Spring is functionally the birth of the year. From a more esoteric perspective it is a time of budding ideas and conveniently enough it is a time of budding ideas right before summer and at the end of the school year. Thus, I love spring for how it makes me feel although I hate the budding of allergens on the natural side of the season. So the point of this post is to reflect on my plans for the summer.
First and foremost, spring is the season in which school wraps up. Unfortunately I have a history project, an American History AP exam, the SATs and of course exams. Luckily the SATs won't be too bad and neither will the AP exam or history project. As for keeping grades up, most of my cla$$es have cooled off as far as work so I'm not really worried. With a notable lapse in school work, I have more time for my own pursuits. For one I've been and plan on seeing more of my friends. With busy schedules, it's been hard for us to relive the fun of Sophomore year so now we'll finally have time. For example, we're going to start having Friday movie nights and chinese food again. We also occasionally hang out at Speedway or Mr. Freeze after school. This Friday we're even going to a local film festival which should be a lot of fun. On the individual side I'm preparing for computer camp, working on game development and of course the Developer For A Day 6 project. For camp I've already covered what I need to instruct 2D game design but I still need to finish learning Java and work more with 3D game design. I'm also very grateful to the Developer For A Day 6 contest for forcing me to work on Noise. I've managed to get a lot of work done and I really do believe a full demo will be ready by May 16th. This means for once I'll have the game running before school lets out, giving me about a month to prepare the game for the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition as well as enjoy the freedom to work on other games over the summer. I've also had time to read this spring particularly a graphic novel called Johnny The Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez (known for his Nickelodeon show, Invader Zim). So far it is a great book. And finally spring has given me time to blog.
The second notable part of spring is the ability to look forward towards summer. I really don't have a whole lot planned for this summer beyond three weeks at National Computer Camp as well as some days spent with grandparents. I do know that I'll possibly be able to see some old friends (maybe) but other than that I should be home. I'm used to the computer camp routine except that this year I should be mostly done with Noise and able to work on other games. Just today I made a list of possible game ideas to work on this summer. It is one of my goals to try and finish a lot of games this summer both while at camp and home. I do miss the trip to Seattle last year. I got a lot done on Noise driven by the pure inspiration of the city. I really love that area a lot and I really don't know why, I just don't like to think about not going this year. At home I should be able to spend a lot of time with friends. All of them are going to various camps at some point but we should have a lot of time here as well to hang out in town or have movie nights, etc. Perhaps work on a film or something more ambitious. We'll also have summer Speech and Debate practice, which will be useful for coordinating activities since we'll all have the same plans. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to this summer.
That's the magic of spring: summer ambition not tainted by the mortality that fall brings.