Room to Think

I have two words for what I'm feeling right now. Hidden. Figures. There was SO MUCH in this movie that was inspiring, motivating, eye-opening, and BADASS... I'm pretty sure it's my new favorite movie, and not just because it turned my face into a fountain for basically the whole two hours. SPOILERS BELOW.

I wrote last time about how mixed reality (MR) might be better for everyday augmentation of my crazy life, and virtual reality (VR) would be better for lazy days. After another week of thinking, hearing, speaking, dwelling, learning, absorbing, and immersing, I'm beginning to think I'm obsessed. In my lunch circle, I bring up the subject so often that my friends have dubbed me the "VR girl". I can't help it if I've been doing rapid learning and I'm really excited to share and process what I've learned! Today I want to return to the impressions I had during some of my first VR experiences. The first time I threw myself into VR was in the 6th floor expo hall at PAX Prime this year, playtesting a student game where it seemed like the goal was just exploration--in a very simplistic, child-like, and limited world. This is all in comparison to 2D video games, mind you. I didn't have anything else to compare with. Of course my graphics and physics sta...

It's been a week, and I successfully got myself out to another coffeeshop! This time I'm at Pomegranate Bistro in Redmond, and I have a work buddy! She's sitting across the table from me reading and editing her short story. I'm so jealous that she's even in the frame of mind to be creating, but it's so inspiring. I hope she and I can do this more often. (at least, she was when I started this) In any case, here's my post for this week! I had hoped to post it on Wednesday for a new theme: "Wondering Wednesdays", but didn't have time to finish it until now. About 3 weeks ago, I got to play through the very first level in virtual reality that I've actually enjoyed. It was on the Vive, and I playtested a student game in its earliest stages, no less. It inspired me to do more research on VR and where it's currently at. My excitement about VR seems to be a bit delayed from the rest of the gaming world. The concept of headset VR has been ...

I have a confession: I've been putting off writing. Over the past 5 years, writing has become less and less a part of my life, and I'm realizing more and more that it's something I need.  I used to be an extremely reflective person. I prided myself on my introspection and as a result, I was more intellectual, patient, empathetic, open, and relaxed. I think I was a better person because of it. Now I'm impatient, with little time for wasted minutes, and feeling like I'm pressed for all the time. You know how people recommend meditation for health? To slow down in a sped-up world? That's what writing is to me. Mental yoga. And I do it about as often as I do yoga. Not often enough. There was a simple question in my  Spark Notebook  yesterday, and it made me think--as it should. That's what I paid for. It asked: What have you been putting off lately? Inexplicably, it made me sad. And, I had a rare amount of time that I had time to reflect on why.  ...

Guess what? It's TUESDAY. And I'm here. Granted, it has taken me twenty days since my last post, and I'm about to go to volleyball, but I have managed to make time for this, and all of you. So, I watched a couple TEDtalks in my quest to find one to bring to you today. One was "Why Google Glass?" by Sergey Brin. He's a Google co-founder, and now the leader of their Special Projects. The other was "How do you get your ideas to spread?" by Seth Godin. Personally, I don't think Sergey's talk was all that spectacular--not really something I would originally consider as "worthy" of the TEDtalk title. Many other people agreed with me that his talk was somewhat lacking...It was really just a commercial that introduced Google Glass, which then launched an interesting philosophical discussion in the comments. I wasn't originally going to post this as my blog topic, but then I found myself asking all sorts of questions...about...

Why hellllooooo there. I haven't seen you  in a while...or rather, you haven't seen me. It always surprises me how you can go from having all the time in the world, to being very, very busy in such a short span of time. For example, I've been busy since January 3rd, doing the internship thing, complaining about zombie-hour wake up times and whatnot. Now that it's over, I seem to have all the time in the world... EXCEPT that I'm now spending that time applying to big kid jobs. Zombie hours are now a regular thing for me. I wake up at about 6:30 every morning practically dying  of thirst. Not being able to sleep through something like that must be an adult thing. That, or I'm starting to sleep with my mouth open again. Hrm. In summary, I've been busy. But I'm alive, and semi-well. I'm a tad bit anxious about filling my bank account again so I can start saving for Italy... again (and NOT dip into the savings I've already got for it), but other ...

I suppose I should post something  tonight. I've been feeling kinda bad the last couple weeks because of how sparse and lacking in quality my posts have been. Especially  because I keep seeing my pageview count continuously increasing. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing that. But I love it more when I know I've posted something good recently, and frankly, I don't think I have written anything worthy of the number of pageviews I've gotten since my last post. On the other hand, I'm so glad you like my blog! I'm so glad you keep coming back, and I really wish I had more time and energy to keep up with it like I used to. On Tuesday this week, I happened to watch this TEDtalk by iO Tillet Wright. It came up in my facebook feed because of course  I follow ted.com on facebook. To be honest, I wasn't that interested in the content to begin with. If you follow me regularly at all, you'll notice that the TEDtalks I tend to cover involve design, vide...

So...this guy is Bill Ford...Henry Ford's great-grandson, and also distant relation of someone with the last name of "Firestone" (coincidentally). To be honest, he kinda rambles a bit, and sounds a bit like he's reciting a speech. If you're looking for the bit about traffic, I'd just go ahead and skip to about 7 minutes in. For now, I'll leave this here (because I've had a long day and it's 1am already and because tomorrow is going to be a long day too), and do a small review before I have to come up with more content for Florence Friday. Maybe I'll just do THAT at work.  =) Also, someone did a kinectic typography thing that makes the beginning of this talk WAYYYY more interesting: Happy TEDtalk Thursday!

Given that this is a new year, I think I should be allowed to dictate a new schedule! I officially decree that we're going to do an experiment. TEDtalk tuesdays will now be on Thursdays...and fingers crossed that this will allow me to keep up with things. This is only temporary! (unless it works, of course) I've added about 9 hrs a week of vball to my new schedule, and usually there are team dinners afterwards, and therefore I've begun a new crazy habit of coming home around 11:30 on Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (my vball days). And while I would normally be fine doing a late (and typical!) blogsfrombed post, I just can't handle 3am mornings when I have to play hard later on (and get up for the internship...please note the new internship zombie hours). SO, without further time or sleep wasted, please expect this week's TEDtalk Tuesday...on Thursday.  =) Happy frigid Tuesday, everyone! Cross your fingers that we get snow soon, or all this cold is SO not worth...

You know, it's pretty impressive when you can manage to create a 7 letter word with 5 vowels in it. I don't know about you, but many-voweled words remind me of lost lands in fantasy stories where magic still exists and mystical creatures thrive. I'm probably wrong about this, but I can't be proven wrong until I see for myself. I must visit the Aeolian Islands to find a dragon. or a will-o-the-wisp. or a wizard. or beautiful elusive maidens washing their hair in waterfalls or something. Or maybe I just want to go because of this: and this: and this: So....it's true they're the touristy islands. They're the hot vacation spots. But I think next friday I'll go into more detail about which island holds which secrets...should be fun.  =) But I feel bad for making you read so much yesterday, so this post is strictly for looking. Happy Florence Friday!

So apparently I really need to work on keeping promises. I keep telling you "I'll follow-up on this post tomorrow"...and I never do! Not in reference to the "tomorrow" bit, anyway. I do try to finish them eventually . Usually it's before my next blog day. That's why I end up with so many TEDtalk Thursdays, I think. Wednesdays are just so busy! Turns out that my new schedule makes Thursdays busy, too.  hmm...Oh well. 3am on a Friday is still Thursday to me, as you all well know! Last night I introduced you to Tim Leberecht, a marketing guru who is used to a certain degree of chaos. Every time I listen to the video, I swear he says that he works for a company called "Frog", where one of their "giving employees more control" exercises is speed dating all the old and new employees together. **I do hope you noticed that his talk is under 7 minutes long. I also hope this means that you actually did watch it.  =D With my new inte...

Happy Tuesday! I'm certainly happy. It was a good day at the new internship, and I only had to sit in traffic for an hour in trade for 3 glorious hours of hardcore volleyball. I haven't played at that level in a long time. I'm positive the endorphins are still flowing. It's also been a long time since I've hurt as much as I know I will in the morning. So in favor of stretching and sleep, I'm going to make this a two-part TEDtalk Tuesday/Wednesday-- just give you the TEDtalk tonight, and continue the discussion tomorrow. Hope you're all right with that. I'm going to go do yoga now before the tendon in my knee decides it's never going to stretch back out again. See you in the morning! P.S. This guy's name is Tim Leberecht. He's a marketing guy. I'm trying something new this week and posting a business talk, instead of my usual technology-psychology-design-video game topics. It's less than 7 minutes long, and full of pictures.  =...

Hey-o! This is my first post of the new year and I'm attempting to get used to a "working person's" schedule. [read: getting up at zombie hours of the morning, rushing through the beautification process, skipping breakfast, scraping the frost off my car, stressing out while I wait for it to heat up, and waiting in an hour of traffic just to get to work on time. After work, I wait in traffic to get home, enjoy what little free time I have between all the activities we have going on, and go to bed at grandma hours of the evening, just to do it all over again...all for unpaid experience and a shot at a really fun job.  >.<  I'm a sucker, yet again.] It's 11:30pm on the first Friday of 2013.  (yeah, I typed 2012 first.  I hate getting used to new dates!) and there's a strong possibility I'll be getting up early (read: 5am...that's BEFORE zombie hours!) to attend one of FIRST Robotics' Kickoff sessions. I've never been to one, and cu...

This lovely lady's name is Jane McGonigal. She's a game designer who has spoken at TED conferences before, but recently had a pretty bad experience with brain trauma.  I like her particularly because she starts off her talk letting us know that she plays her life as a game. She's a gamer I relate particularly well to. She likes goals. She likes secret missions and side objectives (the side objectives are my favorite. I often play those before I even get to the main storyline). And she treats this talk the same way. Her goal is to extend our lifespan by 7.6 minutes. The only downside of this goal is its measurability...but it's a nice way to begin a talk.   For now, I'm just going to post the talk...seeing as it's 1am already. I'll do a follow-up either tomorrow or the next day(eek! double post on Friday!), but this week has really been a busy one. So, I'm treating it like a game, and hitting as many objectives as I can without skipping a...

So...this post is about awesome friends. Mostly because I got the content from this post from an awesome, awesome friend of mine, who also happens to enjoy daydreaming about Italy. Except that he wants to go back to live there...I think I only want an extended stay. He sent me this link the other day. 100 Things to Know if You're Going to Italy click on it. It's gigantic for a reason. You know you want to. I haven't gotten through the whole list yet, but #84 has pretty much established that I'm not going to be marrying an Italian man. I'm also probably not going to get married in Italy. "#84: Purple being the color of Lent, it is considered a color that brings bad luck. Avoid the darker purple hues for evenings at the theatre, and it's definitely a forbidden color at weddings!" Evidently, I need to brush up on my Catholic "What Not To Wear". A few of my awesome friends over here would be stunned  if I didn't have purple ...

Fun Fact: The ancient Greeks used to have spoken word poetry a sport in their Olympic games. As an English major, I never took the chance to really study spoken word poetry...sometimes known as slam poetry, or performance poetry. But even that's not quite right. Spoken word poetry really means that you're breathing life into the words on a page. I always appreciated spoken word--I loved watching poetry slams. But since I never considered myself "good at poetry", I tended to steer away from the classes I had a hunch I wouldn't do well in. That means I missed out on some pretty badass classes. Those poets know how to express themselves. They know how to connect.  They know how to make their listeners feel. "If I should have a daughter, instead of "Mom", she's gonna call me "Point B." Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I'm going to paint the solar system on...

I've been busy updating resumes for the last week, trying to find a job that I feel qualified for, here in the states...hopefully this is the job that'll pay for Italy. Hopefully. So far, my efforts have been focused more on the tech businesses (ehem...Microsoft). I still dream of working at Google Seattle...but I combed  through their jobs pages and could not find anything I could even remotely hope of getting an interview for (they need a lot of engineers, and a lot of business people). I think it's just a matter of timing my entry right. Also, I'm not hoping for my dream job now. Just one that I find intellectually challenging (and thus, fun). So as I'm completing my resumes, I begin to wonder 1) What the heck I'm going to write for today's Florence Friday, and 2) what on earth would I put on a resume in Italy? So a quick google search leads me to this page , which I copied and pasted to my Italy tumblr so I could find it again.  Nevermind that ...

It's midnight. Here's the video. It's about the benefits of listening first.   About why the locals might just have a better idea of their situation than you do.  About how respect one way usually comes back.  And about why following passion is the fastest path to growth. Also, this man says "Forget about it!" in exactly the same way that my favorite volleyball coach used to. (That's you, Aio.) I had a lot of mind-wander connections to share with you tonight--about the million other things this talk could apply to-- but I'm wondering if I should just shut up first and ask you what you think? =) Happy TEDtalk Tuesday!

For those of you who are following, I got caught up watching talk after talk tonight and never got around to writing anything. Now it's after midnight, I'm at risk of being sick for the third time in a month and a half, and I'm exhausted. So, I leave you with these fine gems until I can get back to them. Their lessons? Listen to beautiful music, allow yourself to be awe-inspired, and don't be afraid to let your mind wander. You'll be happier** for it.  Enjoy.  =) **update below. 10pm UPDATE: Okay, I really hope you enjoyed the music by the Earth Harp lady (it's so soulful and wonderful, how could you not enjoy it?), because clearly I didn't watch that mind wandering TEDtalk before I posted it. In it, the guy pretty much suggests that letting your mind wander may, in fact, actually be responsible for your unhappiness...and therefore probably does not make you happier. You caught me. I am a slacker. But I will remedy that now. "That guy...