NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

For almost my entire life I've played video games. I played Double Dragon, Startropics and Dragon Warrior IV for the NES. I played Street Fighter II, Final Fantasy III and NBA Live 95 for the SNES. I have played a bunch of games for SEGA Systems, including Night Trap and even Dune for SEGA CD. On the computer I played games like World Builder, Pool of Radiance, Pirates! and Civilization in many incarnations. Most recently I've played games like Monster Hunter, Starcraft II and Hearthstone. Video games don't take up as much of my life as they used to, as I am busy with working, family life and activism, but they still play a role in my identity and how I see myself culturally. For some their "Chamorro" identity may be rooted to visiting ranches on weekends and attending mass with their grandmothers. For me, Chamorro identity comes not just from working with my grandfather in his blacksmith shop or reading the Chamorro Bible with my grandmother, but also yelling

This week for my column When the Moon Waxes in the Marianas Variety I wrote about video games. I wrote about how for most of my life I harbored a very secret dream, un gof mana'atok na guinife, that somehow, someday the cards of fate fall in place around me and I get the chance to make a living by playing video games that I enjoy. Although most people know me as an activist, an academic, an artist, most people don't know me as a video game geek. My brothers and I poured plenty of our lives long ago into games like Final Fantasy 3, The Secret of Mana, NBA Live 95 on the SNES. I later poured some more of my life into some Gamecube games like Eternal Darkness, Super Smash Brothers Melee and my first online game Phantasy Star Online. When I started grad school all of this video game playing stopped as I switched my spare time mode from hours staring at the TV screen with a controller in my hands, to hours spent reading books and searching through archives. The only real video gam