Bad Journey, Good Luck

My journey to university comes in two chunks: a bus to the nearest train station, then a train into the city. By car, it takes twenty minutes or so. By public transport I’ve got to head off about an hour and a half before I need to be there. It’s actually not that bad since I can use the time to catch up on reading and/or pick stuff up from the shops on the way.

But yesterday I had a perfect storm of mishaps that really screwed things up. I had intended to go in an hour early and see if I could work on my current coursework project (which involves Twine) on the university computers. However, I’d forgotten that the buses come slightly earlier in the hour if it’s earlier in the day, so I missed the one I was aiming for. The next one got me into town just in time for the train, but there was nobody selling tickets at the station so I had to queue up to get mine from one of the machines. That took long enough that by the time I got to the platform, the train was just leaving.

Which is where the good luck comes in!

Figuring that I had more than half an hour before the next one, I headed over to the game shop where I worked last Christmas. I’d handed in a CV a while ago hoping to get some more seasonal work, so it seemed like the thing to do would be to follow that up. As it turns out, that was definitely the thing to do. I start tomorrow!

While having a job again will almost certainly force me to prioritise some things (namely the course and the job) over others (the Alterworld collection, my jewellery sales and Beyond the Black Throne), I’m hoping that it won’t totally eat up all the time I could possibly be spending on personal projects. If nothing else, I’m still hoping to produce regular (if nothing else, fortnightly) Black Throne updates, and I’m also hoping to put together something rather ambitious for Christmas this year. I wouldn’t like to spoil the surprise, but as I’ve just got the news and I’m feeling good about this right now, I will mention that I’ve got an entire freakin’ orchestra behind this one. Alright, I’ve got permission to use a wonderful piece of music they’ve already recorded, but I’m still chuffed to have this kind of talent on board, and I’m determined to make the most of it.

So yes. The course is engaging, my own projects are going places, and I’ve got a job again. Things are good right now, even if–perhaps because–public transport can be kind of a nightmare.