They’re changing my future…

So, I said I’d write about this here, to avoid spamming up Twitter something horrendous. I don’t really like writing about my personal life here on TMD, and prefer to take a more objective approach to how I run this place and what I put on it. Even if that does entail mostly talking about how godawful energy shots are.

But I guess this is of enough significance -to me, at least- to warrant an entire post. The lead-up to this has been long, fraught with depression, apathy, hatred and a whole host of other things that right now, just leave me feeling lost and slightly broken. A lot broken. It’s been an interesting two years. And don’t get me wrong, this isn’t some wah-Lu-is-emo-about-teenage-drama entry, it’s something a lot more grown up, particularly for me. I’m aware my track record for drama is pretty shameful.

Either way, here I am. It’s 7:20pm at the time of writing, I’ve just started on my second can of Monster, the sun is starting to dip behind the clouds and my mood is best described as “dead and empty.” Results day is on Tuesday, and suddenly the point of this becomes clearer. I can’t say I’ve been happy with this second year of tuition. If, of course, you can call it that. About the only thing I’ve learned is how to think of games as something more than what you play, and that was thanks to a single class. Which, incidentally, isn’t what I paid £3000 for. I didn’t pay 3k to be told to look things up on Google or ask another student. I’m aware that yes, some of the modules that the class has are very hard, and extensive, but moreover, why? There are entire degrees dedicated to this module’s kind of work, why not just make a simpler (a LOT simpler) version and actually teach us something? I found -and continue to find myself- tripping up at the most basic problems, before I can even get to complex methods (which there are plenty of tutorials around for.)

I can’t actually think, beyond Interactive Games Culture, of anything I’ve learned in an entire year that I couldn’t have taught myself. Instead, I’ve just been stressed, annoyed, and my skills have been deteriorating from the sheer breadth of things I need to learn. There’s just too much variety forced on, and instead of giving me a wide set of skills, has just given me a wide set of mediocre skills. I honestly would have been better off learning this in my own time. I would have been financially better off, too. This degree is far too experimental, too poorly handled and generally speaking, too damn difficult for what it is. There’s 3rd year medical students saying our second year is harder and more unfair than their final year. And they’re doing medicine! That’s regarded as one of the hardest degrees in education, next to things like law.

And it’s heartbreaking, really, since the few skills I have that I had any kind of confidence in have stopped growing because I just haven’t had the time to nurture them properly. My writing for the most part is fine. It’s the only thing I still have any kind of confidence in, but my drawing skills have deteriorated, and grown lacklustre. It’s like losing a limb. Whenever I hit art blocks, I used to sit down and play some games til my inspiration came back, but I haven’t even been able to do that, because every time I even try and play a game, the side of my brain that’s been conditioned to break down games is so embittered from how much trash I’ve had to put up with as a “budding games designer” that it near-instantly kills any enjoyment.

So without art and games, the two things that I have always felt as my defining hobbies (beyond my multitude of others like locksport, 40K and of course, this blog,) what am I? And yes, it sounds a bit dramatic, and a bit extreme, but I really have no passion left for becoming a games designer, if that’s at all what I wanted to be. Which, retrospectively, it’s not. All I’ve wanted to be since I was a very, very small child is to be a concept artist, an artist for games. I didn’t want to be an animator, an “ideas guy” or anything like that. I wanted to be an artist, and the skills I need to be an artist have been atrophying for the last two years, because they haven’t been nurtured.

I’m not some crazily talented super-child like some of the people seem to be. I’m just average. But that’s fine with me. Better average and sane than stupidly talented and pressured to the bone by your tutors. I never understood that; why do the talented ones get all the assistance and attention from tutors while the ones who actually need their help are left to fumble and struggle in the dark? Another point of contempt with this education.

All in all, I don’t think I want to do this any longer. Before the year is over, I may even be transferring to a different university, because I just don’t feel like this is for me any more. It’s not for me, it’s not what I want to be, and I’m at my wits end trying to cope with it.

I’m sorry.