Home for the Holidays

That past semester was the worst. Way too much work, too many idiotic group members, too much pressure. But it's behind me now. I'm sitting at home with the Christmas tree lit, the Decemberists playing, and the kitchen filled with the aroma of Magic Cookie Bars.

It's good to be home.

There are some things I have to do over break to get ready for next semester and for next year, yes, but that shouldn't be too bad. For now, it's relaxing, holiday baking, and writing. And video games. (I have a candy cane house in Terraria!) Decompressing is important.

I am a little nervous about next year. I'm considering returning to the same school for a master's degree, though I haven't really looked anywhere else, to be fair. On the other hand, I'll be sprucing up my resume and sending it out as well. It's like senior year of high school all over again, but a little more daunting. At the same time, I'm cautiously excited about it. Having my own place to live instead of hopping between a dorm room and what is now a playroom at home will be awesome. 

Mom's brought up Brazil. Apparently they're really building right now, and it might be a good place for a young civil engineer and geologist to move. I know nothing about Brazil except that I don't speak the language  (Portuguese - so close!) and neither does Mike. Well, we'll have to see where life takes us.

For now, I'm going to pursue my creative projects and pretend that I won't also need a grownup job on top of it.

Holding down the fort

I was thinking during band practice today when the directors had the low brass play our background rhythm for "Edge of Glory" (yes, the Gaga song). It's a bit weird to read, but once you figure it out, it grooves. I remembered when I was playing flute or piccolo, I would just tune out whenever the director worked with the low brass. After all, their parts were so boring.


But now, I love playing trombone. Rocking out on the baseline can be tons of fun, even if you'll never get the recognition that the hotshot trumpets do. Because they couldn't do it without you. And even if they don't realize it, you do. And hopefully so do your directors.

Some of my favorite songs to play are actually the slower ballads. Something about having the sustained notes underneath a melody, whether it's a soloist or a section, is really neat. I like to close my eyes and picture the sounds as wisps of color in the air, and see my sound rise up and support the melody, pushing it higher into the air. Often, the most musical parts can be found in the chords behind the melody. There was one particular measure in "Summon the Heroes," where, under the trumpet soloist, the first trombones held a whole note, the seconds and thirds had moving quarters, and the baritones had corresponding eighth notes. It was such a neat moment in the music that most people wouldn't notice consciously, but that's one of the beauties of music.

In sixth grade I sat there with my flute and wondered why anyone would ever want to play a non-melody instrument. Many years later and just a little bit wiser, I get now that some of the best parts aren't melody. I've been so jealous of horn counter-melodies on so many occasions. They really get the best "Hollywood lines," to quote my director. And some of the oom-pah tuba parts and walking basslines they get make me jealous. Music really only happens when everyone contributes, from the percussion to the bass lines to the chords, counter-melodies, melodies, harmonies, ostinatos... the list goes on. And that's what makes music truly beautiful.

I've often found that playing a piece well with a group can be a truly transcendental experience. I feel connected with the other players on a fundamental level in a way that I haven't found anywhere else. Music is a universal expression of the soul, and I feel that our shared humanity connects us as we create these sounds weaving in the air, carrying our dreams, our lives, our stories - for that is what we put into the music that we play.

Legitimate writer status: Achieved!

So over the summer, one of my projects was to write and submit a story for the second Machine of Death anthology (www.machineofdeath.net). It was a great experience for a (still young) writer - I had never edited a story to that degree, or indeed really shown one to other people. Boy, was that terrifying. Fear of rejection is the main thing that's kept me back from pursuing these creative things (and more than a few other things in life), so it was really difficult to hand it off to other people and accept criticism of it.

Overall, I think it turned out well, but could have used some work. Still, I'm proud of the end result, and was (yes) a little disappointed when I got the e-mail this morning that it didn't make the anthology. With 1,958 submissions and only 30 stories chosen, it doesn't surprise me. The best part is, this doesn't bother me - it's just motivating me to try again. It was a form letter, and I'm not sure if this was their only rejection letter, but it does also include reassurance that a lot of the stories we're great but they don't have room in the anthology. Apparently my story is still in consideration for possible future projects, but we'll have to see on that one. It'll probably take a while.

Smiling after getting a rejection is a little odd, I suppose. But it's not like I really expected to hit it right straight out of the gate. Writers are supposed to suffer - it's where we get our best material. :-) One thing about this really stressful semester is that I'm discovering what I really miss about having free time, and I love writing. I love creating in many senses, but writing, creating worlds, characters, stories, may just be my favorite. My dad mentioned to me last night one of the story ideas I came up with in sixth grade. There's still potential there. And my other characters all keep growing with me.

Step one, survive this semester. Step two, figure out what I'm doing next year. After that, I should have free time again. I'm missing NaNoWriMo again, since school and marching band take up too much of my time, but maybe next year will be better. And if I start planning now... :-) For now, maybe I'll get a picture or two together for the MoD evidence photo contest. And maybe do some homework.

For those interested, the full story is after the jump. Enjoy, and let me know what you think! I welcome any constructive criticism and would love to keep improving. (Basic background to the anthology can be found at the MoD website, link above.)

Checking In

Well, it's been a while since I last wrote. This really is going to be a busy semester - whoever told me that fourth year was easy straight-up lied. The biggest problem I've encountered is that most of my classes are based around long-term deadlines, which are hard to pace out, particularly when two or three of them involve coordinating group work.

The Android game is coming along well, though because of difficulties getting the engine set up, I haven't been able to contribute as much to the coding as I would have liked. I have mostly been working on writeups, assets, and level designs. It's a top-down stealth game, so the pretty standard avoid the guards and get the gems sort of fare. It's not terribly original, but it's the best we could come up with that would satisfy the requirements of the project. We are learning some interesting stuff in lecture and I'm excited to jump into the XNA (Xbox) project that we're getting assigned next week.

Capstone is proving to be a somewhat frustrating project only in that we don't seem to know enough to complete each deliverable. Because the course is taught by ten different faculty members / professional engineers, it's a little hard to track down a lecturer for questions. We also haven't gotten feedback yet on our initial architectural design, which is worrying because we have to plow ahead with putting the buildings on the site like that. Hopefully he doesn't have any major issues with it or we're going to have a lot of catching up to do.

I decided to go with an independent thesis project, which is creating more work for me, but I'm more excited about what I'm writing about. I'm going to get into the lab this week and start working with the data, as well as hitting the books to find sources for the bibliography I have to turn in next week. The fun never ends...

Outside of that has largely been marching band - our last show was fantastic. The theme was Superheroes, and we played the theme from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the Danny Elfman Batman theme, and James Bond. It's up there on the list of my favorite marching shows, definitely. Next up is Rolling in the Deep and Party Rock anthem, which sounds like fun (though the dance we have to do looks a little odd...). After that is another Disney show, and later on we've been promised a video game theme. All in all, it sounds like a good year for band!

With so much going on, I really haven't had time to consider what I'm doing after graduation. I didn't have much time to spend at the fall career fair or to spruce up my resume beforehand. Really, I'm still in denial about this being my last year. I'm not sure that I'm ready to go out into the world. Then again, senior year of high school, I didn't think I was ready for college.

Fall break is in two weeks, so hopefully I can make it til then without cracking. For now, I've got Carbon Leaf's live acoustic album in the background and some problem sets to get back to.

Penultimate Semester

I don't really have anything profound to write here at the moment - I'm just trying to get into the swing of a new semester and enjoying seeing people again.

My classes are a little intimidating: thesis, capstone, Water Chemistry (dual-listed as a grad course), Traffic Operations (same), and Introduction to Game Design. Woooo. We got our capstone groups on Thursday, so that looks like it'll be pretty good. The civil engineering project is the design of an office park and it's set up to be close to the actual design and bidding process. We've received our RFP (request for proposals) and lecturers throughout the semester will make sure we know enough to complete each stage of the design. I'm kinda excited about it.

Our first project for game design is for the Android phone, and we'll get our teams and the assignment for that tomorrow. I'm really excited but also a little nervous - I'm hoping I'm not in over my head in terms of programming. Better brush up on my Java... We also get to do a game in Microsoft XNA (for Xbox) and for another platform he hasn't decided on yet.

I'm a little confused because none of my classes have given me any real work yet. I've had a little reading for Water Chem and that's it. I haven't known what to do with myself all weekend. (The answer turned out to be a good amount of video games, hanging out, and watching movies.) I'm sure it'll get harder soon enough.

Marching band is off to a pretty good start - I'm both on uniform staff again (yay!) and a drill instructor this year, which means a couple extra meetings a week. Our first show is Earth Wind and Fire, so not one of my favorites, but some of it is pretty fun. The directors haven't told us what any of the other shows are going to be yet, so that's been the cause of much speculation.

Well, fourth year's here, whether I want to admit it or not. Hoping to make the best of it and get involved in other stuff (Hauntings, Student Game Developers, return to swing dancing...) despite my courseload. Now, off to read about water chemistry!

One week left

Oh jeez. Band camp starts in a week. That means that I start my fourth and final year of college. I take the GRE in a few weeks, by which point I need to know what grad schools I'm sending scores to. I also need to finish updating and tweaking my resume, not to mention beginning to research companies that are coming to the career fair in two months. Oh, and I turn 21 six weeks from today.

I have a tendency to panic and look at the big picture of everything coming up rather than realizing that I still have one more band camp to enjoy, one last year of undergrad to live through. And hey, in six weeks, I'll be able to buy alcohol to cope. :-P

So what am I doing with this last week of nearly responsibility-free freedom? Not sure yet. Likely more crafts - I'm close to finishing Toothless. Also more Doctor Who and Eureka, TV shows I'm watching with my friends. No, I guess I don't have any grand plans, though I may jaunt home for a visit. I probably won't do anything too exciting, because I refuse to believe that my childhood is ending. Only the lame parts, like early bedtimes, curfews, homework. Ooh, homework. This is my last year of homework (barring the possibility of grad school)! Also, I have a really hard time coming up with lame parts of childhood. My parents are pretty awesome.

I have so many projects in the pipeline. I have no idea how or when I'm going to get around to them all. I got a capo for my guitar yesterday, so I've been working on that some more. When I mentioned to a friend that I'm really gonna work on guitar this year, he asked "With, what, the -2 hours of time you'll have free this semester?" Which really is a good point, the way I run my life. It's gonna be a busy one.

I am up to 6th on the waitlist for the game design course I want to take. I ran into one of my professors in Kroger the other day and it sounds like that'll be a good class. Two other classes I'm taking should help me narrow down what field I want to go into. And there's always marching band - our first show is Earth, Wind, and Fire.

Now to go bake stuff and figure out what food I need to eat before I move out next week. :-)

Summer projects!

So every summer I make goals for myself, since I hate it when I just wind up wasting away three months and don't have anything to show for the time. My lists are always overly ambitious, and this summer was no exception, so I'm trying to focus now on what I have accomplished, even those things which were not on my list.

First off, enjoyed discovering Doctor Who with some friends. And while this may not seem like an accomplishment, it was a nice group thing that came about rather randomly. Slowly we're adding to the number of people who are watching, and while we may be on varying episodes at a given moment, it's been nice to share this with people. "Not now, Rose, I'm resonating concrete!"

Second, and I need to remember the importance of this one: I wrote, edited and submitted a story to the second Machine of Death anthology. For the longest time I've fancied myself a writer - I like to come up with stories, worlds, characters, etc., and use words to bring them to life. But this was the first time that I rigorously edited a story, albeit with a lot of help in the form of readers of varying ages and "skill" levels. I put skill in quotes because I got some valuable feedback from people who claimed to know nothing about writing stories - but considering they make up the overwhelming majority of my intended audience, they're not that bad to write for. This editing involved rehauling my climax, wrestling with some awkwardly worded sentences, debating between two seemingly equal words or phrases, and agonizing over writing a new scene to better explain a character.

They've received well over a thousand submissions with the intent to publish about thirty, and while I think I've got a solid chance, I'm not holding my breath. Merely the experience of writing and editing the story was great for me as a writer. Simply the fact that I hit the button and submitted it is a step way beyond anything I've done before. I've shown my work to other people now, and they didn't hate it. In fact, a good number of them claimed to like it. Now to take this momentum and apply it to my next writing project.

Speaking of which, though it was also not on my original list, I got added by the guys at Silver Asterism to do video game blogging, which has been quite a bit of fun. Hopefully we can keep up a reasonably steady stream of posts even as we enter the school year. We're planning on branching out into more analysis, anticipaiton of upcoming games, and commentary on the industry on the whole. Watch that space!

My third project that is coming along is Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon using a tutorial from deviantART. I'm hand-sewing it, and I just finished the embroidery. There's just a little more assembly to do, including the eyes and legs, then stuffing it and finishing it up! :-) More pictures to come when I finish.

My wobbly embroidery still manages to improve the wing by making it look like, well, a wing.

In crafty news, I have also knit a camera case, two iPod socks, and a scarf as I slowly whittle away at the portion of my stash that I brought with me. (I've cut myself off from buying new yarns until I go through it all.) Next on the list is a TARDIS! :-D

As if the rest of this post wasn't geeky enough, I also got it into my head to program Minesweeper. I just got thinking about the logic behind the game and realized that I know enough to program it. So I began working on a terminal-based game written in C++. As of right now, the check, flag, remove flag, and double-click function works. The game knows when you lose, but is blissfully unaware of when you win, which is both confusing and depressing. Working on that. The next step is to program the computer to be able to solve a board. I've got the basics of the logic figured out, but I'm not sure how to get into some of the more complicated inferential steps. For now, maybe it will just guess. :-P Anyhow, the fact that I'm voluntarily programming in C++ proves that either I'm crazy or in (approximately) the right field or both. :-)

Oh, so much to do, so little time. Hopefully I can make the most of my remaining two and a half weeks before band camp and manage to keep simple projects going this year. And finish a costume in time for Halloween, if I really get my act together.

I solemnly swear I am up to no good...

The final Harry Potter movie premiered at midnight today. I’ll admit that I haven’t followed the movies very closely - while they are well done, I’m very picky about my book to movie adaptations. I haven’t seen the first part of the seventh yet, so I imagine I’ll see both parts together with my sister when they come out on DVD.

This is significant to me because the first book came out in 1997 in the UK, 1998 in the US. I was about 9 or 10 when I started reading them. My grandfather got me a copy of Prisoner of Azkaban before it was released in the US. I hoped for a Hogwarts letter when I turned 11. From book one, I was an obvious Ravenclaw. I was the first person in my family to read each of the books. Now everybody in my family has read all seven books, down to my 11-year-old sister. My other sister attended the midnight premiere, much as I attended the midnight book release for Order of the Phoenix eight years ago.

The Harry Potter saga, in book and movie form, has spanned the latter two thirds of my life. It is one of the series that has shaped my own imagination and writing, along with The Lord of the Rings and Pullman’s His Dark Materials. I still wonder sometimes if Hogwarts (or its American equivalent) just somehow missed me.

Two months from today I turn 21, which is considered a passage into adulthood, despite the fact that I’ve been a legal adult for the past three years. I graduate from undergrad in May, going on to grad school or an actual job and who knows what else. In many ways, I was the ideal age for Harry Potter, because, especially in the latter books and earlier movies, he was my age. As I read each book, the characters were growing up with me, going through so many of the same situations, even if they have magic on top of all of it.

In particular, I’ve always identified with Hermione, and she was one of the first smart female leads I ever encountered, and I appreciate that her hair is as unruly as mine. (I jokingly cite Emma Watson’s hair after the first two movies as the reason that I don’t watch them.) She was such a pivotal character to the story and the right kind of role model for a geeky young girl with bushy hair of her own. Especially in fantasy, there are very few strong female characters. It's a model that we're breaking out of, it's just that "classics" are lagging behind the curve as women come into our own. (Watch Star Wars again sometime and realize that Leia would have made the better Jedi.)

References to Harry Potter pervade our culture now. Yesterday my boyfriend asked me “Do you solemnly swear you are up to no good?” The term “Muggles” is frequently used to describe people who are uninitiated. (On that note, we’ve decided I’m a geocaching Squib, since the rest of my family has gone and I haven’t.) Thanks to the books, fantastical creatures such as the basilisk have been brought back in to the modern awareness. My little sisters jumped from there into a study of mythology.

My mother showed me the ad that Alan Rickman took out to thank J.K. Rowling for the journey. She convinced him to take the role of Snape before he was given much character in the books. I think many fans of the series can agree with him about the need to be told stories. I cried at every death, held my breath at each battle. I read the extra books, kept up on the lore and the world.

Growing up is a strange thing. I think we worry about it a lot, but no matter how much we fret, it happens and can often surprise us. I’ve often thought that when I “become an adult” I have to get boring, but I’ve come to realize that adulthood is what you make it to be. And if I still want to keep the magic of Harry Potter alive in my life, I can. Harry’s journey didn’t end with the seventh book, not really, and neither does mine. Harry had the advantage of skipping straight to the epilogue. I get to live my life all the way there.

So congratulations to J.K. Rowling, for living every author’s dream. Thank you for the world I spent quite some time growing up in, thank you for the characters I could relate to as I grew with them, and thank you for proving that adults and children alike can still believe in magic.

Mischief managed. For now.

Choosing is hard

There is so much out there in the world to be learned and done and seen and enjoyed, and I'm never going to have the time for it all. That's one of the hardest things to accept about the world. And it's hard for me to prioritize what I want to do and what I want to learn because there's just so much of it.

Case in point: I play, to varying degrees of ability, eight different instruments, five or six of which I would actually play in front of people. I also conduct, which, I've discovered, is a somewhat comparable skill. And yet I want to learn more. I've fallen more in love with strings lately and wish that I could play the fiddle. Then I remind myself to learn the instruments I already have.

I've written about this before, to an extent, discussing the concept of the "Renaissance soul." I've been thinking about it again because there's not much for me to do at work, which has given me time to doodle and read interesting articles, like this one about a crazy awesome computer virus. Computer security is fascinating. I learned a little bit of assembly code and the basic concept of a few injection attacks in some computer science courses. I'm hoping that in the spring I can take the course on viruses.

And roller coasters. I rode some this weekend, and they're awesome! Everything about them, from the design of the track, to the chains and brakes, to the steel (or wood) that holds them up, to their construction in the winter offseason, is really nifty. That would be a cool job too.

I feel like I'm often either torn on what to do with myself because there are simply so many options or too lazy to pick any of them. When I get these crazy bursts of energy, I'm not sure how to constructively focus them. Sometimes they are focused (like right now I want to play trombone, but sadly, I don't have one) but often it's just a jittery sort of energy that demands I do something. I suppose right now I'll put it to good use by doing the laundry...

But the amount of knowledge in the world is so incomprehensibly vast! It's amazing! There are so many technical things that I'm never going to understand because I don't have time to learn it all. Even subjects that you may scoff at and believe there's no way that can have a lot of depth can have incredibly complex histories or mechanisms or underlying chemistries. Wild stuff. Maybe I like writing because it's a good way to learn some of this stuff, or at least pretend that I know it when writing about characters who do. It's a good way to live vicariously.

Sometimes I think about immortality and how cool that would be, not because I fear death, but because then I would have the time to master everything. At the same time, though, human knowledge is constantly expanding, so maybe I wouldn't be able to even then! But I could get a much larger chunk of it. Probably even reach the limit of my brain's capacity... I wonder how many GB, TB, etc., our brains can hold. It would probably depend on the compression and file format... :-)

This is really rambly. But that's the kind of mood I've been in. Now, off to laundry.

Writing is Easy

Yes, in the past couple months I have come to the conclusion that writing is easy. Stringing words together into coherent, useful sentences is a piece of cake when you've been doing it for most of your life. Storytelling, an extension of writing that involves coming up with characters and plots and making the reader care about them, is a little bit harder. It something I enjoy and have spent some time doing and I'm reasonably good at it.

Editing, on the other hand, sucks. It's really hard. You have to get nitpicky about comma placement and sentence structure. You have to evaluate whether things have been properly explained. You have to add scenes to clarify and delete scenes that are unnecessary. You have to get other people to review your work and tell you what works and what doesn't. It's a lot of hard work.

I'm on this subject because I've spent two months working on a short story for an anthology. I wrote it and was pretty happy. I was then told that my climax sucked, which I had to admit was true. I rewrote that and was told that my character didn't make sense. I spent a couple weeks trying to eke out one more scene to explain her. It started as a good story and the editing has pushed it to be better, but it's still not quite where it should be. Time for more work.

When I was younger, writing was easy. I came up with things and wrote stuff and thought it was pretty good. But until now, I've never taken the extra step towards editing. That's where writing really becomes work. It's a step well worth taking though, and my story has been polished to a neat shine. Just a few more tweaks and then I'll submit it and see what happens.

Five weeks left in summer. I'm still deciding how to make the best of it.

Sports

I was never an athletic child. Rather, I was a bookworm. My parents had to take books away from me to make me go play outside. Aside from a three-year stint in rec soccer, I didn't get farther than gym class.

Sometime while I was in middle school, my dad started following Manchester United, and I began watching soccer. Because it was the only game I ever really played, it's been my favorite to watch. Soccer has a fluidity and momentum that I love, not to mention the fact that it's got a set time limit. When you get two good teams playing, the Beautiful Game truly shines.

So other than that, I'm a total band geek. I started out as a flute player and after a semester in college, I decided to learn the trombone. I became a much-needed commodity and was asked to play at a lot of different sporting events. This, combined with a superfan friend in the section and the fact that they pay me for some of the games, led me to a new appreciation of sports.

After seven years of attending every home football game at my school, I decided to actually try to understand football. Basketball came a little easier, as it has more parallels to soccer in its fluidity and motion. I also started going to volleyball, lacrosse (men's and women's), and field hockey games with the band. (They only asked us to play at two women's soccer games, which made me sad.) And as I write this, I'm watching my school play baseball, a sport I'm still convinced I'll never understand, much less enjoy watching.

What I've determined is that, while I don't always like or understand a given sport, I really like watching sports when I have a team to follow. I've only picked up all these new sports to watch my college teams play and cheer them on. Any other baseball game I wouldn't care, but each of these pitches I'm hoping for something good for us (and right now I'm praying for a miracle to keep us in this). My favorite is when I'm in the stadium, but I'll settle for watching the TV with some friends. Tonight I'm all alone, and I'm still wrapped up in the drama, even if I forget to watch every pitch, which isn't something I ever thought I'd say.

Maybe I'll be able to keep following my school teams after I graduate. After all, I'll feel a stronger connection to them than to any pro teams. Hopefully following the teams or even just knowing the lingo will help me keep up at the water cooler in a male-dominated workplace. I do like guys' reactions when they learn that a girl not only knows a thing or two about sports, she's open to learning more. :-)

E3 Press Conferences!

Ah, summer. No school, no homework, no worries. Except that I have a job again, but this time I'm living away from home. I suppose I had to pretend to grow up sometime.

However, summer also means the onset of another Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)! I've kept up with this the past few years as I've gotten more into gaming, but this is the first time that I've had a chance to actually tune into the live webcasts. (Yes I was at work, yes I still did work in the other windows, and yes my boss saw me.) So now it's time for me to act like I actually know what I'm talking about and imagine that I could be important enough to legit cover E3 someday. Here are my two cents on the video game happenings of the last two days:

Microsoft
... is in an intense love affair with the Kinect. Really, I don't think they talked about a single game that didn't use it. It opened with a dramatic gameplay demo of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, with impressive graphics and an interesting mission setup. Now, I'm not really a huge fan of FPS games, but it will be interesting to see how this offering plays out against EA's Battlefield 3 (more on that later).

Mass Effect 3. This is what I'm excited about. The neat thing that they demoed here was some voice connectivity - you can say the dialogue options instead of just selecting them, which does make the conversation more immersive, though that's just a cute little gimmick. The cool thing is that you can voice command your squad in battle. The demonstrator showed us: "Garrus, move up. Liara, move up. Liara, Singularity."  Pretty cool, but not convincing enough for me to buy an Xbox/Kinect.

The motion control they showed with Ghost Recon in Gunsmith was nifty - explode the gun and by motion or voice, switch out parts. Or simply tell it to "Optimize for range" or "Randomize." The problem is, when he switched to the shooting range to test it out, he just looked plain stupid, hunched over like he was holding a gun, opening his back hand to shoot. Proof that hardcore gamers still need controllers.

The Kinect Funlabs looked cool but gimicky - neat from a technology perspective and amusing for a little bit. Mostly I see them as the offerings of an advancing industry and little more. They're also excited about TV for Xbox (no price announced yet), voice-controlled Bing searches, Beacons for interacting with your friends, cloud saves for games, and lots and lots and lots of Kinect.

Overall, I felt the conference fell flat if you're not that excited about the Kinect, no matter how hard they're trying to woo hardcore gamers. We're still waiting on the next step that will bring motion control to a new level in videogaming, from a gimmick for family games into something that vastly improves the realism of hardcore games.

EA
Oh man, Mass Effect 3. I haven't played the first one, it being Xbox and PC exclusive, one of which I don't have and the other I don't game on well. I'm partway through the second one (I'm not actually sure how far) on a friend's PS3 to take advantage of the DLC. I have found it to be a thoroughly immersive game with detailed character interactions (my favorite is flirting with everyone), interesting fighting styles (love me some biotic powers), and replay value. The opening trailer and gameplay for Mass Effect 3 had me bouncing up and down at my desk.

First off, it's gorgeous. And so exciting. The Reapers finally making it to Earth? A full-blown Galactic War? All the old crew back? This is a highly anticipated title, and EA/Bioshock seems poised to deliver. March 6, 2012. This may be one I buy right off, or at least pitch in with my friend for a copy.

EA Sports had some cool announcements. SSX looks pretty cool, with race, trick, and survival modes. The mountain ranges are modeled off NASA satellite imagery, which is geektastic, and they promise you can play on every major mountain range in the world. Madden 12 was promoted by some famous football players I didn't recognize, and seemed like a solid member of the series with no particularly exciting innovation.

Maybe it's just because I'm a soccer fan, but FIFA 12 was definitely the crowning moment of the EA Sports segment. Promising tactical defending, precision dribbling, and a much improved player interaction engine, the game promises to be much more true to the Beautiful Game. It looks like it really will make skill and positioning even more important, both for attackers and defenders, which means I might want to learn more buttons than just shoot and slide tackle. The video promoting it included such favorites of mine as Wayne Rooney and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, which made it even cooler. The other neat announcement was the online Football Club, which lets you play and connect online at no additional charge. I was intrigued by the feature where you can choose your favorite team (Man U!) and connect with fans around the world, taking on challenges to replay real-life matches and uphold or change their courses to put your team at the top of the tables. Pretty sweet.

Need for Speed: The Run looked nifty - some sexy shots of super-powered muscle cars and introducing some out-of-car chase scenes. Star Wars: The Old Republic, an MMORPG that's not likely to make me a convert to the genre, showing little more than an extended trailer, though it's a hard genre to play demo. The Sims Social, not gonna lie, was a little creepy to me. I've had fun making friends in the Sims and all, but the trailer was just... odd. I don't plan on asking guys out via fb and living out a date through a fb game. When my bf's away, we use Skype. [I feel I should note a general apathy toward the Sims and bias against fb games, so I will refrain from judging it too harshly before it actually debuts.]

Insominac shared the stage to announce Overstrike, which I know little about other than the trailer, but it looks like a fun romp. The characters look like fun, and I appreciate the use of two badass female characters who seem actually more than just a pretty face. The wry humor and potentially fun fighting style I think can make up for lack of a compelling plot. There are some times I turn to video games to beat things up and have a laugh while doing it.

Ah, Battlefield 3. Whereas Microsoft opened their conference with their wartime FPS holiday offering, EA saved theirs til last, to serve as the piece de resistance (though I'm still hooked on that Mass Effect trailer). The most exciting part, to me, is the new Frostbite 2 graphics engine. The environment is rendered in gorgeous detail and the game seems able to utilize a greater interaction with it. Cover is realistically blown to bits by gunfire and grenades. The game feels very immersive and seems easy to follow objectives. The marketing battle is already a storm, and the sales will speak for themselves this holiday season.

Overall impression: EA had the strongest conference, introducing many strong games with an ease of presentation. They had me excited about genres that I don't even play, with the exception of my lukewarm reception of the Sims fb edition. They majorly pushed Origin the whole time. The website seems to be the new source for their store/download system as well as a vehicle to push out videos and trailers, as well as a networking tool for chatting with friends while you play. At any rate, it's the place to go now for all the trailers they showed during E3, and it will be interesting to see how Origin takes off.

Ubisoft
This conference was just... awkward. I don't feel that they had a single good presenter out on the stage, and I wasn't terribly impressed by most of their offerings. The main framework for the conference was their 25-year anniversary, which was interestingly played in flashbacks to see how far our technology has come, each introduced with a strange sound-effect-and-arm-waving transition effect by the main presenter. (I did feel bad for the guy, I wanted the audience to react more for him, not that I could blame them, but they were a tough crowd.) I did miss swaths of this due to coming back from work, being on the phone, and difficulty with the streaming going in and out, but I will review what I saw.

I tuned in towards the end of the Far Cry 3 trailer, a series I know little about and am thus not able to comment extensively on, though it looked pretty. Next up was Brothers in Arms: Furious Four, which looked like a game more suited for a 13-year-old boy than any other demographic, except perhaps all boys, since most of them are 13 at heart anyway. The game is built around gratuitous, goofy, almost cartoony violence, but since you're cutting down Nazis, it's okay. Not a title for me, but the intended demographic will eat it up.

Next up is an adaptation of the Adventures of Tintin movie, which I know very little about (there's a real theme to me and this press conference...). It has a clean cartoon visual style and looks like a fun, honest platformer - a nice change from the shooter-obsession that we've seen so far this year. It looks like a fun romp with more planning put in than most movie-game adaptations. And Peter Jackson was saying something about it that I missed due to a housemate coming home, but that's pretty good news for me.

Following that was a real gameplay demo of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, showcasing multiplayer. The game uses what they call "augmented reality" which looks like it could bring something interesting to a rather worn and repetitive genre. It made me think of Splinter Cell (another game I haven't actually played) as they scanned through walls to check for enemies lurking behind them.

Two presenters with thick French accents took the stage to talk about Trackmania, which I didn't find to be a terribly compelling presentation. It mostly looks like ModNation Racers but less cartoony. They also mentioned "Shootmania" and "Questmania" with no further details than the names, but the simplistic naming convention does give one a pretty good idea of what the game will look like. Out comes another awkward and heavily accented presenter to kick around some Raving Rabbids on the Kinect. They demoed another party game where people stand in funny positions to fill a silhouette. The game takes a picture that it can then upload to facebook, so you can finally rival all those other embarassing photos clogging the internet. It looks like a fun party game for a bit, but I don't think it has much lasting potential. Just Dance 3 looks to be basically that, which has some appeal due to the ease of its multiplayer. I do like the lack of required peripherals, as both of my family's DDR pads are on the fritz. Looks like some good fun, especially if you let go of how goofy the dance moves actually are. Also, Katy Perry still bothers me a lot.

Rocksmith looks really interesting. I've been saying from when my brothers started plotting to buy Rock Band that we should forgo the game and become a real rock band. While we did wind up buying the game and I've had tons of fun playing with them, here is a game that seeks to build an actual skill, and I must say, I'm intrigued. I've been trying to teach myself guitar (instrument #8, for the record), but it's proving difficult to me. Rocksmith takes any electric guitar as its controller and seeks to increase the difficulty as you learn more. They pointed out that it provides not only an amp, but the effects provided by pedals, which can be expensive, allowing you to play around and learn in a fun setting without too much monetary investment (aside from the obvious costs of the guitar and game, but who's counting?). Anyways, I'm interested to see how that one performs.

They closed out the conference with their most anticipated title, Assassin's Creed: Revelations. This is a series I've never played, though I have played the similar Prince of Persia titles that they also publish. It's got impressive graphics, the looks of an interesting storyline (even without knowing the previous two games), and some cool gameplay. All in all, it appears to be a title that fans of the series will rightfully anticipate.

Overall, I felt that Ubisoft had the weakest conference. I was greatly bothered by the awkward presenting, though I swear I have nothing against foreign accents. Assassin's Creed was the only announcement that really stood out to me, though I did go into the press conference not knowing any of the other titles they'd talk about, so perhaps I'm not the best person to review it.

Sony
Sony is actually vying for Nintendo's spot in my attentions, as I've bought myself a PS3 and the only Nintendo console I have access to away from home is my sister's old, beat-up first-gen DS. I did appreciate that they opened the press conference with a discussion of the hacking of PSN, which they needed to do. I have felt that Sony has handled itself well in the attack, though I wish I had heard from them earlier, rather than getting the info that my information had been stolen second- and third-hand first.

On to the actual games! Woohoo Uncharted 3! I'm happy to see it looking like the same fun romp the first two games were, with both chicks back (though the eagle eyes over at IGN have spotted a wedding band on Elena's hand! oh noes!). I still need to get around to beating the second one, but I have found them to be enjoyable romps, even though the stories aren't particularly compelling. Looks like fun!

Resistance 3, starting the trend of Sony trying to push the Move system, which is even worse for me than Kinect, as it offers nothing more than the Wii does and has always felt like it came late to the party with the same present as a cooler kid. At this point, I'm a little tired of seeing more shooter games that don't seem to offer anything new and whose predecessors I've never played (although that is my own fault). Same with God of War 3 and Sly Cooper- not much for me to say, since I don't know the series. Also, Starhawk, which looked cool even though I haven't really figured out what it is, and Bioshock: Infinite, yet another acclaimed series I've never played. Looked really good though. Dust looked cool from the online tie-in perspective, and they did snag it as a PS3 exclusive.

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus on PS3 is something that I'm really excited for. I've never played either game, but I have heard enough ravings about it to know that it's a good investment. Having the two together with updated graphics seems to me like it will be worth it, rather than picking up an old PS2 version for cheaper (especially considering that my PS3 isn't backwards compatible, so I'd need to play at home).

Sony really pushed Move and 3D, even announcing a conveniently dorm-sized 3D Playstation-branded TV, selling with a copy of Resistance 3, a pair of glasses, and a HDMI cable for the astonishing price of $499. As someone who is having to go back to wearing glasses full-time because my eyes hate contacts, 3D TVs have not really excited me. They're a gimmick that I don't feel will last - Avatar looked pretty in theatres with this technology, but I think I'd get sick trying to play a game in 3D. Technology-wise, I was fascinated by the idea of split-screen co-op instead being layered-screen co-op, where you and your friend actually see different images on the screen. Can't wait to hear how that one works in practice, and I'll definitely be looking up the science.

Kobe Bryant came out and played their NBA game, which was pretty funny. It didn't make the game look any more exciting though.

Sony's big reveal was the PSVita, the actual name of the codenamed Next Generation Portable. It features two touch-screens, on front and back, as well as the familiar buttons of the PSP. I'm not a big handheld gamer, but this system has me tempted to try it again. It will be offered at the surprising $250 for the non-3G and $299 for the 3G-enabled version. (The audience's lukewarm reception (read: laughter) of the AT&T partnership announcement was both telling and hilarious. Hey Sony, ever heard of a thing called the iPhone?...)

I was blown away by the gameplay demo for Uncharted: Golden Abyss. It looks like the console versions of the series and seems to easily integrate both touch and button controls, so the player can use what they are most comfortable with (are you hearing this, Microsoft?). They also demoed ModNation Racers, LittleBigPlanet, Street Fighter (featuring Cole from inFamous, lol), Ruin (which is pushing for carrying the game everywhere to defend your lair at any moment... :-/). Trailers for a lot more games make the PSVita a very tempting option, even to someone who doesn't often play handheld games.

Overall, Sony had a good press conference with some promising titles and very surprising price points for both the PSVita and their surprise 3D TV bundle. I'm most excited for Uncharted 3 and Ico/Shadow of the Colossus, but there are lots of other titles here for fans of their particular series. Nothing too groundbreaking was shown, outside of the new hardware of the Vita - most everything this year is a sequel to something else...

Nintendo
Right from the beginning, Nintendo stole my heart with a live orchestra playing a medley of Zelda tunes to a 25th anniversary tribute video. I'm a huge Zelda fangirl and a music geek, so this was right up my alley and I'm waiting with bated breath for more news of the symphonic concert tour and the upcoming CD releases to complement my already extensive ZREO collection. Miyamoto coming out and asking the orchestra to play some of the shorter, recognizable themes was also fantastic. Skyward Sword is looking good and that's a title I'm definitely going to get, sucker for the series that I am.

Then we're on to a lot of content for the 3DS, which has generated mixed reviews so far. Everyone's excited to see Ocarina of Time rebooted for the handheld, and they also announced Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion 2, and the ambitious Kid Icarus. There's an impressive list of titles lined up for it, but it's gonna have some major competition against the Vita, so they'll really have to prove the system with these new titles. A few of these have me curious about the system, but the hardware has not impressed me like the Vita has, and I have traditionally loved Nintendo, it being my only gaming company for a long time.

And finally, the unveiling of Project Cafe, Nintendo's major edge over its competitors as far as surprise and innovation this year, and it's the Wii U. I think the name is silly, but the name Wii is still silly so there was very little they could have done to improve upon it. I haven't figured out how I feel about the new controller they debuted. I like that there is both a tablet and buttons, and they've shown functionality that could have some really cool applications for creative game developers. Engadget's hand's on says the controller feels comfortable, so I'm still waiting patiently to see if it's going to be all that. The ability to switch your game onto the controller's screen is pretty nifty, and the interaction between the controller's screen and the TV seems like it could have some neat applications. The actual console will support much better graphics (1080p) and processing than the Wii (is that thing really five years old now?). A new Smash Bros title has been announced, along with Pikmin, so I'm likely to wind up getting one of these too.

Nintendo for me had the best conference just because I'm a Zelda nut and the orchestra was a really nice touch. There were some very promising offers for the 3DS, but I'm still not sold on that particular gimick. The Wii U is a very interesting and innovative take on the console side of things, which we've come to expect from Nintendo since the Wii. It will be up to developers in the early days of new console adoption to see if the system will appeal to the hardcore gaming crowd that mocked the Wii.

All in all, it's looking to be a safe yet exciting year for videogames. On the hardware side, the Vita and 3DS bring exciting new options to the handheld realm, and the Wii U looks to change gaming yet again with its tablet screen controller. On the software side, it's sequel after sequel and shooter after shooter. Many trilogies are finishing up, so perhaps developers will turn to different styles and more innovation next year? Probably too much to hope for.

Titles I'm looking forward to are, in no particular order: inFamous 2 (released today!), Mass Effect 3, Skyward Sword, Uncharted 3, Ico/Shadow of the Colossus. The Vita may woo me back to handheld gaming, though I should probably get a real job before I get too excited about many more games. I'm excited to see how some of these titles play out against each other and how the new hardware shows.

Fight vs. Flight

So the time has come again for my residential college to play Humans vs. Zombies - it's like a huge game of tag that also simulates post-apocalyptic survival/hunting. :-) (see www.humansvszombies.org for more info).

I've decided not to play this time round because I have way too much going on to be constantly afraid of leaving my room and always watching over my shoulder. I also am unable to not take the game seriously. I saw my friend fend off two zombies last night, and my heart rate was up. I'm more concerned for his in-game survival than he is! Which is why it's probably healthier that I'm not playing.

The interesting thing about playing this game is that it taught me about myself. I've been musing over it a lot, and it's sparked a short story idea that I've been working on fleshing out a little. While human, I snuck around a lot, using the fact that as an engineer, all my classes take place in a small cluster of buildings to my advantage. I only had one real run-in with a zombie. Two of my friends and I were attacked outside of the dining hall near our dorms - all three of us managed to tag the zombie behind the door, but there were still two more and a fourth jumped out of the doors that we had just come out of to surprise us.

I found out in that moment that I am not the hero. I don't really know if I have it in me. I have good survival instincts - my first thought was that I wanted the brick wall to my back to cover my blind spots. But did I tell that to my friend, who we nearly lost to the zombie who leapt from the door, a deception I had anticipated in moving away from it? No. Every muscle in my body was screaming at me to run, which is what the other of my friends did. I thought enough to cover her escape up the stairs, at which point the OZ himself came after me.

Now this guy is really tall and lanky, and luckily I had the presence of mind to remember as I gained the high ground, "Oh, crap, he lunges for the ankles!" and I managed to hit him in the head as he reached up the steps in his signature battle move.

And so we return to my inability to separate real life from a game. I was in this moment entirely caught up by the premise of the game - that we were a small band of humans being beset by a band of (intelligent) zombies on our way back to safety. My heart was racing, my muscles were tensed, adrenaline was coursing through my blood. An extreme reaction, but it was exciting.

Everyone wants to believe that they would be the hero, the rallying point, the main character in the movie. I do consider myself a good leader, and did somewhat believe that that would extend to the "battlefield." But I learned that it didn't - I froze instead. I couldn't think of others (except, oddly, to cover one person's escape), but I could react well in the course of battle and was constantly aware of where each known opponent was.

Then a few days later, in a momentary lapse of concentration, I was tagged. An hour later, I switched my armband to around my neck, discarded my sword, and took up the role of predator. And took to it entirely too well. This happened late in the game, and between the lack of humans willing to leave their rooms and the number of things I had to do, I didn't get much hunting in, but I did aid in the "band practice massacre" so that no human left alive. There was the other thing I learned - in the situation where I was the predator, where I had no real risk except of starving if I didn't feed, I took to the hunt too well, even immediately turning on my friends.

Again with the reality separation issues: I felt that hunger when I watched my heavily-armed human friends leave a safe zone. My muscles coiled in an insane desire to chase them down, even knowing that I would fail alone, particularly because they were expecting a pursuit.

According to my friends, I'm the evolutionary reason why humans survived: a sense of self-preservation rather than heroism tends to keep you alive. I'll take it. And hey, since I had so much fun as the undead, maybe that's not too bad either. I think it's more fun to play as a zombie, since you have no restriction other than starving and I do enjoy the hunt. But I get more of a sense of accomplishment from surviving each day as a human - every time I got in my door for the night and breathed a sigh of relief, I smiled because I had made it another day.

It's a fun game that I recommend to everyone! I hope to play when it comes up again in the fall. Perhaps if I train in battle more before then I'll react better when it comes. And maybe I'll just be a survivalist. But either way, I'll enjoy the game. :-)

A little break

Well, I failed on that thirty-day-challenge there. And also at posting at all. We're halfway into the semester now, and six classes, concert band, basketball band, and Into the Woods have kept me very busy.

I just returned from spring break, which I spent with my boyfriend. I got to ride horses, learn to crochet, watch movies, cook a little, and generally relax. It was nice, but it's back to the daily grind. Lots of work to be done...

There are so many things that I want to accomplish, but I never feel like I have the time. Whenever class is in session, I have tons of work. Whenever I have a break, I'm so burnt out I just flop on the couch and don't get much done. (This past break was actually a combination of both... >> ) I'm not sure how to find the right balance between the two.

But for now, it's back to programming.

Zodiac

So I'm cheating a little. I've spent the past few days trying to come up with 30 interesting facts about me, and as I'm having some difficulty completing the list, I've decided to step away from that one for a little bit and move on.

Without further ado, Day 07: Your zodiac sign and if you think it fits your personality.

Under the tropical system, I'm a Virgo. Under the sidereal system, I'm a Leo. While the sidereal makes more sense to me (if you're gonna buy into all that stuff), I believe that Virgo characteristics match me much better. I'm a perfectionist, which has robbed me of a lot of time and sanity. I am also very analytical and independent, as well as skeptical and occasionally inflexible.

I really don't believe that because the sun was in the general vicinity of an arbitrarily selected group of stars at the time of my birth, I have a certain set of characteristics. It can be kinda fun though, and relatively harmless.

Well, this is a kinda boring entry, but I'm not sure what else to say about the subject. Half a week into the new semester and it's gonna be hard but good I think. One of professors is a particularly horrible lecturer, so that class could be kinda difficult just because I won't be able to pay attention in class. And we have ItW auditions this week! Yay!

Gourmet Cannibalism

Day 04 - Your views on religion

Funny, I was just talking about this a little bit. I believe that religion is a beautiful thing when not taken too far. It can be a rock, a reason for living, a way to cope, a way to connect. Sometimes a lot of that gets lost in translation.

I'm a born and raised Catholic who plays a little loose with the rules. I don't believe every word that the Pope hands down, especially since I disagree with the Church on several social points (e.g., gay rights). I take what I need from religion and try not to let the rest bother me.

Since we lost my grandmother this past summer, I've really seen what religion can do for people. My nana said, in the midst of fighting a losing battle with cancer, "I am at peace." It has helped my family cope, believing her to be in Heaven. It has given a support group for my grandfather - it's one way they met people after moving. If religion can do that for people, can it really be so bad?

I really like Catholocism. The word means "universal," and it is very cool to feel connected with Catholics all over the world through the Eucharist. I can walk into any Catholic Mass anywhere in the world and be able to follow along. My confirmation sponsor went to Italy and attended a Mass celebrated by the Pope, and she told me that it was very cool to hear the Mass in Latin and all the responses in different languages from all over the world. The idea of transubstantiation is very cool in that communion takes on a higher meaning than just a symbol. I was told when leaving a camp once not to say goodbye but rather "I'll see you in the Eucharist." Catholics all over the world are connected by this Sacrament.

Now, Catholics get a lot of flak from a lot of people. First off: the Crusades were a bad idea. Indulgences were bad. Bishops lining their pockets from the collection plate was wrong. That doesn't happen anymore. And I'd really like it if people stopped connecting Catholics with molesting little boys. Groups should not be measured by their lowest members, or else humanity as a whole is screwed.

One more point of clarification: We do not worship Mary. We venerate her and other people who have led lives of supreme example, we call them saints and we call on them to pray on our behalf. It's much the same as asking your friends to pray for you or someone else. The saints give us an example of how to lead a life in faith.

I haven't studied a lot of other religions in depth, but it seems to me that everybody's got it a little bit right. To me, it boils down to God is Love. From that you derive a rock, for God will always love you, a reason to love your neighbor as yourself, and a reason to believe in an afterlife and an immortal soul. Whatever religion gives you those comforts (or whatever you need), go for it. Don't want a religion? I don't mind. I'm not going to try to push mine on you.

Particularly in matters of religion, I just wish we could all get along. Particularly for Christians, I don't understand why we would fight over it, what with the Ten Commandments and love your neighbor and all. A little live and let live to temper religious arguments would be nice to see, and I think would bring us closer to the idea of the Kingdom of God on earth that Christians are striving to achieve. We just need to realize that everybody doesn't need to agree with one particular dogma. If we can learn from our differences instead of persecute each other, we will all become stronger for it.

Whiskey in the Jar

Today time just got away from me - I spent a lot of it helping my little sister paint a herald costume for school and prepping to head back to college.

Day 03: Your views on drugs and alcohol

Well, I may or may not be sipping a Mike's as I write this (the black cherry kind might be my favorite), so... haha.

I have never done drugs and never plan to. Having watched somebody close to me go through quitting cigarettes and dealing with the urges years later, I can't imagine ever doing that to my body. I'm a little picky about what goes into my body - I've avoided caffeine dependency and try not to take medicine unless I need it.

That being said, I don't really care if other people take drugs. If you want to get high, who am I to stop you? It only concerns me when your drug-addled self shoots somebody or pulls a dui. So I don't think we should outlaw drugs, but we should crack down on drug-induced crimes.

I'm half Irish, so my views on alcohol should be self evident. :-P Seriously though, I have no problem with it. My parents have always had a very open attitude about drinking, preferring me to experiment and learn my boundaries with them rather than while I'm off at college or something. While I haven't taken them up on it until very recently, it's helped me to have a very healthy view of alcohol. I don't need it to have fun, but I like drinking a little sometimes to wind down or casually at a party. And I'm developing a taste for wine.

I see no reason why the drinking age shouldn't be 18. There are so many arguments for it - we can go to war then, we can buy cigarettes and lotto tickets, we can go to "real" jail - in every other legal sense we are considered adults at that point, why can't we drink then? The impetus was concern over drunk driving. I propose that we need to change our views on alcohol.

Since Prohibition rolled through (which was largely driven by Protestants railing against the evils of alcohol - fun fact: Welch's grape juice was originally conceived and marketed as "unfermented grape juice" specifically as an alternative to wine), America has not had a healthy relationship with alcohol. The frat scene makes no sense to me - the culture where you drink to the point of not remembering your night. But somehow that's considered acceptable in college. Other cultures, notably French and Italian, view wine as a food rather than alcohol, and this is reflected in those countries' cuisines. Now, other cultures have their problems with alcohol. A research project my wine history class did showed that other countries are trying to change their relationship with alcohol. Fairly recently, Ireland outlawed happy hours - periods of time where the price of drinks is marked down - as they have recognized the effects that rampant alcoholism has had in a place where children are weaned on whiskey.

So alcohol itself is not bad, and I don't think we should be taught that. It is something to be used intelligently and in moderation. You can have a lot of fun sober and a lot of fun after just a couple drinks. And I can promise you that the next morning will be much more fun under those circumstances.

So I will leave you with the refrain of one of the many Irish drinking songs in my repertoire, a marvelous ditty called "Beer, Beer, Beer:"

He must have been an admiral
A sultan or a king.
And to his praises
We shall always sing.
Oh, look what he has done for us,
He's filled us up with cheer.
Lord bless Charlie Mops
The man who invented
Beer, beer, beer, tiddly
Beer, beer, beer

10 years from now

Jeez. You'd think I'd get farther than a day before forgetting. Well, I remembered earlier but then I got caught up figuring out how to trade Pokemon using emulators (I now have all three starters and a full set of the red/blue specifics so far - it's important.)

So, without further ado, Day 02: Where you'd like to be in 10 years

Huh. It's a rather overdone question in some ways, but still an interesting one. Like I said before, I'm not really sure where my life is going. 10 years from now I'll be 30, which sounds really old to me but isn't really, in the grand scheme of things.

Call me old-fashioned, but ideally I'd like to be married and have a kid or two by then. Monetarily, I'd like to be comfortable - I don't want to wonder where my next meal is coming from, and I'd like a cushion in case something crazy happens. I don't ever need to be rich to be happy.

Having a career isn't terribly important to me, though I think it's important for me to have something to do every day. I'd like to have found local theatre and/or music groups to join, maybe a bookclub, just things to give me time to be me and keep my other hobbies going. If I can, I'd like to be in a situation where I can either work from home or take some time off to stay home with my children.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the most important thing to me is family. In an extended sense, this includes my friends. I hope to still be in touch with many of the people I am close to now, even if we don't wind up living near each other. When I picture my future, it revolves around the people in my life - it really does boil down to just that. And I've always had a strong desire to have children, so that features prominently.

Really, I come back to the idea that life is what happens when you're making other plans. So I don't really bother planning, because lots of variables can change. And maybe doing that is what has really distilled my priorities for me, but it's been very comforting to see because I can try to stress less about it now. If I can find my way to a family and a happy home, I'll be okay. And I really believe that's an attainable goal.

[this probably rambles, but I'm too tired to think through edits. Call it a freewrite or whatever. Good night.]

The beginning of a journey

A friend of mine challenged me to do a 30-day challenge thing in order to find myself.

(http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lb8tgxBq1z1qb50a6o1_500.png)

I'll use this over the next month to start babbling about various things and maybe wind up learning something along the way. Who knows, maybe you will too. Possibly more than me.

Right then. Here we go: Day 01: Your current relationship

I have been dating my boyfriend for 1.25 years now, and I could wax on about how amazing he is and how this is the best thing that's ever happened to me, but the internet has enough of that kind of vapid, insubstantial romantic praise.

It's not something I really discuss with anyone other than Mike, so it feels a little odd to be typing it up.

Relationships are hard. All the stories end at "happily ever after." But it's just not that easy. You have to communicate, compromise, support each other, and above all trust. (This goes for non-romantic relationships as well.) The key is to find somebody whose strengths complement your weaknesses and vice versa. Not every day or situation is going to be easy and it's important to find somebody who will not only be there through it all, but who will pick you up and carry you when you can't walk any more.

I've always wondered how I would know when I met "The One." From watching my parents I understand what a good, healthy, lasting relationship looks like. I've come to understand that it's not about meeting The One, it's about creating The One. I believe there are many people out there with whom you are compatible, but by going through life with somebody, he or she becomes your One and Only based on the strength you gain through common experience.

Perhaps, at twenty years old with only one ex and a relationship little more than a year old, I'm not one to talk. But I've always been a hopeless romantic (and luckily in Mike I've found a kindred spirit), so maybe I've watched enough to understand. And love, I think, is way too easy to complicate, but it's something that should be kept simple, for that is when it is at its best.

The best thing about this relationship is that it's comfortable. We're used  to each other and we work well together. He keeps me sane, I keep him on top of deadlines. Most of all, I miss him when he's gone. I think that's all it needs to be. I've realized that I don't really know what my future holds, but I know that I want to share it with him - and I've never felt something so simply, so strongly, so I know it must be right.

Thinking

I don't really know now why I left off writing - maybe thought I had nothing to say. But I've been thinking a lot now and really trying to break out of the daily monotony of work by pursuing other things.

So I have some goals. I suppose you could call them resolutions, even if it is a little bit into the new year.

1. Use this blog as an outlet for thought and expression
2. Play my instruments more, especially guitar and flute
3. Try to exercise more often - I could use the mood boost and extra energy
4. Begin writing a novel - I have several planned, but have never actually begun
5. Create a Zelda costume - because why the hell not?
6. Continue to improve grades each semester

Perhaps I listed them out of order, as that last one must be my first priority, as that is the reality of college. But the others are the kind of thing that will prevent me from becoming just another stick-in-the-mud engineer. Speaking of which, I also have to go on the hunt for an internship this semester. Hopefully I can find one, since this past break has driven me crazy for lack of things to do.

New semester starts in a week. I'll be taking Intro to Geotechnical Engineering, Intro to Transportation Facilities Design, Construction Engineering, and Design of Concrete Structures. Woohoo civil. I'm also attempting the CS minor again with a second shot at 2150, though it may prove too much for me to handle. For fun, I'm taking Instrumental Conducting II - I love the professor and the subject and my classmates.

Outside of academics, I'll be serving as assistant music director for a production of Into the Woods. I've been on stage and in the pit for productions before, so I'm excited to join the other side of the curtain and help put a production together. There's also basketball season to be excited for and playing in the band.

It will be an exciting semester, that's for sure. Keeping up with my goals as listed above may prove difficult, but I'm hoping not to let them slide as I have been. I played guitar with my little brother today and it was a lot of fun, despite it being only the second time I've played in the past month. The hardest part about boredom is that it's only stopped by getting up and doing something - it's just that we're as governed by inertia in this as we are in physics. Once you get going, it's a lot easier to keep up with it.

So here's to a new year, a new semester, and new chances to accomplish new things.

And maybe post here once in a while. :-)