How has your Life Changed in the Past Decade?
polycounter lvl 18
This was one Crazy Decade for Me, lets see:
Gained a Wife
Gained 4 Children,
Gained a Career,
Gained 30 lbs.
Lost a Father,
Gained a Hell of a lot of experience.
Gained a Hell of a lot of Friends.
I'd say this Decade was the one that will impact the rest of my life. And It feels as though I have Gained more than I have lost.
I really don't know what the next Ten years has for me, anymore than I did back in 2000 as a 21 year old living at my parent's house. All I know is to keep doing what I'm doing and never stop learning and expanding my capacity for Love and Art.
How has the past ten years impacted your life?
Gained a Wife
Gained 4 Children,
Gained a Career,
Gained 30 lbs.
Lost a Father,
Gained a Hell of a lot of experience.
Gained a Hell of a lot of Friends.
I'd say this Decade was the one that will impact the rest of my life. And It feels as though I have Gained more than I have lost.
I really don't know what the next Ten years has for me, anymore than I did back in 2000 as a 21 year old living at my parent's house. All I know is to keep doing what I'm doing and never stop learning and expanding my capacity for Love and Art.
How has the past ten years impacted your life?
Replies
Met my wife
Finished high school
Found polycount
Got my bachelors degree
Started dating my wife
Got my first job in the industry
Got married
Became debt free
Was a good 10 years for me id say. Hoping the next ten will include having a kid, and wont include loosing anyone.
got an industry job
met my ex
gained 60lbs
lost industry job
switched careers, scripting
medical problems and deep depression
switched careers again, got job at Turn10
depression gone
broke up with ex after 6yrs
unemployed and near bankrupt for over 212 days
that about sums it up.
Though on the plus side I have learned a lot.
-Started modding
-Got into university while I was 17, didn't know what to do with my life.
-Failed in university, I'm still a student though leaving uni next summer.
-Started traditional stuff like drawing and sculpture
-Got OCD, been learning to handle it for the last 2 years. It's working out slowly.
-Lots of friends and knowledge gained. Actually wanting to do something is a good thing also
- traumatic incident which caused me to do a massive U-turn on my intended career as an interpreter and go for it in the games industry!
- Got with my fiancee!
- Got into the industry!
- relocated to different area.
- Did ok in the industry!
- bought a home
- Family medical problems changed the home dynamic massively.
- got 2 cats
- 1 cat died for random cause
- Got 2 italian mastiffs, no kids yet.
- got another kitten to even out the numbers
- Few bad things occurred in a short time, along with accumulated strain of other factors, lost my marbles slightly.
- Got some of my marbles back, and will continue to collect them up again!
- almost paid for my education! maybe a tiny bit left, i forget.
it's interesting to see these kind of posts, maybe it's a bit emo, but what the heck!
happy christmas to everyone and hope the next decade delivers all the right karmic stuff to make everyone satisfied. :-)
Well, I've matured a hell of a lot, and learned a lot about how valuable time is. I've become a better husband, gone through a lot of crap here in the city, and am about to move back Stateside. I've progressed to a point in my life where I know exactly what I want to do with my career, and I'm working very hard towards accomplishing my goals - something I didn't think possible six or seven years ago.
It's been a rough ten years, but I'm looking forward to the next ten. I don't have many regrets, because all the shit I've had to endure has made me the man I am today.
It's all about perspective. Let's all try and stay focused, motivated, positive and encouraged over the next ten years.
Completed my Bachelors Degree in Computer Science
Lost a Job
Gained a Job
Watched many friends lose their jobs
Owned 3 different Jettas
Lost my father
Restored Dad's old house and made it a rental
Renovated a large portion of my house
Failed to find new job with new degree (still employed at least)
Still working to improve things in life. I really hope next year is the start of better things.
Was a bum for 3 years.
Started my high-school teachers education.
Was a bum for a year.
Got my high-school teachers degree. (after 4 fucking years)
Worked as a teacher for a bit.
Got my current job at Funcom. (I'm a bum again)
- Paid off all debts, feels great to own two cars out right.
- Bought a house (hello again debt).
- Had a kid.
- Made enough that the wife "could" stay home but she likes working and the extra cash is fine by me so she works a few hours on the weekends. Its good to keep her foot in the door and stay current.
- Tried just about everything the industry has to offer except programing, I have it narrowed down to two fields. 2010 will probably be about focusing in on what I like.
- Learned a mother F-Ton of stuff, still 6-7 tons left to go, I love that.
So much misc stuff I could fill 3-4 posts but I'll stop.
- Left high school!
- Went to university!
- Found a girl who I love, been together nearly 5 years now!
- Graduated with a degree that nobody has even looked twice at!
- Got the job I really wanted!
- Spent half my waking life on Polycount...
Josh, 4 kids? No wonder you don't get anything done anymore
-started highschool (oh yeah awesome)
-finished highschool (more awesome)
-started college (one month later)
-turned 21
-met my soul mate
-finished college (just in time to round out the decade)
-did my first ever art test (and did it GOOD)
so as far as the next decade goes I hope it starts off with a new job!
- got a job in the industry
- still play computer games
- learned zbrush - yay!
- got a job at Funcom too (hi Crash!)
- lived in Norway, London (I luv London!), Ft. Lauderdale, Austria and Beijing
- worked on a TV series - Captain Scarlet anyone?
- rediscovered the programmer in me - after giving up programming in '98
- lived in the US and loved it
- fell in love with China - gonna move there again soon, woot!
2001-2003
-grade school
~2004-2005
-Got contacts and braces off
-Started flash animation
-Learn action script and html+css
-Joined a close flash animation community forum (:P)
-Started taking more art courses (always loved to doodle)
-Took karate?
2006
-Took my first 3D course as a sophomore at my high school
-HATED 3D (still loved 2D) I was really bad at 3D, I didn't do any of the work till the last 3 weeks and got it all done at once.
-My grades started to suck
2007
-Started using XSI and actually liking 3D stuff, I still hated maya+macs (what we used at school)
2008
-Got a car
-Bought an intuos4 and built my first PC.
-Met my man
2009
-Graduated high school and started community college
-Came out
-Taking painting and sculpture classes for the first time
-Started to get into the game side of 3D
Became an adrenaline junky and found passion for aggresive driving.
You guys got some pretty amazing stuff there
Bleep bloop
I had (something like) this before I even had braces, its like little pistons that force your jaw to close a certain way.
-Left high school.
-Met my girlfriend.
-Went to college.
-Moved to Vancouver.
-My entire career has happened in this decade.
-Got my cat!
-Finally travelled - went to Mexico.
-Started getting tattoos, now have 2 sleeves and a leg, the next decade will probably see me covered.
-Lost my mother.
-Lost and gained a lot of friends.
-After putting it off for a while, got glasses.
-Developed an addiction to orange juice - still an addict.
-Saw practically every band live that I idolized in my youth.
-Started playing drums
Holy shit! Man I probably need something like that now, damn TMJ gives me migraines like crazy, I'm a clencher.
Got out of 2 horrible relationships
lost 2 gaming jobs
figured out what exactly path I wanted my life to take
went back to school and graduated
lost a stepfather
lost a grandmother
found the love of my life
married her
had 2 miscarriages only to get my awesome daughter
found an awesome company making an awesome game with a great bunch of dudes
received some pretty sweet inlaws
got more tattoos
grew a pretty sweet beard
had a cancer scare
had some awesome neices and nephews
bought the greatest dog in the world and cat
and so ends my 2000-2009
hopefully this next decade is even better
here
in order:
-graduated high school
-got 2 tattoos
-met my future wife, on Everquest
-had my first son
-graduated college
-got married
-got my first freelance gig
-got a 3rd tattoo
-had my second son
-got my first fulltime gig
-bought my first new car
-bought a house
-experienced a miscarriage
-had my daughter
-bought a second car
During these past 10 years I've lived in:
Savannah GA
Orlando FL
Philadelphia PA
Honolulu HI
Madison WI
It's pretty crazy seeing it listed out. Sort of surreal.
-Graduated High School
-Met the future Mrs. AutopsySoldier
-Got an Associates from a stupid ass school
-Got first "real job" as a graphic designer
-Bought my first car
-Lost my job
-Got another job
-Lost that job
And I'm finishing this decade up with bills, bills...bills and hopefully getting an extension on my unemployment.
well... i was 15... living in my parents tiny apartment in Brooklyn, I was a freshman in High School... hehe. And it feels like all the cool shit in my life basically happened right after that
- Graduated High School
- Went to some College
- Moved out of my parents place and moved across the country
- Got a job in the game industry
- Worked for 4 different studios inhouse
- Won the dominance war! harhar
- Got married
- Learned to drive
- Learned how to put gas in the car
- Got a car
- Got a motorcycle
- Got 2 dogs
- Played lots of wow
tough question. Amm..lets see:
-Started Post-Secondary Diploma of Computer programmer / Analyst.
-2 years later found out that I was better off starting bachelors in Software engineering and save myself 4 years.
-Started learning instences of game development ( In terms of programming, such as; D3D, 3D math, Win32 API) and practicing my 3d modeling skills.
-start working fulltime and study part time to help my parents.
-Been at it ever since.
-Started playing wow in my free time (worst mistake of my life)
-Got offers to study Game Development from VFS, AOD and UOIT.
-Got offers from class mates to start a game development team.
-Found one of those guys in Game Development team was trying to be the boss so left that "team."
-+Positive stages of my life will come soon:)+-
It's nice to see a lot of good stuff happening to people this past decade! And lots of people finding love, very nice!
As for me...
-Started high school (/hell)
-Finished high school (/escaped hell after learning how to make the best of it)
-Figured out I wanted to be an artist when I 'grew up', so took extra-curricular art lessons. (thank you, Mom and Dad!)
-Started college! But didn't get into Animation Arts right away... took Art Fundamentals instead
-Got into Animation!!
-Had an AMAZING 4 years of College
-Had an amazing best friend for majority of the decade
-Lost said best friend to a boy, drama and the death of the friendship ensuing
-Met a lot of other great friends
-Managed to somehow remain single the entire decade
-Had a lot of shitty jobs, ranging in various amounts of enjoyment and length
-Graduated College, and enterred the limbo that is not being in school, and not having a full time job. This is to be remedied in the new decade
Etc, etc, etc
Edit, i guess i could participate in this thing:
graduated year 2000
worked a few jobs bussing tables at restaurants, even washed dishes (oddly enough washing dishes has been my favorite job of all time to date, something zen about it)
Valet parked some cars (good god did we party hard, lots of tips, lots of shit to buy on the reservation, not going to elaborate)
Did the kinko's dance (PC load letter?!)
Did QA for SOE (wtf, i can do better than this)
went to school
had a kid (he's cool)
wondered where all the time went
Good decade everyone. Not gonna cheers just yet to the next, got just a bit to go
- Finished high school.
- Started and finished my army service.
- Studied up my grades like a good little boy.
- Lost my cherry! Hurr hurr hurr.
- Found the artist lurking inside of me. Still dragging him out.
- Applied to a vocational 2 year game-school thing.
- Met a girl. Girl broke mah heart.
- Got a an internship at an Eidos studio and then great job shortly after at...
- Spent 2.5 years at Funcom.
- Was outside europe the first time. China. Company paid.
- Leaaaaaaaaaaarnt alot about art, 3d, life and people in general.
- Got alot of good friends all over the world. Pretty good for a basement looser.
- Lost my job at funcom.
- Met, Lost, Got back together with my current girl. Woo.
- Planning my future. Aka next decade. I'm feeling up some art schools! (Unless i get a cool job which we will know in a few months I guess)
- Lived in Kyoto for a year
- Graduated university with a degree in Japanese and THEN decided I wanted to work as a videogame artist (erk!)
- Moved back in with my parents for a year and taught myself 3ds Max and Photoshop
- Went travelling around SE Asia with my girlfriend (now wife)
- Managed to get a job at Free Radical
- Met tons of cool people at Free Rad who became great friends and inspired me to get better at art
- Realised that my art skillz were severely lacking and started trying to improve myself in my spare time (Very much ongoing!)
- Drank a lot of tea
- Bought a house
- Got a cat (Molly)
- Got married
- Honeymoon in SF and Hawaii (will definitely retire to Kauai when I am megarich)
- Free Radical went bust just before Xmas 2008
- Freelanced full-time for the first time (not sure it's for me)
- Got a job at Blizzard and moved to Irvine
- Got a new cat (Mignonne)
Not sure what the next ten years hold, but I definitely feel like I need to kickstart things in terms of personal artistic development in 2010.
- Finished high school, moved out of my parents house.
- Started university - accounting - still don't know why I made that choice, but it was great 4 years of my life.
- Traveled a lot
- Back to Bulgaria
- Went and lived in the states, Massachusetts for 5 1/2 years.
- Met and lived with a gorgeous girl
- Found my first real job
- Made a lot of money
- Started skiing
- Spend everything on traveling and skiing
- Girlfriend left me
- Realized I need a job that gives me more than just money
- Met a girl that woke me up and flipped my life on 360
- Quit my job, back to Bulgaria and started master degree in Multimedia
- Girlfriend left me and broke my heart
- Met 3DS max and ZBrush
- Dropped school
- Practicing and learning more about art on my own and taking various on site and online classes.
- oo yeaa gained 25 pounds
- made tons of friends
let me read it now
2001: junior year thru senior, started dating for the first time
2002: coasted thru the last term of senior year with a 4.0 in easy classes, graduated, started college, got first gf
2003: spent a good portion of this year slacking on schoolwork and spending too much time with the gf before really starting to work hard on my art AND STARTED POLYCOUNTIN' (original name was Rage_Unleashed hahaha
2004: broke up with first gf, started dating second gf a week later, working harder in college and got an internship in the graphics department at a media company
2005: graduated college, internship turned into, a contract gig then a full time gig, broke up with 2nd gf, moved out of my parent's house into a friend's townhouse, met fiance, moved twice to apartments in Seattle with my fiance.
2006: Graphics department quickly crumbled and I managed to land first full game industry gig as an entry level character artist at Cranky Pants Games, found out my fiance was preggo!
2007: my son was born January 19th, at 10:19pm in Bellevue, wa., moved back from Seattle to kirkland, broke up with fiance
2008: dated around, child custody battle, game studio (now named Sandblast games) closes, contract jobs, hosting house parties, got new fulltime job at Cat Daddy Games
2009: child custody battle mediated, now good friends with my ex, dated around,, hosting more parties that have gotten too big for my place, work is going well, met my current gf
- finished highschool
- decided to persue a career in games, had no idea wut i needed
- luckily got accepted in Animation straight out of highschool
- learned a lot in 3 years, met a lot of interesting ppl and good friends
- had a job as a mail room clerk and then went to work for wal mart which i hated a lot
- since then i have just been jobless
- after that, i ve been polishing my portfolio and now working on a animated short film with my friends and also a mod for unity engine with friends also.
hopefully next year would be a better year.
merry chrismas polycounters btw !!!
- Started programing and doing some minor 3d stuff
- Finished elementary school
- Started high school (computer science)
- Learned a lot of 3D and programming
- Got first freelance job
- Finished high school
- Started collage
- Continously working for that company that offered me first freelance job for 2 years now
- Met my latest girlfriend (two months now)
Had an Industry Job.
Had Stock Options Evaporate at the beginning of 2001
Laid off end of 2001
Out of the Industry 2002, 2003 driving an Armoured car, and cvarrying a gun
Worked for the wonderful, but sadly unsuccessful Castaway Entertainment making Djinn. from 2003 to 2005.
worked for Collision Studios L.L. C. in Los angeles for 4 months as a contractor, and then wa shown the door.
Unemplyed most of 2006.
Got a Girlfriend in 2006
First four months of 2007 made models and animated them for a Wii Port of a Walmart quality duck hunting and retrieving game.
Dumped by Girlfriend in 2007 (Thanksgiving)
2007 to Present, working as a messenger driver for movie and entertainment industry, and making no money, Haven't done much 3D in years. Only recently got a 3d Capable computer again.
Hoping 2010 is going to be beter4,but I am lacking in optimism. and I feel as rusty as the bow of the Titanic.
Scott
It's good to hear from you again man. We did miss you mate. Here's to a better 2010 for you my man.
- changed career direction from violin performance and education to art.
- Found polycount, and skindom. made friends, made art.
- started making lots of game art. Ridiculed by professors for it. make monkey work harder
- graduated college with a BFA in 4 years!
- got a job at Scion Studios, merged later with Epic Games.
- bought a car
- got addicted to world of warcraft
- shipped Unreal Championship 2, Gears of War, Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War 2, and contributed to Shadow Complex
- bought house
- quit "hardcore life" of world of warcraft
- met girlfriend
- quit smoking
- grew a beard
Hope the next decade is a little brighter.
As for myself,
• Survived High School
• Survived Full Sail, Job every weekend for 17 months into the 21 month program that was 2 hours away, Girl friend, and "Hardcore" raiding in WoW.
• Met some incredible artists/friends/teachers.
• Graduated from college with my bachelors in Computer Animation.
• Been with my girlfriend for 2 years now.
• Bought her a car as well as got her into school.
• Adopted two Kitties
Really the first 6 years of the decade were just going with the flow, the fun stuffs just begun and I can't wait for more =D
Lets see..
-Left school 2000 i knew i wanted to be a animator!
-Annoyingly i got put on a graphic design course (no animation).
-2 years in managed to keep teaching myself and finished the course.
-spent 2 years as a stonemasons and also started learning hand letter carving lol.
-decided i still really wanted to be an animator went off to a crap University, stayed as a stonemason part-time tho good moneys ;D
-Met some of the laziest and naieve people on my animation & illustration course 2 years in I realised the tutor hated me lol.
-had a really bad injury because of some assholes ;( had to give up being a stonemasons or doing anything physical.
-spent the next 8 months almost bed ridden and addicted to morphine, but i got to 6 stone so thats a plus!
-Argued with my tutor that i needed to finish my last year of Uni, he wasnt interested in helping me, told me i wouldnt make it as an animator anyway lol.
-passed with a 2/1 despite everything lol, no job in site.
-a year of bar work, finally had enough, went home cap in hand to my parents and said i needed to time-out.
-spent the next 6 months working on animations, no job.
-2008 Got me a job through a fellow polycounter, still here ;D
Its been a funny old decade, and im still not at my full weight yet either but mebe thats the next decade.
-escaped a war in my country
-went to holland
-learned the language, culture
-finished highschool
-made a lot of friends
-I knew I wanted to be a game artist, but still wanted to go to uni/college
-now @uni
-started taking art serious, and now recently got some job oppertunities
-will start working soon as a game artist. Finaly!
Was a pretty big change for me from 10 years a go haha, and hopefuly the next 10 will be as good as the last.
The moments that changed me the most:
- Starting high school
- Finishing high School
- Starting Community College (school system works different here, but community - college is probably the closest to what I mean)
- Graduating from Community College in the field of science
- Moving out of the house to live in a student flat
- Starting University
- Making lots of friends, doing stupid things, messing around and partying a lot
- Meeting my current girlfriend
- Traveling around Europe troughout the years for vacations (Germany, the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Germany, Czechia) and Thailand.
- Working on my first commercial title (dragon hunters for Nintendo DS) as an intern, had a great time at that company and learned a ton
- Thinking up a cool game design, developing a prototype and getting team members to help out and seeing the game actually getting released for PC and WII and doing well (my graduation project).
- Lived in 4 different cities troughout the years.
- Graduating as a Bachelor of Science in Technology in 3.5 years(normally takes 4)
- Working as a freelance artist and webdesigner (current)
And *poof* there went 10 years already, it was a great time and I have no regrets! 24 years old now and I have a whole lot of plans and dreams to work out in the next 10 years to go...
- Moved out from Romania to Norway.
- Emigrant for 4 years(more or less waste of my life).
- My Playstation was my best friend, therefore my interest in games.
- Got to stay and started life over.
- Everything normal here, got on with school.
- In HighSchool: Made friends that stuck with me still today.
- First girlfriend, super bad experience.
- Traveled alot in Highschool, France, Spain, Italy Portugal and Romania(returned after 4 years).
- Finshed HighSchool and moved to Sweden to chase my dream, become a 3D artist.
- Studied 3D for two years at a vocational school.
- Made alot of friends, fooled arround, party hard, studied hard and managed good by myself.
- Landed Internship at a local studio.
- Got job there.
- Living the life, got new car about to move out to new appartment, travel some more.
Me too.
Me too...
- Finished Grade School
- Started partying
- Met new friends
- Started on a college(not the american kind) where they teach 3d
- Started to party even more
- Met alot of new friends.
- Had a chance at an internship at Funcom in norway - blew it
- Failed to gain an internship on my first year.
- Parents got divorced(still good friends thou)
- Started on the 2. year of college where the primary focus was coding dynamic websites(thank you danish goverment for not allowing pure 3d schools!)
- Met even more friends and partied more.
- Once again had a shot at a company, they promised me an art test but never delivered(will not mention the name)
- Once again failed to achieve an internship or entry level job
- Turned 18
- Finished my second year and moved back home
- Took my drivers license
- Started to search for any kind of job
- Tried to get into modding, but some real life issues and a swoop of swine flu made it go straight to hell
- Still searching for any kind of job.
hopefully, the next decade will be better, althou I cant complain too much. I got friends and a place to live
got a computer
got ut1
got into mapping
got into masturbation
got 3dsmax and photoshop
learned modeling
lost 10kg
found girl i cried after for 7 years
improved modeling skills
learned texturing
lots of tries getting a gf
gained 30kg
finishied school, startied a new one (higher grade)
came to know some cool dudes
got into programming
finished 1st crappy game
...2nd crappy game
firther fails getting a girlfriend (still whining about the girl from 5 years back at this moment)
finished school, started computer science college
another 30 kg
met a girl i liked , hang around with her for a year, helped her moving , she took anotherone, and i got so sick i was liing in bed for 3 weeks loosing 20kg (and looked awesome)
lots of studiing
gradfather died
hanging around with chick pal making fun of other people especially the one i helped moving
met 7 years girl, helped her with computer crap, gave her beer, and she went home,
met her some more times making fun of her and getting over her
chick pal got my gf and is since then
gained weight
made internships
one made me a job
worked
edit i almost forgot, gained some autoimmune diseases
and somethign with the teeth
Bought a house
Enrolled in an IT course (hardware and network engineering)
Gained girlfriend
Changed courses the following year to a Multimedia/Graphic Design course (2 years)
Claimed Straight Edge
Lost girlfriend
Enrolled in a Games course (waste of time and money), but met some rad dudes
Moved out of home (with said rad dudes)
Travelled (Europe and US)
Gained girlfriend
Did some shit kicker work while learning 3D
Lost girlfriend
Scored my first Industry job (Big Ant Studios)
Shipped my first title (Spyro the Dragon: The Eternal Night)
Became a moderator on Polycount
Travelled, met new friends, lost some old ones
Decided it was time for a change, so I sold my house and then quit my job
Working on my folio to find work in the US