Taking Stock of My Path in 2017 Thus-Far

A fair lot has been going on for me these past months, and as such this is going to be one of those personal updates, for those few of you who are interested in the person behind the more-or-less daily ramblings.

The Speech Contest Front

For those who may have missed my mention of it in a post a fair while back, I am a member of a club called 'Toastmasters Malta', itself a member of 'Toastmasters International'. It is an international organization that focuses upon building public speaking and leadership skills in its membership.

Well - in recent months I'd accepted to pitch in towards promotion of this year's speech contest in Malta. Such was, for the most part a pretty positive experience but in fairness I was not an optimal choice for the role. You see I happen to be friend-and-follower-deficient - and that does kind of put a cramp on the whole 'promoting an event' thing. :cP

Fortunately a fellow Toastmasters member was kind enough to allow me to leverage her friend base to spread the word a lot further than I could have alone - and a few weeks ago we opened the event to a rather full room.

As you can see, everybody was treated to a very good time (I certainly enjoyed it, sitting all the way to the left) and the speeches delivered were quite good.

An evening to remember it was - but with my thoughts filled with concern over another event - I was glad to see my role conclude.

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The Game Design Front

A less happy ending came in the form of the game design contest that was hosted by Saint Martin's Institute.

I have posted my grievances and my breaking point on the matter before - and so I'll simply clue you all in on what has happened since.

Well... the so-called "team" succeeded exceedingly at living down to my expectations.

That sounds mean - but lets put things into perspective.

The one guy who had done nothing but deliver promises and false hopes for reformation finally 'did' something. He finally quarter-fudged together a level.

Never mind that he was delivered two level designs by me. Oh no, no. Our programmer not being able to program certain things apparently warranted disregarding 90% of it, such that anything beyond the first couple of seconds of game play within that level enters 'his' territory.

To further add insult to injury - not only did they poorly skin the level - he only skinned 'maybe' half of it.

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'deep breaths' OK...

That's OK... the 180-odd sprite instances that I delivered because the programmer claimed it was too hard to animate in Unity would be something that they 'couldn't' screw up... right? The judges would get to see 'something' done by me.

Um... no...

On the day when I 'finally' got to see what they Frankensteined-together - I was disappointed - but disturbingly not shocked to find that they implemented NONE of the sprites.

Quote: "I had a problem implementing the sprites" (Admitted... on... the... day...)

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Fortunately the judges who leafed through the documentation during deliberation got to see some semblance of those sprites because I had a 'feeling' that my "team" would screw me over - and they proved me right. So right that it hurt.

A part of me shut down right then and there.

I wandered over to the snacks table... and began eating. I'd sometimes drift back to the table. Oh... they also implemented hardly any of the character mechanics that weren't only discussed but were written out for them in black and white...?

I must have hit the floor of how cheated a person could feel.

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Even my laughter felt hollow when casual players found that they could walk on the deadly stuff without problem - found impossible jumps as well as a glitch that allowed players to 'ride' all the way through walls and traps to beyond the roof walling - to then jump off the side of the map to oblivion.

No reset button? Must close and restart application? Of course!

So dead did I feel by the end of it that when our programmer asked for "more share" and our non-contributor and level-fudger felt that we should gain equal credit - I had no fight left in me and I'd rather not "work" with them again for as long as I live. They wasted over 3 months of my life.

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This is not to say that I shall be giving up upon this field.

No. As much as I had hoped to avert this failure - as I do take a degree of ownership of it even though my fruits were discarded or trampled upon - I have a greater sense of a yearning for redemption. They have done me more harm than they can ever imagine.

One reason why 'I' feel responsible is because once it became apparent that no adequate game would be viewed, I had a desperate desire to take matters into my own hands and attempt to craft the game myself using Stencyl. While I did make some progress - it was not least the wrong time to do so, a lot going on with me besides this contest, and I got my butt kicked by Stencyl in no small part due to my lack of adequate familiarity with its systems.

I had hoped to show the "team" how its done - and my failure to do so stung and further bruised my pride.

I frankly want to forget this "team-up" ever happened - but I do look forward to the next event nonetheless.

A clean slate. A new opportunity. A chance to shine.

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The Crypto Front

In recent weeks I took my first fledgling steps into crypto-trade. It wasn't a bad time to do so and I penetrated the layers of bureaucracy.

In recent days the bank that I'd used for ell over a decade decided to turn against cryptocurrency exchanges - denying me and others the opportunity to do with our modest non-debt-committed income what we please.

I have yet to figure out what I'll be doing but it'll probably involve moving funds into HSBC - against my better judgement.

It has also crossed my mind to try to go the way of mining... but with a decade-old laptop I suspect that it won't suffice - and I am clueless as to whether its a 'go-in-heavy-or-not-at-all' kind of venture.

Would be nice to cut fiat out of the picture entirely.

Well, my most immediate plan shall be to aim at earning a collective 500 Steem Power, as I really want to gain access to that vote slider (particularly when up-voting comments).

Perhaps by then I'll have found a bank that isn't intent on keeping me under its heel.

As an aside I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank @valued-customer for his patience. I have not been ignoring his loosely-related queries and 'will' respond. :c)

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Getting my Life Back

On a very different note, as of about 7 and a half months ago I began a personal journey of recovery from a series of mistakes over recent years that have had me ensnared. A situation where I have not entirely been blameless but have for years been caught upon my hind-leg, off-balance, precariously close to toppling over.

This journey of disentanglement is still-on-going and has resulted in various improvements in my life, one of which was joining Steemit just shy of 6 months ago.

My ambitions shall continue to recover as my independence, effective and actual, grows - and I am keen to see what the future holds - especially now that I am gaining more self-determination with every passing month.

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This was certainly a much more personal post than I am accustomed to sharing - and for those for whom this is not why they follow me - I do thank them for their patience. I am aware that you likely do not follow me for anything other than the stuff that I normally post about - and such shall be returning over coming days and weeks. :c)

Do you have any comments or feedback? I look forward to hearing any comments that you have in the discussion down below!

Also, if you found this post interesting and would like to share this with your followers and friends then a resteem is always appreciated.

Sincerely,

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