Jayden Journal Public Access: Winter 2026

Published: 2026-01-21

Happy 2026!

(Imagine this post came out 20 days earlier than it did)!

This will be my final semester at York, still uncertain about plans after graduation, If you’re the hiring kind of type, hmu, I do Web Dev mostly but also DevOps and Game dev I guess.

My goal this season is to be nicer to myself. Kinder. More compassionate. I’m generally pretty self-critical, And I’ve been feeling especially un-confident these days. I want to learn how to balance discipline and consistentcy with giving myself grace and compassion, the ability to be willing to not be hard on myself for not being perfect.

I’m only taking 2 classes this term, so most of my time will be spent with personal work and a bit of contract stuff on the side. I’ve also resumed studying Kanji + Vocab with Wanikani, I’ve been procrastinating with grammar but I’ll have to hop back on that too. Planning on FINALLY going to Japan in May (probably).

If you’re wondering what happened to that Roguelike I spent all summer working on, well it’s on hiatus (I know, cancelled video game projects, how novel). I ran into a lot of specific game design problems I didn’t have good answers for, but more importantly I think the fundamental concept of the game itself was interesting, but it wasn’t fun. If I reach an epiphany on how to make it really good I’ll be sure to resume working on it, but for now I’m shelving it and exploring other ideas.

I’ve been getting into making programming languages. Being able to implement a Compiler + Interpreter/VM feels like great metric to judge if you’re no longer a “beginner” programmer. I’ve been thinking of other similar programmer “merit badges” but I’m not smart enough to be able to discuss what those could be yet.

I’ve already gone through Crafting Interpreter’s jlox language, but I used Java and found myself blindly copying the code to try to finish the implementation so I could put it on my resume 💀. I also ignored all of the challenges presented. So I plan on going over jlox again in C#, and clox for the first time in Go.

I also will probably make some games? If you count the my failed entry to the Ubisoft NEXT engine programming competition then I already have this year, Feburary is a good time for jams, with a lot of very participatable ones taking place. Dreamdisc Jam also caught my eye but I might have some healing to do with C++ after being subjected to the Horrors of Visual Studio.

Finally, two large blog posts should be coming this season, one a dissertation on thoughts about JRPGs, which I started writing after I had finished Expedition 33 and am finally editing and releasing, And the other on my experience with the Ubisoft NEXT competition this year.

I hope all is well with whoever is reading, Thank you once again for your time and attention.