Current mood - Despair

That's pretty much it. Right now everything feels hopeless. There's so much and so little to say about it at the same time. I'll probably just end up rambling incoherently but I may as well get this down anyway.

I basically feel dead inside again. This seems to be happening to me more and more these days. It was only a few weeks ago that this same thing happened and I spent a week in this state, doing very little and causing my family to be very agitated. I think this feeling of emptiness inside is a massive sign of depression, and to tell you the truth I do feel depressed. My train of thought constantly re-centers itself on how much of a failure I am as a person. So let's take a look at that shall we...

I have no car, no job, and have still never had a girlfriend. I am basically a loser. I still survive off fortnightly pocket-money from my parents as I have done since I was in primary school. I have to rely on public transport to get anywhere, I can't buy anything for myself unless I save up my tiny amount of pocket money for months, if not a year, and I feel like a failure for not being able to attract a nice girl. People tell me I shouldn't feel so bad about the girl part but something I read recently regarding parents feeling disappointed that their kids aren't producing grand-kids cannot get my mind off this fact. It went something along the lines of "You are their greatest investment, they have poured love, time, and money into you, so that you may be the best that you can be, but if you cannot attract a girl, then you are a faulty product, and a waste for them."

So basically, when I take that quote there and apply it to myself, I end up with the shocking realization that I am 18 and all I have to show for it is a high-school graduation certificate and soon a diploma of 3D animation. I don't have any awesome awards, or trophies, or "a track record with the ladies", or major accomplishments beyond surviving my education. All I have are a few friends, all of whom are way better off than I am.

My mate B***** has a nice amount of savings, an 80 000 dollar car, lots of work experience in a thriving industry with plenty of potential to grow, and has been with plenty of "hot" girls (though his definition of hot girls is different to mine in that he likes the more 'perfect hollywood' look, refer to my post about my type of girls and its basically the opposite).

My mate B## has about 13 000 dollars in savings, owns a huge amount of games, has his license and is saving that money for a car at the moment, and has lots of work experience in a wide variety of jobs (Shelf stacker -> Kitchen Hand -> Orderly at a hospital -> Baggage Handler -> new job soon once he quits that one). His track record with girls is as bad as mine but it doesn't concern him like it concerns me.

My mate J**** is always having fun drinking or doing other things because he has money from his job at McDonalds. Though he's not that much better off than myself, at least he's enjoying himself.

And my mate B***** seems to be cruising through life rather nicely, with a good family, a job that fits into his study, and a laid-back attitude.

As far as I can see, they are all better off than me, yet I was always the kid who was said to have "so much potential." Either they're right and I've simply let them down, or they were simply wrong all along.

No car, no job, no money, no girl, no social skills. I don't understand how everyone else can be how they are when they get into a public environment and start talking with randoms or whatever. Was I born lacking that gene or something? It's always been really odd for me to watch people being social, as I don't really get much of what is going on. It kills me to no end that I can't just meet people of my own accord, and that I can't really connect with people, also due to what seems to be the way that I think very differently from others (my step-dad and I always have clashes of ways of doing things and how things should be, all the time, and its not just with him).

Also on the subject of no social skills, I was recently at a club with a friend and as I was taking a breather after dancing, and a really cute girl joined me and started talking to me out of nowhere. I was a little awkward (despite being tipsy at least) but she took me to the dance-floor anyway, but from there nothing happened, and my friends were trying to get me to do something but I was clueless as to what to do to progress things or how I should act, so she went her way and nothing happened. Why did I have to be the one to have no social skills when my brother and sister turned out just fine...

I can barely do simple tasks as well. My sister was tasked with teaching me how to clean the toilets properly today and it felt like I was doing it in a daze, she had to keep re-showing me how to do things and had lots of criticism for the ton of mistakes I was making and how long it was taking me to clean 1 toilet. When I think back on it, it's so simple, but when it comes to doing it, it would look to anyone else as though I'd been tasked with defusing a bomb or something. I'm so incompetent... I can mess up the most simple of cooking recipes too.

So where were we... no car, no job, no girl, no social skills, no money. No motivation either. A group of us 3D guys from my college have been working on a 3D short for our reels and I've been tasked with building creation and placement in the city scene we have. We only have a limited amount of time on this since we're doing it for a competition too, I think about 8 weeks left, and I haven't made any buildings or contributed anything useful for the past week and a half at least, closer to 2 weeks to be honest. I'm just not really excited by it anymore, and it's not only this project, but all the ideas I've had for personal projects, I just can't seem to make myself do any of them and it is so depressing because doing these projects so I can boost my reel is one of the ONLY things that will help me land a 3D job in games (or anywhere for that matter).

All I'm doing lately instead is playing games. Honestly, it's all I've ever done, from when I was in Kindergarten at about 4-6 years old, up until now at 18 years old. Sure, they gave us homework in primary school, which I sometimes did, either way I aced primary school, and even in high school I didn't put much effort into the actual classes, instead focussing most of my time into playing video games. Indeed it is the cause of my grades slipping in my final years of high school and even now they distract me from doing what I need to do.

But what I NEED to do doesn't feel like what I WANT to do anymore. I don't feel that same energy that I used to when I was first doing my 3D animation course last year. I can't get motivated to make anything awesome anymore like I used to back when I started. Back when I started I was investing so many more hours than were necessary, and yet now I don't invest any hours. The only thing I am doing is working on a logo for my brothers DJ name, and even that is only every couple of days I make a small bit of progress. I'm surprised he's still going to pay me considering how long I'm taking...

But the thing is, if I don't actually do something with what I've learnt at my college course, then it'll just feel like a huge waste of a year. In fact, thats what it feels like right now, but even thinking about making attempts to make it a non-waste of time feel pointless. Maybe I'm not cut out for the 3D industry.

In fact it feels like I'm not cut out for life in general. Life where one grows up, gets an education, gets a job, finds a career, meets and has a relationship with a lover, buys a house, pays the bills, has kids, spends the rest of their life working to pay off the house and the bills and pay for everything the kid needs, right up until you retire and then die. I look at this scenario and think to myself "no, this is not what I signed up for," but with the way our society is, if you are not made of money, this is what you are stuck with, whether you like it or not. As far as myself goes, I have grown up in some ways, and I have an education, but that is as far as I've gone, as I feel stuck at the "gets a job" part.

Back to the career side of things, I've thought about seeing what making music is like, or writing stories, or anything else that avoids me doing something where I cannot exercise any creativity whatsoever. But when I think it over in my head, the same scenario plays over in my head for all of them. Get information about particular discipline -> get excited for it -> get an education for it, maintaining excitement -> education for that discipline ends, move to find work for it -> lose interest. I don't know if this is how it will play out, but if my past experience with trying new things is anything to go by, it most likely will be the case. Whenever I've tried to get into something, I get really pumped for it, learn what I can through whatever means available, try it out on a 'mess-around' level, then I just lose interest, usually when I get to complicated stages of the thing I'm looking into.

Of course it's not like I give up on a video-game when it gets complicated and hard (unless it's on "insane" difficulty, which is usually after I've already passed it and am doing it on the hardest difficulty to test myself), which just leads me to think less of myself as it seems like all I am good for is playing video-games. And I'm not even anything special when it comes to that, I'm no speed-running god, or someone who clears the hardest games in the world and makes videos for all to see, nor do I 100% every single song on every guitar hero game ever. I'm nothing extra-ordinary, I'm just ordinary.

So you could say that I have no motivation, as well as that I have no drive either.

It really doesn't look very good for me does it? 18 and still can't look after myself beyond making instant packet meals from the cupboard and perhaps running a load of washing (mum still does that though...).

I really am useless, and now after writing this I feel more justified than before that I am, in fact, useless.

I have thought about suicide before but I don't want to do that, as it would just hurt everyone I know, and then I'd be even worse than useless.

I dunno... I'm a mess...

NYE Resolutions update 2 (I think)

Yeah I'm pretty sure this is the second update, anyway, what's new with my resolutions eh? Let's think for a moment...

Eating Healthy - Haven't really been making an effort to, so no positives to be seen here, on the plus side I haven't been eating any worse than usual lol.

Excersize - Complete fail, indeed not long ago, I had a period where I didn't even see sunlight for 12 days ;D but my sunlight avoidance is over (was sort of a depressive state or something, I still can't figure out what was goin on).

Girls - Fail as usual, but it's not any worse again which is good lol.

Sleeping pattern - There are signs of improvement but then I just have 1 fail and I'm back to square 1. I had a few days in a row of getting to sleep at good hours and then BAM, 1 night where I slip up and go to bed at 2-3 am and I'm back to where I started, frustratingly trying to gradually change my body-clock back to a reasonable hour. However, tonight it's only 11:40pm as I type this so once I type this I'm getting off and seeing how I go considering last night I got 4 hours of sleep, falling asleep at this point should be no problem right?
In the words of my friend, 'Mileage may vary.' ;D

What else...

Instruments - I downloaded a bunch of trial versions of programs that are used to make songs that sound very much like they're out of retro video-games so I'll be giving those a whirl at some point. Other than that, no progress because I have no money to buy a Saxophone because I don't have a job.

Which brings me to my next point.

Breaking into the 3D industry - now this I've been trying to do more than the rest but I've been knocked back by quite a few companies now so no luck so far. I did meet with a bunch of Indie game developers where I live though which was cool as I got to learn about the industry, share a drink, hear some stories etc. I'm now doing some pre-alpha testing of a video-game for one of those guys and having some fun with it so maybe I could put that on my resume if I'm successful enough? It's not an epic huge blockbuster title but it still gives me the opportunity to do some QA testing which I've never done before.

While I'm working on getting into the 3D industry, I've started applying for part time jobs in retail. I quit my job at McDonald's about a month and a bit ago so I have had no money because of that but it wasn't worth it at McDonald's anyway. I'm currently trying to get a job in video game retail because I actually have the knowledge about video games to do it and I figure it could be more fun. Hopefully I start hearing the word Interview from a few phone calls soon, fingers crossed.

Car/Motorbike License - No progress to report at all. I will get onto this soon, It's just not at the top of my priority list right now.

Move out - Nope

I think that covers all that I had written down for my NYE resolutions. Something I'm adding to that not as a resolution but as a goal of mine, is to be practicing 3D for at least 1 hour per day, so that I can keep my skills sharp. Lately I've had multiple days where I don't even open up the 3D package so it is paramount that I do this to avoid simply losing myself to procrastination. I'm also gonna learn Python scripting language (I think the latest 2.# version, since the 3.# versions are test ones, I think, not sure, will check later).

So I haven't had much progress :S

BUT

My friend and his cousin have made a pact to do a few things by a certain amount of years time, akin to my resolutions but over many years instead of just 1. I talked to my friend and we figure that it'll be easier to keep on track with our goals and motivated if we help each other out as much as possible. He wants a number of the same goals as me, eg, eating healthy, being fit, improving financial situation etc, and then a few of his own, involving racing go-karts/Formula Fords and other things. So I believe we can help each other out, though the main motivation has to come from within, and I know that I truly want to improve myself by doing the above things.

After all, as courage wolf says, "Better to die of thirst, than drink from the cup of mediocrity." (Yes I love courage wolf, makes me feel good just reading them :D).

"Mate, there are 2 things in life that will give you grief, cars and...

...Women." That's what my step-dad once told me a year or two ago, and he's sort of on the right track too. This post I want to talk about women in a bit more depth, but not on some sort of "lol look at me I know and understand everything about women perfectly" rant, but to sort of analyze my preferences and how far detached they seem to be from the majority of society.

You see, most of society will probably think that I'm some kind of fucked up wierdo for this but I do not find supermodels attractive at all. Even the ones that aren't stick thin and actually look healthy do not do anything for me at all. Something about the "perfection" that they supposedly have in their physicality is actually quite the turn-off for me.

The most prominent example of this is that I not only find Megan Fox UN-ATTRACTIVE, but REPULSIVE! I remember telling a friend of mine this who thinks she is incredibly hawt and his reaction was hilarious. One of the things he said to me was "So you're saying if she was here and you had the option to have sex with her you wouldn't?" "Nope." He called bullshit on me but what I said is no bullshit, no sir. I just do not find that sort of girl attractive at all.

Those "super-hot" blonde cheerleader type girls? No thanks. The crazy "hot" girls dancing around at clubs and generally being quite promiscuous? No thanks. Hell, the porn stars with massive (obviously fake) boobs and all that? No thanks.

I seem to go for the odd looking girls, the "imperfect" ones so to speak. Don't get me wrong though, I still have to be attracted to them, which means I don't go for chubby girls for one (which have had a track record of being attracted to ME over the years for some reason :S), but narrowing down what I find attractive and un-attractive is no easy task, because things that I seem to find un-attractive on one girl can be attractive on another. Such is the complexity of human attraction and I'm absolutely sure I'm not the only one with this problem, It's just that I know for sure that the "super hot" type are a no go for me.

To give you an example, I was at a diner the other day with the family and there were several female waitresses, all probably around the early to mid twenties age range. The ones I remember the best were this typical "blonde hottie" and this girl with puppy fat around her chin and a sweet hair cut with this well placed blond streak thingo happening around the front. Yeah you can probably see where I'm going with this. I was definitely perving on her, she just looked incredibly cute, whereas I know my friends would've been perving on the blonde if they had have been there.

I know that for me, a girls attractiveness earns bonus points if she wears reading glasses but thats just a weird thing I have. I like girls that do interesting things with their hair (if you wanna see some examples, Google "Scene girls" though I do not necessarily find them attractive, just that their hair is typically awesome). I like girls who wear stuff that isn't the top notch high trend fashion junk (no offense to anyone that is into that, I just don't like it, also jeans are win at all times).

And it's also important to remember that attractiveness is not just about looks but personality too. I think most people forget about this when they look at people they think are hot and just focus on the looks without observing them and trying to see how they are. You can't really make a very accurate assessment though based on just looking on from a distance which is where the trial and error of dating really starts to play its part as you really need to hang out with said person if you want to get to know them.

As far as personality goes for me though, I like girls who don't think or do things because the media tells them to, or because they follow society's ideas instead of thinking critically about something and deciding for themselves what they think or feel about issues/ideas. I like girls who are NOT loud all the time, and girls who don't just want the guy to do everything. Relationships are a two way street after all. Girls who are just "weird" or different in one way or another seem to get noticed by me more than those who are just "normal" (normal and weird being completely subjective to personal opinion of course, for the purpose of this imagine it as society's idea of "normal" and "weird").

I'm not sure what else to add to this, as it seems to be a pretty good summary already. I guess the only thing that is left for me is to conquer my cowardice about approaching women and to just give it a shot. I'm fairly terrified of doing that though, despite all the self-help/alpha-male bullshit I've read through and even tried. I probably need counselling for this or something lol. Just know, quiet/nerdy/weird/not-supermodel-looking girls, that there are people that do find you attractive, they're probably all just shy like me T_T .

It's been a while...

Haven't even looked at my blog for about a month, maybe more, so I figure I should maybe finally make a new post so I can update a few things for whoever actually reads this.

Life has been OK. Not great, not bad, just OK.

I can't really complain either because I'm being fully supported by my parents at the moment. I quit my fast food job which my parents weren't pleased about because now I'm not earning any money for myself, but I hated it there, surrounded by kids, shit hours, terrible pay (pretty much minimum wage) and just plain boring. I miss having money but I do not miss the job at all.

I'm not really hanging out with anyone at the moment either, but this doesn't necessarily make me sad. I'm kinda enjoying being a shut-in but it would be nice to hang out with people once in a while. I haven't made any new nearby friends in ages.

My 3D projects were going ok for a while but then I just sorta lost interest this past week. I've been playing the new Battlefield: Bad Company 2 game non-stop since last Monday. It's just such a good game! From the sound, to the guns, to the vehicles, to the fact that all projectiles are affected by gravity and travel time (this is especially important for snipers, your bullet doesn't just instantly hit a target 500 meters away!), to the fast paced action, to the awesome graphics, to the team-based gameplay, it is so much win rolled into one 80 dollar purchase! I'm loving playing as a Assault-Shotgun class where I just run around like a madman tearing people apart with my Neostead 2000. I'll record a video of some gameplay eventually and chuck it on youtube so people can see it in action, because this game really deserves to have more copies sold than Modern Warfare 2. I truly believe it is better in pretty much every way. One of my online friends has been bugging me to play MW2 lately but I just hate it now.

I did apply for a range of 3D games jobs however. Unfortunately, no one is looking for 3D artists right now so I can't actually get work in the games industry right now. I'm not sure if I wanna settle for an architecture job, as I can see that getting old really quickly. I guess I'll just keep trying to do my own thing and promote myself. The main way I'm gonna do that is messing around with the Source games engine by Valve, as I have learnt how to make my own custom props for it and have started learning how to build my own Team Fortress 2 maps so it should be fun once I stop playing BFBC2 and start actually doing stuff again...

Also I never ended up asking that girl out at Mcdonalds. She seemed to have found someone anyway though I'm not certain. I'm going to make another post entirely about girls soonish (maybe I should start saying women instead of girls /shrug).

Haven't made any progress on earning my driving license either, though it doesn't bother me really. It bothers everyone around me more than it bothers me.

So thats about it as far as a big update goes. Things are going alright, but I would like them to be going better. Here's what I want to do with myself:

1) Get into the habit of spending a few hours a day (at least) working on 3D projects so I can improve my skills and achieve my goal of becoming one of the best modelers and texture artists in the world for games. It won't be easy to achieve that but if I don't practice then my chances go from low to zero.

2) Find a new part-time job: I want to work at somewhere that sells video-games as I have a lot of knowledge on video games and would actually find my job interesting. Then I can have money to spend on things.

I think thats actually all I need to do. From working on my 3D stuff I'll be more likely to land a 3D job and I'll have a lot more stuff to show off to people. Once I have money from a part-time job (or even a 3D job if I land one) I'll be able to do things like get a gym membership/join a sports club, start learning the saxophone, and go back to having a drinks night at the Greenhouse bar.

I'm surprised I boiled it down that easily. It felt overwhelming when I thought about it yesterday but its as simple as practice your skill-set and find a part-time job.

I'm glad I made this post. Now to make a post about girls/women/that other gender (lol)