I have to record a workshop on Friday on Procreate and Unity and it’s not an exhaustive workshop, more like a demo to get people used to the tools. So I’ve been all angsty about pre-recording it because my Macbook has been overheating and shutting down when I use Unity with other programs open. And I had to record Procreate on a separate device. The Procreate demo went fast, I was just making a background and some sprites. 12 minutes! There’s other demos that go more into detail, but I realized I only have an hour for this whole workshop. So I still needed to make AN ENTIRE GAME in Unity. So I did that too tonight, in MANY small screen recordings. I was stopping every time the computer was thinking and you know, not able to do anything, as it does. And the parts at the end when I had to learn why something wasn’t working, I cut that too and just ended up showing what worked. The game itself is not totally finished, it’s just an intro to unity. But the player moves and it has a function.

I didn’t know what kind of game to make until today. I know how to do collecting objects, so I needed to do a destroy script, only I called it PickBerry, and the game was to pick berries off a bush. So the berry sprites disappear when the hand touches them. And then I wanted them to make a bloop noise, so I tried to do PlayOneShot but that DID NOT WORK. I ended up doing all kinds of stuff off camera to get it to work. And it DOES work now, and I showed what I changed to do that. So I cut out my boring attempts to solve it because no one needs that in a workshop. And anyway, the screen recordings are 41 minutes without a lot of editing. I deleted one moment when I forgot to stop the screen recorder. I made 20 screen recordings and then put them all in Premiere Pro and tomorrow I will edit more out of it. So in the end I DID manage to record a demo under 40 minutes. Which gives me extra time to blab about my career in games. My career in games is like, small, I made two games. But there’s things about it that I’ve learned I guess ha ha.

I had a great time in New York last week, I came back on Monday. I saw a lot of art, I went to the Guggenheim and saw the Jenny Holzer show which was incredible. She is one of my favourite artists. I got a hat from it that says “Protect Me From What I Want.” I wanted the hoodie though, and I think I WILL order it when I get more money. It says “Savour Kindness Because Cruelty Is Always Possible Later.”

I got lost in Central Park and then found and saw a John Lennon mascot which I initially thought was Jesus until I saw the little glasses.

I also went to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and let me tell you that was HEAVY. Holy fuck! There’s a wall that has human remains behind it from bodies they are still struggling to identify. And the main exhibit in the middle which tells the story of that day is really intense but you can’t take photos in it. Which I think is reasonable considering the content. The part that made me cry was a scrolling text of all the voice mails of people checking on their friend who had been in one of the planes. I was just reading them but you could listen to them too. But I was already crying too hard reading them to be able to listen, I knew it would make me even more of a mess.

I later was thinking about as Indigenous people we don’t really have a museum about our trauma. And maybe we don’t need it, but also maybe we do? Maybe it needs to be laid out there for non-Indigenous people to learn about what happened. Because people just kind of don’t want to look at what happened to us. And also I think we’re very private about what kind of trauma is in our communities as a safety thing. I dunno, just some thoughts.

I went to the sexy party for trans masculine people and friends the same day as the 9/11 Museum which was a VERY AWKWARD switch from the emotions of the day. I think if I had planned better I would have gone to see art that day instead. BUT the party was lots of fun and I met new people which was cool. Someone recognized me in the backroom and told me how much they loved my films which was kind of hilarious.

I feel good about doing the demo for Unity today, because I realized I DO know a lot about how to make a game. I’m teaching a class on video game development in the Winter term so I’m happy I’ll be able to do it. I don’t know if I will have to pre-record all the Unity demos though. Because it does cut out the boring time where the computer is working and can’t do anything. But also the class time is longer than an hour FOR SURE and hopefully students are following along.

I also have this for that class now which might be a good intro to Unity and C#. I’ve got to think of specific functions I want to teach students, and how they can find out answers to their own specific functions they want in their games. I’m going to be learning how to make a character that can jump this fall, so hopefully I’ll be able to give them more options for their player controller. Because all my players have been floating heads so far which are very easy to program.

I’ve also got to make some curriculum for a workshop next month on Storytelling, because it needs to get translated in advance into Spanish. So I’ll be doing that. I like teaching skills, I feel like people need to be empowered to tell stories in videos and video games and I know how to do that nerdy stuff and like talking to students. So it’s fun for me, plus getting paid to do it is helpful for me as a struggling artist.

I’m so exhausted now. I spent a lot of the day making sure most of the code I was using was going to work. Because I had to type it all in again. And I think being apprehensive about if the Macbook crashed and deleted screen recordings. But it never crashed because I quit Chrome before working on it. Chrome is a RAM hog. Ugh. Hate it. So yeah in the end it worked out. But I’m glad I recorded today because I can edit it and output it tomorrow morning before I have to go somewhere.

I have to see my doctor who did my Salpingectomy tomorrow afternoon, I think it will be fine, my incisions FINALLY stopped spitting out stitches and healed over. So that’s a relief. I think I might start putting scar sheets on them because they are very dark right now.

Anyway I should get ready to go to bed. I get to see a friend from far away tomorrow so that’s exciting! Hoping my Goodfood box arrives in time, but also might end up having to make something else for us for dinner.