I did it!

I have finally, finally, decided "what I'm gonna be when I grow up." And for everyone that knows me, this isn't anything new; but for those that know me really well, they know I've been going through a really tough time deciding on my future recently.
I'm going to go into game design, absolutely.

Sorry, Mom! It's been decided. I don't care if I make a pittance and have to have seven part time jobs just to pay for my house, because I will be happy and loving what I do.

I have wanted to design games since the whole "waitress" and "marine biologist" phase died out. Which was about eight years ago. I was incredibly passionate about programming, character design, and CGI when I was thirteen or fourteen, and then it grew until I got to Japan.
When I got here, I suddenly felt dwarfed by the unlimited possibilities the world has to offer me, and although I still wanted to be a game designer, I felt stuck because I felt I didn't really know what I wanted, and I didn't want to be stuck in a career that doesn't make a ton of money if it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do.
That feeling could best be described as feeling your foundation start to crumble, but not wanting to abandon ship because you had no other place to turn to. I wanted to be a game designer for so long, and have put so much studying and effort into it that I didn't want to completely abandon it. And that was coupled with the fact that I had to make a decision FAST, because college choices are fast approaching and I would have to choose my major and the rest of my life. So I was very uneasy.
I hadn't been doing ANYTHING related to games since coming to Japan. I only have my laptop, so I don't have Morrowind Construction Set or anything similar installed. So I had forgotten that feeling I got when I worked on a new script on TESCS, or debugged one of my old ones.

But we had a field trip today in school, where we learned about the inner workings of different jobs, and I went to the game design room, and I remembered. I got fired up again, and now I am dead certain about the field which I am going to go into.

And honestly, I know I will not only suceed but I will thrive. It's not the playing the video games that I like. I mean, it's fun, but so is playing guitar and going on walks and drawing and reading. It's the firing up Morrowind's Construction Set and creating a new object and then attaching a script that makes it say, "Hello!" everytime you walk by if you are wearing the Boots of Blinding Speed. And I am a talented artist, and I recently realized I love, love, LOVE math. Also, my Japanese skills from being here six months are already enough to be a fantastic help, and I still have another five months of living here. I have no illusions about the game design industry. You don't play video games. If that was all you do then I wouldn't want to do that as a job. I want to sit down in my nerded-out office cube in front of hours of bugged code and put ALL my brainpower into it for six hours and come out with a smooth program. I want to take pictures of things with weird textures and then map those textures to 3-D meshes.
I am so excited thinking about it that I actually have butterflies. WOO!

It is the field that I am most passionate about. And I am going to go for it with all my power.

YES!

I am so excited!
It feels so, right. To make a decision, finally, and STICK with it. I have no regrets. I am thrilled.