It's so global!

It's been nearly two weeks since we all got our job assignments, now.

I was really expecting to end up as a coder, but things didn't turn out like that at all. In fact, I doubt that I will ever have any direct contact with coding again in this job. It's hard to be sure, though, since I'm in uncharted territory.

It's kind of scary, but I think this is giving me an opportunity to make things better. There's a lot of room for improvement, and if I learn quickly and can be convincing enough, things should start improving.

Even though I'm working in IT, I feel like I'm doing something good in the world. I think about all those times when I wished that things were easier here, and that people at least acknowledged the idea that we're not all the same, and that accessibility is important.

There's a lot of room for improvement in the department of accessibility. Not just the easily overlooked issue of language selection. There's so much that I notice, which implies that there is so much else that I'm missing.

For instance, take Japanese movies. I went and bought a really cheap DVD player about a month ago and have been renting about 4 movies a week since. A lot of times I don't want to think so much, so I just rent some horror movies and comedies. Occasionally I feel like watching something in Japanese, despite the fact that almost all of my interactions during the day are in Japanese now. (Save my conversations with one of my co-workers who spent a year in the states.)

I'll pop in the DVD. It'll start up. I'll try to put on the closed captioning. (It makes it really easy to understand, rather than having to actually focus on what people are saying.)

Only thing, there is no closed captioning on the disk.

For me, it's a mild inconvenience, but for so many others who have limited or no hearing, I can only imagine. When I was gathering works to cite for my thesis last year, I read up a bit on the history of subtitling and closed captioning. It played such a large role in the development of deaf education that it just blows my mind that most films are released here without. I usually just rent, and so the argument could be made that perhaps I'm missing out on the closed captioning on disks released for purchase, but even that seems like an absurd stretch.

I dont know that I really have a point here. Think about people. Just be aware.

Werk

I've been in training for about 6 weeks now.

Therefore,  I have the strong urge to redo the design of this blog with my own code.

We'll see.

I'm also pretty lazy, so... yeah.

Also, I'll be 23 on Sunday. How's that?

Happy 2012 and all that

Let's make it a good year. I don't want to use this as a place for petty sadness.

So, let's graduate and get on with life!

I've been working part time at the company since November, and I'm still liking it there. The people are pretty great. Even if the hours sound really terrible, it feels like people are feeling some compulsion to work, and are actually doing something during those long hours.

If you find worth in it, there is nothing wrong with working, eh?

Also, I watched a few of the movies from that list of horror movies I posted a few months back.

Primal was horrible.
The Unborn was nice.
Contagion was also pretty nice.

Really, by the end of Primal I just felt sad.

Some trailers.

Primal (Josh Reed, 2010)

The Unborn (David S Goyer, 2009)

Contagion (Stephen Soderbergh, 2011)