I was not able to get much work done on my Get Something Done Challenge because I was polishing my resume, my interview approach, hitting the pavement, and other crucial job-hunting practices...

...is what I would like to say. Actually, I frittered away the later half of the week in a strange mixture of acting like a jerk and watching the magical girl anime series of Sasami: Magical Girls Club and Princess Tutu.

You may fall off your chair laughing now.


Machismo be damned, Princess Tutu was a masterpiece.

In retrospect, what filled my days was actually a strange pastiche of soul food. On the surface, I was having too much fun to work on my GSDC, but beneath the surface (if Raph Koster's Theory Of Fun is to be believed) this was because I was learning something:

• When I making an ass of myself on Scott Jennings comment threads, I was bolstering my self-confidence to question the falsehood of popular sentiment.
• When I was watching Sasami: Magical Girls Club, I was deriving a bit of emotional education about interpersonal relationships, the core of the series and something a socially withdrawn fellow such as myself rarely experiences firsthand.
• When I was watching Princess Tutu, I was again giving myself a bit of an emotional workout, as this anime jigsaws between laugh out loud and tear-jerking situations that hurt just right.

Another could find error in how I spent my time, this I do not deny, but in my defense I would contend this error was deeply in the vein of, "to err is human." My logical priorities were completely overridden by wandering across some very right stimulus at the wrong time.

Why my attention was wandering is likely because I'm back to hating my project again. Not because it's boring so much as because it's inadequate: there's something vital missing, I can't put my finger on exactly what. I don't feel right putting out something that's so soulless.

In regards to the GSDC'10, I don't know what's going to happen in the next 72 hours. Even in a state of a competition, it seems I'm less the driven engineer and more the temperamental artist, and as such extremely vulnerable to the fickle mood of the muse. Worst case scenario: I'll submit what I have regardless of my craftsman's objections.