Blog: Books Read in 2019

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New Year's Resolutions 2020

In 2019 I finished my PhD which has been a goal for a very, very long time. I’m finding myself in a space right now where I feel a little frustrated that everything hasn’t fit perfectly together. To some extent I feel like there’s a lot of things I should do right now, but also I’m slowly realizing that happiness is going to be a mental state I put effort into achieving and not a “thing I’ll get to when my PhD is done”.

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Other than that I have some general things I want to do next year:

1. Finish the thesis - Waaaait a minute.


2. Accept life as it is - As I said, I spent a lot of the end of my PhD feeling like I’d be “happy” once I finished my PhD. And then I did and then realized that my mental state was going to be something I had to manage on my own. So I want to try to take a bit of time and a bit of energy each day to being happy.


3. Go on more adventures - Big or small I want to have a stream of interesting things I’m doing and planning to do. I want to organize my life and work in such a way that I have the flexibility and freedom to see things and people that are important to me.


4. Read more - I gave my students advice to read more at the end of a System Administration class and I should take that up myself. I want to schedule time each day to read.


5. Move Projects Forward - I want to get things done for my personal projects and my home and I want basically to try to work on one or the other of those each day. I’m also not quite sure how yet, but I need to find a way to handle those projects that have stumbling blocks that need to be moved past. I set numbers to this last year, and didn't really follow through, so I'm just going to do my best to keep moving.

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Blog: Games of 2019

This is going to be a lot more work than last year. 2019 was a good year for games and a good year for me, so I played a lot of good games.

I’ve broken the games down into the Okay, the Good and the Great. I also had to add a category “I haven’t played enough” because that’s a thing that happened this year.

The I Haven’t Played Enough

Wargroove

I only played a little bit of Wargroove because I bought it the same day (or just before) I bought Fire Emblem Three Houses. I really enjoyed the little bit I played, but it was mostly (totally?) in the tutorial levels, so I was lacking a little bit of a feeling for how the whole game plays out.

The Okay

Super Mario Maker 2

I haven’t played SMM2 since the recent big update, so I may have to take this back later. Generally I enjoyed Super Mario Maker 2, but I found at the end of the day that it lacked a little bit from the first one. I think this is an effect of the game providing more and better tools and the established expertise of the fan base. It left the game feeling a little lifeless for me, but hopefully at some point it’ll catch me a little bit more.

Luigi’s Mansion 3

I’m enjoying Luigi’s Mansion 3, it’s charming and fairly fun. I find that it’s a little bit of a drag to pick up and play because it’s hard to remember what the objective is, and they are somewhat convoluted. I also find the controls awkward, although that’s getting better as I play more.

The Good

Dragon Quest XI S: Echos of an Elusive Age

I have a real fondness for Dragon Quest VIII. It hit me at the right time with the right amount of depth that travelling the world solving people’s problems was a lot of fun. I’ve started replaying it a few times. Dragon Quest XI feels a lot like a revisit to Dragon Quest VIII. I’m finding it generally fun, but a little bit slow and grindy. I heard a review that complained that the version for the switch ground to a halt for reasons in the middle of the game and I found that to be true, but the first half of the game was pretty engaging.

Euclidia

I didn’t play a ton of Euclidia, but enough to know that I’ve largely forgotten how to do geometry and that doing geometry from first principles is rather fun. (I’m also not 100% sure it’s a 2019 game)

Tetris 99

Tetris 99 is a lot of fun and it’s nice to be able to quickly drop into a game. My skills are a little old school, so there are things like t-spins that I’m not able to do properly and generally I find I’m a pretty middle of the pack player. I do wish the UI was a little more organized and that the matchmaking was a little faster (but secretly I really just want an awesome quick single player Tetris).

The Great

Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda

This is a great game. I was going to put it in the good category and then that was the first thing I wrote about it, so clearly it must be great. I really enjoy the Zelda-lite mechanic of a game that doesn’t have a huge story but does have all of the feeling of a Zelda game. I really like the style the developers chose. The music is, of course, amazing and while I’m not sure the game exactly needs the actual Crypt of the Necrodancer beat mechanic, it’s certainly fun.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I didn’t expect to like this game. Looking at the trailers before the game came out, it felt a bit like it would be too Hogwarts the War Game. As it turns out it *is* Hogwarts the War Game and I actually like it. The developers streamlined and restructured the relationship mechanic from their recent games so that it feels reasonable and not nearly so fan-servicy. The combat mechanics are nicely streamlined, and when played on hard are pretty fun. It is a bit long if you want to see all four endings, but the quality of the deeper story seen when you do play through all four seems to be worth it.

Looking back at 2019’s New Years Resolutions

Hey, it’s that time of year where I think about thinking things. So It’s probably a good time to see if I did anything with my resolutions for 2019.

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General Goals

1. Be Slower - I think (unsurprisingly) my results were mixed. The idea here was to focus my energy towards one thing at a time. I think I managed to do this moderately well when I wasn’t stressed. When I was stressed, I think I fell back to my old patterns.
2. Finish Things - Well, this still isn’t my strength. I did give a lecture on finishing things, which I did finish. I think I’ve generally gotten better at getting stuff done and especially doing things as soon as they come up so that they don’t land on my to-do list at all.
3. Be Comfortable - This one’s gonna be a long process. I spent a little time thinking the other day that I have an urge for “this to be done” so that I can be happy. Finding that way to seperate my mental state from everything else in the world is going to be some work.

Specific Goals

1. Finish the Thesis - Goddamnit :-D
   
   
   
   
   
2. Make Something Everyday - Uh, where the hell did 2019 go? I started strong, lost it a little in the middle and then have picked up a bit at the end. Taking a really motivating art class has helped for sure.
3. Finish a Project a Month - Uuuuh, where did 2019 go? I bombed this one pretty hard, but at least I have moved most of my projects along a little.
4. Enjoy Good Stuff - I think I did okay. Not great, but okay. I’ve read a ton this year and watched a lot of shows I’ve been interested in. I’ve played more games and enjoyed them.
5. See More things - I don’t know that I did this as well as I should have, but I definitely took myself on some little adventures and think I’ll have space for a lot more.

2019 was okay. It was a transitional year and the year in which I moved from being a guy who hadn’t finished his PhD to a guy who did finish his PhD. The bit where the world didn’t suddenly change around me was to be expected I guess, but I’m still trying to figure out how to be out on my own. It’s been easy for years to blame the PhD for the things I’m not happy with, but that’s a crutch I have to give up now, and more to the point, maybe turn it into a nice cane and use it to hook the world into where I want it.

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Tradition now dictates that these posts end with a dancing cat