Wasting Time

2001-05-30

Random thoughs..

I'm probably just writing this to procrastinate doing something else but anyway...

Today was another frustrating day with Japanese study. The last 3 days of homework have seemed almost impossible to figure out. I'm going to talk to the teacher tomorrow if I can and see what's wrong. Maybe I can get some help.

But, seperate from that today I was really feeling like I'm totally wasting my time. Not studying Japanese but not doing something else like making a game or making a company or doing something. My thinking goes like this. I can probably hang out here without a job until at least December. That's 7 months from now. Maybe until March. After that I have to get a job. Once I have a job I'm not likely to want to do anything productive outside the job. In other words I'll be tired from working and I'll just want to play (watch tv, watch a movie, play a game, eat out, etc.)

But, right now I arguably have lots of free time. I doesn't feel that way since the way my schedule is arranged I'm busy the entire day 7am to 11pm, M, Tu, Wed, and Th. But, I could change my schudule. I could quit going to Digital Hollywood since I'm getting very little out of that. Friday from 1pm until Sunday night I'm completly free.

So, I guess the questions are, what should I do with that time? What can I do with that time. etc.. I'm talking about something money making or something that will put me in a good position when I'm finished with it. I was thinking about trying to do a Gameboy Advanced game on my own. I should be able to get something like that at least playable and with several levels using programmer art on my own time. I've done cartridges before so it's not like that's new for me. The only problem is it's kind of ... un−cool ... to do Gameboy Advanced vs say something new and 3D. Of course new and 3D takes lots more time and people although maybe if I already had an engine I could just plug away and making random parts of a game using the engine.

Another way that I feel like I'm wasting time (again) is the whole girl and friend thing. It just occured to me today that I haven't hung out with a friend 7 months. Seriously, I really have no real friends here. Sure I have a few aquaintences but nobody I would feel comfortable just calling up almost any time of the day just to see what's up and if we could meet for lunch or dinner.

And, arguably, at least at the moment, there's the whole English vs Japanese problem. I'm studying Japanese so having an English speaking friend is defeating the whole point of living in Japan but my Japanese although good enough mostly to talk to a friend in Japanese is not comfortable enough that it's relaxing to speak Japanese all day like it is to have a conversation in English.

The ideal would be if I could find a friend that wanted to work on a project together. That would solve both problems. Lots of time with a friend, not having to split the time between seeing a friend and doing something constructive. Hmmm.

Comments
the future
Japanese video game companies are f*cked up