"Wow! Look at that office! That's so awesome!"

I turned around, and I saw pictures of my old office, at the design firm I interned with for a summer and worked with part-time last year.

(If the economy hadn't turned sour and forced them to downsize, I would be working there in Pittsburgh today.)

Apparently my ex-grad school took a field trip to the design firm, and they got to tromp in the president's office, which filled with many orange playpit balls up to about knee level.

Yes, I know. I've never had a normal job in my life.

My first job was Sesame Place, and someday I'll share with y'all a nice picture of me holding Grover's head while wearing his body. Good times.

I then spent a year teaching a computer skills class at my college to freshman students.

Then came my research job, where I sat in pajamas all day and watched little kids read while trying to analyze their mistakes.

After that, I had the design firm job. That job really stimulated me on an intellectual level - I was doing real interface design and surrounded by many really intelligent people. The fact that we had a "geek toy budget" and robot dogs and offices full of bright orange playpen balls was just icing on the cake. Around the time that I left, they started doing some cool experimental installations and things. (I wonder if I'll ever end up back there...)

Right after the design firm internship was Sept. 11th, and my job prospects there dried up, sadly. Many of my friends were let go.

And of course, after that there was the Disney World technical internship, which I could gush about for years - and TA'ing a class about virtual reality worlds, and now I make video games for a living.

In retrospect, I guess I'm not too surprised that my little brother is trying to do things exactly like I did. Not that I think it's the best idea, but we'll see. [He thinks he wants to major in Computer Science like me, God help him.]

Incidentally, he brought the manual to the SimExpansionPack to school and showed everyone my name in it. "My sister made this!" A little embarassing, but a cute nonetheless.

Anyway, it was bizarre seeing Ted look at pictures of my old haunt.

But then Ted started looking at pictures of my grad school at IAAPA [the amusement park conference I went to last year] and I missed that industry, and I got a little sad.

I know I'm lucky, and I'm going to ride this video game train out, but I hope I get to go back to theme parks someday.

For now, I'll enjoy the undeniable satisfaction of seeing our products on the shelf. Next week, the Game Boy game comes out...I'll be able to look at the box behind the glass at good old Targ�t and say, "I made that, too."