Tag Archives: scholarships

GDC Tuesday Morning

Today was the day of scholar activities, and I am quite worn out! In the morning we all met up and went over to Three Rings Design for a tour. This was great, because it was one of the companies I wasn’t able to see on the West Coast Trip. Three Rings is a fantastical place, visually, and their company model is one I am fond of. They were very friendly and open, and are giving all the scholars alpha test accounts for Whirled.

Afterwards, we met up with our mentors, which was the most exciting part of the day for me! They matched up each of the scholars with an industry professional in the line of work we were interested in. Mine is a producer at Ubisoft, and is really cool. We wandered off to figure out our schedule for the conference, and had a fabulous conversation about production and the game industry in general. He’s going to arrange a tour of Ubisoft for me (the studio here is mostly a publishing house with a small development team).

He set off to another meeting and I wandered about until I found Carlos, who is also doing computery sorts of errands. Tonight is the big IGDA party, which I may go to, but am sort of dreading. Large gatherings of people drain me to the bone. But who knows, it could be fun!

For now, I think I’m going to go seek out that bean bag chair lounge again…

GDC-bound

Today I fly off with my project team to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

I am extremely excited, if not a little nervous (this will be the most gigantic conference I’ve ever attended). On Monday I’ll be attending a summit about MMOs, hopefully to absorb what I can learn to apply it to Bandology. Tuesday I’ll be running about with the GDC scholars (I won a scholarship to attend GDC, so there’s all kinds of perks with that). The rest of the week I’ll be running about to this session and that, and maybe this party and that, and whatever social networking you tend to do at conferences.

I am armed with a stack of business cards and a tiny notebook, and we shall see what GDC brings!

My goal is to blog a bit about each day, but even if that doesn’t happen, I’ll likely be twittering left and right if you like bite-sized updates.

Pittsburgh updates

It has been a fantastic week!

On Monday I drove up to Pittsburgh (accompanied by Scott, who kept me from losing my mind on the 7 hour drive)to go apartment scouting with my future roommates. It was quite an adventure. The first 3 places we saw were absolute dumps, and the landlord was crazy, so at first we were all rather worried. However, each place we saw afterwards got better and better, leading up to the last place we saw on the last day, which ended up being the best one (and the one we pounced on right away, because there were a lot of people looking at it).

So, I have a home in Pittsburgh now! Hooray! I will probably move up there sometime in mid-late July, no set dates yet. It only makes me more and more excited about starting at the ETC. Squeak!

The other wonderful thing that happened while I was up there: I found out I won one of the scholarships I applied for! Huzzah! A mere dent in a large tuition fee, but money is money and I feel special for having won.

Yay!

Chicago

We went to Chicago this weekend to visit D Flo! By we I mean Scott, Kyle, and myself. Scott gives a full account of the adventure if you want to read, but I will say that Body Worlds 2 was cool as hell. And of course Scott was as giddy as a kid in a candy shop…or a PhD anatomy student in a room full of plasticized cadavers…whichever.

Seeing D Flo and Ezzie was super nice, and it was very fun to have Kyle along as well. I did, however, forget to clean Kyle’s car today, like I was meaning to. Kyle! Come to Maria’s tomorrow for empanadas! I will then clean your car!

In other news, I have 4 scholarship deadlines fast approaching and am rather worn out. However, I will be going to New York in 2 weeks to visit Carleton, Matt, and hopefully Ian and Yale. Yay for visits!

Huzzah!

Another scholarship application in the mail! Woo! On a roll! Or somethin! Granted, I have 3 more scholarships to apply for in April, so I will not cease being busy, but it does feel good to mark the big red “high importance” to-do items off my list.

I deserve a bit of celebration for these small accomplishments, yes? Perhaps chocolate? Perhaps pie?

Also, Mariah, I’m still pondering over your interview questions. Ponder ponder!