Goals for the Week
Hello everyone! Welcome back to the blog for a more-traditional week’s end post. I hope everyone had a great week.
I am just coming out of the sickness brought on by the COVID + Flu vaccine combo…and wow. That was not fun. I had a streak of running a 5k four days in a row that will sadly die today as a result of the vaccine after-effects. I have been pushing myself to make fewer excuses in my life overall. I have become very adept at construing whatever is happening in a given day into a reason to not workout, do any speedrunning, or any game dev. If your excuse for straying off the path is valid, you’ll feel it. This was a valid way to end the ‘getting my head on straight’ 5k streak. I do feel a lot happier and more hopeful right now than I did earlier in the week.
Generally in these posts, I look back on the week that was. We can chat a little about last week, but I also want to look ahead and put some goals on paper for next week.
Being able to depend on yourself is important. I could feel that during my push to not make excuses and just go for runs last week. You gain confidence in your own ability to accomplish things. Without that confidence, you’re in a tough situation. I mentally create a plan for the day when I wake up, but without confidence in my ability to execute it, I am primed to abandon my plans at the first twinge of strife.
During my four days of running 5ks (which also coincided with great eating habits), I felt happier. I took stock of my sore legs and sore back from the previous day’s run, but pushed through and ran again. In just a few days, I already feel a lot of confidence in my ability to buckle down and pump out a 5k, even if I am not ‘in the mood’ to do it. This week I want to try and extend that to my forever-projects of speedrunning and game dev.
Week of 10/6 Goal #1 - Run a 5k Every Day
Isn’t this what knee replacement surgery is for? I’ve got two knees and I think doing a 5k a day might really be the best possible use of them. The 5k elevates me for the day. It puts me on the road to success. If it sounds overly aggressive, the thing is, I have a long history of working out every day. If I start to feel burned out with the aggressive goal we can change it, but for now let’s experiment with this high bar.
The Why : Cardio always improves my mindset, my feelings of accomplishment, and my day
Week of 10/6 Goal #2 - Work on Game Dev for 30 minutes immediately after waking up (weekdays)
I have a habit of drinking coffee and goofing off in the morning. It’s the quiet before the storm of the day, when Erika and Podo are still asleep. Pancake will usually make an appearance on my desk at some point to say hi. Goofing off usually entails either watching pointless things on Youtube / Twitch, or possibly playing a casual video game. I am still going to do those activities, but I want to make a conscious effort to not do them during this first block in the morning. 30 min will be over before I know it.
The Why : I have wanted to make a video game my entire life. This is a project worth fighting for.
Week of 10/6 Goal #3 - Do at least one hour of house chores daily
This is something I already easily do. This doesn’t count pet work, like dog walks. It also doesn’t include going to the store. This is more about cleaning the house. It’s worth listing here to me, because I do not want chore time to get crowded out by new goals.
The Why : I want to help support my family
Week of 10/6 Goal #4 - Speedrun for one hour daily (weekdays)
If running is the short-term version of the life lesson that hard work actually makes me happier, speedrunning is the medium-term lesson. Game dev would be the long-term lesson. Some of my proudest accomplishments over the past few years have been my work in speedrunning. It gives me an opportunity to socialize with people who know as much about my fairly narrow passion for retro video games. It also gives me an arena to focus some of my competitive spirit.
The Why : I have been interested in speedrunning for over 15 years now. This isn’t going to change anytime soon. Similar to game dev, this is a hobby worth fighting for.
Visualizing the Flow of a Day that Succeeds in these Goals
I’ll probably wake up in the 730am - 8am range. This is when I tend to wake up right now, since that’s when Podo likes to eat breakfast.
There’s always some morning chores to do. I have to feed Podo as mentioned. I have to give Pancake her joint medicine since she’s an old gal. Podo might need a morning pee before he hops back into bed with Erika.
This will be the first big moment of the day. I will not want to work on game dev in this moment. I can guarantee you that. I’ll want to browse the internet and drink coffee and goof off. This first block of my day tends to run from ~730am - 10am, since 10am is when Podo needs his first proper walk outside. That still leaves time for goofing off after the 30 minutes of game dev, but before Podo is properly awake.
The routine I built up last week was that before taking Podo on his first walk, I would get into running gear. That way as soon as the walk ends, I can put him inside and quickly turn around and go on the run.
After a run and a shower, it’s probably around Noon now. Noon - 2pm is the chores block. 2pm usually marks the second Podo walk - generally a long one. After this second Podo walk is probably the best speedrunning window. That would be the 3pm - 5pm sort of range. Then 5pm - 10pm can be do whatever time at the end of the day.
I can see this working. Wish me luck. I might check back in before the week ends.
Other Updates
Movie night this week was my pick, and I went with Slacker, the 1990 indie movie that Richard Linklater made before he made Dazed and Confused. I had never seen it. Something that Slacker shares with the much-more popular Dazed and Confused - the entire movie takes place in roughly one 24 hour period. I kind of like that setup. It helps you zero in on the types of minutiae the film covers.
A second thing, is that the movie didn’t have a main character. In fact, Slacker lacks any main storyline at all. The movie follows young adults living in Austin, but you only follow any given group or individual for a few minutes. After a brief glimpse into their life, the camera picks up someone new that had been on the periphery of the last scene, and they become the main character for a few minutes.
I am not a movie expert, so I don’t know if there are other movies like this. I mention that Dazed and Confused is kind of like this - it follows a wide variety of rising seniors on the last day of school in 1976. The difference with Dazed and Confused is there were more threads unifying the whole thing. All the characters knew each other, and they were all attending a party that night. In Slacker, the people lack commonality beyond being in Austin. The lack of a strong narrative does let you glean a lot about Richard Linklater that you couldn’t in Dazed and Confused. It’s clear he hates pretension, and it’s also clear that he hated capitalism and conservative politics in the United States all the way back in the first Bush administration. It was interesting how much the political content of the movie still resonated perfectly well today. It was also interesting how little day to day life of 1990 looks like our life today. Many characters have no job and work on artistic endeavors in a way that isn’t as possible today.
You don’t get the names of anyone in the movie, and honestly the way that the cast is credited might be the best indicator of what this movie is like. Some of the character names in the ending credits include, “Should Have Stayed at Bus Station”, “Grocery Grabber of Death’s Bounty”, “Pap Smear Pusher”, “Sidewalk Psychic”, “Traumatized Yacht Owner”, “Dairy Queen Photographer”, and “Scooby Doo Philosopher”.
There are a lot of scenes that would give you a good sense of the movie, but since I have to choose one, I’ll go with this one:
This is what the movie is all about. After this scene, you never see the “Pap Smear Pusher” again. The scenes are often very long single shots like this. I loved it.
That’s it for me - I hope you have a wonderful week ahead. Life is hard, but we need to keep trying. I believe in you.
During the Week Mini-Updates
Monday Update
It is 12:30pm. I woke up at 7:45am. I did the morning game dev! It was exactly 30 minutes, but we take those. I took Podo for a walk a little after 10am, then ran a 5k and took a shower. Today is off to a great start.
I think I'll experiment with this system for a bit - editing the post for the week as the week goes with updates. That way I don't have to make a million new posts. I've got 8oz of ahi tuna and a bunch of vegetables lined up for lunch. Chores today looks like a full kitchen clean, with a smaller living room tidy. It would be good to do two loads of laundry if possible, but we'll see if the timing works out. We have one of those washing machines built for apartment-living that connects to our kitchen sink, so that means you cannot use the sink while doing laundry (or while using the dishwasher, which is also made for apartment-living, and uses the same sort of plumbing technology).
If you are reading this addendum, have a great Monday!