in between.

Hoorah!

Yesterday, we finally booked a hotel for our stay in Chicago, and it's within our budget (via Travelocity!)We looked at a few pictures of our hotel, The Palmer House Hilton, and I must admit, it looks beautiful!

While over at Karen's planning and eating sinigang (yay!), we were consequentially late to our first belly dancing lesson. And when I say late, I mean 20 minutes late. And when I say 20 minutes late, I mean 20 minutes late for a 1 hour class. >_< But we took a deep breath, and waltzed into the room late and tried to blend in. . . although we were the only ones without the jingly hip scarves. . . talk about obvious!

Aside from that, the class went well. Since it's a beginner class, it was good to see that we were practically all at the same level. It was funny though, when Karen and I tried to follow instructions and realized that our hips were popping oddly (kind of like an abrupt move when your hip pops into place?). . . Anyways, our class has 19 people enrolled, and it seems like the majority of the students are in their 20s with a couple of exceptions. Regardless, it does make me feel a bit self-conscious, especially when she had each row switch places until the back row finally made it to the front >_<. Please don't watch me! Haha!

Currently, I'm sitting at work by myself. Don't get me wrong, I'm working, I promise! I'm working on making stimuli videos for our research lab, and when I export videos it takes a while to render the media, so tada, a blog post (well, in between many stimuli exports, haha)! Actually, I have a fairly good system set up (and my boss has seen this one). I arrange the stimuli and blah blah, and while I wait for them to individually export, I read. Right now, I'm reading The Complete Guide to Game Audio. I forgot mine came with a CD, and it ultimately broke. Too bad! Anyways, Aaron Marks does a nice job of bringing common concerns with game audio (be it creation, inspiration, tools, demo reels, what to expect, etc.) to light. It also helps would-be composers and developers to understand the importance of sound design and music as entities to enhance games. I'll probably post a postmortem after I finish the book.

Speaking of games, hopefully I'll hear back today about my possible internship?

2 comments:

Colleen | February 19, 2009 at 11:29 PM

I've always wanted to try belly dancing but I think I've got too much of a belly for it.. haha..

The hotel you are going to looks beautiful. It reminds me of the Omni William Penn Hotel my husband and I stayed at in Pittsburgh PA last year. Gorgeous!

kat | February 19, 2009 at 11:38 PM

Colleen, you should try it! We had people of all heights, sizes, and dance expertise in our class.

It definitely seems fun, and I wouldn't worry about the belly, silly! If anything, pick up a few videos, who knows, you might have a knack for it! :)