I feel like I always have a few projects going or at least knocking around in my head as "Projects I Should Work On".

Right now my fore-most project is making game review/playthrough videos. So right now my researching is basically how to use the video capture/editing software I've acquired (TechSmith's Camtasia Studio 8). And also watching lots of gaming YouTube channels to see what is popular, what kinds of things other vloggers do that I like and what I don't like. So far I've made a one minute long video that's just a bunch of clips of games with stock music. But it makes me really excited! I didn't expect to like it so much.

A secondary project is that I am trying to sort out the garden of the house we just bought. It's just starting to be winter so it's a good time to start digging up beds and re-doing things. Unfortunately, there's so much stuff going on in our garden right now! I don't know if some of the stuff is weeds or intentionally planted (having lived in the Midwest of the States my whole life a lot of the plant-life in NZ is very exotic to me). So I'm doing plant research and researching when to plant the vegetables and fruits I want to grow. I bought a few books at the local bookstore - one of them is really great, *Companion Planting* by Brenda Little, that is specific to NZ.

This is the good thing about being unemployed - I have so much time for personal projects!

This was a really good read, thanks for posting. A lot of this I can relate to, especially the silver spoon bit. I think what really felt similar to my experience though was the second paragraph:

I complain and criticize more often than I’d like, but I’m a little disappointed by this caricature of myself, even if some people find it endearing. It’s not that it is unfounded; I know that I’ve made plenty of disparaging remarks about fireworks and popular television shows and things that I don’t like, using stronger language than I actually feel. Maybe I do it to make my point more direct, or to play devil’s advocate, or to try to be funny, or have my opinion heard. These are all true to some degree. Sometimes I feel like it’s a façade and sometimes I feel like it’s just part of who I am.

I think I started doing it in high school, showing over-the-top hate/dislike for something thinking it was cool or funny. It continued on through college too - my roommate always thought my rants were hilarious and I thought hers were too. However in the end I think all it's done is encouraged me to be a much more negative person than I want to be. So now I'm trying to actively be more positive about situations and trends, even if I think my gut reaction to it is "That's dumb" or something.

I think the longest, most recent net-break I took was in February for two weeks while my family and I were traveling on the east coast.

Ironically, now that I live with my fiance (who I met playing an MMO) I go on the computer a lot less and partake in online gaming a lot less. When we lived apart, we were both on the computer as much as possible, often just so we could be on Skype. Now I don't even turn on my PC some weekends and only check e-mail/facebook/news sites from my tablet every so often.

When I was studying abroad in Wellington, New Zealand, there was a District 9 special screening at the Embassy Theater (where they have all the premiers for LOTR/Hobbit stuff). It was happening because the concept art book for District 9 was being released and they had all the guys from WETA there to talk to people and sign the books.

Among them was Daniel Falconer, who was the main person in charge of putting this whole book together. I was mostly interested in his amazing contributions to the Lord of the Rings films and I really wanted to just say hello or whatever and sign a little piece of paper for me.

Finally I get up to him and say hi, he asks me where I'm from, I say I'm from the States but studying here blah blah. Then he asks me if I have the book they are selling. I respond "No, I'm too cheap for that."

I can still see the look of surprise/disbelief on his face.

Luckily the friend I was with tried to help me out and said really quickly "Yeah, we're too poor because we're college students, ya know?!".

I really appreciate the feedback. I'm glad this has made you think about getting back into gaming! Dear Esther is definitely a very different sort of 'game' (many argue that it's not really a game but rather an 'experience'). I think that while 'traditional' games like Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed or Tomb Raider take up much of the market, indie games like this are starting to emerge and challenge what it means to be a 'game'.

Luckily games like this aren't too resource intensive so many computer can run them (though at lower settings some of the details may be lost). A similar game to Dear Esther is Proteus, another "explore an island" type of game - but with no specific narrative.

Stephen Fry is my role model. He is incredibly smart, humble and (in my opinion at least) funny. He studied English literature, I studied English literature. We both tend to dress like tweedy English teachers. We both struggle with ourselves.

Last year I read his autobiography, The Fry Chronicles and I watched his documentary on mental illness, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. I highly recommend both of these!

I struggle with anxiety and anxiety attacks. It can be so frustrating when even the people you love just don't understand - I can't count how many times I've heard "Just don't worry about it!"... if only it were that easy! Fry perfectly echoes that sentiment in this article where he says:

That’s the point, there is no “why?” That’s not the right question. There is no reason. If there was reason for it, you could reason someone out of it.

Luckily, my condition is not so bad as his. I mostly have my anxiety under control except for times of great emotional stress (at one particularly bad time I had 4 very strong anxiety attacks in a month). Also luckily according to his twitter feed, Fry is doing much better these days.

I sing to/about my cat to the tune of Trololo.

I also go out into the garden and spend a lot of time just looking at all the plants.

Yes, its definitely a very untraditional game. I read a post somewhere online that said Dear Esther pushes closer to art than what we normally think of as a computer game.

I will definitely look into Passage. Thanks for the heads up!

Ah good point. My bottle is 700mLs. I have a bad habit of just drinking all of the water at once. It's like as soon as I start drinking my body realizes how thirsty it is and just wants all of it at once! A "water per-hour" is definitely a healthier way to go about it and I'll try it out. Thanks!

You bring up a great point with "Ask people for things, not machines". I tend to try to do as much stuff as I can online or via e-mail as I can rather than in-person or on the phone. My fiance has been trying to get me to do more "talking to people" type things myself but I've been pushing back pretty hard. It's definitely something I need to work on.

Nice pictures, but that's pretty scary! Water damage is always pretty serious business.

That's a good goal and I should probably add it to my list. I'm a 'house-wife' for all intents and purposes, but a pretty lazy one. If there's no house work I have to do in a given day, I won't and then it backs up and there's more to do the next day.

Hopefully the gardening will yield enough food that we don't have to buy as much at the grocery store. Already we buy a lot less fruit for snacking because we have a fully loaded mandarin tree in the yard.

I know some people manage to make a living off of game-related YouTube videos. I don't expect to ever be at that level. But if I eventually ever make enough to buy myself a cup of coffee or a magazine, I'll count that as super successful :)

Heh, didn't expect a follow up :P I kind of dropped off the face of hubski for a few months but I'm getting back into it again lately.

Things are good. I don't have a job (yet), but like I said in the above post I'm trying not to stress out about that too much and I think it will be easier once I have residency rather than the visa I have now which only lets me take contract/temp jobs. My fiance makes enough for us and we just bought a house about a month ago - very exciting to finally live in a house again after so many years of apartment living.

I've been spending my time looking after the house, taking care of our cat, and learning new things like how to make and edit videos on my computer.

Really cool sound so far, I definitely like the melody a lot. Can you give more details on what your workflow is like? For example, do you just sit and work on a piece until it is 'mostly' done? Or do you come back and do little bits at a time?

Thanks for any info you give! Been thinking about trying to do some music of my own lately and insight into how others do it really helps :)

1) Never tell them to "just stop worrying" or to "just stop thinking about it" if they are in the midst of an anxiety attack. It does nothing. If you could just stop worrying about whatever it is, we totally would.

2) Remind them to breathe. Different people have different numbers, but basically concentrating on how long to breathe in, how long to hold it, and how long to exhale helps a lot. I was originally told to do 4 seconds in, 6 seconds hold, 8 seconds exhale. Over time I've changed it to 5 seconds in, 2 seconds hold, 5 seconds out, 2 seconds wait. Your friend can find the numbers right for him and it will help a lot.

3) Often times you just kind of have to ride out the attack and wait for it to end. Personally I always find it helpful to be by myself with a nice set of headphones and music of my choice. My college roommate said it always helped her get through attacks by just doing stream-of-consciousness writing. Maybe try different things with your friend to find what helps him calm down - maybe it's reading a good book, listening to music, writing, gardening, gaming, whatever.

Anxiety attacks are no fun. But if you can help your friend get through them more easily, he will definitely be grateful to you.

Yes, quite right!

Thanks! I definitely will post them, at the very least so I can get some feedback. I just finished recording a playthrough of the exploration/interpretation game Dear Esther and will hopefully have some videos of that edited up soon.

Just to be clear - when you say "proper tea is theft", I am assuming you mean the imperial/colonial ways in which it was brought to the West (with some cultural appropriation thrown in for good measure)? Or something else entirely?

Wow, this is a much different internet community than I'm used to! (But definitely not in a bad way!). If you live near Gisborne, I'll take you up on your coffee offer. I'll be sure to message/call if I have a question!

My favorite #tea when I wake up is Yorkshire Gold Blend. I've been using tea bags but I just found out that they also sell it loose leaf which blows my mind.

I also drink tea throughout the day and lately I've been on a bit of a Harney and Sons kick. I love their Palm Court black tea blend and their peppermind herbal is, bar none, the best mint tea I've ever had. And I've been to Morocco and had real Moroccan mint tea, so that's saying a lot I think.

Interesting tea experiences wise, like I said I've been to Morocco. I've been to a tea ceremony in China and sampled a number of different teas there (I still have a box of jasmine tea I got there that I break out as 'special occasion' tea). A bit less 'exotic' I suppose is at the Drake Hotel in Chicago - you can go and have Afternoon Tea. They have a fancy fountain and harpist, you pick a tea and they give you finger-sandwiches, pastries and deserts and infinite hot water til you are stuffed. It's amazing.

Wow thanks for the info! I'll definitely look into him.

Why, would you say, does anthropology need popularizing?

I'm 22 and I just finished school in December. I have a BA in English with minors in Anthropology and IT. In 3 weeks, I'm moving to New Zealand from the US to live with my fiance. I'm really excited and happy to finally move (been with him for 3.5 years).

But I'm nervous too. He lives in a small town and I feel like maybe my nice shiny new degree is worthless in a small town like that. I don't feel like I wasted the past 4.5 years getting it, but it doesn't feel right somehow. I'm hoping that I'm wrong and will be able to use my degrees in a a job there somehow. I think part of this is a general pressure that exists to get a degree based on the job you want. I've always firmly believed in getting the degree you enjoy the classes for and the career will follow. Now that I'm pushed up against that wall though it seems daunting

Generally, I'm trying to keep very open minded about everything and not make "in 5 years I will be ___" type plans. My plan right now consists of: Move to NZ, try not to stress out, get married in July, apply for Residency. Then we'll see what happens.

But I'm a perpetual worrier.

I think for me the only thing that trumps an Oberweiss chocolate malt is a chocolate cake shake from Portillo's.

Oh lol, the pun went right over my head!

Yea I've heard good things about hibiscus for hat sort of thing. Worked in a tea shop and had a woman come in every week for hibiscus for a similar ailment. I've never heard of it being mixed with basil but that sounds very interesting! Ill have to try that out.

If you want to see Sapir-Whorf in action, watch the Star Trek: Next Generation episode "Darmok". It sounds weird, but I had to watch it for an anthro class and write a paper about it and discuss the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

I also recommend reading up on the conduit metaphor.

I don't think I've ever met anyone in my anthropology department that likes Jared Diamond's writings. This article says exactly why: "the shallowness of the arguments, and it is this characteristic of Diamond's writings that drives anthropologists to distraction".

His conclusions and arguing points are just too shallow to be really good, thorough anthropological examinations.

Dunbar's number doesn't necessarily mean "150 friends". As the first line says, it's 150 "genuine social relationship, the kind of relationship that goes with knowing who they are and how they relate to us". So it might be a couple friends, but it also means your family members, the classmates you see regularly, your workmates and bosses, your neighbors, your school friends from when you were younger, etc.

This was great and I love David Mitchell's Soapbox channel. However I disagree with his point on smilies. Well, except maybe the "you're too fat" example, he has a good point there. However in general I think that smilies, too, fit into a linguistic gap that appears when using text based communication rather than voice or face-to-face communication: tone and/or body language.