Personal Blog

Graduation

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I have a Masters degree! Wooo! This morning when I woke up, I felt free and full of adventure. I felt like a different person, which did not happen at my high school or undergrad college graduations. It was mysterious!

First off, an update about my grandfather. He was able to get his oxygen intake down and return home, where he is apparently doing well considering the circumstances. Hooray!

When my family came in for graduation on Saturday, we went to Claddagh for dinner. On a Saturday night of graduation weekend, it was unsurprisingly packed, and we had a long wait for our table. Later, they informed us that the wait would be longer, because the kitchen was so backlogged on orders that they weren’t taking any new ones until they caught up. They said they could seat us and we could order drinks, but that it’d still be 45 minutes or so until we could order food. We said that was fine.

When the waiter brought us our drinks, he also brought a couple packages of oyster crackers for us, which was very thoughtful. While we were snacking on them, my brother and I theorized that oyster crackers might be tasty with malt vinegar. So we started pouring, very carefully, single drops of malt vinegar on single oyster crackers, then eating them with delight (it was very tasty afterall!)

Well, I think the waiter saw us doing this, and assumed that we were either starving or crazy, because he showed up a few minutes later with the good news that he’d talked to the chef and was going to be able to take our food orders just then. Bwahaha!

The graduation ceremony on Sunday was really nice. Delicious, delicious food! Photos of me looking all masterful here. Afterwards, in true nerd fashion, I took my family to see Star Trek, and everyone enjoyed it. Wins all around!

Speaking of wins, my parents totally surprised me by getting me a PS3 as a graduation gift! I was completely caught offguard! Hooray! Now I can actually play the games that Insomniac gave me! Oh, that too…I know I jabbered about it on facebook and twitter, and most people know about it, but I can’t remember if I blogged about it on LJ. I have a job! I’m going to be returning to Insomniac as an Associate Designer. I’MA MAKE GAMES FOR A LIVING!

WOooooooo! Spring Break!

13 thoughts on “Graduation”

  2. Wait, what? I’ve lost track of a number of people it seems- you graduated? Where from? Congrats!
    You’re getting a job as associate designer for Insomniac Games? Sounds interesting- what’s it entail?
    Sorry if these are dumb questions! /\_/\

    1. Haha! No worries 🙂

      I graduated from Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center in Pittsburgh – a two year Masters program.

      I’ll be a game designer at Insomniac, makin video games and doing such thing as level design, enemy and weapon design, and that sort of stuff. Map-making and encounter-creating and game-tuning and other such things to make the game fun. I was a game design intern at Insomniac last summer, and got to design and implement setups (basically encounters between the player and enemies) in Resistance 2, which is a first-person shooter for the PS3.

      ADVENTURE!

      1. Wow- sounds like a lot of fun. Game/character designer is one of the things I always wanted to do (I sort of got to do it at Cinematix before the company folded, but because it folded before any games were produced I can’t point at a game and say “I helped make that”). As I understand it, there’s a lot of competition for game and character designer jobs- not an easy job to get. Congrats again! 🙂

  3. Congratulation! 😀 (also on the PS3)

    Doing a masters degree is something i’m also strongly considering due to the financial crisis. But that left aside, you’re really looking good next to George Lucas on those photos. xD

    I bet the different kinda person feeling comes from the thought that you’ve reached a spot where you don’t have to go much higher regarding the educational level. Sure, there’s always a doc-title but that’s hardly a necessity. So yeah, since you already spent a good 1/3 of your lifespan with educational content its well worth the feeling of new gained freedom. ;D

    It was new to me that you got a job in the games industry, and even such a well known franchise at that. I envy you! D:

    Hope to stay in touch with you :3

    1. Thanks! 😀

      I blame my poor correspondence purely to the fact that I don’t get on AIM as much these days. I really need to get on more, because I miss talking with you!

  6. OMG 😀 You’re returning to Insomniac?!

    CONGRATULATIONS 😀

    *Wriggles and bounces for you*

    That’s -AWESOME-

    Go Wertle~ Go go go Wertle~

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