Back in the summer of 2002 (2)

The summer before I went to the US we worked terribly hard putting together a promotional CD for my university. It had virtual visits from all the bits in the campus, tons of video, a lot of design here and there. It was quite a task, and took the best of my time during that summer. Although I learnt a lot, specially about video production, and I remember having the time of my life while we produced it.

After a year of that production, stuff had happened on my campus, buildings were built, more majors were offered, and thus the CD needed some updates. Daniel and I programmed and did most of the thing, and we weren't very nice in documenting the stuff, so anyone trying to tweak it would have a hard time understanding all of our messed up logic and disorganization. Daniel had gone to Canada to study his Masters, and that left only me to help them out. Which meant that I had a good job waiting for me when I came back, yay!!!... He he he.

Thanks to that project I got to do great multimedia stuff all through the summer, which kept me busy, and as well I got the chance to meet Erik, a guy who has come to become one of my closest friends. Erik, Julio and I did a lot of stuff during that summer. I remember Julio and the way he was hooked up with this girl [who happened to be a hideous bitch later on, but we didn't know that at the moment]... Sigh... That was a good summer.

Before my departure the CITE consisted of only 3 people, Daniel, Rosario and me. We would be the ones doing design, 3D Stuff, Flash and all that for all the campus. Actually at that time the guys in the university really didn't see why would they care about multimedia, and the promotional CD was something that we started out of our guts. It started looking great and growing fast, so before we knew all of the departments where chipping in and wanted a slice of it. That was fun, but still, the production area consisted of a crowded little room in which only Daniel and I fitted with our computers and stuff (and we did have a lot of stuff). At the time I came back though, there were about 7 guys working on multimedia stuff, and they had moved the office.

That again sucked... I mean, not only did they changed my house, but my office as well. That wasn't really my job, it had become my life. It was the coolest area to be working on the university, they paid me to have fun, and every bit of time I had free I was working. [All this while most of my class mates were playing Age of Empires of whatever other game in some lab]... I missed Daniel, and the old ways to be honest. But with time I started to like the new people a lot and to win a place among them... So that was good.

With Abby I chatted and emailed, even tried to call a couple of times to see how she was doing. It was odd to me that she hardly ever replied my mails, but she kept saying that she was terribly busy working and all. Which I knew was true, so although it saddened me a little, it just didn't bother me that much.
[A bit later I came to realize that was one sucky symptom of something not right going on...]

And thus the summer flowed, July came and with it my birthday (22nd), I am not a birthday person and don't care much about celebrating that day. I was more excited about Abby's arrival, she was supposed to get here on the 24th, and it was 22nd already!. I was upset that she didn't make it for my birthday you know... Why couldn't she fly two days earlier?. Of course her boss was to blame.

I didn't have anything planned for that day, as usual, and so we were just having a regular day in the office when one of the guys suggested we should go out and get some coffee. That you don't have to ask me twice, so we all flew like a flock of caffeine starving crows to our dearest Mondo stand. (Something close to StarBucks). We got the coffee, good times.

When we came back to the office I felt a weird vibe in the air... Something was going on, although I really didn't know what. I even felt like the guys where hiding something from me... I don't like that.

And then... I saw it. Standing in the open area in front of our door was a huge human sized gift box. Just there, all alone, in a huge white open area... Everybody was quiet... And it was my birthday.

I get nervous when stuff like that happens, I could feel my heart about to jump out of my chest. I can talk in public, sing, and play music, teach, anything... But when all of a sudden the attention is all focused on me, and I have a weird sense of expectation and I DON'T control the situation, well, I just don't do well.

Of course I approached the box... I was left alone at this time. Everybody knew what was in there, and they just stayed behind. The box was all wrapped with a cool Garfield paper, and had a nice white ribbon on top. It was time to open it.

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more coming soon!.

ps. Thanks Mishka for bringing back to my mind the fact that I wanted to write about all that... damn... to remember is to live all over again, I swear. Good times.