Katie & Scott & Simon & Cecily.

Tag: college (Page 1 of 2)

Day 138: my chroots are showing

Every few weeks, we have a small get-together at our house called Democratic Movie Night, where us and our friends vote on which movie we’d like to watch over the course of two weeks, and then watch it.

It nudges us into cooking at least once a fortnight and it gives us a recurring event at which to watch movies we may have missed in the theaters or want to watch and discuss with friends.

The other day, Katie also mentioned a prime reason I established DMN: I wanted to make the website.  It’s true.  It had been a while since I had done anything Computer Science-y and I got the itch to rip out some messy php.

I don’t miss programming…much.  Every once in a while, I’ll feel the urge to do something basic and logical, something built from arithmetic and variable assignments, but most of the time I’m content to leave that work to others.

I do like working on my own schedule.  No homework assignments due by midnight on certain days, no work deadlines pushing back against getting a piece of code debugged.  And I’ve always liked making websites.

So, in the end, I guess I never left my CS degree completely behind.  There’s some amount of bits that’ll always be in my bloodstream.

Day 120: i sometimes wish i drank more

I’m not a heavy drinker.  I’m not the biggest fan of the flavor of beer or wine, and I there’s only so much of a mixed drink I can take before the taste of the alcohol gets to me.  If I want to drink something for the taste, I usually prefer a root beer, other soda, or some kind of sweetened ice tea.  For this reason, fruity mixed alcoholic drinks are my preference, but I can certainly down a beer or wine at a dinner party.

Still, I wish that my tolerance, both in terms of total alcohol consumption and taste for the stuff, was higher.  Drinking is such a social activity in our culture that it makes me feel a bit awkward sometimes to be drinking so little or something non-alcoholic.  I’m sure it doesn’t actually matter to most of the people at the social gathering, but – for some reason – it throws me off.

People also tend to celebrate big occasions or events by drinking, which makes me feel as if I’m not fully celebrating if I’m only there to socialize and eat the peanuts.

I also don’t think I’ve ever actually been drunk.  I’m sure it’s a pleasant state, but getting there isn’t particularly appealing to me.  Is there a way to get myself there?  To appreciate the simple pleasures of downing a six-pack or a few shots and letting the buzz wash over me?  A 12-step program toward more alcohol?

I feel like I missed out on that course in college.

Day 94: what ifs

I went to the mall today and saw a mall cop zip by on a segway. It was an odd, somewhat surreal moment.

I was never a big mall teenager in high school. I was never a big anything teenager in high school. I was a bit of a loner, but I had my own little group of friends. I was a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, but not as much as some other kids. I mainly hung in the background and spent most of my time outside of school at home.

So, I don’t really know what the mall scene was like. Did people go on dates to the mall? Did people form cliques and gossip at the mall? Did shopping together form some sort of intimate high school bond that I missed out on?

I feel like there were many subcultures within high school that I was either not aware of or intentionally kept on the outside. In a way, I’m somewhat glad. I get the feeling that a lot of high school drama just caused unnecessary angst. I didn’t have to deal too much with what people thought of me because I kind of flew under the radar most of the time.

In another way, I do kind of wish I had more of a high school experience just because I’ll never have that chance again. In general, I feel that way about a lot of things. I wish I had the chance to experience different childhoods, different high school personas, different college times. What if I had been into football instead of chess? What if I had been really into newspaper? What if I had majored in creative writing or theatre instead? What if I had never left China?

I wouldn’t give up any of my current life and experiences, but it is certainly interesting to think about. And it is something I wish I had: several lifetimes of experiences. Am I the only one that feels like this? Do others think about this too, or do they just go about their lives, content with one life to live?

Day 71: radio play

I took a class in college called Radio Play.  It was probably one of the most fun I’ve had for a semester.  It was not a class that was required for my major or minor, and about half the people in the class were good friends of the theatre organization which I was a part of.

In the class, we learned about creating audio stories or, as the title of the class indicated, “radio plays.”  With this, we became familiar with both the technical aspects of this – working with DAT recorders, various microphones, and learning how to use multi-track audio mixing software – and tips on how to create compelling narratives through sound.

I was remembering this today because Katie and I went to see This American Life Live tonight and I was reminded how much I love the idea of telling stories on the radio.  Sure, the actual event was in movie theaters and had visual elements, but I always fancied that I would be a good fit at WBEZ Chicago, palling around with Ira Glass.

Back around the tail years of college, I remember looking over the WBEZ website several times, contemplating applying for the This American Life internship, but ended up not going for it because it required a lengthy time commitment in Chicago and was based on skills that I hadn’t been honing for four years – only in one small semester.

Although it’s probably too late now to apply for the This American Life internship, I’m sure that if I was motivated enough, I could find work within the expanding field of audio work within the video game industry and use that as a launching pad.  If I didn’t already like what I was doing so much, it’s something I would seriously consider.

I like working with audio, being a part of that interesting mouth-to-ear relationship (although, when I put it that way, it sounds a little creepy), and working late into the night to get the right edit points to make a piece sound natural.

If I had time and access to solid recording equipment (but more so, time), it’s a hobby I’d consider as well: creating my own sporadic series of radio stories, both fictional and non.  But, we all know that probably won’t happen, just like my oft-mentioned but completely unstarted Youtube series.

In the meantime, you can check out one of the pieces I created in Radio Play, which is a bit of a This American Life-style story that I’m relatively proud of.  It’s about 10 minutes and speaks for itself.

[audio:TheLittleGuy.mp3]
« Older posts

© 2024 It's Dai Time

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑