Connor, Cole and I went to see Juan today. Went to the diner and then the mall, as usual. It was nice seeing my old friends. Predictably I didn’t get too much work done during the day but I did manage to work on my portfolio a bit and get a few pretty significant changes pushed to it. I feel pretty conflicted about how to present the site overall and no matter which way I go with it I feel like I’m missing out on something – which I suppose is quite literally what’s happening (insofar as any choice is made at the necessary exclusion of all other possibilities) but it leaves me feeling constantly unsatisfied and, as a result, frustrated with what I perceive to be a failure in articulation.
Made a lot of progress today, managed to finally finish up the station BG (next time, let’s keep the image sizes much, much smaller…) and also got some work done on my portfolio, although I haven’t pushed the changes live yet. I stumbled across the work of Pippin Barr again, having cursorily encountered Eveline two or three years ago; I went through his site today and it’s been very inspiring in terms of motivating me to start building the case studies for my projects that I mentioned the other day. In particular, his process documentation (alternately, you can also read the high-level rundown here) is really thorough and impressive, and I hope to be able to achieve similar levels of articulation and legibility when it comes to explaining my objectives and workflows for each my projects. My goal then by the end of this week is to get at least one decently started, and live.
Got called into the office shortly after I woke up today to set up the new ScanStation, which ended up being a far more arduous ordeal than I reckon anyone initially anticipated. When I got back home I wasn’t really in the mood to work on anything but nonetheless I feel pretty motivated to get some work done still and tomorrow I have a good feeling I’ll be able to work for a sustained period of time and make some good progress.
A good amount of progress today on multiple fronts:
– continued painting the station BG, about 60% done at this point and all that’s left really are the tracks (which admittedly is no small task but at least an end is within sight now)
– set up integration between Discord and Bitbucket to track my commits in a private server using Zapier. Not strictly necessary for anything, but it was a nice change of pace and looking at the server and all the commits really helps ground my motivation
– completely reworked the “work” page on my site, it looks a good deal better now and presents more information about each project
At some point – hopefully this week – I want to create full case studies for each of my projects as either MD or HTML files and put them up on the site so people can get a better sense of my objectives and challenges with each project. It’d certainly strengthen the portfolio overall, and I also reckon it’d be pretty nice just to brush up on my writing in general.
I’m also thinking about doing some general restructuring overall for the website, as it’s been quite a while since I’ve updated it design-wise: maybe a bit of the proverbial spring cleaning couldn’t hurt.
Just got back home. Feeling vaguely exhausted, both from the trip overall, and because earlier I ingested an inappropriate amount of marijuana and entered some kind of dissociative psychosis for at least two hours. Towards the latter end of said state, I must’ve left the bag containing my clothes either in the station or on the train; nothing too important or irreplaceable, but that contained two of my higher-quality shirts so I’m feeling a bit disappointed in that regards. Earlier today I got a decent amount of progress done working on the backend for the splash screen. Overall, I’m satisfied with the work I’ve done today.
Went to the sea with Sawyer today around sundown. It was very pleasant and I got a few reference pictures. Earlier today I got a good amount of work done on sprites for the Document… but then GameMaker hard-crashed and I lost about an hour’s worth of work. After that I lost all motivation to continue working. Otherwise though it’s been quite nice here so far and I feel like this trip was well worth taking. The weekend has passed quickly yet I don’t feel like I’ve wasted any time whatsoever.
I’ve been feeling a bit more motivated to work on stuff today and in particular, for whatever reason, I feel interested in working on the Document again. I doubt this feeling will last too long so I’d like to make the best of it while I can. This weekend I’m heading to the sea for several days so perhaps that will help invigorate my senses.
Sawyer came over last night and we went to see John Wick 3. I enjoyed it. I haven’t gotten much work done these past two days but tomorrow I’ll get back to work and try to implement some new stuff. Maybe I’ll try writing again as well.
I was too tired to make a post last night but it wouldn’t have mattered anyways because I did nothing all of yesterday. I’m making this post now, at 11 in the morning, because despite my efforts otherwise I have a strong feeling I won’t be doing much of anything else today either. I started work on the backend for the word processor earlier but I can’t work on it anymore for some reason as I feel seized by a sudden spike in anxiety.
Got a little bit of work done today on some portraits. The weather outside was even nicer than previous days (although currently, there’s heavy rainfall, thunder even, and it’s become very humid) but again I didn’t really do anything except sit inside at my computer all day. I have few objectives next week save to hopefully increase my productivity overall and actually get some tangible work done on things. Maybe I could finish the framework for Chapters 0 and I. We’ll see, I guess.
Spent most of the day in an exaggerated state of unease. I was able to start and finish a BG, which I suppose is a good amount of work, but getting through it was a struggle and I feel like I’ve wasted the day. The weather these past few days has been exceedingly pleasant but other than sitting outside for ten minutes or so during the evening I have no reason to leave my room and consequently I feel like I’m wasting away these days. I’ve been acutely haunted as of late by the horrible realisation that time is truly passing – often, it seems, at imperceptibly elusive speeds – and I can’t help but feel I’m wasting away my youth. Nearly an entire year has passed since I graduated (although honestly, it feels like much longer) and I’ve done absolutely nothing, although I’ve certainly tried to do things. But no matter what I do, I feel irreparably trapped in a state of listlessness.
Pretty much wasted the entire day either feigning the ignorance of sleep, or playing video games just to pass the time. I woke this morning briefly having suffered a strange nightmare in which two actresses whom I admire stayed overnight in my room along with a friend of theirs and when they woke the next morning their friend was gone and they were convinced I had killed her. I fled in slow motion and eventually I began falling upwards away from them into the sky: slowly at first, but then further and further, till their contorted, screaming faces were just tiny white specks upon the landscape, and then nothing. It was a strange dream and put a complete damper on my mood for the rest of the day. May is already over halfway over and I barely seem to have perceived its passage. Tomorrow I’ll try to get back to work.
Another day with very little work done; but at least I made an attempt. I claned up the documentation for the IRC UI earlier today and then started working on the startup / boot animations. Ultimately I didn’t really end up working on the animations at all, but instead I got the splash screen done instead – or at least I started working on it. I looked at it just now and it doesn’t look anywhere near as good as I remembered it looked an hour ago, though… which I guess is how these things usually turn out.
Finally got back to work on something today: decided to sit down and work on the backend for the IRC client interface. Not only was I able to finish it, but I actually got it working better than I’d initially hoped, and was able to add a few features to it that I hadn’t planned but are pretty neat. Tomorrow, I’ll get to work on creating the GUI for it (although it actually already looks pretty good on its own, so it’s just a matter of a few finishing touches); once I’m done, I’m thinking I’ll do a write-up for it as well since this is the most complex singular piece of code I’ve built in a while. Here’s the result in action:
Honestly, I feel a slight sense of accomplishment in having not only implemented something fairly technically involved so quickly, but in the process of doing so, transcending my expectations and assumptions about what I believed I was personally capable of as a programmer. My success with this has given me confidence in my abilities as a programmer, which I believe will be very useful at least in the projected short time in convincing me that I’m able to solve problems I previously thought I couldn’t.
Despite feeling like absolute shit and pretty much waking up at 1400, I actually somehow got some work done today – not much, but it’s a start. I wrote the backend for the interstitial chapter screen, animation and everything. It still needs work obviously but just getting it started, however minor of a thing it may seem, still constitutes some progress, which is good.
Yesterday was the first day since I’ve begun recording in this log that I failed to create any entry whatsoever for the day. For some reason I was just too tired to do anything and, although I recognised on some level that I was slipping in my most basic responsibility, I just couldn’t summon enough will to do so.
I’m really feeling that today as well, yet here I am.
I’ve been very slowly working at the very narrative spec document for the past several days, which means I’ve kept it open and looked at it for a bit and every other day, if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to write around fifty words before finding myself unable to continue no matter what. I’ve been feeling completely adrift these days and I find it difficult to think about anything anymore. I find myself constantly distracted but by literally nothing, or at least nothing tangible that I can identify.
The day passed by without incident or sensation. I can’t even really remember what I did most of the day. I didn’t even try to work on anything today. Only now have I just realised that it’s Saturday, meaning the week’s almost over. I can barely remember the beginning of the week.
Went down to the university this afternoon to see my old friends one last time. We talked a bit about the past, but mostly about the future – or the lack thereof, anyways. It was almost just like old times, except back then, there wasn’t much of a future to talk about. Or more likely, it was there all along, but we were removed enough from it at that time to ignore the feeling of it pressing down upon us. Anyways, with the graduation of all my friends, I suppose that chapter of my life is now officially over. Time to move forward. Or at least try my best to not fall too far behind.
Woke at 5am today in a state of amplified anticipation for the reveal of the new Ghost Recon game – and it not only delivered upon, but completely shattered my expectations. The new title, Breakpoint, is basically everything I’ve ever wanted from Wildlands, and better. I couldn’t have asked for a better game. Now, to wait until October…
This really incentivises me to find some actual work this summer, instead of just sitting around mired in the same pit of anxiety I’ve been living in for the past few months or, depending on how you look at it, the past few years. Now, I’m not interested in working just to pay off necessary debts and expenses; I actually have something to work towards that I want. It’s a good feeling.
I got some work done today as well on mapping out the overall narrative structure of We Are Young; I don’t think I’m ready to start writing fully writing anything still, but I have been feeling a bit better as of late in terms of motivation.
The weather today was very pleasant. I went outside and sat and looked at the sky for several minutes but it felt much longer. It was bright, and I felt okay.
Got some work done today on new character portraits. Nothing substantial, but a decent start on getting back into a more normal workflow. Hopefully, little by little, I’ll be able to recover from this… whatever it is.
In other news, although this isn’t related at all to my work in any way possible, there’s some information dropping about what appears to be a new Ghost Recon title on Thursday. Rumour has it it’s some kind of new title called Breakpoint with an October release date, that takes place on an island and continues the Skell Tech plot line established in Wildlands. There’s no confirmation yet of anything but I was reading up about it on some forums and there’s apparently some gameplay video showcasing the player covering themselves in mud in order to infiltrate a base… as well as claims of:
– inventory management – rpg elements – stamina meter, you get tired if you go uphill – you have to eat, drink, basically a survival game
Now, I don’t want to get too excited about what might turn out to be just total hearsay… but if any of that is even remotely close to the actual final product, well, all I’ll say is that this will probably be the first title for which I’ve ever been uncontrollably excited.
Woke up this morning to an email telling me that I was no longer wanted in the restaurant because they were looking for someone with more kitchen experience. Well, I guess that’s settled then.
Obviously I’m disappointed by the fact that, just when I thought I finally go a chance at recuperating from utter impecunity, I lost my sole source of income. But in another sense, I’m actually pretty relieved. The job was utterly draining and after working just one shift I would come back home and for the next day be too tired to even properly gather my thoughts, let alone formulate new ones. Maybe that just dooms me to unemployability. I don’t know.
Either way, now I have a whole lot of free time again. Hopefully I’ll be able to use it for good, and not just waste it away like I usually do.
Spent virtually all of today working on this needlessly involved spreadsheet tracking my various loadouts across characters in Wildlands. Not really “work”, I know; but it felt pretty good to work on and looking at it brings me the same kind of satisfaction I get from completing actual projects, so I’ll count it towards my overall productivity.
No outline for next week; I haven’t actually accomplished anything from the previous week so I suppose all those things will just have to carry over until whenever I feel ready to actually get back to them again. I don’t know why I feel so drained all of a sudden. I hope this lifts soon.
Another completely unproductive day. I’m trying not to take any of this too personally, or as an indication of my abilities (or eveident lack thereof)… it’s difficult though.
Mildly intoxicated. Started the visual documentation earlier today, didn’t finish it. When I got off work today I thought about killing myself again. Nothing particularly bad happened. I just feel like my will to continue living is being siphoned out by the very forces that I’m supposed to rely on in order to keep on living. Another fifty years of this…
Starting off the new month feeling particularly cold and useless. I spent the entire day (or, well, everything after 1300 anyway, since I couldn’t find within me the will to get out of bed until then) more or less just staring at a blank document trying to convince myself to write something. After about five hours I finally just gave up. All the tips and advice people give you about “just writing anything” when you can’t write what you want – it’s pretty much just bullshit. I pretty much haven’t been able to write anything substantial in months. Maybe I’ve just grown too complacent. Maybe I just don’t have it in me anymore.
Yesterday I wrote a post saying that it was the last day of month in a state of exhaustion only to realise (just now, as of this post) that in fact, today is the last day of the month. So I guess that’s that.
On a positive note, I got paid. It wasn’t anything exceptional, but it covers my imminent debts and brings me back over the critical red line in balance, so it’s good enough. I have off tomorrow, which gives me time to work on stuff. I’m not sure what I’m going to work on yet; hopefully I’ll feel in a decent enough mood to work on 6.0. If not, well…
I submitted my application for a thesis prize earlier today. The reward is $1000, which is no joke – that’s more than I’ve ever had in my bank account at any given point in time. I don’t know how likely I am to win it (probably not great…) but it’s the fastest and easiest way I can quickly gain some financial leverage at this point in time, so it’s worth a try. I’ll hear back in June. By then, maybe my circumstances will have changed…
