#oneaday Day 18: Last Day of Term

It's the last day of work before Christmas! It has been a long time since I've been in education, but it's still a nice feeling to know that "we break up, we break up, we don't care if school blows up".

I'm looking forward to some time off. For the first time in several years, I've actually got a reasonably substantial break — I'm taking all the time from the end of today onwards until the second of January as holiday, so I can enjoy the whole festive season without having to stress about work. Not that my day job is especially stressful in itself, but it's going to be nice not having to get up early and sit on conference calls I probably don't need to be on. It will also give me time to get some MoeGamer stuff done and go visit both our respective groups of parents.

I'm sure I'll revisit the idea of the year just gone by towards New Year's Eve/Day, but it feels like an appropriate enough time to ponder what has transpired this year right now. 2018 has been a year of ups and downs to be sure, but I feel like I'm leaving the year on a pretty good note.

I remain in gainful employment; in April, I will have been in this day job for two years, which equals my previous unbroken record of continuous employment in the same place. And, unlike the previous two examples where I reached the two year mark, I am neither beholden to the whims of retail, nor am I in an environment that causes daily damage to my mental (and probably physical) health. My day job may not be the most exciting (and I'm sticking to my unwritten rule of not mentioning exactly what it is or who it was for anywhere online, so please don't ask if you're curious!) but it pays the bills, I'm good at it and I don't see any reason to go anywhere else… particularly as I can just "switch off" from it at the end of the day and continue working on MoeGamer in my spare time.

MoeGamer itself has enjoyed some significant growth over last year; at the start of the month, I'd already exceeded last year's view counts. Numbers aren't everything of course, but it's nice to know more and more people are enjoying what I'm doing. It'd be nice to look at getting a few more YouTube viewers in the new year — and I have a few interesting plans for video in the coming months — but writing will always be my first priority and passion.

Health-wise, some frustration with what turned out to be a hernia has led me to finally get back on the weight loss wagon; both my wife Andie and I are, as I mentioned last week, back on the Slimming World programme, which worked extremely well for us last time around. So far I've lost a smidge over half a stone in the three weeks (four sessions) since I started, and I know from past experience that I can continue a slow but steady downward trend. I'm actually quite looking forward to being… a bit "smaller" again, as last time around I recall it did wonders for my self-esteem and also just caused me to feel physically a bit better in general.

There have been frustrations throughout the year, chief among which are, I feel, the somewhat turbulent nature of my friendships. My local friends who have had children in the last couple of years have become increasingly difficult to pin down and actually do things with, which can be upsetting and annoying at times, but they do still make the effort now and again; it's just hard not to take it personally sometimes. We had a thoroughly pleasant evening this Tuesday just gone, though; I hope there are more of those in the new year.

Online, I remain quite annoyed and upset at how many people who used to be close friends have pretty much abandoned me since I was let go from USgamer in 2014… but at this stage I kind of have to feel like if they weren't going to stand by me at a difficult time like that, they're not going to stand by me now, and thus perhaps weren't as good friends as I thought they were. It doesn't help that at least some of them have become well and truly entrenched in the culture of games journalism's "hatebait" trend, whereby they post ridiculous hot takes intended to draw in furious commenters, then take to Twitter to go "LOOK HOW AWFUL THESE GAMERRZ ARE".

I don't have the time, patience or energy for that shit, and if you've been following MoeGamer you'll know I am not about clickbait at all; I don't even like posting topical, time-sensitive editorial pieces (even though they get good viewing figures) as I'd rather the site be something anyone can enjoy any piece of content from at any time — the kind of thing you'd dip into like a coffee table book.

On the upside, since that regrettable aspect of my online friendships, I've been fortunate enough to cultivate some truly valuable relationships too. Chief among these is — and I apologise for singling you out here, sir — my good friend Chris Caskie, who co-hosts The MoeGamer Podcast with me after we'd been contemplating doing something along those lines for a while. Chris is a valued and deeply trusted friend who I speak to pretty much every day, and it's not an exaggeration to say he's helped me through some tough times as well as happily listened to me rave on about the latest games I've found particularly exciting or passion-stoking, even if he's not personally interested in them. I'm proud to call him a friend, and I'm even more proud of what we've created together with the podcast to date. Thanks, Chris.

As the hours tick down until hometime today, I find myself mulling over what I should perhaps set my sights on for the new year. But that sounds like a subject for a whole other post to me, so I'll save it for now!