Video Games

The guys across the hall from me always play video games, and often times I can hear it through my wall. Usually, they are playing sports games and 1st-person shooter, which doesn't bother me because I'm not a big fan of those types of games. But recently, as in yesterday, they started playing the N64, Super Smash Bros. , Pokemon Puzzle League, and the likes. And that really does bother me. Those are games I used to play and it really makes me really sad that I no longer routinely play video games. (Those two games I listed, believe it or not, are the games I still play when I go home. Although, I don't own the N64 Super Smash Bros., so I play the gamecube and wii counterparts.) I really am tempted to just go home and borrow my sister's Nintendo DS and play a classic Pokemon game (a remake of course, since, although we still have the original games, we don't actually have the devices (portable version at least) to play them.).

Part of me just wants to go across the hall and join the boys in their video games. But I'm not going to. One, I don't want to intrude. Two, I'm not really friends with them. It'll feel awkward just heading over to play. And three, college guys seem to give off the aura that girls don't play video games, i.e. they don't invite you to play. I could be totally wrong though. At home, I grew up playing video games and all my guy friends played with me. I could play with the best of them. I had game systems and we would take turns playing at each others' homes. We would also borrow games from each other. I never felt awkward being a female gamer. But now in college, it's different. I am game less. I feel I have nothing to offer. I'm also not interested in playing the current video games, which I feel puts me in the stereotypical girl category that guys assume can't understand video games.

Oh well. It's not like I have time to play, anyways. The only video game I play nowadays is Tetris, and that's because it's really convenient, and sometimes I just really want to procrastinate. Someone I know once told me that college is usually where most girls stop playing video games. He said that girls don't make time to play like guys do, which I guess is kind of true. (This man by the way is damn smart, he did his master's thesis on how video games help kids learn math.) I have never thought I couldn't do something because I was a female. But now, although I still believe I can do anything, I wonder.

Also, is it a stereotype that engineer's play video games or is my RA just into video games? I ask this because for our bulletin board, we've had two themes thus far: Pac Man and Mario. Or is there a correlation between the two? Or maybe as my friend suggest video games does help students learn math, and as a result capable math students become engineers. *shrugs*

Princess Peach is at the top and the barrels that Mario is jumping over are courses we have to take.

I never got a chance to take a picture of the actual Pac Man bulletin board. This will suffice.