The Examined Life, Week 03

Looking back at the first three weeks of the year, it feels like I'm keeping pace. I wrote four blog posts, I've been using my paper planner, and despite my workplace's effort to keep me buried in tasks, I (kinda) got things under control. Hell, I've even found more time than usual to sit down with students and talk about research.

That said, this last week I've decided that I'm dropping genuary. It is a really cool project, but I'm just not finding time to keep up, and I'd rather look forward to new things rather than catching up. Maybe I can make the "pico8 genuary cartridge" idea happen next year. I am also falling behind on the "do exercise" goal. I don't want to drop that one too but...

This weekend I spent most of the time preparing lecture materials for Programming Intro -- I got all materials (except videos) done all the way to the end of the semester! I'm feeling a bit "all work and no play", though. Going back to the last blog post, I need to figure out how I want to plan my private time.

Things I've been watching/playing/reading recently

• Tougen Anki (Anime): The premise was interesting -- Momotaro and Oni gangs battling in modern Tokyo. But it was quite a terrible show all around (animation, story, direction), and I dropped it in the first third.
• This Monster Wants to eat me (Anime): A girl with depression and suicidal ideation meets a monster that wants to eat her "when the time is right". This is a weird one, but it has been interesting so far. It gives me vibes of late 90's horror visual novels.
• Backpack Hero (Game): A Dungeon Crawl where your character's power depends on how you arrange the items in the backpack. I really like this idea, and I've had my eye on this game for a while. Unfortunately, the game is a bit too grindy, and you have to play the same dungeon over and over again too many times just to get through the main story...
• Shogun Showdown (Game): A turn-based battle game where you control your character by playing cards that move them, turn them around, and make them attack, a bit like in Robo Rally. I love this system, and had a lot of fun solving the combat encounters. On the other hand, the game delves too much in weaboo-ism, which is a bit tiring.
• Extra History (Youtube): I used to follow this channel back in the day, then I dropped it for a few years (can't remember why). Then I saw a friend commenting on a recent video and start watching them again. Today I saw an amazing video about Angkor Wat, which gave me cool ideas for my RPG prep.
• Xadrez Verbal Special on Venezuela (Youtube): XV is a (pt-br) podcast on world politics that I've been following for a while. This week they released a very nice (but very long) video with a recap on the history of Venezuela-US relations, from Venezuela's independence to the several US interventions, as a context to the recent American attack. Learned quite a bit.

Looking Forward

In addition to all the work stuff, I need to do some prep tomorrow or tuesday for my Arden-Vul game. Unless the players decide to turn around and leave the dungeon, I should have enough stuff prepped for 1 or 2 sessions, but I want to use this time to catch up on calendar, NPC/faction actions, and tooling.

One of my objectives for 2026 was to "do something interesting every month" -- and it seems that I'm getting overboard on that one. In the upcoming weeks I got a museum visit, Tokyo Game Dungeon, a Kansai visit, and 7DRL. One thing at a time, I guess.