Really.
The last few months have been some of the most intense (and enjoyable!) of my life. I've dived into a new (to me) codebase. I've finished my first shipping game product. I've made a good impression. I've made some new friends. I've lived completely on my own for the first time since I was 18. I've done my own laundry at least once!
All that and more, in fact.
I've learned that most of my preconceived notions about working in the game industry were..dead on accurate. Some were not, but for the most part, there was very little that I didn't expect. It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed (almost) all of it. The code was nothing magical, it was just code. There was nothing I couldn't understand, given a little study. The people I worked with were very intelligent, but I didn't feel intellectually dwarfed (most of the time =) ). I was thrown into a fire, but my firefighting skills were up to the task.
In short, I've found my niche in life and I'm happy to be here.
I'm also glad that I have some time off to recover and relax. =)
I'm coming to Seattle this weekend, then going to some classes the week after that, then coming to Seattle again for another week (possibly 2) after that. The rest of October and November will be relatively peaceful, no crunch time at all. I'll take some more classes, do some prototyping, write some post-mortems, and figure out how to accomplish some new tasks on our next game. Oh, and maybe write a few more journal entries, since they've been so nonexistent for a while. And FINALLY, I'll have time to really read SimmerD's amazing journal entries. Some excellent stuff there that I really want to take time to digest.
In a few hours I'll get to see my family again after a very-long month of working, and I'm really looking forward to that. So, for now, I'm off. Hope everyone is doing well.
