Time has passed since last time I wrote... during which my motherboard died and took 2 memory modules down with it and corrupted a hard drive. Everything fixed now.

A few months back I got a job offer, involving teaching ~12-year-old children how to make games using Game Maker 7 during a week-long course in the summer. It sounded interesting so I accepted the job. Ok, I would have accepted it either way, my budget really doesn't allow me to turn a job offer down.

Two weeks ago was the week I held that course. It was scary as h-ll the first day, and I thought I had completely taken water over my head. I thought that perhaps this was way too advanced for a bunch of kids to learn in such a short time! The day after, however, most of them had apparently swallowed and digested most of the things I had said. I've been teaching university students before (who studied game development) and they actually learned -slower- than the 12-year-olds. Long story short, they got up to speed quickly, and even though most kids had a hard time "getting into the mindset" of programming they learned the basics pretty well. I didn't expect them to understand how to think about programming during the short course, but at least this might have planted a seed of curiosity in them.

Later in the summer I will return for another week with new kids. Apparently, there were so many applying for the course that it was enough for another week.

I have also got a job offer from the University itself, as a programmer and game designer for a research project involving learning Japanese. I'm not really nervous about this at all, even though I know none of Japanese and even less about Flash which will be the tool I will implementing the stuff in. I don't need to know any Japanese, but I will need to read up on Flash.

Does anyone know of good and nice tutorials explaining the basics of Flash? Preferrably the latest version, and not an old one. I do NOT want to read about old versions just to unlearn what I've read a moment later.

I've also talked myself coarse with people at the University about finally putting together my degree. One course in animation using Maya this fall, and then it's only the project in spring (which could theoretically be the work I'll do for that research project). Then I'll be able to move from this town without feeling like I've left unfinished business behind.

This summer is awesome hot. I love it.