The GHZ Forum

I'm a computer engineer. I make HD TV channels and video on demand happen.

My degree is in animation, but I'm not technical-minded enough to handle the intricacies of Maya or 3D Studio Max or whatever they're using these days. I mainly just like drawing pictures, which is not enough to survive on and I'm not particularly good at it anyway, so I gave up on all that.

Now, I mainly teach English to bumpkin Japanese high school kids who all need a goddamn haircut (but they do like my pictures!).

I worked in the video game industry for a couple of years. Now I don't.

Anyone else ever try it? It isn't that inspiring.

Popcorn wrote:I worked in the video game industry for a couple of years. Now I don't.

Anyone else ever try it? It isn't that inspiring.

Are the horror stories true?

Depends who you work for. If you don't work for Valve, then yes, it's all true.

with sustained 60-hour weeks

Is this not completely normal?

Someone's been in Japan too long.

Average work day here is from 8 to 7, six days a week or 5 days a week then half days on Saturday and Sunday. Most people also don't take lunch breaks any longer than it takes them to devour whatever they bring, usually about 5 minutes.

I don't think there's any problem with this!

It sounds fine, as long as you have no other commitments whatsoever.

And really enjoy your job.

I went to look up the rate of suicide in Japan to be pedantic and decided that 24.6 suicides per 100K people isn't actually very funny!

GG, is it possible to see any of the work you did for your animation degree?

Does any of it involve Elbows?


Does all of it involve Elbows?

Green Gibbon! wrote:Average work day here is from 8 to 7, six days a week or 5 days a week then half days on Saturday and Sunday. Most people also don't take lunch breaks any longer than it takes them to devour whatever they bring, usually about 5 minutes.

I don't think there's any problem with this!

Heh, here in China lunch breaks last an hour at least, usually one and a half. Even classes have mandatory ten minute breaks in the middle, though they're two hours long and have 30 or so students. I'm clocking in at about 16 hours a week altogether. Comes with an apartment and utilities, though I probably lucked out on those way more than most usually do.

You can't download porn,though, can you?

It sounds fine, as long as you have no other commitments whatsoever.

Most people don't. In the states, "job" and "life" are usually considered different things, but here they are one and the same. Mothers with young children usually do leave earlier than everyone else (when they can), but only by an hour or two.

Now on the other hand, people here seem to have evolved to require much less sleep. Everyone I ask swears they sleep for no more than 4-5 hours a night, so I guess they still have time to do their personal shit even after long days. I wish they'd teach that trick to me...

GG, is it possible to see any of the work you did for your animation degree?

I think I deleted all of it except for some still renders. The only thing that might still survive elsewhere is my thesis animation, and if I had my way all traces of that also would be erased from history.

Green Gibbon! wrote:You can't download porn,though, can you?

Not without a VPN, no.

(I have a VPN.)

Also here there are no creepy motherfuckers on the subway just ogling girlie mags in public next to woman that are obviously uncomfortable but too polite (scared and weirded out) to do anything about it. At least that I know of. That really has nothing to do with anything I just really fucking hated those guys.

So have you eaten any weird shit yet like dog?

Or is that Korea?

It's Korea, I believe, but it's here too, sometimes.

Do bugs count as weird shit? I ate silkworms a while back. They were roasted in their cocoons, which were charred black, and you had to pick them apart to eat the milky-white silk and the bug proper. The silk was okay, but the bugs themselves were really goddamn sour. The girl I was with was just burning through them, though. Loved them bugs. Apparently she ate them all the time when she was a kid in central China.

I'm a art student right now. I don't think I'm good enough to make it as an artist at like pixar or anything, nor do I think I have the drive to really follow that. I'm actually thinking of becoming a highschool art teacher/judo teacher when I graduate and work on art or comic books durring or paint during the summer. Honestly being a teacher doesn't sound to bad. The pay might not be great but I'd get summers off and health insurance to basically grade a bunch of drawings.

Gibbon what are your experiences in teaching? any advice?