Category → Life Blog
A Previous Life
I just remembered a very, very awesome trip I had a few years ago in the ancient, mystical, tech-savvy country of Japan.
If you’re curious about my adventures, you can still read about them! It’s strange for me to read this old travel log now, as there are so many things that would have been less surprising if my first trip had been done when I was older.
Enjoy!
http://jen-in-japan.blogspot.com/
New Beginnings!
I’ve got lots of new things cooking on the backburner, but not much I can share… yet! I’m hoping to have something new (either virtual or physical) completed soon.
However, I know the need for immediate satisfaction is among us! Therefore, I’m taking a risk. I have created a Forumspring account. Yes, you can now ask me any question you want anonymously. I’m a little scared about what may come up, but I’ll do my best to make sure the most interesting questions are answered first.
Let’s give it a go!
Mentors and Teachers
As you may have noticed, I’m a sometimes-frequent poster on Trizle.com, a neat site for business folk of all kinds to share tips and get inspired by Trizle’s weekly posts on being awesome with your work.
Recently, I’ve been posting (umm, maybe a little like petitioning) for a new feature through Trizle’s site: Mentoring.
Maybe part of me misses the professor/student relationship I had as an undergrad. Maybe another part of me is, well, still a bit young to being a full-time freelance machine. I can’t think of a better way to get advice that fits what I’m doing other than through another freelancer who knows the ropes.
I’ve been blessed in that my Dad is a freelance maverick of his own in the I.T. world, but the work he and I do are worlds apart. He’s SQL server-ing people in the face while I’m designing audio for games. He commutes to work while I telecommute… you get the idea.
That said, I’m really working to connect locally this year. Although I’m still pretty fresh to the area, I hope to stretch my contacts out a bit further. I know a lot of cool people in Polk County, too, so I feel like I’m off to a basic start.
I’m also thinking about ways in which I can teach and share game design. Perhaps I’ll finally be able to develop a curriculum that I’m proud to teach. For now, I’m gathering bits and pieces together in the hope that I can actually be a professor someday.
So many blogs!
Here’s the trouble: I have three other blogs that are currently in disarray!
- Interaction Faction: for my video-game design related rambling, although there really isn’t much to say there. Also, I don’t think I’m a fan of the tone that I established. It doesn’t sound like me anymore.
- Silence Theory (offline): A blog about my thoughts on silence in different contexts.
- the TECH of Jen Grier (offline): My place for soldering projects, etc., and where my work from my Physical Computing class at ITP lived.
I’m guessing that it would be smart to roll all of these blogs into this one, but to use different categories to make RSS easier. Enjoy my life? Take the following link for life posts only to your favorite RSS aggregator and enjoy! Here are the links to do so:
Don’t worry – I’ll be sure to put these in the side bar for you!
Quick Life Tip!
Did you know that filling up a humidifier (or, as I like to refer to it, VAPORIZER!) with hot water and a very gratuitous pinch of salt (more like a tablespoon… or two) can really get the steam happening faster? Like, almost instantaneous?
Where I am, the water seems to be too hard, and the air is brittle. The cold is wreaking havoc on my skin, so the humidifier seems to be the best option. Oh, and I’m impatient. I was worried that the drastic increase in salt would be bad for my little friend, but he seems to be running better than ever. This solution seems to address everything on all counts!
Revisiting/Learning
I suppose there comes a time when every Master’s degree-wielding warrior wants to take their thesis and burn it to a crisp. I think I may be beyond that point, though, so a revisit may be in order.
My thesis was an audio engine that used Flash, Javascript, and Java all at once… on one page! Essentially, there was a very smart Java library that I wanted to use, but I wasn’t savvy enough to port it into Flash. On the one side, it was better for Flash – no slow-downs due to processing my crazy sound layering/grouping/composition demands, but on the other… well, let’s say that testing wasn’t pleasant. It eventually worked, but it’s not ideal to have multiple conduits between your game and the sound that sound be occurring at about the same time.
In other words, I felt like my thesis was scrappable not long after I completed it. In the future, I don’t know if I want to gear an audio engine like the one I am envisioning towards Flash or, well… Unity.
Yes, Unity. I’m trying to pick that language up in my “spare” time. There’s a possibility that a certain artist I know will create gorgeous 3D objects if I make a game that is ready to receive it. I know this is possible in Flash, but I’m already seeing full-screen 3D browser games in Unity that have me floored. Gorgeous rendering… in a browser. I almost can’t handle it.
In a totally different area of my brain, I also completed an undergraduate thesis in Greek music theory a few years ago. I think it’s worth looking over that for some usefulness, too.
A new blog? Oh my!
WordPress AND Indexhibit? I must be going crazy!
I’ll also see if I can pull some of the old blogs into this one for easy reference.
Best,
Jen
