How has this year been for you mentally?

[outofideasformyname]

TBH, it wasn’t that good for me. So many episodes, anxiety, etc.

[Cairnie]

For the most part, hot garbage for a whole multitude of reasons. The only good things that happened to me are getting engaged while on holiday, the holiday itself, Cuphead and Mario & Rabbids.

[Serza5]

It's mostly been another year of struggling to progress in life as the most i've managed to accomplish is at least having tutoring to have some form of income but otherwise i've been breaking down a lot and feeling mentally stressed even on days that start of well for me.

[nr0r]

Like that yeah

[R4Y_ANC3L]

At first, I was really swamped since I kinda had much work and things to worry about. I was suffering from anxiety, stress and not to mention, anger. This year was kind of a pain in the stomach but as the days in the year pass by quickly, things start to ease and... well, it's not so bad anymore at least.

[Rsandee]

Pretty great, not gonna lie.
Had the best moments of my life thus far this year.
Had some terrible moments as well, but I see those as learning opportunities.

[Pirez]

Had some terrible moments as well, but I see those as learning opportunities.

You seem ready for job interviews dude. You mastered the vocabulary anyway.

I have to say that the past month has been extremely imposing of me. Now that I have a new consulting mission 100+ km away from home, I spend 2.5 hours driving each day and I'm not used to it. The team lives in its own bubble and has downright admitted that it wasn't particularly friendly in welcoming me since they know I'll be out of there in a month or two (they ended up apologizing for that).

Not to mention that I was mandated by the defense minister to participate in a focus-group about innovating for the battle wounded in Paris. The timing couldn't have been worse because I was a week into my new job and it halted the learning curve completely. The focus-group was a lovely time, but very intense (going beyond 9:30 PM), meaning I had to cancel out evening plans with both Hunch and one of my best friends, which make me feel like shit.

On top of that, there's football training in disarray because I haven't been able to participate in full-contact drills because I broke one of my fingers in a scrimmage late October, which in terms made the head coach think I'm soft (it hurt but I wasn't wearing any cast) and blocked my opportunity to play outside of the reserve squad. Now that I am healthy, I was removed from a scimmage in Clermont because the staff enrolled me on a referee training without my knowledge and since I couldn't play the game, I lent my helmet to a rookie, who returned me the helmet but not the mouthguard attached to it, meaning that I still couldn't participate in full contact drills, re-enforcing the notion that I'm soft in the eyes of the head coach. There's also a case of a frustrated, tired me yelling at a position coach because he and his QB told me different commands for the same play, which somehow ended up being my fault (which it is : I shouldn't have yelled)

On top of that on top of that, there's the fact that I self-imposed to release a video on my youtube channel every week, which drains the remaining free time I have. I decided to maximize the fact that I could be playing Ultra-Sun by concocting a speedy let's play out of it but these things take time and I have very few of it.

So there you go : I'm exhausted and it won't go any better anytime soon, since Christmas is approaching and there's also gonna be a rush on that.

[Rayfist]

First half of the year has been great, graduated from community college, onto the real deal now. However this current semester has been kind of ass, lot of high expectations and shorter time frames have been making me a little stressed out. Lot of great games have came out this year though and that's been keeping me fairly occupied.

[Aaron]

This year was good and bad for me at the same time.

Bad things that happened to me during this year: I was having some arguments and bad things with my classmates, but I've realised now that the only thing I needed to do was change on my behaviour a bit.

Good things that happened to me during this year: I've changed my behaviour and made a lot of awesome friends with my classmates. I've got a lot of good grades and will get Rayman Revolution and a PS2 soon (December 6th, I assume). And man, am I so excited!

[Ray502]

I would say the first four months were good to me. But the big tests in May really stressed me out before, during and after. I wasn't as confident as I used to be in getting at least a 3 on the grading scale of 5. That was on my mind during the whole summer. Fortunately I did good enough. But then came my junior year, and it's harder than ever. Algebra 2 and a couple other classes have a crapload of assessments/exams that I have done and still need to do before the Winter break ends. Can't wait to finish them all and take a nice rest.

[Rulez]

Fucking awesome year, best one of my life yet; very productive. That's how I planned it, and that's how it went, thankfully! If I may list a few things that made me insanely happy this time around...

I met my wonderful girlfriend (got a handmade Rayman plushie from her for my birthday in January, too!), finished high school with kickass grades (final exam results: written English standard - 100%; written English advanced - 100%; spoken English - 100%; spoken Polish - 95%; written Polish standard - 81%; mathematics - well, 60%, but in my defense I had painful diarrhea that day and I just couldn't stay focused. Felt like a Bningham and Rulzez episode!), hell, I even got a 5 (best mark) on my final percussion exam after 6 fucking years of hard work; afterwards, I started working even harder on my music shit.

A singer guy asked me if I could write some music to go along with his lyrics, and I did (recorded about 120 instrument tracks for that, including classical guitar, piano and drums, lol!), then I also played a club gig with him - see photo above!

Afterwards, I went back to working hard on my solo album, where I'm going to sing, play classical and electric guitars, keyboards, bass and drums (uh, next time I should definitely include marimba and vibraphone, cuz those are definitely my favourite; I might try bowed instruments like viola and cello, too!).

Currently I'm also writing arrangements and my own pieces for the choir I sing with. Writing something for choir was on my bucket list - which also includes writing a mass for choir and orchestra, writing a movie soundtrack and writing a musical. So far, so good, I guess!

That, and I'm still teaching a few kids and people stuff like music theory, percussion (including xylophone and snare drum), classical guitar, piano, and that's definitely my favourite way of earning money in the gap year I'm having right now.

The cherry on top, though, is that in 2 or so weeks I'm going to finally meet up with Adsolution, who's coming over to chill with me and my family and friends, and spend a fun fucking Christmas and New Year's here! Damn, this year fucking rocks, and I can't wait to see what 2018 brings, too! God, I finally turned my life around a bit.

[Adsolution]

Bragging cuck!!!!!! c u in 2 weeks <:3


I don't really know how this year's been for me. I started working full-time in software development in May, which is great, but being their only available resource for all the required work right now is irritating (especially when your boss doesn't really have any comprehension of how long certain things can take when you're by yourself), not to mention I think I'm a bit underpaid in light of that. I've put up with the on-average 12-hour days + extra time on weekends these last few weeks reasonably well, as I don't really get stressed - I mean I do, but it doesn't affect me emotionally or make me irritable, or make me any less capable, I just boulder through with it and then look forward to getting high under the stars every night.

While this is exactly the kind of job I'm looking for, it's a pain worrying not just whether you have the energy to put in a full day's work every day, but having to estimate and create timelines weeks in advance for deadlines others have set, all while having no idea if you're going to run into any problems you have absolutely no one else to go to for help or even for a new point of view (in a problem-solving context), and having no excuses at your disposal aside from the truth, which is irrelevant if they don't understand it. Essentially, it's identical to what I've been doing as a hobby since I was ten, except now I can't fuck off for a day if I've spent six hours trying to figure something out having made no progress, something where, if I even had one other person on my team, I could do.

On the upside, it's sweet. On the down, I have almost no free time, and I've kind-of started smoking, because it's nice.

Then there are a few other very important life-issues (which I have no intention of getting into here) that've gone largely postponed and unaddressed for most of the year as a result, but will hopefully be on their way in early 2018.


Regarding music, I've written some of the most personal work I ever have this year. The one I'm happiest with happened after I got drunk with this drummer I met at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, getting kicked out with with him, and writing a song in my head after we parted on the way home in the middle of the night wasted, then recording a guitar/voice version as soon as I got home, noticing the next day I'd written something I consider legitimately good. I've been able to realise the production on my stuff very well too - I've developed my own production style at this point which I have people coming to me for now and then, which is a very good sign. Production commissions also take up all of what would be my free time after work for at least two days a week.

And game development - on the programming side, coming along better than ever. I'm not shying away from difficult concepts or implementations anymore, I'm going for them and achieving them.


overall, it's okay for now, but between ending up face-down at parties from laced joints and drilling my brain out over work while other personal issues take a back seat, I wouldn't want to keep up this ethic for years to come. At least, not while I'm a one-person team at work. Once that's sorted out, I think enough weight'll be lifted off my shoulders to make everything more contently manageable.