Now What?

Well... I've run out of things to do. For once I've gotten my computer to the point where everything is working. This morning I got blender all set up with my usual settings, and just plumb ran out of things that needed to be done. I'm once again looking for a project to keep myself busy with. I've got a couple things I've wanted to get started on for a while now. I was working on a 3D animation based on some really simple characters I found scribbled on some papers from when I was in grade school, And I've also got an Idea for a game I would like to work on. I'm just finding it very hard to actually get started. The animation is giving me trouble because I have this group of characters, and that's it. No story line, no personalities, no setting. The characters themselves aren't overly original, I'm pretty sure I had based them off of another character I had seen at the time, and I keep finding overused characteristics are all I can think of for personalties. As for the game, well, I started that over summer. Then I hit some road blocks. Then I tried to start up again. It's so tempting to just try and fix the code I wrote over the summer, but too much of it is buggy, and hacked together. So I'm trying to write it again from scratch, which his hard cause I can't remember what it was everything needed to do. I've tried looking off the original as a reference, but that just ends with me copying it, and is just as problematic as trying to fix it. I really need to sit down for a couple hours, completely uninterrupted and just think about it and work everything out. Of course, that's not going to happen anytime soon. during the day, when my family is all awake, I can't focus for more than ten minutes at a time. If it isn't my mom calling me to do something, then it's my brother just bugging me to tell me a joke from a Simpson's re-run that we've both seen about a dozen times. Or maybe it's the dog whining to go out. So that leaves at night, after everyone else has gone to bed. During the summer that's when I got the most work done. But during the school year, I have to get up at 6:00 in the morning. So the absolute latest I can stay up is eleven, which is when everyone goes to bed. Except on Friday and Saturday nights, when I can stay up later cause I don't have to get up. Lately, however, I'm finding I just can't do that. The seven hours of sleep or less, every night during the week is starting to catch up with me I think. I have no clue how to get in more sleep though. From six 'o' clock until three 'o' clock I'm at school, getting ready for school, or in transit between home and school. And although there is about two hours of free time over the course of the school day, it's not really constructive free time. Can't do much else other than talk to people. Not that talking to people isn't enjoyable, it just doesn't accomplish much. So that leaves from three 'o' clock until eleven 'o' clock in which I can get stuff done. That's eight hours. Seven if you take out the time spent on eating supper and doing dishes, less if my mom has me help her. So less than seven hours a day of true free time. Now, to actually get some work done on either of those projects, I need use of the computer. My dad uses the computer for work, on most nights, right up until super (six 'o' clock) so those three hours are gone. And I really should be using that time for school projects and whatnot. so after the hour for supper/dishes, I have four hours left at the end of the day, where I can sort of focus on getting stuff done. Provided my favorite shows aren't on that night. So if I were to go to bed earlier, I would get 3 hours a day to actually do what I want to get done, and it would be a distracted three hours. Also one of my favorite shows is on at ten, so I'd miss that. That's 15 hours, over the course of a school week, in which I can work on a project. Right now I get 18. Either way I'm usually distracted and multitasking. So what was the point of all this? I can't remember. I'm too tired. That was it I think. I don't get enough sleep during the week, and have no place in my schedule to fit more in. So on Friday and Saturday nights, when I try and stay up late, and take advantage of a few hours of productive, distraction free computer time, I find I'm too tired to focus on anything. I'm willing to bet that this blog entry has a few points that don't make sense, as it is after twelve on a Saturday as I write this. So I think I'm going to have to start taking advantage of the weekends to catch up sleep, which leaves me with no time to do some good, focused work. Of course, I'm sure I'm not the only one with this particular dilemma.
Doing some quick math, I come up with 21%. That's how much of the time I'm awake during a school week, that I can actually spend doing what I really want to, which is working on the projects I have going on the computer. It's kind of interesting to see that. Just figure out how much time during you school/work week you awake. I'm awake from 6am until 11pm, Monday through Friday. Unless I stay up late on Friday, but I'm just counting that as part of the "Unpredictable Weekend." So that's 85 hours each school week, of which 18 hours are actually spent on the computer, working on my projects. So that's 21%. Try it and see what you end up with. And feel free to post it in a reply here. Well, I think that's all for me. I'm going to re-read this and hope it all makes sense, and then I'm off to bed. Until next time!


Oh Well...