Things have been pretty manic around these parts recently. Thought I’d talk about what’s going on. Haven’t really done any personal posts here, or anywhere, in quite some time to be honest. I haven’t had a lot of creative energy recently but I think there’s a pretty good reason for that. Maybe even more than one.

It’s not gonna be a long litany of depression as my mood has been pretty stable and pretty decent (bar the odd dip but that’s pretty normal right?). One big thing going on right now is that my working environment has drastically changed in the last 2 or so months.

I started a new job half way through February. In case you didn’t know, I work in a hospital. One of the biggest in the country, 500+ beds in fact. Big for my country OK? OK. Anyway, my last job was that of a medical secretary in the adult psych department, which, let me tell you, was something of an eye opener. And it was a pretty decent job. It had OK wages, I could afford to pay the bills and keep a roof over our heads etc. and it was absolutely zero pressure. I could do that job in my sleep. I’ve been working in various departments as a medical secretary for years and this was the least taxing job I’ve ever had in my life. It left me a lot of time to think about game dev and other creative projects. It left me with plenty of energy at the end of the day to do extra curriculum activities. But man was it boring.

So I got a new job. A promotion in fact. I’m now responsible for 3 busy departments. I have 4 staff. Well, I should have 4 staff, I really have 3 staff. Though hopefully getting that vacancy filled soon. We’re spread very thin across the ground and it’s a struggle to keep everything going but we’re managing. And while this job is way more stressful it’s actually kind of enjoyable in it’s way. I can actually affect change now that I’m in a more managerial position but it’s taking much more out of me too. Less left in the tank at the end of the day. But that’s OK, the stress gets left at work and I can still enjoy my time at home though I do have less energy now for myself at the end of the day.

So that’s one pretty big thing that isn’t gonna change, but I don’t think I want it to. Another factor is of course my Wife. Her hours are pretty messed up as she works as a social care worker, working in a residential setting with moderate special needs teenagers. A very challenging job. What that means is that I’m left on my own to look after our kid in the evenings. It’s tough, but I’m OK with it. When my Wife is on nights it’s harder again, and I’d prefer if she worked hours more similar to mine but she enjoys her career and I support her in it. I’m pretty used to looking after our (16 month old) daughter these days but in the last couple of weeks she hasn’t been very well. Which is a total energy drain for me, every drop of energy goes to making sure she’s OK and eating well and all that stuff, but it took a turn for the worse last weekend when she got a fever which spiked at 40 degrees C.

We took her to the local children’s hospital A&E and they did a great job looking after her. She’s nearly completely better now, we even took her to a petting zoo today and she had a blast. Incidentally she took her first steps on her own this afternoon walking the length of the hallway on he own (proud daddy).

My health has never been amazing, I have a compromised immune system. Something I was born with, a genetic defect of sorts. And lately I’ve been a little under the weather. Nothing major and nothing to worry about but add everything in together and you can see why I’ve not been able to really contribute anything decent to my blog and game development has essentially come to a stand still bar a few easy to implement features (still proud of ’em though).

Working will be shifting into high gear over the summer as we hit holiday season and people start using their annual leave so I’m gonna have to keep an eye on those energy levels but I hope to get back to some semblance of a proper posting schedule soon enough with content more interesting than ‘oh god, I’m so tired, when will this eeeeeend!’.