Living my nerd life

Hey everyone who likes to check in to this website :)
I am alive! I am actually more than alive :D I am finally completely done with uni, and picked up my diploma a couple weeks ago. I have moved back to Lithuania, and have been working full time as a junior programmer since the end of March, so over 4 months now. Crazy how fast time goes by... :)

Yaaay I have a job now!

At work, I am learning a lot, and doing a lot too. I am working on a multiplayer extraction shooter in Unity, so I am constantly being challenged and trying out new things. Learning all about UI, API, graph nodes, assemblies, database aggregators and networking... And honestly, it all feels very rewarding. I am so lucky that I managed to join the team that I did. I remember when I was looking for jobs, I was a bit sceptical of the company (something about the marketing just didn't feel Rita-friendly), but man, did they exceed my expectations. My teammates have crazy experience and portfolios on their backs, all I can do is work alongside them and learn as much as I can :) I cna only hope I become as great of a programmer as my colleagues.
This weekend, we will go on a team getaway/party/sleepover/cool day, and I am very excited :) I miss swimming a lot. Somehow all this summer, I avoided swimming (i.e. was too busy / lazy), the closest I have gotten so far has been a hot tub at a friends get-together. We wanted to go to a lake, but due to us gathering a bit late, and the mosquitoes eating our asses whenever we stepped outside, and us being very unsuccessful with using a grill to cook up some dinner and taking forever... We ended up skipping the lake fun. And I find it unfair.
BUT!
The office getaway trip promised us that we could go swimming there, and advised us to take our swimsuits with us. So I am banking on that to be my first swim of the summer (more like year). And we will be playing some sort of murder mystery game at the party?
As far as I know, I won't be the one to get murdered...
But we will see about the murdering. >:)

The mandatory recipe segment

Of course, it couldn't be Rita's blog without a single recipe :)
The latest recipe I have tested (and fell in love with) was this Chinese five spice carrot cake. The idea of using Chinese five spice in a sweet dessert intrigued me a lot, so I knew I had to try it. I did the recipe pretty much as it is written on the website, I only swapped the wholemeal flour for regular flour, reduced the sugar in the cake by about 20 g, and added a couple tablespoons of greek yoghurt to the frosting. The last part turned out to be a mistake, as the frosting became unstable quite quickly. I think next time, I would instead just to a simple cream cheese frosting with orange zest and juice mixed in. With frostings, there is not much room for experimentation, it seems, especially when you have a limited amount of powdered sugar... :)
But anyways, the cake tasted great, the pepper in the chinese five spice made the carrot cake taste very unique, reminded me a little bit of gingerbread or pumpkin spice. It was nice and dense, baked not too tall, but had a bit of a crumb too. I probably would add one more teaspoon of baking powder next time, because I like my crumb more airy. But the creamy sweet frosting really balanced everything out, and the orange added some freshness too.
Overall, a nice 8.5/10 cake :) my coworkers, boyfriend and boyfriend's parents all loved it.

What else am I up to, you ask?

Well, if you are so curious, I will satisfy your interest :)
I am working on a lovely butterfly-inspired shawl, which I started on my trip to Germany to pick up my diploma. I don't have any proper pictures right now, But once I do, I will make sure to post them here!
I also joined BRIEFS 2025 grant programme together with my sweet friend and colleague Phoebe (you can find her other games here). We will be making a cute and short dating sim about dating monster / alien / machine girls (I hope you are saying "based" right now). Sooo... Stay tuned for that as well? lol
I have joined the team as a 2D artist. I wanted to see how well I would perform, despite being just a hobbyist :)
I can show you a tiiiiny tiny sneak peek, which is a doodle of one of the characters I designed (her name is Aegis):

Anyways, thanks for checking out another blog! I appreciate you here :) See you next time.