First of all, I’ve now completed two years of my undergraduate degree in linguistics. I’ve completed the normal Chinese language instruction stream, or at least as far as I’m willing to take it at UniMelb. Now it’s literature based subjects which I’m actually good at and is much much better taught, so I’ll be feeling a lot better about Chinese in the coming year.

As I’ve said before, my direction has solidified towards the field of computational linguistics although I find myself in niche area that’s quite hard to pilot. I’m more interested in using computational linguistics as a tool within linguistics proper, rather than as a sort of vocationally-focused computer science dominated field of computational linguistics. Just after semester I attended another academic conference and I came away feeling much better about the prospects of finding a good path ahead.

Another major aspect I haven’t spoken about a lot on this blog is my revived interest in all things to do with ‘making’ or ‘hacking’. I have for some time felt pretty strongly that the consumer electronics boom has a lot to answer for in the atrophy of skills and the generally lesser inclination of your average man to get down to the shed and do something for himself. This comes from something of a perfect storm of events, mostly documented on this blog. Starting from the introduction to Python I had with the first computer subject I took as breadth. It might seem absurd, but I had forgotten how … capable (willing more than ability?) I am at just knocking things up out of the whole technical chain from web browser through to little things soldered onto a board. 2011 was the year of awakening of Mat as a Maker.

So at the very end of 2011, where am I at and what am I doing? It’s another couple of months until uni starts again so I’m firmly in the time-rich portion of the year where I get into projects. Some of my projects:

• The Inf0cube – A sort of kitchen-based explosion of old and new visualisation. Heavy electronics and coding project, probably the most impressive single thing I’ve ever built.
• Higgins – The Android-powered telepresence robot. Chassis works, Android hookup works, now crafting some genuinely innovative ways to use a dirty cheap and powerful smartphone as an all purpose robot brain.
•  Home Brew – I have brewed beer for years, on and off, but only as a ‘kit and kilo’ operator. Eg, you buy cans of stuff and just chuck it in a drum. Since I’m so poor now, I began brewing again just so I could remember the taste of beer. As my obsessive personality dictates, this wasn’t enough and I’ve progressed to ‘all grain’ brewing. I think this is a keeper, it’s easy, fun, lots of geek-out potential and everyone appreciates the results.
• Melbourne Mini Maker Faire and new Melbourne Hackerspace. I’m helping to organise this first maker faire event in Melbourne. It’s on something of a tight schedule. I’m doing things to do with writing about makers, bit of PR and marketing, and offering unwarranted opinions. The event is in January.

So that’s where I’m at. Now I should follow up by drilling into those subjects…

In other news, Dreamhost has gone back to snailing. Kevin Rudd ejected by shady trade unions and big business largely because he did what they wanted (kill the ETS), new PM chick promptly caves to miners demands making a sell-our liar of herself but the Australian public, who have just been shafted to the tune of billions, increasing their taxes and lowering their public services, really like her because she’s a woman and she doesn’t sound all educated like that Rudd guy. Australian politics is depressing.

It’s one week until Uni results are out. My mid-year application is in, there’s little to do but sit tight. I’m working hard getting up to speed on my part time gig and of course studying Chinese every day.

If you want your inbox to look like your inbox, eg someone I give a damn about has sent me an email, then the deluge of this commercial junk mail is a problem. It’s also a problem if you want your phone to usefully go bing when you get an email, not the latest fucking el-cheapo LCD TV from Krogan.

My past solution to this was to shift email address every few years but I’m kind of attached to this one. So I decided to claim it back. I would systematically unsubscribe from all of these asshats. Since they’re actual companies “best practice” dictates it should just need a click in the footer and it’s done. Mostly that’s true although there’s plenty that make it harder and some which don’t include it at all which is actually Evil. Bit by bit though I did a few a day. I must have done 50 or so now and I don’t think I’m done yet. However my inbox is looking like my actual inbox once again.

All I need to do is get Google’s Buzz the hell out of my inbox (which seems stupid because it’s actually a folder under your inbox also – why not put this shit there?) and maybe create a couple of extra labels for actual useful (and obligatory apparently) emails from people like my bank and mobile operator telling me that bills have arrived. Of course it also requires that I look at the web in a different way and make absolutely sure people understand I haven’t given them permission to send me junk mail. That also includes checking through the tickboxes when registering on forums and that kind of thing…

Yesterday was an interesting day because I mentally earmarked this as the day when I would be “off holidays”, despite having no work to go to, where I would enact a regime where I made use of my time rather than playing computer games all day. With just two days of regime, I’m feeling pretty good about it. Well actually I’m mostly feeling bloody sore since I decided to walk home from a shop run (supplies for making Pumpkin soup) via a back road. The back round pretty much involved scaling a mountain, phew.

Studying at home is actually pretty awesome because I can sit there listening to recitals of Chinese pronunciation and constructed sentences aloud. That’s really not something I’ve been doing with all my train-study. Stuck up a whiteboard next to my the desk in my new study, which I’m very very pleased with all up particularly having sourced an actual papasan chair for the sunny reading alcove… Ended the day with more study while I fed some seeds to visiting parrots on the balcony and then cooked up a fabulous pumpkin soup.

A hard yakka day but extremely satisfying too. I’m just concerned about momentum, day 2 and I just didn’t seem to have the attention span to put in a couple of hours of study. Let’s see how we get on for the rest of the week as the deadline to the VTAC first round offers draws closer. 13 days and counting…

For those unfamiliar with this process, these events are aimed at helping would-be students realise alternative courses which can still be added to their VTAC preferences list. Mostly though, it’s a last ditch marketing push for the universities to entice would-be students to move their university to the top of their preference list. It’s not so much that the universities don’t have enough places, actually they don’t have enough, but it’s more than more applicants means more competition which tends to push the ENTER scores upwards which is desirable for them for many reasons. So what of the events?

First of all, it’s clear that these events are aimed at year 12 students. If you talk to staff they will all tend to sell up the idea of trying to increase mature students but it seemed pretty theoretical to me. Getting down to the events, my experience with the prestigious universities (Melbourne and Monash) has been pretty negative. Condescending and patronising staff, poor and even false information, and of course the wider issue of completely unreasonable entry requirements. On this latter point, most people appear to think it’s easy to get into a university as a mature student – that your industry experience bypasses other requirements. How I wish that were true.

A case in point that even as a journalist for a number of years, including a magazine editor, Melbourne University wont cut my any kind of break on having to demonstrate English aptitude would you believe. That means that if using their single-subject pathway I’d need to pick up an actual English subject in order to be able to gain entry into a standard BA Arts. Which is a demonstration of how inflexible they are in the face of blatantly relevant industry experience. On the other hand I don’t mind so much, such a subject would be quite fun. Often when browsing available units at the universities I feel like a kid in a candy store, so’s to speak.

So anyway, back to those events… I noticed a few things in general. The first being that they each offered a sort of faculty expo whereby in a common area they set up a desk for every faculty with some staff there able to offer specific advice and information pertaining to each course. Awesome in principal but here’s how it actually worked: All faculty desks but one were deserted. The arts desk, at every university, had a sea of people in front of it. I find that kind of depressing but I suppose that faculty tends to lend itself to an audience that still isn’t sure about what they want to do at this late stage in the game.

Unfortunately that meant that at most events I didn’t get to speak to the one person I really wanted to, that is the actual selection officer of their arts department.  If I got to speak to them I planned to ask them what you look for in a mature student entry path (Eg. the Pi form) and what sort of numbers of places are available. Ultimately just trying to gauge some level of chance. In fact out of every University, I’ve only really got one good answer and that was via email from RMIT. These guys are excellent with events and they’re also excellent with email. Sadly in that case the answer is “Not much chance mate,” to paraphrase. Still, that was useful.

At these events only Deakin made me feel at home. They still had some organisational issues and it seems latest information hadn’t really filtered down through everyone (they gave a presentation where they openly spoke about full-fee places in VTAC, despite the fact that these haven’t existed for the last year due to a directive from the Rudd government to abolish such places), but in general it was pretty easy to talk to general staff, no hint of sneery condescension, although it too had that issue where arts was rammed all the way up until the expo closed… I had a nice feeling about Deakin. It’s kind of hard to ignore the fact that it’s ranked so much worse than everyone else though, but I’m not sure how much I care about that. It’s not like I’d get a job off the back of how prestigious the university is, I’m genuinely in this for the skills. Deakin offer me much more than any other university would do, I’m free to add very interesting double degree options such as Arts (Chinese) and Commerce. For that reason Deakin dominates my VTAC list. I really need to speak to their Chinese coordinator though, but they’re sadly on holidays until the new year.

Monash had their event at the Caulfield campus which was annoying because I was only interested in the Clayton campus. Kind of baffled why, since it’s a horrid campus where Clayton is apparently lovely (my wife has been).  These guys take the gold star for making me feel like a prize wanker for wanting to study with them, and giving me out and out wrong information. Crumbs the guy I spoke to didn’t even know what the VTAC web site was. Bizarrely he did give me the one bit of info that proved fruitful, the existence of Monash  single-subject study.

I’ll do another update about this later, what I’ve learned invalidates some of my earlier whining about the lack of full-fee places. In terms of VTAC, I’ve got Arts Languages in my list, because it’s the only thing which doesn’t have further entry requirements. That would actually be pretty nice if they did make me an offer, Clayton campus is as well located for me as Deakin (looks like a very nice bus journey from leafy Belgrave in fact) and I know their Chinese program is very well respected too. If I thought it’d make any difference I’d raise the preference on my list but I expect they wont make me an offer anyway. I’ve fired them a query regarding the single-subject pathway, with a request that I go down to Clayton and speak to someone. I need that campus tour and to see if earlier treatment I got was an aberration or if they really don’t like my sort around these parts.

At Melbourne I walked up and enquired about CAP. They pointed me to Arts. Or rather the sea of people in front of the arts desk. That’s actually fine, Melbourne University have a ‘CAP officer’ in charge of this stuff and that person had already been extremely helpful in email. Since Melbourne’s entry requirements precluded me putting a BA on the VTAC list I had no reason to talk to anyone else there anyway so I just went on my own campus tour. Gosh, it’s really very lovely there. Almost too lovely. I sort of felt a bit disappointed I couldn’t walk up to a scruffy community post and have a go at reading the Chinese personal ads placed there. I think my dress code would definitely go up a notch if I went to Melbourne!

RMIT… well they’re excellent, they’re always excellent. I think this is because of their heavy bias on the TAFE side of things, they’re used to dealing with people from various pathways but ultimately they seem to have a way higher ratio of genuinely clued up staff who are extremely good at their jobs. Every event they do is excellent. They even put people on the street so you can’t miss the event, and people walking around who look at a loss are actively chased down and pointed in the right direction. To be fair they’re vastly smaller in undergrad stuff so they have to deal with a bunch less people. I don’t even really know why I went to this one, I know everything I need to know, they only do one course I want, it’s top of my VTAC list but I’ve no chance of getting into it. Still had a conversation with a staff member there and asked them about single subject study. Turns out they do it too but also follow that great Victorian tertiary tradition of calling it something entirely different from anyone else. Still, it was good info and provided a new lead to chase.

After all of these events I didn’t make a single change to my VTAC. That’s because I didn’t learn anything I couldn’t easily find out concerning undergrad courses. Fortunately the deadlines for single subject/CAP like schemes is way later into the new year so I’ve plenty of time to formulate a plan while I wait and see what happens with round 1 offers.

Rather than that uncertain Christmas, things are looking up. I’ve got lots of stuff to research regarding back-up plans with single-subject pathways. This seems less like a cripplingly expensive fall back plan now I know every university offers a form of it and I can basically do one semester of it and then hit every uni up again directly for a mid-year entry. Not that dumping thousands of dollars in fees up front wont hurt but at least it’s a definate path way…

Tell you what though, it’s been a long road figuring out that this pathway even existed.

I’m also not going to sit around and have no plan in case I get a bit fat zero of offers come mid January. I need a fallback plan. One such plan is using Melbourne University’s Community Access Program where you can basically just apply to study the actual units you’d be doing fully enrolled, and then use your results as the basis of entry into the BA program. This program is full-fee and in fact not even eligible for FEE-HELP which means I’d need to stump up over $13,000 up front. Curiously since 2009 the government has basically stopped Australian universities from offering full fee courses to domestic students, while promising to increase the level of commonwealth supported placements.

I think it’s reasonable to say that if I was free to hand over $13,000 to a university they would find a place for me on a course. They’re not allowed to though. Except for Melbourne Uni. Something of a paradox that.

With the belief that I have a not inconsequential case for applying to study, this scenario can raise hackles, if I let it. On the basis of many years of work experience and demonstrable dedication to study in more recent times… broken record cut. To be fair the universities have their hands tied. They’d like my money, but they’re only allowed to use those CSPs and they’re pretty much duty bound to choose those positions based largely upon year 12 academic results for school leavers and some additional programs for the disadvantaged. All perfectly reasonable and someone like me ends up down the list a ways. Not for lack of merit but, well, because I imagine there’s not a lot of us mid-career return-to-study types around to gain a sufficiently loud voice or a program of our own.

If I could full-fee I absolve them of risk. Their fee-paying business scales well, as the International student business proves. I don’t really consider it the fault of the Australian education system that I conspired to mess up my ancient academic record so completely. Though it might have been nice if someone would have simply asked in year 12, after 11 prior years of straight-A study, what was going on… I got my steady hand in the system, but I had to drop out and end up in a TAFE facility first.

Anyway, not being inclined to tell a sob story I’d rather make the case on more recent positive issues speaking to who I am now. I’m giving up a lot, potentially willing to saddle myself with a substantial debt even more than most students because I’ll even full-fee the first year (and then take my chances trying to transfer to CSP in subsequent years based on my academic results), and ultimately in pursuit of a skill set which Australia could really use.

I don’t mean to sound bitter, it’s exasperating at most and writing it here just helps solidify a case in my mind about why I’m exactly the sort of guy they should want in their university. Maybe it’s also helpful as a whine-detector. Annoying nasal sound detected, activate alternate dialog!

Anyway, next week there’s some change of preference events on at some of the universities which is hopefully going to be useful for research, particularly since I’ve not visited a couple of the campuses in person yet. Obsessive researcher that I am, I’ve already got a spreadsheet of useful contacts, suitable courses, costs and even travel plans and alternative study pathways. There’s more meat to put on the bones yet but ultimately come the 18th of January I’ll be able to take one look at the VTAC offers and scan down my sheet to take the best pre-planned pathway. This also means I’ll need to come up with a numerical value to assign to the quality and cost of beer on offer at the various student bars, these are the sorts of dilemmas I face! (cuh, like you’ll be able to afford beer sonny jim!)

This Christmas, in our new house. It’s going to be great to have some time off. I can always throw myself into Chinese. So any time I’m feeling at a loss I have something practical I can do. I don’t really like uncertainty mostly because I’ll run out of things to research and analyze and they’ll be nothing left to do but wait. Perhaps I should try aim to just relax this Christmas instead?

Chinese has a great saying which seems appropriate. 说起来容易做起来难… easier said than done.

I get that, so I’m not bitter about the fact that this has happened. The Australian games industry really should have done more to become more than a spill capacity workshop and be more of a generator of original games product. That said I am bitter about how the publishers had no problems at all using up the very last of our capacity generating extrodinarily well produced pitches with playable demos, art and all that jazz when really, we never had a chance. We’ve even got so far as knowing that we were the best guys for the job, recommended in the aquisitions process, only to get vetoed by a senior figure. Obviously some guy mates with a local studio.

So there you have it, I’m redundant just in time for Christmas. As previous posts hinted at, this isn’t a stressful occurance because I’ve got other interests I want to pursue. I also reckon my employer will stay in business and I’m looking set to do some contract work in helping to pitch for business which is pretty much a dream casual job for someone in ful-tme study. I’m very grateful for that.

I feel a little introspective about games though. I grew up with people of my generation playing games in the 8-bit era, but really it was the technical aspect of computers that I was most involved in and I only got dragged into games when the Amiga died and I had clung on past the use-by because I loved it so much. Course then along came multiplayer gaming and I was deep in that as far as you can go and I was lucky enough to work right at the heart of it when it was exciting and radical new stuff was happening all the time.

The games industry will bounce back but not before a too-late catestrophic realisation that 2011 is looking like a bare cupboard. Kind of bad timing for main line games because small handheld and digital distribution are not only the new golden boys but they’re going to look like the only gig in town after next year.

Paradoxically two days after being officially redundant, on an otherwise relaxing Sunday, I’ve got to head into the city for Australia’s games industry trade show that starts today. That’s going to be to be a sombre affair to say the least. For my part I’m going to a “games in health” forum which is about the medical use of videogames in rehabilitation and so on. I’ll be glad of the distraction from glum game developers while new markets and new approaches is where I see my interests moving towards as well, games as well. It’s a big world out there, there’s more people online in China than the population of the US. That’s a brave new world I want to be a part of.

On the other hand my part in the games industry proper should be out with a big bang tonight, Epic are putting on a party in the evening and last year in Brisbane in lived up to it’s name. I think there’s one thing that the Australian games industry will be in agreement on, right about now we could all use a drink.

Really though? No, not this time. It’s just not a dance I feel like doing. I’m of the view that I’d like to properly settle down and dig myself into a good career that can make use of my skills in some area I find interesting. I’m pretty sure that’s something to do with International development/relations/politics relating to China. I don’t kid myself though, I don’t really have those skills to walk into some job. Hah, I want to work in some area I don’t really know that much about? I must be bonkers!

There is a sort of method to the madness though… I’ve banged on at some length about the difficulties I’m finding with pursuing Chinese as someone who works on a part-time, self-learning basis sort of thing…. the solution was always something like University. Well, there’s just not many other options. I had set myself up for a pretty gruelling couple of years enrolling in the TAFE part-time course at RMIT in addition to working full time. The only reason I’d subject myself to that is if really did need that nice full time high paying job. The thing is, I don’t think I do…

The ducks have sort of lined up pretty quickly. Work stuff is coming to a head to the point I’m not sure there’s a job for me and quite frankly I’m tired of feeling like that’s somehow my fault, which is a familiar frustrating feeling having been here before. Financially we’re okay, personally I mean. I can afford to pack it in and go to Uni. I mean, it would mean cutting back. A lot. Not many people are this lucky though and I’m pretty confident of my ability to pull in some wonga too, a happy side effect of being that jack-of-all-trades. As for course fees, they’re pretty cheap. I made significantly more share trading last year than what a degree course costs.

These ducks, though, couldn’t they have lined up a bit sooner? It’s now the 25th of goddamn November and a couple of days ago I had NO idea how the hell you apply and I can tell you I’m still not that sure. Australian University web sites, and the VTAC system etc, are what you might call… eccentric in usability terms. All sorts of deadlines have slipped by already but I think it’s still doable. Not at the Uni I’d really like to go to, but thems the breaks. Three or four years of learning very cool stuff, some overseas placement work, nice varied getting about to campus, doing some odd jobs for wonga, and studying out in the back yard with the parrots to keep me company. I reckon I’m mentally prepared for that, no not just that. I’m positively looking forward to it.

38 years old and student scum again. It’s going to be weird. Just as well I like weird eh?

Then they want to engage you in what you do, but only briefly because they’re not that interested. What they want to do is say “I can’t believe there’s people that play games for a living” in some way, either shortly before or after they tell you about how their children, neice/nephew etc loves games. If they are of a generation that plays games, they genuinely want to know more. This will inevitably involve telling you about what games they play, it will never involve a question about what games you play but it will involve what games you make and that inevitable kicker, what games did you make? Anything I would have heard of? Saying you make handheld games (but not iPhone) is another barely hidden disappointment generator. It’s interesting watching for the ‘tell’ as people nod enthusiastically.

So what do you say?

Well I dunno sonny, since we didn’t make Gears of War or Halo I’m guessing that’s a “No”. Then you get the disappointment. This is exactly the same sort of response, incidentally, I used to get when I was a journalist. I was a specialist press journalist so writing about games or computery stuff, or industry computery stuff. When this comes out you get the badly hidden disappointment face. To be fair, journalism is a weird one. It’s sort of up there as a job in respect but when you drill in any detail at all, respect vanishes with an audible pop. I dare say if you were a war correspondent or Charlie Brooker, then you might escape. For everyone else… Tough titties.

Back to games… If you talk about what games you do make as being something that really neither you, nor your interrogator, are likely to choose to play such as, well, 99% of the gaming product launched today if we’re honest. Like, say, Pony Friends. This gets the understanding smiley nod, ah right you make games but nothing actually very gamey, but I suppose it’s technically games. Just like the journalist conversation; ah right you don’t write for the Sunday Times but I suppose technically you’re still a journalist.

Both are met with this initial elation of interest that cannot possibly be maintained.

It’s curious really because you could do many professions and get a nice response, some respect and maybe even some genuine interest in what you do. “I’m a musician” for example or in Australia more or less anything which involves honest things real people should do like playing football, cricket or even sailing and windsurfing. Inside stuff, gamey stuff, science stuff… bad. There are whole lots of people, people in their 40s with children for example, you don’t want to mention computer games at all with because they hate them. Inside is un-Australian don’t ya know?

It occurs to me I’m being crushingly cynical here after all it’s still a way better exchange than telling someone you’re in marketing. In my experience this was very very bad indeed and quite curious really when you consider than anything people actually like is probably the result of marketing. Marketing itself, though, must be uncomfortably close to seeing the puppet strings  so it’s a form of devious manipulation to be genuinely despised. I’m reminded of how often ‘spin’ comes up with politics these days. Spin is bad of course, presumably the view is that if the politicians does a good job then all the newspapers will write nice stories about how they’re doing such a good job. Rather than the reality of the situation in that ‘spin people’ are a necessary evil in the same way lawyers are.

So anyway… these days my response to “what is it you do” changes depending on what sort of person is asking, even going so far as to create a fictitious job for when I really can’t be arsed to have the conversation. “purchasing manager at a stationary company”.  This works, I assure you. Try it! If anyone has a better one let me know.

If you are having the Crust Convo, they’re going to ask what you do, exactly, in the collective enterprise of making games. I feel a bit hard done by here because I think the conversation would go better if I was an artist or a programmer (and they do have fascinating jobs!) but my response of  “the business guy” isn’t that bad. It’s not marketing bad.

So what’s that like?

You want the truth? Well some times it’s the best job in the world. Other times, like when times are tough, you feel like it’s entirely your fault that there’s not enough work and you’re having to let go of a bunch of people. Those times I feel like ending it all, you know what I mean Larry? So Larry, what is it you do for a living? Oh you’re a purchaser at a stationary company? Brilliant!

So what of other hobbies?

I’ve done almost no diving for some time now. That’s set to change with a trip up to Queensland next weekend on a live-a-board. It’ll be great to do some ace diving in warm water, and this time I’m going to bust out a video camera having recently acquired one (as used on the above shot) and a suitable waterproof housing. That’ll be fun!

On my Chinese studies, my classes stopped and I wasn’t inclined to enroll in any more since, as discussed earlier, I think I’m well past the point where these sort of casual hobby classes can work. There simply isn’t a market for them so virtually no schools. I enrolled to RMIT part-time next year but that doesn’t start until Feb or so. Private tutoring is definitely on the cards but right now I’m quite enjoying self-study – particularly due to the amount of extra time I have on the lengthy train journey to and from Belgrave.

I’m also reaching a sort of critical point, I think, where I call myself genuinely intermediate although with a heavy bias on the written language. I’ve started reading Tin Tin books in Chinese, which is pretty awesome. I’ve also signed up to QQ and hang out in English chat rooms with Chinese people where I can help them out and they can help me out from time to time. During walks I tend to listen to Chinese Pod podcasts, less so Popup Chinese purely because the CP ones are generally lengthier and I get value out of trying to understand the reasonable amounts of improv Chinese in each one.

When things settle down a bit, I’ll probably look harder for a tutor. In the mean time there’s a million things to do with the new place not the least beginning preparations for the upcoming fire season. Well, that’ll be interesting…