I thought the readings were eye-opening, fascinating, and yet complex. I always thought games and play was something that did not need a thought process. However, after reading these articles I realize that I am wrong. I enjoyed the Miguel Sicart piece, Play Matters, because I love his honesty about play, games, and sports. I love how he describes how play can be and is dangerous. “It can be hurting, damaging, antisocial, corrupting…” additionally, “it can be addicting and destructive and may lead to different types of harm physical injuries, lost friendships, emotional breakdowns.” To me, this is how I always view play and games, that they are violent in both a physical and mental sense. Additionally, dehumanizing. Why I have this view of sports and play is because I grew up in a small town where sports/play were more important than education. The football, volleyball, basketball, golf, and even the track and field players got everything they wanted. While, we were reading history textbooks that stopped at the beginning of Reagan, and their was never enough money for new English books or Spanish books. Gym/PE was hell on earth, because I was in the class with all the athletes. I was teased and picked on for ten years, the best day of my life was when I never had to take Gym ever again. I thought I would never have to deal with sports ever again, and then I got accepted and went to a university where sports are life….. Awesome..

Anyway, all the readings opened my eyes to the possibility that sports are not as simple as I think they are. I like how Sicart views sports as both creating and destroying, and we as the player or even the viewer have this control over it. That if we just be aware what sports does to us, we can change the outcome. It seems like sports, play, games have this Shiva like quality to them, that I never realize that it had before. Or I just read this piece totally wrong.However, I just like the idea of sports being complex and even emotional because it just makes it real and even human.