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Update

Heya, it's Q1 of 2023 and while I haven't had a good track record of keeping things I started on alive, I'm kind of glad that I had the chance to work on this website last year. It's a real comfort to know I have something very real tucked into the back of the internet amdist all the noise. I feel like I'll be using this site as a kind of journal. I know it's not exactly private, but I also know that it's not something I announce for the whole world or my family to see.

Life has been a bit of a pain but mostly in the okay direction. I'm 32 now and I've mostly settled on some things like my career, my hobbies, and my romance. Family and social interactions is an entire other thing I struggle with STILL. But it's cushioned a bit by life plans, and what feels like a steady life partner. Hopefully we don't need to be on this country for much longer than necessary so that we can start actually living life instead of surviving it. There are some luxuries that I've experienced in the past that I want to see her experience.

Work is fun

Work is kind of a mixed bag because of how much I love the project I'm working on. My boss is really kind and has been an absolute champ learning and managing everything about the project. I'm actually amazed by the amount of art concepts he's learned in order to be able communicate requests properly, or to fill in gaps in our team. I love what he's done so far but I do feel that he's stretched out so thin that he's extremely lacking in certain areas of the project. I tried stepping into the art director role this year as I've had the most general experience in art direction. I suggested this as a temporary fix so that we would have a bit of cohesiveness for the art we produce as we wait until the actual art director he's recently hired familiarizes themself with the art of the game. While I don't believe I'm an expert, I believe it was a necessary intervention because I want this project to be a success, and I am at the moment the most familiar with what we have. What is turning me away though is one bad egg. While my boss may be a good boss, I don't believe he has a lot of experience in dealing with problematic/toxic people. I've had a lot of friction with one person on our team who I ironically vouched for. At the time, I was confident we could have a good working relationship/partnership because despite her technical skills not being up to my personal standard, I believed they were good enough to work from. What I didn't account for was the amount of control issues she has. Every interaction with her has spiraled into a long mess that involve guilt tripping, gaslighting, and all sorts of accusations. I couldn't even get files from her to work from, and it boggles me that we keep her on the team still. I am so tired of having to redo all her work just because they're not up to the standard of what even our beginner contractors do. It pains me more that I don't bill the corrections I do, knowing full well she gets paid a higher hourly wage. I've resorted to diving into another part of the project that needs my attention (away from said bad egg) Turns out I'm really good at python and I have a future in pipeline development should I wish to quit the art scene!

Ironically, I tried to quit some time a month ago when it all came to a tipping point, and I couldn't do it. I've done too much on this project and, I do realize I may be putting too many of my eggs in this one basket but I genuinely believe that the game we're working on could be something fun and something that I'm proud of, and I would hate to see years of work go down the drain just because of one bad egg. My partner is encouraging me to rethink this though. I've rejected a number of head hunters in the past few months, but I'll try entertaining one or two later.

Hobby Stuff

I have a 3D printer now by the way. I got it some time in January of this year. My partner got rid of hers and passed it down to me. I spent a lot of time and money fixing it up so that it works as if it were brand new, and I've had fun printing a bunch of stuff. I'm thinking of going into cosplay but I've backed myself into a corner buying non environment friendly print material. I should've known better than to use PETG over the more popular PLA, but I think this is just a small part of learning something new. I'll start posting pictures when I feel like it.

This is also the year that I finally hit my financial minimum for migration. (Very excited) This means I get to sort of enjoy my money while I wait, instead of scrimping and saving for every little thing. Thus far, I've spent money on upgrading TV systems (For my uncle, not me AHAHAHAHA), cellphone parts (to repair my family member's phones, again not for me HAHAHAHA), and a Steam Deck (TOOOOOT) The steam deck I bought Saturday April 15 (2 days ago) while out on a date with my partner. It was legitimately the only win we had on that day so it makes me happy to have been able to get it considering I've been drooling about the damn thing pre-release. I still need to buy accessories for it so that I can use it as a legitimate work station but I'll get there after I settle on accepting such a large expense. I've come to terms with the fact that I need to spend resources such as Time and Money if I want to be able to do things that I genuinely enjoy (which it turns out, happens to be fixing things!) Management of Time and Money has been a recurring source of trouble in my family, it has also slowly crept into my relationship with my partner. So I want to be able to learn how to deal with that as soon as possible