Getting in the Swing of Things

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week so far. This week was good I made a lot of progress in learning and adapting to work. This week was also good as my anxiety and stress has gotten a lot better. The rest of my week has been spent trying to figure out what else to do with my time. I spend so much time on the bus going between home and work. Right now, I spend most of my time just watching my shows on the bus, but I want to get either a tablet or laptop like the Surface Pro so I can work on stuff while on the bus. I think I’ll be saving my money for that.

Its been nice to feel like I’m starting to get used to the job and aspects that were causing me anxiety. I’m looking forward to moving forward in this job and seeing how much more I grow with in it. I’m also looking forward to eventually moving and having more friends to hang out with. This weekend is BTS at Full Sail and it reminded me of my goal to eventually join Hall of Fame and go out to BTS as alumni. I’m curious to see at what point in my career I’ll be able to come down and do those events as a guest. I’m only a year into my post college career but I’m still looking forward to eventually doing that.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and I’m looking forward to keeping you in the loop.

First Week of Work Done

Hello you guys,

I hope you guys had a great week. My week was fun, but it was also stressful and full of anxiety. It was my first week at my new job and that messed with my anxiety a ton and frankly still is. I’ve had to put pretty much all of my side projects on hold and focus on pretty much only on my job and that’s how it’ll be for a while, I think. This has added a bit more to my stress and anxiety levels, but it’s getting better and soon I’m hoping to be completely acclimated. I am hoping to continue working on D&D stuff and hopefully get a tablet or something to continue work on my journey to and from work. It feels almost like being back in high school where I am waiting for the weekend to relax.

My job though so far has been really interesting, and I’ve already learned a lot. The job is out in Redmond so it’s about a 45-minute drive or a 2-hour bus ride. As I bus, I have to wake up early and get home late. It’s been stressful and has given me plenty of anxiety but I’m starting to get used to it. I’m also starting to understand my work and not having to ask too many questions. I’m looking forward to being fully acclimated to my new schedule. I’m also looking forward to moving closer to my work, but that won’t be for a while. Also, I can’t go into too much detail on what I’m working on, but I’m looking forward to sharing it with you guys once my NDA allows it.

Well till next time you guys, I hope you guys have a good week and I hope next week I’ll have more news.

Almost Starting Work

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys have had a great week. This last week was pretty good for me. I’ve been going through and working on various projects and paperwork. I’m also getting closer to starting my new job. I’m very excited to get started and learn. This is going to be a very interesting coming weeks and this last week before work I’ve got a few things to figure out. I’m just wrapping up some of my work on projects and I have to reach out to people about some business stuff. I feel bad but I made sure that everyone I was working with knew I was going to be leaving eventually once I got a job. I also have to see if I can continue work on any of my projects, or if my new job doesn’t allow me to. It’ll be a wild few weeks.

As for the other stuff going on this week I helped my mom with her works barbeque. The barbeque was a lot of fun and I got to meet a lot of interesting people including former Microsoft employees. They were able to give me insight on what it was like working for Microsoft and what they did there. It was cool to meet them and talk with them. I’m also planning on updating my website to include a D&D section so that I can show off some of things I’ve made and give people the opportunity to critique them. I’m always looking for feedback so that I can improve my craft. Its been fun to explore the homebrewing side of D&D and further my skillset. I think I’ve been improving and getting better at it and I’m hoping people are enjoying the things I’ve created.

Well till next time you guys. I hope you have an awesome week. I also hope to post next week but I’ll be busy so I’ll probably have to change my posting schedule around.

On-boarding for a New Job

Hello everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week went really well. I spent my time working on my usual side projects. I’ve also been creating more D&D concepts on DnD Beyond. It’s been a lot of fun exploring these new concepts and flexing my design muscles. I’ve enjoyed the research and planning for each of the new things I’ve been making. I’ve made several monsters, items, and spells now. I’m hoping to be confident enough in my abilities to make some of the more elaborate things such as races and classes. I’ll have to do a bit more research in order to make those. I’ve liked all of my creations so far and I’m always looking for feedback.

The most exciting aspect of my week was being offered a job. I’ve been filling out the different documentation now. One of the recruiters I’m working with had set me up with this opportunity has been helping me along the way. I’m very excited for this and I am looking forward to starting this. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t stressing me out. I always strive to make a good impression and work as hard as I can. This has been making me more anxious than normal. I’m confident in my abilities, but I won’t be taking any chances.
Well till next week you guys. I hope your week goes well and you have an amazing time.

Continued Expansion of my Hunt

Hello Everybody,

I hope your last week has gone well. This last week was a strange one for me. There’s been a lot of family drama and craziness. It’s not fun and has been adding onto my family’s stress. It’s something that we must push through and make changes for, but it is what it is. I know I’m stressed about it and most of it isn’t close to me in particular. I’m hopeful that everything will move towards the better, but realistic about it as well. The rest of my week has been spent working on my typical stuff. I’ve also made progress on some of my side projects and I’m excited for it. My D&D stuff is moving forward so far and I’m excited to run people through it.

My job hunt however has hit a bit of wall. Several of the jobs I’ve applied to I simply haven’t heard back from. It’s frustrating as the job is still up and I’m still not hearing anything. I’ve had the help of some amazing recruiters though that are helping me out greatly. I may have some new opportunities coming soon. I’ve also been expanding my hunt to more areas. To try and improve my chances I’ve been continuing to expand my portfolio and skills. Slowly I’ve been learning more of code. I’m hoping that I’ll be hearing some good things soon.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have an awesome week and I have some good news for you all.

4th of July Week

Hello everybody,

I hope you all had a great week and for those that celebrate the 4th of July I hope you guys had a wonderful Independence Day. This last week for me was a lot of fun. I worked on various side projects and D&D stuff. It also looks like I’ve found a new group to DM for so I’ve begun planning for that and am looking forward to making the new campaign. Hopefully, this group pans out and we have fun. I’m still waiting on info from the recruiters I’m working with and hopefully will hear some good news this week.

My 4th of July was a lot of fun. I went to a family friends house to celebrate. He lives in effectively a grey area between Seattle and Burien where it is legal to launch fireworks. He also lives near a parking lot. This meant that we were able to launch a lot of fireworks. It also meant this parking lot was filled with people launching fireworks. We had an awesome show of fireworks and we also had RC cars and a cannon. When I say cannon it was effectively a potato launcher except we were just firing it with no ammunition so it just made a really loud noise. It was great and I was happy to celebrate the 4th with my family again.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have an awesome week and I look forward to giving you guys an update.

Waiting and Writing

Hello everybody,

I hope you guys have had a great week. This last week for me was very relaxed. I spent the majority of it working my Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I’ve also started to make stuff using DnDBeyond in order to create homebrew stuff that anyone can see and use. I’ve also been trying to adapt it based on the feedback I’ve received. The rest of my week I spent mainly testing one of the games I’m working on and researching Lua for a potential job. I’ve still got a lot to learn, but I really want to learn more about coding.

The rest of this week I spent waiting to hear more about the jobs I interviewed for. So far I’ve heard from one of the recruiters I’m working with and sadly that job turned me down, but I have another opportunity coming up soon. I’m still waiting on one of the other opportunities and should hear back soon. I’m really excited by all of this I’m also very hopeful, but I’m being realistic. Some of these jobs are a bit outside of my experience, but I’m more than confident in my ability to grow and learn. Hopefully, I was able to convey that in my interviews.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you guys have a great week and I hope to have good news next week.

Interviews of Great Importance

Hello everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week has been pretty exciting I had two interviews in the past week. I’ve also been working on different projects. I’m really excited about these interviews and the potential of them. I’m hoping to be brought in for another interview and hopefully, get hired. Both are for companies and properties that I love. It’d be awesome to work on these projects and see what skills I can learn while also bringing my skills to the table. I’m looking forward to hearing back whether good or bad.

I’ve also been babysitting my cousin more. It’s fun to hangout with him and see how he interacts with different things. We played Mario Kart and Smash Bros Ultimate. Normally he’s a bit more animated when playing, but this time he was more quiet, probably because it was just us two. We also played a game of chess that he now calls ‘Car Queen Chess.’ He started doing that because last time we played we needed an extra queen and decided to use a toy car. It was pretty funny to play with him.

Well till next week you guys. I hope your week goes well, and I hope to have more good news next week.

Relax and Make a Dungeon

Hello everybody,

I hope that you guys have had a good week. This past week was a good week. It was really easy and got a lot of work done on personal projects. I’ve also gotten some new leads on potential jobs. I’m working out details still but hopefully soon I’ll have some interviews. This week was also good cause I got to spend a lot of time with my dads half of the family. We barbequed and celebrated Father’s Day. I’ve also been introducing my brothers to different shows. Lately we’ve been watching Full Metal Alchemist and it’s been great to see the reactions. I love that show and everything in it but I don’t think I’ll ever get over the sad moments in it.

A good portion of this week was also spent working on various things for Dungeons & Dragons. It’s always fun planning campaign stuff and making the story for the campaigns. I finished my first one shot and now I need to playtest is. I seem to have trouble with boss fights. In the core campaign I’m playing with my dad and brother I setup a boss fight that I thought would be good battle but it ended up being a bit to easy. So I’m wanting to try my one shot out and make sure the boss fight feels right. I’m also wanting to try and make more puzzles because I had a lot of fun making one of the puzzles for my one shot. Hopefully, as I continue forward I’ll get better at building and growing the world I have.

Well till next week you guys! I hope you have a good week and I hope to have good news.

Crazy Week of Family Fun

Hello everybody,

I hope your week was awesome. Mine was wild and busy. Did my typical this past week with the addition of watching some of the E3 reveals that happened. I’m super excited about what’s coming. The new Pokemon game looks amazing. I’m super excited to play it and see how it’s changed from the past ones. I’m also very excited about the next Destiny 2 expansion named The Shadowkeep. This year has a lot of awesome looking games and I’m excited to see what other games are shown at E3. The rest of my week was wild.

So this week was a lot of family business and just being busy. Things took a turn when my Grandma fell out of her wheelchair late Wednesday night early Thursday morning. My Grandpa had to call 911 to get her off the floor. Next morning comes around and her legs swollen, so they take her to the hospital. Turns out she had broken her leg and because of her MS she didn’t feel any pain, that’s both a positive and negative. So Thursday night I’m babysitting my youngest cousin and my uncle comes back to tell me that she might need surgery to put pins in. Ultimately, they splinted her leg and she is now in recovery. Friday though my Grandpa goes missing. So my mom and I go out hunting and my Uncle and cousin are hunting as well, but no one can find him. Until he suddenly walks into my Grandma’s hospital room and is shocked when we tell him we had been hunting for him. So last week had a bit of extra stress for me, but I felt really bad for my Grandma and mom. My grandma for obvious reasons, and my mom because she just was so stressed by it all and it has been a real tiring week for her. I'll say my Grandma is now recovering and on the mend.

Well til next week you guys I hope you have an amazing week. Ubisoft just released a new content creation tool for Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey to create quests for the game. I’ll be trying that this week and let you know how it goes. I hope to have some awesome stuff to show you.

A Calm Week

Hello everybody,

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week was really calm and uneventful. I spent the week doing my usual routine. The only necessarily different thing was I had two meetings with my career reps. It was very helpful to hear from them and discuss my current status. I always love chatting with them and figuring out if I have been doing the right stuff. It’s a great way to get tips for my job hunt. Hopefully, with these new tips and the extra feedback I’ll be making more progress. i’m always looking for feedback for my portfolio, applications, resume, and interview skills. I’m trying to implement these changes into my life and continue to improve.

This week was also the week of my moms birthday. So we partied and had some fun with friends. My mom and I decided it would be fun to attempt a mirror glaze cake for her birthday party. This was probably one of the more complex bakes I’ve ever attempted and it was a fun project. We had several mishaps though. The first was the recipe called for raspberry jam but instead we got preservatives. This caused issues when freezing. It seems either preserves take longer to freeze or don’t freeze at all. The second issue was with our mousse for this cake. It may not have been thick enough and this caused it to not set quite properly and the cake to sink. This meant ultimately the cake was not flat on top as it should be and thus the glaze looked a bit weird, however, it still was very good. My mom and I afterwards were debating and trying to figure what we might try next time as we want to do this right. It was a really fun experiment.

Well till next week folks. I hope your week goes awesome and it’s a fantastic time. I look forward to sharing good news.

Hall of Fame X from Afar

Hello everybody,

I hope you guys had a great week and a fantastic Memorial Day. Mine was actually fairly easy. During the week I spent most of my time working on job hunting and side projects. I also started a little project with my brother. This past week some of their friends were maybe going to come over so we decided to start making a Dungeons & Dragons one shot. So on Friday and Thursday my brother and I sat down and made six characters for this campaign. We worked on their stats, backstories, personalities, and equipment. We also made sure to leave no description of appearance, age, and gave them no names. This will allow any potential players to have control of their characters to a certain extent. So now I have the next step of planning out this one shot and making a series of encounters for it. I’m excited to make this and see how it goes. The rest of this weekend was spent celebrating my moms birthday and taking a break from the business of our normal life.

The other portion of this week was spent watching Full Sail’s Hall of Fame X week. Every year Full Sail will induct people into their Hall of Fame. This is the biggest event on campus and they bring tons of guests to the campus. They host events like their career fair, games, panels, and more. It’s an amazing event and breathes more life into the students and guests. It’s also amazing to see how far it’s grown in just four years. I can’t imagine how much it’s changed from the beginning. I loved working for Hall of Fame when I was in school and getting to meet all the people I could. This one I couldn’t attend sadly. I did watch the various panels and I’m still catching up on some of the panels. It was so awesome to see the new inductees and all the feelings that came from the event. I’m really hoping I can make it next year and help out the students as much as I can.

Well I hope you guys have an awesome week. I look forward to sharing with you guys what’s going on with me.

A Bittersweet Week of Game of Thrones

Hello everybody,

I hope that you guys have had a good week. My week was fairly slow actually. I spent most of it working on my side projects for the week and less so on job hunting. The week was weird in how it progressed and it was balanced between stuff. It was fun but weird. I’m going to have to get back into the flow a bit more this week. I am running into the issue of struggling to find jobs to apply for. I hope that I’ll be able to find more jobs this week. I’m also excited because of the Full Sails Hall of Fame X that’s going on this week. I’m already experiencing FOMO as I can’t attend this year but I’m excited to see the festivities and panels that are being broadcasted. I’m also very excited about these new inductees and some of my favorite people are going to be giving panels. I hope that the event goes awesome and that the Florida weather stays sunny and bright.

This weekend was also bittersweet because of the finale for Game of Thrones. The shows finale was okay. I don’t feel strongly about it anyway, and it was neither good or bad. I felt good about many of the endings for the characters in the show. I was also happy to see a lot of the decisions and character choices made. I was also annoyed with some of the endings for the characters and the decisions made. Either way I’m happy that the ending wasn’t absolutely horrible and I’m sad that the show ended. I’m looking forward to re-watching the show in the future and I’m hopeful for any future content in that universe. I’d love to hear any opinions you guys have.

Well I look forward to next week you guys. I hope you guys have an awesome week.

Getting into Shape

Hello my friends,

I hope you guys are having an awesome week. My last week was very busy and I was running all over the place. I spent a lot of the week running around and helping my family with different things. I helped my dad with his work and moving around different things. I helped my step mom move stuff for a house she’s selling. I then also help with a slight family emergency. Everyone is okay for the most part but it was still scary. The rest of the week was spent working on some of my different side projects. It was nice, I like being busy and working on different things. It makes me miss working at school and working in general. I’m continuing the hunt and moving towards getting a job.

The other portion of this week my family added me to a gym membership at a local gym. I’m trying to get in better shape so this is perfect. The gym also offers a free appointment with a personal trainer once a month. That’s what was really important for me. I didn’t want to start working out without speaking with a personal trainer. It’s so easy to hurt yourself working out and I had no idea how to actually plan a workout routine. I’m excited to actually start working out and get into better shape. It also gives me another goal to strive for.

Well I hope you guys have a great week. I look forward to having good news for you all and I’ll talk to you next week.

A Lesson in Character Development

Hello my friends,

I hope you guys have been having an awesome week. My week was actually fairly boring. I spent the week doing my normal routine and working on my various projects. I’ve been making progress on these different projects and am excited by the direction they are going. I’m hoping that these projects are go well. There are only a few of my projects that I’m worried for and the path they are going on. These projects are hitting road bumps that are making the process a bit more difficult. I have faith in these projects and I’m hoping that we can steer them towards the right path. I’m very hopeful for all of my projects. I’m looking forward to seeing how each project pans out.

I fought for this week I’d talk a little bit about character development and how important it is. Yesterday was the fourth episode of season eight of Game of Thrones. The episode has been hit with some major criticism, I even read an article from Buzzfeed stating that it was the worst episode of the show ever. I strongly disagree with that article, the episode was not the worst of the show and in my opinion not the worst of the season so far. The episode did suffer though from poor pacing. The biggest thing that could’ve helped solve this would have been more scenes involving character development. I will warn this may contain slight spoilers but I won’t talk about key points. Two scenes that would’ve helped are small scenes. The first has become a huge point of contention as of late and that would’ve been a scene of Jon saying good bye to Ghost. Another would’ve been a scene of Daenerys with the bones of Viserion. I feel that both these scenes would have reminded us of the humanity in both of these characters and may have helped with pacing. The important thing about character development is to remember it’s not always the big details but the small ones. Every little detail can lead to expansion of a character and the connection to the audience. These can also help with providing meaningful filler to help jump gaps. Please let me know what you think and I’d love to discuss with you about this.

Well till next time you guys. I hope you have an awesome week and I hope to have more news for you soon.

Progress Towards Employment

Hello my friends,

I hope you guys are doing well this week. My week has been very interesting. I continued working on my side projects and applying to different jobs. A big thing that happened was I heard back from my recruiter for the job I had interviewed for. Sadly, they turned me down. They told my recruiter that I was a great candidate but they were worried I’d be leaving them soon. I’m just happy to have feedback and have actually been in an in depth interview. It was a great experience to go through that process and learn more about the interview process for a QA job. Now I’m just waiting to hear from some other companies.

All of this has helped me greatly with my job hunt. I’ve been slowly making progress on my job search. I’ve also been gaining more feedback over time on the different aspects of my application and interview process. I’ve received tons of great feedback on my resumes and I’m now at a point were I’ve heard my resume is great from different recruiters and people in the industry. Now, I’ve gotten feedback for how well I interview. I’m super excited and happy about this progress and I’m looking forward to the future.

Till next week you guys. I hope you all have an awesome time and I hope to have good news.

Ready for Change

Hello Everybody!

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week has been pretty boring. I think I’m starting to get a little burned out and tired of working on things by myself. I’m super excited for the potential prospects coming my way and the opportunities I have. I’m just having trouble with motivation issues. I’m working on changing my workflow and mentality to add more excitement. I think I may also try going to places to work instead of just staying at home. I think these are all ways for me to better improve my workflow. I’ve continued working on personal projects and other projects. I’ve also continued job hunting and trying to find different fields to apply to. Soon enough I’ll be back into the swing of things.

I’ve been working mostly on dialogue as of late for my projects. Dialogue is one of my favorite things to work on as each interaction is unique. Each line is tailored around the character dynamics and story line. Dialogue is one of the few times in writing where it is viable to break proper writing form. An example of this would be if a character has a specific accent or speech impediment. In those cases it is viable to write with spelling errors, grammar errors, and/or slang. I love that character development and creation of speech. I always strive to create good dialogue and I hope that it allows me to tell good stories. I recently wrote a story called Made for More. It has a lot of dialogue in it and I’m planning on converting it into a screenplay. I’ll be putting it on my website today.

Well till next week you guys. I hope to bring good news to you soon.

First Interviews

Hello everybody,

I hope you guys had a good week, mine was very busy. The first half of this week was spent coordinating and preparing meetings. Then I spent time working on my side projects. I’m hoping that these projects continue on track and can be finished on time. I think all of the projects I’ve been lucky enough to work on post graduation are fun or interesting. I hope they can be met with success, but we’ll see. This week was also exciting because the final season of Game of Thrones premiered last night. I’m super excited to see how this season goes but I’m also sad as it’s the last one.

The most exciting thing this week though were my two interviews. I had an over the phone interview and then a in person interview at the same company. They’re my first few interviews in the industry and I’m super excited about it. This opportunity came from a friend who recently got a job at another branch and reached out to his recruiter. Hopefully, I here back from them soon and maybe I’ll have my first job. I’m super excited about this opportunity and possibilities it provides.

Well till next week you guys. I hope to have even more awesome news for you next week.

Returning to Normal

Hello everyone,

I hope you guys have been having an amazing week. My week has been interesting and kind of all over the place. It was all my usual work but in a weird jumbled order. It was both fun and annoying. It’s exciting though to see how my week developed and how this month will develop. I’ve applied to many more jobs and some I’m very confident about hearing back from. My projects are going forward very smoothly. One of my projects I’m taking on the role of producer now and becoming a lot more involved. It should be very interesting to see how it develops.

This weekend was also a lot of fun. On Sunday I went to the MS Walk. The MS Walk, for those that haven’t heard of it, it’s a 5 mile walk to raise money for research on a cure for multiple sclerosis. I’ve been going to it ever since I was a child, but while in Florida I couldn’t attend. My grandma has MS so we raise money in her name. Its been very interesting to see how the MS Walk has changed over the years. They used to be sponsored by Oberto Beef Jerky which was honestly my favorite part. It was great cause they had free jerky for those participating. They also used to have different characters from Star Wars there. So there were Stormtroopers, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and all sorts of other characters. It’s always an awesome time to go and it’s for an awesome cause. I'‘m happy that I can attend again.

I hope you guys will have a great week. I look forward to bringing you guys exciting news in the future.

22nd Birthday

Hello my friends,

I hope you guys have had a good week. My week went fairly well I spent the week doing the typical. I spent time on my job hunt, and I found a few jobs I felt I was suited for. I hope to hear from them soon enough. I worked on my side projects including planning two new ones that I’ll be starting. One of the new side projects is a project I’ll be working on with a CA from GDC. They’re a CA I’ve never actually met but another CA recommended me to them. We’ll be having our first meeting this week and I look forward to it. The project is going to be a fun little side project that should help us both. This week was also the week of my birthday.

This past year has been wild and crazy, my birthday on the other hand was mellow and simple. My dad likes to celebrate our birthday’s for a week so last Sunday we went to get my presents. We got some new games to play including a game called Mage Knight. I had been recommended Mage Knight by a close friend, so I had to get it. The game is fantastic but complicated. It is probably one f the most complicated board games I have ever played, however, once you understand it you got it and then just need to create a strategy that works for you. The other celebration we had for my birthday was a game night. My mom hosted and we had a lot of good food while playing different games. One of the games we played was Secret Hitler. It’s a really fun party game that can be pretty interesting to play and learn. I’m very happy to have such a great family.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have an awesome time and I hope to have some news for you all.