Mari Musings

December 2023

• Happy New Year 2024

  Happy New Year, lovely reader! It’s still 2023 where I live, but only for a few more hours. I don’t really have any New Year plans. I’m just here at home! My partner and I are going to watch the new Black Clover movie in a little bit and eat delicious, stovetop popcorn. It’s one of my favorite snacks to make and Black Clover is one of the most underrated series I love! I’ve been crazy busy this month, as many of us are. To be honest, I’m really happy the holidays are drawing to a close. I’ve still had no luck with finding a job. I hope that I will hear back from somewhere in January. Fingers crossed! I’ve been playing a truly insane amount of Baldurs Gate 3 lately. I’m only in act 2 (after 60 hours), but I’ve played pretty much every waking hour since my partner gave it to me last week. It’s so funny because I also got him BG3 as a Christmas present. It’s been a fun week of parallel play lol. I don’t think I have anything new or very insightful about the BG3, so I’m not sure I’ll…

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• New Year, New…

  We are nearing the end of the year, finally. This year has passed faster than any other. I wonder if it’s because I was busy or just because I’m getting older? I’m not really a fan of Winter or the ‘holiday’ season, but it’s important to me to do things to stay grounded in time. The holidays are hard for me, but I do appreciate seeing all of the beautiful lights in my neighborhood. I appreciate the period of reflection leading up to New Year’s. I am in the camp of people who like to make changes throughout the year, but I dislike it when people are condescending about it. It’s good to reflect on what you want and how you’ll achieve it. I want a job, as I’ve talked about in previous entries, but I’ve been thinking about what I want beyond that. I also want to make sure I’m continuing the development of my game. Reflecting on the past year, I have made great progress on it. I completed a demo, and I learned a lot. I think my next step is refining the details of the story and writing the…

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November 2023

• I Love Skyrim

  Happy 11/11! Can you believe Skyrim was released 12 years ago? I remember that day clearly. I was in 7th grade and my little brother used his birthday money to buy it on release. I was in a phase of my life where I pretended not to care about things I thought were interesting. Even still, I would watch my brother play and secretly wanted to pick up the controller when no one was watching. I eventually did play the game years later when I was about 16, and I’ve loved it ever since. Skyrim was the first game I played in first-person POV, and it made me so dizzy! I had to play in 3rd person mode for the longest time. I got the hang of it eventually! Though I had played open-world games like Bully, Skyrim was my first foray into open-world RPGs. The aspect of Skyrim that drove me to keep playing was building up my house and providing for my wife and adopted children LOL! I loved RPing as a mercenary mom who came home to dote on her wife and kids. The cozier aspects of Skyrim like this…

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October 2023

• Jack-o-Lantern Fun

  There are only a few more days until Halloween! I’m feeling pretty excited about it. As I detailed in my last entry, I have been making an effort to celebrate the spooky season as a way of staying in the moment. I’m happy to report that I have followed through with this and that I am doing much better. Still no luck on the job prospects though, but I won’t give up! I went to the local pumpkin patch with family and picked out a couple of pumpkins. I really like the look of white pumpkins, and I tend to pick those when going with a group. They stand out among the orange ones and they’re so ghostly. I carved them way too early though! Normally, it wouldn’t be too big of a deal to carve a couple of weeks early. Unfortunately, it’s been hot and damp even in my neck of the woods, so pumpkins grew mold almost immediately! Oh well, now I know better for next year. While I was preparing to carve, I drew on the pumpkin with a marker and poked holes where I wanted to carve. This effect is…

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• October Update

  Oh my god, it is already October. What the freak!! I am happy to report that I am feeling a bit better, but it’s been a rough go of it. Luckily, I have been applying for jobs, which makes me hopeful. I have a skills assessment next week, but the job doesn’t start until next year. I’m hoping to find something that starts earlier, but I’m trying not to worry too much. The distraction of going to work and being on a regular schedule will help get me out of my head. It will be nice to be around people again too. I’m trying not to worry about things like what if I don’t like the job because I can always find another. There are always options! Meanwhile, I’m trying to get into the Halloween spirit. It’s been a few years since I’ve really celebrated. Halloween is a big deal for my family because we’re pagan! Like many holidays, Halloween is so commercialized, but I’ve been trying to just embrace it as a celebration of Fall before the Christmas craze starts. Still! It’s nice to sit down and…

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September 2023

• September Update

  Content Warning: Non-detailed descriptions of animal death This entry is more personal than I would generally want to share here, but there's something about old school blogs that was so authentic. Part of the reason why I wanted to start a traditional blog was to regain some of that authenticity that is lost on new social media. I really enjoyed reading about people's real lives and how they navigated life's many pitfalls. I share this hoping that whoever may be reading it gains insight into their own life, as bloggers before me gave me insight into my own. Hello, reader! I recently graduated college with my BA, and I'm the first person in my entire family to do so. It's a big accomplishment, but because of the circumstances of the last couple of months, I don't feel much about it (yet!). This year I have done many things I'm proud of, but I can't feel much about it right now. My kitty Mitsuki passed away on September first after a sudden onset of illness. She was only about 3, and I…

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August 2023

• Summer Update

  It's been 2 months since my last update. It's funny because last time I posted, I was talking about how time passes so quickly and that I had a busy summer ahead of me... Well I was 100% correct LOL. I've been really busy! Thankfully, the pace is finally winding down. I finished the last class I needed to graduate, so once I finish up my last requirements, I will have earned my BA! I never thought I would get here... but the finish line is in sight! The scary part is thinking about what comes afterward. It's scary being at a crossroad in life. Many things are out of my control, but a lot of things are. Looking into an uncertain future and making smart choices that will bring safety, stability, and happiness is daunting. ...But time marches forward anyway, right? What other choice is there than to take the next step forward? All I can do is hope that I don't trip! I hope to both make plans while also embracing the unexpected. I should plan to achieve my goals and dreams while also…

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June 2023

• June is Halfway Over

  I can't believe June is already about halfway done! Time really passes by so quickly, especially when you're busy. I just finished up my Spring term, and I'm moving onto my final term before graduation. I'm excited to finish my degree, but DAMN time really passes by! This feeling is exacerbated because my birthday was a few days ago as well... It always seems to sneak up on me, and it hardly feels like a year has passed already. The flow of time is endless and unyielding!! I always tell myself that I should RELAX over break, but I just can't stop saying yes to things! In general, I think that Shonda Rhimes was right in saying that you should default to yes. Never thoughtlessly shut an open door! Buuuut I always end up agreeing to do a lot of things, and I never seem to slow down even when I mean to. LOL! This isn't a bad problem to have, if it's even a problem at all. But when I have a rare day where I have nothing planned, I don't know what to do with myself. It always brings a…

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May 2023

• TOTK Initial…

  If it was not clear from my page, I am an ENORMOUS fan of the Legend of Zelda. Maybe one day I will write another blog post about my experiences as a Zelda fan, but today I will be talking about the newest release—Tears of the Kingdom! I will not be posting explicit spoilers in this blog post, BUT I have seen the entire story and will be referencing my experiences playing the game AFTER having seen the story. I hope that makes sense! I initially told myself that I would not touch the game until Summer break, as I did last quarter when playing Persona 3. However, I decided to just play through the intro last night to quell my boredom and give myself the motivation to push through the rest of the quarter. Before yesterday, I watched someone else play since release. It was a unique experience to begin the game after already seeing the ending. No direct spoilers for now, but there were several repeated themes and images in the intro that I had forgotten about when seeing the ending. I was…

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• Becoming a Fluffy…

  The Lamb Compels You... I originally picked up the game during the Steam Winter sale, and I was immediately hooked. For those who are unfamiliar, Cult of the Lamb is half base builder and half rogue-lite dungeon crawler. As you grow your cult, your powers increase within the dungeon creating a compelling gameplay loop. It's easy to achieve a small goal for yourself even within 15 minutes of gameplay. I always find myself saying oh, I'm almost to the next goal, just 15 minutes more. Then suddenly I've played for 3 hours! I started playing again a few days ago to check out the new update, and so far, the new mechanics are fantastic and intuitive additions to the game. My main complaint during my original playthrough is that the game lacks things to do once you have maxed out your cult. The dungeon crawling and bosses were difficult to me, and due to the amount of times I had to retry the levels, my cult was maxed out long before I beat the final boss. I am now interacting with my…

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April 2023

• Maiden Post

  Ham-ha! I am happy to say that I finally finished setting up my blog using Zonelets! Woohoo! 🥳 I have always been interested in blogging, and to a certain extent, I have done so! I really miss the old DeviantArt journals and used those frequently when I was younger. Back in the day, I used to love looking at more traditional blogs and such as I surfed the web. I miss when blogging was more common. I have religiously used tumblr since 2011, and even though that's called blogging, running a tumblr is a lot different than running a traditional blog. As much as its userbase would hate to admit it, tumblr is more similar to mainstream social media. I should note that I love using tumblr for this reason! It's unique enough from places like twitter... for now (hehe). I started this blog because I love talking about stuff I'm interested in. It's also a love letter to the blogs I grew up with. I was too young in the 00s/early 2010s to participate in blogging at its height, so now it's time to…

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