Projects Update: January 2021

I'm finding this particular project update a bit of a struggle. On the one hand I feel that I've been much more productive on my own projects than I've been in the past, but on the other hand I'm feeling a bit lost overall and like there's still a lot of things I'd like to do. 

At the beginning of January I started a new job and I'm finding balancing my energy difficult. I appreciate having my time better structured with a 9-5 position and the position itself has a lot of breadth for creativity, but I do find myself pretty tired at the end of a day. 

All in all I'm finding it a bit of a challenge to hit a balance that works for me. I probably need to relax and take to heart that I've only been working on this for a month. One thing I am trying to do is to reduce the number of things I'm trying to do at any point in time. For the first time in most of a decade I've reduced my daily to-do list down to just the absolutely must do things. Then I allow myself to decide what the best next thing for me to do is. 

As an AI researcher this gives me a real fear at getting stuck in a local-optima, but honestly I find that the landscape shifts and I'm able to get things moved forward here and there. Not as much as I'd *like*, but that's how life works. Beyond that, I'm trying to decouple my feeling of self-worth and happiness from productivity and completing projects, but that's a long journey to undertake.

At the moment, I've got 6 projects I'm providing updates for:

• The Blog, as ever, is ticking along. I actually wrote my first editorial piece in ages earlier in the month. I may write more, but my primary focus is to have fun keeping track of my reading and game playing.
• I left the Chrono Trigger Sprites without a deadline and I'm enjoying that. I've done a bit more and so there will be project updates about those eventually, but I'm not rushing and I'm kinda happy to have a hobby that just a hobby. 
• I haven't been writing  outside of the blog, so my project on The Roofs has been slow. I think if I do decide to carve out a little more time this will be the project I go to first. I'm definitely sitting on those first four thousand words I wrote and finding it a bit hard to accept the permission to write terribly, while pushing forward. If I don't carve that time out, then I'll let this go dormant for a bit.
• I want to put together a Google Drive backend the Game Tracker, but this has been complicated, because the documentation from Google is all built around accessing drive through a Gradle build. In my mind I'd just like a library I can link against, but that's not the way the (fairly limited) documentation works. This throws me off making any progress and even though I have other avenues I could work on, I keep getting stuck. I haven't put in a huge amount of time, but this is definitely a project I'm focusing on. 
• One of the ways I was able to justify taking the non-teaching job is to myself that I want to work on Code Click, building teaching resources and building up my experience for teaching. Code Click is a huge part of that, but for now it's also a project that can wait. I'll come back to this (I've spent quite a while thinking about what I would like Code Click to be like), but for now I'm not going to focus on it too much.
• My time on Infinite Acorn Adventure has mostly been spent trying to remember all of the linear algebra that I took (poorly) two decades ago. That's been fun in itself, especially with Daniel Shiffman's videos.

I'm not going to share any deadlines for things right now. None of these projects need to go anywhere in particular, so I'm going to work on them when I feel like working on them. Later if something needs a push to get *actually finished* then I might bring back the idea.

This was a lot of fun to build and definitely easier than some.

Projects Update: September 2020

My last general project update was in May and I was a bit surprised by how fast May went by. Now, it's September...

Honestly I struggled a bit with productivity over the summer and eventually gave myself permission to just take some time off. I also hit a bit of a complicated patch with finding post PhD employment and figuring out what I want to be when I "grow up".  

In short I'm finding myself myself drawn to a creative career as well as (or in favour of) an academic one. So I'm trying to balance both of those for the next while to see what's possible. I've set myself some goals for the next year to give myself some firmer deadlines and so that I can see what's possible with what I can create for myself.

I am finding it a bit rough teaching this semester. I had hoped to be able to take the semester to increase my creative output but ended up with more teaching duties than I'd expected. This is making it a bit rough to get things done, but I'm doing my best to plug along where I can. Remembering I can take the time for myself has been tough, but I think I'm learning.

Where I am right now:

The Blog (Project 1)

I did give an update as usual at the beginning of August. This trucks along and the reading and games updates are a fun task to take a break and do.

The Roofs (Project 11)

I didn't write nearly as much as I might have, but I did start writing and it felt pretty good. 

I finished around 4000 words in May/June, before getting distracted and wandering away from the project. I managed to get my focus back in August and started a rolling edit to revisit what I had and to tighten it up. I'm trying to avoid doing that again, since I need to keep moving forward, but I'm still feeling like I'm accomplishing something.  

Chrono Trigger Sprites (Project 12)

I finished the Robo sprite a while back. I was able to do it really quickly, but I've been slow to write the project post about it. I have it on my plate to get done in the next few days.

I'm enjoying working on these, but I'm thinking they're a lower priority than some of the other things I want to work on right now. I have 3 main characters left to do from the playable characters, but I think I'm going to tackle them when I have a quiet Sunday.

Robo In Action!

Game Tracker (Project 18)

I didn't get to work much on the Game Tracker at all. I'm feeling a bit conflicted about this because on the one hand it's not a priority for me. I want to focus on writing, making games, Code Click. On the other hand, it's beneficial to teaching and it's been the motivation for me to learn more about developing modern real world software. 

Infinite Acorn Adventure - Bubble Puzzler (Project 13)

As I said, I've spent a lot of the summer thinking about what I want to do and how I want it to sustain me (and also putting food on the table might be nice). One of the things that really came to the fore for me was that making games was a place I wanted to focus. I've also been thinking a lot about how I want to be able to tell stories through games and use games as a mechanism for supporting a good life.

As such, I've been a bit frustrated with myself about the fact that I'm not working on making games and I'm not learning about making games. So I think the solution to that is to make a game.

Code Click (Project 20)

I think one of the roles I fit very well is computer science communicator. I'm interested in making things easily understood and I think generally there's a problem in communicating about computer science. Given that I'm in a state of looking for full time work in some combination of technology and teaching, spending a bit of time working on my computer science communication skills seems worth while. 

For my classes this semester, I've obviously had to move my teaching on-line, so I'm already developing those skills in a university context. I think pushing the science communication skills makes sense, and I think trying to capitalize on Code Click is a good place to start.

Where to next?

My thinking for the next bit of projects is:

• Infinite Acorn Adventure - A prototype in Processing by October 31.
• Code Click - One post by October 31.
• Game Tracker - I'd like to have a google docs back end, working by November 31.
• The Roofs - I'd like to get a finished (but bad) draft by August 1, 2021.
• Chrono Trigger Sprites - If I get to them I get to them, I'm not going to give myself a deadline.
• The Blog - will keep travelling along.