Letters to a Faceless Audience

A History of Silence

2010-09-23T23:23:00.003-04:00

So, to start with my customary thought: I am horrible at blogging. I'm not sure who I do this for, other than myself and maybe a few friends, but oh well. I still enjoy it when I have the time. And if there is any place that ought to give me the time to blog, it is the Peace Village that I am currently staying in for the Images and Voices of Hope 2010 World Summit. While I knew that it was some kind of spiritual retreat location, I had no idea how integrated the reflection and meditation would be with the summit content. Actually pretty cool, if a little hard to describe.

The conference started with a moment of silence. Immediately, I began reflecting on the simple topic of silence, which makes me think of many things from my past. I break these things into two intersecting axes of categories, each with two divisions. On the first axis is scope: personal or communal silence. On the second axis is tone: abrasive or supportive. There are many things that could fall into these categories, but I'm going to reflect only on the ones most pressing in my mind: just one from each group, though it will be hard to choose in some places.

First, personal abrasive silence. A dominant example in this category for me was Catholic church. I absolutely despised the time in which we would get off the pews, kneel down, and be expected to pray on cue. I would stare blankly down at the floor and think about anything that came to mind, but I would very infrequently pray and mostly feel uncomfortable. This is not to say that I never prayed, just that the format didn't appeal to me. I actually developed a dislike of crossing my hands or arms together and bending my head down for a while, for whatever purpose. Playing 7 Up in class was particularly reminiscent of the church prayer experience for me, and subsequently abhorred.

Next, personal supportive silence. Probably the exact opposite of the previous experience; I think here about stargazing. There is something inexplicably personal about this activity for me, even if I am with other people when I do it. Stargazing has been a regular activity since I can remember (even when it was just moongazing when we lived in Queens), and I suspect it is the sense that I am looking outward at something so vast that forces me to reflect on my place in that vastness. To me, that experience is more spiritually inspiring than any church pew. Lumped into this category I would also put other connections with nature: viewing mountains or bodies of water, and laying out on grass during rain storms or sitting on sand dunes. I love all of it, and there is something about the experience of it all that inspires quiet, calm, and contentment.

Third, communal abrasive silence. This is a rare thing and in my opinion extremely uncomfortable. Standing in an elevator with people you don't know and that clearly don't want to talk to you. Riding the bus home with teammates after going to state finals and placing second by just one point. Watching your high school chemistry teacher fume in silent anger after someone eats dry ice. I've broken my rule of only giving one example, probably because these instances of silence are so torturous as to not even bear discussion or deep reflection. They are the moments in which you want desperately to say something, and yet have nothing meaningful to contribute. And you know that everyone else present is likely feeling the same way. It just sucks.

Lastly, communal supportive silence. My favorite. This brings to mind above all else my primary school music programs. I loved the moments when you knew that everyone was thinking the same thing and working towards the same goal without uttering a word. The best songs we sang or played were always the ones that required long pauses, deep silence, and then a gentle step forward together, timed perfectly after months of practice. The most memorable of those moments came while in the Ira Allen Chapel on UVM campus, winning the regional portion of the National High School A Cappella Association's annual competition. There are other events unassociated with music that stick out for me here as well. The prayer circle around our flag pole on September 11th. The moment of silence on my graduation day for the two students that had not lived to see it. Even driving in a car next to someone else and knowing that you are both enjoying the experience without the need to vocalize it. Social moments of positive silence are by far the most refreshing, comforting, simple but perfect versions of peaceful reflection, I think.

Not sure if that should really lead anywhere. These are just some observations from my personal life. While the thought of silence makes me cringe when I think about how quiet I used to be, and that my favorite quote in my high school year book is "Silence is golden," it's actually quite a rich and enjoyable topic to delve into right now... I suspect it will remain that way for years to come, and that the nuances of the topic will only grow in detail.

Growing Ripples

2010-03-25T14:39:00.002-04:00

I don't have much to say, except that I'm absolutely thrilled to know that there are people out in the world that I went to high school with, some that I would have never considered close friends by any means, who have donated to the UN project. And others that have found connections to share the story of the project with. It's truly heartwarming to watch those ripples of awareness and support grow and spread. I can only hope that they continue to do so until we have reached our goal of $250,000.

Don't let the ripples die off before it happens!

Many Hands Make the Load Lighter

2010-03-24T09:20:00.002-04:00

Just after the crisis in Haiti, I bought a t-shirt from Threadless to donate to the cause. The slogan of the shirt was "Men anpil chay pa lou," which translates to "Many hands make the load lighter." I didn't think much about the phrase at the time, aside from admiring the beauty of such an idea. That idea feels a wee bit more pertinent to me now.

Last week, I almost lost my job. Sort of. Without going into detail, I'll sum up by saying that the project I've given my heart to for almost two full years now may not see the light of day without some serious fundraising. We're talking about $250k of seriousness. That's a big number, but it could come down quickly.

If you're reading this, you probably know me at least a little. Maybe we're not friends that give gifts to each other, and maybe we haven't seen each other in years. But if I bumped into you on the street and asked if you could spare five bucks, would you give it to me? What about just one dollar? Well, I'm bumping into you on a metaphorical street right now. And if you have one, five, ten, whatever dollars to spare, I'd ask you to donate it to my project. Make my project into our project.

You may not have seen the same faces of young boys that I've seen, and you may never have wondered what those boys are being taught by their peers and elders about how to treat a girl and how to love someone. But I hope that you at least believe me when I tell you that they're out there, and that the project I'm working on could give them a chance to question the things they hear, see, adopt, and someday might practice.

If you can't spare that few dollars, or even if you can, perhaps you can instead spare a few minutes. Tell someone else about this project, forward my message, or just share the donation link. It would quite literally mean the world to me.

You can read about the project here, or jump straight to the donation page. Many thanks in advance for your small acts that can make this enormous but powerful load a little lighter.

The Happiness Project

2010-03-04T13:42:00.003-05:00

So I've been reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, and I think it's made me realize that I've been working on my own happiness project for about a year now. Maybe not as methodical, but perhaps just as effective.

Rubin tackles the task of making herself happier by outlining 12 topics to cover over the course of 1 year: marriage, parenthood, friends, eternity, attitude, work, play, passion, energy, money, and mindfulness. She took on one subject each month, adding to the resolutions from the previous month and leaving the 12th month of the year to juggle all 11 topics.

So far, I've read her first two months/chapters entitled "Boost Energy" and "Remember Love." The first in particular allowed me to notice changes I've made in my own life. I play DDR for an hour and a half on Saturdays and Sundays, half an hour on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and 45 minutes of Wii Fit on Tuesdays and Thursdays (I've lost 5 pounds this month, hopefully that's only the beginning). I make a list of chores to get done on weekends; even if I don't make it through all of them, I still feel accomplished. To clear clutter out of my apartment, I look for something to bring down to the dumpster or the recycling bins with me every morning (and it's gotten to the point where I literally hunt down emptied and useless items). I listen to songs that make me walk faster on my way to and from work. If I feel like singing or dancing to that music, I do (to varying degrees depending upon the presence of other people).

I've also worked a bit on the interpersonal side. I only say no to a social engagement if I'm double-booked, where previously I might hesitate due to the uncertainty of the outcomes. If my family or a friend calls, I call them back as soon as possible instead of waiting for them to check in again in a few weeks. I try to be an initiator and encourager instead of a responder and an agreer. I've stopped accommodating others at the cost of my own mental health - or at least, I don't do it without speaking up a little.

Now I'm following the book and thinking about what my resolutions would be each month. What would this month be? I think boosting energy is more than just physical for me, so it warrants two months of work. What I would call "Feeling Smarter" in a sense, keeping myself actively reflecting, learning, and creating. I've started playing one song on the keyboard every morning, watching one piece of media in Japanese with subtitles at least once a week, and hopefully keeping up with my blog more regularly. Once I have furniture in my apartment again, I'm hoping to get back into pastels on the weekends - I have five small frames I bought to fill with artwork weekly.

Anyway, more important than the details of such a plan is the engagement and determination to do it. I think there are very few people that wouldn't benefit from such an endeavor. Just something to ponder.

Schoolwork, Internship, Apprenticeship, or Ownership

2010-03-03T11:10:00.006-05:00

I've just been introduced to an interesting thought regarding my workplace that had never occurred to me before. For anyone reading that is not familiar with the Emergent Media Center's project structure, we hire students for pay to work on projects under the supervision of staff and faculty advisors.

I've always been aware of the fact that this is very different from a classroom experience. In a classroom, the teacher challenges the learner to exercise gains in knowledge through activities that mean little beyond the educational realm; your homework does not profit the teacher in any immediate sense.

This is also different than an internship; while an internship is provided to a learner by a teacher in order to acquire profits and sustain a pool of employees, interns are notoriously buried in menial tasks that are not worth the time and effort of a more skilled worker. This makes for a very long process of gaining knowledge and transforming learner to teacher. Someday, that intern may be the skilled worker laying tedious assignments out onto new interns, but that ladder may be a tall one to climb.

The closest comparison I could come up with is apprenticeships of old; someone would take in a successor to their profession and teach them the craft. This process also allows the teacher a degree of profit based on the learner's progress, and the knowledge gain is steeper. There are no intermediate positions, just a transition from learner to fellow teacher. Still potentially a long process, but more focused on the topic of knowledge gain from the start.

Even this does not suffice to explain the model here at the EMC. Here, teacher and learner both strive for the exact same goals, and may indeed be doing the exact same task. Given how much responsibility for the product is laid in the hands of the learners, one can even argue that the learner's progress, product, and profits become more important than the teacher's. This is not to say that the presence of the teacher is unnecessary or insignificant, but the fruits of the teacher's labor are minimal and sometimes nonexistent.

Having reflected upon this, it truly is fascinating how similar and yet different the dynamics are from classroom to EMC: similar in feeling, but different in realization. While we can only hope that there are never any tremendous failures on the part of our learners, the rewards or consequences of good or bad work have so much more impact than one letter of the alphabet stamped on a paper or inserted into an email. And I think perhaps the teacher's interpretation of the learner's progress is far different. In this space, a major failure can still be an "A moment" if the conclusions and resolutions that come out of that failure express true learning. Here, the process to reach the final product is just as important as what you "turn in" at the end of your time on a project.

The evaluation of a learner's growth is so interdisciplinary here too. Sure, maybe you're a writer, and if this were a classroom environment we would grade you on the script you turn in. But even though you're a writer, we still see and appreciate your communication style and behavior management. You may not be an artist, but we find value in those stick figure storyboards you used to get yourself to the end goal. You didn't have to talk to the programmers, but we admire your choice to learn how your script will be programmed into a game. Teachers don't have the time to observe every moment of work on an assignment in order to grade the process, but aside from it sounding a little creepy, I think our world would see better learners, and ultimately better teachers too, if the entire journey were under examination for praise or critique.

I've digressed a little, but my main point is that I like where I work for all the whos, hows, and whats involved. The process is just as awesomely emergent as all of the products it generates.

Pausing the Game

2010-03-01T13:48:00.003-05:00

Yes, it's been a year since I last wrote on my blog. What's happened in my life since then? I'll allow those reading this to guess at what level of change in my life would leave me no time to write about it, though reflection time abounds on my walks to and from the bus stop on Cherry Street every weekday. Here are a few hints. Work. Apartment. Exercise. Sunshine. Friends. Family. Cooking. Cleaning. Spontaneity. Reading. Email. EMAIL.

I am yet again on my way to GDC in a week, but that is not my impetus to write. I feel compelled to write because of a little game that just came out on the Playstation 3 called Heavy Rain. There are a dozen fan-girlish things I could say about the game that thousands of other people would say too. I will take a moment to lay praise on the game for merging cinema with gameplay. From the moment one watches the opening credits, included the "Written and Directed by" line that everyone looks for in a movie and no one ever looks for in a game, the experience read "movie" without reading passive. There were passive elements to it, of course - the cinematic cuts and choices made by unplayable characters, but those elements were so cleverly paralleled with interactive content that I truly felt engaged throughout.

There, praise laid. The point that I want to get to is how this game made me think about the work that I am doing right now with games and attitudinal or behavior change. I am quite certain that Heavy Rain is the closest I've ever come to seeing games evoke an emotional response from the player that is strong enough to drive a change in attitude or behavior. I'm not saying that (SPOILERS!) I've decided I'll never kill a man to save my son or that I'm not going to trust private investigators without doing a thorough background check (END SPOILERS), because the content of the decisions I made are of no interest here. What really struck me was the process of decision making.

Keep in mind that this game took about 10 hours to play through, and there was no traditional game UI or mechanical systems such as scoring, time huds, health points, or levels (there were levels, but they felt much more like scenes in a movie). You step into the shoes of four different characters throughout the course of the game, and it's possible for any and all of those characters to die before you finish; these deaths do not end the game, presumably until the fourth character dies and you no longer have someone to control in the storyline.

Although all four characters are trying to accomplish the same thing - catching a killer and saving a little boy - each has a different "flavor" of conflict. The private investigator gets into "wrong place, wrong time" types of trouble that are loosely tied to his mission but entirely coincidental. The FBI guy stands as the voice of reason pitted against a partner in analysis willing to bend the law (though sometimes FBI guy can bend the law too). The reporter faces survival conflict; similar but different to the PI, her brand of struggle is entirely directed at her and serves as a result of her own actions. And last and most important of all, the father faces desperate moral conflict in which he must make choices that will ostensibly impact whether or not his son lives or dies - imagine Saw crossed with John Q.

Now to the meat of the matter: the transition made in my decision making process. When I played as these characters, I felt very strongly connected to their existence, and I knew that these characters could die. This was powerful knowledge. I also knew that time in the game progressed without me. Combine these two thoughts, and snap decisions become abundant. Add to that equation the fact that you may make choices that allow you to survive but also come with a heavy level of regret or remorse for other characters. Now we have one tough decision making process to master.

Most games are about the survival of your character, this is nothing new. But few point out that your survival can be at the cost of another's. Some make you feel regret that you must harm others to continue, but it doesn't usually stop you. Jason Rohrer's Idealism does this in a very abstract way, but it gives you no alternative: create hostility or fail. Heavy rain paved the road to regret by allowing you to fail at surviving, succeed at surviving at another's cost, or succeed at surviving without pushing others down to the ground. It's more compelling because it's more like real life; by making it more like real life, the game is more likely to also elicit real emotion.

At the start of the game, I found myself making a lot of bad decisions. I hurt someone that appeared to be a danger to my life yet turned out to be totally harmless. Why? Because I knew I had to make a decision, and that this person I was playing didn't have much time to do it. What surprises me, and what I can't truly explain, is that it never occurred to me to pause the game. I don't think I ever would have if a friend hadn't prompted me to when we were making an incredibly important decision. From that moment on, the game felt totally different to me. It also reminded me of something I'd discussed recently about the potential of games to create behavior change.

In a passive medium, the audience needs time to reflect on the decisions that the characters have made. This reflection time often takes place after the choice because you need to know what the character decided to do in order to analyze why they did it and why certain consequences fell into line. In a game, that reflection time takes place before the decision because you're the one making it. Heavy Rain made me feel so much like I was part of a movie that I forgot about some of my game player "super powers," like the option to pause time and consider my options. In some ways, it felt like a cheat. When the game wasn't paused, time passed, and that passage of time sometimes took control of the story away from me; choosing not to make a decision was a choice of its own. By pausing the game, I was eliminating that choice.

I think the game could have easily been done without an ability to pause; it would only be one step closer to real life, to have to make decisions with the situation staring you in the face, never looking away from the TV screen to confer with a friend while the menu hovered over the content, blurring out the details. But by adding that menu, I think this game (unintentionally or otherwise) made a statement that decisions you make from moment to moment are important, so you better think hard about what you do. If this game were meant to teach behavior change, it would provide for the player a unique balance between understanding the pressures you feel when making such behavioral decisions and the amount of thought that needs to go into those decisions. If it were a longer game, I'd bet it could even teach you to make the right moral decision without needing to pause.

One last observation and then I'm done. I love the treatment of morality, a subject that has been played with in games to date in such a light-hearted, explicit, game-y way. Here, you don't get good and evil points for what you did. Here, your character won't grow horns or halos. The closest you'll come to receiving quantitative feedback is through trophies, which you earn for making good or bad decisions alike. All that confronts the player is the situations and the story. But, I would also have to admit that beyond the content, I think it takes a very mature gamer to appreciate a game like that. I hope I'm wrong on that part, but I can't really prove or disprove myself unless I abduct one of my non-gaming friends and sit them down to my PS3 for an hour or ten.

Long story short: play Heavy Rain if you think games can't cause the player to question their behavior, their life values, and their decision-making processes.

Possible Futures and My United Books of Academia

2009-03-22T08:54:00.003-04:00

It's almost the end of March, and there's snow in the sky. I don't think I need to say anything else about that.

As I'm preparing to take off for GDC, I find myself gazing wide-eyed into the future - or trying to anyway. There are so many things for me to learn and so many people for me to meet in the days to come. But more importantly, there will be so many opportunities for the things I learn and the people I meet to boomerang around again and show up in my life in an impactful way. I'd like to hope so, at least.

Another thing that has me looking far ahead is The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half the Twenty-First Century. It's a few years old, but I've been so tuned out of science since I graduated high school that it's fascinating me. The breadth of the essays contained within it also promises insight into a stunning array of specialized fields. Right now, I'm reading about how science has been able to transfer portions of the brain between species, and what consequences these types of transfers might have on humans. Bizarre stuff that one would only expect to see in fiction.

The reason I'm reading this is because I was inspired to look to the future by the post-literacy presenter at ACRL. While post-literacy served as a starting point for my research, I'm bouncing around quite a few ideas right now: nanobiology, transhumanism, the post-information age, and plain old human and brain evolution. All quite fascinating. I think I may have been spurred to dive into the stacks and max out my borrowing allowances because I had just come from a library conference, but it's been a while since I got my hands on a big pile of books, and I'm really enjoying the process of scanning through them for the information I need, while paging more slowly through the information I like. Ain't research grand?

I'm also trying to whip through a book on why children need fantasy violence, Killing Monsters. It's a pretty interesting read thus far, explaining how violence represented in media that are distinctly separate from a child's reality (toy soldiers, comic books, cartoons) can help children to understand violence better rather than desensitize them to it. I'm curious to get to some more in-depth analysis of where the border is between fantasy and reality, because that's where trouble often ensues, at least from the critics' perspectives.

This post was a bit all over the place, but I'm just out to share my thoughts lately - it takes a lot less time than actually stringing together the pieces, and guarantees I share anything at all!

Rousing Round Table

2009-03-14T16:32:00.002-04:00

I've just come from the working lunch round tables, and although I'm not sure the round table discussion wound up being about the true topic at hand, it was fun nonetheless. I sat down to a table centered on the topic of "Delivering Resources to Developing World Users." Naturally, I was curious what the library industry was doing to address this issue - I hoped to gain insight into some possibly non-electronically based delivery methods. The table facilitator was Jaron Porciello, a librarian from Cornell University working on a project called TEEAL: The essential electronic agricultural library. Sponsored by a long list of partners, this LanTEEAL 2.0, or the Agricultural Library in a Box, works to deliver hard drives jam-packed with full-text articles to agricultural scientists in four different languages.

Two of the women at the table sat down because they saw that we were relatively lonely, and Tim joined as well (obviously because I was already there). The last contributor to the discussion was a man from the Netherlands working with learners in developing countries. He said that at least one of the foreign libraries he was working with had only one computer with a .5kbps dial-up Internet connection to service the entire campus population. The librarian also knew little to no English, and therefore could only sort the books in his library by the LC classification, having no other idea of what each book actually contained. I mentioned to him that we were using cell phones as a way to reach populations with limited computer access through the UN project, and he received a few other helpful contacts from the women at the table before taking off for another.

As seems always to be the case, the conversation diverged because there was an interest in hearing more about the projects that we were working on. One of the women at the table has a 44-year-old brother with cystic fibrosis, so she and Tim fell into a rather natural conversation, while I continued talking to Jaron about the possible entry strategies to marketing and distributing the UN game in the long run. The conversation was wonderful, fruitful, and energizing. I look forward to continuing a correspondence with her in the months to come as the UN project really getes underway with its development.

All very exciting, and it all happened in such a short amount of time. Even if my ever more frequent contemplation of what life would be like as a librarian turns out to be nothing career-altering, I'll never stop loving what the world of academic libraries has to offer me.

Sky-High Night, Low-Hanging Morning

2009-03-14T10:34:00.002-04:00

Fortunately, the title of this post has more to do with the weather and my current location than it does with my spirits. Last night, Tim and I went to the Chair's Reception at the Columbia Tower Club, on the 75th floor of the Columbia Tower. The view was absolutely gorgeous - it reminded me why cities everywhere fascinate me. We had a good conversation with Mat Willmott, the puzzle master for the earlier MIT session, too. Looking forward to getting a peak at the Cambridge area from an insider's perspective at some point in the future.

This morning, the classic Seattle clouds have finally rolled in, and rain is on the agenda. This may give me more motivation to stay indoors and do work than I already had, but I may still venture down to Chinatown with my camera - I promised someone I'd get a few good pics of the city.

I'm looking foward to a wrap-up of the conference. Though it's been a great experience, it'll be nice to get back to the normal ebb and flow of things for...well, a few days before I'm off to San Francisco. I can't stop thinking about how bizarre and wonderful the past two years of school have been. I'm definitely going to miss it, but I think I'll enjoy the days without a constant surprise on the horizon more than I can even imagine right now.

The Absolutely True Conundrum of Sherman Alexei

2009-03-13T18:25:00.000-04:00

So the rest of conference day 2 was a bit up and down. I listened to a panel presented by a group from MIT who were using puzzles published in their student newspaper and posted around campus to teach students about the tools available through the library. Very cool, makes me wish I were better at making cryptograms and psuedo-sudoku that embed a necessary recognition of ISBN numbers and how to request materials from archives.

Then, local writer/poet/playwright/comedian Sherman Alexei gave a keynote speech. Having read his bio in the program, I came into the session wondering what he could possibly say that was at all related to information literacy. Sadly, I came out of the session thinking the answer was "not much at all." Don't get me wrong, he was an entertaining speaker, quick with his words and unabashed in his self-expression, but I was frankly surprised that his talk was so much about himself and his perception of the world. I am left wondering now if he was tasked with being the mid-conference keynote speaker simply to provide a pick-me-up for the attendees.

On my way out, however, someone turned to me on the escalators and said she recognized me from my presentation earlier in the day. We had a brief conversation about gender studies, and I wish I had gotten her name to continue the conversation. For me, that was the pick-me-up needed.

Surfacing for Air

2009-03-13T14:37:00.000-04:00

I keep saying it: I'm a terrible blogger. But wow, 3 months this time...oh how the time goes by. I'm listening to Owl City's "Hello Seattle" in...you guessed it, Seattle. Maybe it's because it hasn't rained yet, but I'm really loving the city. Well, I am now that I've been down to the Pike Street Market. It's the largest year-round market in the country, which I think is just phenomenal, not to mention its diversity of offerings in local and imported arts and crafts.

I discovered today that wearing my polka-dotted dress, Ann Taylor sweater, white costume jewelry, and funky red lipstick, while not particularly mature by my standards, has gotten me called ma'am an awful lot. Or at least that's what I attribute it to. Maybe eating and shopping alone is just considered an older person's thing to do. What I also discovered was the best panang curry I've ever had in my life, at a Thai place called Typhoon down by the water. Perfect combination of creamy, peanutty, and spicy. And the deal-sealer: it was cheap. I love a place where I can afford to be a foodee.

My presentation this morning with peer Tim Miner and Information Literacy Librarian Sarah Cohen was quite possibly the most fun I've had giving a presentation in a long while. Many of the questions we expected to be grilled with were passed off on the presenters just before us, who were paired with our session. Either way, I think we could have handled it, and our ideas were generally accepted well. Yet another day where becoming a librarian feels at least marginally feasible.

I say marginally because being here makes me realize how little I really do know about librarianship. I've done my best to get excited about the panels and contributed papers, but I just don't know what a lot of them are trying to address. That said, this is probably the friendliest community of conference goers I've met thus far, and so I at least don't feel like running out of the room when I realize I don't know much about the topics at hand.

So, one more day of the conference to go before I fly home and get back to business, which there's been quite a lot of lately. I got my first apartment, which has switched on the financial freakout flashing red light in my head, and consequently I've been becoming increasingly more nervous about securing a sustainable career in Burlington. Heck, I'm even unsure of finding a sustainable job in Burlington, let alone something that will advance my life goals. I hope my portfolio will sell my abilities as an individual, and I hope that I soon find the time to work on that portfolio more!

But enough of worries. There are plenty of things to celebrate. I'll be going to GDC for the first time in just over a week now, and I was on VPR last month talking about games and higher ed. with the fabulous Ann DeMarle and Wesley Knee. That was another fun presentation-esque experience, and yet another strange thing for me to put in my CV.

I'm seeing more and more that my life may not always be full of surprises, but it sure is full of strange things, and I think it's something to be valued. On that note, back to the conference I go!

There's a Battle in My Head...

2008-12-09T22:50:00.002-05:00

There's a battle in my head that stops the words in my mouth before they dare escape. It renders me motionless, pulling my mind into a state of complete philosophical quandary. I start to see conflicting factors cast above me like stars, and the voices around me feed into this elaborate atmosphere. Meteors, constellations, and nebulous schools of thought begin to form, but none claim my focus as I probe for the answers to life... or at least, the answers to my life.

For a long time, I've considered games with meaning and an intellectual or educational purpose as the pinnacle of my design goals. I expected to be fighting an uphill battle, but I felt that the fight would be one that engaged many: strong, sharp minds sounding the call to war, weathered hands with experience and determination wielding the standard. What I forgot to expect was the vast array of problems that slow down any band of warriors: the volley of setbacks that snag the troops with budget restraints, communication breakdowns, and deadlines that force a loss in quality.

It's gotten me thinking about whether it is worth the scars. Would it be any easier to ignore the intense messages and clearly-defined educational goals of "serious" games? Would it make things simpler if I focused on creating games for people who already play them, love them, and will shell out their money for anything with strong reviews and a good ad campaign? Would I feel better if I allowed this conflicted battle to carry on around me without my input at all? It's not unreasonable to expect that someone is going to come up with an idea for me rather than with me, and that I will only find challenge in working within such constraints. Would it be best for me to cool my fires and settle to the task without question and concern?

Easier, simpler? Maybe. Better? Definitely not. It isn't in my heart to stand down, to stop pushing boundaries, to stop asking questions. I certainly don't expect to be able to devise the strategy for every revolutionary assault on game development, but I do expect to remain a messenger and a reporter in the fray. I see a lot of things, and they aren't often pretty or easy. My only hope is that the relay of such observations will not fall on deaf ears. I can see that I am in a good place to sound the warning, and while messages are often lost in the frantic swells of production, I think a watchful hand from above that knows how to use its many eyes and ears is really all I can ask for.

Long Day, Late Night

2008-12-03T01:30:00.002-05:00

Well, I'm sitting in the Emergent Media Center and it's 1:30 AM. Don't worry, I'm not working overtime - I'm just using an incredibly quiet space to catch up on my academic life. A programmer sits across the table from me, doing the same. I could take this as a bad sign, but I am beyond contemplative right now. I have reached a point where there are decidedly too many things to do in a day...so I'm going to do them through the night for a bit as well. I'm confident that nothing is riding on me being awake right now, but it certainly is nice to have a moment to lay down some thoughts.

I was actually inspired to write by someone else. I would call this person a co-worker, colleague, and peer, but I'm not sure that he would view me on such equal footing. As projects are wrapping up for the semester, he approached me to ask what I thought of the situation, and we proceeded to spend the next hour talking about the projects we're working on together, his classes, how much he learns from other students, teachers he likes, teachers he's frustrated with, and the ability to capture my personality for use as a constant source of motivation. I never thought anyone would want a "Lauren in Pocket" as he called it, but it was rather touching to hear that I have had such a positive impact on another person's college experience. I've never viewed myself as particularly inspiring, but I suppose a kind ear goes a long way. With a spring in my step despite the late hour, I went on to shoot the professional breeze with the other young worker in the room for another half hour or so. Just one night of such conversation has left me pondering the immeasurable value of human connections.

If anything needs to be a part of my daily/weekly/monthly routine, it is finding time to talk to interesting people. It may feel highly unproductive at times, but it stirs up a sense of accomplishment that reaches beyond to-do lists and milestones. In this particular situation, it did turn into quite a valuable conversation, allowing me to tune into the flaws of production processes past and present as viewed from someone else's perspective. Next step: finding a way to accommodate those disparities. Maybe I like being a producer more than I realized.

Moral of the story: talk to people. Talk often, and on any subject that presses against the edges of your mind. You never know what will come of it, but it is guaranteed to make you feel better on a deeper level than any mild source of entertainment or leisurely recreation.

Tools of the Trade

2008-11-20T20:53:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I haven't blogged since September. I'm a bad person, I know. I would argue that my life is busy, but the whole point of blogging is often for me to share my ideas quickly with a handful of incredible but widely scattered people. If I have lost anyone's interest by taking so long to get back on the ball, I'm sorry!

I definitely haven't written for lack of things to write about. I gave a speech at the EMC's Grand Opening about a month ago, and I just got back from the Montreal International Game Summit. It is for the latter reason that I now write, and that I now force myself to publish the post without leaving it drafted for another three weeks. There are many things to consider and share about my time at MIGS, but I'm going to break them down into chunks that are easier for me to commit to writing.

So, the first thing that became a pretty strong trend over the course of the conference: meaning in games. I will have to stay away from commenting on Jonathan Blow's final keynote speech on the subject because I left early to help out at the glorious Gamma 3D party, but I did catch enough of his presentation to know that he was addressing the issue. I also attended a panel discussion on the subject, however, which was followed by a round table. In that time, I noticed a very interesting dilemma.

During the panel discussion, it was easy to observe that the men lined up before me to debate the issue of meaning in games were not new to the industry; they looked at least a little seasoned and comfortable in their shoes as creative directors (Although Jason Della Rocca was on the panel and isn't a creative director, he looked quite comfortable anywhere I saw him over the course of the conference). At the round table after, I was struck by the fact that 95% of the participants were students. What does this mean?

To me, it means that being able to inject meaning into games, or even being able to stop and think about it seriously with others, is a privilege within the industry. In college, we are pushed to experiment and question and theorize in ways that we cannot when there are jobs on the line. Once you've climbed the latter and find yourself resting on a sturdy rung, you can then return to the thought that you should hold firmly to values and create meaningful experiences.

At least that's the way it looks right now. If I turn to Warren Spector's opening keynote speech on the game industry, it was clear that he had a great amount of faith in the upcoming generation as design pioneers, ready to take the foundations of game development and utilize them in previously unforeseen and unfeasible ways. I hope that his was an accurate forecast of times to come. If it was, I would be legitimately excited to immerse myself in the game industry and to create something that is both meaningful and engaging. However, it was made abundantly clear that this is not industry standard at present.

One of the first sessions I attended was a talk by Eric Chartrand in which the paradigm of games was identified as unrealistic and inaccessible to most members of the new game audience. He pushed for games that would appeal to larger markets, and for doing so by questioning the facts of games we take for granted. They were humorous rules, noting that all good things must come in crates and that every few minutes a huge bad ass monster boss fight will occur, but he made an important point. We have established a language of games that is neither comprehended nor appreciated by a vast majority of human beings.

Randy Smith went on to reference similar aspects of games in his talk on games as art. Observing that games are able to make as much or more money than films when only targeting a small slice of the audience that movies touch, he called for a shift in beliefs away from the fact that games have to be fun and for more informed design choices that speak to a real message. This is not necessary in all games, but it is important to compare movie and literature genres to game genres. How long has it taken for us to begin to encompass not only sci-fi and fantasy, but horror, comedy, historical and realistic fiction? When will we get to the documentaries, dramas, and biographicals? How lightly do we touch on these genres without ever getting beyond the surface? When will there be games that feel like short films, or even poems?

I have reached the conclusion that if I get into the gaming industry without veering off in the direction of serious games entirely, I will want to make a game like a poem. A really epic poem.

Expansion Three: The Working World

2008-09-23T12:29:00.003-04:00

Today's tidbit before the real deal is: I got my letter to my dad back in the mail today. This saddened me a bit, but the good news is that it was returned because it couldn't be forwarded to the right address, not because he did not read it and returned it himself. So, round two with a different address begins tomorrow. I hope it works out better.

So, on to the main topic. I'm in a strange state this year, it's official. I don't feel ready to venture out into the world, but the tediousness of gen. ed. classes is wearing me thin. I rush to get done with simple reading and writing assignments, and find myself with little real time to commit to my design work. I have great hopes to complete some real work of my own this semester, but I also have great desires to see the other projects I'm working on come to fruition in the best possible way. In some ways, it's frustrating because I feel like I don't have quite enough effort to go around. In other ways, it's refreshing to have responsibilities in my workplace that are purely focused around my field of study. This is my first year without a desk job that fills my time with peaceful but irrelevant tasks. Any work that I'm doing outside of the classroom right now is definitely a part of who I am and where I want to go in life.

That said, I still haven't quite nailed down the "where I want to go" part...A month ago, I was ready to start applying to the JET (Japanese Exchange and Teaching) Programme, which would ship me off to a school in Japan for a year starting next July or August. It's a rigorous application process, but it's a wonderful opportunity to see the country and to be immersed in the language. After only a day of listening to my family speaking rapidly back and forth in Japanese, a part of me felt at home again, and even more determined to push my education further.

About a week and a half ago, however, I was reminded that I had expressed interest in helping my program director start a gaming business right here in Burlington. There are many things about this plan that appeal to me. I love Burlington and the Champlain community. I want to make games with a meaning or a message that is more than just entertainment value or driven by profits. And I want to stay tied to the college community in a way that may allow me to help expand the possibilities for Champlain students to the point that I'm painfully jealous of the opportunities available to them. This would be a pretty big feat, given how lucky I think I've been in my own college experience, but it's one I'd be happy to strive for.

Then there's the down side...is it a good idea to stick so close to what has quickly become my home? Should I be getting my feet wet out in "the real world"? Am I going to be missing out on opportunities of my own by staying? I can't answer any of those questions, which is part of the reason why it's so easy to commit to Burlington. And if I don't reach out, no one's going to reach in and pull me away, that's a guaranteed fact. As more and more of my friends and colleagues begin to take wing, I'm sure I'll be wondering even more than I am now.

But no matter my conclusions, I must remember two things...I'm young, and the future is vast. Even five years in Burlington would be a drop in the pond (I hope) by the time I'm done with my professional career. And given my track record so far, I know that amazing opportunities can pop up right underneath your feet. So, I'll be holding out and chugging along for the next eight months, and here's to whatever comes next!

Expansion Two: Thoughts from South Africa

2008-09-16T19:14:00.011-04:00

Before I delve too deeply into the emotional hurricane that was the South Africa trip, I have new and exciting news (as ever). I will be going with Information Literacy Librarian Sarah Cohen to Seattle in March for the ACRL 14th National Conference, where we will be leading a speaker session based on our proposal, "Percolating the Power of Play." 230 applications were submitted this year, and only 19% were accepted. Admittedly, I have never been so thrilled to be involved in the library space. Now I only hope that the game(s) we have to show will help us prove our points!

I am still not sure I'll be able to put into words all the wonderful, beautiful, heartbreaking things I saw and experienced in Cape Town, but I will do my best to try.

Flying over and into the country, I definitely felt like I was on my first trip overseas. What I saw below me was something so different from everything I knew...I was so excited to see more. Very quickly, the economic diversity of the country began to show, as miles of townships were painted into the foreground of the picturesque Table Mountain.

Going into Langa on our first real day there, we were greeted by throngs of smiling children. They all clambered to have their pictures taken, posing for us and grabbing our hands as we walked down the streets. Some pleaded for small things that we carried, others simply wanted to say hi.

This behavior was almost scary to us - what parents would let their children run in the street with adults from another country? But we quickly found that it was due to a strong sense of community, that every pair of eyes looking out from the houses and shops might as well be the eyes of mothers and fathers, whether they actually were or not.

The feeling of communal love is something we don't often experience in our own culture. Maybe in my backwoods hometown in New Hampshire, and maybe a little bit within the community at Champlain, but in neither of those places is it so prevalent in the atmosphere as it was in the Cape Town townships.

Despite this overpowering presence, there was still sadness tearing them apart. Many things were hurting the people of these small communities: from the half-rennovated hostels that housed as many as three families in a single bedroom,

to the all-too-common poor driving that hurt this girl and kept her at home all day.

The thing that struck me most, though, was that talking about violence, abuse, and gender inequality was not necessarily casual, but it wasn't taboo as we might have expected. It was spoken of as if these things were just a part of life, to be accepted and to submit to. There was no sense of power in the bright young individuals, and even in some of the sharp-witted adults, that we met each day. There was no feeling of empowerment, independence, strength of voice, strength of choice. These young adults were intelligent, expressive, creative, complex, and completely helpless in their own minds to change anything about the world around them.

We found some points of inspiration, some nodes of empowerment in each community. But there is not enough support for them, and there are not enough of them to change every young man and woman's life, to keep the majority of kids off the street and out of crime. It is easy to see why they perceive change as something impossible, because their numbers are so small.

But change has to start with one person, always. Someone has to be willing to speak out, no matter the consequences. They are fortunate that they have such a powerful role model as Nelson Mandela in their recent history. They have fought so much already, and I can see in their faces that they have the strength to fight onward. The only question is if they have the time...

We met so many of what we would call "broken families," without parents and with young girls and boys taking charge of households before they were even out of school themselves. We saw classrooms without teachers, we heard stories of people calling desperately for the police and receiving help hours later, if at all. And we saw the other side of the coin: rich young children, unaware of the tragedy just outside their neighborhood, ignorant of the conditions, more interested in games than even the people sitting next to them. In a word, familiar: more like us, too much like us.

Going into this trip, I expected to find answers, but I didn't expect to fall in love. There was something so simple about the beauty of Cape Town. No matter what troubles littered the city streets, it was so easy to look up to Table Mountain, to see the beauty of the world and pull it closer to your heart. But there's only so much that a pretty reminder can do for you. It's nice, but it's not enough, nowhere near enough for those wonderful, fortunate but unfortunate people. They need more, and if it's something I can give them, I'd like to try. I don't think I'll forget what I saw there for the rest of my life, for even a day or a moment. If I do, I'll spend the rest of my life trying to remember it again.

Expansion One: Family Time

2008-09-15T07:42:00.003-04:00

While this post is intended to elaborate on one of the brief points I made in my last entry, there is something I have to say first about blogging - it's the strangest addiction I've ever had. Once I've written a post, even if it was something small, I find myself gripped by a strong desire to write again. In the face of ever-busier days and grueling nights, it's easy for me to lose sight of this urge, but if I even have enough time to click on my Google Reader and scroll over the posts of my friends and colleagues, I get the itch. Unavoidable, it feels, but I'm not complaining.

So, family. It's a beautiful thing, and something so special when you really think about it. We often induct people into the circle that we claim as family, but upon visiting my aunt this past month, I had to really wonder if those other relationships would be able to endure a decade of silence without showing any wear or tear. I'd certainly like to hope so, though I also hope I'll never have a reason to test it out. I'm glad to say that at least in the case of real family, it felt like I'd heard those familiar voices, seen their smiling faces only a day before.

There are very few things that keep me quiet in life (these days, anyway). One of them is a fear of inflicting pain. I was so young when my family started to crumble. I was too young to understand why it was happening, and too old to ask without thinking. I couldn't remember ever hearing a word of real explanation, but I could easily recall tears and frustration. So I held my tongue, even though my greatest pen pal, my aunt, hadn't written in weeks, months, years, and the last postcard we got from her trip to Japan hung gathering dust on the refridgerator, next to a picture of my two-year-old cousin's face.

In the long run, I had to hope those relics of a wonderful relationship were on display for a reason. At my ripe age of twenty-one, I also felt strongly that I didn't have to involve anyone else in my endeavors to reconnect. Of course, finding an address may have been a problem when I was ten years old, but the power of the Internet has matured just as well as I have. And thank goodness for that, at least in this situation.

A letter and an email later, I was relieved, overjoyed, heartbroken to have missed so much, anxious to learn so much more. But I was also still a little afraid of causing pain, uncertain as I picked up my phone to tell my mom the news. There were so many ways it could have gone, given my limited knowledge, but the emotional highway simply continued to speed off in the same direction I'd been paving it. Myself, my mom, my sister were all touched to see pictures of my aunt, uncle, and cousin. We were all electrified with desire to make plans, and for once I was ready to throw work out the window and get in one real week of vacation.

I did get that week, and it was probably one of the longest in my life. I can't say I really have a working memory of any other vacation that long - sad, I know. In some ways, it became a bit of a struggle towards the end to not go nuts wondering how my projects were doing. But the benefits of shutting myself off from life, cell phone service, and Internet access almost completely were immeasurable. In one week, I learned more about my family - my grandparents, my greatgrandparents, my dad - than I had in the rest of my life. I saw things that sucked me back in time in a matter of seconds, tasted things I hadn't recalled the existence of. I absorbed all the Japanese language I could, and yearned to see all the places my family had visited in their trips to Japan over the years. The only disheartening thing I took away from all of it was that no one has heard from my dad. I can't imagine living life without contact with my parents and siblings, as infrequently as I may call up my own.

Ba-chan is turning 81 on Thursday. She seems to despise anything that focuses on her, including a camera lens, so I'm hoping a simple card written in my rudimentary Japanese will be good enough. I wish I could give her the gift of a connection with her oldest son again. I don't know if I can, but I've started the process of trying. I mailed a letter to what I hope to be my dad's current mailing address. If I get a response, the mix of emotions will most likely be a bit more complicated than the last bout. If it comes back to me, I'll try a slightly different address I found. If nothing happens...well, there are bound to be complex feelings there too.

I'm Alive!

2008-09-13T16:30:00.006-04:00

I've sat down to the computer several times to get out all the thoughts that go with the multitude of things that have happened in my life recently. I've come to the quick conclusion that it's just too much for me to process all at once. So, here are some tidbits from along the way, and I'll try to elaborate on one at a time.

First off, I love my family. I don't know how I ever went so long without seeing them.

Secondly, I love South Africa. It is such a different place, full of beautiful people.

Thirdly, the school year promises to be busy, and I'm itching for a job other than student.

Lastly, I love my division, dean, and program director!

I'm not sure whether this is a sad thing or not, but most of my time spent at the computer these days is spent on academic affairs. I'm starting a philosophy blog for my Critical Thinking course, a globalization blog for my Seminar in Contemporary World Issues, and a Japanese blog, if it'll let me write in hiragana, for my own personal practice with the language. Maybe somewhere in there, I'll have time to do some more creative writing and poetry...maybe!

Everything In Motion

2008-08-08T00:00:00.000-04:00

It feels like forever since I last had the desire to sit down at the computer after hours, but I feel compelled to because so much has happened recently.

Family is on my mind in many respects. I must start with the most pressing of matters on the familial front - my thoughts are now constantly with my cousin Chris. He was not my closest cousin growing up, but he was still like a brother to me for a long series of years. I have just today been informed that a tumor, which was removed from his cerebellum late last week, was cancerous and will require him to undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatment. His grandmother, a nurse, says there is a 50-75% chance he will make it through just fine. I believe that his strength will put him on the higher end of this statistic, if not well above and beyond it.

Turning towards more distant family, I will shortly be heading down to Virginia! There are a few things I'll be missing while there, but they are well worth the trade-off. There will be so many emotions to experience and share...I can hardly wait. Whoa! I just got tickled by Brian. Anyway...

Another family on my mind is the one comprised of the EMC. I had a wonderful time at Ann's house this past Saturday, and every day at work builds anticipation for the trip to South Africa. On top of that, a new space for all of us hardworking kids is on the horizon. I saw the designs today and they look awesome!

I'd like to say more, but my brain is melting. Good night, everyone!

A Living Cycle

2008-07-26T09:50:00.004-04:00

I feel like I'm the only one who hasn't blogged about this yet, but whew, UN orientation...some definite highs and lows, scary and otherwise. I'm excited about the group as a whole, though sad to see that all the familiar faces I've worked with before were drawn away from me. It's not that I don't like new groups by any means. It's simply that every new group has so many quirks, goals, ambitions, motivators, outside influences on behavior, and so on. I often love learning these nuances of people, perhaps as part of the human frequencies I wrote about before, but it is admittedly draining. After having taken all summer to finally crack the last few members of my Info Lit team, it feels like it may take just as long to do the same with this new group, although there are only about half as many students. I think as far as managing other people and driving them towards both productivity and enjoyment of their work, this summer's project has been the most taxing by far. But I feel like it's something I should be comfortable doing, which I am. That said, the school year promises to be one of my most challenging yet, I think.

Now that I've accidentally written part of an assignment for the project, I'll move on to something else that I've been contemplating: the role of women in video games. It's easy to say that they're unrealistic, made to be either objects of male possession or quippy, foxy heroines. Much the same level of fantasy is achieved in most male roles in video games as well. But what about the women that have no names and well-defined parts in games? How often do they come up? How many shooting games have females thrown into the NPC (non-player character) population? Does it change the way you play if there are any?

Most instances of female filler characters I can think of are civilians: random women walking down the street in the Grand Theft Auto series, women carrying pots on their heads in Assassin's Creed. Sometimes there are entire throngs of women without any men, as in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's Gerudo Valley. But how often do we really see men and women stacked up against the hero of a game? Why is it that nothing springs to my mind?

There may be several reasons for this, one being that I do not play the plethora of games that other kids my age do. Another reason may be that if you're only going to make one model with slight variations to populate a game, males are to be expected and are also easier to model. That aside, I'm now quite curious to know whether or not making a more balanced population in games, let alone one that might accurately represent the 60-40 distribution of women vs. men on this planet, would have any impact on the players. Would the players even notice? Would they have the sense of something being different without being able to place their fingers on it? Would they pick up on it right away? Would they treat the women computer characters any differently than the male counterparts? Too many questions, no way to study them at this point in time.

This whole idea is just one that I'm not sure has been taken into consideration yet for this project. Yes, video games are popular among young men. But the role of women in these games is often one of low or disrespectful status. As in society, is that what the target demographic will expect in any video game? Is that going to be a difficult hurdle to overcome? My answer is yes, but I also see many ways in which it could be done. The most prevalent in my mind at the moment is only half baked, but I have this overwhelming feeling that if we want to convince these boys that things are not as nice the way they are as they might believe, we must first present them with what they expect to see in a game, and then turn it completely on its head, in steps that are gradual enough that they would not confuse the player or make them lose interest.

Just some things kicking around my head on this first weekend after our commencement of the project. Developing this strategy any further, or developing any strategy for design at all, is still far in the future. However, I cannot stop these thoughts from being a dominant part of my mindset when going into the research. Hopefully that will prove to be a good thing.

Family Born Anew

2008-07-19T23:42:00.002-04:00

I barely know where to begin. This week has been a whirlwind of good news. First, I found out that I would be working on the UN project and going to Africa. Then, I found out that a few other people I really wanted to work with would be joining the project (though I still have my fingers crossed on a few I haven't heard from yet). And just today, I received word from family I haven't heard from in over 10 years. This is possibly the best week I've had in a decade.

I wrote to them upon reflecting on all of the wonderful things that have happened in the past year. I truly feel like I've come into my own over the course of the last two semesters, and because I have thought about them so often, I felt that I had no reason not to write anymore. I'm not a kid anymore, it wasn't someone else's job to do this. Even if it were, my desire was too great to wait on someone else. And what a wonderful result!

Part of me wants to jump on a plane and go visit. Part of me wanted to jump onto the phone with them, but I settled for jumping onto the phone with my mom. As relieved as I was to hear from my family to begin with, I was just as relieved to hear that my mom held no resentment against them and had not intentionally cut off communication. I was sorry to bring her to tears, but glad that they were tears of joy. This has been such a special moment. I really can't find words for it. I wanted to write, but I want to write to them even more. So, I'll leave it at the fact that if I seem happy over the next few days or weeks, I have a myriad of reasons to be excited, this being the most heartwarming of all.

Human Frequency

2008-07-17T10:28:00.003-04:00

Well, I have to start by saying this; whoever told Ann about my blog, thanks! It was really great to read her last entry - it always surprises me how much faith she puts in our generation. I also need to thank Marie this morning. It has become clear to me in the past week that she is truly one of the strongest forces that makes Champlain feel like home, outside of my EMC family at least. The idea of losing me once and for all, which has of course been inevitable from the beginning, seemed to bring her to tears yesterday, and I came into the library this morning to find that she'd bought me a "bon voyage" present - an adorable Vera Bradley cosmetics bag and a wallet too! I only hope I can find something wonderful to bring back to her from my trip in return. Sometimes she just makes me feel like I have my own Burlington grandmother watching out for me, and it's so heartening to realize that someone I didn't know a few years ago could grow such a sense of pride and warmth in knowing me.

That said, there's something else on my mind that's been giving me seemingly unlimited energy lately. The realization came in part from something that happened on Monday. A little over a week before, I had applied for a passport. I was nervous that I wouldn't get it by August, and had no idea if I would even need it then. On that Monday, I was officially accepted to the UN project, and when I left work to check my mail, I found my passport waiting for me. I never expected both of those events to happen on the same day, and they felt somewhat perfect because they had.

I think to a certain extent, when two people come together, there is a similar chance for things to feel perfect, and I think it has a lot to do with each person's mentality and the atmosphere they create with their attitude. If you meet someone for the first time and you find yourselves in the same mindset, it feels like the chance for a great connection. If you continue to operate on the same wavelength over the course of time, you start to wonder how you never noticed the person or got along without them. And at that point, even if your brainwaves wander away from each other, it feels like the bond can never be broken, as long as both people are still affected by the feeling that a genuine link exists.

Beautiful friendships can blossom out of such feelings, but they don't always make it that far. Sometimes the feeling exists even when the opportunity to develop friendship is suspended, creating an even stranger sense that you've been thrown into a compelling state of interest and investment in someone you barely know. Sometimes the feeling swells for a moment and then dies away, leaving only a small sense of appreciation for someone else amid an otherwise perpetual state of tolerance or distanced behavior. And sometimes the feeling is offset by a distinct awareness of status-imbalance between the two people; I have yet to decide whether or not this makes the feeling weaker or...not stronger, but better.

There are most certainly a few people that have led me to this conclusion, but the thought extends up to a higher level as well. It has become my experience that some people shift their "human frequency" quite a bit, while others stay put on their one wavelength, cruising through life in a fixed state and only enjoying the company of those who conform to them or find themselves in the same static mentality. Is this the difference between extroverts and introverts? In years past, I had a distinct personality that was offered to everyone in the same form, taken or left for what it was. As I take on more projects, work with more people, do more things with my life in general, I think I've developed a more faceted personality. I know what parts of me have been tied to other people, and I know which parts of my nature would never show their face during certain experiences. I'm not a social butterfly, but I'd feel safe identifying with the social chameleon.

I think this is why I don't usually enjoy groups of people. One on one, you can be anything that the other person enjoys, values, or needs. With a sea of people, it feels good to just be yourself in the moment. But give me a handful of people, no less than 5 and no more than 50, and I'll try to empathize with each person until my brain can't handle it anymore.

Just something interesting that I've been dwelling on. I don't have any answer to what this means about people, I just see it as something that heavily influences human interaction, and I'm glad that I've learned to leap out of the one-wavelength rut and tune in to the people around me.

Thoughts on a Year

2008-07-15T20:18:00.005-04:00

This is rather belated, but I can't help thinking about everything that's happened in this past year, emotionally and mentally. In some ways, it was a terrible year. I started getting scared of graduation. I questioned what I was going to do with my life. I was worked to my breaking point. I had my heart broken. Three times in a row. And my cat died. But looking at the other side of the coin...WOW!

I mean really, let's sum things up. Last summer, I first started working with Ann and the EMC as an RA for GIVIT. As the school year started, the promise of jobs with the EMC emerged. I applied and was told that I was desperately wanted for the Info Lit project (all because of my love for librarians over the previous two years), and I was offered the chance to go to Learning 2007 in Orlando. A week or so after getting back from Florida, I got to go to the CIMIT Innovation Congress in Boston. Just after that, I participated in a summit for the local aquarium, ECHO. I continued to work on the Info Lit project throughout, and also began work at the end of my fall semester on the Game Tomorrow project with IBM Fellow John Cohn. Somewhere in there, I also attended a dinner for BYOBiz kids to present their work to the college trustees.

Second semester shot off like a rocket, with the Info Lit project turning over completely (and my concept getting the thumbs up to move forward), work on the IBM project grinding along, and preparations for the trip to MPI's Meet Different conference in Houston. IBM concluded in the weeks following the Texas trip, and EMC work-study time started to feel like a vacation for a few months. I was interviewed twice, with accompanying photo-shoots, and participated in a mini-challenge with my peers to apply for a Team Excellence award given out by the college. We still haven't used our gift certificate for that!

I can't remember much of anything else happening in the month of March, but the school year definitely closed beautifully. I received three awards, including the Team Excellence Award, at the annual CCM Division Academic Excellence Dinner. The other two awards were an award in undergraduate Game Design and an EMC Interstellar Award, complete with photo album and laser-cut wooden plaque. If anything could have made me cry, that was it. And if anything could have made me squeal with delight, it was the trip that started the day finals ended. Wes and I went to another conference in Orlando, where we got to "relax" and simply take part in the discussions going on. We still made an impression, I think, as to what Champlain College students can do, and then we actually got to spend a day in Epcot. I restrained myself from completely raiding the Japan store, but we closed the night off with a dinner in the Japanese restaurant, watching musically synchronized fireworks over the water. Just perfect.

The year came full circle with another round of GIVIT this past June, during which I also gave my first speech! As part of the 50 years on the Hill celebration of Champlain, I attended a dinner with 150 trustees, honorary trustees, alumni from Champlain's first year on the hill, and other honored guests. I spoke about at least a few of the things I've done, and it felt great to sing Ann's praises for once to people who should really hear it. I also got to announce a few things to come. Learning 2008 is just around the corner, as is the next CIMIT Innovation Congress; but the best and brightest news for me is that I'll be lead designer on a team funded by the UN to create a game addressing violence against women in South Africa. Again...WOW.

My fingers are crossed to have a good team right now - I've never had my stomach do so many flips on account of someone else's uncertain position on a project. Once the teams are settled, I'm sure time will start to fly by again. We'll be coming back from South Africa just in time for the year to start. I'll be starting up other work as a peer advisor and a Japanese Writing Lab assistant, and I'm already bubbling with anticipation for my senior project with Wes. He's already got concept art in Maya that looks better than anything I would have hoped for...cuz he's that good. =)

I guess the thing that's been sitting in my mind a lot lately is the fact that my life is just getting started, and it rocks. I used to think about the distant future and hope it would rush towards me without hesitation. But lately, I want to slow time down as much as possible and enjoy every hectic, unexpected moment of my year, week, and day. Life after college is still pretty scary, but only because life in college is turning out to be so amazing.

Whew.

2008-06-30T22:04:00.003-04:00

Tonight, I return to my poorly attended blog after many events and emotional shifts. I've just completed my stint as RA for GIVIT, which turned out to be quite different from the experience last year. This time around, the kids were much better behaved, and they all seemed more positive about being there as a whole. The projects were much more polished, and I am proud to say that the girls I supervised at the end of the week had the most concise presentation.

One thing that threw me for a loop though was having to shift out of that role mid-week. I had been asked by Hope Martin and Shelley Richardson from the Office of Development to give a speech at the 50 Years on the Hill dinner for trustees, honorary trustees, and other honored guests. Turns out the past two presidents of the college were there as well as alumni from the college and other contributors from the past. Being a student that hopes to graduate in 2009, it was really cool to sit next to a couple that graduated from Champlain in 1959 and talk about all the things that have changed and what it was like when they were here. It was significantly less cool to have people come up to me and listen to me talk about the EMC for a little while and then suddenly say, "Oh, I recognize you from the alumni magazine, I knew you looked familiar!"

But anyway, speeching. I was under the impression that there would be a series of mini-speeches given by various students doing different things for the college at present. Dave Finney came up to me during dinner and asked to clarify his intro tidbits about me, and I was all set to go up after Professor Gary Scudder. I'd been practicing my speech all afternoon, nearly to the point of running my voice hoarse, and I was quite nervous about the fact that I was going to be the first student speaking...and that my three- to five-minute speech was looking more like ten to fifteen. I became even more nervous when Ann called me and told me she was going to be stopping in on the dinner to hear me, but when it came down to it, I did my thing. Or as much of my thing as can be applied to a speech, which felt a heck of a lot different than any presentation or question and answer session I've participated in with a mic clasped in my hands.

All in all, nerves aside, it was a huge success. The provost of the college started a standing ovation for me as I scurried along the wall and gave Ann a big hug. And apparently there was no string of student speakers; it was just me. Ann says she wishes that she'd gotten it on tape and every other person on campus keeps telling me what a great job I did, but I'm glad to have it in the past, just another check on the list of things I never thought I'd be doing when I first got to college. Next is going to South Africa to do research for the UN!

To move on to other matters, I'm taking careful notice of the fact that summer is officially half over. I feel like I've done a great deal and yet very little at the same time. I'm certain that I've spent too much money, and well aware that I've made little to no progress on plans for the upcoming school year. I just finished watching a somewhat abstract and highly philosophical movie called The Fountain, and it's shot my mind even farther into the future, blurring my view of things that are immediately before me and heavily require my attention. The only positive aspect of this far-flung pondering is that I've come to a sure realization: I'm still acting like a kid in far more realms of my life than I should be, no matter how well certain areas are developing. I gotta get my motor going on the parts of real life that I have yet to acknowledge.

But it's a little late to start tonight. So, I'll probably fall asleep thinking about bank accounts, passports, and driver licenses while wondering what purpose they will serve me in my life to come, and who else may join me on the way. Life is amazing. I can't wait for it to gather speed and take flight. I'm gonna be scared to the core of my being, but the best parts of life are those that aren't a sure thing.

Enough philosophizing for me. And probably for anyone else reading this. Hopefully I'll change it up a little whenever I write again.

Thoughts During the Downpour

2008-06-16T18:58:00.002-04:00

My, how time flies. I've been staying away from my computer when I'm not at work lately, and this blog has suffered for it. I can't say that anything terribly exciting has happened in the interim, but I suppose that was the point of straying away from my normal routine - to get some peace and quiet.

My boyfriend has basically moved into my room, and it has created an interesting dynamic for me. Having spent the past two years with a relatively anti-social roommate, I'm not at all used to having people come into the room without the intention of visiting me, and I'm certainly not used to walking into a room full of people I had not invited into the room myself. It's strange to fall asleep alone and wake up with someone next to you, and the morning routine that I was so used to has been ripped from its foundation by an extra body in the room that sleeps until noon. That said, I still get by.

Went to the beach the weekend before this past one and picked up a pretty nice piece of driftwood. It's just a little taller than me and looks like it would make a good walking stick, though it only serves to prop open my door these days. That was the last day I spent outside for recreational purposes, with the exception of today - I've just returned from a walk in the rain. Although it did start to pour a bit while we were out, I didn't get properly drenched. It's possibly one of the things I miss most about home: laying down in our big side yard and letting the rain pour down on me until I know I'll have to engage in a wrestling match with my t-shirt to get into dry clothes. Burlington storms never seem to last long enough for that.

I've actually played a couple of games and watched a handful of movies in last week or two, which may also have contributed to my time away from the computer. The first game, My Life as King, was a WiiWare title produced by Square Enix as a minor continuation to the Gamecube title Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. While the game is nothing like any other Final Fantasy game, and it doesn't take more than a few hours to complete, it was somewhat appealing to me. The artistic direction was certainly strong and well polished. I'm not sure I can say as much for the slightly repetitive mechanics and lacking instructions, but it was still a decent price for the amount of content. The other game, which I'm still playing around with at the moment, is an Atlus game for the Wii called Baroque. The thing that I find interesting about this game is that when you die, it appears as if you've started the game over again entirely. I have also come across two cut scenes that sent me back to the beginning of the game again. The interesting thing is that there is a feeling that you haven't completely started over again. I have yet to discover whether or not this is actually the case. If you truly are starting over every time you die, my interest in the game will be completely nullified the moment I find out.

And just for kicks, here's a brief run-down of the movies I rented:
Enchanted - seen it before, liked it more the first time though it still has its moments.
Amelie - absolutely adored it and am restraining myself from buying it...the little things in life are truly something to be celebrated.
The Science of Sleep - strange, quirky, enjoyable, but not worth another watch in my book.
Atonement - wonderfully composed tragedy, not so well composed narrative.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - too many snarky comebacks, useless references to sex, and ridiculous plot points.
Mirrormask - beautiful art style and imaginative concepts, slightly weak and childish plot (but what's to be expected from Jim Henson anyway?).

A World of Words

2008-06-04T17:00:00.003-04:00

I contributed two new recommendations for the library's Core collection yesterday - this brings my count of books bought by the library because of me up to three! They weren't books that I was personally interested in this time, but something still feels good about the contribution of more than just my secretarial skills for once. I wonder whether most people would feel so pleased with a relatively small occurrence like this, or if my fondness for books has bolstered my level of satisfaction.

On a slightly related note, an interesting remark came up at the lunch table today. An education student declared that the e-gaming student who works in the writing lab is a rarity among students of our academic concentration, because gaming students are apparently not interested in writing. I was highly offended by the comment, even when it was clarified to mean uninterested in the mechanics of writing and the grammar of the English language. To hear us e-gamers labeled as having turned a knowingly blind eye to one of the very foundations of our society is utterly disappointing, even more so because this education major in particular used to be an e-gaming student herself. I don't think she stands in a position to make any such statement, and it disheartens me greatly to hear such blanket stereotypes spoken even by my peers.

I'd be lying if I said this conversation hadn't dampened my spirits today. Heading back to the game lab for an hour after work and walking in on a boisterous monologue about light sabers and Superman didn't restore my confidence in the academic nature of e-gamers either. It's sad to see a few loud and unfocused individuals destroy what might otherwise be a healthy working environment for a group of diligent individuals who neither reflect nor deserve the harsh judgment inflicted by outsiders.

That's my rant for the day. I'll think of something better for next time.

I Am The Grower...Just Kidding!

2008-06-03T22:22:00.004-04:00

I feel as if I've forgotten to water a plant when I don't write in this space for a while, and in a way, I have. This writing marks my growth, and without any markers, there might as well have never been any growth at all, at least none that can be seen and appreciated. So, here I am to water and grow.

I was trying to rewrite my profile for GIVIT today (which is coming scarily close!), and I realized that while not much has changed since last summer, one very important thing has - last year, I said I had a really boring job that I would love to get a distraction from. The fact that I'm doing work that I enjoy and am committed to this summer, at least in part, is wonderful. I couldn't imagine a better way to spend this summer, at least as far as employment is concerned.

I started understanding the organization of code a little bit better today. Little things were catching me up all over the place, but I pulled through and swept up the loose ends. I also put comments in my code, which always makes me feel better about handing it off to someone else, as is inevitable.

On a note regarding leisure activities, I've become instantly hooked on Beatmania. I'm terrible at it, utterly and completely, but I adore it. I'd only seen the game once before in arcade format at Anime Boston two years ago, and barely remembered it at all until Munchies mentioned that he's been hurting his hand playing it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to develop severe problems with my wrist joints if I keep playing, but it was unsettlingly addicting - I played for four hours straight, and I only played seven different songs! It may have been because I was in the mood for a rhythm game, though. Even if it weren't, I don't have the time to devote to the dear game.

And where does that leave me? Feeling somewhat relaxed into the week. I need to cram some work together, I've realized, so I can go downtown at some point and get a passport (!!!), but I sorely lack the motivation, or the proper means of payment to do it. I'll figure something out.

Happy June, everyone!

Ho Hum

2008-05-28T20:29:00.003-04:00

Another work week off to a slow start, and it's already half over!

I feel like I accomplished quite a bit today. Read a 60 page design document, gave my Info Lit team members an assignment to complete by the end of the week, and started a massive art asset list. Unpacked 283 books, took pictures of 75 or so, and started processing around 50. Attempted to diffuse a concern one of my team members has about another team member. Still at work until 10 doing the processing bit. This is my break for the day; when I go home, I only plan on reading a little before I succumb to the blankets.

I haven't been feeling very philosophical lately, but one thing that has begun to stick with me is a strange sense of comfort when I'm around other people, with little matter who they are. I've always imagined the people I know as having rope twined into my heart; those that know me better have thick ropes that twist deep to hold tight, while some ropes have been chopped off completely, leaving behind only the stump of a past friendship. Lately, I feel as if so many forces are anchored to me that I've somehow begun to lie suspended between all of them in a happy social stasis.

On the opposite side, one thing that seems to bring my feet back to the ground is the idea of a meaningless moment. With so many parts of my life feeling right and purposeful, those that I spend doing something mindless are painful; worst of all are the moments when I can't muster the brainpower to think of something good to do. It feels something like clawing at the sides of a deep hole and making the hole even more difficult to get out of in the process. Fortunately, those moments don't strike too often.

And on a completely random note unrelated to any of this, I miss listening to music. I used to exercise my creativity by listening to my music collection on random and adding the songs to playlists that were named as imaginitively and elaborately as possible; things like "Looking Up at Skyscrapers with Neon Signs at Sunset" or "Rowing a Boat Past Grassy Hills on a Painfully Bright Day." I rarely got more than one song onto a playlist, but it was absolutely delightful to me to be able to look at one of those descriptions at a later time and feel that exact feeling again on cue. Memories tied to music are powerful in a way that I don't understand, but it never stops me from completely adoring it and allowing it to carry me away.

Long, Long Weekend

2008-05-26T11:07:00.004-04:00

I was really looking forward to this weekend when it started, but I have to say that I don't feel like I've done very much with it. I did some Photoshop that went nowhere on Friday night, and Saturday was full of reading, writing, and Ratatouille. Last night was probably the most eventful portion of my weekend - a kid I went to high school with was turning 21 and came up here to celebrate with his older brother. A friend of mine was planning on going out with them and brought me along, which turned out to be a blessing for the birthday boy, who was not at all inclined to get drunk. After a few bars, with two vs. two on what to do next, it was easier to argue for heading home for the rest of the celebration.

Speaking of birthdays, I also just realized that it's been a month since mine. I can't say that I feel like I've accomplished a ton, but I think I've done enough. I've definitely gotten the time back to explore random ideas, which is probably the best feeling in the world to me. There's a good possibility that if I don't get sucked into a computer game today (I reeeeaaally want to finish Myst IV), I'll be fleshing out the latest spontaneous concept: Oregano Trail. =P

Keep Moving Forward

2008-05-22T22:07:00.005-04:00

It's only Thursday, and I feel as if the week has already run itself dry. I missed a meeting about an event I'm not sure I have the time or sanity to attend anymore, and I have a huge team meeting tomorrow during which I've no idea what will happen. I didn't even get as much done at the library as I expected to, and I have to head downtown around 4 tomorrow to cash a check and take my boyfriend out to dinner. Sigh.

But I've just finished watching Meet the Robinsons, and I loved that a motto in the movie, "Keep Moving Forward," was taken from a longer quote by Walt Disney:

"Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. We're always exploring and experimenting."

I love this quote because it could apply to virtually any situation in life, at least in the sense that it is an ideal to strive for and a great philosophy to stand by. Oddly, I also have the song from the ending credits of Prince Caspian, a new Disney spin on an classic British novel, stuck in my head. I looked at some of the lyrics, and these are the ones that stood out to me the most:

"Just because everything's changing
doesn't mean it's never
been this way before.

All you can do is try to know
who your friends are
as you head off to the war."

It's strange that everything lately seems to come back to other people in my mind. Every once in a while, I get a great idea that excites me to the core of my existence. But that kind of feeling never lasts as long as the ones that are encouraged and cherished by others too. In light of this, I've just made my first addition to the photo album that Ann gave me with the EMC award.
I was opening my desk drawer and sorting through the knick-knacks to pick up my motivational monster when I noticed something else that didn't mean much at the time that I got it, but that nevertheless showed thought on someone's part. Just now, however, it sparked a greater feeling that someone out there believes in me. Whether this is true or not, it warmed me a little inside, and I immediately set about placing it in my book, next to the last picture and below the words "Follow Your Dream." Whatever my dream is, it is fueled by those around me. I hope that as time goes by, I will gather more mementos to fill that page.

Lazy-ish Week

2008-05-22T09:42:00.003-04:00

I've been sleeping in until 8:30 or 9 for the past few days, and it feels sooooo good. I feel a little bit guilty about doing it, but I just don't have the motivation to get up bright and early in the morning to do a job that a trained monkey could probably handle, as long as it wasn't as technologically savvy and therefore utterly frustrated as I am by the amount of paper filing I have to do. I don't mind the days when I can sweep through my boss's office and make her feel like half the problems in her world have disappeared, but when I get bogged down with a grueling, menial task like cutting up slips of paper and stapling them onto index cards while writing the purchasing year on the corner and paper-clipping them if they were requested by faculty before alphabetizing them and indexing them for four hours...you get the idea. I don't like it.

Sadly, I think tasks like this suck the creative juices out of me, too. I really wish I had pushed to get two paid positions at the EMC this summer. Whether the pay would be better or worse, the effects on my mental state would have been worth it. As it stands right now, I have such a strong desire to sit down and literally do nothing to take away the feeling of having done so much that means nothing over the course of the day. This is all coming out of a week in which I've spent only 4 hours on a creative project and the rest on lists and books, so perhaps even getting back into my regular routine will feel better next week. Plus a three day weekend! Woo-hoo!

An Unfortunate Morning

2008-05-19T09:42:00.009-04:00

Well, I've just slept through my alarm and missed my morning shift at the library. It was apparently terrible timing, too, as a lot of work just cropped up for me to do by the end of the month. My roommate seemed irate that I probably left my alarm ringing for who knows how long, and I just noticed that one of my toenails is completely detached at the base. Not the best way to kick off the week, I have to admit.

I completely forgot about my assignment from Amanda yesterday, but I was able to play through some great little games by Amanita Design that may inspire the play style for my senior project. I was glad to see that Wes sounded as excited about it as I am - sometimes I feel bad about thinking work thoughts on the weekend, but not when they're making me giddy. =P In addition to those game ideas, I may have one for my Advanced Seminar in Game Design next semester. Once I remember where I packed an old notebook, I should have a good, or at least quirky, premise to work with. It's actually based on a conceptual animation I half-created my sophomore year for an advanced Flash class. Looking at what I did do, I really want to remake/finish the animation. I continue to hold to the fact that I'm not an artist, but I love that animation more than I should already. =)

Although I'm not in to work this morning because of my marvelous sleeping capabilities, my day still promises to be busy. A producers' meeting at 11, lunch, Info Lit team meeting at 1, work on that project until 5, dinner, and possibly work in the library basement 6 to 8:30. Gross!

A Language Tangent and a Subscriptions Budget

2008-05-17T16:21:00.007-04:00

The weekend is off to a slow but steady start. Last night, I watched an Ang Lee movie entitled Lust, Caution. Everyone I know says that Chinese would be too difficult to learn or too hard to speak or that it's just plain ugly compared to similar Asian languages, especially when sung, but after watching the film, I think I disagree. In all fairness, the lead actress had a relatively soft and low voice, but her speech and singing alike were beautiful to me. It was interesting to see a portrayal of a Japanese tea house in one of the scenes, because I have often been impressed with the idea that Japanese culture is so much more graceful and peaceful - here, it was quite the opposite.

It was also strange to realize what few parts of the Chinese language are still drifting around in my head: wo (I/me), ni (you), ta (he/she, distinguished by the written character but pronounced the same), men (pluralizing suffix), shi (verb to be), bu (negative), ma (question), and of all things, gege (older brother) and didi (younger brother). I don't even have any brothers, so I've no idea why those stuck. There's also xiexie (Thank you), ni hao (Hello), and zaijian (Goodbye) for actual phrases, as well as meiguo (America) and zhongguo (China).

From every language I've been exposed to, there's one sentence or phrase that I keep in my head. For French: Je ne comprends pas. Parlez-vous anglais? (I don't understand. Do you speak English?) For Spanish: Hola. Como te llamas? (Hi. What's your name?) For Japanese: Ima, nanji desu ka? (What time is it right now?) For Latin: Semper ubi sub ubi (Gibberish that sounds like you're saying "Always wear underwear" when translated aloud). For German: Volkswagon (No translation needed, but they just say it funny). For Russian: da (yes). And Chinese: Wo shi meiguo ren. Ni shi bu shi zhongguo ren? (I'm American. Are you Chinese?) I'm not sure why these sentences have been tucked into my mind. Logically, they should all have to do with asking for help or getting the other person to speak my language in one way or another, but clearly it hasn't worked out that way. Some are from languages I never formally studied. Some are from encounters from people living in the culture from which the language comes. All have strong memories, both good and bad.

Today, I have been at work since the relative start of my day. I've spent the majority of my time attempting to come up with scenarios for Amanda's game. It's harder than you'd think to come up with situations for teens to ponder that would expose them to cultural or class differences without delving too far into morals. In essence, it is hard to create questions that do not have one right answer, at least on the count of 100. I will nevertheless persevere, because I am honored that Amanda asked me, and more so with each day. She truly is an admirable game developer, if only she would show it more often. I saw her yesterday with the board game Trouble tucked under her arm. Today, she told me that she had taken out the cardboard bottom to the game and redesigned it to be a game about oil use and how it effects the world. She's going to get it printed on cardboard soon, and I hope to see it when she's done. I'd never think to do something like that. I hope I'll be that smart in another 10-20 years.

The rest of the day will most likely be devoted to games and movies - ha! I hope to sneak in some reading outside before the clouds and dusk chase the sun away, but if I don't, I have a game that Amanda gave me for inspiration sitting on the desk beside me, I still need to finish playing the Myst series, and I just signed up for a Netflix account so I won't keep buying movies that I don't particularly want to see again. There's apparently an option to instantly watch movies on your computer in addition to those you receive in the mail: that's my kind of plan. I suspect this subscription, along with my music and video game ones, will take up my recreational budget for the summer. Fortunately, I should have a beta to try out in a month rather than paying for an MMO on top of this. Assuming no one drags me downtown for food too often, I think I have a solid basis for enjoying my months off from school to the fullest.

From Work to Warhammer, Wii, and The World...

2008-05-16T00:02:00.004-04:00

I've been too tired to blog lately. It's a bit sad. Despite the fact that I only had to work one night this week, I feel as if my evenings have been remarkably full. Considering none of the nightly events were the same, I view this in a good light. However, I hope to get in some more time for thinking. Perhaps it will become a function of the weekend.

The project I've been working on is an interesting one. It's funny, but I feel as if being in charge of a group of people makes you realize where your own interests truly lie. Going into this project, I was ready to facilitate a massive brainstorming symphony for a few weeks before deciding on a game plan and moving ahead. I've loved collaboration in the past, and I figured that adding more people to the process would only make it better. This theory may still hold to be true, but it seems not to be the case with the individuals I've got my hands on. As long as they consult with each other in small groups, I'm relatively accepting of the situation, but even that has fallen to bits. I feel as if I've said this before, and it's very likely that I have.

The new development is that I have a designer on my team who is struggling terribly with the entire process. He lacks the communications skills to effectively offer criticism or make a point without attacking or insulting others, and he is incapable of expressing his own ideas in a succinct fashion that allows others to provide feedback. Whether out of frustration or as a normal mechanism, he has taken to asking me lists of questions regarding clarification of either the design of the project or the structure of the design document. Were I the lead designer on the project, I would gladly oblige and do my best to guide him. Given that I am a producer, and perhaps creative director at best, feelings have welled up within me geared towards distancing myself from the whole documentation process.

I feel more and more as if I would like to be a conceptual designer, if anything. I enjoy the bouncing around of ideas far too much, and the writing of elaborate stories and the minutia of mechanics nowhere near enough. Second to this desire is one to code. I'm coming out and saying it. As much as I love game concepts, I feel that anyone can have a steady hand in it if they can communicate properly. I would much rather have my hands in the network that runs it, if only I were better educated for it. Perhaps in the years to come, I'll manage to get that education somehow.

The moral of the story is that I'm still finding my place in the world, as I should be, and that I hope it does not come at the sacrifice of my team's cohesion and my love for cultivating ideas.

On an unrelated note, I've started measuring my laughter count for the week in bruises. It's becoming habit for me to be violently tickled into giggling fits, and I've rarely escaped without banging some part of my body against something unpleasantly hard, or simply suffering bruises from the intense act of tickling. The aftereffects are certainly unhealthy, but the remembrance of such a pure, spontaneous sound of joy is one that continues to warm my heart through the day. It's a good feeling to be forced to laugh when you'd rather sulk, though I enjoy the everyday laughter that fills my life voluntarily as well.

Continuing the chain of tangents, I've become re-excited about Warhammer Online, thanks to Wes and Mike. I don't foresee myself ever getting into an MMO hardcore, but the potential for group play and experimentation with a new system is appealing to me to an extent that few games have been able to entice me recently. Next on my rental list is Opoona, a Wii game that looks mildly unique, and The World Ends with You, a DS game inspired by modern Japanese culture. If anyone has any better suggestions, chime in!

Fresh Food, Stones of Death, and Souls Swept in Ice

2008-05-11T18:19:00.004-04:00

This weekend has been quite a lazy one - I think I needed it. I ran down to the first day of the farmers' market yesterday around noon and quickly looked over the goods out for sale. The selection wasn't fantastic, but I have yet to successfully get away from any trip into the market without bread and cheese. This time it was some old fashioned white bread, which was enjoyably thick and almost fruity, and a round of goat's cheese, salty and smooth. Walking back home with my purchases, I ran into Mr. Wallace eating lunch with Dean Rutenbeck. I chatted briefly with them for a moment, which left me feeling pretty great. There aren't many people that can say the dean of their division of the college knows their name and has a good enough understanding of what they're doing to inquire and comment.

Despite the pleasure I felt in that conversation, my energy dwindled over the day. My dorm was filled with talk of Lord of the Rings Online and D&D, neither of which I am involved with by any means. I don't begrudge the people who play them, but when it's all you hear out of their mouths half of the time, it gets old fast. Desiring space to myself, I sat out in the sun and read a bit. Unfortunately, it only made me sleepy. Dinner rolled around and some thought-provoking conversation followed, but D&D became the dorm focus for the evening, as far as my acquaintances were concerned. When I attempted to find solace in my room, all I found was a roommate passed out on the bed by the door. After another hour or two of reading off of my computer, I ventured out into the night.

I have found it safe to say that if I seek a place to let my soul breathe, I will undoubtedly be lying in a graveyard. This isn't meant to be a morbid comment. There's a decent sized graveyard on North Willard Street that I've walked to a few times in the night hours. It's probably creepy to admit as much, but I adore the place. There are so few spots left in the world that possess such a powerful aura of solitude and the steady passage of time. I read the names when I can catch a glimpse, but the bright orange lights around the place often make it difficult to see anything other than silhouettes. Usually when I visit this graveyard, I stick to the path, wandering a bit up the dirt road to the top of the hill and sitting on a staircase that overlooks the road from a steep angle. This time, I ventured from the path a bit towards a clump of trees, hoping it would shade me from the glaring lights. As I got closer, they appeared to be in a circle around a lone, tall grave. The trees did not provide enough protection, but I was able to lie down next to the grave and hide in its slim shadow.

From where I lay with my face looking up at the sky, I could see a few twinkling stars framed by the branches of the three nearest trees. They were relatively faint, but I felt like I'd found a small bit of home. Back in New Hampshire, I've gotten into the habit of running outside whenever anyone calls my phone - the reception is terrible, but it's not too bad if I cross the road and get up on top of the hill by the graveyard there. I hadn't even thought about the fact that there's a graveyard there as well until just now. Usually, I lay down on the big hill and stare up at the sky until I get too cold to stay any longer. For some odd reason, people usually call me for long conversations at night.

I've always loved the feeling of immensity that looking at stars gives me. It's a feeling that few objects on Earth can generate, the exception being an ocean of tall buildings. The love I have for this feeling is something of a melancholy, though - I wish to be part of that immense idea that defines the universe, yet the wish feels utterly impossible. I was contemplating this emotion last night when it began to look as if the stars were shaking. It was the strangest sensation, until I realized that I'd been lying on my hands and my pulse had simply started to rock my head ever so slightly. I think that's the closest I've ever come to feeling connected to a greater power in the world. Second on the list is torrential downpours. I could use one of those, too.

As for today, I finally finished the book I got for my birthday. Now I can wholeheartedly say thanks, Wes! I haven't often read nonfiction for pleasure before, but the subject matter was both compelling and eye-opening. The story of the Inukjaumiut relocated to the brutal north extended over many more decades than I ever would have imagined, and their heartbreaking tale was one that evoked sympathy for their situation as well as deeper understanding and interest in their culture. It may not be very relevant to anything I'm working on anymore, but it was a great read related to a topic I'm still completely fascinated with.

I've run into some scheduling conflicts that I hope to have sorted out within the next few days. They burden my mind when I think of them, but for the most part I've been able to completely separate myself from business matters for the day. It's a feeling that has become more foreign to me than I had realized. I don't think that's healthy by any means, but part of me just wonders if it's a testament to the love I have for the people and projects I work with.

I feel as if I had more to say, but I think I've said enough. My general conclusion for the day is that I hope the summer continues in this same fashion, with enough space from work left for me to do some intellectual spelunking of my own.

Morning Meeting

2008-05-10T10:46:00.006-04:00

This morning, I had the pleasure of meeting Vance Wallace, a designer who has worked on the Lara Croft series and knows the Rockstar creators of GTA. With a background in acting and directing before his five year foray into game development, he seemed quite animated, even though he'd just flown in from California, and 10 in the morning was admittedly not his style when it felt like 7 AM. While my advisor Amanda was attempting to get access to the presentation room and make sure everything was set up, we had the chance to talk - it was interesting to discuss how No More Heroes actually has intelligent battle mechanics that may appear hack-n-slash oriented to the untrained eye, and how Mario Kart has finally begun to lose appeal beyond its purpose as a party game.

Vance was here to apply for the level design teaching position for the fall. He had been asked to give a mock presentation, and it was Amanda's intention to see how he handles himself in front of a crowd. Unfortunately, there was no crowd. It was just me and Amanda. Oh well.

His presentation was both humorous and informative. His first slide had nothing but his name in green on it, and he then opened up by saying that "Limes make everything taste better" as he switched to a slide of limes. At first this seemed completely irrelevant to the rest of the conversation, but he eventually looped back around to it, citing the fact that he had displayed his name in green as an obscure form of foreshadowing to the fact that he was going to say something about limes. The ensuing discussion of how to actually create foreshadowing of game mechanics was quite fascinating, though necessarily brief. If he makes his way back here, this will be a guy I'd like to learn from.

I felt enlightened by more than just the words and content of his presentation. It's becoming more and more apparent to me that I haven't been flexing my design muscles. If things keep going the way they've been going, I'll be pretty weak coming out of the gate in a year. Design is a complicated beast with so many components to take into consideration. They're components that I love, but I have not devoted enough time to them. Excuse me while I retreat into the murky hollows of my mind and attempt to reemerge with something more spectacular to my own pessimistic eye.

Chugga Chugga

2008-05-08T19:08:00.003-04:00

Well, work is definitely leaving me tired out. I'm not sure if it's because half of it consists of uninteresting tasks that anyone with opposable thumbs could manage, or because there's just so much of it. I've been falling asleep or coming close to it all over the place. No good!

I met my roommate yesterday when I got out of work. She seems nice enough, and not at all messy. This may be because she's brought next to nothing with her. She said that all she does is eat and sleep. Aside from chatting online and randomly browsing the Internet, she appears to be telling the truth. But I'm not around for most of the day, so it's hard to really say. She's actually sleeping as I type this, though...it's difficult to function in a relatively dim room in as close to silence as I can manage.

The thing that's been on my mind lately is the difficulty of game mechanics. In working with my info lit team, it has become abundantly clear to me that many game development students, and to my dismay a fair share of designers, do not understand how to inject both creativity and purpose into mechanics. I have run into a group that I never hoped to encounter. Not only do they not leap at the chance to brainstorm, they prefer to argue with the constraints that would leave the inventive designer enough room to be creative without so much free reign that the ideas run rampant. Just in listening to them, I've lost sight of my own concept that started the project. That is a scary thing indeed. The worst of it is that they've reduced the game to mediocre and over-used puzzle mechanics, like mazes with obstacles that can only be moved once and simple memory games. Booooring! I didn't realize just how spoiled I'd been with the great team members I've had over the course of the last school year. =)

On a similar note, I've been struggling to come up with some nifty new mechanics of my own. Amanda pointed me to a pretty neat resource for some rather ingenious and visually appealing (in some cases) games. These are apparently the kinds of games she hopes will come out of the senior team project classes next year. I feel a strong desire to hold onto the amazing ideas I've been generating with Wes, but at the same time I see where she's coming from - these games are pretty cool in their own right, they have low production costs, and they were able to get the attention of IGF. I've just discovered that my roommate snores...

After the busyness of this week, I'm quite glad that I have this weekend off. It will be one of few, which means I'll treasure it all the more.

Welcome to Work

2008-05-06T22:42:00.003-04:00

I haven't really kicked up with all of my summer projects, but enough of them have been starting to get off the ground for me to feel busy. Today, my info lit team started working without me. I have to say, they're off to a surprisingly rough start. They're already getting caught up in one idea at a time without leaping around in the chaos that I've come to expect from the people I brainstorm with. It was terribly frustrating for me to be sitting at a desk across campus trying to make them understand what I meant by moving on from an idea and making conceptual popcorn. I was much more explicit with them than that, it was just a nice visual in my mind.

My three jobs at the library are taking up a few less hours than I thought they were going to, which is not as good for my wallet as it is for my mental health, but I'd say that's more than a fair trade. While I was watching the desk at the library today, I wound up corresponding with my team, attempting to start laying out plans for the project as a whole for the summer, brainstorming key points and phrases for the paper that Information Literacy Librarian Sarah Cohen and I will be writing this summer if our proposal is accepted, and talking to my academic advisor Amanda about the work I'll be doing for her within at least the next 5 weeks. I'll be meeting with her tomorrow night to go over the details, so I hope it turns out to be a good move on my part.

She and my boss Marie at the library started talking about me while I was sitting at the desk as well. It was a little strange to hear them discuss keeping me at the college for longer than the next year when I was right there listening, but it was also interesting to see that they had completely different ideas. Marie thinks that the only way I'll stick around is if they offer a graduate degree I can invest in, and that I'll take off after that. Amanda wasn't clear about how she wanted me to stick around, but she questioned whether or not I'd really want a graduate degree from Champlain in a separate but related field after Marie had left. I don't know what I want to do with my life at this time next year, and I said as much. I was surprised to hear her say that she thought it was absolutely wonderful that I'm just being me and doing what I do.

It's funny though, because I've been a bit torn over work lately. I love doing things that help other people. I also love doing things that other people working with me are excited about. I've gotten plenty of recognition for this work as well. But lately, it seems like I become a bit of an afterthought once the hours of operation are over. When people approach me, it's often to talk about projects or experiences; it's hardly ever to just ask how I'm doing or to invite me to participate in something. All of my friends in the dorm with the exception of one or two, and including my boyfriend, went for the first summer walk by the lake tonight. I don't think anyone considered walking a few feet down the hall and asking me to join.

Sometimes, being so close to other people just makes things even worse when they still don't acknowledge that you're there. But to end on a more positive note, it really makes me appreciate the people that do bother to check in with me, whether they're up a floor, or in the next town, or in a state over.

The Power of a Promise

2008-05-04T14:52:00.003-04:00

I can't say that I've often made promises to myself in life: never had any New Year's resolutions, didn't even make many promises to other people. I think I've always been so focused on helping others that I didn't realize I wasn't holding myself to high enough standards. Even doing well in school, I felt like I would be letting down my peers if I didn't have the answers, on the odd chance they were confused about one thing or another. In high school, the days when I forgot to do the homework were grave shocks. Once in my Latin class, when the teacher realized that no one had done the homework, he gave up and let us do whatever we wanted. I'm still sorry for that one...I love you, Mr. O!

But anyway, I've started dedicating myself a little bit to my own personal health, and it feels great. 350 calories burned before breakfast today, and I still had enough energy to dance around while I organized a few last things. In my creative writing blog, I've started picking up a thread of content, and it makes me feel pretty confident in my ability to weave a story, even though I'm doing it in an untraditional fashion and haven't been at it for very long. This is in part because of other people, though. When I post something online for anyone to see, even if I realize that next to no one is actually reading it, I feel more obligated to do it on a regular basis. But if the things I did in life weren't at least a little bit motivated by other people, I'd be more selfish than I'd like.

Sadly, I don't think I'll often have time to myself. I started doing scheduling calculations while brushing my teeth this morning, and I even got into the financial details when I first sat down to my computer. The challenge ahead of me will be to find the little things that make me feel good about myself. I've seen a few, like a random comment someone made that shows confidence in my ideas, but I'd like to find a personal source as well: something I can depend on no matter where I am. One thing I've picked up on is that I have a strong affinity for little knick-knacks and other objects that are seemingly useless. If I can find a way of "imbuing" some little thing with ideas of myself and self-appreciation, I'd probably be on a happier road. That sounds crazy, I realize this now that I've written it. I'll end there, but don't be surprised if you see me carrying around a tiny felt monster or something else of a similar nature. ;P

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning?

2008-05-04T08:12:00.004-04:00

Whether I always was or always will be, I turn into a morning person during the summer even more than I am one during the school year. I almost woke up at 6:30 today. 6:30. On a Sunday. I've treated myself to "sleeping in" until 8, and now I feel alert and positive towards the day, despite the fact that I'm in a basement with two tiny windows and it's cold and rainy outside. I can deal with the rain because it make everything spring-related look lush and green. And I'd rather be a little chilly than on the warm side - I'll be sweating with morning exercise in a few minutes anyway. So all in all, hurray, it's a good day.

Technically, this is my last of two days for the summer in which I have no known work or responsibilities. It's a bit sad, but I plan on enjoying it thoroughly...somehow. Yesterday, after all the moving was done (I discovered that I'm in a spacious triple in the basement with one other roommate until June!), I found myself doing a whole lot of nothing: playing music off my computer and twirling around the room (which I stopped doing after people kept walking up behind me and scaring the living daylights out of me), laying down on my bed and staring out the window, reading, playing a few simple tunes on my keyboard, etc. I did a bit of visiting as well, but everyone with the exception of a few seemed out of sorts from trying to get their belongings together and most prone to simply tell me they'd be using my room as a hang-out spot. The level to which I was not out of sorts is something else I associate with my morning person style. I woke up at 6:30 yesterday to finish my packing, started moving at 10 and was done by 12:30, and finished unpacking around 6 at night. I think most people had finally chucked their last possessions into their room around that time. Go me.

Building off of a reflection from yesterday, I've come to the realization that I don't often evaluate people based on who they are; I look at how they react to other people. It's an interesting dynamic to observe, particularly in vastly different individuals. It was especially notable on moving day. One person had hardly unpacked a thing and was already wandering around the dorm, stopping into rooms to hold conversation and assist casually in other people's moving efforts. Others were scrambling to set up their computers as top priority, and remained half unpacked while setting up games to play. I set up my computer first just to have music while I did everything else, and I made the occasional ventures out of my room to take breaks from the basement monotony.

Even outside of the realm of moving though, I've taken a lot of notice lately of how a few other people conduct themselves: some good and some bad overall. I have a strong desire to take this train of thought a step further and discover the purpose and motives behind these actions, but I am aware of a few of them and unwilling to horn into other people's lives for the rest.

Sentimental State

2008-05-03T21:38:00.002-04:00

It occurs to me tonight that I don't know the actual definition of "sentimental." It is apparently anything expressive or that appeals to tender emotions and feelings. Having been moved by something seemingly small, I've been left to dwell tonight on the purpose of sentimentality; why do humans carry their past so heavily and closely to their hearts? In addition, why is there such an array of other emotions that can volley forth from a sentimental feeling? Happiness, confusion, anger, to name a few. It is a puzzling circumstance, but one that I suppose is worth the more well-defined and brilliant aspects of humanity.

Another thing that has come to my attention as a terrible action in most situations is the act taken to "prove a point." In essence, doing anything to prove a point makes someone else feel punished for exhibiting a different behavioral scheme, whether it be in how often they clean their room to how they cope with challenges in life. How often is it really right for someone else to decide that they have the right answer and must show someone else that they are wrong? Not as often as I think we often assume.

I'm full of questions tonight that lack answers.

Iron Night

2008-05-03T00:51:00.003-04:00

Well, I'm not often a sucker for super hero movies, but I must say: Iron Man was pretty bad ass! It was quite the blend of humor and action, pulled off in a tongue-in-cheek fashion I should have expected given the movie's leading man (Robert Downey, Jr). Gwyneth Paltrow was an unexpected but brilliant addition to the cast, as was Jeff Bridges. To top it all...it had robots! Robots with personality! Gah...adorable. =)

While this will undoubtedly be the peak of my evening, I must exude some iron will of my own and push through to the morning with packing. It never really occurs to me how much stuff I have until I start to pile it up in categories and observe for a few minutes. On the bright side, my belongings have at least been easy to sort and organize. Finding enough containers for all of it will be the real challenge.

Though training did wrap up today, I feel like it was mostly a day without many insights. I have definitely come to enjoy the way in which I put myself out there for other people to see and interact with. I've always been the type to go with the flow, but few people seem to catch me in their wake. Perhaps someday soon. Good night to the rest of the world, good morning to me...

Spring Cleaning

2008-05-01T23:39:00.003-04:00

It's strange to be in college and have spring cleaning consist of completely emptying and switching rooms; this is an especially bizarre process for me because I tend to go bare-bones with my decorating habits in the summer. The posters that have plastered my cozy corner of the room seem to repel my fingertips, reluctant to be stowed away for four months. I sit on my bed and debate whether or not to pack away the gang of plushie penguins, and I haven't even started to think about the knick knacks that have accumulated on my desk over the course of the year.

I've always thought that it would be curious to try to chart a year in paper: whatever records collect in desk drawers and folders from fall to spring finals. Or perhaps in random snapshots of your habitat and other campus surroundings. I really need to get a camera again; I adore pictures taken candidly. I can't imagine I'd ever have the time to compile them in an interesting manner, but I like to dream.

These are scattered thoughts, but it seems to be one of those evenings. I can't really bring myself to do anything productive, and I'm partially mesmerized by the solar-powered constant-bobble panda across the room from me; he seems to have too much energy for his bobbly head, which is on its way to head-banging. Strange. Tragically cute. This is what happens when the stream of consciousness starts to run dry, folks. I'm not even going to try any creative writing tonight. It's time for sleep.

Oh, and happy May everybody!

Making Space

2008-04-30T20:07:00.001-04:00

This is more of an announcement than a post - I'm going to try to get my creative storytelling juices flowing again. Check it out if you like, I'm still working with what I like to call Narrative Postcards: you'll get a glimpse, but not a whole lot more.

The Human Connection

2008-04-30T19:24:00.002-04:00

I've started thinking a bit today about how humans use other humans. Some are very childish and selfish, essentially using their peers as toys. These people talk to others, but not in the sense that they are looking for good conversation or advice; they simply voice their thoughts, and because they recognize that humans are better than inanimate toys, they expect recognition of their declarations. This is where the appreciation of human life ends, however; there is no sense that they want to interact with other human beings on any deeper level. I wonder what people like this will do when their dolls get up out of the closet and move on with their lives.

Others seem to want other humans around for a sense of comfort and enjoyment, or nothing at all. I call these "teddy bear" people. They like to point out the cute or unique features of others, but they only do so if they feel entirely adored by those individuals. If others are not willing to hug and laugh and dance, actively and without any sense of concerted effort from the "teddy bear" person themselves, they are useless.

There are still others that I like to call "toolbox appointment" people. They want to know that someone who desires to spend time with them has both a purpose and a plan in mind. It doesn't matter if they want to see the person or not; if the purpose behind interaction is not made explicit, they feel as if they are wasting one person's or the other's time. This places a lot of responsibility on people like me, who often desire company for company's sake; the presence of other human beings is both calming and energizing to me, given different situations.

I'm not acknowledging much of this as right or wrong, and most people admittedly bridge the gap between different intentions for addressing other human beings. Additionally, the examples I've given are only a few of many that I can think of off the top of my head. I suppose it's just on my mind because I'm often concerned that I abuse my relationship with other people. I'm certainly not very mindful of the way in which I communicate. It's a problem.

Rapid Change: Initial Thoughts

2008-04-30T16:33:00.003-04:00

I was listening to Nancy Cathcart give a presentation on how community service requirements will be integrated into the first year for residential students through the LEAD program, and someone mentioned that the Peer Advisors should also be attending these activities. My initial thought was this: I don't have time for that! I never let go of that thought, but I did start to wonder how community service and game development can be brought more closely together. The idea that I came up with is something I'd like to call Rapid Change.

Over the course of the past year, having attended a number of conferences and gotten used to the quick and dirty production of games with minimal content and maximum punch, I've become a huge fan of rapid prototyping. These games do not usually have mechanics that require a gamer's mentality and strategic analysis. But they still carry important messages, and they still provide enough interactivity for the user to become engaged, if not completely immersed. What if students volunteered to take controversial or critical issues from the local, national, or global community, and presented them through rapidly developed games? If these games were hosted on a school website and were publicized on a regular basis or made readily available to students when they have a few free moments of time, imagine how much impact they could make, how much public stimulation they might provide in an effort to elevate student interest and discussion.

I'm quite fond of the idea, but I feel certain that I lack the resources, particularly time, to orchestrate it. Also, I have no idea where these games might be made available for students to access. No one's going to jump on a computer and play a game off of the school portal in their free time; they would most likely go straight to a site like Addicting Games. Perhaps we could offer some incentive within the community to play these games. People could collect "Awareness Points" and win prizes for being the most "aware" student of the month. We could even try to supply stickers or some other kind of tangible representation of the online achievements.

Just something to consider. I'd love to see it become a reality, but my obligations for this summer and next year are grossly inflated as it is.

An Off Evening Turned to Off Morning

2008-04-30T07:37:00.003-04:00

After a rousing hour of DDR that brought my calorie-burning count up to 500 for yesterday, I sat down for a while and wrote in this space. When I stopped, my room was absolutely frigid. I decided to curl up under my blankets and read more of the book that Wes gave me for my birthday, but the toasty lull of my bed was too much; I passed out around 10:30.

Opening my eyes again after what felt like only a moment, I looked to my computer and found two conversations open. These people had only last talked to me around midnight; I figured it couldn't be much later than that. Casually glancing at my clock, I was flabbergasted. It was 3:30 in the morning. While one person was still awake to talk to me, the other had gone to bed hours ago. After 20 minutes of chatter, I shut off my lights and music and fell back into bed.

My dream time has been filled in the past couple days with incredibly mundane sequences where I'm still in Disney World. It's terribly boring and I have no idea what it means. This is my first thought of the morning, where I've woken at 7:10 instead of 6:45 and have no time for DDR because I forgot to do reading for today's training. Boo. =(

It's funny how little things can pile up and influence your outlook on the day. I know that I will most likely forget most of this in the coming hour. Even now, my stomach is starting to grumble, shifting my attention towards breakfast. Similarly, the light beating down on my window shades looks to be quite bright and warm, despite the weather forecast. Even if it's cold out there, a beautiful day will perk me right up, no question.

This isn't a very thought-provoking discussion, but it's only 7:45 in the morning.

What's in a Name?

2008-04-29T22:01:00.003-04:00

Names seem to be an interesting topic lately. In our training today, we were asked to share the story of our names: why our parents chose them, what significance they may have. This was my little blurb:

My name is Lauren April. I suppose my mom and my dad chose to give me the middle name April because yes, I was born in April, but both of my parents were also born in April; My birthday is 20 days after my mom's and exactly 1 week after my dad's. While my sister was born at 10:10 on 12/12, my mom was 26 when I was born on the 26th; number repetition seems to be our thing, but that's a tangent. My first name doesn't seem to have any particular significance to my family. I know that I was going to be named Lanie, but because my grandparents have pronunciation issues, my parents didn't want them calling me "Rainy April." I think it would have been cute, but Lanie would have been far too cutesy a name for me. Despite the inner happiness I feel now, I've been weathered by a lot of teenage angst; as much as I would have loved to skip out on all of it, I think it's done a lot to bring me to the state I'm in today.

Last night, I also had a brief conversation with Wes about giving him a nifty Japanese name. It was a little thing, but I got into it quite a bit and stayed up until 1:30 reading common male names and sifting through the good ones. I did even more refining in the morning, leaving little time to prepare for the day. Having it on my mind, I found the training discussion amusing. As a note, here are some of the most interesting ones I came up with, accompanied by meanings:

Hideki: splendid opportunity
Hiroki: abundant joy/strength
Hotaka: step by step, derived from the name of the tallest mountain in the Japanese Alps
Kunio: countryman
Masaki: elegant tree
Masuyo: increase the world
Michio: man on the right path
Mikio: tree trunk man
Minori: beautiful harbor
Mitsuru: full, growing
Naoki: honest tree
Takumi: artisan
Tetsuya: become iron, clear evening
Tomio: treasured man
Toshio: alert, genius, valued man

Last names were a completely separate beast that I'd never thought much about before. I'd realized that surnames were most commonly comprised of two kanji, an adjective and a noun, or sometimes two nouns with one used to describe the other. Some of the cooler ones I found:

Nouns:
hama: beach
shima: island
to: gate
taki: waterfall

Adjectives:
taka: high
tomi: rich
naga: eternal
fuku: lucky

Nouns as Adjectives:
moto: origin
guchi: mouth, entry
kuma: bear
(I had to include kuma in honor of the Japanese class ^_^)

You can really make some wonderful names with these simple combinations. For example, Minori Takimoto would mean beautiful harbor at the origin of a waterfall. Pretty neat in my opinion. More food for thought. Tabete kudasai. (Eat it!)

Life and Love

2008-04-29T21:41:00.005-04:00

I suspect this is one that people will want to skip over. It's also one of those things that I don't have the patience to bug other people about. So it's being dropped into this relatively safe space, left to float down onto the top of the pile and to be picked up by someone else whenever they so choose.

I mention love in the title, but love is a simpler thing than I think most people allow it to be. I have a twisted view of love, which to some people comes off as naive, but I don't think they see the whole. When I love someone, it is wholehearted and unfettered by anything else in my life; I love to the full capacity that I am capable of in relation to any given person at any point in time. Whether I'm in a relationship or wandering around the world alone, my affection for other human beings is unchanged. It would be naive of me to say that whoever ends up on top of my affection chart is the one that deserves my overtures and commitments.

There's a practicality to relationships that I can't escape. I have found it easy to love others more than I love the person I hold current commitments to. But that person has agreed to the relationship in a way that no one else has; I am able to be completely honest, to maintain my busy schedule and make time for interaction whenever I get the chance. I have even been able to shake the relationship down to its core, shatter its foundation and build it up anew. It takes a powerful agreement to leave that space open, to risk everything in the hope of making it better. I realize this is something that most people don't understand; if they do, they're very good at making me feel like I'm on my own here.

I've become very aware of how different my attitude towards other people is over the course of the past year. I will tell anyone anything about myself if they ask. I can love anyone for almost any reason if they request it of me. But I have a disgustingly rigid sense of morals, and once the alarm sounds, the offending individual goes into quarantine for life. Fortunately, few people have gained that kind of status in my mental prison of justice. Unfortunately, few people have asked for anything else.

On top of this, there are some ethical questions that appear to weigh more heavily in my mind than they do on average elsewhere. Can a relationship exist between professionals? More casually than that, what about a classmate that you lean on whenever possible? It's bad enough when a relationship ruins your personal life; should you give it the power to ruin your intellectual and career life as well? It was a heated topic today, and one that I remain relatively silent on. It's a case by case, in my opinion. I think I can safely say that I've only met one individual thus far that comes even close to being worth the risk. Even at that, I can see that there is no need to think of it at all. A topic better left untouched in the end, it would seem.

Technology Crisis

2008-04-29T21:08:00.000-04:00

I had a funny moment recently where I felt like maybe games were not the right field to be in. There are so many social networking applications taking the Internet by storm that it seems easy for games to be lost in the mix. They've been around for millennia; why should anyone start noticing them again? While I see the emerging merit in them, it's difficult to be the champion of a new spin on an old trick. Games are powerful tools that can be used to express important concepts or thought-provoking messages. They have not always or often been used for this purpose, but the psychology behind games makes them perfect for it.

This is only a smaller portion of a larger contemplation on technology as a whole. It was interesting to listen to statistics about people in my generation that are younger than me. It made me realize that as technology develops and brings people together faster than ever before, culture also shifts at increasingly rapid speeds. I would never have imagined that children in elementary school would be carrying around cell phones and laptops. Even more so, I refuse to acknowledge that students need access to social networking tools like MySpace while at school. There is a fine line between resource and recreational tool in the technological world today, I recognize this. But it is a pretty clear line in some places.

So, I begin to wonder: at what point is that line going to be drawn on an official level? In their fear or lack of understanding, will teachers start letting their students use AIM and Facebook in the classroom? If either of these has become a part of intellectual conversation, one has to be a little afraid that the answer may be yes.

It's funny to listen to digital immigrants talk about technology and how they implement it. From the standpoint of a digital native, these actions come off as "poser" moves. Our generation is in many ways united against all other forces in the world. If someone comes across to us as hokey, we all know it and no one will accept them. If an older adult, like Ann or John Cohn, proves that they're up to snuff with technology, we accept them into the circle. But once you screw up, it's hard to shake off the resounding laughter you may receive from kids today. I wonder if they will ever truly accept the ways in which older individuals have started using Second Life, or if they'll just wait for some of their Gen Y peers to get into the working world and shake things up. The latter option seems far more likely to me.

There's that thought. Oh, how unbalanced the world is becoming...

Starting Summer

2008-04-29T20:39:00.001-04:00

Well...thoughts have come and gone about life, careers, the future of society, and a whole slough of other topics in the past few days. I've been so tired and partially confused that I've found no time to write. However, a day full of training and DDR has left me energized: no three hour naps today!

To sum up my experiences since I last wrote, I met a lot of amazing people and I enjoyed an array of new activities and places. It was strange to return to my room and find it half-empty, but my clutter from unpacking has already filled the void. This does not bode well for my repacking process, which ought to commence in the next few days, but I choose to gleefully ignore this fact for the time being.

I've started my Peer Advisor training, which will last until the end of the week. I was a little disheartened by the number of freshmen in the ranks; I'm not entirely sure, but I think I'm one of the only up-and-coming seniors involved in the process that hasn't been placed in a more senior position. Admittedly, leadership has never been my strong point. Being in charge of a handful of young adults scares the crap out of me. But if I could manage high schoolers for GIVIT, I should be able to take on a few slightly more mature incoming Champlainers.

It's strange to hear other people's opinions of me, and yet it seems to be coming up more and more. I hate to reference Harry Potter, as much as I love the series, but I truly feel like I'm in an HP situation; my power dwells in the faith that other people put in me. I made one mention of the fact that I was thinking about ditching the PA position, and Wes jumped in to label me as a role model. Heather, my roomie for next year in the suites (squee!) voiced her agreement from a nearby table. I literally ran into the library to talk to Sarah Cohen, the Information Literacy Librarian, and when I mentioned that I was in training, she expressed how glad she was to hear that I'd be filling that kind of role. Perhaps most importantly of all, Shelli Goldsweig, the Staff Advisor for LEAD, expressed her opinion that I would be a good mentor for others and that she really wanted me to participate. I'm not saying that I should have to hear other people sing my praises in order to believe in myself, but what good is self-esteem if other people can't see you in that light?

That was a rant that I didn't really mean to go off on, but it's been stewing in my head a little today, and comes as close to a theme for my routine of late as anything can. Basically, I've decided to give up on questioning others when they compliment me for one thing or another. It's not going to my head, but it's definitely putting a spring in my step. And with summer on the way, there's next to nothing for me to complain about!

There have been a lot of other things on my mind lately, but I'll break them into more easily digested and navigated chunks, even though I'm sitting at my computer churning out the stream of consciousness.

Backin' Up

2008-04-24T18:43:00.000-04:00

So I began to share a bit of my life with someone last night, and in doing so I realized that I don't often do so. Rather than try to keep tabs on who knows about my life and who doesn't, I'll toss a little bit out there now. If you'd like to know, here goes. Else, skip away.

I was born in Flushing, Queens. If you don't know what that means, Queens is a burrough of New York City. I lived there with my mother, father, and sister through the end of first grade. My dad worked for Mitsubishi, spent his weeknights smoking and chattering away in Japanese in his office, and spent his weekends golfing or driving us into the city for dim sum and visits to Grandma Nobuko and Uncle Veda.

My mother did not have a job, though she volunteered as a teaching assistant at my elementary school once I entered first grade. We did not have a car and often walked everywhere; fortunately, we were only a block away from school. I often came home for lunch, and once luckily missed a shooting because of it.

The summer after first grade, my mother brought my sister and me up to New Hampshire to visit with my cousins. We did this every few years, but this time we never went back home. I last saw my house at age 7 without knowing that I'd never see it again; it's strange to think about now, I suppose. The change was quite a shocker. I went from having Yugoslavian landlords that felt like a kitten in the house was no different from a horse in the kitchen to having my closest neighbors halfway down the road with three collies, and my cousins gaining a cat every few months. School was not on the next block over but in the next town over. There was no longer a school festival to celebrate different ethnic backgrounds and cultures; instead, we toured the farms owned by students' parents to watch maple syrup boil down and to ride mules. Don't get me wrong - I love the country, but I'm a city girl on the inside for many more reasons. My mind blazes when I'm in a city that lights up around me, and my soul stirs with the shadows that rush across mountains in spring. My heart falls on the line, flip-flopping in the moment. Perhaps this is why my heart flip-flops on a lot of things, but that's another story for another time.

Going on, I never really talked to my dad after we moved so abruptly without him, though my parents were not officially divorced until I was in sixth grade. It's been odd to bear a name knowing that the culture it came from is one that I had exposure to only for a small fraction of my life. For a long time, I felt embarrassed even saying it. In the past year or so, I've met a lot of people that have helped me to embrace it, whether they realized it or not.

I'm not sure where I was going with this anymore. I've been distracted by the possibility of a new old civilization...that'll make sense to someone out there. =)

DigitalNow - InteractiveWhen?

2008-04-24T17:55:00.000-04:00

Today, I am at a conference called DigitalNow. It seems to be focused on providing new technological tools to people in management and leadership positions within national organizations. Doesn't quite sound like my cup of tea, but I've surprised even myself today; I really love this stuff. I don't know how healthy that is, but I plan on plugging away regardless.

I don't feel like I am in over my head, but that I swim in a completely different and deeper sphere. These people understand the importance of shifting dynamics. They realize what technology can do. But they are keeping to the present; These people are playing catch-up without leaping towards the future. When my generation becomes the market that they are attempting to deal with, they will have no idea what to do with us. They have the shift in content down, but the idea of interactivity is beyond them; they have kept track of the "what" without the "how."

Rather than attempt to create new structures of organization, why not put it entirely in the hands of the user? Is this too much of a break from profits? When users are completely in control of what they are attracted to and how they are able to manipulate it, when you provide tools that can enable an infinite number of possibilities, how much need is left for the provider? Less than they seem comfortable with.

Games have a far greater negative connotation than I had previously realized. Having just gotten to the hotel last night, while scrambling for food, we ran into another conference goer who was enthralled by what we were here doing; but he mentioned that his job did not allow him the space that was needed to jump on board. Why would anyone do this? Either they do not understand or they are afraid of losing control. Is the control that they cling to even needed? Would group discovery and dynamics not be more productive on a community level? We won't know until we try.

As I write this, the technology at this conference has started to disappoint, in an ironic turn. The speakers are popping in general session, and one of the videos requested by a panelist was not played successfully by any means. Though the techno is sound (no pun intended), I do declare: it's just plain tech-tacky.

It's interesting to think that these organizations that are completely unassociated with the technological industry are looking towards change and improvement: but the people speaking to these issues do not all seem to be the experts I was hoping for. As with many conferences, it appears to be a preaching-to-the-choir dynamic. If I ever run a conference, it will be one led by people from all walks of life.

An Introduction to "Nishikawa"

2008-04-18T02:20:00.000-04:00

I've never been one for putting thoughts on the Internet where others can view them. However, having recently swamped some of my friends and acquaintances with trivial thoughts and observations, I've deemed it time to shut my inbox and open my web browser. Hello, world. Welcome to my junk heap for discarded ideas. Sift through it at your leisure.

I've discovered many things about myself in the past year. One is that while I enjoy writing, I love expressing myself through artwork as well. I've always known that I will be a lifelong learner, but I'm starting to feel like a teacher too. In general, I love everything more than I ought to. I express emotion in a quiet but powerful manner that can reach, ensconce, and burn through anything (thus far). I adore other human beings, though I spend more time analyzing them than I ought to. I detest money and struggle with my persistent dreams of utopia.

I write this on an evening that does not feel particularly important. I have many things to do in the coming days, and little time to do them. My mind has been bursting with thoughts this week, and the weather almost hit 80 today for the first time in what I imagine has been well over half a year. Summer is upon me, seemingly earlier than usual. I put on a dress and shorts, slid into sandals, and felt like myself again for the first time in what I imagine has been well over half a year. A strange sentiment, in both its declaration and its truth.

Expect no rhyme or reason to my leavings in this space. They promise to be of varying lengths, touching upon all imaginable feelings. It's the way I work, and something that I hope can be appreciated by others. This is a testing ground. Feel free to add unforeseen factors to my experiment, if you do so with friendly intentions and a warm spirit.