NEW MEDIA: Toys

Well it’s 2:30 in the morning and I’ve found myself a new computer game: Powerpoint.

When I got Microsoft Office 2000, I purchased the Small Business Edition which didn’t include Powerpoint and I didn’t think I’d ever have use for it versus some of the other programs included in the SBE suite. What I tried to work with for a New Media project was an old version of Powerpoint I reinstalled from a Windows Office 3.1 (yes, 1994!) and tried to work with that. But it proved too frustrating to get what we needed, so I was able to purchase an upgrade of Powerpoint 2000 separately and I’m teaching myself that as I work on a storyboard flowchart as well as a slide show for the project.

Lots more fun than the Minitab Statistics program.

Oddly enough, I’m enjoying the creative end of production of a narrative much more than I thought I would. The kicker is that what I’m doing is so primitive compared to what’s available and what (I hope) I can get into further down the line.

Uh-oh. There’s a little voice in the back of my head whispering that I really, really need to take some computer graphics courses… (Professors Timmons and Ersinghaus will remember my “Christmas Catalog” version of Spinning that I put together with the thought of a Jaguar British racing green and saddle interior with a red font metaphor for “hot.”)

Wonder if I’ll ever end up with that degree when I keep putting off the “required” courses to take the ones I want to take instead. But this does confirm one thing to me: I’m glad I’ve put the Bachelor’s out of my priority lineup and decided to go for the courses that are exciting, interesting, or more in line with what I want to accomplish. Of course I’ve racked up over 70 credits already for a 60 credit program, and it looks like by the time I graduate I’ll end up with at least 80 or 90!

But the purpose of this education, for me at this time at least, is to learn what I want to learn. The need-to’s come in with their formal training of thought process, and I suppose the bonus is just the extra different ways of approaching life and whatever it throws at you.

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