All The Stuff You Didn't See

Looking back at the things I have written about on my blog the past months I have to admit that there's a lot of formal stuff on it, but very little about me as a person. I think that this is a bit of a shame, as originally I had set up this blog to share my daily happenings as well as larger events with the world. Much of this is of course due to the changes which happened during late 2012, when I got my first job as a developer.

Considering those five months I spent there I can honestly say that I'm more glad than ever that I landed the job I currently have. My previous working place was extremely demotivating and also didn't match up very well with the other demands my life places upon me. I'm not suited to working from 9-5 at an office, partially because it goes in against how I work, partially due to the curbing of my freedom in setting my own schedule, and partially because in software development there's precious little reason to spend time at an office when you can do the same work from anywhere.

Anyway, as a result I had to cram in media events, hospital appointments, legal hearings and heavens know what else into the few paid free days I got offered. This didn't leave much time to... well, live. In addition to a relationship going from bad to terrible, various uncertainties about financial and legal matters and trying to help a person who just didn't want to be helped it seems as though I kinda just didn't quite _live_ during those months.

Now that I'm out of it all, with the relationship over, me having gotten an awesome job at a great German company which allows me all the freedom I could wish for, and the ramping up of various events media and legal-wise which will both further break down the tyranny of the legal system against all those who are born 'different' - as well as inform the average person about what the hell intersex is and how the heck they could have missed something so extremely common - it's hard for me not to start feeling more myself. More... human, I guess.

Sure, from yesterday until a few hours ago I had a continuous migraine, and I regularly suffer from mild migraines for the past months now, but I think that's just the stress of the past months coming out of my system. I actually am beginning to feel creative and motivated again. I want to go back to working on fun things, as well as write again on my stories, such as my Ocarina of Time-based Zelda novel, the Viral Desire survival-horror novel and the semi-autobiographic In Between And Neither. Maybe I'll even start work on my autobiography.

I have plenty of ideas for games as well, Android and PC. This in addition to various ambitious software projects I have underway, such as the VHDL compiler I'm writing and the now rapidly progressing WildFox browser project. The latter I'm especially happy with. I'm hoping to replace all other browsers I use with it pretty soon now. Sure, it still needs a few more features and some debugging love, but I'm actually using it for the past few days on this old laptop, and it's a breeze of fresh air compared to bloated Firefox and Chrome.

With money coming in now I am also able to get that new laptop I talked about before. It should allow me to go back to doing 3D modelling and such. I'm also of mind to play around with programming that custom CPU architecture in VHDL again. It's good to be creative, even if I have just shown myself to be a total and utter geek :)

I'm looking forward to returning to my apartment in Almere soon. While it's going to take some adjusting to live on my own with no one around, I think I'll be fine. I should be able to get everything which suffered due to my absence quickly in shape again.

A last thing I wanted to talk about are the movies and games I enjoyed lately. I recently watched the second Silent Hill movie, which is based on the third instalment of the game series with the same name. It was a quite good movie, capturing well the atmosphere of the game, and definitely not a bad movie version of the game's story. I also watched it in 3D, which looks quite good with this movie since it was filmed in 3D.

The 3D effect with the second movie I watched recently watched was even better: The Hobbit, the first part. I watched the High-Frame Rate (HFR) version, which uses 48 frames per second instead of the usual 24. All I can say is that I'd recommend people to always watch the HFR version if possible. The motion is just so much smoother especially while panning and during action scenes that it makes non-HFR movies look cheap. The movie itself is quite enjoyable as well, and I will watch the second part when it comes out.

Finally, I enjoyed playing Mass Effect 2 a lot a while ago. It actually saddened me to lose two team members, though I was rather annoyed to learn that I lost most of my ship's crew because you have a time limit after they get kidnapped to get them back. Nobody told me, I guess :(

A game I didn't play, but of which I watched multiple walkthroughs, has definitely astounded me with its awesome writing. The game is called Bioshock Infinite and it's the third part of the Bioshock series. Truth to be told it's more of a spiritual successor, since it doesn't play in the same time period (1912 instead of 1960s) and aside from one scene there's never a direct link. That doesn't take away that it's an awesome game, however. The writing has such depth and brilliance that you literally have to experience twice. Once to get bedazzled by it, the second time to actually understand the depth and meaning of everything you see and hear.

Anyway, I'll be heading to bed now as it's nearing midnight :) I have to work tomorrow, then after dinner I'm meeting up with a photographer regarding our attempt at winning first place in this year's Pride Photo Award. All we need at this point is really the first public hearing against the VUmc's gender team to get the final shots to perfect the series.

Goodnight and see you all tomorrow :)


Maya