I went out to buy some white-out, and ended up watching a good bit of the Veteran's Day parade. As a near-pacifist, I'm opposed to war in almost all cases, so flag-waving and cheering the military make me a bit uncomfortable. However, today didn't feel like that. I respect the people who serve, and who served in the past - it's hardly their fault when the leadership of our country makes horrible decisions and sends them into places where I feel we shouldn't be. I was a bit startled by the huge booming sounds that one of the parade units was setting off. Hello, flashbacks? Seems like an odd thing to have in a Veteran's Day parade. Also, the young reservist recruits - dressed ominously in black - had me nearly in tears. Just FYI. Also also, marching bands and baton twirlers are fun, and wear funny hats.
So, bought some Pittsburghy doodads from a street vendor, clapped a lot, said "Thank you!" to some soldiers, and chatted with a few random people about politics and the weather. Sunshine makes any parade better, even when, because of tall downtown buildings, it's only available in a few patches.
Ooh, and I also ran into a gaggle of toddlers, whose adult leader gave me contact info for Brightside Academy, their school. So, another opportunity for teaching Chinese to short people, which I may pursue if I decide to stick around The 'Burgh for a bit longer... as I am sorely tempted to do. New part-time job starts this week, at this place, while the old part-time job, at this place, continues. And I do have a twice-a-week Chinese lesson with a very small girl, if that counts as a third part-time job. Hopefully the new job will not be crazy amounts of hours, as that would probably result in me getting the flu or something. I am not the strongest, healthiest girl on the block. Curse you, anemia!
How did I start out this post? Veteran's Day. Happy (belated) Veteran's Day to all our troops and veterans. Take care of yourselves. It's rough out there, even in the sunshine.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Summer draws to a close
It's been a very quiet summer for me - a little working, a lot of Flash game-playing, many many books, and librariness. And I turned 30, which went over fairly easily, really. I got a spectacular free meal out of it from a couple of chef friends of mine. Scallops, steak, and creole shrimp helped the major aging milestone go down easier.
My cats and I moved to Uptown in April, and so far none of us have been mugged, unless you count the fights I'm pretty sure my cats have had with the neighborhood strays. A studio apartment is really too small to keep my two cats cooped up in permanently - fortunately I have a roof and fire escape they can hang out on. I'm actually still trying to figure out if they can get out to the street on their own... not that anyone cares. Enough about my cats.
The current plan is to polish up my resume and apply for an entry-level Technical Director position at DreamWorks Animation. My internship there during summer 2007 was supremely fantastic, and although I'm not crazy about LA, the DWA campus there is, in my opinion, just about a perfect environment for creative people to do good work in. And if, for whatever reason, DreamWorks and Blue Sky Studios and their ilk won't have me, China's still hiring English teachers. I figure 6 months or so of teaching English again should give me enough time to make connections and shoot for a programming job over there - hopefully graphics programming, although their feature animation industry isn't nearly as well developed as ours. And with the current salaries for foreign teachers, I could actually pay my student loans down reasonably well just as an English teacher, and even more so as a programmer. At least that's the word on the street.
So there you have it: an update on my world.
My cats and I moved to Uptown in April, and so far none of us have been mugged, unless you count the fights I'm pretty sure my cats have had with the neighborhood strays. A studio apartment is really too small to keep my two cats cooped up in permanently - fortunately I have a roof and fire escape they can hang out on. I'm actually still trying to figure out if they can get out to the street on their own... not that anyone cares. Enough about my cats.
The current plan is to polish up my resume and apply for an entry-level Technical Director position at DreamWorks Animation. My internship there during summer 2007 was supremely fantastic, and although I'm not crazy about LA, the DWA campus there is, in my opinion, just about a perfect environment for creative people to do good work in. And if, for whatever reason, DreamWorks and Blue Sky Studios and their ilk won't have me, China's still hiring English teachers. I figure 6 months or so of teaching English again should give me enough time to make connections and shoot for a programming job over there - hopefully graphics programming, although their feature animation industry isn't nearly as well developed as ours. And with the current salaries for foreign teachers, I could actually pay my student loans down reasonably well just as an English teacher, and even more so as a programmer. At least that's the word on the street.
So there you have it: an update on my world.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Interesting little game: MyBrute
I wasn't too enthralled with this the first time I checked it out, but with a long list of classmates participating, whom I could fight against, it became more interesting.
Create your Brute and fight creekpilgrim, if you dare. Fear my cute pink hair! Fear it!
It's an odd little game in that you don't really do anything except choose whom to fight - the things that happen during a fight are all automatic and don't require any actions or choices on your part. And you get experience from other people fighting your brute when you're not around, and possibly some kind of experience from the experience of your pupils - that part I'm not too clear on as yet.
There are one or two other games I know of that basically play themselves - you just let them run and they level up over time. Sadly, I cannot remember their names....
Update: Creekpilgrim is good with a knife. Just killed two brutes, although the first one stole my weapon and killed me with it. Talk about adding injury to insult.
Create your Brute and fight creekpilgrim, if you dare. Fear my cute pink hair! Fear it!
It's an odd little game in that you don't really do anything except choose whom to fight - the things that happen during a fight are all automatic and don't require any actions or choices on your part. And you get experience from other people fighting your brute when you're not around, and possibly some kind of experience from the experience of your pupils - that part I'm not too clear on as yet.
There are one or two other games I know of that basically play themselves - you just let them run and they level up over time. Sadly, I cannot remember their names....
Update: Creekpilgrim is good with a knife. Just killed two brutes, although the first one stole my weapon and killed me with it. Talk about adding injury to insult.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Damn you, Turbine
It figures that they come out with Leaves of Lorien just as I lose access to my shiny ETC machine.
For those of you unfamiliar with Lord of the Rings Online, or those of you who would like to see pretty screenshots from my favorite part of The Lord of the Rings, you can find some linked from this page. (Update: sadly, they've changed the website and I can't find the pretty screenshots. Link is to a map with overhead views, so not nearly as lovely to look at. Unless you really like looking at the tops of trees.)
For those of you unfamiliar with Lord of the Rings Online, or those of you who would like to see pretty screenshots from my favorite part of The Lord of the Rings, you can find some linked from this page. (Update: sadly, they've changed the website and I can't find the pretty screenshots. Link is to a map with overhead views, so not nearly as lovely to look at. Unless you really like looking at the tops of trees.)
Grad school hates me, again
On the other hand, this is my favorite grad school advisor EVAR. When life hands you a Leave of Absence, if you're patient enough, you might receive a Spanish computer graphics guy to make up for the sour taste in your mouth.
Of course, when grad school subsequently hands you a Letter of Dismissal... I'm not sure what happens after that, although I'm doing okay with the patience bit (at the moment). Thank the good Lord for library Internet access. And friends. And mothers.
Update: Carnegie Mellon University apparently cannot be bothered to give me a final answer as to what happens after one receives a letter of dismissal and one appeals the aforesaid letter. It's been a year, people. What? You can't pick up a phone and call me back after I call you 2 times in one week? Is your arm broken? At this point, you've passed over from accidental ineptness and you're pretty deep in Extreme Rudeness Territory. The Entertainment Technology Center, naturally, cannot pay me enough money to return and finish my master's degree, at this point. The rest of Carnegie Mellon, including the graphics lab and the entire school of computer science, has deeply disappointed me and I hope they realize their error before I write them off for good and go seriously looking for another institute of higher learning to which I can transfer two and a half years' worth of grad school credits.
Edited Saturday, August 21st, 2010
Of course, when grad school subsequently hands you a Letter of Dismissal... I'm not sure what happens after that, although I'm doing okay with the patience bit (at the moment). Thank the good Lord for library Internet access. And friends. And mothers.
Update: Carnegie Mellon University apparently cannot be bothered to give me a final answer as to what happens after one receives a letter of dismissal and one appeals the aforesaid letter. It's been a year, people. What? You can't pick up a phone and call me back after I call you 2 times in one week? Is your arm broken? At this point, you've passed over from accidental ineptness and you're pretty deep in Extreme Rudeness Territory. The Entertainment Technology Center, naturally, cannot pay me enough money to return and finish my master's degree, at this point. The rest of Carnegie Mellon, including the graphics lab and the entire school of computer science, has deeply disappointed me and I hope they realize their error before I write them off for good and go seriously looking for another institute of higher learning to which I can transfer two and a half years' worth of grad school credits.
Edited Saturday, August 21st, 2010
Friday, February 27, 2009
Link to read after sleeping
This is the end of my Internet wanderings for tonight. I swear it!
A friend of a friend recommends this fabulous post by Rob Donoghue. I was intrigued enough to read the one about mooks; looking forward to finishing this up tomorrow. After the voxelizing has been conquered. Or at least the collision detection that is holding up the voxelizing.
A friend of a friend recommends this fabulous post by Rob Donoghue. I was intrigued enough to read the one about mooks; looking forward to finishing this up tomorrow. After the voxelizing has been conquered. Or at least the collision detection that is holding up the voxelizing.
3 am
YouTube served me up a lovely new voice tonight, and then it suggested this, a mashup of said voice, Katie Melua, and... well... watch it. I believe it's a film called Threads, but I can't be bothered to check because Matchbox 20 is singing me a lullaby and I don't feel like interrupting. Say what you will about the pop band, and then take a look at his eyes in the last few seconds of the song. That's quality humanness.
If I'm going to be awake at 3am, I might as well be in this sort of mood. Connections, insights, a sudden view into the territory around this momentary rut my life is in. And I don't mean rut in a bad way. At least not entirely. Not that my performance this semester has been perfect, but the semester itself has been... reasonable. I'm currently walking a waiting-for-student-loans tightwire, with bad consequences for having absolutely no cash waiting just a few steps ahead. And I need to somehow kick my independent study into gear. But these are not things that are going to kill me, and I have faith that people are going to be kind to me this time around.
The work is good. The teammates are cool - tonight's afterhours movie selections were Shinobi and Shaun of the Dead, so you know the bonding's topnotch. Which, unfortunately, meant that I missed the last bus home and here I am. Fortunately for you, if you're a long-lost friend wondering what's up with Julie these days. And most of my friends are at least a bit off the radar, so.
I'm not sure whether I wish I didn't need the kindness. It would be great to do everything right and never need help, at least in theory. But maybe it would be even lonelier.
If I'm going to be awake at 3am, I might as well be in this sort of mood. Connections, insights, a sudden view into the territory around this momentary rut my life is in. And I don't mean rut in a bad way. At least not entirely. Not that my performance this semester has been perfect, but the semester itself has been... reasonable. I'm currently walking a waiting-for-student-loans tightwire, with bad consequences for having absolutely no cash waiting just a few steps ahead. And I need to somehow kick my independent study into gear. But these are not things that are going to kill me, and I have faith that people are going to be kind to me this time around.
The work is good. The teammates are cool - tonight's afterhours movie selections were Shinobi and Shaun of the Dead, so you know the bonding's topnotch. Which, unfortunately, meant that I missed the last bus home and here I am. Fortunately for you, if you're a long-lost friend wondering what's up with Julie these days. And most of my friends are at least a bit off the radar, so.
I'm not sure whether I wish I didn't need the kindness. It would be great to do everything right and never need help, at least in theory. But maybe it would be even lonelier.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Working for The Man
Here's another one Juleigh sent out, this time featuring advice about how to restructure instead of downsize, should you be a video game company executive feeling the pinch of the current financial climate.
While I'm not a video game executive, nor do I plan to be one anytime soon, I really enjoyed the article. Thinking back to my time in financial software (hello Ontario Systems), the advice here really makes sense. I don't think I was ever there during painful layoff sessions, but I do pay attention, read pretty widely, and hear stories from people who've worked at various companies; also, Ontario was unusually open about the financial status of the company, at least internally, so I got me some finance and accounting education whether I needed it or not.
I can picture how the suggestions that Mr. Mencher gives might work better than the standard "We're trimming 7% of our workforce in order to meet (or approach) our yearly earnings projection." And given the state of the world economy, who couldn't use advice about better ways to keep a business viable? Really, I think it boils down to: if you let your numbers men or women run the show, you're going to piss off your employees, or at least frighten them into polishing their resume when they should be working harder to fill in for all those people you just fired. Wouldn't it be better to take a look around and find some ways to tighten the collective belt before you resort to decreasing your labor force? Perhaps you don't need that corporate jet after all, or your financial planners and industry forecasters should give up their yearly bonuses for dropping the ball on this one.
While I'm not a video game executive, nor do I plan to be one anytime soon, I really enjoyed the article. Thinking back to my time in financial software (hello Ontario Systems), the advice here really makes sense. I don't think I was ever there during painful layoff sessions, but I do pay attention, read pretty widely, and hear stories from people who've worked at various companies; also, Ontario was unusually open about the financial status of the company, at least internally, so I got me some finance and accounting education whether I needed it or not.
I can picture how the suggestions that Mr. Mencher gives might work better than the standard "We're trimming 7% of our workforce in order to meet (or approach) our yearly earnings projection." And given the state of the world economy, who couldn't use advice about better ways to keep a business viable? Really, I think it boils down to: if you let your numbers men or women run the show, you're going to piss off your employees, or at least frighten them into polishing their resume when they should be working harder to fill in for all those people you just fired. Wouldn't it be better to take a look around and find some ways to tighten the collective belt before you resort to decreasing your labor force? Perhaps you don't need that corporate jet after all, or your financial planners and industry forecasters should give up their yearly bonuses for dropping the ball on this one.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Good links for job hunters
The ever-fantastic Ms. Juleigh DeCarlo just sent these out to us, and I want to dig into them (and possibly post about the first one) when I get a bit of breathing room. The sprint to Quarter Presentations is on and things are a bit hectic around the offices. Cool that we have "offices;" a suite of rooms is just what one needs when one is doing serious development.
Six Words that Make Your Resume Suck
The AWN Career Connections
The Five Worst Mistakes You Can Make on a Resume
Evidently, AWN.com is a good resource for entertainment technologists. Who knew?
Six Words that Make Your Resume Suck
The AWN Career Connections
The Five Worst Mistakes You Can Make on a Resume
Evidently, AWN.com is a good resource for entertainment technologists. Who knew?
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Beginning again
New year, new semester, new chance to have a fulfilling and useful semester at the ETC. And so far, everything is fab-o, a-ok, could not be better if I had custom ordered it. I mean, having my old housemates back would be perfection, but since they've all abandoned me for the West Coast (except for Zikun! who is in Pittsburgh somewhere), I'll take what I can get.
My main semester project: Crayon 3D which you can investigate here and here. Someday we will have a shinier website. With possible mailing list! Our dreams and future feature lists are bigger than one semester can contain.
My main semester project: Crayon 3D which you can investigate here and here. Someday we will have a shinier website. With possible mailing list! Our dreams and future feature lists are bigger than one semester can contain.
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