Time, Well, Spent

So ... what have I been up to for the past five weeks? Playing Lord of the Rings Online mostly. I haven't gained many levels. Just kinda auctioning stuff right now. I'm bored of the game because, once again, my friends have outleveled me. So I would have to party with strangers. Which, for this game, I don't want to do. And solo'ing in an MMO is pretty boring. It was probably a waste of money, but I had fun for a while.

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Work has been keeping me busy this month. I asked my supervisor for Mon-Thurs 5pm-1am + Fri-Sat 9pm-1am. So I've been working six days a week 'til 1am. I got out of the doughnut shifts by taking a full load of Office / Open Lab hours. That was the 5pm-9pm slot Mon-Thurs. And what was I doing in there for 16 hours/week? I was editing the labs and quizzes for PG3. I was tired of having too easy quizzes and too hard quizzes. So I offered my time to manage them. It worked out pretty well. I didn't have to write any quizzes, I just had to edit them. That involved a lot of work, standardizing the comments and all. But I think we actually had a good month. We've passed everybody in the last two months, and we really needed to fail some. And this month's quizzes were just hard enough to fail the ones that needed to. Only one was really "too hard". Another they just didn't understand the topic (binary file i/o), which wasn't our fault. Since Day 1 is just debugging, they get an easy A. So it balances out. I think next month we'll aim to make the debugging harder.

I received one of the gift cards I was expecting. Because I'm only in PG3 & PG2 this month, I probably won't get the two for WP1 and WP2. Eh, whatever. In the grand scheme of things $25 is the least of my concerns.

The non-doughnut schedule has screwed up my sleeping schedule though. I stay up until 4am watching tv. Then I sleep 'til 1pm. Do nothing for a few hours and then go to work at 4:30pm (or 8:30pm). The days have gone by pretty quickly this month. Which isn't too bad. I've still got my head above my bills, so I'm not worried about losing time.

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Remember back in October when I had mentioned driving to Seattle with my friend, Killabee. Well his wedding is July 14th. Being the lazy type, I didn't bother buying plane tickets in advance. I finally got around to it last week, and found that they cost $500-$600. Ouch! So, jokingly, I told KB that I should coerce his company into flying me out for an interview that week. He asked one of the project leads about any openings and found a Junior Gameplay position (which is what he is). And the project lead said they might be able to work out an interview! Well ... I wasn't expecting that. So I need to sharpen up my resume and cover letter!

I just bought the plane tickets today ($536) and it looks like I'll be in Seattle for a full week. Even if I don't get the interview and they don't pay for the plane tickets, I'll be there for KB's wedding. And I don't think I should really say anything about the tickets to the company. I don't want to look like a jerk. Honestly, if I get the job, the $536 will have meant nothing. So ... I'm crossing my fingers on this.

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About GenCon ... I probably won't make it this year. The week long flight to Seattle will take up my one week of paid vacation at Full Sail. And if I don't get the job in Seattle, I definitely won't be able to afford GenCon (having spent my $536).

Now if I do get the job, I don't think I'd have any vacation leave for the first few months. And I want to make a good impression on the company. They will be the my highest priority. However, I might be able to go if I could squeeze it between both companies. Say I do get the job, but don't start until late August. I could be moving before GenCon and still have the weekend available. Just a small window of opportunity there. Though, I don't want to make Surreal wait for me. If they have an opening right now, I'd like to fill it right now. But I don't know how soon they're actually looking to fill this position. Sorry if I have to miss out. :(

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My diet has been going fairly well. I weigh 268lbs now. So I've steadily been losing 1 pound per week. To get to the healthy 200, it'll only take me 68 more weeks! ... Oh noes! Well, I'm not really worried about it. Once I'm out of this apartment, I can just buy food for me. So I'll buy super healthy foods. Plus I'm not working out or anything. I'm just eating a bit healthier, and I'm eating smaller quantities. So there's room for improvement. One step at a time.

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Leaving the best news for last ... I got a Wii!!! Great success! I bought it from a student for $400. Also included were 4 remotes, 3 nunchaku, 1 classic controller, 2 rechargable battery packs and recharger, Wii Sports (woot!), Wii Play (excellent!), Mario Party 8, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Madden NFL 07, Elebits, and Rayman: Raving Rabbids. Plus the student had downloaded Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, StarFox 64, Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Contra III, and ToeJam and Earl. How 'bout that for a deal! So we've been having non-stop fun for the past two days.

I scored a 174 in bowling! I heart bowling. The "Tanks" game on Wii Play is highly addictive. I'm going to wait a while before buying Super Paper Mario. Heh, I should probably play the first two Paper Mario games before this one.