Week Night SSB:M

What is SSB:M you might ask? The answer: Super Smash Bros: Melee, one of the best college video games ever invented. You might also ask what about this game makes you smarter? It is not so much the game that made me and my floor mates smarter but more the time we played it. During the first few days of classes at Drexel I had not gotten to know my floor mates very well, I didn't even know the faces of my next door neighbors.
On one of the first few days at Drexel I visited the bookstore, like most students. While looking around at the clothes, Drexel merchandise and other stuff I ran across a college 101 book. I was reading through it trying to absorb as much useful information as I could. One of the pages basically said there are so many benefits to always leaving the door to your dorm open, unless you are studying or changing etc. I went home and did just that, left my door open for most of the day. My friend and I decided to start playing Super Smash Bros on his GameCube. Of course when you play this game you play it for 2 hours at a time, it's that good. During this 2 hour interval, with our door open, we made more friends then we ever could have with any other activity. Kids would walk by, hear us battling, and immediately they would ask us "IS THAT SUPER SMASH!?" and we would respond "Yup! Come in and play." I basically became friends with 5 of my floor mates that day and have continued to hang out with them because of it.
After that one session of gaming we would continuously play this game at random times. We would play in the morning before class, in between classes, and before bed late into the night. This is where I am able to apply to Johnson's logic that things which appear bad for you on the outside are actually beneficial when analyzed in depth. While video games late at night might seem bad to the concerned parent they serve as an "ice breaker" for college kids who are meeting a lot of new people and are looking to establish long term relationships with people they will see often(floor mates in my case). Spending this time in a relaxed atmosphere outside of the classroom really allows you to get to know someone. Johnson mentions in his novel "Being smart is sometimes about doing complicated math in our heads, or making difficult decisions, but an equally important measure of practical intelligence is our ability to assess-and respond appropriately-to other people’s emotion signals.”(99). During those late night video gaming sessions with my friends of 1 week, your emotional intelligence is practiced. When your goal is to establish long term relationships with people you will see multiple times everyday, you need to be wary of what you say, what they say and plenty of other emotions. In all, I believe while there are definitely nights to allocate entirely to work, these sessions with my potential best friends are worth the 30 minutes of sleep we lost and maybe the 2 words of our professor said that we missed.
Until next time, off to get my game on.