It’s official. I have hit The Wall.
Luckily, I hit the wall after I sent a draft to my thesis committee early this afternoon, and after Henry sent me a nice note saying that the latest draft I’d sent him was “SIGNIFICANTLY and SUBTANTIALLY improved” (emphasis his). Thank you Jesus. I may have a chance of graduating on time yet. Maybe.
So, yes. This is what the wall feels like. So far today I’ve done scattered bits of random research, preparing for my presentation at MIT5 tomorrow on Demon Circles: Radial Maps and Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, which also happens to be section 3.4 in my THESIS (which is right near the end, actually; the ‘sections’ are each somewhere in the vicinity of 50 pages long). This is good, because it means I am still technically working on the thesis, even if I’m moving at a snail’s pace. I’m also buying random crap off the Internet. Oh, Internet. How I love thee. You let me buy things like a Kia Asamaya Evil Batman and a Willow Rosenberg (!) on deep, deep discount. Bless you.
The last time I was this whacked-out and surfing the Net with my credit card I wound up with a Hayao Miyazaki Princess Mononoke t-shirt that was a size too small. I think Shannon has it. I seem to recall she was getting good use out of it, last time I checked.
And now, on a completely unrelated topic, some bloke found a mummified fairy in Derbyshire. Creeeeeeeeepy.
Yes. This is what the wall feels like.
Storyteller, scholar, consultant. Loving son, husband and father. Kindhearted mischief-maker.
I'm the Director of the Games and Simulation program at Miami University in Ohio, where I am also an Assistant Professor in the College of Creative Arts' Emerging Technology in Business and Design department. I'm also the director of Miami's Worldbuilding and Narrative Design Research Laboratory (WNDRLab). I have a Master's in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and a PhD in Media Arts and Practices from the University of Southern California.
In past lives I've been the lead Narrative Producer for Microsoft Studios and cofounder of its Narrative Design team, working on projects like Hololens, Quantum Break and new IP incubation; in a "future of media" think tank for Microsoft's CXO/CTO and its Chief Software Architect; the Creative Director for the University of Southern California's World Building Media Lab and the Technical Director, Creative Director and a Research Fellow for USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab; a Visiting Assistant Professor at Whittier College and director of its Whittier Other Worlds Laboratory (WOWLab); the Communications Director and a researcher for the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab; a founding member of the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT (now The Futures of Entertainment); a magazine editor; and a award-winning short film producer. more »
The opinions put forward in this blog are mine alone, and do not reflect the opinions of my employers.
