I'm Addicted to a Video Game.

Yep. It's true. I'm addicted to a stupid video game.

So in our house we watch sports.... A LOT. We both love sports- not a bad thing. Well I kept seeing these commercials on ESPN for the game Be the Dean. And all I could think about was, yes, please. Well what I have to say is thank goodness I did not find this game while I was on maternity leave because I don't know if Connor would have gotten fed. (ok, seriously, he would have- but it's that addicting.)

Let me back up, I work for a college. I've worked on now 5 different college campuses. I've taken a class called College Environmental Theory where we literally studied the mission, culture, environment, space planning, and structures of college campuses. So of course this game would appeal to me because you get to build a college. It's like SimCity meets colleges. You have to increase enrollment, build residence halls, and the town around it. It's kind of like my job simulated into a video game. And to top it all off, Joe has a good friend who works for ESPN's video game division and helped create the game. (Mike's so sweet- he sends me all these codes to get cool stuff on my campus) :-)

So about 3 weeks ago I ventured to the website to check it out. And that was it. ADDICTED.
This is a list of how I know I need to stop.

• I sneak downstairs at night before bed to make sure I can collect money and enroll students. (I really don't have to sneak- but it feels sneaky.)
• I wrote Mike a facebook message asking him to change the dorms from the horrible "d" word to residence halls. (if you don't know dorms are where to sleep, residence halls are a place you live.)
•  It's on my computer in the background all day.  
• I am literally making decisions based on what my students might think. Literally this is what I thought today as I was trying to raise money in increase spaces in my academic departments- "you can't sell the coffee house where will the students study?" "that food place is in such a good location to the halls, the students need somewhere to eat" "don't sell the dance club- where will they go out on a friday night?!"
• I currently don't have enough spaces for students to go to school and live on my campus and I have no idea where I am going to get the money to change that.
• I seriously thought about getting a credit card where the prize was not a t-shirt or duffle bag but 350 campus cash dollars I could use to build more stuff. 
• I thought about how to use it in a class to help teach masters students about student affairs and managing college campus. 
• I really actually considered that these decisions I'm making are as significant as what a college president does each day.

REALLY!!????


At this point, I need to give up and walk away. Seriously walk away. It's only a game. (but what will happen to my students?!)