RLJ 20/03/13

To be honest I am feeling a lot more positive about things recently. I feel that I have become much more sociable over the past few weeks, and from this, am getting to know some people a lot better. This  has been an ongoing worry for a very long time now, I still think I have a long way to go with improving my social skills, but it's good that things are starting to look up and I am starting to get somewhere. Being more sociable and confident does make me happier, which makes it a lot easier to focus on my college work. However, most people I know around college aren't going to be around much longer, so I must make the most of the time I have with them.

I've also had quite a nice time when I haven't been in college. I went to a rally show at Weston Park this weekend, which my cousin and her boyfriend were part of, and were the pit crew for one of the drivers.  It was a very nice atmosphere and everyone we spoke to were really nice. This also made me think that I could maybe include Fay (my cousin) and Mike (her boyfriend) in my birthday celebrations as well!

However, dad's new Mini Countryman got very stuck in a very muddy field when we parked up for this event, and it was a real struggle to get the car out, and it was a bit scary, but eventually between us, and with a little bit of help, we managed to eventually get the car out of the field and I managed to get home and continue with college work

I also met up with a friend I haven't seen in a while, which was nice, as he wanted to borrow Kingdom Hearts from me. It was a bit strange meeting this person on my own, as this was the first time I've spent time with this friend alone, as normally when I see him, because he's more a friend of a friend, I would see him with our mutual friend, who I know better from my last course. I had a nice time, and I gave him a lift to Staffs Uni, as he was late for a lecture there.

I also think that a lot of my social progress has to have been helped by the counselling I have received over the past couple of months. The booklet that I received in the mail about Shyness and Social Anxiety from one of these counsellors has really helped to identify a lot of the issues I face in social situations and has also reassured me that I'm not alone in these thoughts. I also see a significant change in myself as well, I am not as scared as I was when I last saw them, I feel like I have been a lot more ambitious and not held myself back as much. I just now need to get some ideas of things I could do with friends for my birthday now, something I have spoken to these counsellors about and reckon I should just go for it and ask them.

However, I feel that this week just gone I probably haven't organised my work as well as I could have. I have felt quite relaxed about my work, and got a sufficient amount of research required for this week, so that's good. It was just gathering the written information that was a bit stressful, and finished my work much later than I should have, because normally if I was to do college work, I would make sure I would finish no later than 10pm, but called it a day at 11:30pm! And I still hadn't finished everything I needed to do! So I really need to organise my time a bit better in the future, and it was pretty stressful last night. This also resulted in me not getting much sleep, which needs improving anyway, so definitely need to try and get to bed earlier.

However, when I got to college, I told Neil what I had done, and he seemed very pleased with the work I had done, even though I had not printed it out yet. I then had to print my work out, but because I was running out of printer credit at college, and this was the first time since I've been at college that I've had to buy more printer credit, I had to buy more printer credit, even though I don't have much money right now. I also had to buy a new sketchbook to stick my new research into.

So, in a nutshell, I spent the morning sticking my research into my sketchbook, and this is important that the research is all gathered in one place, as it's easier to reference from and get inspiration for ideas from. 

Might as well recap what I have researched. As I am now attempting to make my own Trading Card Game that will include Augmented Reality (AR) technology, I looked into existing card games such as Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Top Trumps, found a few more character influences that have features I may look for in a main character, such as Kirby and Sackboy, I found some examples of AR Technology, and there are a few Nintendo 3DS games that use AR cards for games, such as Kid Icarus Uprising and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. I also collected research on how trading cards are interpreted into other media, such as video games, trading card game packaging and a couple of examples of animated visual effects on characters, to make the AR scans of the cards more interesting, by giving them a summoning animation sequence, such as smoke, or light. I feel like I could have found out a bit more and got more design inspiration, but I feel pleased with what I have found out, and I feel what I have learned from my research will be really useful for my project as it has given me a much clearer understanding of how trading card games are structured and how complicated they can really be. I feel I would like to make my trading card game user/family friendly, but has enough depth and wonder to keep more ambitious trading card game fans interested.

This afternoon was a bit strange, because the only first year New Media students that were in college today were myself and Scott. Neil gave a lecture about the history and the key moments in gaming, which I will go through in another blog, but some of these moments in gaming were quite interesting, and as a gamer I had not noticed before, such as how far back gaming goes, and how advanced games were in the 1970s for that time, but now could very easily be made.

Neil also looked through my draft essay for the Creativity and Social Contexts module  (which as he puts it, "basically Art History") which needs to be handed in for submission next week. I felt quite nervous about this, as I wasn't too sure whether I effectively answered the essay question, "How was the history and success of Pixar influenced by social, historical and political contexts?" All I have done is written down what I can remember from reading the books from the book list, such as "To Infinity and Beyond" and "The Pixar Touch,"and have written down how Pixar was founded and the contributions of the three founders of Pixar, Ed Catmull, John Lasseter and Steve Jobs, and am about to write about how some of their films were inspired by social, historical and political contexts too.

Neil seemed fine about what it was I was writing, he just wanted me to change a few things. One sentence was 8 lines long! I also used words such as "around" and "mainly" to describe the works of Pixar and its founders, I need to include some quotes and citations from the books, and I need to finish it. It all seemed very positive though, so I feel pleased about that, and I feel I can certainly adapt my essay from what Neil said to make it better.

Feeling very positive after today, let's hope it continues.