I figure I should write some stuff to realign myself, since I've been very busy with a variety of pursuits. I took a long break from coding to move into a new location. In addition, my professional career has been very demanding, which made it fatiguing to stay diligent.
I made a post about last year about continuous self improvement. I defined the goals of gaining more muscle and learning more Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese). With the move complete, I don't have access to the same gym, but I do have a great alternative: resistance bands. These provide up to 150lb of resistance for both push and pull exercises. I really enjoy how efficient they are in space and cost. It's actually more time-efficient since I can easily workout from home while also watching TV. I aim for at least 3 workout sessions per week. The exercises need to be high volume since the maximum resistance is relatively low. From my last update, I am actually surprised that I was only 135lb. I've since "bulked up" to 141lb.
For learning Mandarin, it's something I've fallen off a bit, but I'm resolving to focus on again. I'll likely visit China again in the near future, so I have real incentive to learn more Mandarin. Reviewing my old strategy, I had:
- Listen to podcasts during my commutes
- Lessons on phone apps during workouts
- Chinese shows while chilling
I'll do more research to find a new Spotify podcast for my commutes. I tried Serge Melynks' podcast for a while, but I had two issues with them. 1.) The lessons were way too dense; he'd push out a dozen of new vocabulary words every lesson, 2.) most of the useful review content was locked behind a paywall. I'm pretty sure this is common across all language learning apps though, so I'll search around for others.
There is less reason to learn Cantonese other than for familial pride. It is the language I've grown up hearing through older relatives and movies. Recently the YouTube channel "Cooking with Lau" had reminded me of my cultural background. I feel more connected to the Hong Kong culture over that of mainland China. I tried learning some with my siblings, who are likely also self conscious about it.
Playtime
As for games, I've taken a break from any "hardcore" games, like PoE or LoL. The former is hardcore through sheer time commitment, while the latter is more emotionally taxing. I made this resolution after staying up to 4 am playing ARAMs after a brutal losing streak. I had to review my own post and to remind myself...
I've been playing more relaxed games, like Bloons TD 6. It's been a while since I played a traditional tower defense game; I remember the enjoyable aspects of resource management and strategy. The game has an interesting progression system: each tower has three upgrade paths for different specialties. They have a main path, but can also invest a little into the one of the other two. As such, players share the tower types as: 2-0-5, 0-5-2, etc. I really like this type of hybrid design that allows for multiple layers of player choice.
I've also begun Divinity II with my siblings. It's a highly reputable game with many accolades as the "best RPG ever". I've heard that it's essentially a Dungeons & Dungeons video game, since players can customize their character background, specialties, and make moral decisions that impact the storyline. The combat is turn-based, which makes the gameplay very relaxed. There's plenty of time between player turns, but the combat is highly tuned with several mechanics. I think the elemental interactions are interesting, and there's many tactical considerations in the terrain effects, line of sight, and friendly-fire. I enjoy the logic and impact of the elements; some enemies are super weak to an element, but are very strong or actually get healed by other types. This encourages the party to diversify their specialties to battle against all enemy types.
Last month, I spent time reviewing elements within my own game, and I think they'd be categorized as below. I wouldn't want to limit them to those traits, but I think it's good to design them with intent. I suppose within these categories, they could be both buffing allies and weakening enemies (i.e. Fire increases ally offense, but also weakens enemy's offense; this serves to effectively raise ally defenses too).
- Fire: Offense
- Water: Support
- Earth: Defense
- Wind: Mobility
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