Anybody out there?

So I've been considering writing something in this blog again. But first, I need to know, does anyone still read this? Let me know, because I don't want to waste my time Bloggering when I could be happily tumblring along.

That's the last straw!

I got a tumblr!

Blame Steve. I even stol-- er embraced the widget he is using for his blogger. It's somewhere over on the right or something.

Orange is kind of ugly..

That damn viral video

I know everyone is posting that viral video about the guys dancing like a fool all over the world with a bunch of other people dancing like fools. I could say I hate it, but it makes me smile lots, just like everyone else.

Well, in case anyone was wondering, I stumbled upon the website this originates from, and it has a story of Matt and why the hell he is all over the world, doing a goofy dance. Where the Hell is Matt?

You don't want to make Dani angry

Dani yelled at me. So I'll update you all on my super exciting life.

I'm really obsessed with this right now: Spore Creature Creator!

I've been waiting for Spore since like...sophomore year. I was still in the UC then! The game has been delayed way too many times. It's been in development for almost a decade now! It has a free trial. You should trial it.

In other news, summer laziness continues. On most days I'm a big waste of life. I go to work until 3 pm, go to the gym, and then spend the rest of the days sitting around my apartment playing video games. I've hung out with a lot of my game design buds this summer so far, but I hardly ever see the old diversey crew! It's in large part because I'm in Wrigleyville and they're in Wicker Park, and if it was inconvenient to get to Wicker Park from Lincoln Park, its ten fold that to get there from where I live. There's just no good way.

I got to see them Friday though, for Cam's b-day. It was a great time, and I soundly drank more than I have since before I left the old house. Funny how if we had been living together still, it would have been a night like any other, but since I know longer live with them or see them often, it felt like a grand reunion. It was a lot of fun.

Other than that, I'm going to create a game with Christian and Dave whenever I get my lazy ass in gear and get them together to think. It's going to be a point and click adventure! (like monkey island). It will be grand.

I'm working on getting another game going...but thats still a little bit of a mystery.

You never get to see pictures of my apartment, by the way. I'm withholding them from you out of pure spite. Or because I am pretty sure the software for my camera is buried in a box at the back of my closet, and I'm moving out in two months anyways! No worries, there isn't much fun I spy to play in my apartment, I never put anything fun on my walls because of how long I'm staying here. The majority of things that weren't absolutely necessary for me to live with this summer are stuck in boxes still. This place is more like an extended stay hotel than anything.

I could tell you I'll update more often, but that really depends on whether anything exciting happens. Maybe I'll start posting fun things I find on the internet!

Summer is here!

This whole week has been me taking one HUGE BREEEAAAATH. This semester was busy. One might even say crazy busy.

I made some huge leaps towards my future, learned a lot about myself, and dealt with a lot of changes. As I finally have time to look back, while this semester flew by and I was so busy I often wanted to just collapse and sleep for forever, it was probably the most meaningful semester of my college career. For the first time since the days of the UC, I felt I really grew this semester.

Things I've learned:

• Friends are the people the treat you with respect, value your company, and trust you for support, assistance, and guidance and are willing to return the feeling.
• Teamwork is hard! But rewarding and lots of fun.
• Making my future happen the way I want it to is going to take a whole lot more activity on my part than just getting good grades and getting a degree.
  
• Knowing your strengths and weaknesses are both equally important in all aspects of your life, self-improvement can only stem from that.
• It's impossible to make everyone happy, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to keep from making anyone unhappy.
  

Things I've learned about myself:

• I'm more comfortable organizing and leading people than I am following and just "doing my part", and I actually have a bit of a knack for leading people when I want to.
  
• I'm a little bit of a control freak, which is probably why I prefer to lead.
• I need to work on a team/with people, I'm given energy by the people around me.
  
• I'm way more talkative than I thought I was, as long as I feel wanted and/or important.
• I clam up and get depressed pretty easily when I don't feel wanted or accepted.
• I can do almost anything I set my mind to, as long as I keep myself motivated.
• I prefer being to busy to inactivity.
• I can't be cool or hip, I'm a nerd and that's all there is to it.
• I hate being wrong and sometimes have a hard time admitting it (I'm working on it!)
• I can be independent.

I have sort of distanced myself from some people this last semester. It wasn't totally intentional, but I think I'm becoming better off that I'm not completely dependent on them for a social life anymore. I'm not saying who, as I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. I love all of my friends, but I was feeling less and less welcome around certain people and I needed to remind myself that I am a valuable person, and that people enjoy having me around. I made several new friends this semester and I think I've become a better, happier person because of it. I'll still be hanging out with and in contact with all of my friends, but now I won't have to feel unwelcome or like "that guy" in the group, as if they don't want to hang out, they can just make up some lame excuse when I call them!

My plans this summer are:

• get in shape (for real this time)
• take a game from start to completion (making a game, not playing!)
  
• learn to motivate myself to get out and call people!
• not go broke.
• maybe take a trip or two to see some people (I'm thinking LA, New York, who knows, maybe even Ohio!)

Oh yeah, and I tried to take some pictures of my apartment, and I lost the software to upload pictures from my camera to the computer! The search begins...hopefully I can find it. Sorry!

Quick Update

Things are still super busy for me (two more weeks to go!), so here's a quick update on my life:

• I got into Manifest! I'll be displaying a Portal level design project I've been working on with a few other designers since January in the glass curtain gallery from May 14th to Mid-June!
• I still wake up at 7 am, go to school, work/class/have meetings, and return to my apartment around 10 pm every weekday.
  
• On tuesday, I turned in my keys to the slugger household. The end of another age of my social life.
• I'm in my new studio now! I'll try to take a picture of it on saturday and post.

That's all I've really got going right now. I haven't had the chance to to any self-reflection in the past forever, so no deep feelings about anything right now.

Tibet is awesome

My Life in Forbidden Lhasa

So I don't usually use this blog to talk about my findings on the internet, but I found this incredibly awesome and inspiring. It makes me incredibly sad to know that Tibetan culture is all but dead and probably won't last more than a few more years. The way they live is/was amazing. This was originally published in a 1955 National Geographic and was just republished on the internet. It's about a man who escaped a prison camp in India during World War II and spent his years as a personal tutor to the 14th Dalai Lama.