The8bitbeast’s Life Update 07 Sep 2019

The8bitbeast’s Life Update 07 Sep 2019

So a lot has happened since most people would have heard from me last. I thought I’d give an update and some explanation of what’s going on IRL and why you haven’t seen much of me lately.

Last time I did one of these updates I was finishing my Master’s degree. That’s all done now and I’m properly graduated. No more assignments for the near future :)

Since I graduated, I was on the job hunt for next year. I applied to heaps of places and was prepared to move all across the state for work. I basically had planned to keep doing my part time jobs along with speed things until next year.

Turns out that plan didn’t happen at all and I picked up a full time job this year! I found out about this about 5-6 weeks ago and since then I have moved about 5 hours away. Now I’m settled in and teaching Maths and Science full time!

This has been a massive demand on my time and the last few weeks feels like a haze. I had to start as soon as possible, so I actually went several weeks doing this job before I had even spent a full day in my new house. Along with this, I was staying in a bunch of hotels until I could find somewhere. This is actually one of the first times I’ve been able to sit down and do something hobby related.
It’s a fascinating difference now because my productivity outside of work depends on my energy level, whereas it previously depended mainly on my free time. Of course it still depends on free time a lot now too.

Along with this I’m super homesick, but I’m still in contact with friends from my old location and meeting lots of interesting new people through work.

I’m still bogged down with planning and marking, but as of this weekend I’ve been able to fully plan several days ahead and have a clean slate of marking. So I’m starting to think about speed things again.

There’s a few projects that I’d love to do. Firstly I’m always interested in doing more episodes of the Tool-Assisted Podcast, so I’ve always got my eye out for interesting guests. Secondly, I’m working on a TAS of land of illusion for the Master System. I haven’t touched this since I found out I got the job, so it will be good to get back into this. Finally, I want to make more quality content rather than focusing on quantity, so I’ve been looking into producing some Youtube videos to explain Banjo speed stuff among other things.

RTA will be taking a back seat for now (apart from trying out new TAS games). I feel that it chews up so much time for the reward it produces and I can’t give enough time to make meaningful contributions.
I know that a lot of people go through something like this in life and decide that they need to give up speedrunning related stuff. But to be honest, this is a super important part of my life. Even if I can only be a spectator in the community sometimes, it is still amazing and I’m so glad that so many people share a similar passion. Even though you’ll be seeing less of me now, I still really appreciate everyone who has enjoyed my projects and I really hope I can continue to make high quality contributions to the community when I have the time and energy.

So that’s it. You’ll probably see more of me during the holidays and weekends. But to everyone reading this: thank you for making my hobbies so meaningful and enjoyable. I'm really happy I get to meet so many awesome people through speedrunning too. We have an amazing community.

8bit