bio-matter as simple as a protein or germ floating in the same air as the wireless information that is being transmitted, and digimon were capable of creating biological forms for themselves in the real world. The government caught wind of this and created a top-secret government agency to prevent these "breeches" between worlds, and was moderately sucsessful until, using a program called "juggernaught," this agency attempted to destroy the digital world as a whole, wiping out all the digimon programs all together, including those digimon whose consciousness had taken a biological form (something about the networking of the biological brain still using the digital information). Even as an adult, this part of the series is highly interesting and morally complex. I'd say more, but if you honestly care about any of this, I don't want to ruin any surprises in the story for you.

The Power of a Sour Mood...

Okay, so I wrote that previous blog entry like, not 20 minutes ago, and, if you couldn't tell, I was getting quite mad at myself and my situation. However, after going to the seat of epiphany for a little while (otherwise known as the toilet), I constructed a to-do list for this week. When I did that, I checked all my syllabi and double-checked the information... and I have NO clue where some of that was coming from in my last post. I want to say I heard the professors say something along the lines of 15 page paper or whatnot, but I'm not entirely sure. Either way, here's my to-do list now for the next week:

TODAY
- Register for OGET
- Renew FAFSA
- Finish Taxes
- Fill out shift-switching form for work

Due Tuesday, March 25
- Southern Women Writers: 3-5 page response to either A Still Moment OR At The Landing
- Foundations of American Education: 41 Study Questions
- Ethnic American Literature: Read Dreaming in Cuban
- Southern Women Writers: Read Petrified Men, A Curtain of Green, Why I Live at the P.O., Clytie, Flowers of Marjorie, A Still Moment, AND At The Landing
- Ethnic American Literature: At the very least, come up with Research Paper Topic

To Work On Over Spring Break (Due at end of semester)
- Southern Women Writers: 10 Page research paper over Common Themes in Welty’s work
- Ethnic American Literature: Write a 9-15? Page research paper over a work read in class

Due Sunday, March 30
- Advanced Composition Paper (850 words): Critique a show that you watched when you were younger, exploring how you felt about it then, and how you feel about it now, looking at it from a logical point of view (pointing out fallacies, stereotypes, etc.)

See the difference? If you want a fine example of the power of a sour mood, just go see what I somehow got out of these things in my previous post. This isn't that much related to class, but I just felt like posting it.

For some reason I thought our first essay was March 23rd, not 30th... needless to say that alone has saved me a ton of worry.

A New, not-so-great, Start

Well, I think I can say this week had dragged on and on only to end up at a horribly blunt, painful end. I started off very excited about my new online class, not really thinking about much else, but then the slow reality that is the week before Spring Break dawned on me. For the next week, here is what's on my plate:

Write a 3 page (ish) paper for Advanced Composition
Read the novel Dreaming in Cuban for Ethnic American Literature
Read 6 short stories by Elizabeth Whelty
Write a 3-5 page response over one of these short stories
Write a 10 page research paper over a common theme in all of Elizabeth Whelty's work
Write a 15 page research paper over any work read in Ethnic American Literature
Answer the 50+ study questions for my Foundations of American Education class
Finish Taxes
Renew FASFA
Register for OGET
And work... in a kennel... that boards animals while their families go on vacation (already over booked all week)

That's not even the saddest part. I honestly don't remember when the last time I had a real Spring "Break" was. For at least the past three years I've spent all Spring Break working and writing papers.

Anyway, I just had to get that out of my system... rant over.

The primary reason I'm upset right now is just with myself. I completely missed that part in Advanced Composition about having your moderated discussion topic up and running by Wednesday... I don't know how, I just did, and I felt like slapping myself for that. I can only hope that this is officially the worst of it - like I've been sinking to this point all week (heck, all semester), and once I can manage to dig myself out of the nightmare of Spring Break I'll be past the worst of it and maybe, just maybe, have a somewhat smooth ride to summer.

I've officially spent enough time here and need to get started on that to-do list. Wish me luck.

Sucsess!

I've finished our group's website!.... sort of. The main page is here (http://teamthreespring08.googlepages.com/home), but there's still a few details needed. We're missing two people's individual pages I'm still pretty sure, and a few "touch-up" details just to make it a bit less cut-and-dry, like people adding subtitles to their individual pages. I'll still be sure to e-mail the actual link when it's fully packaged and ready, but for the most part, my part of this project is done (just in time too - I've got two mid-terms and three essays on my plate, not to mention a bunch of stories to read).

As for our reading, I'm quite interested in T.S. Eliot now. Like I said on our class forums, I was first exposed to him when doing research into Charles Baudelaire and all the works / people he may have inspired, and that influenced my first opinion of him, but now I've read some of his full works, and I've got to say... I don't think I've ever been more confused. I'd like to do our final essay over one of his works, but there's just so much to consider, so many possible topics, yet so few that haven't been done already, and that's just over his one poem The Wasteland. I'll try and have some topics picked out no later than Sunday so I can work on it all week (well, that is, when I'm not going mad with studying for mid-terms).

Project Progression

I've started my web page for my class finally this week, and there's certainly been quite the experience in pulling it together.

First of all, I was scared to death by the spectacular failure that is the UCO email system when it suddenly decided to send ALL the semester’s mail into my inbox at once. Seriously, up until now I hadn't received a single post receipt, a single post notification, or anything - I had just been checking the latest forums every day. So, not only did this aggravate me as I struggled to clean out my massive inbox, but I soon discovered that my group had already started the web page project. Despite dinner being ready in 5 minutes, I dropped what I was doing and ran to the forum for my group to post. Immediately I got started on the project, and, thankfully, finished the rough draft in the first night (I just have to actually post it now). It may have taken the rest of my evening, but I got it done. Then, I actually checked my team's website (which took me a while to figure out how to log in...) only to discover only one other person actually has their page up... oh well.

When I actually started doing research, I hit a snag too. I wanted to do a timeline of Frankenstein, starting with a history of Galvanism, but for the life of me I couldn't remember what Galvanism was called. I was half-tempted to go see my old Senior English teacher at Edmond North and asking for her notes on it (that's where I first learned about it when we read Frankenstein). I was forced to go to information source to information source, and, of course, eventually found my way to wikipedia to figure it out. They do have an effective searching system to say the least, with the whole percentage of relevance to your searching words. Well, I tried typing in "animate dead," and only 4 pages came up. One of them was the official page for John McCain... huh. Maybe that's how he's still up and alive?

Now, though, with three assignments out in my Foundations class, two in Ethnic American Literature, the project in this class and our final essay not too far around the corner, I think I've officially hit my first "overload" of the semester. By the end of the week I'm going to try and have my webpage done (hence is why this blog entry isn't exactly that deep - I don't want to spend too much time on it).

"Go away Pip nobody likes you!"

I remember reading Great Expectations for the first time when I was a Freshman in High School... and I hated it. I could never quite put my finger on why, but after re-reading it I think I understand my own feelings towards it a bit more. I do like some of the beginning and most of the end, but I just really don't like Pip as a character in the middle parts of the story. He's just too snobby. I know he has his boughts of guilt and kindness, but in the grander scheme of things, I guess when I first read this story I not only had trouble relating to Pip, but started to dislike him in the middle, longer parts of the novel. Like with any work where I don't like the protaganist, I quickly just tossed it into the deeper parts of my mind and forgot about most of it. Now, after discussing it with some of my peers, it turns out I'm not the only one that dislikes it for the same reasons - Pip's character and the somewhat dryness in the second part of Pip's great expectations. One of them even commented that it's not Dickenson's "best work."

I did get a little curious after reading it and began scowering the internet for information from the character Pip in South Park. I found a list of signs that you're too obsessed with him that I just thought I'd share some of the better ones with the internet.

5. You know every episode Pip has been in, even if he only sat in the background of the classroom.
9. You've tried to sue Curazon and Glazer (director and writer of the new Great Expectations movie) in Charles Dickens name for their plagirisim of the movie.
19. You've memorized every line Pip has ever said.
20. You get worried when Pip doesn't appear in an episode.
23. You petition for some other characters from Great Expectations to join the cast
39. You've petitoned for them to put a picture of the South Park Pip on the book cover to Great Expectations.
42. You cried when you heard Pip was an orphan
6. You warmed up for the school play try-outs by acting out Pip scenes...
7. And this somehow lands you the role of a snobby parent.
33. You start to notice similarities between Pip and Charlie Brown. (Oh, come on, don't tell me you don't see it.)

And they went on and on...

Lastly, I just found the introduction to the actual episode of South Park Great Expectations, which is amazingly accurate to the storyline for the first half or so of the episode (but hey, it was a 30 minute show, they had to have screwed up a 300+ page novel in that short of time)
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=103993&poppedFrom=_partners_yahoo_playvideo.jhtml&partner=yahoo&partnersearch=yahoo.video&_requestid=561941

Enter Victorian

We've only read four works from the Victorian age so far, but I've already noticed a significant difference between it and the Romantic age. The primary of these differences being that all the poems we read this week, at least in moral or meaning, seem to be a bit more obvious, or less ambiguous than the past works we've read. In Say Over Again, it's someone asking to hear the words "I love you" (or something to the extent of that) over and over again, and that they want the person to mean it. The ambiguity / interpretation of this poem seems to be the state of the relationship that the "lovers" (if they even are lovers) in this poem have with each other.

My Last Duchess is an even better example of this, because this poem takes a fairly direct shot at aristocracy and even love, but the ambiguity of the poem lies in what really happened to his wife.

Most of all, The Woman's Cause is Man's seemed to me more like an essay or philosophical scribbling someone wrote down that just happened to be in poetic form than a highly debated poem. Its form is so good, as a matter of fact, I'm not sure I'd be able to say the same thing with the same effect in prose (and believe me, I've tried to write such things about equality and the nature of man).

I don't know if it's my own skill in interpretation that has been improving, if the works really are getting more direct, or a combination of the two, but one thing is for certain - I'm going to be keeping my eyes on the rest of the poetry from the Victorian age to see if this occurs again, and also perhaps troll some other poetry to check my own skill of interpretation.

Stay tuned...

Could We or Should We? - Thinking upon the "creatures" of today

One of the posts I made this week was about Frankenstein in today's world, and how, in recent years, it might actually be returning to its more original storyline. Not only is it more and more people that I talk to seem to know that Frankenstein has been misrepresented, but with the movie-turned-musical Young Frankenstein now playing on Broadway, a story much closer to the actual novel Frankenstein has emerged in popular culture, and not a moment too soon.

Personally, I've classified Frankenstein on my "must read" list for society in general. It is a good story that involves the reader emotionally and logically, and it applies to many present-day issues. Not long ago, I believe I heard something about the nation of Chile distributing selected works of literature across their nation to increase literacy, but for unknown, crazy reasons they chose to distribute Kafka's Metamorphoses. I can't say much to the Chilean culture or how that would be as relevant, but I just feel that a novel like Frankenstein could do wonders for both literacy and intellect. The book does, after all, relate to most any form of science that is currently controversial or otherwise debated. Shelley's novel would almost force involvement on the issue, because in simply deciding how you feel about the characters in the story involves some introspection on matters of what life is and how it is defined, which is probably the core question at the root of stem-cell research and abortion, not to mention other social problems like parenthood.

In the end, there's always one quote that comes to mind whenever I read this story:

"Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

The question of "should we," over the question of "could we" is the one question that is at the heart of all science and experimentation, and could help answer many questions humanity has, just as it could have answered Victor Frankenstein's questions about nature, life and death.

Coleridge's Pirates - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in today's world

After reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, I couldn't help but realize just how obsessed society seems to be with this poem; both in content and message.

First of all, when I was researching the poem, I found a website with 18 different interpretations of various aspects of the tale, if not the entire poem! One website! Some varried in interpretation such as reason vs. understanding, material vs. immaterial, sin vs. salvation, morality vs. egoism, predestiantion vs. freewill, and many others. One argument (Peter Kitson) even argued that the poem was political. Most... bizzare was perhaps the psychoanalytical analysis of this poem that argued the symbolism of it pointed towards an oral fixation and his conflicted feelings towards his mother...

Needless to say, I've spent some time on this website I found (http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~dmiall/romant96/MARINAB.HTM)

Not only in message was The Rime made immortal, but the lines "water, water everywhere" have been heard by everyone and their dog at least a million times in TV shows, movies, short stories and even other poems. Wikipedia alone cites 66 references to this poem under its "popular culture" section of the poem's page! Of course, the most prominent of these references was the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, using the time-lost crew of the undead and the game of hazard, risking one's soul.

Most interesting is what I found when doing research into the "ghost ship." The idea of the Ghost Ship is something I've been pondering about for a long time now, and in my research after reading this poem I learned that the very first written documentation of The Flying Duchman (which does seem to be without a doubt "the" ghost ship in folklore) was actually only a couple of years before The Rime was written, and it was documented by George Barrington in Voyage to Botany Bay. I wonder if Barrington's account of such a ship could have somehow reached Coleridge?

Regardless of where the story of the "ghost ship" may have originated, it certainly has won its way into a spot of immortality in folklore even of today, and considering the exhaulted spot that The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has also been given, I wonder just how much of our vision of this one piece of folklore was affected by Coleridge?

My Garden - Reflections on Blake's The Garden of Love

Of all the works we've started reading in English Literature 2, I can easily say William Blake's The Garden of Love was my favorite, and probably the most discussed in our class. The primary reason I liked it was that it relates to something that my family and I have faced for some time now.

Currently, my family does not go to church regularly. I personally am not a Christian, but the rest of my family is, and I often worship with them. If we do go to Church, we go to my God father's church all the way up in Tonkawa (hence is why we don't go often). Many people simply don't understand how we can consider ourselves Christian, yet not go to Church. At the same time, however, there are countless people in the world (especially those tied up in politics) that seem to use the institution of the Church, or some of the highly strung-out stories in the bible, to define their faith. To put it in simpler terms, many people do attend the huge, mega churches with some 500+ people in one congregation. Others throw religious beliefs into debates of political, legal or logical matters, while others still spend entire lives fighting against the "evils" of things such as Harry Potter and other fictional media.

With Blake's poem The Garden of Love, I can't help but think if these people are missing the point? The Chapel in the poem with "Thou shalt not" written on it just seems to be an embodiment of those who attempt to set strict rules and regulations to being a "standard" Christian, like going to church, specific beliefs, believing one political opinion is wrong while another is blatantly right, and other things.

The Garden itself, however, seems to mean two things at the same time. First of all, it was in contrast to the chapel and graveyard, and at least to one extent represented the core values, or the "point," as aforementioned, of Christianity; Be a good person, treat others well, strive for self improvement, be generous forgiving, understanding, respectful, etc. On a grander scheme, however, the Garden also seems to be simply one individual's own means of inner peace or serenity. It's where their true inner self, their core beliefs and values, flourish, without the restraint of things such as religion, politics, society and peer pressure.

Therefore, it is one's garden, or the garden of love, that is the "good" in one's life. It doesn't matter how much one goes to Church, what their political views are, what literature they enjoy, or any other "standards" that crop up out of the Christian culture that can so easily take over one's garden, as the one in the poem, and the one in question can lose sight of what is truly important.

The Newest Blog

Hello Internet. I'm back with yet another blog, but this one has an actual important purpose. This will primarily act as my blog for my online classes this semester at the University of Central Oklahoma.

In case you're wondering about the title, Dalaran Dropouts, it comes from the Warcraft franchise of books and computer games. The kingdom of Dalaran is the intellectual capital of the world of Azeroth, as well as home of the greatest magic school and practitioners in the land.