Day 28: Screen Captures

Just some screen captures I've taken while I was at work, so you guys could get a little glimpse at what I'm working on. This is an intro video for a racing game we're developing.

Yayyyyyy.

~Lauren

Day 26: Another Update

Thursday-Do I even mention that I went to work? I think by now we all can just assume that Mon-Fri. I go to my internship unless mentioned otherwise….yes that sounds good. Now we have that order of business down, let’s get onto more exciting things. Got to leave work an hour early to go a little afternoon trip to Coronado. Coronado is where a lot of people from the military lived back in the day(and probably still do) and they do a lot of stuff with aviation and such. Now it’s just a great island to visit in San Diego and super easy to get to. Everyone at the house went with for the trip(including Lulu, my aunt’s dog) and we walked the boardwalk along the beach at Hotel Coronado (a very famous, old hotel). It was great because everything was so handicap accessible, it made walking with Colleen very easy. I think she enjoyed getting out of the house a lot. We also got ice cream at the hotel from a place called Mootime Creamery. It was delicious but very expensive (one scoop was $5!). Then Paula took me out to dinner afterwards cause she felt like it. We went to the Kensington neighbor, which is just east of the neighborhood I’m living in. We ate the Kensington Grill and it was very yummy (I had fish tacos!). Also spotted a cute local coffee shop called Twiggs which I eyeing to try out this week.

The boardwalk on Coronado...and look at that ship in the background!

Friday-This day was pretty uneventful but relaxing. After work, we finished the mini-series we had started called The Aristocrats by the BBC. It was a good mini-series, something I probably wouldn’t have watched if my aunt hadn’t ordered it on Netflix.

Saturday-Dropped my aunt off at the airport-she’s gone for the week for a meeting in Ireland. For the afternoon I did a lot of studying/research for my Genesis class, I’m kind of off-schedule of when I wanted to be done with it, but still keeping up at a good pace. At night I went to the Del Mar county fair. I had been told all week that it was the best fair ever which I had my doubts about(MN state fair is pretty hard to beat), but it was still lots of fun and a very good fair. The cool thing is that the fair was about ½ mile away from the ocean. I went with 2 of my aunt’s friends, Cheri and Michelle cause they invited me to go with. They were so much fun! First thing we did was go on rides and they were really nice and bought my ride tickets. I hadn’t been on fair rides in a long time and though it was fun, I remember why I don’t go on fair rides-most of them make me so sick, whether or not I have anything in my stomach. It’s weird because at amusement parks, I’m fine but fair rides, ooofff. Still they were fun. We went on a power tower ride(long drop, free-fall ride), this fast spinny ride, The Crazy Mouse(a rollercoaster) and this hang-glider ride(best one by far, felt like I was flying). After rides, we went to see the pig races. I had never done this before but Michelle was dead set on going. Though the piglets were cute, I felt really bad for them, with the crowd all yelling, microphones going off ect. Plus they had a porkchop stand right next to the pig racing track which just seemed so wrong. After that we looked through the different exhibits things, like the barns and home show. We also got food then-I got a frozen-yogurt cone dipped in chocolate and peanuts(so like a drumstick but with frozen yogurt instead, it was super delish…I love frozen yogurt!) and Michelle let me try her Australian battered potatoes. Those were very good too, but I only had two pieces and they were so greasy it made my stomach feel not so great. This is another thing I always forget at fairs, my stomach doesn’t tolerate greasy food very well unless there’s something else in there to absorb the grease. Well at fairs, I always never eat much and then try something greasy(cause it’s the fair!) and then I end up feeling sick. So when I go to the MN state fair this year, I will try my best to remember so my stomach doesn’t end up feeling sick. But still, the fair was so much fun and I’m so glad I went-it was a really great way to spend Saturday night despite feeling totally nauseous once or twice (but I suppose that’s just all part of going to the fair right?)

Entrance to the Del Mar County Fair

Video of one of the pig races

A trained swimming pig...most people I've shown this too liked this video a lot, so I'm uploading just because of that....

Sunday-Laurie was awesome and brought donut’s from The Donut Star. I usually don’t like donuts but these were seriously delicious! Went to Church. Then again studied/researched for Genesis for the afternoon. Got really sick of studying and wanted to leave the house but didn’t, instead I went for a run during the hottest part of the day…not the smartest idea but I made it. While on the run, I decided that when I got back I would jump into the pool. Laurie convinced me to do it and so I changed into my swimming suit and went swimming. The water was freezing but it felt great! I’m going to start using that pool more(plus the Jacuzzi and sauna ☺ ). I was also glad to start running again, I had to take a week off cause my tendinitis was giving me issues and my dad told me to rest it for a week. Ate dinner/watched PBS with everyone in the house for a few hours…they had a really good BBC mini-series on. Was going to take my second test(of three) for Genesis but was too tired to do so.

Monday-Woke up and took my test. I was going to wait until after work but realized I wouldn’t be able to focus at all if I waited. Glad I did it, now I just have to do 6 more lessons, write my paper(which is almost at outline stage) and take the last test. I CAN DO THIS! We had a true day of June Gloom-it was cloudy and misty all day. Bleh. Before I left for work, we heard this huge thud and sad day, a turtledove flew into huge glass window in the living room, broke its neck and died. ☹ I’m going to put up some of those bird silhouette things since Gladys told me this happens about 1-2 times a week. When I got back from work, we got skype to work for my aunt’s laptop so Colleen and I were able to talk with her all the way from Ireland. It’s amazing, we’re able to video chat half-way across the world from one another and best of all, it’s free! Then got through 2 more lessons for Genesis, so I have 4 more left. I’m on a mission to finish this class.

So there you go, another update!

~Lauren

Day 24: Spiders

So anyone who has known me for quite awhile probably knows of my great disliking of spiders... ugh I just really, really don’t like spiders. Besides shots, it was the greatest thing I was afraid of when younger(we’re talking pre-k, elementary school days) I would SCREAM at the top of my lungs when I saw one and beg for my Dad or Mom to kill it. Luckily I don’t react like that anymore, slowly I’ve been growing out of my fear of spiders. From screaming I went to the phase where I’d freak out a little but only in my mind but then ask someone to kill it for me. Then it moved towards me just leaving the room for a long time and hoping the spider would just leave, I didn’t care if it was in the house, I just did not want to see it. If it didn’t leave I would ask someone to kill it or if no one else was around, I would throw a shoe at it cause I didn’t want to get close to it. So no longer afraid of them at this point, I just have an intense disliking of them.

So at this point you’re probably wondering why am I posting about my disliking of spiders on my San Diego blog? Well, that’s because I’ve come in another milestone or maturing in my relationship so to speak with spiders. With my room out here, there is a balcony which is super nice, so I leave the door open cause the weather is always so nice out here. So I leave it open for the day and a few slightly big spiders have decided to move into my room. With the first one, I did what I always did, just left the room and hoped it would go away. Yeah that didn’t happen and this is the room I sleep in-I had to kill it and I couldn’t ask my aunt to kill it because I would have been embarrassed to ask her cause I’m supposed to be an adult now or something like that. No lies, I was totally dreading having to come close to the spider to kill it. So I grabbed a magazine, taped a kleenex to it and wham! I killed it….and not just one, with every single one that has decided to stay in my room. It’s silly but I’m so proud of myself, I have never been able to do this in my life because of this fear/disliking and now I can, although I wouldn’t chose to do it if offered the opportunity, I’d much prefer the spiders to stay out of my room in the first place.

So look at that, I’m growing up and stuff. Though I still can’t look at photos of them, they still totally gross me out(Steph Binner can attest to this).

~Lauren

Day 21: 3 weeks already? Man time flies by!

Saturday: This was a busy day of meeting lots of new people and also doing a whole lot of eating. Met two of my aunt’s friends at their house (which was the most interesting house I have ever been in, if we go back, I’ll definitely bring a camera. As my aunt said “you’ll never see a house like this again” and she was totally right) and then we went out for lunch at a great restaurant in Hillcrest(didn’t catch the name) and had some yummy Pho soup, oh and it had green tea I actually liked, a first, I usually can’t stand green tea. Then we went back home shortly before we went to a dinner party where I met more of my aunt’s friends. We ate good food and talked, you know, you’re basic dinner party stuff. My aunt has nice friends.

Sunday: Finally found a church out here, called Kaleo Church. Very happy to finally find a church to call home out here. Hrmmmm what else did I do? Had a tasty summer lunch on the grill and……oh yeah I went hiking with my aunt’s friend, Pina that I met at the dinner party the night before! It was so much fun! We went hiking at Torrey Pines which is this “mountain” right by the ocean with all these funky desert plants. It was beautiful! It was great to go hiking with Pina and get to know her more, she’s awesome. Plus she treated me to Roberto’s, this Mexican restaurant right by Torrey Pines. It was both delicious and incredibly inexpensive. We had this crazy burrito thing(she made me try it because it was their specialty), in that it had French fries in it. Definitely not healthy but it was good, happy we split it though! Hoping to hang out with her some more this summer, which I think will definitely happen. Here’s some pictures from the hike.

Monday: NSF refunding site visit started today for the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center(which my lab is a part of). Basically for me that didn’t mean too much though, more for the heads at my lab. I did have to demo my animation and art I have been doing for my internship the past few weeks for this demo/poster session. Unfortunately, there were 46 of these things going on and the site visitors only had 45 min. to get through (and we had 10 site visitors from NSF come). I had about 4 people talk with me (and I believe all of them saw what I was doing). Most of the people I talked with were nice and liked my work and didn’t ask too many questions besides what I was studying. One guy from NSF I guess told the heads at my lab that if I was looking for a job to contact him (hint animation friends, if you are looking for a job, especially if you’re good at Flash, contact research labs….I’m finding a lot of them desperately want animators working for them but don’t know who to contact). There was one guy who was a total jerk though after he found out I was just the artist, tried to belittle what I do (which I was like, “whatever guy, you are obviously just too cool for me and apparently know everything*rolls eyes*”). Afterwards, my aunt wanted me to show her friend Terri(the one we saw The Lottery with a few weeks ago) my animation stuff (both for work and my youtube account). Well, this show and tell ended up with the majority of my lab watching it and them yet again getting amazed. It was good because from this, I ended up finally being introduced to everyone in the lab, so now they all know who I am. My aunt then dropped the hint that I needed a job after I graduate(she forgot about my grad school plans) and both Marni and Javier(the two heads at my lab) said they are going to look into if they have the money to pay me, but they were fairly certain they do, so it looks like I may possibly have a job working here after I graduate if I so choose(and I may be able to work part-time while I’m at school through the magic of the internet). So I have that now to contemplate….which then lead to me just contemplating about many, many things which I don’t have enough room or energy to write about(basically about my life, the future and reflecting on living out in San Diego). It was a deep night of quiet contemplation.

Tuesday-Day 2 of site visit. Listened to my aunt give her 2 speeches which included a Q&A and at the first one, things got really heated between one of the site visitors and the whole TDLC group. I was glad I was sitting next to Judy, one of the scientists who is a part of the center because she was cracking joke after joke about the NSF guy, it definitely relieved some tension for me. But seriously, things got REALLY tense. The guy pretty much disagreed with what the center was doing and considered it “one of the stupidest things I have ever heard”….no worries though, Javier totally changed this guy’s mind by today and he apologized for his comment and admitted he was wrong. By the time that was over, it was time for lunch. The nice thing about the site visit is that both breakfast and lunch were provided. After that, I went back to my lab but no one was there and I worked for a bit before giving myself a half day. I’m happy I decided to do so, I was able to get my first test for the Genesis class I’m taking Distance Ed., get through 2 more lessons, go for a long walk, and catch up with 3 or 4 people via the phone that I had been meaning to call. Poor people at my lab though, they had to pull a very late night answering questions and getting ready to prepare to talk about those answers the next morning. My aunt was a part of this, she didn’t get home until 3am.

Wednesday-Today was relatively boring compared to the past few days….I went to a normal day of work, designed and built racecars in flash for the intro video of this racing game we’re building, got through another 2 lessons for Genesis(over half way done, yay! Trying like mad to get done before the end of the month), called the last person who I had been meaning to call….yeah definitely a more low-key day than the last few have been.

That's all folks!

~Lauren

EDIT: I should probably note something about the potential job opportunity cause some people have been asking about it and I think I was confusing. I probably shouldn't have mentioned it because as of right now, they haven't officially asked me, it's just an idea thrown at them and they seemed favorable about the idea. But that's all it is right now, an idea, a possibility but not a reality as of yet.

Toy Story 3 (spoiler free!)

Last night I got the chance to see Toy Story #3 at the IMAX with my aunt (who was incredibly nice and paid for the tickets!). I was very excited to be able to go opening weekend, with the site visit coming up and the things my aunt already had planned for us this weekend, I honestly didn’t think we would have been able to go until the middle of next week. I was kind of bummed, but decided to be an adult and be patient, I knew that I’d eventually see it, although I really wanted to see it opening day. But then I asked if Friday night would maybe work and my aunt was totally open to that idea, so we saw it last night at 9:40pm. We got there at 9:00pm and I couldn’t believe how long the line was of people waiting for the same show as us….probably that it was in IMAX made a big difference, but still, I have no idea how long those people at the front waited for. Though we were towards the latter back of the line, my aunt and me still got GREAT seats, in middle/back and in the center.

I very much enjoyed this movie, I know I’m going to have to see it again so I can catch all the details. First off, the short before the movie, Night and Day, was amazing. It was so cool to see a mix of 2D and 3D animation together and the idea was so clever, as well as story. Definitely one of their better shorts (dare I say, if not the best? But that’s coming from someone who likes to see some visual experimentation in animation!). Toy Story 3 was great too…I don’t feel like I can write a lot about it without giving a spoiler away, so I’ll refrain from talking about it. All I can say is that the story was very well crafted and thought out (as all Pixar movies are), but to write a story of this level, ranging from laugh out loud hilarious to points where the whole theater is crying, and to be doing this for the last installment of the trilogy….that is quite a feat. I had high hopes for this movie…I’ve known about it since 2005/2006 and I know quite a bit about the development of this film(originally Disney was going to do it, thank goodness that didn’t happen!) and so I was expecting a lot, which always makes me nervous b/c often movies don’t live up to those expectations. But it did live up to those expectations and then some. It definitely does justice to the first two movies.

And if you’ve heard anything about people just sobbing at the end, totally happened with my theater too. I didn’t cry as much as I thought I would, though I usually cry more the second time I see something because I know it’s coming and I can take it in more. But the big tough guy I was sitting next to, total emotional mess towards the end, as well as a large majority of the audience which speaks volumes about the film….it just moves people in a way you don’t expect an animated film to do, let alone with toys. And this is why I have incredible respect for Pixar, they are showing the world that animation is not just for kids, that is can be a quite powerful way to tell a story, that can’t really be done in any other medium. I mean think about, it’s pretty amazing, with animation you start with nothing except the ideas in your head and if the movie is successful, you become attached to moving images because somehow they feel real, like they really exist. That is an art.

So all in all, Toy Story 3 was an excellent movie, go see it, you won’t be disappointed (oh and don’t waste your money on the 3D, I didn’t think it was worth the extra we paid for it, though seeing it on the huge IMAX screen was pretty sweet).

~Lauren

EDIT: For anyone who is interested, here’s the brief history of Toy Story 3…probably only me, but since I mentioned it, I might as well explain for those who don’t know:

Basically back in 2005ish, Pixar decided to split from Disney cause they didn’t need them to distribute their movies anymore because Pixar had made a name for itself. Disney decided to be stupid/childish and said, “FINE! Split from us, but we’re going to make Toy Story 3 because we have copyright on those characters(and we want to make money off of them)!” So then, Disney started to develop it…here’s what they came up with(from Wikipedia, cause it sums it all up pretty well):

“Jim Herzfeld wrote a script for Circle 7's version of the film. It focused on the other toys shipping a malfunctioning Buzz to Taiwan, where he was built, believing that he will be fixed there. While searching on the Internet, they find out that many more Buzz Lightyear toys are malfunctioning around the world and the company has issued a massive recall. Fearing Buzz's destruction, a group of Andy's toys (Woody, Rex, Slinky, Mr. Potato Head, Hamm, Jessie, and Bullseye) venture to rescue Buzz. At the same time Buzz meets other toys from around the world that were once loved but have now been recalled.”

When I saw this back in 2006, I thought it was a dumb idea cause there were just too many similarities to Toy Story 2. Then Disney bought Pixar in 2006, transferred production to Pixar (again, THANK GOODNESS) and then the film developed into what it is today.

Day 16: Dreams

I only post about this because I normally never ever remember my dreams, I can probably count on my hand the number of times I remember dreams per year, but for the past few nights, I’ve been dreaming like crazy. I like it when I dream, they are always really silly and I wake up very amused. The interesting thing with these dreams I’ve been having lately is that I am actually a part of them, which hasn’t happened in a very very long time. Typically when I dream, it’s like I’m watching a movie. Sometimes there may be a person and or animal I know but otherwise, it’s like I’m watching a cast of characters and enjoying the show.

Last night was definitely the best dream I’ve had this week, in fact I had this dream three times when sleeping last night. I KNOW it was spurred on by my aunt buying us tickets to see Toy Story 3 at 9:40pm at the IMAX for the next day right before I went to bed. Anyways, in my silly reoccurring dream last night, basically it involved us missing the movie we bought tickets for. The first two times, it started with me waking up and looking at the clock, the first time it said 11:41pm, the second time it said 10:11pm. We were supposed to see the show at 9:40pm but I guess both of us decided to take a nap and we overslept. The third time I had this dream, I missed it because I was reading a letter a friend had sent me in the mail and I was so involved in reading it, that I somehow missed the movie. And every time we missed it, I was never bummed about missing the movie, I just more felt bad because we wasted my aunt’s money b/c the IMAX tickets were so expensive. When I finally woke up this morning, I couldn’t help but laugh, I would SO have this dream. It’s just so ridiculous, who dreams about missing an animated movie, multiple times in a night? Apparently I do, haha. Gah, I'm still amused that this happened. I love it when I dream!

When I told my aunt this morning, she thought it was cute and said “ Such is the life when all you worry about in your dreams is missing a movie”. I think there’s a lot of truth to that statement indeed. Such is the life when all I worry about in dreams is missing Toy Story 3.

~Lauren

Day 16: Full Work Week #2

So this work week has been far less busy than last week. Basically I’ve been going into work, coming back home, working out, having dinner then chillaxing for the night. So nothing too big to report on. Everyone at work has been ramping up for the site visit next week. This site visit is where the National Science Foundation comes in and they judge whether they should be funding $20 mil for the next 5 years. No big deal right, haha. Anyways, I guess one cool thing is that I am going to be demoing what I’ve been doing next Monday for the NSF. How crazy is that?!?! I’m going to be showing a bunch of important scientist how I make the art/animation I’m doing for my internship and talk to them about art and science. So that will be quite exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time. Oh and best thing about this (well not maybe the best…), I’m demoing right next to all the sweet learning robots my lab has been making. So I’m going to be demoing about animation next to bunch of arguably, the most advanced robots in the world…no big.

Otherwise, one of the programmers and I have been working on creating a racing game using the CERT2 software. It’s sweet, he’s made it work that when the webcam detects you are smiling, my character will smile along with you(so getting the emotion mirror thing to start working). So he’s then built a code for Flash, that when racing, the more you smile, the faster the car will accelerate. He did this all in a day…so crazy! And he was nice enough to include my characters from the emotion mirror I’ve been working on b/c he wanted to show off my art cause he'll be demoing the game at the site visit.

Lastly, today I made one of the grad students misty eyed when I was showing him the stuff I was working on today:

After showing him, he told me “you artwork just makes me get all misty eyed” and I turned and his eyes were watery but he was smiling. I have no idea why seeing my drawing got him so emotional, it was just a quick drawing of a dog in a go-kart, but I think I understand part of the reason why. This lab has been putting in so much time and really have been coming out with some pretty incredible work, but with having an artist on board, it’s only going to make their work stronger and get better results. I’m so glad to be helping them out for the summer, they really are doing such amazing things in this lab and being able to use my ability of drawing/animating to help improve the work they are already doing, words cannot describe. I honestly feel like I’m doing nothing compared to what all the scientists/programmers are doing, I’m just the undergrad artist who is polishing everything up and making it look presentable and appealing for kids. But everyone in the lab is just amazed by what I am doing and I can just tell they are excited to have me there. It’s incredibly nice to work at a place that really, really appreciates you and the work you are doing…I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that, at least with my art. And their excitement for what I’m doing makes me excited to keep on getting better and better.

~Lauren

Day 12: Earthquake!

Tonight, I experienced my first earthquake out here (or maybe an aftershock, I don’t know exactly what it was, everything just started shaking!). Apparently, there was an earthquake between 3.2-3.9 in Baja and since San Diego is so close to the border, we ended up feeling it. First off, I am very lucky that my first earthquake experience was a very minor one, but still, for someone who has never experienced an earthquake(at least that I can remember), going through an earthquake before, it was unusual. I was sitting on my bed and on my laptop and the bed started shaking somewhat. My aunt’s dog was underneath the bed, so I thought she must be shaking or moving or doing something under the bed that made it shake. Then it became obvious that it wasn’t the dog when the shaking got a little bit stronger. By the time I realized that it was an earthquake, it was pretty much over. The whole thing was no longer than 2 minutes. So pretty calm for an earthquake one can feel but still, another new experience for me out here.

~Lauren

EDIT: Guess the Baja one was not the one we felt last night. Actually it was from somewhere near Tijuana and it was a 5.7 earthquake, so here in San Diego it felt like a 4.7-4.9 earthquake. Wowwww.

Day 12: All I Did This Weekend

An update...with pictures!

Friday: Work. Left early cause my aunt had to be at the Salk(where she works, the guy who invented the cure for polio built it, a bunch of scientists work there). Met everyone she works with there, it was fun to see how scientists work and how they all interact together. It's cool b/c at 3:30 every day they all take a break from work and have tea together, it was fun to take part in that. After I was a test subject for my aunt to make sure this test she is making is properly working...it is. I may be helping improve the art in it though, yay. Then I babysat for the next door neighbors. All I did was watch Cheaper by the Dozen with them, put them to bed and then waited until the parents came home. Very easy job. And geez did they pay well, I can’t believe what the hourly rate is out here(well at least for the neighborhood I’m living in)!

Saturday: Went shopping (Targets out here don’t compare to the ones in MN at all). Walked to and explored Old Town, it was kinda fun but so touristy, but they do have my favorite Mexican candy there for practically nothing, so I’ll have to walk down again. My aunt had this benefit thing at night, so I just chilled at home.

Oh Old Town, you just can't help yourself, you're so touristy!

Sunday: Went to Balboa Park with everyone in the house. It was really nice, I know I’ll be spending lots of time there once I get my hands on a bike I can borrow (which should be soon). Really worked on my Distance Ed. Classes like doing the test prep., blehhhhhh. Took a nap, apparently I was tired. Got up. Had a birthday dinner for Laurie, one of the workers who is here on the weekends with Colleen. Dinner was delicious-we had grilled shrimp, couscous with kale, grilled vegetables and apple pie for desert. SO GOOD, but I was so full after. Went to the night service of The Rock church out here (apparently it’s this huge church that a lot of people from NWC have told me about), it was pretty good, though perhaps a little to big for my liking and I kind of felt like I was on one of those televangelist shows on Sunday morning, except more contemporary flavor. Liked this church better than the one I went to last week, but I am trying out another one next week I think. My aunt left for Las Vegas too, she’ll be back on Wednesday.

Part of Balboa Park...I'll upload an album or something soon of more of the park, as this doesn't even begin to capture it.

Monday: Another start to the work week. All the programmers were at work, so they are starting to do all the code work and such to make my animations work with the CERT program the scientists in my lab have created. Relieved to know I set up everything perfectly for them, they’re going to do something to fix the code so it can work with my animations better. I’m excited to see when they are done with the coding, gah that’s going to be amazing! Otherwise, just chilling at home for the night, going to really work on getting some coursework done for my DE classes… I just want to be done with them already!

I have another few thoughts floating in my head that I wanted to write about, so I’ll hopefully be getting to those sooner rather than later, because they are more enjoyable to write. I know you all want to know what I’m doing out here, but I just feel like I’m writing a big old list, which is probably kind of boring. Journaling is not really more forte.

~Lauren

Day 8: A Week In Review

Holy cow, I need to start writing about all I’m doing here before I start forgetting…I was trying to remember what I did on Saturday and was having a hard time, so then I was like “I need to write about it before I forget and everything just meshes into together in my MIND!” Anyways, crazy thing-I’ve been here for a week. It doesn’t seem like I’ve been here that long yet it seems like I was in Minnesota months ago. Ah time and trying to perceive it.

Okay but back to the point, the fun stuff I’ve been doing out here. I’ll just go day by day, giving the highlights…yes that would be best.

Saturday: My aunt was a keynote speaker at this talk at UCSD, I tagged along. She is way smart. Then when we were driving back home, we saw a street festival by the beach, decided to have lunch there. It was alright, but my aunt and I decided it wasn’t the best street festival we had been to. After that, had a relaxing movie night. Good way to end Saturday and the week.

Sunday: Tried out a new church, it was okay but I am trying a new one next week. Went to a performance of Bye, Bye, Birdie at a theater in downtown San Diego. We went b/c my aunt’s 10-year old neighbor was in it(so it was a children’s production of it), holy goodness it was AMAZING. We were blown away!

Monday: Crap, what did I even do this day? Well, first day of driving in San Diego. It was pretty easy, traffic here is comparable to the Twin Cities. At work, really started to understand Flash…otherwise…hrm what did I do this day? Apparently nothing terribly exciting…

Tuesday: Work. Then when out to dinner/movie with my aunt and her best friend from the academia world and her friend’s 16-year-old son. Dinner was good-it was at Berta’s in Old Town(I only mention the restaurant so that I remember when I look back cause it was delish). I already wrote a post about the movie, no need to comment…

Wednesday: You guessed…work! Able to design and animate a whole character in a day, really starting to get a handle on Flash, yay! Then went out to eat a fabulous restaurant (The Red Door, Mission Hills) with my aunt and some of her bff’s.

Thursday: Wow no way, I had work again. Able to design/animate a character in half the time it did Wednesday without the glitches I have had previous. Proud b/c I started off the week as a complete novice/beginner at Flash and now feel like I really have a handle on it. I am told that the heads of the lab I work for are going to see if I can get a stipend for the summer because they like the work I am doing. While on a run, one of my aunt’s neighbors stopped me, I have a babysitting job for the summer-win!

Yay, looks like I remembered most of what all went done this week!

~Lauren

Day 6: The Lottery

Tonight I saw a documentary called The Lottery. My aunt invited me to go with her and her friend(and friend’s teenage son) and after seeing the trailer for it in the Babies documentary, I knew it was a movie I wanted to see. And I’m so glad I had the chance to, although it was utterly heartbreaking. It was awesome too because we attended a special screening of it, there was time for discussion(which the four of us continued in the drive back home) about what we saw, which in this case was helpful just to process everything. Education reform is such a frustrating issue, like so many others out there, but the longer we wait on it, the more and more kids are being left behind, their futures very much potentially taken from them.

After watching it though, it just made me realize once again just how fortunate I am in just so many aspects, especially with my educational upbringing. Schools do have an incredible impact on one’s future and I’m so grateful to have gone to such a great public school that really did give me a fabulous education and also had many wonderful teachers who made learning fun and helped my love for learning flourish. And by extension, grateful for my parents because they chose to move to Edina because of the great school system, that they really did(and still do) care a great deal about my education. And now having the opportunity to go to college and study what I want to pursue in life, what an incredible thing I am able to experience. I was so incredibly lucky to be born into the family I was and then to go to the school system I went to K-12….that is something I will never ever take for granted.

If you have the chance, I would definitely recommend seeing this movie. I’ll post soon about what I have been doing out here (maybe a picture or two as well?) cause that’s probably more the point of this blog to begin with.

~Lauren

Day 3/4: Adapting and Internship Info

So the past few days have been going a lot better than the first day. Though I’m still adjusting, I’m used to things and after a phone call home, I got over being homesick. I have never been homesick ever in my life and I’m glad that I got over it so quickly cause frankly, it was not fun at all. I have not been that miserable in quite some time.

On Friday I had my first real day of working. Since my full team isn’t here yet and the rest of the lab is preparing for the site visit (where they are showing that they should get this $20 mil. Grant), they are just having me add to an already existing project. So the project I am working on is called an emotion mirror. The people on my team have created a program for the computer that through use of a webcam, it can detect someone’s face and the muscles that are being used. So then with this software, they have it connected to flash and with some fancy coding, basically whatever your face is doing, the character in flash can mirror your facial expression. The people in my lab are SO crazy smart, I’m amazed by the things they are doing (as this is not the sole thing they are working on). So anyways, with this emotion mirror, all they have right now is a pretty simple smilely face so I’m creating a few more characters to work with this program to make it more appealing. When my full team gets here though, we will be designing games to help kids with autism learn to understand emotions (which the emotion mirror is also tied to). So that will be my primary focus for the summer.
Another the thing the lab I work in is that they are building these things called learning robots. I don’t understand them fully yet, but basically when the start with them, they basically are like babies and so they are working on teaching the robots to do various things, such as sit up or follow someone’s hand. I have only seen video of these things, but I can’t wait to see them in real life. If I can take video/pictures and get permission to post, I’ll try to do so if I get the opportunity to do so.
Oh and if you’re interested, here’s the link to where I’m interning this summer, they are really doing some amazing stuff: http://mplab.ucsd.edu/wordpress

Today’s been good so far, went to a talk my aunt was the keynote speaker at and then she showed me more of San Diego, I really wish we always had 3-day weekends, there’s so many things I want to do that are all-day excursions. My aunt and I stopped by a street fair to eat lunch which was pretty fun. Otherwise, just chilling and enjoying the beautiful weather we are having today.

~Lauren

Day 1: Adjusting

Day 1

Today’s my first full day in San Diego and it’s been a day of adjusting. Adjusting to the time difference, adjusting to my living situation, adjusting to a new place of work, meeting new people…and trying not to get too overwhelmed from all this adjusting, I kind of underestimated how different life out here would be.

So far I haven’t done too much for my internship. We listened to a presentation over someone’s research (which kind of reminded me of going to Honors Seminar) and then I did a lot of sitting around because they weren’t exactly ready for me yet which was fine. After meeting everyone though, I kind of feel out of place, with everyone being scientists and all. I was briefly shown the main things I’ll be working on, which is more the game design, character designing and animating (and do they need a person who knows art, seriously their graphics are in serious need of help). I think part of it is that it’s my first day in a place where everyone else knows each other, but I’m still in the state of “ahhh! What am I doing here? What did I sign up for?”

~Lauren

In Limbo

Posted a day late but it was written while I was on the plane so it counts:


So today I left for my internship in San Diego. My flight didn’t leave until 7pm which kind of threw me off, I am so incredibly used to leaving very early in the morning to catch a flight, so having to sit around all day knowing I’d be leaving later just made the whole day weird. And for some reason, I was incredibly anxious and nervous about flying. Partly because this time I was not going on a trip, this time I was staying for awhile and the semi-permanent state of the situation effected more than I thought. Then also, after my last experience flying I was so nervous about all the things that could go wrong. Sure, it’s amusing to go through an unexpected 10-hour layover once, it makes a good story, but to go through that again I really did not want to live through that again. So for the entire day, I was in a silent anxious state or as my mom said, mentally I was in limbo.

Luckily my flights went smoothly. I actually wanted to write this up on my flight from Minneapolis to Denver, but I didn’t want to jinx things before getting on my connecting flight. But as I am now safely on the connecting flight, I think it’s safe to assume things for the most part have gone smoothly (as long as my baggage shows up). I won’t go too in depth as I commented a lot on twitter about how things went down, but compared to my last flying experience, this has gone a lot smoother than last time and so I don’t think I’m quite as anxious about flying or even how I’m going to experience the new routine of my life tomorrow. I can’t even wrap my mind around that yet.

~Lauren

*Started and finished The Art of Racing in the Rain. It was alright, not the best book I've read, but enjoyable. Of course, reading Marely and Me right before this one probably influenced me a bit. And I think the book probably would have worked better as a graphic novel, provided the right artist did the visuals.

A Start To This Blog

By request of my family, I have started up this diary/journal/blog/whatever you want to call it about my summer in San Diego. I obliged but hesitantly, I have never in my life been good at keeping up with writing frequently about my life. I have a handful of journals in my room at home from when I was younger, none lasting more than 3 or 4 entries. There’s even one that says something like “Journal, I know I’ve been bad in the past at this, but this time I’m really going to keep up with this!” and then flip through the rest of the journal and there’s nothing written, just empty pages. Even with my sketchbooks, there’s rarely one that I have finished in full. I will try my best at keeping this up. I’m sure I’ll be more frequent writing at the beginning as things will be new and exciting but as I fall into routine and life out here, the energy to reflect and record things will fade as things will seem less exciting as they first were. But try I shall.

~Lauren