March 2025 Journal Entry

Got 2nd at a $2k Lorcana tournament!! Am very very happy with my performance. A good group of individuals travelled from Utah to attend, with 6 of them making top 8, point being there was very good competition, and I knew that going into the tournament. My goal was top 8, and I knew even getting that was going to be tough. I far exceeded my expectations:):) And I was so close to getting first too!! (seriously, I think if he didn't topdeck two removal on the same turn, I think I just win) But I'm more than happy with 2nd! This was the deck I played. Here's the event link. I won $125 and 2 boxes of the most recent set.

Severance (with VidAngel) is my favorite live-action TV show, I've decided. Finished Season 2 with Tanner and Tyler. It's actually insanely good. Holy. I am so excited for season 3. It's peak. Okay, fine, I personally didn't care for the Ms. Cobel episode, but the rest is peak.

My Computer Science course has caused me more anguish than any other course I've ever taken. But, you know, one and a half more weeks to lock in and then I'm done. I'll be okay. What's so frustrating about it is 99% of the suffering has come from the course structure/teacher, not the content itself. Honestly don't mind the content. But, golly, I hate this course. 

The rest of my courses have been all well and good over the past month.

Results have gone down in Smash Tournaments, sadly, but I'm still having a lot of fun and have been spending a lot of time with my closest friends that I've made from the smash scene. Shout-outs to Gage and Drake. Going to miss them a lot once I graduate. But, yeah, weirdly losing to a lot of people I haven't lost to before. 

Including at the East Idaho Smash Summit Invitational, a special tournament that had ~$290 in prize pool. I lost to Chou for the first time with my Pokémon Trainer, sending me to losers day 2. Where, due to NinJamez dropping a set the day prior, I had to fight the loser of NinJamez and Gage (the first and second seed (with me being the third seed)). I lost to Gage getting out at 9th. Very disappointing, but I've come to terms with it.

Only played The Bazaar a little. Got to Legend rank, and then kind of just stopped. Without something to work toward, I lost a lot of my interest (I suppose I could work toward 1st in the world or something like that, but I'm good). Similar to how my Balatro and Slay the Spire game hours cut off as soon as I 100%'d them. Still enjoy the game and have pulled it a couple-few times for a quick run, but not even close to the extent I was playing it. Am excited for the new Hero to release tomorrow though! Will definitely be trying him out.

Got new managers for our apartment complex. They're alright. Jim (our old manager) was just the best and thus the transition is not fun, and we miss him.

Listened to Tress of the Emerald Sea for the second time (I guess technically, this is my first time listening to it; I read it last time). It was great, although I didn't like it as much my second time through, not sure exactly why. Just started listening to Yumi and the Nightmare Painter (same situation about the first/second time thing).

Last month I reported I wanted to make this month better than last, and I did and it was:) 

Switch 2 direct tomorrow!

February 2025 Journal Entry

Still been playing The Bazaar a ton. Probably too much. Free Open Beta starts Wednesday, if you're interested in playing it, I would love to hand off my referral link to you so I get free stuff and such.

Listened to Steelheart, Firefight, and Calamity. Read Mitosis. Currently listening through Lux for the first time.

Class and homework has been stressful and just not a good time. Seriously seriously am not liking my Computer Science course's structure, but am learning some things. Grasping concepts in my math class, but have no idea how to actually solve any problems, which means the homeworks and midterm are not going so well -- luckily the grading structure is super forgiving (probably too forgiving).

Continuing to compete in Smash Bros tournaments, of course. 22Cents has had my number recently, but I still have half a semester left to win some sets in exchange. Went to LanKing and did not perform to my liking, but had a ton of fun. 22Cents, Ninjamez (and Mackar, who's only able to go to a tournament a month or so) are still the only ones to win sets off me in PR events (I may or may not have lost to Ben for the first time in 2 years during LanKing redemption, but that wasn't for PR).

Still going to some Lorcana locals, even though Set Champs are done.

My roommates and I have been watching Severance with VidAngel to censor out the language/sexual content, and it's been so freaking good.

Got called as an Elders' Quorum Instructor. Teaching my first lesson next week (and potentially my last, depending, due to General Conference).

Been feeling slothful this past month which has caused my mood/happiness levels to go down. Reflecting on this month while writing this blog post is quite nice. Planning on having a better month this month.

January 2025 Journal Entry

    Been competing weekly in Super Smash Brothers tournaments. I should probably update the right column and make a recap of last season, but alas, not right now. My placements this semester thus far have been: 1, 2, 3, 1, 3, 4. 22Cents (that's his gamertag) and I are in a very close race for #2 on PR. We've fought a ton in tournament now and have become good buds through it. Shout out to Drake as well who's super awesome.

    Been competing in weekly Lorcana tournaments. My placements thus far in the local game store tournaments have been 1, 1, 1, 2. On top of that, Set Champs were the past three Saturdays. I took 3, 3, 2 in those, which is super consistent and awesome. In total I won 3 Scar Promos and 1 Playmat. Seriously such cool people and such a good community at Set Champs. It's been an absolute pleasure getting to know all of them over the past two sets of Set Champs. I'm sad that I won't be in this area the next time they roll around.

    Been playing a lot of The Bazaar, an asynchronous PvP auto-battler rougelike that's currently in closed beta. You go through various events each 'day', upgrading your board and putting together awesome combos. At the end of each 'day' you fight against someone else's build. Repeat that process until you lose x number of times or win 10 times. Been having a blast with it.

    

    Haven't read, like, at all the past month, but just barely started listening to Steelheart, and am really enjoying it. Have a feeling I'm going to tear through it pretty quickly.

    Been watching more Star Wars content (I need to update my left column, this is the first time since I started it up that I've been slacking on updating it this much). Watched Andor with my roommates Tyler and Tanner. It was very very good. Excited for the 2nd season coming out soon. Watched the first several episodes of The Mandalorian and haven't been enjoying it all that much to be honest. It's decent at least, definitely wouldn't say it's bad. Just not enjoying it a ton for some reason.

    Can't say my classes are my favorite this semester. 

    My Computer Science class is, uh, not great. It's a bad look for your class when your team meets up during team meeting time, and you consistently spend quite a bit of time discussing how poor the class structure is/how various things that could be improved. 

    My World Religions class is very cool (although I wish it was slightly less work, but it's worth it).

    My math class is rough but fun. We're staying afloat.

    Wrote a tad more in Auzzy Quite Liked Her Name. I wrote a ton my last few days in Fallon; Eric and I both wrote a lot in those few days. I've gotten to this part which requires reworking chunks of the previous chapters, which has caused my progress to putter out quite a bit, so I have made very little progress on it in the past month. Very happy with how much progress overall I've made with it since the last time I mentioned it on my blog though:)

52 posts, 1 year and A Quick Look Moving Forward

52 posts, 1 year: 

        I did it! I wrote a post for each and every week this year as 'twas my goal:) Doing so these last couple months have been kind of difficult, I'm not going to lie -- twice, maybe thrice, I laid down in bed Saturday night and as I was drifting off to sleep I realized I hadn't scheduled a post yet -- I bolted awake, and pulled something together. Can't tell how much of that is burn out versus working a full time job for the first time.

        I am very happy with the things I've been able to record. A vast majority of my posts this year are things I'm really glad to have in existence. 

Whether they've been:

        hilarious memories (ex. Thomas duping me or this 11-year callback), 

        deep analyses about random topics (ex. Yahtzee, The Giver movie/book comparison),

        spiritual thoughts (ex. this mission memory and a talk I gave), 

        many tier list/ranking updates (MCU, TØP, Half Alive, Anime), 

        updates on what I've been up to (ex. this misc. one or this and this watching reports),

        Lorcana-related (this and this are probably the best examples),

        or recommendations (my staple party game and staple anime recommendations)

        amongst many other posts I'm glad to have written.

I'm just very grateful to have all these things recorded in my wonderful journal.

A Quick Look Moving Forward:

        I'm not sure what things will look like. I know blog posts are going to slow down; near the end of the year sometimes I felt like I needed to conjure something random up that I didn't necessarily want to write about/didn't necessarily feel valuable to write about, but did so anyway to keep to my goal (here and here being the prime examples). 

        I'm considering perhaps reallocating this blogpost writing time into making videos or something like that. Taking a month's worth of blog post time to create a single video or something like that. I'm not sure, though. I'm going back to writing when I want, creating however pleases me. So I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens:)

Report on 2024 Goals

Reaching Out to People/Staying Connected to People:

        In my drafts for this goal, I had a much more structured version lined out. Although I didn't follow that exact path, I definitely feel I hit the idea behind my goal, which I'm happy about. Definitely felt like I did a good job of reaching out to old friends, keeping connected etc.

Bread and Butter Work-out Goal:

        Did not fulfill this goal. The goal was to just do a few minutes of push-ups/sit-ups before showering each day. I felt like overall I stayed active enough (lots of walking to class/work), but besides that, really no exercise besides a good stint of Beat Saber and a couple other stints that lasted a couple-few weeks each.

        This is definitely something I want to improve upon after reading chunks of Spark for my family's book club. It's generally difficult for me to motivate myself to exercise as the physical benefits currently don't hold much appeal to me. But the other benefits outlined in Spark very much do, so I just need to consistently remind myself of those in order to build up a habit.

Reevaluation Goal:

        I didn't do a particularly great job at this goal. I think I did better at the general concept compared to other years, though, so I do think I'm improving in this aspect. It just wasn't as consistent or concrete as my original planned outlined it to be. But overall give myself a passing grade in this department.

2024 Campaign Related Goals:

        The 2024 Campaign will be concluded tomorrow! 8 sessions (including session 0) of wonderful fun. Of course, some sessions went smoother, had better moments, more interesting combat, more impactful sequences etc. than others, but regardless of the individual quality of each session, I'm just grateful for the time I got to spend with my family and the memories we all got to create together.

Reading:

        I read a lot! And it was great. I got around to all the major books I had plotted out for myself, I believe. There were many several small books that I never got around to, but that's okay. The Conglomeration exists, but I suppose I'll write what I read here as well:

        Most of Skyward Novellas + Last Book, Books 2-5 of the Stormlight Archive + Novellas, Book Club books (Boundaries, Ella Minnow Pea, Spark, Moby Dick, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and Endurance (some more thoroughly than others)), Giver 1 and 2, The Hobbit, Alcatraz 1-6, Warbreaker.

        I have much more reading to do in the future! Which is wonderful.

Spiritual Goals:

        I never posted any of these on my blog in any form, but I thought I'd report that these have been going well. My scripture study specifically has improved a lot this year compared to the year prior.

Blogging:

        Decided to dedicate most of next week's post talking about this alongside stuff moving forward, so feel free to check out that next week:)