They shudder up and down as the host throws itself flat out on the mattress, as it has persisted in doing every single night despite the protesting creak of the springs. The host’s parents bends and kisses it with a smack on both cheeks, coos “nighty-night,” and finally shuts the door. Almost instantly the host is asleep, the shackles fall, and they are free.
“Why?” The one on the right shoulder shakes his dark head, casually letting a few strands of hair fall into his eyes, “Every night. Why?”
“It’s an expression of Love,” the one of the left flutters her long lashes, “she adores him.” She draws the word out between her heart-shaped lips: ah-dooo-ahs.
The one on the right rolls his eyes, accompanying them in great, exaggerated circles with his head. The same lock of hair falls, unintentionally of course, into exactly the same place. He stretches expansively, reaching on arm to the right, “couldn’t give us a light, could you, daah-ling?”
With one movement of her delicate, manicured hand she flicks the tiny cigarette away, at the same time embarking on a fit of very genteel coughing. “Graham,” (gra-ha-aaam), “why do you persist in that filthy habit? You’re only killing yourself.”
“Teacup Devils don’t die, Selma. Just like teeny, tiny angels.”
At this remark, she pulls her shoulders and neck up as high as they will go, even rocking slightly forward onto her tiptoes
“Look at you, darling,” Graham continues, forcing the sweetness into his voice, “you’re… glowing. Do you really mean you can’t spare one little spark to make your long-suffering co-worker not quite so miserable?” He smiles, a biting smile with only half of his mouth turned up.
“Yeah,” she gives a light giggle, “I’m Good, honey, not Nice.”
“Come on,” he isn’t giving up on this fight so easily, “you’re always telling him to be nice,” Graham jerks a thumb at the sleeping host, whose shoulders, out of habit, both he and Selma are still resting on.
“Well, we don’t always act on our own advice to him,” she smiles winningly straight at him, the first time they have made eye contact at all this night, “do we, Graham?”
“What are you implying, darling?” He is gently amused, but his eyes are still fastened on the cigarette lying beside Selma’s foot, “You’ll never catch me being decent when nobody’s looking.”
Selma abandons her sweet, wide-eyes smile and laughs with genuine amusement, “You’re constantly telling him to go and get laid, and, you must correct me sweetie, but I don’t remember you doing that anytime recently.”
Looking down at his feet, or the shoulder between them, he blushes bright red, but as he lifts his head to glare at her his eyes catch the cigarette still resting just barely out of his reach and he forces his face into what is at least an approximation of a smile. “Ha-ha-ha,” his laugh comes out even colder than usual, “got me there. In fact,” he pauses for a minute, grinning his odd, half-smile again, “When was the last time you saw me do anything really bad?” His eyes flick to her face, and he goes on, cautiously, “In fact, you might say that my only sin really is…” he looks down at the cigarette.
“Honestly,” she laughs yet again, this time a little uncertainly, “you’re not going to convince me to let you smoke because you’re such a good person, are you?”
He sighs, and rolls his eyes again, “Oh, I suppose not,” he sits down, peering around the neck at her, “Please.”
“Graham!” She picks up the tiny, white tube and throws it as hard as she can away from her. “No.”
Graham watches it roll across the polished wood floor several feet from the bed. He grimaces, defeated, and turns away from Selma to stare at the wall. But in a few moments he turns back, and, just like every other night, they begin to talk.

Hi, everyone! My name is Danielle, but just about everyone calls me Dani. I am an English major (considering adding Communications as well), and part of the Digital Cultures and Creativity Honors Program.  I live in Queen Anne’s Hall with many of the other DCC students and love it there!

I am from Bel Air, MD, a Baltimore suburb about an hour north of campus. I went to C. Milton Wright High School, and there I took many Honors and AP classes, played the flute in band, performed on the dance team, wrote for the school’s newspaper, and wrote for and edited the school’s literary magazine.

Here on campus, I am continuing my love of dance by dancing on the University of Maryland Dance Team!  We perform with the marching band at football games and basketball games.  We also perform a special routine at Maryland Madness.  Dance Team is a lot of work, but I absolutely LOVE performing! It’s a great way to show school spirit.  Plus, it helps keep me in shape and forces me to organize my time efficiently.

I really enjoy reading and writing (hence the English major), and would love to be a part of the publishing industry when I graduate. Being surrounded by books and having a part in editing them and getting them ready for publication would be the coolest thing ever!  Authoring my own story one day would also be really great!

I wanted to take this class because I love the art of storytelling.  I’ve loved stories ever since I was a little girl, and was constantly writing little stories and coming up the the craziest, most elaborate scenarios.  So naturally, any class with “storytelling” in the title would capture my eye! Plus, it seemed really interesting and I thought it would compliment both my English major and DCC.

I chose the Snuggles bear as my avatar because my dance team friends gave me the nickname “Ms. Snuggles.”  They say that I have a really warm and sweet personality and that I brighten their day!

So excited to get started!

Hi, my name is Angela Wei and I am a computer engineering major. How that came to be I am not really sure. I love drawing, painting and reading. I guess some time in high school I realized I enjoyed doing math problems and programming, too. However, once I got to college, I noticed half of my brain had possibly melted. Mortified, I quickly took action to salvage what was left and here I am now sitting in an impressive green room/garage intimidated, but pretty excited.

Both of my parents are from Shanghai, but I was born and raised here in Maryland. Being able to visit China is a gift I am so glad to have. I also have a younger sister and a cat named Amy. I trip over my own feet far too often and when I’m not running into tree branches I like to stare out the window and think about the funny world we live in. I love all things Harry Potter and Avatar (not the movies), and one day I hope to be a part of something that will bring everyone together. I also enjoy dark chocolate and ice cream.

Hello/Privyet/Guten Tag/Sawasdee khrap everyone! (pick the language you prefer to be greeted in)

My name is Jason Robinson, and I am from everywhere. I was raised in a military family, so I have spent approximately 15 years of my life living everywhere except here! I have attended school in Moscow, Vienna, Frankfurt, and Bangkok, so I’m really excited to have a guaranteed 4 years living in the same general area! Here at Maryland, I am transitioning from the school of music to the school of engineering (makes sense, right?), and I am trying my darndest to be a civil or electrical engineer. I’ve been playing trombone since 5th grade, so music has been a consistent part of my life throughout all the moving around my family has done. This is the reason that I chose my avatar to be a picture of me in the band room practicing my horn; music is a huge part of me and I think that my avatar represents that.

My extracurricular activities revolve largely around music as well. Here at College Park I am a member of the 250-strong Mighty Sound of Maryland! I march trombone and have loved every second of it – performing at football and basketball games is a blast and I really enjoy being able to combine my two favorite things, music and sports! I am also a member of the Gamma Xi chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi, which is a music service fraternity on campus. I am a huge Orioles and Ravens fan, so it’s great to be rooting for two teams that are finally having success again.

For this course, I am mostly interested in the concept of machinima – I find machinima really fun to both create and watch and I look forward to learning more about how to use the genre effectively. I have been previously exposed to Red vs. Blue and various community-created Source Filmmaker videos, so machinima is a tool that I had already been interested in, so I am excited to learn more about it.

Hey my name is Megan and I’m an Architecture major, which makes me awesome! I didn’t really have any desire to be an architect until senior year of high school so there’s no exciting life-long dream story there. I live in Queen Anne’s with a majority of the DCC kids and I never want to leave!

I’m in this class because I think creating houses/buildings/stuff is kind of like telling a story. You start with a basic idea, add and remove details, and play with the aesthetics until you create a unique and memorable experience. I believe that all art and creative works tell stories and each “author” has a unique way of getting his story out into the world. I am excited to learn new ways to share these ideas through digital technologies!

I chose the Lorax as my avatar because I see myself as a kind of Lorax, and not just in terms of environmental consciousness. When I feel strongly about an issue, I feel that it is my duty to speak up about it and give a voice to those who have none. When I believe in something, I give it my all to educate those around me (as some people have seen on Facebook). I hope that this class will help me to express my beliefs in new and creative ways.

Hey guys, my name is Sara. Even though I am in the DCC program I do not live with everyone in Queen Ann’s. I live with FLEXUS, another living and learning program for woman in engineering.

I am a Fire Protection Engineering major. People always ask me how I came to choose this major since it is so small and relatively unknown. When I was younger I liked to mess around with fire. When I first leaned that there was a whole field of engineering dedicated to fire safety I became very intrigued. UMD has been a great place to fuel my interest in this major.

Outside of school I always enjoy a good day at the beach, especially when the sun is really hot. I also like roller-coasters and roaming around DC with friends. My absolute favorite food is Watermelon. Oh, and I love my family!

Because I really love watermelon, I will make my avatar a picture of one.

This is a memory.

The puppy became our new best friend. He’d run and we’d run. He’d get this fire in his eyes and sprint off in spirals and circles and make us dizzy. He was fierce. He was wild. He was loving. We watched “Marley and Me” and he barked his head off at Marley and Owen Wilson. He chewed my favorite hat. He changed us – my sister talked more, my dad talked more, my mom reveled in comfort. He was our missing piece. Our puppy.

And as I go on into the future as a journalism and government major at Maryland, this memory – stories – sticks with me. My puppy as my avatar tells me to remember my past and my heritage, my present with two homes in College Park and Mason, OH, and my future. Wherever that might be. But for now, I’m just me. I love writing, the news, reading, newspapers and news organizations, food, the Beatles and going new places.

I can bring solid InDesign knowledge and basic Photoshop and Illustrator skills to the class. I also know WordPress pretty well and enjoy taking photos – some of which turn out satisfactorily.

I’m excited to learn more ways to think about writing news in this class – I want to be a political reporter when I grow up – but also to explore that persuasive and fiction side of me that gets locked up behind all the journalism sometimes.

My name is Kat Averell and I am an English major here at UMD, and here at UMD is somewhere I am super glad to be this fall. You see, I spent this summer working two jobs and that was an exhausting if monetarily rewarding experience. Now, I could go on with a few random facts about my life, but I think you would get a better idea of what I’m all about if I explain why I chose to take the class.

I’d like to draw your attention to my icon, that odd and slightly eerie blue dot to the left. That is the star Vega–or more accurately, a mid-infrared image of the debris disk around Vega. I’m fascinated by astronomy, particularly the cultural associations and myths attached to the stars and constellations. The stars have been our most widespread and constant inspiration for literally the entirety of human history–doesn’t that just blow your mind? The stars are something that nearly every human that has ever been has seen! Looking at the similarities and differences in the myths across cultures and over time is a study in the wonders of the human imagination. In Chinese legend, Vega and the other vertices of the Summer Triangle tell the story of a weaver woman separated from her family, while the ancient Greeks placed the star in a constellation of Orpheus’s lyre. Meanwhile, the ancient Egyptians and Indians, and later medieval Europeans, all associated Vega with a vulture or eagle. That we so consistently take the abstract and mysterious and craft from it order and emotion–in short, stories–is to me the greatest thing about human intellect. Storytelling is the very foundation of culture and consciousness, and that’s why I’ve made it my mission to study it. I’m very excited to start exploring digital forms of storytelling as a new canvas for the oldest art known to man, and look forward to spending time in this endeavor with the staff of MITH and my good DCC friends!

Hi everyone, my name is Greg Baroni. I am a 20 year old sophomore hailing from Potomac, MD currently studying to become an Aeronautical Engineer and a member of the DCC Beta Class. I play and watch football and baseball and practice several facets of Mixed Martial Arts. I am kind of shy, but really enjoy being around people, helping, and listening to them talk about the things they are passionate about. I love my family, which consists of my wonderful Mother and Father, younger sister and brother, and my puppy Lily. I am a fan of the New York Giants and Yankees, Legos, Halo, and the color Red.

I chose to base my avatar on a picture of Master Chief from the most recent installment of the Halo series, Halo 4.  I am a huge fan of the Halo series and wanted to pay tribute to the series that inspired me to join DCC by including it in my avatar. The black and white coloration was an edit I did because when these colors are juxtaposed with only one another, they provide a distinct contrast and highlight some details of a design that may otherwise go unnoticed. It allows one to gain a greater appreciation to how much went into a design when the more subtle intricacies are more apparent. On a more generalized note, I wanted the avatar to remind and encourage the viewer to look beyond the superficial elements of designs before making an evaluation of their quality.

On a more personal note, will be using the Halo series as a focal part of my Capstone project; I will be aiming to design as much of a game, my take on Halo 5, as possible. The finished product would include a detailed script, complete with player and AI dialogue, cutscene sequences, descriptions of environments, sketches of key items and characters, as well as other supporting elements. Giving my take on a game was something I had always wanted to do, and I chose this class because I believe it will aid in the creation of the script, and help develop the plot into one that is truly memorable and noteworthy, not just a cliche, run-of-the-mill progression of events. I have very much to look forward to in this class and cannot wait to get started!