Wanderlust

I've been thinking a lot lately how fortunate I've been throughout my life to have gotten to know the right people at the right time of my life. This may sound sort of weird but I feel like I've had the opportunity to really get to know the right people to influence me during the right times of my life... At times they have been Teachers, Coaches, and even peers; all who have helped shape me to be the person I am today. Speaking about this, if I had not had the opportunity to meet one of these people I probably wouldn't even be consciously recognizing this right now. That person is Alan Stracke, who I had my Freshman year for "Intro to Sociology." Funny story is I originally wasn't even signed up for his course, if I hadn't met my friend Niki in the first days of school I wouldn't have even known about it. Since then somehow he's changed the way I think, and perceive the world around me. I've been able to work in many of his teachings in not only the way I handle myself, but also in what I do in game development (I'm even using his book as a resource for a research paper I'm writing haha). He'd probably laugh if he heard this, considering he's not the most familiar with what exactly I do but his teachings still stand I believe. Really a lot of the models we use at the EMC to do games for learning, and even the PMC's "Sobido Method" falls right in line with what Stracke used to preach in class... engage the audience (user, student, whoever) and if they are engaged, they are learning and they are personalizing the information.... I'm not sure what it was about that 8 AM class I had when I was a freshman, maybe it was the funky reggae music first thing in the morning, or Stracke's crazy antics and stories but it's stuck with me...

It's sort of funny to think of him now, after all of this time. I was reminded of him by a article that was done about him in the Champlain Current and since then I can't help but reflect back on what I've learned from him, and others like him in my life. I feel bad that I've fallen into this crazy busy life I lead, because I really miss him... and yet I haven't taken the time to really reach out because that's the thing I'm short of most these days. Which has become more and more apparent with this semester's closing.

Thinking back on people who I'm thankful for meeting, it's sort of funny because I actually think of a friend I work closely with right now... It's weird to think that we haven't always been friends, but she's not only been great to work with but inspires me to be better at what I do.

That's another thing, I really think a great thing has happened at the EMC. I remember as I was going through college I had little to no contact with the grade above me, and with the culture and atmosphere that has been created at the EMC it's been so great to get to know people from different years through the EMC. Really it's been sort of fun watching them get into Maya, because I've had the opportunity to help out with some of their projects through some interesting late night work sessions we've had at the EMC as of late. The EMC is going to help further develop a stronger community and bond amongst the "e-gamers" here at Champlain College, and everyone is going to benefit. I could only imagine if I had received help when I was a sophomore and learned about more advanced stuff then I could only image how much more I could learn during my time here. I fully expect the Sophomore class to learn more, and go farther than I had the opportunity to do here, but don't take this as me being bitter by any means. I'm actually really excited for them.

Actually I was really touched the other day when two of my peers started talking about how they wished they had a "Wes in a Pocket," haha which I thought was pretty cool =)

These last couple of weeks have been hard, a lot of work and not a lot of time to do it but I've been hanging in there and am confident in the weeks on finals ahead. I'm planning on posting some stuff from our game soon after our presentation, but for now I'm keeping most of it under wraps. With these busy weeks I've had my ups and downs, but I'm doing alright and am looking forward to Christmas break that's closing in. I sort of wish Ann was around because there's a lot that I'd like to talk to her about but she's on some well deserved vacation.

OH! I almost forgot to say! I guess it's ok for me now to say that our America's Army maps have been officially accepted!!! They are releasing our maps later this week, with us fixing a few more bugs in the mean time but yea there has been an official release!!! Check it out at Americasarmy.com and in case any of you are curious, "Canyon" is the map concept that I worked on most of my summer. So yea it's been so exciting to see people actually writing in forums and speculating about our maps, not to mention being excited to play them!! UGH SO EXCITING!!! We'll be having a release party at the EMC on Friday, I have a lot of work to do but I'll take some time to celebrate... even though I didn't really for my own birthday haha but this is sort of bigger!

Anyways I'll end with the fact that through it all Stracke created a sort of Wanderlust in me, that has stuck with me and quite possibly will forever...

G'night all


Wanderlust:
A desire to travel, to understand one's very existence.