It's hard to believe that we're at the end of the year, let alone the end of the decade. When this decade began, I was finishing my last two quarters of college and was eager to jump straight into the Electronic Entertainment Industry right away so that I can finally start learning about game development. I was filling out papers for the JET program to study abroad in Japan in hopes of getting a different perspective in life. I was still dead set on working with concept art, animation, and design. I had my whole future planned out and I thought I knew where I was headed.
Between that time and now, I've worked for an international online gaming company for 8-months, participated in two game jams to help out friends from the Videogame Development Club that were still at UCI at the time, had 4 games published, switched over to music and began studying composition and production, and ended the decade with going to Japan for two weeks, and finally getting my first real job for two short weeks this past month since 2011. Now my life is full of uncertainty and doubt. Despite that, I know I'm stubborn and will probably continue to work towards getting into the game industry as I improve my abilities with working on music and continue to study game design. This decade didn't go according to plan and I feel like I didn't make as much progression in my life as I had hoped I would. But it's not all bad!
After getting laid off from my first job in 2011, there wasn't very much for me to do as I kept looking for work and submitting applications. At the very least, I was still able to play games with a friend online from time to time. But near the beginning of 2012, some friends from UCI started playing League of Legends and we all brought friends together to play in-house games. For an entire year between 2012-2013, I played LoL every night and got to know all these strangers who were friends of friends. After arranging a meet up in 2013 and hanging out with them in person, we all had gotten closer and have since then deviated off to playing other games other than LoL. It's rare to go throughout a night without joining chat to play games or even just chat for a bit ever since then. I've met so many new people and made so many new friends in that manner that I find myself lucky to be in such a unique position. I think that's the greatest story I'd have to tell from this decade.
I never imagined that I'd be working with music as a career path, and yet I spent most of my time throughout the day practicing music, making music, arranging and remixing music, and constantly learning something new out of it. With that, I was fulfilling a lot of childhood dreams I had of recreating my favorite videogame songs. It's been a strange decade, because there's a lot I'm disappointed in and regret. And yet, it felt like such a fulfilling time in my life as I reflect upon it.
This past month has been pretty hectic, mainly because of the job I took up that pretty much kept me busy throughout the entire day. Originally, I had planned on finishing everything in 12 days and so I worked on Saturday and Sunday for first week as well in order to complete all my tasks by the second Friday. Unfortunately, some plans were changed and I got a lot more work and was given more time to do it. Not wanting to drag it out, I worked harder each day instead and added an extra 2 days. It was an interesting experience, but it's definitely not something I'd want to do in the long term. (I'm purposely not talking about it too much since I signed an NDA and don't know how much I can actually talk about it without getting in trouble).
Two days after my last day of work, the Steam Winter Sale began. I really did try to keep my spendings to a minimum this year, especially after my Japan trip. I did a good job throughout the year, but it was all for nothing after these past two months of spending. Despite my efforts to keep the amount spent for the sale, I still bought quite a few games. I'm even thinking of picking up a few more before the sale ends in two days (I'm in this deep already.....). I've been playing games with my friends when I can and have had little to no time to play my single-player games this entire month. I finally finished my last two remixes for the year:
I'm probably going to finish up my last video project, create a new one for all the games I've played the past few years, plan out the upcoming year, and then finally just relax and catch up on some games because I feel like I haven't stopped working or just "doing things" since the beginning of November and I feel really burnt out.
I'm currently experiencing some discomfort with my nose cavity and throat feeling dry, a slight headache, fatigue, and some queasiness in my stomach. I hope I'm not getting sick leading up to the new year and new decade. I did all that I could this year and this decade and perhaps I'll reflect on it a bit more, but it's almost time to start planning for a new future.
Happy New Year 2020!
