Heavy Distractions, Incoming

I am so behind in everything.  I still haven’t recorded the music cover I’ve been working on, I haven’t learned all that much in my language study sessions, I only finished 2 games this month (maybe a 3rd tonight?), I’ve gained back a little bit of weight because of the few times we went out to eat and missing exercises a few days, and all that effort I made being able to sleep early and wake early has been slowly undone as I struggle to sleep at earlier times.  I finally finished the drawing of the Under Night In-Birth characters, but it took up the first half of the month to complete it.  I’m mostly satisfied with it, but it does have a few problems I noticed after staring at it for so long so I might go back to fix it.  I haven’t recorded the song I’m learning on guitar yet, but I feel like I’ve made a decent amount of progress on practicing it.  My left wrist hurts from practicing on the guitar, so I’m probably going to rest for the weekend.  I’m trying to complete so many things before June hits that I feel like I won’t be able to get anything done.

There’s a lot that’s going to happen in June this year.  Guilty Gear Strive, Samurai Shodown on Steam (FINALLY, AFTER 2 YEARS!), Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis, and Scarlet Nexus all release in June.  Multiple game announcements will be made through digital streaming events in place of in-person E3 events.  Steam Summer Sale starts at the end of the month.  There is just so much going on next month; I’m not sure how I’m going to handle it other than possibly dropping everything I’m doing just to enjoy the games that are coming out.  I really want to go back to working on that big project I started back in October, but I know it’ll be a lot of work and won’t be done that quickly.  I suppose I can work little by little on it throughout June.

Setting aside all my worries, I am SO excited for the games next month.  I keep thinking about Guilty Gear Strive these past months that it’s been difficult to focus.  I’ve been watching a lot of clips of beta gameplay, listening to the music, and trying to learn as much as I can about this newest installment in the series.  Depending on how SNK packages Samurai Shodown for Steam and what they price it at, I may or may not pick it up right away.  As excited as I am to play the game, I’m not too keen on spending $110 ($50 for base game; 3 x $20 DLC packs) especially when we’ve waited 2 years after its initial dated release.  I’m also not sure if I’ll have anyone to play it with, whether if the single-player mode will keep me playing for very long, and not to mention the amount of money I need to already spend on all the other games.

I potentially have one more week left for any productivity I want taken care of before I dive deep into playing Guilty Gear Strive, PSO2: New Genesis, and Scarlet Nexus.

Slow progression

 I can't believe an entire month as already passed by.  I really tried to stay focus this past month and be more productive.  I finally got into a daily habit of: doing something productive > practice some guitar > exercise > work towards finishing a game.  I've been putting a lot of focus on learning more Korean.  Honestly, I learning way too slowly and yet nothing's really sunk in.  But because I've been focusing so much on Korean, I haven't had the chance to focus on any other language much other than the few days I learned how to count in each of the languages.  I've been making slow progress on guitar practice, but I'm feeling more comfortable playing the song I'm learning.  This past week, I decided to draw and I was hoping to finish within the week.  From the pace I'm going at, it looks like it's going to take me about 2-3 weeks to finish it since I'm being a bit ambitious with it.  I'm making great progress with finishing games, but I'd like to finish more of the bigger ones so I can finally move on from them and play other games.

Overall, I found a good balance to my daily routine, as long as I don't get distracted.  I did get distracted a few times throughout the month playing Puyo Puyo Tetris 2.  I've been trying to improve on playing those two games as well and finally made some break throughs with them.  On Tetris, I'm finally more comfortable doing 4-well combos, setting up T-Spin Triples, and make much more T-Spin doubles frequently in a match.  For Puyo Puyo, I FINALLY understand how to create and utilize the Great Tanaka Renso (GTR) setup and can reliably make a 7-10 chain combo.  After two years of looking at the setup and trying and practicing, I finally understand how it works.  Still, I'm very slow and not very optimal on both games.  It's been fun trying to get better at those two games and expand my understanding of them.  I'm trying to do the same with everything else I'm doing.  I've been still keeping up with exercise and push harder to lose more weight.  Unfortunately, I think I pulled something in my lower back last week and I was barely able to sit and stand correctly the past 3 days.  I'm feeling much better today and started exercising again.

It's a bit disheartening to see my list of completed audio projects still empty after 4 months into the year, but I really am putting a lot of effort into learning new things, and focusing on self-improvement.  I think the big thing I want to finish is learning that song on guitar, make a recording and then I can move on from there.  I'm hoping to finish the rest of the project I started back in October, and maybe do some reading in May.  I was thinking I could do some reading in April, but I've been just too busy with language learning, guitar practice, and exercise (and now drawing).  I've also been focusing so much on playing the lesser games I have for the sake of finishing games that I haven't really been able to ENJOY playing games this past month.  Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 is at least enjoyable and something I played a lot of.  I think Katamari Damacy Reroll was pretty fun too (finished over this past weekend).

For now, I just want to focus on finishing this drawing and recording the song I'm learning on guitar.  Afterwards, I can think about how I want to move forward in the following the months.  I'm not sure how big of a problem the Summer distractions (E3, Steam Summer Sale, EVO, Summer Games Done Quick) will be this year considering a lot of the stuff I looked forward last year were all watered down or canceled.  And it looks like Japan is really going through with the Summer Olympics this year in Tokyo.  I really hope everything goes well, for the sake of their country, the participating athletes, and for the rest of the world finally looking forward to something.