January 12th, 2019

Gaming year in review: 2018

2018 was a year where I spent less time on most of my hobbies, and gaming took a hit as well. Though I didn’t play that many games, I still wanted to put together my annual year in review! This is where I briefly review the games that I played throughout the year that are “new” to me (i.e. I haven’t played before, are remakes, or have new content – no replays).

First, let’s reveal the favorites! As usual, this is picked from games I played in 2018, which may or may not have released that year.

Favorite Single Player: Super Mario Odyssey
Mario Odyssey felt like a combination of two things I love: Mario 64 and open world games. I loved being able to explore each area and figure out where the moons were. It had the whimsical fun that you’d expect from Nintendo games, especially using Cappy to take control of your enemies. There’s been several Mario 64 clones, and this one exceeded my expectations.

Favorite Multiplayer and Favorite Indie/Download: Full Metal Furies
I normally pick a different game for each category, but since I didn’t play that many in 2018, I decided to award both favorite multiplayer and indie to Full Metal Furies. Done by the creators of Rogue Legacy, this is a co-op game featuring 4 women of different weapons and play types. Even with each character, the play style changes depending on the abilities you chose for each skill, and you could mix and match to fit what you need. The game has fun dialog and was an enjoyable challenge that really made you work together to get through hard battles.

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January 1st, 2019

Year in Review: 2018

Happy new year everyone! It’s time for my annual year in review, and wow… 2018. What a year. 2018 has brought about really big changes in my life, so let’s get started on recapping!

Life in General

My life had been pretty stable with little change for many years, but 2018 was definitely different. I spent most of the year pregnant, and then in August, my daughter, Talia, was born!

It’s kind of funny because I wouldn’t describe myself as a baby person. Prior to Talia, I never really held a baby nor cared about other people’s babies that much. It’s a different story when it’s your own though. I know this will sound cliche, but she really has filled mine and my husband’s life with so much love and joy. (Though sometimes we look at her and think, “weird… we have a baby now… THAT’S WEIRD”.)

We also made the big decision of living off of one salary, which I’ll probably write about another time. My husband decided to quit his job and become a full time stay-at-home dad. I know we’ll be fine with my salary, but it’s still a huge change to suddenly cut one salary out of the picture.

As for my own work, there were big changes there too. In the beginning of the year, the engineering department restructured into smaller teams, and we all got Agile training. The team I used to manage was split into two smaller teams, both of which I still manage. I also got promoted! I’m now a Senior Engineering Manager!

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December 26th, 2018

New beginnings, sort of

Hello and welcome to Paper Stars! Over a year ago, I said that I was going to move my blog, Silent White, to a new domain, and here it is finally. I originally wanted to have this up early this year, but I ended up pushing it off. With all the pregnancy and baby stuff I was dealing with, I sat down and made a list of priorities. Moving my blog was just not at the top of the list nor anywhere near the top.

As mentioned before, part of the reason was to somewhat start anew. All entries from 2017 and 2018 have been moved over. Some entries from 2014-2016 are here, but I deleted many of them. All entries from 2008-2013 have been removed.

I wanted a new domain name too. I love the name Silent White, but I didn’t originally choose it for a blog. It was an art site at first. Silent White is also not a very personal name since I took it from a song title. So, when thinking of a name that meant something to me, I thought of origami – something I’ve loved since I was young. Then I remembered the origami stars that a couple coworkers and I made for our team and how everyone on the team now has a jar of stars on their desk. (The one in the header is mine.) Thus, Paper Stars!

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