Serenity in Games

I found this post on Slashdot a few days ago. In essence, Jenova Chen a USC grad created a neat little game called Flow . Jenova wrote the Flash game for his thesis on “flow” or total immersion in games. A great game immerse a player so that the person does not feel like he is playing. From personal experience, if I play a favourite game like say Half-Life 2, I am not playing a game. I feel like I am the protagonist, trying to survive and shoot my way out of alien infested environments. Anyways try out Flow. Mr. Chen decided to build immersive games for non-gamers. I find Flow does exactly that. The ambient music, the glowing translucent graphics and ebbing movements, makes me feel like a bit of zooplankton floating in the sea. Eat, grow, survive and reproduce finally. Just the things an organism would do. More games should be this immersive, addictive, simple, challenging, fun and easy to pick up. Even Sony liked Flow, and asked Mr. Chen’s company to make a 3D version for download on the PS3. Impressive. Then again, I find myself gravitating towards more unique, abstract and non-genre games. Judging by the success of Introversion’s Uplink, Darwinia and Defcon games, I believe other gamers feel the same way.

Panic Supression and Firefighting

Day 3 of Hell week #1.
At least the security assignment is out of the way. I wish I could say the same about the library research assignments. Moral of the story: Don’t take too many assignment/paper courses in one term, and verify that the courses assignments are before the frigging midterm comes. Well too late now.

Got back to writing/editing articles today. Writing free-form seems to give me a morale boost, whenever I do so. So does blogging apparently. Only 5 more classes, 10 more assignments (half of them from writing), 3 more exercises and 3 exams. Then a nice break, from school.

I wonder what I will do during the break. Working part-time definitely. Partying? If I am lucky. Maybe I will get some book writing or coding done. But first things first, assignments. With those out of the way, the panic and constant firefights will all go away.

Hell Week

Sigh… so many assignments all due this week. And next week. And then it is over. I feel excited, anxious and tired just thinking about it. These next two weeks will be hellish. But if I make it… I will regain my sanity.

Why I am blogging this… right now… I guess… I don’t know. I wonder if I am up to the task. Fortunately, today, meeting people has spurred me on. Well… we will see if it works out.

Article A2 Done

Relief! I managed to edit that article that kept on bugging me all weekend. The article deals with a brief introduction to quantum mechanics. I managed to bring it down to a 5 page rather then a rambling 10 page one.

That leaves me with 5 more articles to write and edit for my professional writing course. A warning to future science writing students, find a topic that does not require a full gigantic explanation. I did my entire project on quantum computation. And yes, explaining quantum computation to a bunch of university level non-scientist, while keeping the entire thing flowing and entertaining… well I found it challenging.

Anyways, I sometimes wonder if I should not become a writer after all. Maybe it will be easier to get bread on the table then a programmer. Shocking.

Sleepless Night

I meet with my good friend Dima today. While the meeting itself, was nothing new, it sort of got me thinking. Maybe my envy speaks here, since he has a nice house, car, girlfriend and finishes school this semester. I have one more semester to slave through. Yes, Sara was there too.  What got me thinking, is sometimes I feel mature. Other days, like today I feel like nothing more than a 23 year old immature kid. I don’t know how much of my current life I can attribute to luck, conditions or my inactivity.

Needless to say, I did not meet up with Amanda this weekend. Judging by the number of assignments I have and papers she needs to write, I doubt anything will come of my “dating”. Hardly dating, other than a few casual meetings. No other girl currently holds my attention, or seems interested in the slightest. Its not that I feel today, as I used to in the past. Its just that I feel kind of left out.

I can not sleep right now. Too anxious about my assignments. Another 6 due a week type of deal. I can hardly wait for this semester to end, the final assignment submitted. I understand the material well. I just am un-inclined to write the papers.

Better work a bit, before my brain demands sleep.

Long Day

Wow, today seemed to drag on forever. Assignments, assignments and more assignments. Good thing I am behind in only one class now. I look forward to doing a real push into this week’s work. Well at least I finished my writing.

My mind is empty tonight. I can only think about sleep.

[Edit]I looked at my Technorati rating… and it is low. Oh and I hates bots that do comment spam.

Return to Blogging? And Life?

Its been a while. I left blogging expecting to find more time for writing. Did not happen though, it seems that deadlines work better for me. I hate deadlines, and I have two of them today, and three of them tomorrow. At least I finished my edits for my scientific article writing class, for tomorrow. I have to thank Amanda for helping me out with those on Friday. And we went to a movie together with some of her friends. The movie was augh… but I enjoy Amanda’s company for some reason.

Anyways, instead of a long back story of what happened since the last time… I will try blogging one day at a time. And maybe work on my old projects too. University is a real drag nowadays. Can’t wait until the semester is over.

I need some sleep… before I get started on those two other assignments. Joy. Maybe when I feel rested and can catch my breath, then I can write about some of the neat writing I am doing nowadays.

But first… sleep… *plop*