Lots of admin stuff for work, invoicing, bank stuff, rent payments, unpacking. I was going to go to SakuraCon, but I ended up deciding not to. By the time I had looked at the things I needed to do today as well as the schedule for the final day, I decided it would be better to stay here than go and play. I’ll go to another con’ I’m sure. I just don’t know if they’ll have Fred Gallagher of MegaTokyo (although the stuff of his that I have is currently in New Zealand, so I’d have to find something else to get signed), or Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins (a.k.a. Gabe and Tycho) of Penny Arcade. We’ll see.

This generally consumed the whole day. I did get to talk to Dace, Dad and Mum on Skype, though, which was great since I hadn’t heard from any of them for a while apart from brief chats over Spring break. I also got to talk to my friend Rae, whose birthday it was last week (my bad, I didn’t check my diary while I was on holiday – Happy Belated Birthday!) whom I also hadn’t talked to for quite a while.

Anyway, I finished up the day watching a couple of episodes of anime, having a glass of ginger ale then settling in with my book for a little while.

Well, it’s taken me long enough to get around to this post, but hey, it’s been busy. Spring Break was a wonderful chance to sleep and recuperate. It certainly took some adjusting as far as sleep is concerned – I think it was only when I was about to leave that it was leveling off.

I had a bunch of lazy days spending time with Anastasia, I had a day with Jen, a day with Jess and generally ignored the world for a week. It was something that I needed to do and I believe I’m a lot better off for it.

The day after I arrived I had a dinner out with Anastasia, Jen, Jess and Josh. I’m not sure why Josh was there exactly (from the look on his face for most of the night, neither did he), but it was a nice dinner and good to see everyone and get some hugs again. I also saw Elicia (Anastasia’s mom, for those of you that don’t recall) that day as well, it was good to see her as well.

While I was holidaying, I think I must’ve watched Dune a couple of times over, both the theatrical and the extended. I wasn’t really paying attention for all of it, but it was kinda cool to see it again. I also watched War of the Worlds, which I hadn’t got around to seeing when it was out in theatres. Wasn’t bad, I thought. Then again, I rather like Tom Cruise as an actor and am not at all influenced by whatever idiocies people seem to find so objectionable about him. I don’t understand that… I mean, even if the actor is a total psychopathic axe-murderer or something, their life is left at the edge of the stage, so to speak. The actor is the character in the movie, or play, or whatever and the character is not the actor in real life. Anyway.

I also picked up a book that I had been wanting to get in hardback, since I couldn’t find it in hardback in New Zealand. I talked to my Mum on Skype at various points, which was good as well. Anastasia also got me a LEGO set! I felt like I was 10 years old again as we sat down together and put everything together. It’s oddly relaxing, actually and certainly something that makes me feel very silly and very happy.

On my day with Jen there were a few things worth noting. We had lunch at Sonic, which I hadn’t done before. Truly a surreal kind of experience. The guy came out on roller skates with the food and everything. The whole place felt like I’d walked into a 1950s American television show or something. The food wasn’t bad actually and certainly not as greasy as a lot of the fast food here. Jen and I also spent some time together just doodling and drawing stuff on paper with some of her pencils and pastels, which was fun, although all I did was draw a bunch of complete crap. ^^;; The other thing was something that (finally) hit me about Jen. Jen is quiet most of the time, a lot like me (when you don’t get me started on something terribly geeky, that is). This means there’s a lot of ‘quiet time’ with us, which every now and again would strike me as odd. I mean, I have quiet friends, but they’re usually guys – most of the girls I know are the talkative type. Don’t get me wrong, I like listening to girls talk. My point is that I’m just accustomed to that being around when I’m with girls, but Jen is quieter, which makes it a little surreal sometimes. Our country hopping certainly doesn’t help, but I do feel kind of idiotic for not having that particular insight sooner. I mean, I’ve known her for like, six years or something now.

Anyway, the last thing of note for that day was that I managed to get myself lost on the way home. I’d taken the Miata out to USF to see Jen with directions from Anastasia, then on the way back (in the dark) I managed to make as many wrong turns as possible, I think. I was driving all over the place along the motorway. I ended up way the heck out in Brandon somehow. I had left the motorway at a sign that said HCC (which is Anastasia’s college) and I figured no problem, I knew the way from there. Wrong. It was the Brandon campus! I rang home for directions (once I’d realized I was at the wrong campus) and then proceeded to get petrol and directions from Anastasia and eventually make my way home. Frustrating experience and I must say I felt like more than a bit of an idiot.

That said, driving all over the place in a convertible with the top down and the stereo up is pretty damn cool.

On my day with Jess, we had lunch with Olivia (Tsumi) and Summer (Sora) at Tijuana Flats and had a brief visit to Borders before we all went out to Olivia’s house. We were off to see this sleep-out that the three of them regularly terrorized and it was all kinda funny for me because Olivia is not supposed to have boys over (I gather her parents are pretty strict) and yet there I was… there was much sneaking involved and I was required to have my hair down so if someone saw me at a distance they’d mistake me for a girl. Hilarious. Jess and I also went and saw V for Vendetta and the movie theatre she works at – brilliant movie, star studded cast and it bugged me throughout the whole film that I couldn’t place Hugo Weaving as the voice of V. After that we went out and played a bit of pool, I showed Jess how I think about pool and the shots that I take, a little Pool 101 if you will.

When I had to leave on the Saturday, my flight wasn’t until the afternoon and that is so much better. Leaving (or being left) in the morning just makes everything worse, I think. Because I’m already groggy and not-quite awake in the mornings, I just feel extra-shit. So, having time to hold on and start the day fully and properly together was great and made it slightly easier to get on board the plane. The flights back weren’t too bad, I pretty much just read my book the whole way (which was about eight hours). Back in Seattle and then it was catching buses in the cold, bounce through downtown and back to the campus. I got back around midnight.

Well, today I got up early, had a nice long shower, shaved (I get stubble after a couple of days now… it’s weird), then bussed into town, picked up a little reading material from Borders, bussed out to SeaTac then began my odyssey across the US. Airport waiting, then a four hour flight to Nashville, Tennessee, which wasn’t as bad as I thought. Flying Southwest and having open seating was kinda weird, but the staff were nice and friendly, and a lot more… relaxed than the other airlines I’ve flown. Kind of made it feel like a young, almost less professional is what I’d like to say, but they had a very professional attitude that I actually quite liked. Hm. In any case, I sat next to a lovely young woman named Selene who was great company. Smart, funny, chatty… all in all a nice flight. In Nashville we grabbed some quick food from one of the places in the airport before we went our separate ways for our respective connecting flights.

We talked a bit briefly on the plane about what I do on the side (for a living?) – making websites. Apparently her husband is an artist and in need of a website. I gave her my name and email address and said to be in touch if they needed any advice, etc. It was another one of those times where I think having business cards would be a great idea.

Next up was only two hour or so flight down to Tampa. Did the rest of my reading and just tried to relax on that flight. I didn’t have any chatty people next to me for that leg. I arrived in Tampa to Anastasia and Jess picking me up from the airport, which was great. We dropped Jess home, then it was back home with Anastasia. It’s good to be back in her arms again. I didn’t manage to get to sleep for ages, but I did get some sleep. Going from Leith Seattle Time (i.e. all fucked up) to Eastern Standard Time means there’s some adjusting to do.

With about four and a half hours sleep under my belt, plus the cumulative tiredness from this week, today started pretty damn groggily. I worked on my assignment a little more, had some breakfast, went in to my office, worked on my assignment a bit more until my lecturer and tutor came in to assess me. Assessment went pretty well I feel… I got my other stuff back from the last project and homework… went about as I expected. 104% on the animator project, only 59% on the theory homework (I only answered 70% though). After that I spent a large amount of time putting together my final project write-up, which you can find here.

Someone took my CSE drink bottle out of my office. Bastards.

I went home, did my washing, had dinner, packed for my trip tomorrow, watched some anime and tried to calm down and relax. Didn’t do a particularly good job.

Had a lot of trouble getting to sleep, ended up not getting enough even remotely. However, I got up and got stuck in anyway. A few emails and things to start off, then it was straight into my assignment. I got four emails (that’s right, four) from my tutor for the graphics course relating to my rendering problem. A couple were just little comments like “Ask other students”, but one of them had a good link in it.

Hurrah! Rendering issue solved!

Today I made a shitload of progress now that I could actually see what I was doing. I abstracted out the ship so that it was object-oriented as well, even though I thought I wasn’t going to do that. In the end it was for the best though… meant I had nice vectors for where it was facing, where it was, that kind of thing. While at the moment it still just flies around in circles, I think it shouldn’t be too hard to extend it so that I can have the ship flying around any which way the user wants. I have to say, making something interactive is even more fun than making animations, and that’s pretty damn cool. ^^

I remembered to take breaks every so often, but I just worked on this all day… and all night. Finally got to sleep around 7am.