Last update: December 11, 2007
(Firstly, to anybody coming by from the SXSW Interactive website, hello!)
As always, let me start this with something like, "oh, wow, it's been a while!" Seven months, to be exact--and today's my 3-year anniversary of graduating from Georgia Tech. Life after college has been pretty crazy, for sure.
A lot's changed, site-wise and generally. I've done a really hasty clean-up with this update but there's a lot more to be done. The Japan journal is actually still active, but just barely. The fanlistings subdomain is totally gone--I lost interest in those long ago, and with my overseas life, updating once every two months actually wasn't that feasible. I also took down my quotes site (kind of cheesy anyway) and my art/writing and archived Star Wars/anime sites, with the intention of cleaning up and restoring both of those.
I'm moving away from using the screen name "Andorus," which was a high-school/college thing, and towards using my real name, now that I'm a "professional designer." It's interesting to see my friends making similar transitions, too. This site will probably be renamed (after nearly 10 years, wow), though the domain name will stay the same. And now that my two years in Japan are over, it's also time to come up with a new design, which'll probably be up next year.
I also would like to reevaluate what it is I want out of this site. The Pirates of Dark Water site will be up forever and ever, but I'd like there to be more meat soy to this domain beyond just hosting that.
As of mid-August, I'm back in the US and in Atlanta. I've been working as a graphic/interaction designer for an internet security company since September (similar to what people say about how you meet significant others, this job just fell in my lap a month before I left Japan, and it's been excellent thus far). I miss Japan like crazy, though, and I think about it every single day. By the time my departure arrived, I was ready to leave, but it was still really rough.
I'm currently planning a trip back in mid-March, in time for my junior high's graduation ceremony and the annual Tokushima musical. It should be interesting, though, because it'll be following hot on the heels of SXSW Interactive (which was what prompted this shove-everything-into-the-closet style of update, since I won a free membership (!!)). It'll be a crazy but awesome month, for sure.