Timestamp: Saturday 8th October 2016 at 23:56

C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!  The other post is cool, but hey, it’s been a week since I dedicated myself to this project.  Here’s a real end-of-week retrospective now that I’ve gone for a run and gotten those feels out.  But really, cam I go back in time, bottle that feeling up, and relive it any time I’m feeling down about something?

Anyway, wow, it’s been a week already.  Time flies when you’re a grad student, I guess.  But really, I remember how it was the first time I tried to quit - the cravings to game just wouldn’t go away.  It was almost to the point where I felt I needed to lock myself out of everything.  It was bad to put it lightly.  This time around?  The cravings are still there.  Hell, I nearly gave in tonight.  I would’ve played one of those more intellectually useful games that I said I’d allow myself, sure, but it might just as easily have gotten me off track.  Fortunately, it’s Saturday night and the internet bar of sorts was showing the newest episode of My Little Pony just after I got done with my fantasy hockey draft.  Yeah, that place is something interesting even if I’m not drinking (and indeed, I more often eat popcorn instead of drink beer during the games).  It’s probably the closest I’ve otherwise come to the sort of place I was all emotional about in the previous post.

Yet, I wouldn’t exactly call it something productive or otherwise useful to my future.  I need to move beyond mere escapism as a thing.  I just do.

But how?  I’ve mentioned before - if not on here than to some folks privately - that as useful and engaging and challenging as programming and tinkering with my lab are, they aren’t exactly relaxing activities.  If anything, I was a bit anxious Monday when I was programming and the scope kind of blew itself way out of the water.  Writing is a good candidate, but NaNoWriMo’s rules are quite clear: I’m supposed to start during the month of November, aside from any planning I might do.

There’s also the matter of how to be social without being a hardcore gamer that’s still an open item.  I was never all that into League of Legends, yet talk of Worlds is impossible to avoid.  That’s just a symptom of a larger problem: everyone I know except perhaps for you, dear reader, is just as much of an obsessive gamer as I was.  This I’m sure will remain open for a while, if only because of the midterms that’ll consume my focus for much of this coming week, but if anyone out there in the æther has any suggestions I’m all ears.

As I write this, yourclassical.org decided to play a movement from the absolutely stunning Ein Deutsches Requiem by Brahms.  If only finding equally amazing social groups were as easy as pretending I’m one of the world’s great conductors…