Thankfully, the last two entries wrapped up all the craziness that involved school, but life outside wasn’t exactly sitting still either. Fortunately, nothing as crazy as the events at my school happened, but still quite some big events happened.

Foremost on my mind was the job hunt. Last month I had applied to over 40 game studios, and had been waiting anxiously to hear back, since we did only a few more weeks of school left after all, and we were required to complete an internship immediately after our classes were over. I had made some backup plans, planning to go to California to do post production work (outsourced audio work for film, TV, games, etc) but I was dead set on trying to get a in house audio job at the game studios. Things were not looking good though.

Of the 40+ places I applied, I only had heard back from about 8 or 9 of them. A few said I was not qualified enough, a few said they did not take internships, and a few said they would love to take me, but couldn’t at this time. Ugh. Many have said I was lucky to at least hear back from that many, even if they didn’t bring any good news, but I didn’t feel to thrilled.

Things got interesting though in mid july though, when after begging my intern coordinator for the 100th time to help me find places to apply too, (as he was against me getting an in house game studio job and wanted me to do post production instead, especially because I was a top student), I finally managed to have a breakthrough with him. He mentioned that one of our past graduates was working at Volition in audio, and that he would try to get in touch with him for me. Well, I was certain I had checked out Volition’s website before and didn’t apply because there was no audio jobs open, but that night I decided to check the website again and there it was.... JOB OPENINGS: AUDIO INTERN. I applied immediately, and even better yet, I was soon in contact with the audio lead at Volition discussing the position.

The battle had only just begun though. What would follow was the longest waiting game I ever had to play, with me having extreme anxiety over the matter. Despite me talking with the audio lead at Volition through email quite a bit, he only pretty much had told me to apply, submit a good demo reel, and hope for the best. He was pushing for me, but he said ultimately it was a group decision and he could not guarantee that I would get the gig. GAH. Well, I had a decent demo reel and I had applied but a week went by, no word back. The audio lead at Volition would take a few days at a time to respond to my emails as well, so I was unsure of what was going on. Two weeks have gone by and finally I got a response to my emails to the audio lead. He was responding to my questions on the status of the position, saying they would be choosing soon, and that I should do another sound design demo. Fair enough, I wanted this so bad I was willing to do anything. I asked him when I had to get it done and submitted by. He said. “two days.”

Well, I scrambled those two days, working through an entire sleep deprived night, but I managed to get a kick ass sound design demo done, and I was proud to send it off to him. Unfortunately, he only replied with an “Awesome, good luck!” Another week went by, so I emailed him again to find out the status of position, but no response. I was getting worried now. But not before long, I got a call from Volition’s human resources saying they wanted to set up a phone interview with me! YES! But it was yet another week till the phone interview. Gah. The waiting was killing me!

The phone interview came, and it went generally well. I felt it could have gone much better because they (group conference call) asked me a few questions about my creativity that I got hung up on answering. It was questions that essentially asked me to explain my creative process, but I had trouble answering because the creative process for me is extremely random! Other then flubbing my words up on those questions though, I felt the rest of the hour long interview went well. They told me they would be making a decision by the end of the week.

Well that was the longest week I ever lived.... but the end of the week came... and no response! AGH!? What was going on. I didn’t want to email the audio lead anymore, because it probably would have been pushy at that point, and I realized I just needed to be patient.... Well, a few more days went by and still no response. Talk about anxiety attacks. My phone never left my side for this entire time. I swear I would not miss the call. I did start getting worried though I was not getting the job. This whole time I felt really confident about it, and everything about it seemed to be like puzzle pieces falling into place. The audio lead was pushing for me and a graduated student, the start date for the job fell almost immediately after my classes were over, and I just had a good feeling about it.

Not only that, but now being the end of July and only having one week left of school, I had to have talks with my intern coordinators on plans for work while I waited to hear back from this company. I planned to just stay in Arizona getting random intern hours here or there until I found out a yes or no. Fortunately, I did not end up having to wait much longer. A couple days later, after almost missing the phone call because I went to get a banana to eat, I got the job offer. I don’t think I need to say what my response was.

Still, it turned out a little wacky because now the job wasn’t starting till September, when It was supposed to start in August, so that still meant I had to stay in Arizona for awhile getting oddball hours here and there. I didn’t even care though, I was thrilled to have gotten hired!

Other than that extremely stressful job waiting game... I found myself actually hanging out a little bit more as well. One of my classmates who I got along with very well had always been inviting me over his place, but I had kept refusing. Vowing to become more sociable, one weekend I decided to go.

It actually turned out to be a really fun day and night. We cooked food on the grill, which was amazing for me since I haven’t had grilled food in a long time, and I even drank some beer with him. We ended up playing some music in his studio room, I got to play drums again after a long break, and then we ended the night playing Banjo Nuts and Bolts, and we had a blast creating these ridiculous vehicles! I was also surprised because when we were cooking food later at night, we had a good hour long talk about life at the kitchen table, and it was very cool, and I felt like I became much closer to him. Sort of like in the Persona games when you build the social links. It felt like that. HAHA!

Not only did I find myself becoming closer with him, but I found myself having getting much closer to the rest of my classmates as well. Considering we were being slammed with work as we approached our graduation, I wasn’t the only one spending ample time after hours at school. I bonded with quite a few of my classmates at school late into the night as we worked together on stuff by once again just having deep conversations about life. There were two instances that really stuck out to me, as they both involved the much shyer kids in our class. One classmate would never talk, but I ended up being the one to help him with his 10th cycle project. Well, it turned out we had a lot in common, and he was just really introverted. He opened up to me quite a bit since I understood how he was, and he poured his life out to me that night almost. The sad thing was, a lot of it was similar to mine. (Lack of friends, girlfriend, shy, not going out ever, not drinking or doing drugs, etc) The other kid I bonded with was also a shy one, and our conversation was very interesting. Somehow we started talking about women, and I mentioned how I thought foreign women were so much better then American women, and he almost shouted at me. “ME TOO!!!” and he got a huge smile on his face. We ended up talking for over two hours well past midnight on why we thought foreign girls made better girlfriends. Once again we also had a lot in common on the subject.

But despite all the Persona 4 social link building I was doing, in hindsight I still wish I had did more. These great moments I was having made me realize I needed to go out more, but still most of the time I was just staying at home. I mean, I was having these bonding moments at school after all, so I sort of wish I would have been able to extend our friendship to other places outside of school. Still, I got to know many of my classmates to an extremely deep level, and they are people I would never forget. At this time though I did not realize we would all be leaving in only a couple more weeks. I might have spent some more time with them. At the time, I was just happy having met them, despite not nurturing our relationships more.

So I did find myself socializing and getting out a LITTLE more and in general I felt it was a good month. One last horror was left to tackle though. The power went out in my apartment, and it wasn’t coming back on.

I came home one night late from school (around 3AM) and I noticed that all my lights were very dim, sort of emitting at half power. My alarm clock was also going on and off, and I was getting freaked out at what was happening. Then I realized it was probably what they call in the west a “brown out” which is when there is like half power. It very much sucked my A/C was not working full blast as because in Arizona’s July even at 3AM, it was about 95 degrees out.

I decided to go to bed though, but was not happy to what I woke up to. I woke up and all the power was out, and I was absolutely drenched with sweat. I looked at my thermostat, and the temperature in my apartment was already sitting at 96 degrees. It was about 110 degrees outside. This was not shaping up to be pleasant. To make a long story short, our power ended up being out for for two whole days. My apartment got up to 101 degrees. Try sleeping in that.... What I was most upset about was lots of food I lost since it spoiled. The day before the blackout, I had went grocery shopping, buying 2 gallons of milk, eggs, chicken breasts, and 3lbs of cheese and lunch meats. It was all spoiled. I lost around $50 worth of food. I did manage to take the chicken breasts to my friend’s house to cook, so I would have lost considerably more food if I did not take some over there.... All and all, it was a terrible experience. Sitting in a 100+ degree apartment with no power was no fun.

Speaking of which, July was probably the hottest month for me in Arizona. I was not there for September, but in July we had days that were literally 120 degrees, and everything just felt hotter. What I mean was that in June and May we had days in the 100s and 110s, but it felt no where near as hot as the 100s and 110s degrees days in July felt. I guess the heat had finally had the time to soak in. The swimming pools were like hot tubs. The air was like a convection oven. I used to drive with my windows open all the time but in July this became impossible as the air was just too hot. I would sweat my shirt up on my 5-10 minute drive to school everyday. I firmly believe you could fry an egg on the pavement... It was hot!

Still though, in hindsight, the weather was bearable, and I prefer it over the coldness and humidity that I have thus moved into. It also ended up getting cooler towards the end of the month as well, and it never really got as hot again through August, and I would suspect it didn’t get that hot in September as well. But that is gone now.

And that wraps up the happenings for the month of July in Arizona. Only one last blog in the series before my move to Illinois and my memories of Arizona will be complete. Till next time.