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So it’s been a year.  That’s a thing that happened.  Nearly two years ago I started this blog with the idea that “if I have something to answer to for work that I didn’t do, I’ll do work.”  We now know how that works on me.  In those two years I have written about 3 games I worked on, and none of which are complete.  I am still programming, and working on the same game I wrote about last January, although I’ve restarted it for the third time since then.  This time may be the one that works, and it may not.  I really would prefer the former, but I have an incredible lack of control over what I create apparently.  As for this blog, I’ve written a total of 21 posts, or 7/8 per month, which is actually a record for me compared to the two previous blogs I’ve had (yes they exist, no you shouldn’t go looking for them).  So that’s something then.

I haven’t come up with a title for this yet, but WordPress is internally referring to it as 365, which seems like either an incredibly fitting coincidence, or the auto-naming system just grabs today’s year number for want of something better to use.  365 is an interesting number; it just happened to be the number of times our planet rotates in every revolution through its orbit (roughly at least), it’s semi prime (73 * 5) which has interesting implications in cryptography, although 365 is a bit low to be of much use I would think (I’m going to be honest here, I know almost nothing about cryptography).  When you Google 365, you get a bunch of Microsoft sites selling you some version of Office (hey Microsoft, can we talk about your numbering systems at some point?  I’m seriously concerned that no one in your company knows how to count), and that’s that.

So what have I done in the last year, if I didn’t manage to make a game?  I got a driver’s licence after remarkably little anticipation, not realizing how useful having one would be until I got it.  I spent a month at the University of Toronto being shown a lot of math I don’t have the brain to remember, and learning that yes, quantum physics and relativity really are as bizarre as they seem.  I started my final year of high school, which is still a weird thing to think, after 13 years of school being  the largest institution in my life all of a sudden it’s going to be done, and then I’m supposed to know what to do from there.  I applied to get a Bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering at a few schools.  I built a new computer.  I didn’t buy a Boring hat, sadly.  I finally watched Game of Thrones, and can now rejoin society without worrying about spoilers.  Some of those are even good things.

So that’s the year.  I really need to stop beginning sentences with so.  Oh well.  There are people who don’t understand the idea of midnight setting off fireworks outside, even though as I write this there are several hours to go until 2018.  The concept of New Year’s was always something I love, but an interesting mental game I’ve been playing lately is to mentally stop thinking about years, and start thinking about days, or hours, or seconds.  A different year seems like a huge thing, but its division is arbitrary, and a day is much more understandable.  In this vein, less than 7000 days ago I was born.  I find it possible to imagine winding back 7000 days more so than 17 years (yes, the math is rough).  Nothing seems like it can change in a day, but everything that changes has to on some day.  700000 days ago, Rome was the greatest empire in the world.  40000 days ago powered flight was new.  Somewhere in those 700000 days, Rome fell.  Somewhere in those 40000 days flight went from novel to mundane.  Somewhere in the last 365 days I wrote the last post here.  Somewhere in the next 365 I might even write another one.