Tag Archives: changes

Personal Blog

Stupid love

5 Comments

So, in light of yet another incarnation of my track record of becoming very close friends with someone, falling in love with them, and having it be unrequited, I have resolved to start dating this semester.

I am, fortunately, on the cusp of the generation where the use of online dating services is not only no longer a taboo, but is actually the norm for people meeting one another. I have been assured by many a friend that dating is not as miserable an experience as I think, and so far everyone seems excited by this new prospect.

Well, everyone but me, but I’m sure that will all change once I find someone decent to distract my affections.

So far my initial exploration of the famed dating site experience has yielded:

1) Some guy inviting me to a hookah bar (who was kind of an idiot) and

2) Some guy sending me a nice little email in which every single sentence in the ENTIRE email had the EXACT same structure.

It’s a start, I guess, because I’m already learning about things I want in a relationship. I’ve learned that I need my potential other to be eloquent, and I’ve learned that I’m SEVERELY annoyed by people who respond to a casual question by asking “why?”

I’m also being forced to take into account what I find physically attractive in males, versus my typical means (which is to fall in love with the brain and then become attracted to whatever body it happens to be in).

Granted, I probably won’t go on any actual dates until my 2 week sleepathon is up, but baby steps count as steps.

I’m kind of miserable about the whole ordeal at the moment, but if stupid emotional brain wouldn’t keep going and screwing up my friendships, then I wouldn’t have to drag her through this nonsense. So it’s her own damned fault!

Stay tuned for a most likely more-positive outlook on dating. Give it a month or so.

Personal Blog

2008 Review

The first thing I learned when looking back on 2008 was that I forgot to do a year review for 2007. Doh! Oh well, such is life!

08 was a good year for me. I think I have changed into something different by the end of it, but something for the better.

– The ETC West Coast Trip: adventure and fun and education! I went to Disneyland for the first time and sniffed out more companies than I had any right to see. It was a fantastic opportunity, and I’m so excited to see this year’s first-years head off on the same trip. Wee!

– I was lucky enough to land a sweet deal for my first project course at the ETC. Bandology was amazing, and I was so grateful to be on a team with such awesome people. I feel like it was a first step in boosting my confidence, and convincing me that yes, I could be a designer.

– speaking of which, GDC ’08 was a pretty big turning point for me. That was when I figured out that I should be looking for a design internship, not a production one. For some reason, I’d held the role of game designer in my head as something that I couldn’t do, reserved for people more awesome than me. At GDC I reached up and plucked it out and held it right there in my hand. It was some kind of magic.

– Ah, the summer. Pre-Insomniac Lisa and post-Insomniac Lisa were two completely different Lisas. Oh, Insomniac, you will forever be the incubator that hatched a new phase of Lisadom.

– Dorky though it may be, ’08 was the year where I did some semblance of end-game content in WoW. Rather, it was the Year of the Tank. Confidence boosts come in more forms than one would guess, you guys.

– Imagine my luck when my second ETC project team was also awesome! Get In Line harnessed a freshly hatched new Lisa and drove her to new levels.

– I got to go to Project Horseshoe! What an awesome experience. I met cool people and stretched my brain in cool new ways and learned a thing or two about myself in the process.

– Which brings us to the most recent: ringing in the holiday season with the Tuesday Night Ballers. It was as though we’d all gone off on our own adventures, then came back to enrich one another with all that we had learned. Such wonderful friends, I am lucky!

I am extremely excited about 2009. A little scared, sure, but who isn’t? It’s going to be some kind of adventure, I can tell already.

Personal Blog

Organization

Today I fell into the Flow, this time regarding the tidying of my journal. It has mostly been going back through old posts, tagging things, and correcting image links.

However, some of you may recall that between the end of 2004 and 2006, I went away from Livejournal for awhile and self-hosted my journal, then decided to return to LJ in the end.

Back when I did this, I’d changed hosting plans for my website, and in the process lost all my on-site journal entries through a mishap. I wasn’t overly distressed, however. I knew that if I gave it 6 months or so, the Internet Wayback machine would have the archive of my entries available.

It wasn’t until now that I got around to digging up my old entries and transferring them to LJ, but I did today.

For any who are interested in seeing them, they are under the tag “lost entries,” (first post at the bottom).

I have to pick up tagging and image link correcting from the end of 2006, but the transfer of posts was the biggest hurdle to get over. Going back and plugging along through my journal has been incredibly insightful! I’m glad I started this blog when I did.

Personal Blog

I am a Game Designer

6 Comments

This morning at GDC, I made a career change.

Now, don’t misunderstand, this wasn’t an on-the-fly decision. It’s something that’s been bubbling and building for a couple of months now. Last night, Tracy and Andy tipped me over the edge by suggesting I would probably get the most out of a design internship this summer versus any other type.

This morning I went to talk about High Impact’s production process, given by one of their lead designers. I had a moment of recognition that truly, I was sitting on the wrong side of the court. After the session, I plopped down, pulled out my laptop, nudged Jesse online and said “I think that maybe I should be looking for a design internship and not a production internship.”

He responded, “I think you might be right.” I could almost hear him smirking through the internet, the knowing smirk of someone who’s known this about me for a good while, but was nudging and waiting for me to figure it out on my own.

Commitment! I spent the next couple of hours sitting on the floor of the convention center, frantically rewording my website and reworking my resume. Andy stopped by between sessions to sit with me and help revise my resume. Jesse stopped by to sit with me for support. A smattering of other ETCers stopped by to see what I was up to, and when I relayed my sudden career change, responded with, “Well, DUH!”

Why does everyone else figure these things out about me before I do?? Nevertheless, the changes were made, and I’m ready to hit the Career Expo tomorrow with my new goal. Huzzah!

Other highlights today included a big Bandology lunch (with past and present members alike), then a session given by Bungie on Matchmaking in Halo 3. It was extremely informative, though now I have Fiddler in the Roof stuck in my head.

Now I’m chillin and waiting for my my mentor, such that we can go adventure at Ubisoft. Huzzah!

Personal Blog

Sleepy woes

2 Comments

Yesterday I made a major purchase.

I’ve been having trouble sleeping ever since I moved here. Even when I fall asleep, I feel like it’s very light. I’m not sure what the deal is.

Also, there are some studies pointing to sleep disorders and fibromyalgia being linked, so perhaps this is the cause of my mysterious symptom increases in spite of my taking medicine every day? Who can say?

Regardless, yesterday I bought a memory foam mattress pad and a super official tempurpedic pillow. I figure that, even if they don’t actually work, perhaps they’ll at least have a placebo effect. We shall see!

Personal Blog

Birthday Times!

9 Comments

Today is my birthday, and for some reason I am super excited about it! Or it might be that I am just super excited about life in general, and the fact that it’s my birthday is incidental.

Woo 25!! This year is the big move out of the 18-24 age demographic, so farewell college kiddery, hello twenty-somethings!

Tonight I am having dinner with my family at my brothers’ and tomorrow is the Celebratory Early February Birthday Chili Party.

So, if you are in Louisville and free tomorrow, please stop by my place for chili! Food around 3, but accepting callers as early as noon. Yay!

Yaay!

Yaaaay!

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

2006 Review

1 Comment

Oh man, 2006 seems to have happened all at once, so this will be short.

I guess the most dominant events of 2006 have been, unfortunately, sickness and death. The most prevelant, of course, was Nancy’s brain cancer and death in March. Looking back, I am surprised to see that the time between when she went in the hospital and when she died was little less than a month. It’s strange, because that time felt like forever.

Immediately after her death I went to visit Will in Savannah, and wrestled between having a fun time with my friend (who took me on my first ever trip to Disney World!) and my overwheling grief. Among all this was my own weird health problems, in full swing. It was a tryingly timed trip, and I still feel like I made a bad impression on Savannah in general because of it, and still feel bad because of it.

Shortly after said trip, my Nana died of lung cancer. Following that, Bonmom died (Mary Beth’s grandmother). Eric and Mary Beth’s cat, Check, also died last year. No one is allowed to die this year, okay guys?

Moving on, the spring and summer progressed in a slightly upward direction. My parents decided to sell their house, and so massive cleaning and repair began. I got to visit D Flo in Chicago and have many fun times. I got to visit Will in California and see such exciting things as Cartoon Network and the La Brea tar pits. Brendan and Maria adopted Brenna, the first canine member of the Tuesday Night Ballers. Camping, glorious camping occured! And of course, through the power of peer pressure, I came to begin playing World of Warcraft.

Moving into the fall, I got the cue that 2006 was a year for initiating change, so I applied to grad school, and we’ll just hold our breath about that, I s’pose. More changes with the winter, as I am now beginning to successfully address my weird health problems. A new cat wandered into our lives, and Eric and Mary Beth took him in. I think it all culminated in my parents successfully selling their house, and our combined Christmas dinner to toast Nancy and say goodbye to our home.

New Year’s came and went without much fuss. Fun times were had playing video games and spending time with loved ones. I think I’m ready to get started on 2007, I feel good about it.

Personal Blog

Christmas Times

2 Comments

Merry Christmas times to all! The holidays have been really nice, if not shaken with the feeling of impending change. I think this year was a “transition” Christmas.

My parents sold their house (yaaay!) but found out that the condo they had intended to buy had been sold out from under them (boooo). This caused much undo stress, but they have found a place to rent for awhile downtown. Still, come January 31st, the house will be gone, items will be shuffled into storage, and madness will ensue.

On Christmas night we had a great get together at my parents’ place. Normally Nancy would always host a dinner on Christmas night, so we decided to host a shindig in her honor. We must have lit every candle in the house (Nancy loved candles) and we had Oysters Rockefeller to toast in the New Year (another Nancy tradition). The party doubled as an official “goodbye” to our house, but in spite of sentiment, the evening was full of laughter and good times and no tears.

It was quite a practical Christmas for me, gift-wise, I got a bike mount for my car, which is exciting. I also got metal mixing bowls, which is very exciting, for now I can make meringue pies! My grandmother got me a silicon muffin tin…which…I suppose can’t really be called a “tin” at all….muffin silicon? Anyway! This, along with Scott’s gifts of a new grater and juicer, are indicative of much baking and cooking to come.

In spite of the rain and cold, it was a very warm Christmas. I hope everyone has had a pleasant holiday season!

Personal Blog

Things change!

10 Comments

Lisa! What is happening? You are posting in your livejournal?? What happened to your newsbruiser blog and your feed?

Well, a website redesign is looming on the horizon, and my site journal has just deteriorated into something that is more troublesome than it is worth. Plus, LJ has advanced quite a bit in the past couple of years and added some features I started the newsbruiser journal to get, namely tags and what’s what. I am reverting back here.

Originally my plan was to stay off livejournal because I wasted too much time on it, and my site journal did help with that. But then I thought, “Lisa, you play WoW, if you ban yourself from wasting time in one way, you are just going to find a way to waste it in another.” So yeah, time for the changing of minds!

So, what better way to kick things off on LJ than with some pictures? Scott was needing a creative outlet, so we stopped by my parents’ house and picked up several boxes of legos. Enjoy!

Lego City!