Streaming, Life Situations, Motivation - A Quick Vent

So this (hopefully) won't be as big of a pastebin as my other ones; just wanna get some stuff off my chest and keep the people who do actually follow me out of the dark.

If you watch me stream regularly, you'll probably have noticed that I have not been doing it nearly as often since AGDQ ended. While it's usually something I do at least 5 out of the 7 days a week, I have been intentionally missing doing it on some days (including today, actually). I did have a bout of the AGDFlu a few days after returning from the event that put me out of commission for the rest of the week, but what about now? What's my excuse?

Well, if I were to be completely honest, it's the post-AGDQ sadness. I am quite honestly just a lot more bummed out recently.

AGDQ being done isn't the only reason I'm feeling so sad, but it is a big contributing factor; that week was phenomenal. But on top of that, as well as getting as sick as I did, something else happened that I can be a lot more open about now.

I've alluded to it many times, and a few times I've outright mentioned it on stream, but I've been looking for a new job. The one I currently have is in no way a bad one, but it does not allow me to have the life situation I want; currently I live in a really quiet little county, at least an hour away from not only my girlfriend of almost 5 years, but also many of my closest friends. I frequently struggle with the paranoia that I'm losing all of my non-speedrunning friends, and that because I'm so far away from them they'll eventually forget me. Compound this with the struggle of being a 23-year-old living with his mother, and my home life can get very stressful, so it's no wonder I've been looking for a way to start fresh.

I've tried to keep this kind of low key, because I did not want word reaching my current employer that I was searching, and for them to get the wrong impression that I was having a bad experience with them, because that's not the case. I'm very grateful to have the current job I do, it just does not give me what I want, and likely won't ever be able to. As it turns out, however, my team leader has been aware since he joined that I have been looking to leave, and he was also willing to give me advice on how to do it, so now I feel a lot more comfortable being open about this.

So where does this all tie in? Well, I applied for a statistician job. It took a couple weeks but I heard back from them and went in for an interview. Things went well, and I was told to expect to hear back in early January (around the week of AGDQ). So I waited all week during AGDQ to hear from them.

I never did.

I was starting to get concerned at this point so I decided to call the person I interviewed with. No response, so I eventually e-mailed the person I originally came into contact with, asking about a status update on my application.

AGDFlu kicked in and I came down with a really high fever that night, and in the morning I woke up to not only a temperature of 103, but also an email telling me that I was not chosen for the position.

This took a few days to process in my head, but eventually I realized just how much this sucked. I thought my interview had gone great, and I was really looking forward to working at this place; it was probably the closest to a dream job I had ever reached. It was just exciting to think about. I could have finally worked on something that I was very interested in, and I'd be closer to everyone and everything that I love. It was RIGHT THERE... and then it wasn't.

I hold no ill will against the place; I understand that there are probably hundreds of applicants, and I just was not fortunate this time. But I felt so confident that I had nailed the interview, that it was a bit sobering to find out it wasn't enough.

The fact that I might be stuck where I am for even longer has been really bringing me down this past week. I've been looking for other opportunities, and while I think there are a few, it's still discouraging, especially when a lot of the positions I'm looking for are either out of my pay range, only temporary, or they're all at the one place that I already applied to (I did submit another application for a slightly different position that seems even closer to what I want to do, so we'll see where that goes). I have hope that I will be able to live my life the way I want to soon, but it's also hard to be optimistic sometimes.

All this stuff involving illness, post-AGDQ blues, and my continuing job search has really killed my motivation to do much of anything, and a lot of the time I probably sound super jaded or cynical while I'm talking. I promise that I'll be fine; I have been at these low points many times in the past few years. But it does take its toll on me.

Additionally, I have been finding it really hard to convince myself to actually do runs, especially in NST. I've just become kind of bored of it lately; I don't dislike the game at all, and in fact still love it. But it's hard to want to do runs when I don't enjoy any of the Any% categories, and all the completion categories require a lot of a time due to their length. Additionally, it's no secret that NST is somewhat lacking in the movement department; I don't think this is a bad thing, but now that I've been diving more into games like Spyro and A Hat in Time, their much more interesting movement has got me intrigued to improve in those a lot more than NST, and even then pushing myself to do runs in those can be a chore. Really, the only reason I streamed yesterday was because I was asked to, and I thought to myself, "Eh, nothing better to do." And it truly was fun playing NST again, but taking that first step is really hard recently.

I still have things I want to do in NST, namely pushing 102 down even further; I know 2:10 is possible in that category but time will tell if I have the mental fortitude to take it that far. I'd like to do more in All Gems and Warped 105 but I'll see how I feel, and of course I still have the 312 I have to make time for (which honestly would have been much easier had I gotten that job and been able to move). I don't see myself taking a break (or even retiring) from NST any time soon, but it is something that has crossed my mind a couple of times; like, I've poured so much into it already, what would happen if I just decided to stop? Would anyone notice? Or would no one care as all the credit for how far it has gone, especially Crash 2, goes to other people? Something I think about quite a bit, considering the whole "I feel like I get largely ignored" complex that plagues my mind.

As for my Top 20 Favorite Games videos, progress is moving a lot slower than I would have wanted. I hit a massive writer's block just as I was preparing scripts, and every time I think about how daunting of a task it is, I end up just not doing anything on it. I currently have four scripts out of twenty done, which is definitely not the progress I want to be at. AGDQ and my illness helped in the delay, but a lot of it is my own laziness and lack of motivation. I said the videos would push it back to February, but I definitely bit off more than I was expecting with this series; it could be as late as March or April until it comes out depending on my pace, but I also don't want to rush it and have it come out half-assed. If I'm going to do this series, I'm going to do it right.

This turned out to be a lot longer than I was anticipating, but that's just a "quick" update on why I may not seem as active as I was before AGDQ. I'll bounce back from all of this I'm sure, but it might take some time; I'm quite tired of many factors of my life right now, and I have a lot on my plate if I want to make things better.

Thanks for understanding, and I'm sure I'll see you all around; I'm not going anywhere, even if I plan on being a little quieter for now.

~Riko