#oneaday Day 446: A quick week?

This week, oddly, seems to have kind of flown by. I'm not complaining at all, I hasten to add, because the quicker this week and the next goes by, the sooner the wife and I get to go on holiday. And we're both really looking forward to some nice time away.

Things are… less stressful than they have been at various other points over the course of the last few months, but I'm still pretty burnt out and ready for a break. It will be great to completely disconnect from social media, work and most other modern annoyances and just relax. I am taking some form of computing device with me on holiday, though; my intention is to set aside a bit of time to do some creative writing each day, as a pleasant "forest retreat" seems like the ideal environment in which to do such a thing.

I haven't quite decided how I'm going to achieve this as yet, though. I think what I'm probably going to do is buy one of those little portable monitors you can get, then either hook that up to my phone and run that in its "DeX" desktop mode, or just take my mini PC with me. Then all I need is a keyboard and mouse — and I have plenty of those — and we're sorted.

I'm not promising anything that is going to gush forth from my brain during the holiday is going to be great or even coherent, but I am conscious of the fact that I made a big deal of setting up that "Scratch Pad" site for the distinct purpose of doing creative writing, and then haven't done any as yet. That needs fixing, and being in a suitable environment to write for enjoyment and pleasure, rather than for obligations, would seem like a suitable opportunity to do just that.

But anyway. There's a week and a half of work to get through first, but I feel like I can make it through that without too much trouble. I've got a to-do list of things I want to (or should) try to complete before I leave, and it's not at all excessive in its length, so I'm pretty confident I will be able to achieve everything by or before next Friday. Because if it ain't done by then, it ain't getting done… until I get back, anyway. And, as unforgiving as I might have been sounding about unplugging and going pretty much "off-grid" during the holiday (aside from this blog, which will still see daily updates) I don't really want to leave my colleagues in the lurch while I am absent.

So that's that. Now it's time to head to bed and read a bit of The Black Cauldron, I feel. Or perhaps a quick game of something on the MiSTer before that, maybe…?

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#oneaday Day 433: Point of impact

Burnout is one of those things that I'm not entirely sure is completely 100% recognised and accepted as an actual medical "thing", but it's certainly accepted as being a phenomenon that exists. I have been feeling kind of shitty lately, so I thought I would self-assess against the symptoms of burnout listed by the charity Mental Health UK:

Feeling tired or exhausted most of the time – yep
Reoccurring insomnia and sleep disturbances – yep
Frequent headaches – nope, occasional ones but probably a "normal" amount
Muscle or joint pain – yep, but I suspect that's more down to general unfitness
Gastrointestinal problems, such as feeling sick or loss of appetite – nope, but I have kind of the opposite problem, where eating becomes a coping mechanism
Frequent illness due to lowered immunity – nope, actually, I haven't been properly "ill" for quite a while
Issues breathing – occasionally, though with the current heatwave I'm not sure this is a representative sample
Feeling helpless, trapped and/or defeated – oh hell yes
Self-doubt, feeling a failure or worthless – abso-fricking-lutely
Feeling detached and alone in the world – most definitely
Feeling overwhelmed – yes indeedy
Feeling demotivated, having a cynical/negative outlook – yessir
Loss of interest and enjoyment – in some areas, yes; in others, not so much
Persistent feelings of dread, worry and anxiety – yes, very much
Procrastinating and taking longer to complete things – yep
Difficulty concentrating – depends what I'm doing, but at work, definitely
Decreased output and productivity – yes, both at work and on personal projects
Becoming isolated and withdrawing from people, responsibilities etc. – very much so
Reliant on food, drugs or alcohol to cope – no to alcohol and drugs, food is better than it has been in the past, but not great
Irritable and short-tempered, likely to ha- FUCK OFF
Increased tardiness, being late for work and/or higher absenteeism – I find it difficult to get up and running first thing in the morning, but once I'm settled in I'm fine

So that's… hang on (counts)… 18 out of 21 symptoms if I count all the "maybes" and "sometimeses" as "yes". That… doesn't seem great, does it? Should probably do something about that, maybe. I mean, I'm going on holiday soon, and I think that's going to help — and my plans to mostly disappear entirely from the Internet for the duration of that holiday (with the exception of this blog, which I intend to continue updating) will probably help, too (aside from the "feelings of isolation" thing). But there's still a good few weeks to go before I have made it to that holiday, and right now it's feeling like it's quite a long way off.

And the trouble with burnout, if you've never experienced it, is that it makes all the things you're already worrying about feel approximately a billion times worse, and, in the process, makes it feel like a truly Herculean effort to actually reach out to someone who might be able to help with matters, because it also creates an intense sense of fear and mistrust towards… well, almost everyone, really.

Chief among my worries right now is a concern about my work. Without going into specifics for now, there's an aspect of my job that I really don't enjoy, and which I would absolutely love to be able to give up, but since I have been muddling through with it up until now (and feeling the most potent sense of impostor syndrome in the process) I feel like it might look a bit strange to just bring it up now. And so I haven't. But by not doing so, it feels like it just sort of festers inside me, dragging me down and making me feel more and more burnt out the more I worry about it.

The sensible solution is probably, of course, to bring it up with my immediate superior, who is a thoroughly nice and understanding sort of person. But the prospect of that carries with it its own "fears" — I don't want to seem like I'm letting anyone down, more than anything, and by admitting that I'm finding something difficult to cope with, I feel like that's exactly what I'm doing. Realistically speaking, burning myself out until I'm little more than a charred husk in an office chair is probably letting people down more in the long-term, but still. It is scary. We live in exceedingly uncertain times in the business I'm in, and for the most part, I like the job I do and do not want to do anything which might jeopardise that.

Anyway, as I say, I don't want to say too much on specifics, because the details are conversations I need to have with the appropriate people, not splurge onto the Internet. And besides, it's not the only thing that is contributing to my current condition; frustration at the general state of the world, feeling completely and utterly isolated from friends, plus my overall physical and mental wellbeing are all contributing factors, too.

But I think it's pretty safe to say that I am indeed suffering from burnout, and my impending holiday is something I am very much looking forward to as a result.

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#oneaday Day 250: A whimper

It's day 250 of this bullshit, which feels like a significant milestone, and I feel like I don't really have anything to write about. Inevitably, I will almost certainly now proceed to churn out at least 500 words on nothing in particular as I always do when I claim to have "nothing to write about", but I at least wanted to set expectations up front.

I am feeling exceedingly burnt-out right now, and I use that phrase deliberately. After my reading up on autistic shutdowns the other day, I also ended up reading a bit about autistic burnout, which is not a "medical" term, but it is one that has come to be commonly used among autistic people and those who care for them. And it's definitely something I feel like I am contending with right now. Persistent tiredness? Check. Random irritability? Check. Inability to concentrate? Hell to the yes. Desire to just shut down completely? Absolutely.

I should probably talk to someone about this, but I don't really know where to begin, and don't want to come across like I'm making excuses or anything. It's a busy and stressful time for everyone at work right now, and I don't want to leave anyone else in the lurch by just noping out of life for a few days, but at the same time I feel like if I don't put my hands up and say "I need a fucking break" I will almost certainly involuntarily end up noping out of life for a few days. And I don't really want that.

As I've alluded to on previous days, the current happenings around the world aren't helping, and I'm also becoming frustrated with the few online communities that I have remained a part of in a vain attempt to feel any sort of social connection with anyone. There's one in particular that I'm very close to just ditching completely because I'm tired of the moaning negativity that goes on in there, but I like the people who run it so I don't want to upset them by appearing to go off in a huff or anything like that. (Who am I kidding, I suspect no-one will actually notice if I leave.)

I am finding distraction from my own negative thoughts through a combination of Friends, Angel, Xenoblade Chronicles and, yes, I bought the RPG Maker DLC the other night and have made a start on making a stupid self-indulgent project. So that is something. At least I am not sitting staring at a wall or anything like that. But I would like to feel, y'know, better about things generally. And I'm not entirely sure where to start with that.

Oh well. The week is half over. I can, at least, look forward to the weekend. We have nothing in particular planned, but that is nice. I fully intend to sleep in, play some video games, perhaps record some videos and just forget about all this for a couple of days. And once my commitments for this month are over, perhaps I will finally take that time off I clearly owe myself.

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#oneaday, Day 306: Need for Speed

My brother was good enough to send me a copy of the new Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. It arrived this morning and I've spent a fair amount of time putting it through its paces today. I shall now share my thoughts for the benefit of those of you considering it.

In very simple terms, it can be described as "Burnout with real cars". This is not in the slightest bit surprising, given developer Criterion's history. But this is through-and-through a Burnout game, right down to the ways you earn boost and the cinematic "crash camera". And not a Burnout Paradise interpretation of Burnout, either. Because although I loved that game, as did some of my friends, there are plenty of people out there who didn't like it much, either, for various reasons.

Hot Pursuit returns to the roots of both the Need for Speed and the Burnout series, in that it is about driving impossibly-expensive and shiny cars through a variety of circuits in an effort to Be The Fastest Mo-Fo In The World. There's no tacked-on story (besides the fact that the cops have outfitted themselves with some seriously heavy-duty automotive hardware) and no unnecessary fluff—it's just a map screen, a series of events and a bunch of cars to unlock gradually according to your progress. Those who did enjoy the free-roaming nature of past Need for Speed games as well as Burnout Paradise are free to drive around the sprawling game world as they please to find events, but those who prefer kicking it old-school can just select events from a map. Best of both worlds. You have to wonder why this hasn't been thought of previously.

The shining light in Hot Pursuit's arsenal of, err, light-emitting weapons (abandon metaphor!) is the Autolog system. Essentially an in-game social network, it sets out to do what Blur did, but better, and succeeds admirably. While racing any event, you have not only the single-player targets to beat, but also an "Autolog Recommends" target to beat, too. This way, when you do beat all the single-player events (and you will, eventually, because they're not that difficult, at least to begin with) you have plenty of incentive to go back and beat your friends. This incentive is made even better by the fact that you have a Facebook-style "wall" on which you can brag about your Achievements and even write your own custom messages and comments. There's a fairly heavy-duty naughty word filter in place, though, which inexplicably censored the post "This game is awesome. Time to take a break, now, though." in its entirety. I haven't seen bizarre censorship of this nature since Phantasy Star Online censored the words "shoes" and "Saturday" for having rude words in the middle of them.

Overzealous censorship aside, though, the Autolog feature is an excellent one. Every time you log in, assuming you have friends playing the game, you'll have a new set of challenges to beat. Autolog even recommends friends of friends that are playing the game whom you may want to add to your Xbox friends lists. This is a smart idea—again, why hasn't anyone thought to do this before?

Possibly my favourite thing, though, is the return of one of the best things about Need for Speed: Most Wanted. The cinematic "chase music" when you're being chased by cops. While the licensed soundtrack that plays in cop-free events is solid enough, though fairly forgettable, the orchestral, cinematic music that plays in Hot Pursuit events gets the pulse pounding and adds a sense of urgency to these races. I'm glad to see the return of it.

I haven't tried playing as a cop yet, though I'm anticipating an experience akin to a modern-day remake of Chase HQ. This is very much a Good Thing. Further reports as events warrant.

In summary, then: You like arcade racing? You gonna love this.