July 28, 2024 - bloghan 4

I have so much to talk about here in bloghan 4! So much happened this week that just thinking about what I want to write about next is making me forget what I wanted to write right before.

Tier list of the week

This week's tier list: nuts. Nuts are such a good snack food that I don't feel so bad about eating. I mean, I think ever since I started this site I've put on weight, so I've tried to hold back a bit on snacking. Key word there is "tried."

Ordered tiers, but unordered within tiers. Also note that this tier list maker I used included coconut as a nut? But I disagree on that assessment: I think it's more a fruit than a nut.

Personal updates (achievements, reflections, and antics)

Genuinely, so much happened this week. Firstly, an update on that big task I was given at work. It turns out that 1. I did it incorrectly but it only set me and my instructing team member back, 2. it didn't give my boss a headache, but instead the rest of the team, and 3. it turns out that it was actually a very urgent matter. I had a bit of an emotional sine wave with work this week, where Monday was bad, Tuesday good, Wednesday bad, Thursday good. Monday was bad because that was when I really did the bulk of the task, and it really felt like I was thrown into the deep end. I had to keep asking questions to the team member assigned to help me out with figuring out the scripts and the actual function of the task. When I finally finished, it turned out that I had done most of the task completely wrong and that I would have to re-do it completely. On Tuesday, I did just that, and did it correctly. Near the end of the process, I found a way to make the given process (the way it has always been done by my team before) much easier, and made a little script to optimize it. That supervisory team member told me, "good job," so I felt redeemed. Wednesday, I attended my first team meeting, where I got asked many tough questions about what I was doing, including something along the lines of "why isn't it done yet?" I walked out of that meeting feeling like I had most of my credibility/reputation within the team, but at least the team member helping me took some of the flak. To make things worse, when I came in Thursday morning I was told by that teammate that he had finished off the task after Wednesday's meeting, and I found out through someone else that he had stayed up until midnight to do that, since the team was getting really nervous about getting it done soon. However, I had a check-in meeting with my boss that day to discuss how things were going, and he told me not to worry too much about all of it, saying the team would forget about it soon enough. That whole meeting with my boss made me feel a lot better about my attempt at my first real task and its aftermath, so I hope I feel as good as I do about the next tasks I get, but maybe with a bit of a smoother lead up to completion.

I don't really understand why they do this, but for some reason the company took us out for archery tag? It was kinda fun, if you ignore the blatant cheating that my fellow employees constantly did. We got suited up with this really bulky helmet that pushed the nose pads of my glasses into my nose, but I didn't notice it during the course of the game. We were split into three teams, and my team was very clearly the underdog team, since most guys on the other teams had been to the archery tag event the year prior. The first game was really intense, since they turned off the lights unexpectedly and the targets and arrows glowed in the dark. I didn't hit anyone because the bow was a bit heavy for me and the string was actually a bit difficult for me to pull back, so I opted to run around and draw fire away from the people who were actually able to aim. We lost all those matches soundly. We played some rounds of 'President' next, where there is an unknown president on both sides, and the game ends when they are shot. In all the round who played, I was not paying attention at all during the team meeting that selected the president, and kinda just hung off to the side where no one was, so I could just fire arrows across the room diagonally, as far as I could. At some point in the second round, my coworkers (the ones I work with the most, not just randoms from other company teams), thought that I was the president since I was staying relatively out of the way. I spent the rest of that round dodging shots from them, and I was doing well until one of them hit my bow. As I was standing there considering whether it counted, they hit me in the chest, so I guess that one's on me. Archery tag was fun but painful, the heads of the arrows were still kinda heavy. I got hit in the leg and chest only, but some guys got hit on the head pretty hard, so I guess I'm just lucky. That, or my dodging game is amazing (I haven't had to arch my back backwards for a dodge since high school!). I felt each arrow impact a lot the next morning. We also played dodgeball afterwards, and I thought I would be better at that than archery. There would be no uncomfy helmet and heavy bow, so surely I'd be able to hit people, right? Well, maybe if the balls weren't so huge. They were so much bigger than my hands, and they weren't proper dodgeballs, but these weird glow-in-the-dark rubber ones. I did manage to not get hit a single time, mostly because I hung around the very edges where no one on the opposite team was looking. Even with that experience, I am still looking forward to the company (hopefully) taking us back there next year. It was great fun that distracted me from the horrors of working full-time (and reconnected me to those archers of yore, in simpler, deadlier times), even for just a little bit.

Another huge thing I did was what I did on Saturday that took the place of a trip downtown. My dad and I had recently talked, and he brought up 'Pokémon GO.' He likes playing it occasionally, and I used to play it a lot, but stopped around the beginning of 2023. I decided to re-open it and see what was happening, and I saw that one old Pokémon GO YouTuber (famous within the community, I guess?) would be in town on Saturday. I decided that I would check it out, partially to see if it was worth getting back into the game (it's a lot better now, and it makes me want to walk around more), and also to try and meet some people in the city. I do like going out a lot more compared to my high school self, but I don't really know any good spots, and I don't really have many people to go with who are not coworkers. So, I forwent my plans to go downtown, and instead went to a different suburb that looked a lot like downtown, and headed to the meetup spot. I'm not sure how much of it was due to the Pokémon GO community here, and how much was from the YouTuber, but the vibe was pretty exciting. We walked around and did a bunch of raids, and I could hear cheers from random people in the group as they caught shinies or 100% perfect IVs. It was a real diverse group, ages ranging from young kids in elementary to guys who looked about as old as Barack Obama. There were families, couples, pre-existing friend groups, guys like me, all sorts of people. There were about 150 of us or so, blocking traffic and clogging sidewalks. After the first hour, I was out of free raid passes (and I'm not spending money on this game, Niantic has enough already), so I just walked along with the group with my phone in my pocket, looking around the busy streets. Near the end, the YouTuber did a little game where he gave out pins to people who fulfilled certain conditions. People who got the largest Lucario, the shortest, the one who got the most shinies. I won an award too, for "worst shiny luck," as in I only caught one shiny, and it had the worst IVs out of all the people who only caught one shiny. It was a pretty fun meetup, and I want to try attending more to see if its worth participating more in the community (once the apparent leadership drama is sorted out) and playing the game more.

I expected that I would be able to really make some new friends on that raid day, but I think that the game itself doesn't really lend itself to that. In my opinion, the gameplay encourages completion of quests and other objectives more than socializing with other players. You have to interact with other players for certain things, yes, but with the amount of stuff you have to do in the game, with such limited time, you are essentially encouraged to optimize and optimize constantly. This optimization leads to most of those interactions being "oh let's do a special trade for shundos" or "join my party so you can get your special research done" and then you don't talk to them anymore. Watch a video of large gatherings of Pokémon GO players for special events, and you'll probably note that for the most part it's people looking at their phones, tapping, and cheering at random intervals. I feel like I'm being a little too harsh, but as someone who only re-opened the game last week and is more on the causal side, I didn't feel like I really connected with people at the event. But who knows, maybe I should've been more proactive about it! Maybe not with those hardcore players, though... I feel like their idea of going out would be a little too focused on Pokémon GO. I will go back to the area though. Not for Pokémon GO, but for all the nice restaurants that I saw. There's a nice route to the grocery store if I rally want to play more GO.

Looking back on this week, I still find it hard to believe that all that happened in just one week. I felt a lot more strain this week, with the job, the body, and the desire to go out with friends more, something I was expecting not to feel for months to come. I'm sure that I'll get over it soon enough. Here are other things I learned/went through this week, not getting their own paragraph:

Ultimate Frisbees can be thrown at an upward angle to make them curve back towards you. They can also be thrown low, near the ground, to make people mad at you.
Not many tall girls play Pokémon GO. Those who attend such events are there because their boyfriends play. Lucky them.
As a guy who is very easy to please, Coke Zero is genuinely terrible and tastes like a bitter acid, which the Coca Cola company has somehow made possible.
Danganronpa seems like a fun, interesting game and I will happily be referred to as an "Ultimate Despair Girl." No one in the fandom seems to play the games, so I think it would be interesting to not be part of the fandom and play them all the same. We'll see.
Water is not as good as these hands when it comes to eliminating flies and/or mosquitoes.
All the hair that I vacuumed off the ground today made me realize how absolutely filthy my floor can get, and by extension, me. I must never let it get that bad again. Yuck.
There exist nocturnal horents attracted to light. Fun. Absolutely wonderful.
Rigatoni takes longer than expected to cook, and grows bigger than expected as well. Very easy to cook too much!
Never never never never never ever ever ever ever ever clean a glass bottle with adhesives on its outside in a sink with other dishes regret regret regret regret regret.

Future plans

Well, I tried my hand at all the tasks except for one, which only happened because that one genuinely slipped my mind. Here's the update on last week:

Cooking: The stuff I added shiso to taught me that I need to cut my shiso smaller. The stuff I added bell pepper to taught me that I need to add less bell pepper. The stuff I added garlic sausage to came out great! I think I got slower at cooking, though. And less sure if the meat I cook is actually fully cooked too.
'Delicious in Dungeon': I forgor (again).
The to-do page: The completion page is now live! I also went ahead and added a little triangle to all the collapsibles on the site, to make it more obvious that those are collapsibles.
Door: While there seems to now be stuff behind the door, it is still locked, since it really seems like there's not all that much there yet.
Archery tag: Started with just pain, ended up actually being able to hit people! Waking up the next day was not fun though.
Day 16, Advent of Code 2022: I remember now why this on stopped me in my tracks last year. However, I learned the Floyd-Warshall algorithm as the first step towards solving.
Nico Yazawa's birthday: All I have to say is remember the phrase "Through our joyful smiles (5)"

For this week, I have mostly the same plans. I will no longer try to finish 'Delicious in Dungeon' in a week, I'll just finish off the next arc instead. I will try to get whatever is behind the door finished for next week. I'll try to come up with a solution for the example of day 16 of the 2022 Advent of Code, so I can figure out the actual problem a bit easier. Chika Takami and Honoka Kosaka have birthdays I'll be celebrating on the first and third of August respectively.

Song of the week

'There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)' (https://youtu.be/sMu00SLqeHA) by Billy Ocean is the song of the week. I remember hearing this song for the first time while on a highway, sometime during midday, and for the second time on the way back, nearer to sunset. Fun fact: he wasn't lying, I have been brought to tears multiple times this week by many love songs. Still feeling the same about relationship stuff, still processing it too. All the same, it's still over, isn't it?

Call for suggestions

This concludes bloghan 4. As always, if you've got suggestions, let me know, through any communication method you already have with me. Also, let me know if you would be interested in seeing a section in future bloghan's that would be about things on my to-do page that I complete, and if you have any suggestions on how to break up the personal updates section (it just keeps getting bigger). I would greatly appreciate any suggestions for how to conclude bloghans when this section disappears in September. Thanks again for reading all this way (I know you skimmed the personal updates section because I did that when writing it!)!

- bubbler

Click to return to bloghan