1094: Today: The Walkthrough

January 16

This is quite an easy day to get through — all you have to do is make sure you get all the tasks done by the end of the day and you’re good to go. As always, save your game as the day begins in case you make a mistake, and use any free time you have to go secret-hunting. See the SECRETS section for more details.

Morning

You have three main objectives in the morning: wake up, have breakfast and complete your work. All can be easily achieved quite quickly if you focus on the task at hand and save item-hunting for later.

You’ll start the day with “tired” status, which makes it more difficult than usual to wake up. After the cutscene where Andie leaves for work, repeatedly tap the Triangle button to force yourself out of bed. Don’t worry if you fail, though — it’s actually pretty challenging to succeed in this. You can try again, but you’ll take a hit to your HP each time you do so, so you might find it easier to just fall asleep again and wake up once the “tired” status has evaporated — there’s no real benefit to the early start beyond having more time available.

Once you’re up, walk to the bathroom and press X to start the morning routine. Skip the animation if you want — you’ve probably seen it plenty of times by now. Once you re-emerge, walk to the kitchen and press X in front of the bread bin to examine it. Pick up the BREAD and make sure you examine it in your inventory rather than just eating it — it’s mouldy, so use it on the bin unless you want to find yourself with a rather inconvenient toilet-focused status effect lasting the rest of the day.

Pick up the BREADSTICK instead, then open the fridge and pick up the EGGS. Open the drawer next to the fridge and take the SMALL PAN. Use the pan on the cooker, then use the cooker again to turn it on. You can stand and wait — there’s some amusing comments if you keep examining it — but it’s a better use of your time to walk over to the other side of the room and use the coffee machine. Pick a CAPSULE according to how much EP you have — if you’ve been following this walkthrough exactly so far, a green one will probably suffice. Use the capsule on the machine, then open the cupboard across the room from the machine to take a CUP. Use the cup on the machine, then use the machine. Voila! One coffee. Drink it immediately — coffee provides a nice boost to EP, but isn’t nearly as effective if you allow it to cool.

By now the pan should be starting to boil, so use the eggs on the pan, then use your phone in your inventory to automatically set the timer. You have four minutes in which to wander around the house and its environs before the eggs are ready. A good use of your time is to empty the bin — walk up to the bin and use it to take the BINBAG out, then use the bag to pick it up. You won’t be able to open your menu or access your inventory while carrying the bag, though you can put it down if you need to.

Open the front door while carrying the bag, run down the stairs and out of the front door. Use the binbag on the green bin, NOT the blue one, then run back into the building, up the stairs and back into your flat. You should be back just in time for the timer to expire and your eggs to be ready — use the cooker to automatically take them out and prepare them; use the breadstick on the resulting plate to finish preparing your meal; use the finished meal to trigger a cutscene.

When you regain control, you’ll be in the study in front of the computer. Three battles will ensue as you attempt to get your work done, but you can pause to regain lost HP/EP between each one.

Battle 1: Blitz (HP 50,000)

This is an easy one. Kick off with a Comparison, follow it up with Context, Quip and finally Verdict.

Battle 2: Cross (HP 60,000)

This one’s a little tougher. Kick off with a Comparison again, but use your phone in the second round for additional damage. Follow with Praise, Quip, Question and finally Verdict.

Battle 3: Snapper (HP 70,000)

Despite the higher HP, this is the easiest one of all. Quip, Question and Verdict is all you need to do here.

Afternoon

The main objective in the afternoon is to pick up the missing package, but it’ll help you out to pick up some supplies at the same time. Fortunately, we can do both things in one expedition.

Pick up the CARD from the desk in the study. Then go to the living room and open the drawer to pick up the DRIVING LICENSE. It’s very important you get both of these items!

Pick up your COAT and equip it — it’ll be on the back of the chair as usual. Pick up your SHOES and equip them — they’ll be in the hallway. Then open the front door and use your keys on it to lock it. You don’t have to do this — burglaries are triggered by random chance, so you won’t always suffer one if you don’t lock the door — but it’s best to be safe.

Run down the stairs and out of the building’s front door. There’s no need to use your keys on the building’s main door — this one doesn’t affect the odds of burglary.

Now we have a fair old trek ahead of us. You can trigger a time challenge now if you want to — the rewards are pretty worthwhile, so we might as well do so. Run around the back of the building to the car park and look behind your car — you should see the icon there. Use it to start the clock.

Head out of the car park and on to the main road. Keep an eye out for cars and cross if it looks clear, but remember they don’t stop for you! If you’re worried about safety, you can use the crossing, but you’ll find attaining the best rank on the time challenge difficult if you do so.

Follow the road west for quite some time. When you come to some more traffic lights, turn right and start heading north-west. You’ll see there’s a shop here, but we’re not going to use that just yet — priorities!

Continue north-west up the road, and cross the road when you come to McDonald’s — it’s not a true crossing, but the small island in the middle of the road means you can keep safe if the traffic gets heavy. Continue north-west on this side of the road, taking care to avoid the hoodie-wearing enemies. They won’t bother you if you don’t bump into them, so keep a wide berth as much as possible.

Don’t worry about finding the post office — you’ll get a cutscene when you reach it. When you regain control at the counter, use the card then use your driving license to identify yourself. Pick up the package but don’t open it yet.

If you were quick enough, an S-rank on the time challenge should be yours. Enjoy the reward in the gallery.

Now retrace your steps south-east back to the shop we saw earlier. Purchase some BREAD and some items of your choice to restore the HP and EP you’ve used up today. Then continue back east to return home. Run into the building, up the stairs and use your keys on your door to enter. Use any of the food items you bought in the kitchen if you need to.

Open the package when you’re ready to trigger a cutscene. Oh my!

Evening

There’s not much you need to do in the evening, so spend some time restoring your HP by playing with the rats in the living room. When Andie returns, you’ll get a cutscene; after it finishes, talk to her again, then go to the kitchen, pick up the JUICE, open the fridge, pick up the WATER and use them both on a GLASS from the cupboard. Pick up the resultant DRINK and take it to Andie for a reward.

When you’re ready to start the final events of the day, go to the study and use the computer. A battle will ensue as usual.

Battle: Inspiration (HP 109,400)

Whew, these battles are starting to get pretty tough now, huh? Charge up a bit by using Focus three times, then Ponder. This should give you the Inspired buff, which is when you should trigger your Tortured Metaphor ability. While this is active, simply repeatedly attack Inspiration and it’ll all be over before you know it.

#oneaday Day 701: Deadline

First up, a shoutout to Mados’ excellent post on Telephobia, which makes use of one of my cartoons as well as quoting me, making me look wittier than I remember being about that particular affliction. Thanks, Mados.

Now, onto today’s discussion

At what age are you supposed to have “it” all figured out? And by that I mean be doing what you’re “supposed” to be doing, looking toward the future rather than dealing with the immediate present and being in a position to buy super-expensive things like cars and houses. Is 30 a reasonable deadline? Because if so, I don’t think I’m anywhere near.

Since leaving university, I’ve had a number of different jobs. I’ve been a teacher in both primary and secondary education. I’ve been a freelance writer. I’ve been a shop-floor salesperson. I’ve been an in-store personal tech trainer. I’ve been a regular long-term contractor for a video games website. This isn’t even considering jobs I had while at university, which included mopping up sick, collecting glasses and making a badass prawn cocktail.

The thing, though, is that I don’t feel like I’ve made a lot of “progress” along the way. The only position in which I’ve had what you might describe as a “promotion” was when I went from being a shop-floor sales person to an in-store personal tech trainer, and that was more a change of role (or, more specifically, the formalisation of something I was already doing anyway) than a “promotion” per se. That particular job was the one I held the longest, staying there for around about two and a half years. Other jobs I’ve move on from in a year or less, leaving no time to be promoted. And others still I’ve left simply because there wasn’t a job there for me any more — this happened with my first teaching post thanks to the school being half a million quid in the red, and more recently with the sudden and sad closure of GamePro.

It’s worrying me a bit, to be honest. I know plenty of people who found themselves jobs after university and have been steadily working their way up through the ranks ever since. They seem quite happy with what they’re doing, even though it’s not in the slightest bit related to their degree, and generally just seem to be far more “sorted” than I feel.

Now, granted, I don’t live inside their heads and thus can’t say for sure what they think about their whole situation. It’s entirely possible, of course, that they feel that the job they’ve been making such good progress in is actually a dead end, and long to break free and do something they really want to do.

Thing is, the whole “follow your dreams” thing is sort of what I’ve been doing, only the trouble with dreams is they have a habit of not living up to what you expect — largely because, being dreams, you tend to ascribe somewhat unrealistic expectations to them. And after the fact you’re just left feeling slightly bewildered and disillusioned by the whole experience.

I don’t have a solution for myself. From January, I have some work that I’ll enjoy, though I’ll need more to be able to live comfortably. I do also have an interview for something lined up in January, too, which would, to be honest, solve a lot of problems if I do manage to get, even if it’s arguably something of a step backwards in terms of salary and whatnot.

Fingers crossed, I guess. And if not… err, is anyone reading this looking for someone to write the news on their website? And pay?

#oneaday Day 146: Eve of Something

I have a job interview tomorrow — the first one for a while. Okay, granted, I haven’t been looking for a while due to the fact that I’ve been enjoying the freelance work I’ve been doing, but the position in question (which I won’t discuss for now for fear of jinxing it) is one that would be pretty much ideally suited for me, given my background, skills and indeed what I’m doing right now. As such, I’m looking forward to it.

The whole recruitment process is, a lot of the time, very artificial. I recall one time when I happened to catch a glimpse of a letter that someone had written to the place I was working at the time, asking if there were any jobs available. The language used throughout was all very flowery and took in pretty much every application cliché that there was along the way. Said applicant was “confident” and “enthusiastic” and I’m pretty sure she was “passionate” too. I’m not sure if she was a “talented generalist” (apparently that was the fashionable thing to be a little while back, I’m not sure if it still is) but she probably had plenty in the way of “transferable skills” and “relished” the “opportunity” on offer.

I mock, but I’m pretty sure everyone is guilty of it at times. But where does all that language come from? I remember sessions in English Language classes at school dealing with “formal letter writing”, but that mostly focused on layout and ensuring you put the correct “Yours faithfully/sincerely” at the bottom of a letter — a practice which seems to have fallen by the wayside in the age of the email, incidentally. I don’t remember classes teaching you buzzwords that you should use in job applications.

Perhaps that’s where school career advice is going wrong, though. I remember the whole Careers Week thing, where you took that questionnaire and you laughed when the kids of questionable intellect got “shepherd” and “chimney sweep” suggested as potential career paths for them. But I don’t remember getting any particularly useful advice out of them, barring thinking that I wanted to do something involving writing, even then. And I didn’t need a Careers Week to know that — I had already pretty much figured it out.

Of course, it’s not that easy, and your life follows paths that you might not have predicted along the way. Is it chance? Fate? Destiny? Or is it the result of free will and conscious decisions that you make? Either way, it’s often fairly unlikely you find yourself doing exactly what you’d imagined you’d be doing straight away. You might get there in the end, but there seems to be an awful lot of “paying your dues” along the way initially — unless you’re one of the very lucky ones, of course.

Well, I think I’ve paid my dues by now. It’s time for awesome things to happen. Bring it on, tomorrow.

#oneaday Day 97: The Grindstone

For those of you who don’t know, I’m currently writing daily for GamePro. This is, of course, awesome and I’m both happy and honoured to be able to do so, even if it means having to remember how all you Americans spell things and the fact that companies are singular nouns, not plurals.

Having been out of full-time (well, pretty much any work) for the best part of a year, coming back to actually having to do stuff in the daytime is, unsurprisingly, a bit of a system shock. Not in a bad way, though. On the contrary, it’s nice to be able to get up and know that I have Things To Do. I don’t know if you (yes, you, reading this) have ever experienced unemployment, but while it sounds like the best thing ever in many ways—just not having to commute is heavenly—after a while it does get both annoying and demoralising.

Which is why returning to work—even if it’s work from home at curious, PST-friendly hours like I’m currently doing—can sometimes be a surprise. Having had entire days of nothingness to fill with any combination of sitting on the Internet, watching TV, trawling your DVD collection, playing video games or even—shock—going out—having a healthy chunk of your day taken up by Stuff You Have To Do means that you have to rethink things somewhat.

It’s a lot more difficult to find the time to go out running, for example. I could go in the mornings if I woke up a bit earlier, of course, but still operating on a slightly-skewed body clock means that doesn’t always (ever) happen. There’s the weekends too, of course—but then weekends get filled up with socialising and doing things you don’t have time to do in the week. You start to understand the expression “not enough hours in the day” all too well.

Don’t get the impression I’m complaining—I’m really enjoying the work I’m doing and I hope that shows in what I produce. I like what I do and people who read it seem to like it, too. So that’s all good. I just find it quite amusing that when you have the time to do everything you might want to do, you don’t have the means to. And when you do have the means to, you don’t have the time! Craziness.

I couldn’t tell you for sure if things are going to stay exactly this way, but it’s certainly better than the way things have been. It’s been a long, difficult and not particularly pleasant road to get here, but it’s entirely possible that the destination’s in sight. What that destination is? No idea.

We’ll find out, I guess. Watch this space.

#oneaday Day 68: What Now?

It’s coming up on a year since my departure from the obnoxiously-named “world of work”, when I left my employment at a primary school, went to PAX East and had what was to this day the happiest week of my life, then came home only for my life to completely fall to pieces two short months later.

Now, here I am, and some things have changed, and some things aren’t any further along than they were even back then. I have some awesome new people of various descriptions in my life, for one thing, and while most of them are some distance away, none of them are so far away as to make it completely impractical to go and see them. This is a Good Thing.

I also have a sweet writing gig that I’m absolutely loving. I enjoy doing the news posts every day and I’ve had great fun at the events I’ve had the opportunity to attend so far. This is also a Good Thing.

But I get the impression that some Decisions are going to have to be Made at some point. How much do I want to be a writer in the games industry? Quite a lot, as it happens. Despite having been technically “unemployed” for the last year, I’ve been doing a lot of writing and I haven’t reached that “jaded” stage that some writers have got to—the stage where they’ve forgotten to have fun with what was once their hobby. I don’t see myself getting to that point any time soon because I’m a fan of games, the games industry and everything it involves, and hopefully that comes across in my writing. I believe that I’m a good writer and a valuable addition to any of the teams I’ve been part of over the years, and friends and colleagues would (hopefully) back me up on that front. I certainly have a heap of LinkedIn recommendations that would attest to this.

So what’s the problem? Well, as much as I love it, it’s not a full-time gig… at the moment, anyway. Making it into a full-time gig would likely, at this time anyway, involve having to whore myself around to a number of outlets on a freelance basis, without any particular guarantee of a particular amount of money coming in each month. I wouldn’t have a problem with this were it not for the fact that the events of the last year have left me in a terrible state financially. The thing I find myself constantly coming back to is whether I should leave behind “the dream” and get a full-time job instead. Practically speaking, it’s the thing that would probably make most financial sense, and anyway, there’s nothing to say I can’t continue contributing to sites on a freelance basis while I hold down another job.

So I have been applying for jobs. And applying. And applying. And tweaking my CV and cover letter and trying new templates and writing in different styles. And nothing. This is immensely frustrating as I know that I am Good At Stuff. But on paper I am qualified for just two things: writing and teaching. Teaching I have no desire to go back to as it’s nearly killed me on two separate occasions, but I have a lingering fear that it’s the only career path I can all but guarantee I’ll be able to find myself a position in. I’ve held three teaching jobs in the past, all of which were in schools that could politely be described as “challenging” and as such my perception of the profession may have been coloured in a slightly negative light. But I’m not sure I want to risk my sanity and happiness (well, potential happiness, anyway) diving back in “just to see” if I was just imagining it was as awful as I thought it was.

In summary, I’m not sure what I “should” do. A job’s a job, after all, and anything that gets some money coming in is surely better than doing nothing and having no money coming in whatsoever. My quandary is this, then: after this long out of full-time work, should I continue looking for that elusive something that’s going to make me happy? Or after this long, should I just take whatever the hell I can get?

And are you hiring?

#oneaday, Day 309: One Of Those Days

Nearly everyone I’ve spoken to has had an absolutely terrible day today. If you are one of those people who has had a terrible day, I offer my sympathies, condolences, fistbumps, high fives, whattups, hugs, manly nipple tweaks or cock-punches (take your pick) and understand entirely if you’re currently feeling a bit less-than-optimum.

Me, I’m right there with you. I too have had a pretty rubbish day. For starters, I had a job interview. That in itself is not, in fact, rubbish. It’s something which should be celebrated and applauded, given the length of time I’ve been jobhunting without success. However, the fact that I drove 120 miles for said interview only to discover at the interview that the job in question was only likely to be for four or five hours a week? That was rather more irritating. Particularly as the interview itself was lengthy, stressful and presided over by one quite attractive and pleasant woman and one rather rude lady. I spent the whole day with bubbling bowels, and for what? Naff all, it seems.

I then had to drive 120 miles back home. Fortunately, I’d done the driving there last night, as I didn’t fancy going there and back in one day. But, as luck would have it, tonight was National Traffic And Roadworks Appreciation Day, with everyone driving extra-slowly to admire the one set of roadworks on the M25, then the next set of roadworks on the M25, then the roadworks in the Hatfield Tunnel on the A1(M), then the roadworks about two miles further up on the A1(M). All told, it took somewhere in the region of A Very Long Time to get home, during which I was feeling very tired and a bit embittered at the fact I’d pretty much wasted a day I could have spent doing far better and/or more productive things.

Sadly, the surprises the day had to offer didn’t end there, either. I knew that today I’d be hearing from another job—one that I was particularly enthusiastic about and very much looking forward to the possibility of doing—so I was prepared, but feeling reasonably confident after my interview and my contact with the employers in question. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Apparently I was near the top of the list, just not top of the list. Perhaps it was one of those situations where they just had to pick one person or the other. And, as luck would have it, it wasn’t me.

In some senses, it’s a bit of a lottery, applying for a job you really want. Because all the preparation in the world, all the confidence you exude in the interview, all the important buzzwords you try and drop into conversation, all the thought-provoking questions you provide; sometimes it just comes down to a simple choice. And sometimes that choice isn’t going to favour you.

I just kind of think it’s about time one of those choices did favour me, hmm?

#oneaday, Day 183: The Waiting Game

After something bad happens, it takes time for things to fall into place. While you’re thinking about the bad thing that happened, it seems like an eternity before anything will fall into place and make things seem the slightest bit good again. But then things do start falling into place. And the problem then is that they don’t do it fast enough. You can see your final destination, but you’re not getting there quick enough. There’s a big chasm made of time in the way.

Whoo, deep, huh?

Take now. I’ve pretty much almost totally nearly in a way kind of 95.7% decided what my next step is going to be. I know I said I’d do it by Day 200. But why wait?

Answer: because I have to. In order to take said next step that I’m 95.7% pretty much almost totally nearly in a way kind of decided about, I have to wait. Specifically, until next week. Next Wednesday is one of those Important Days that will determine what happens next. I’m not going to say anything about it for fear of jinxing it or anything. But let’s just say that the outcome of that day should hopefully determine my immediate future at the very least. Which is good. Knowing one’s immediate future is good. Knowing one’s immediate future is a positive thing is even better, and a positive outcome on this particular day in question will ensure a positive immediate future. I can’t speak for the long term, but right now, immediacy is what it’s all about. Hah. “Right now, immediacy is what it’s all about”. Clever.

So I must wait. It’s like I’ve got the Mac OS X pinwheel or the Windows hourglass/swirly Windows 7 thing in front of my life saying “WAIT! STOP! THINK! NO! DON’T THINK! I KNOW YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING BUT I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU WAIT ARBITRARILY!”. And there’s no way to Ctrl-Alt-Del/Alt-Cmd-Esc out of this waiting period. And turning off isn’t an option. I… wait, where was I going with this?

Oh right, waiting. Yes, it sucks. And we’re taught that from an early age. Birthdays. Christmas. Easter. “It’ll come quicker if you go to bed”. No it won’t. Unless I sleep until next Wednesday? That’s a distinct possibility, though ultimately unproductive and probably bad for… well, everything. Later in life we wait for a response from job applications (which rarely comes), feedback from interviews (I was supposed to have a response from the interview I went to on Friday today, for example, and haven’t) and to receive a text back from someone we fancy or to get a scary official letter or to find out if we can buy a house or if our finance has been accepted or… you see where this is all going.

An estimated 85% of our lives (I may have made that up. Which, technically, counts as an estimate.) is spent waiting. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just say “I’ve decided this! What do you think?” and someone could say “Yes!” or “No!” and then we could get on with something else. I’m pretty sure everyone would get a whole lot more done that way.

But no. Instead we sit here clockwatching.

Tick.

Boom.

#oneaday, Day 180: Exhausted

This is going to be a brief one, and for that I apologise. It’s been a very, very, very long day.

Had my interview today. Journey to Newbury was absolutely fine with no hiccups. The interview went well, the people were very pleasant and they very much enjoyed my presentation which featured a selection of stick-Pete pictures to liven up the slides, one of which you can see in the corner. I’m still not convinced about the job itself, though I felt quite positive about the interview.

The thing that switches me off a bit is that it would involve relocating and a lot of travel. Right now, I really don’t have the finances to be able to fund that sort of thing. It suggests to me that it is something I could maybe do in the future, but it’s not the right time to do it now. In the meantime, I have another job interview the Wednesday after next that will allow me to move back home for a bit, raise a bit of money and get myself sorted in preparation for whatever awesomeness is hopefully around the corner.

So that’s almost kind of sort of decided, then. As much as it pains me to leave Southampton, the overwhelming response from a lot of people to my question the other day was that making a new start is easier if you make a physical move as well. And okay, going back home isn’t exactly a completely fresh start. But it’s something to build on, and it’s a change. And change is good, apparently.

What wasn’t so good today was the journey back. As I left the building where the interview was taking place, it started to rain. That stupid kind of rain where it’s still sunny but you get soaked at the same time. Then it stopped. Then it started again.

I hid in the forecourt of a BP garage until it passed and looked at Google Maps to find my way back to the train station. Turned out the train station was actually very close to where I was, but on the other side of some kind of waterway. And it didn’t look like there were any ways across.

Fortunately, there was a footbridge that wasn’t marked on the map. Said waterway turned out to be a canal, which meant there was a pathway all along the side of it… and no way to get out to the station which was tantalisingly out of reach. I ended up walking about a mile to reach somewhere that was probably less than 200 yards away. Oh well.

Then I got the train back. The journey involved a change of trains at Reading. Changing trains is always stressful because there’s always that worry that you’ll miss your connection. In this case, it turned out to be true, but it wasn’t my fault. The timetables on the station at Reading bore absolutely no resemblance to the trains that were actually coming and going. I ended up stuck in Reading station for nearly two hours, lack of sleep rapidly catching up with me until I did doze off on a bench like a well-dressed vagrant only to be shaken awake by another besuited man asking me if I needed to get on the Oxford train that was about to leave.

“No,” I said groggily. “Thank you.” Then I closed my eyes again.

When the train I did need eventually arrived, I decided to get into the “quiet” carriage where theoretically mobile phones and stereos are banned. However, what was not banned was the screechy Brummie hen party in there who were flirting noisily with all and sundry and getting incredibly drunk. I just wanted to sleep. Noisy, screechy drunk women are bad enough. Throw in a Brummie accent and… well, you can imagine.

When I did eventually get back to Southampton I was in full-on zombie mode. I shambled my way back to my flat, collapsed into bed for an hour or two and then set about the day’s business of writing.

And now here I am. At 3.30am. Tired. But it’s Saturday tomorrow. And I intend on sleeping until lunchtime. So there.

#oneaday, Day 75: Late again

One of these days I’ll post one of these entries before midnight. If you look at the dates, it looks like I’m a day behind. But I’m not. Oh no. I just stay up late. Which is perhaps not wise. But hey. It’s too late now.

I wrote 650 words of story today. They’re probably crap, but I made an effort to just churn them out regardless. I’ll try and do at least 500 every day, preferably 1000. I can easily get through that. It’s just a case of letting the creativity flow and not worrying about it being stupid. That’s what the editing process is for.

Little else of note has happened today, really. I went out for a walk and took Gowalla with me. For the uninitiated, Gowalla is a location-based app for the iPhone where you “check in” at places to stamp a virtual passport. You can create your own spots too, meaning that eventually, a user-generated map of points of interest in an area is built up. There’s a sort-of game mechanic in there too, with items appearing in places and allowing you to either collect them or drop them elsewhere for others to find.

I’m now up to a hundred stamps. That’s cool, although I did create a whole bunch of them myself. Southampton was a little dry on “points of interest” when Gowalla first launched. Now, thanks to the machinations of myself and several others in the area, there’s now lots to see. Interestingly, I’ve got to know a couple of people (not face to face… yet) simply through playing with Gowalla, which is nice. There is talk of a “tweetup” at some point in early April so if I’m feeling super-brave I may go and check it out. We shall see.

Elsewhere today, I rediscovered LittleBigPlanet, which is still one of the best-looking games on PS3. There’s some incredibly creative levels out there, too – but you knew that already. Tonight, I played through a selection of excellently designed levels by a guy whose name escapes me right now, as well as a perfect recreation of the first bit of Bioshock, albeit with some rather poor writing spelling, punctuation and grammar-wise. My mind draws a blank any time I fire up the level designer for LittleBigPlanet and I am yet to create a level. I’m sure I’ll think of something eventually, though.

Tomorrow, I have a music pupil in the morning and then the remainder of the day… who knows. Since coming back from PAX East, it’s been an odd feeling to be “free”, though of course the money thing is something of a worry. I have let various agencies know I’m available for work, however, and of course, if you know anyone who is interested in either music or computer tuition in the Southampton area, I invite you to direct them here for music lessons or here for computer lessons. That would be marvellous, ’cause if I get enough pupils between those two things, I won’t have to set foot in a classroom, even as a supply teacher, ever again. But that won’t work just yet, unfortunately. That’s the plan, though.

Right. I’m off, because it’s nearly 2am. Good night!

#oneaday, Day 72: Taking Stock

Okay, so I’m back in the UK. Now what? I kind of haven’t come down off the high from the last few days yet, but I probably should start making some sort of plan to sort out that “future” thing. I hear it helps.

So here’s where I am now. I am going to run down these things in writing in public to see if that helps to take stock of my current situation and give me an idea of where the hell I’m going.

CURRENT EMPLOYMENT STATUS: Writing for Kombo.com. Writing for dailyjoypad.co.uk. Two music pupils, possible third.

EMPLOYMENT ANALYSIS: Not enough to pay rent. Need either a) more pupils b) more writing jobs that pay big bucks (hah!) c) computer pupils as well as music pupils or d) few days of supply teaching per week. I’d rather not have to do d) but it may be a necessity, for a little while at least. Over the next couple of days I am going to set up a new website advertising my computer tuition services and I shall be counting on you (yes, you!) to be part of the pimping process for that. My pupils have found me through the directory on musicteachers.co.uk thus far, but I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent for computer tuition. I guess some research is in order.

CURRENT HEALTH STATUS: Mild sore throat. Unfit. Fat.

HEALTH ANALYSIS: Recommence Operation Gym and Operation Run Without Dying. iPhone is already loaded with an appropriate soundtrack, featuring tunes from Bayonetta, Persona 3, Persona 4, OutRun, Space Channel 5, Trauma Center and various Final Fantasy titles. Get into routine of actually going to gym as opposed to routine of not going to gym.

CURRENT SELF-ESTEEM STATUS: Actually not bad right now. Several days with “my people” has helped with this, specifically with the whole “Hey, you’re not such a freak after all – and even if you are, there are at least 59,999 people just like you in the world, probably more” thing.

SELF-ESTEEM ANALYSIS: Maintain by doing stuff that makes me feel positive. Avoid doing things that make me feel negative. See aforementioned gym routine thing.

CURRENT MISSION OBJECTIVES:

Make enough money to pay rent (OPTIONAL: Make enough money to pay rent AND have Fun Stuff)
Recruit more music pupils
Design computer tuition website
Recruit computer tuition pupils
Do more writing for Kombo, DailyJoypad and BitMob
Hassle other sites for writing gigs
Attempt to make use of contacts made at PAX
Get into a situation where I can keep the necessity of doing supply teaching to a minimum

First one and the last one are the biggies, I guess. Everything else will contribute to those two. If I can get to a stage where I never have to step inside a classroom again, and I am working entirely on my own terms and feeling good about myself, that’s the goal. That’s the dream. And it’s frickin’ well going to happen.

Also, I’ve totally managed 72 days of blogging without a gap. That’s pretty good going, right? I’ll have a party on post 100 or something.