Frantically and flustered, I rushed to COFA. Will my white hard disk with all my precious backups of my various work and sound resources still be at general access lab F104? It was the afternoon of Saturday 28 Nov, and COFA Annual was coming to a close on Sunday. I didn't plan to go to COFA.

"Hi, excuse me, I err, had my hard disk on this Mac", I said to a lady who was working on the Mac which I left my hard disk plugged in the day before. She smiled and pointed to a hard disk on the desk. "Oh thanks! Thanks a lot!" It was such a great relief. I went to a Mac and logged on, and funnily, I saw a thumb drive with a key chain bearing the name "ANNA" on it plugged into this Mac. Someone also forgot her thumb drive! Anna? I wrote her an email to let her know she left her thumb drive behind, and that I would keep it for her in case it got lost. " ... I'll be at COFA on Monday to take down my work at COFA Annual -- it is called 'Anna's World' at F106."

So since I was in COFA, I went to F106 to look at other students' work. As I was looking at Cosmin Hrincu's portfolio, a kind looking gentleman walked in and headed straight for Anna's World. He said to his family (a lady with her daughter), "I like this one". I was touched! I couldn't help stealing a glance in their direction, while they were intently watching Anna's World. "Is this your work?" they asked when they saw me smiling, and I said "Yes". "It's based on Mister God, This is Anna?", asked the nice and friendly lady. "Yes, have you heard of it?" And the kind gentleman nodded. "We also have an interactive one - for iCinema", I said enthusiastically to them, "Please take a seat here... you see, I'd tried to put this as a Web version... actually it runs in iCinema... we just had a screening on Thursday, and I am trying to request another screening next week for someone I really want to show it to... well, if it comes through, it would be really nice to invite you to see it too!" They smiled, and their genuine interest and enthusiasm sent a warmth to my heart. The gentleman said to me, "I came here on opening night and I like this. It's beautiful." "We have one of your bookmarks", the lady added, smiling. And they said encouragingly, "keep up your beautiful work!"


Anna's World bookmark

It was quite a bit of work to get Anna's World iCinema version to work on the Web (working till the wee hours of the morning to find a way to put in cameras so the user could still navigate around Anna's World, putting in the sound for non-AVIE version, improving various aspects including collision handling, floor boundary, closing the house door, daisies in shader, adding a title and instruction, testing the VMO...) and getting help from CSU to install windows on Mac (it didn't work well on Mac OS X). But it's all worth it! I'm really glad I could bring Anna's World iCinema to COFA Annual! :-)

Little Sarah, looking pretty in her beautiful frilly white dress, covered both her ears with her hands. Sitting in the front row of EG02 with Esther and Daniel, she watched Anna's world turned topsy-turvy in red amidst loud gust of wind. I couldn't help smiling whenever she does that. She has seen Anna's World couple of times in the studio CG09, so she knows what to expect. And when Anna says "Last piece, violet", Sarah turned to me and said, "The spell is broken!" I looked at Daniel and we both smiled. It was really nice to see the kids at COFA Annual opening night on Tuesday 24 November. It would have been great if their parents were there too to hear their voices - as Anna and Jaws!

"Anna is beautiful!" Professor Trevor said to me, with a warm smile. I was so delighted. Everything becomes so worth while! Despite his very busy schedule, Professor and Carmen, together with Patrick and Vivien, came to see Anna's World on opening night.








You see, one has to see Anna's World with the heart.

Sarah said, "the spell is broken!"... Sarah covered her ears .....