I think I may have mentioned that I'm 34 now. I don't really feel accomplished at all. I have lots of goals that remain uncompleted such as learning Japanese, programming a game, and winning the lotto. That last one is proving near improbable.
I've been listening to JapanesePod101.com off and on over the years. It's a podcast along with a companion website of the same name to help you learning the Japanese language. The podcasts are free and some of the extras are free. Recently they starting releasing videos on YouTube. The videos are great but when they spell things out, they use hiragana. There are like two or three characters that I know so reading the words is impossible. For the most part, I can read romanji (understanding is another matter) so I have some reference for sound but it's driving me crazy that I can't read the hiragana even if I can't understand it. The craziness is driving me back to learning Japanese.
I've also always been interested in making games. From the days of the SNES I wanted to make games. I wrote a game company or two about how to improve their games (got a poster from Lucasarts after I gave feedback on Super Empire Strikes Back). I've done fairly simple games and dabbled in modding. I also started a game development club at my college when I was going (which I'm sad doesn't seem to exist anymore but it was fun while it lasted). Video games are really complex these days where you need to have millions of dollars and dozens of people to pull off a quality game (of course quality is relative). Regardless of the complexity, I still want to do a simple game. I had one idea involving the eternal struggle of ducks versus hunters. Epic to be sure but doesn't have to be complex.
The game development was renewed just the other day. I was waiting in line at the UW Transplant clinic and was looking about. Off in the waiting area, behind a row of chairs, a laptop peeked out with World Of Warcraft on the screen. At the time, I didn't know it was WoW. From a distance it looked primitive. My brain cells fired in a pattern that made me remember the wonder. At that moment, that desire I had buried long ago re-surged to the surface. It was the moving of an object in a 3D world, a world of your choosing, that did it. I think I can do my idea, and it certainly doesn't need to be complex, I just need to put aside the time to do it.
Thirdly, winning the lotto. Seriously, really really improbable! So I think I'll just be enthused about writing. I have been writing a bit more lately. I have a twitter feed with OVER 9000 updates, err I mean over 1100 updates (Believe it!). I have to give and take within 140 characters and my proof reading skills are kind of lax in that medium but it's still writing. So it can be said my interest in writing has been renewed. What I would like to do is improve my writing. Vary my vocabulary, stop using soo many parentheses (annoying isn't it?), write more than blog posts.
It's great having renewed interest in these pursuits of ye ol days. It's not exactly being young again but it's a start. Now the challenge here is to complete these goals this time around. Supposedly, with old age comes wisdom. The wisdom to see that hard work leads to a good finished product with fun and adventure in between. Let's see if enough wisdom has soaked into my brain to finish.
