Rumor mill

[astra_nomer]

I recently heard that a friend of mine from grad school who was maybe four years behind me, who is due to defend her thesis this spring, who won a Hubble Fellowship, has been offered a tenure-track faculty position at one of the places I applied to (and was rejected from) this year.

I am such a loser.

Comments

[shumashi.livejournal.com]

It's funny, I was just talking about that sort of thing with Wayland at the Game Developer's Conference. We were discussing overheard sour grapes comments about how the complainers could create games as brilliant as Will Wright's games if they were given the same trust, resources, and time. Wayland's take on it was A. Will Wright earned those priveledges through excellent game design over the years, and B. Will Wright is brilliant, and it's rather unlikely that there are many other game designers who can be as great as he is regardless of what sort of publisher support they're given. We were joking about creating t-shirts to wear next year that say "Not Will Wright," to admit to the world that we are, in fact, not as good at game design as he is, and we aknowledge that, accept it, and have moved on.

As for me, I'm working in children's education. Scary responsibility, but I'm trying to do a good job, and in general, I think my involvement in the products we make will have a net good effect. I sort of think of it like a game designer. Like as a person able to affect things, I have 100 Change Effect Points. By the time I retire, I'll have spent my 100 points. At the moment, I'm working on spending my points on creating an artifact to raise the Literacy skill of American preschoolers. Yes, there are people out there who are more brilliant than I am, and they have 500 or 1000 Change Effect Points, but that doesn't mean my measly 100 Points are worthless. They'll be added to others, they'll accumulate, and they'll (hopefully) make some real changes for the better. I'll probably never be aknowledged for my 100 points, no more than the people who only have 50 points or 10, but I'm trying to spend my points the best I can.