The lows are low, but the highs are home
Month
Hello, Internet. Long time no see. I’ve been doing things, lately, which is keeping me busy. With what? Well, shockingly, I’ve actually made new friends over the last two months. People I speak to outside of class/whatever location I met them, even! And, like, hang out with. I haven’t done that very often since moving to Ottawa. Mostly, these new friends are all cog sci majors, so we have lots of classes together. But we bonded over PAX East, and that’s the first topic of today’s long-overdue post!
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A while ago, Vael mentioned that he was going to PAX East with a friend. The timing worked out for me, so I decided to go. I was only able to find one person from Ottawa to come with me, though, and it wasn’t someone I knew very well (my fault). That problem resolved itself when a certain outgoing individual in CGSC 2002 piped up at the end of class to suggest a road trip to the Smithsonian in Washington, DC to see an exhibit they’re having about video games (still in the works). “While we’re on that topic, anyone want to go to PAX East?” said I. And lo, our merry band formed on the spot.
So off we went around midnight on the last day of class for Carleton, April 5th. My dad and I taking turns driving, everyone else sleeping. Most of us arrived at PAX before noon on Friday - those of us who had bought our tickets in advance… It was good. We saw things. I literally had nothing I knew I wanted to see on the show floor. Though I did want to see if Cryptozoic had anything new on the Penny Arcade card game (which is great), and in fact, they did! They had a new expansion, and it is greater. Anyway, yeah, Friday was a day. That’s not to say I wasn’t excited; I don’t feel like boring you with the details anymore. This is a rare instance of restraint - enjoy it while it lasts!
Saturday tickets were sold out by the time we got ours, so those of us who didn’t receive a free ticket from a random dude simply hung around Boston. In the evening, though, we went to a gathering for Extra Credits fans, plus James himself, and that was fun. I would have liked to socialize more, but anyway. Doesn’t help that I uh… gave my PSN ID to the few people I spoke to and told them it was my Steam ID. Oops! Those of us without tickets to the show hung out with some guy for a few hours after the event ended. An air traffic controller, he was. Forgot to provide contact info to him AT ALL.
i am good at people ok why does no one ever believe me when I say this
Sunday was the most interesting day for me, because that’s the day that Vael was going with Eve Victus! We played a bit of the Penny Arcade expansion, wandered the show floor, went to an OC ReMix panel, met a dude from Ottawa, lost a member of our party for a while, and went out to dinner together. All in all, it was nice to have a short break from work and I think we were all quite inspired by the things we saw and the people we spoke to.
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Personally, it was a lesson in how much more effective I am at making friends when I, uh, actually spend time with them. Strangely enough, I had no trouble at all being around everyone. We had plenty of things to talk about, and it’s easy to find things to do together - playing games (digital and analog) is an easy option, but we’ve all got some shared interests in film, anime, books, and so on. After the end of exams, I was even so bold as to invite everyone I knew in Ottawa over for a pot luck/games night. And it was good! And we barely played any games because we just ate dinner/chatted for hours. I’m thinking I’ll have another before the end of the summer, but I don’t want to burn everyone out on having to cook.
In the mean time, I’m spending more time with various folks, and chatting over IM/text when I’m at home (and my hands don’t hurt too badly). Feels good, man. Feels like being back to normal, in fact. Like coming home after spending a while as a cave hermit. It’s funny, really, because it seems like every few months I go through some slight change and declare myself “happy” and feel like I’ve come closer to being the person that I want to be. An anonymous reader noticed this, and sent me a very kind e-mail a few months ago. They weren’t too sure I was as happy as I claimed to be, but they assured me that socializing would get easier as time went on. It was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy: I think this stranger’s kind words helped push me to talk a little bit more and worry a little bit less about what other people might think (because they probably don’t think the worst of me).
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Events like that are exactly why I have my e-mail address listed on my tumblr page. It’s part of why the internet is so awesome! People I’ve never met, who I don’t actually know are reading what I write, can reach out and share a bit of themselves if they like what I’ve shared of myself. It was a little bit strange when a friend of my father's told him what I’ve been writing about. But it’s kind of cool, too. This is me, and I’m happy that there are people who enjoy it.
I guess what I’m getting at is, if you read this stuff, I would be happy to talk to you. And I will try to be normal and not monologue at you. I learned my lesson, I promise! Shoot me an e-mail, or better yet, IM me in a way that makes it easy to tell you’re not a spambot. If you go for an e-mail and I don’t answer, send it again, because it may have wound up in my spam folder and I don’t wade through that cesspool very often!