Patience, and Learning to Master It (21/03/24)
"Kept you waiting, huh?" - Venture
In all seriousness, it's been a hot minute since I've posted any updates to this "weekly/biweekly" blog. I've been greatly busy with a whole bunch of stuff; a huge load of (admittly fun) schoolwork and assignments, meeting new friends and battling against how stupid the UI for Blockbench is, so this and the website has been on the backburner.
That being said, instead of focusing my time on updating/developing the website, I've decided to sink 16+ hours into a Pokemon SoulSilver shiny-only challenge.
My mind works in mysterious ways.
Out of literally anything else I could be productive in completing, I chose to test and grow my patience with a Shiny-only Pokemon challenge inspired by all those YouTube videos. Specifically, I'd have to credit Smallant the most here, since I was watching his Pokemon videos when I thought of attempting my own.
It's been going alright so far; finding my starter very quick in under 194 encounters - a shiny Totodile named Crystal.
Unfortunately, that's where my good luck has all gone into.
As of writing, I am currently 2050 encounters deep into a Route 32 Mareep hunt, with no signs of stopping anytime soon. The thing about shinies, I've found, is that they appear literally when you least expect them to; when you drop your guard, lose attention or even when you leave the room to do something else.
If this challenge has taught me anything, it's that I'm willing to put in more effort and attention into a task if I split it up into chunks, and that my patience seems to be improving over time, which is great!
Other than this little tidbit, nothing really interesting has come of note in my day-to-day life, other than making some new friends in classes and online (for some reason, every university has a Discord server nowadays which baffles me), finding a bookshop near my commute that has some kickass stock, and planning to purchase more vinyl in the future (looking to more Radiohead and MGMT from a "nearby" seller.)
The album of the blog is "The New Abnormal" by The Strokes, as it's easily their best album to date. I own this on vinyl and it's possibly the most frequent record I spin, every song is unique yet maintains the same theme, the motifs across songs is great, and the way it was presented physically to me in a pretty slick packaging. Favourite song is Eternal Summer.