2024

2024-11-30

This year was really hard. Not just for me I know, everything seems to progressively get worse by the minute, but I turn 26 tomorrow so I just wanted to vent and do a little retrospective on this year. Yes I am going to bitch and moan about stuff, but I've decided to end this on a happy note about all the things that went well this year.

You gotta take the good with the bad right?

Papers, Please

So the first whopper of 2024 was a silly little mistake the Canadian government made with my work permit extension application. I could bore you with all the details of what went wrong, IF I HAD ANY. Yeah I still don't know what went wrong. All I know is that I had to do the walk of shame to the Service Canada near me to get my biometric information scanned three. fucking. times. I spent all my savings just staying in the country surviving and paying rent because I couldn't work or get paid while my visa was expired, all the while wondering how far I could stretch my money so I didn't have to go back to Brazil.

Fuck that was is stressful. I'm still recovering from the financial damage, and the psychological strain just perpetuated my ever-present feeling of geographical insecurity. I was 10 when I left Brazil, and we left in a hurry. Now I've lived abroad for too long to feel at home there, so it is shockingly foreign to me; I grew up in Peru but never felt attached to the country because I wanted to leave to make games, and constantly applying for papers is a rude reminder that I am an alien in this country as well.

So where is home?

Heart Problems

Boo - spooked ya. My heart is doing just fine, I just meant the romantic kinda problems. I'm not gonna go too specific here cause she might be reading this, but yeah I'm a human being, sometimes I catch feelings for someone and that's really tough for me. I have trouble being vulnerable. To be frank, this blog is an effort to get myself to be more open and I haven't been writing much have I?

Anyways, it sucked. In a good way though. Like how going to the gym sucks 'cause you get all sweaty and it hurts, but it's good for you. It felt great learning so much about them every time we talked, and I was surprised to feel more interested each time. I disliked making an ass out of myself sometimes, or how badly I navigate these things. And I wish things worked out differently, but that's how the Mahjong tiles were laid out. It also didn't wrap up in a ball of fire or anything. We took a nice walk, had a great chat, and that was it.

On The Grind

Work is work. I love my work, and I am so unbelievably lucky to be able to do what I do where I do it. Still, it's pretty tiring sometimes! And I'm still trying to keep that impostor syndrome away, an effort made harder by the feeling of justifying my place in the country. To put it simply: If I don't work, I can't stay. And I care about my work, I can't just coast by, I want to be excellent at it. I do want to impress the people that hired me, and most importantly, I want the game to be really good. Look there's a lot of my self-worth revolving around my career. Is that good? No - but I am working on it :)

And then there's all the other shit I'm doing. I've been trying to record an album for like 3 years; I've started learning film photography and am drafting this cool robot-related project for 2025; and there's at least 3 video games I am actively working on on the side just as cool design challenges. I do want to release those games soon, but they are a bit more physical than what i usually do so it might be more of a thing I show around events. It's a lot, but I like juggling these projects. There's no gun on my head forcing me to finish and release them since my income comes from a 9-to-5 now, so I'm trying to take my time and be patient. That's not to say it's always fun; I do put a lot of pressure on myself and feel incredibly bad when I spent a day (or week) without working on anything. Maybe learning to be ok with taking time off is its own project? Or maybe that's how I have to rationalize it.

Getting In Shape

Speaking of personal projects! After I learned that I wasn't going to be working for the foreseeable future, I got really depressed. Winter is already a tough time (manic + seasonal depression combo, raw-dogged with no medication) and being technically unemployed didn't help at all, so I decided I would at least do 10 push-ups every day. Seemed like an easy win; if I sat down on my couch, got high, played guitar and watched Shogun all day at the very least I could say I did some push-ups. That turned into a nice little morning flexibility + calisthenics routine. 10 push-ups became 15, then 20, then 30 (we're now doing 40 with relative ease). I added cardio 3 times a week, and pretty soon the gaps between feeling OK and psychological despair got wider, and thanks to me saving as much money as I could, I started eating out less often and getting creative with my cooking.

It feels really good getting back in shape! I haven't felt this agile and flexible since I did gymnastics when I was like 13 - coincidentally around the time I started spending every minute of every day on the computer making games. Add to that 4 years of game design college and a pandemic and yeah, I haven't been on my best shape for a while. Don't get me wrong, I love computer time, but it has been nice to develop a stronger connection with my body, and being a little happier with how I look doesn't hurt!

Happy Birthday

I'm turning 26 tomorrow. I have now lived in Canada just as long as I lived in Peru. When I first moved here I was 17 years old and going to game design school felt like I was in Hogwarts, and now I'm 26 working as a designer at Rockstar Games. Not bad eh?

I recently found a hard drive full of pictures from college and I look like a different person entirely! I didn't even have a moustache. There's so much about that guy I've worked so incredibly hard to change over the years - a lot of those flaws still re-surface every now and then and it’s always embarrassing. Mental health is always a weird thing huh? A few years ago I was at an all-time low and if you had told me then where I would be now I would've thrown up on you probably. I think about that a lot. Sometimes it makes me feel all warm and cozy and accomplished, but mostly it makes me worried that I'll return to that state and fuck it all up. I feel like I have to justify continuing to be alive because I owe it to my past self. That doesn't make any sense, but this is my website I get to write whatever I want.

The Good Stuff

What a fucking mess of a year. Lots of bad stuff, some I didn't even write here cause i don't need that shit out in the open, but so much cool stuff happened too! I went on two amazing cottage trips this year, I'm living with amazing friends and have a very strong and supportive social circle, I love my job and my coworkers are some of the most talented people in the industry I can't believe I get to learn so much from them and get paid to do so! I've been more creative in 2024 than ever before too, so many ideas are pouring out of my thought bowl I had to buy notebooks in bulk. My songwriting has improved a lot, my programming skills are way sharper, and I am not as scared about 2025 as I thought I'd be - I'm excited; looking forward to it actually. If this year taught me anything is that I do want to be around, and I have so much to do still.

Maybe I'll eat my words next year, but I think 26 is going to be a good one.

I'm gonna end this stream of consciousness post with a little song I've been listening to a lot. Maybe you'll like it: