taigaoftundrablog

[taigaoftundrablog]

Week 9, 2024

Hi, yeah the blog has been quite inactive. Sorry about that. I just didn't have the motivation to keep spending an hour writing just to have some thoughts put down online. I guess you could say it's beneficial for me to know how my life has been, but otherwise, there wasn't too big of a point.

What's been going on?

I've been living my life the way it's been for a long time. There hasn't been too many things to write about going on, but I suppose there are a few things, like I have a girlfriend now! That is absolutely wack, and I love her to death. Hi Rain, if you're reading this!!

School has been going pretty well, and I'm actually quite proud of myself. What I've been doing isn't perfect, but I'm very happy about it.

The steps I want to take in the future

This is a pretty random thing to talk about, but I have a clear image on my future: making games. There's something so intriguing about making games, especially since I've been interested in the concept for over four years by now. The thought about making a game, the type of entertainment which has had me hooked ever since I was a child, is special to me, and I want to make it come true.

Lots of steps to take for that though, as I barely even know how to program anything.

How am I feeling mentally?

My mental state is a bit on the edge sometimes. Housework takes a lot of my day, so I'm often busy with that, but otherwise, it's mostly been okay.

I say mostly, because I have this fear that I'm a bit too self-centered, which honestly might just be true. I'm not sure how to change that though, but oh well, I'll try my best to do something.

Closing thoughts

This year has started off alright. There have been ups and downs, but I would say that things are going a-okay.

[taigaoftundrablog]

I'm afraid this isn't a weekly blog anymore, but here's something to make up for it

Experiment on phone usage starring myself

The main goal here is to:

1. Reduce my phone usage

2. See how your phone affects your life

Day 1

it's a tuesday. i have decided to go a decent portion of my day without my phone. i did not touch my phone during school, but after it, usage was pretty much average. i have not touched discord for the entire day, and i don't seem to be getting any notifications from there. hopefully i can lessen usage tomorrow, as i did use my phone quite a lot, still.

i did notice how not using my phone affected me though. for example, i was out of things to do for most of the breaks, since everyone else is stuck looking at their phones constantly. i'm marking this as a decent start.

Day 1 usage: 3h 30min

Most used app: Google (i look through the news feed a lot, it's a bad habit, but I will hopefully be looking at it a lot less by the end of this study/experiment.)

Time I went to bed: 21.30

Day 2: Plans

it's not wednesday yet, but my plans are:

- try get phone usage down to 3 hours

- start working on something, which i might find productive

- don't check discord, as not doing so will show myself that i'm actually determined about this

hopefully i fill my expectations of myself tomorrow.

Day 2

now it's wednesday, just got out of school. it's 14.26 right now and i have around 45 minutes of phone usage right now after allowing myself to use my phone normally school. 45min is about average for me and most of that time is used on school related stuff (checking schedule, etc.). i got out of school a few hours later yesterday so we'll see how today goes at home. have not touched discord, don't know how people there are doing, as the app quite literally is not giving me any notifications right now.

22.08. i am about to go to bed. i've spent most of my day playing on switch, which i feel like is more productive than being on my phone all day. first discord notifications popped up, apparently people are hoping i'm alright. it's nice to know that people care about how i'm doing but i have still yet to open discord. honestly opening it up seems worse than not doing so, so i may delay that to tomorrow evening, where i'll have something to talk about (nintendo direct).

Phone usage: 2h 18m (I really overdid myself there.)

Most used app: Chrome (I looked at random stuff online, Nintendo and school related)

Time I went to bed: 22.16

Day 3: Plans

plans for day 3 are: keep phone usage around the same, try not to go above 3 hours if plausible (opening discord for the first time in 4 days may change that to be over 3h though), and to stay focused on schoolwork. i'm honestly seeing some improvement, although not too much.

Day 3

literally just woke up. it's 6.09. i'm pretty intrigued to see how this day goes as i'll most likely be opening discord for the first time in a while.

welp, can say that people were worried about me. i do feel like i should've notified them about that before as uh they thought i pretty much died. whoops.

it's pretty late, and from what i've noticed, discord is the main reason i go to bed late and use my phone so much. not much else to note for today.

Phone usage: 3h 38min

Most used app: Geometry Dash (The game's just fun, alright?)

Time I went to sleep: 21.59

Stuff about day 4 & 5

have to preface these days a bit, as i did not initially write anything for these days, so i'm writing them on monday. main reason: i was too busy spending time doing other things + i did not feel like it. i'm currently thinking why i just stopped for two days, but i believe it's due to a lack of motivation/willingness, which i've seen a lot in myself. could honestly be due to improper phone usage, which was the main thing i need to work on here.

i've got to fix this somehow.

Day 4

pretty much spent all day at home playing on switch and whatever.

Phone usage: 3h 6min

Most used app: Discord (i KNEW this was gonna happen)

Time I went to sleep: presumably around 23.00

Day 5

same thing as yesterday, but we went to the store etc.

got new shoes, it'll take some time to get used to these but they're nice so far.

Phone usage: 2h 46min

Most used app: Discord (I'm genuinely addicted to human interaction, could be worse though of course (ahem TikTok, thank god I don't use that app))

Time I went to sleep: around 22.00

Day 6

start of a brand new week, it's monday now, i am currently at school, maybe i'll try reading this dang book in the evening as i got an assignment to read it, have to be done on thursday and this has like 250 pages. i will promise to you that i'll have less than an hour tomorrow, if i fail, i will draw something daily for a month AND it won't be myself constantly.

it's 22.02. sitting in bed, have done absolutely nothing productive today. have not touched that book which i have to read in like 3 days. guys i am so mentally stable and motivated

anyway yeah tomorrow is the sub-hour phone usage day which only means that i should probably be sleeping soon. i'ma actually get started on that book

Phone usage: 5h 31min (Mostly due to me also drawing for a decent while, 1h 21min to be exact.)

Most used app: Discord (Who would've thought?)

Time I went to sleep: around 23.00

Day 7

last day, i have like 15 minutes to write this

i have officially passed the test of less than an hour of phone usage and i am pretty proud of that. i've read the book i was meant to read a decent lot, at page 75 or something now. very cool.

not using my phone much does feel very odd honestly, but it feels kinda freeing in a way too, since i'm not stuck to this screen for 4 hours a day. i will do the final thoughts section tomorrow.

Phone usage: 48min

Most used app: Notes (Diary thing about this book which I have to write)

Time I went to sleep: 21.55, goodnight everyone

Closing thoughts (very cool)

i am finally free

phone usage has dipped a decent bit i would say, as it previously was up to 5 hours some days, now it seems to be at around 3 hours a day. there are of course exceptions, though, but i accept them

well, i shouldn't say free but still

pretty interesting how that week went. i believe my main lesson here is that you pretty much can't get rid of your phone in your life no matter how much you want to, since actually important things are sort of mixed up with less important ones.

i believe i have succeeded at this odd test somewhat

feels like i've been focusing more properly on the things i actually need to focus on, which is good for a change.

will see you all at some point, i'll try next week maybe!

[taigaoftundrablog]

blog of week 34, 2023 (sick and capitalism edition)

this week has been noticeably more interesting than the last one, im sorry for the delay to wednesday though!...

i was really busy on monday/tuesday and the weekend so i didn't have time to write the blog

essentially that means this one will be made in a single afternoon (yippee!!) but at least i have enough to talk about so i hope it wont be boring

the part where i answer questions

this first one will just be testing out how i'm gonna format this (thanks veronica)

veronicaxoxo asks: "veronica"

answer: yeah sometimes

that is literally it for this week, if i don't get much to answer i might scrap this section entirely as i don't really have much to well answer

taiga gets sick and dies due to the schoolwork

time for my sanity of the week, this time: not so good

got sick, was away from school for like the entire week, and i gotta say the first full week of high school is not good to miss, had lots of work i needed to do when i started feeling better and i just got everything done today (half of it literally during class lmfao)

i actually don't have much else to say about that it just sort of happened and that's it

poor financial decision plans (i am so glad they were only plans)

ok imagine you have 110 euros and you might get more during your birthday (i have my birthday this week, you'll hear about that next week), would you decide to spend plausibly 120 bucks on an 80 euro collector's edition of hollow knight? yeah i don't know what was up with me there, honestly

after that whole ordeal i have decided to just buy a switch pro controller, hollow knight and i'll get mario wonder when it comes out

art and other stuff progress update

i haven't done much on art things, but i'm looking at things like 3d modelling so i might start trying that at some point, otherwise, not much going on, as far as you know anyway :scheming:

only normal drawing of myself i've done this week:

other things i've been doing is just playing switch games yeah, i'm soon done with the first world of my super world in mario maker 2 (2 levels left) so that's cool, hopefully i can make levels which are interesting and fun to play with decent difficulty

closing thoughts

been a nice week overall despite me being sick, i feel like this week will be a little nicer even, since birthday and other junk, but who knows really?

only way to find out is to wait and see

but i'll see y'all next week! you can obviously ask any questions in the comments etc.

[taigaoftundrablog]

blog 2 (school edition!)

this week has been about what you'd expect from the first week of school: basic stuff, introduction of classes, etc...

it's nothing too special, but i'm pretty excited for it anyways as who the heck knows what high school has in store, probably way too much heckin work but ima try to manage

few things i wanna get out the way

i am taking questions from replies (not from the ask me anything thing) and i'll feature hopefully all of them in the beginning of the blog, basically where this part is right now

i also have settled that i'll be posting this on mondays as it's most convenient for me

THE QUEST FOR A PIKMIN TOWEL

this week i fell in love........with pikmin

i noticed a pikmin 4 branded kitchen towel on the my nintendo store in america but i kinda haven't been able to get it as I'M NOT IN AMERICA

it's the best thing ever like look at this i gotta get my hands on it

the journey i've gone through so far to try and get it is: emailed finnish nintendo support > redirected to uk nintendo support > automated bot messages > went back to finnish support > redirected to german nintendo support

i haven't been able to hear from the german support but my hopes are high that today i'll get some sign of hope from them of me actually being able to get it

guys if i don't get this towel i'll actually cry i wish i was kidding

taiga's amount of time to do things

okay so back to more normal topics, i have realised i have a massive lack of time (sometimes motivation) to work on projects, although i've found a little thing which i've found interesting but actually starting work on it may take a while as i have lots of things piled up

also my lack of time is purely due to my schedule (8am-2pm/4pm school, 4pm-7pm look after kids) and usually at the end of the day i feel a bit demotivated to work on things

some days i also don't get enough sleep (today) so i feel very sleep deprived and overworked and honestly it also really doesn't help with motivation either

i don't think i've done anything gaming-wise either, just been a bit of a quiet week for me, most of it spent on talking to friends

taiga's laptop from school

school started, i got laptop, i can do a few things with it but it'll obviously be for schoolwork like 95% of the time, since i don't really feel like i should be using it for things i'm not meant to use it for, although i'm really sad my drawing tablet doesn't work with it

closing thoughts

so this week has been pretty okay-ish i think, nothing has happened really but i feel like it's been alright anyway as i've at least done a few things

maybe next week will be better? who knows

find out next time in blog number three

[taigaoftundrablog]

blog post numero uno

i have no idea how this whole blog thing is gonna go, most likely ill find another day to post it other than monday (dear god mondays)...

but i feel like ill figure it out eventually, also these will probably be pretty random each week as i quite literally dont have a schedule of any sort so uh lets begin with it

art stuff with taiga

i have been working on this cool little thing which yall will see eventually, its gonna take like forever to make (woohoo 12 million heckin tutorials) but i am making progress, just got the hardest part left

other art stuff ive been doing is just random doodles from time to time like always, but havent been doing much else art-wise

here's some ms paint doodle i made in a minute or two, just for this

taiga does gaming stuff (what a big surprise she does that like every single day!!)

been playing switch games ever since i got my switch about a month ago, i beat mario odyssey like yeah around a week ago i think, i also should be playing breath of the wild more but motivation has kind of been lacking (i realised i have to go look for koroks) so i've just played both mario maker and odyssey, i have around 550 moons in odyssey and im at 130 levels in endless normal in mario maker

ive also realised i should start playing games ive had in my backlog for like forever (have to play thru celeste, pizza tower, half life 2, cuphead, just to name a few) but i think ill be focusing on switch games primarily for a little while

literally everything else

i'm getting a laptop from my school soon when high school starts!! i don't usually get much time to do stuff on pc so i feel like this will open up new opportunities to learn things like programming (i've been trying to get some sort of start with that but its very difficult to get the motivation to spend all the time i have during a day just to learn programming) but we'll see what i'll do

closing thoughts

nothing too much has happened honestly but next week will be more about school as that's starting wednesday (i hope that wont be too bad), mostly ive just been doing what i usually do each day, that being looking after the kids (my two little brothers) and just trying to get some time to get things i wanna do done

i think the next blogs will have more in depth writing which isn't just a mess of spaghetti all around as i just spent probably around maybe half an hour or a little more writing this? i didnt have a stopwatch on okay im not sure

but i will see you all next week in taiga blog (with me yelling about school!!!)