Midair's 20 Questions, er, less than 20 questions...

1. My name is Charles J. Cohen
2. My *name* is Midair, and hopefully it will soon be Midair MacCormaic
3. My occupation is that of Graduate Student. My major field of study is Control Theory, with minors in Robotics and Artifical Intelligence. This is my fifth year, and i hope to get out in two more. If I seem frantic at times, it is because of my research.
4. What brought me to the SCA? Back in Philadelphia, an aquantence of min told me that I was perfect for the SCA. I was one of those people who wasn't a member but that any SCA person who met me would think that I was one already. When I came to Ann Arbor forgraduate school, I wanted to become a much better juggler (at the time I could only do a very few three ball tricks), and remember what was told to me a few years ago, I checked out the SCA during a Festifall demo. I was hooked from then on.
5. My favorite medieval-fantasy related movie is easily Danny Kaye's "The Court Jester," for reasons obvious to anyone who has seen the movie in its entierty.
6. Picking a favorite medieval-fantasy related book or series is much harder. My favorite non modern book is The Three Musketeers by Andre Dumas (sp?). My favorite modern series, if I had to give just one answer, would be "The Guardians of the Flame" series by Joel Rosenberg, for reasons that would turn the hopefully short question and answer session into a full blown book report. The first book is called "The Sleeping Dragon." Go out and buy it, and enjoy!
7. My favorite aspect of the SCA is trust. For some reason, I have found that I can trust just about everyone I have met in the SCA, and I feel safe around them, more so than any other social or professional group I have been with. I like being at events knowing that I don't have to be on my guard, and that if someone has a problem others will go out of their way to help. That sort of thing. Trust might not be the exact word I'm looking for, but it is close.
8. The one aspect that I'd like most to see improved is ... wow, this is tough. Most of the answers that pop to mind are very nebulous, at least to me. One answer I can give, and this will sound silly, is for there to be in the SCA a way for a person to actually roleplay at being a Knight without having to learn how to fight with wooden swords, or roleplay being a Robin Hood type of person, or a Baron of some sort. Perhaps that is not what the SCA is all about, but I do fear that I will never be able to play at being a 'Prince' because I don't have the time to devote to the fighting arts.

9. My most pressing SCA project is a personal goal of trying to understand
what the purpose of Council meetings and Monday night meetings are
for, and how to make both of them run more smoothly. Mostly I've
just been observing the process of each, but I haven't come to
any real conclusions as of today. If I come to any startling
revalations (which I always hope to do), I hope to write an article
for the Citadel to share my observations. My next most pressing
SCA project is the Doomsday treasury report.

Last Updated: 28 June 98
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