eurydicebound

...or at least that's how it feels today.

So today was the last day of my contract at NCsoft. As experiences go, it was a really good one. Some of my fellow employees there had a less good experience, but even for them... well, the team was one of the best it's been my privilege to work with. We're looking at a monthly get together, which I'm excited about although it seems it will take place on a weeknight, on a night I have classes, so perhaps I'll end up having to miss the first few for classes, as although I could get a babysitter to handle kids, that won't help me get through my Art History class. Still, I'll figure something out.

There are a few items on the downside today. Firstly, last day of work. That only gets so good. Second, heard back that I didn't make the next cut for community writer position at Snowblind Studios, which is somewhat sad. Had possible plans of dinner with friends that ended up not materializing. That, however, is it for the downside.

The upside? The upside, my friends, ROCKED. So first of all I had an interview over my lunch. I apparently now have a part-time job as a research assistant for the forseeable future. It's not going to pay for everything, but it will pull out taxes (which will help me considerably for the year) and it will help me shoestring things along a bit longer. It's not necessarily sexy, but it's a lot better than no income -- heck, it's better than unemployment, and I can even scale it back a bit and keep it after I get a full-time job. Yay!

But that, that was just #1. #2 is that through the generosity of

mysticalforest and

trueunicorness I have some new (well, new to me) hardware -- an iPhone and a Mac laptop! Both are awesome, and totally what I need moving forward. The laptop in particular is a huge boon for me and I really, really appreciate it. It's so much more than I ever could have hoped for. Thank you.

#3 is that to celebrate the awesome experience we had working on Aion this summer, we had an "end of contract" party. Special guests (because yes, there were special guests) were Red Heart Alarm (a very good local Seattle band), author Greg Bear and his wife, Astrid (who makes totally awesome yarn and wore gorgeous socks) and Phil Foglio! We got to sit and chat and generally have a good time, and then Phil did a small presentation thing, in which he whipped out a script for a Girl Genius radio play. :) Missing his normal cast of players, he called upon various members of the audience to come up and play the parts, and I got to read Agatha! *squee*

It was FABULOUS and so much fun. I can't even tell you. Dave Noonan was Krosp, King of Cats--and yes, that was just as entertaining as you'd imagine--Fran Stewart was Zeetha, Eric Bear was Othar Tryggvassen, Jess Downs was the Narrator, Conor Sheehy was alternately dead slavers and The Salesman, and

scarlettina was author Wolimina von Trappflapp (I got that character's name all wrong, I know it). Phil was various and sundry other characters, and everyone else got to be the pirate crew. More than one person observed that there seemed to have been some small amount of personality-based typecasting, a concept which both frightens and amuses me but which I can't actually form a cogent argument against.

This was, bar none, the best last day I've ever had at a job. I'm tired and happy and a bit sad, but overall I'm grateful. It was a hell of a good run and I'm proud of what we've accomplished.