I’m back.

Or more accurately, since I’m still sitting at the same desk I have been for most of the week, I’m virtually back.

Actually, that’s still not right. I’ve still been hanging around at the same forums I usually do, so I never even virtually left. So maybe I’m virtually, virtually back? Ah, screw it, I’ll start again.

After spending a week thrashing through a few more improvements to my dissertation, I’m through. That’s “through” rather than “finished”, because there’s still more I could do; there’s always more, and some of it feels quite important. But I’d rather gnaw off my own arm than keep working on that document, and frankly I’m hardly exaggerating. I’ve reached the point of total mental burnout as far as it goes with that research, so it’s time to call it done before I do any permanent damage. It’s done.

I’ll be a lot happier when it’s submitted, of course. I’ve still got to get the document through a few hoops, such as get a few other people to do a quick sanity check for stupid errors, wait for my long suffering supervisor to give me the okay, a few admin things, then get it printed and sent off, but I think it’s plain sailing from now on. Only a matter of days now before it’s all completely behind me - until it comes back from examination and I have to make more changes, of course. Thankfully that’s months away!

So I’m now free to devote some time to other things without feeling so guilty, such as my plans for 2009. I might be starting five months later than I originally expected, but I’ve got business plans to get started on.

It’s going to take a couple of days for me to get my mind back towards productive game development again. I think I pushed myself a little too hard in the middle of the week, and I’m feeling the cost now. I’m planning on being fairly open with what I’m up to, so I’ll be blogging about my plans when they’re a little more solid.

However, I expect it will take a while for me to get my mind running on all cylinders again. My current objective for the rest of February is basically to jump start my dormant development skills and to start thinking creatively again. Basically, I’ll be doing a bunch of self-directed learning and tutorials to hone up my skills and getting the right parts of my brain firing in sync. Nothing too stressful or strenuous; it’ll be like a short holiday, but productive. Then once I feel ready, I’ll get cracking on some of the objectives I have to get done some time in March. Chief among them will be a new website I’ve got planned for a new, business oriented domain.

For now, I’ll continue doing what I’ve been doing all day, which is dodder around the internet in a daze. Ugh.