I realize I have to move on, and it’s hard, but it’s in no way impossible. No matter how hard I try to live in the fantasy that is hope, I have to realize that it’s over. And that brings me full circle, right back where I was last year…but not quite.

Last year I was happy, and I was motivated to become the greatest games journalist in the world (a feat that is seemingly impossible yet entirely possible at the same time). This year, I find myself a little less happy, yet thousands of steps closer toward achieving my dream. So where does that leave me? Honestly, I don’t really know. All I am certain of is that I will continue working toward my goal. I won’t let any negative situation I have been a part of in the last couple of months deter me from my goal. If anything, I’ll feed off of that negativity, let it drive me closer to my goal, and turn it into something positive: dedication.

No, I don’t know how I’ll be feeling tomorrow morning. I won’t know how I’m feeling tomorrow night. But I do know I’ll set forth for greatness and do exactly what I’ve said I want to do this whole time.

I will move on.

I will become the greatest games journalist in the world.

I will be driven, focused, and relentless.

Making the amount of money I do just from writing about video games is a truly rewarding experience. Hell, it was rewarding when I was only volunteering, so you can imagine how it must feel to make a living off of this. Not only do I contribute by paying bills, but I keep my car running, I can buy food, and I was finally able to kick that security gig to the curb.

Last year at this time I couldn’t be happier being single. I had been in a couple of relationships that left me feeling heartbroken and worn out. For a year and a half, I was happy to be alone; to be able to focus on myself and work toward a career in games journalism. In January, I met a girl that changed my life. I fell for this girl, and I wanted nothing more than to be with her. I was done with my hiatus from women. Sadly, things went awry one month into this summer, and it ended just as suddenly as it began. I’ve never been one to hide my emotions, and I will admit that I feel this lingering, irreparable sadness in my heart.

Lastly, I’d like to talk about the whole reality thing. Yes, reality has struck. A year ago, I was on cloud nine. Emotionally, everything seemed perfect, but I was stuck working sporadically for a security company and writing about video games for free. At the beginning of 2010, I was in a loving relationship, I started making money from my writing, but my anger issues – which I hate bringing up – somewhat resurfaced. Summer started off amazing. I graduated from college, was making money, and things with the girl seemed perfect. Now here I am, making pretty good money, having fun writing, and feeling emotionally torn. The reality is, things really can’t be 100% perfect. It sucks that things are like that, but it is what it is.

I look forward to better days…

The first is regarding GamerSyndrome.  Yes, that’s the first site I started writing for since I began my quest to become the best games journalist in the world.  I have nothing but good things to say about that site.  And although I am not as involved in it as I once was, I still contribute to the site every week with at least two posts.  The site is seeing an increase in traffic, major changes and additions are being made, and I can tell that it’s going forward.  And while I may not post as much as I used to, I am still proud to be a part of the GamerSyndrome team.

The second update is regarding StarCraft.  After writing for StarCraft Fan for the past seven weeks, I now own a copy of the game for PC.  It’s installed and ready to go, and I’ll likely get started on it this Saturday.  I can honestly say I’m excited to get started on that game.

That’s all for this post.  Next post I’ll try and talk about my current relationship status.  Keyword: try.

Hell, I can’t even say I’ve been keeping busy lately.  Truth be told I’ve been getting lazy a bit more than I’d like.  It’s funny, because I say I’m getting lazy, but I’ve actually been making pretty decent money.  I mean, it’s not a real living, but I’ve had enough for the immediate expenses.  I was literally making less than half of what I make now when I was actually “busy.”

But anyway, I’d like to be uber productive, especially since I have a few writing gigs that pay now.  I really have no idea if I’ve mentioned this before, but I started writing for two new sites.  The first ia Bright Hub, which pays $10 per article.  Not shabby at all, and I could probably make some decent green if I got productive.  But then I discovered the catch.  Apparently, in order to write as much as I want, I need to have over 150 views.  (Until then I can only publish five articles per month.)  Now I don’t know if that’s on a single article or overall, but that’s the prerequisite.  I’ll know by the end of the week if I reached that milestone (hopefully).  You see, I contacted my editor, told him I’d write the reviews I didn’t get to submit last month due to me not meeting the 150+ views, and pitched a few new ideas.  So right now I’m just waiting to see what he says and to see if my ideas got accepted.  Here’s hoping.

The second writing gig I got was for StarCraft Fan, this blog that focuses entirely on StarCraft.  It’s been a lot of fun writing for that site, and it’s nice to get an upfront payment for my articles.  Granted I’m only allowed to write five articles per week, but that work has landed me some gas money and then some.  This was originally supposed to be a five-week gig, but I’ve been writing for the site for seven weeks.  Hell, I’m not going to complain, that’s for sure.  Keep me on all year if ya want!

I made some quick cash writing a sociology piece about the homosexual community.  I’ll be writing about that one in detail the post after next.  Anyway, that money was put to good use on Valentine’s Day.  I’ll be writing about that in detail three posts from now.

As long as I’m talking about my writing (I had no idea this would be a career-based post.), I guess I’ll close this entry by mentioning my latest opportunity.  I emailed GameZone and basically applied to write for the site.  I got a response asking for more details regarding my experience as well as my resume.  So this morning I polished up my ol’ resume, updated it a tad, and submitted the necessary information.  I doubt I’ll get the job, (Gotta love my attitude, eh?) but it’s already one step higher than I’ve gotten with some of the other writing jobs I’ve applied for.  2010 will be my year, and if I don’t get this job, I’ll get the next one, or the one after that, or the one after…  Well, you get the idea.

My gaming has fluctuated a lot since my last blog post.  I’ll play games for a while then just stop for long periods of time.  I often find myself muttering the sentence “I’m a games journalist and I hardly even play games anymore.”  Sometimes I’ll spew out “I write about video games more than I play them.  Ridiculous!”

I got to some of the games I received for my birthday/Christmas.  I beat New Super Mario Bros. Wii and The Legendary Starfy recently.  Both great games, although I found Starfy to be the better platformer.  It just offered something really refreshing in terms of its gameplay.  I was also surprised by the sheer amount of storytelling.  That’s right, deep storytelling in a platformer.

I think that’s it for this post.  Hopefully I can get another post out tomorrow.  For those of you who actually take the time to read these, I’ll give you a little heads up of what to expect in my next few posts.  I’ll be dedicating a post to each of the following topics:

• More insight on my gaming as of late.
• My graphic novel project.
• My upcoming multi-piece art project.
• The girl.

I’m still an artist, though, and I have so many unfinished artistic endeavors.  There’s a storybook I’d like to work on; I’d also like to dabble in the fan art realm; then there are all of these graphic novel ideas swimming around upstairs.  It’s insane: this summer I was a guy who didn’t know what he wanted to do.  Now I want to do so much.  And dammit, I will accomplish all that I set forth to do.  That is a promise to myself that I intend on keeping.

In terms of the graphic novel idea, I want to do something with a lot of passion.  I want it to be a gritty love story that doesn’t have a happy ending.  I want it to be noir, I want it to be sexy, and I want it to be brooding.  I want it to fill the reader with a false sense of hope, only to end in tragedy.  A good friend of mine said she’d help out with the art, and that all I needed to do was send her my ideas.  It should be very interesting and very fun.  I’m looking forward to it.

I got a bunch of great gifts for my birthday and Christmas.  Games, comics, stuff like that.  It took me about a week to beat A Boy and His Blob, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  What I liked most about the game was that it was puzzle after puzzle.  The game’s progression relied completely on puzzle-solving, which made it more than just a simple platformer.  After beating A Boy and His Blob I started New Super Mario Bros. Wii.  It’s a really fun game, and another nice addition to the Mario series.  I reckon it won’t take me too much longer to get through that game.

It seems as if I’m pretty much done with Global.  I haven’t been scheduled in what feels like many months, and I honestly believe that the owner of the company has some personal vendetta against me.  (I always wanted to say something like that.)  Why?  I don’t know.  It’s a shady company anyway, so I look forward to getting another job and just saying goodbye to Global Event Staffing forever.  So I guess that means the job hunt shall begin anew.  Here’s hoping all goes well…

*Sigh*

Enough of the negativity, though.  Aside from being broke and not having a good job, things have been decent.  I played through Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance.  I had a ton of fun with that game, and it made me remember my appreciation for the GCN.  A tactical RPG in its purest, most enjoyable form, Path of Radiance was not only a joy to play, but a truly rewarding experience.  The story, the music, and the gameplay were all excellent.  Methinks I’ll be giving the game another go sometime next year.

I beat it in about a week or so, clocking in 33 hours.  A decent-sized game, and I finished it in time for The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, which I’m currently playing and enjoying a whole lot.  It’s nice to see Zelda as a companion to Link as opposed to being the damsel in distress.  They gave her attitude, a personality, and a great sense of charm not seen before in the princess of Hyrule.

Other than that, I haven’t played much of anything else.  I have a backlog of indie games I’d like to get to, but alas my writing on GamerSyndrome has been my top priority.  Speaking of indie games, I was supposed to talk about RunMan and Aether in this post.  Oh, well…

Due to my excessive writing, I haven’t had much time to play video games (or do anything else, for that matter).  My copy of SvR 2010 has just sat near my Wii collecting dust.  It’s rather saddening, especially since I really enjoy Story Designer mode.  I haven’t had time to finalize my original WWE story.  Oh, well.  Maybe next week.

The few spare moments I have had I’ve spent playing numerous indie games.  I’d played independently developed games before, but I’m just now getting into indie games on a large scale.  I first played Time Fcuk about a week ago (or possibly two weeks ago).  I really liked it.  Its blend of puzzle and platform mechanics is great, and the twisted story behind it is eerie in a satisfying kind of way.  The graphics are great too.  Very simple, but very effective; and even though the designer stated that it’s not an artistic game, it’s hard not to argue against that statement given the game’s unique look.  Time Fcuk was reason enough for me to set up a Newgrounds account.  That’s how much I loved it.  Plus, I’m trying to collect the game’s achievement medals.  The fact that the game supports user-created content makes it even greater.  I may never create my own levels, but I’ll likely return to the game multiple times later on to try some original stages.

Another game I played and completed is RunMan: Race Around the World.  But much like Aether (which I’m still in the process of completing), I’ll talk about that game in my next post.  I just downloaded Cave Story.  Due to the fact that I had to work a Deftones concert last night (which wasn’t anything special considering I don’t care at all for the Deftones), I wasn’t able to play the game all that much.  Nope, I was pretty much only able to configure the controls and play part of the first stage.  I plan on playing the hell out of that game during Thanksgiving break.

That’s about it for now.  This post was much longer than I had planned.  I could probably write more, but I have to work another concert at Avalon tonight, and I’d like to watch the rest of last night’s SamckDown before going to work later.  I’m also working the night club apparently, so I should make some decent money tonight.  Here’s hoping.

Anyway, the reason I haven’t been able to post anything here for a little over a month is due to my time becoming something of a precious resource.  I’ve been playing a bunch of old-school NES games and reviewing them for Suite101.  It’s been fun, but it’s also been hard, and I’m hardly making any money off of this gig.  Still, I’m glad to be earning valuable experience.  My writing on GamerSyndrome tends to fluctuate.  Sometimes I’ll write very few articles (due to dedicating so much of my time to Suite), and sometimes I’ll provide a hefty amount of content to the site.

Last week was a very busy week.  I had to write up this multi-page assignment.  I earned $50 for it, and half of that money has already gone to gas.  The assignment was a total bore, but I was glad to make money for my writing.  It’d be nice to get contracted every week for a job that pays.

School’s been…annoying.  My math class continues to steal my precious time away, and I’ve lost all hope for that class.  I’m looking forward to next semester, though.  I plan on taking a couple journalism courses, and that should be kind of fun.

I’ll try and post another entry on here soon.  I have various things to talk about including video games, trips to the eye doctor, and Global, the company from hell.  If I can stay focused, I can probably get that entry out this week.  We’ll see.

Aside from my writing, school has been taking a ton of my time.  With the mediocre teacher I have, it’s bound to stay that way for the rest of the semester.  The guy’s lectures are so convoluted that when I get home and try to do my homework, I am completely lost.  It’s ridiculous.  I took my second quiz for that class, and I did even worse than the first time.  I wasn’t the only one either.  Quite a few people scored below me.  I’ve get a test next week, and I have no doubt in my mind it will be difficult.  Damn this class, and damn that teacher!

This past Saturday I worked the Ladyhawke concert.  I was put by the low box.  It was really easy, and I had a clear view of the stage, so I enjoyed the show.  Well, I enjoyed Ladyhawke; all the other bands sucked.  I really wanted to get a Ladyhawke shirt, but I felt rushed to leave, and I’m being extra careful with my money.  I can always get a shirt online anyway.

I haven’t played video games all that much lately.  Maybe later this week I can finish Oni.  We’ll see.