Okay here is the thing, a few days ago I deleted Instagram and Facebook from my phone. I was spending hours a day on those two apps (also Tik Tok but that is getting banned in 11 days so I want to enjoy y last few days with it) and I needed to step away from them and be more apart of the world. Okay I mean I just want more time for my hobbies because I found I was not doing a lot, I was barely reading, playing video games, board games or even talking with friends. On social media I felt like I was filling my life battery, seeing people tell stories about their lives, getting inspiration for future projects, and even get news I was not a fan of. and I grew tired and so I pressed that little delete button and they have been gone ever since.
The one thing that has really picked up without those apps is my desire to read. Now instead of picking up my phone in a dull moment, I reach for my book and I sit and read for a bit. What I found this past weekend was that I can sit and read for a long time, I finished a book and started and finished Part one of Addie LaRue (I even wrote the taste test)! It is such a small thing but it has made all the difference in my mental health too! I cannot doom scroll, there is no real app that I can just keep swiping up on and getting more and more posts on. TikTok, yes I can do that, but after a while I start getting annoyed with how people tell stories to get likes and views so I tend to get off that rather quickly.
Some might call this a New Years Resolution, but I am thinking this is more of a lifestyle change. I just want to be more attached to the world around me, then the one that lives inside my phone. Like for instance, right before getting on here and writing this I went onto my phone to just waste some time. Well, there was nothing there that I wanted to use and I am on a new chapter on Carl’s Doomsday Scenario and I wanted to take a break from reading so now I find myself here, rather than being lost on my Instagram feed!
Dungeons and Dragons: The Remix
So I started Dungeon Mastering (DMing) again for a D&D campaign after a year long hiatus! I am playing with some friends that I have made in theater over the past year and a half and I was nervous.
Starting a new campaign is like going out on a first date. Yeah the texting might have been great but it is not until you get in person do you know if there is actual chemistry. The same applies to D&D, I love the people that I am playing with, they are close to my heart and make me happy to call them friends, however playing D&D is a commitment. Though we talked about it, what would happen if we played differently, what if they are just a bunch of murder hobos and wanted to kill everything. What…if they hated….ROLEPLAYING! Oh god I would have been miserable. But our first session went off without a problem and it was wonderful to step back into the role of DM.
Here is a photo of the four of us. Sitting around getting into the vibe. The party consists of a newbie who’s only ever watch/listened (Warlock Tiefling), a virtual pro (Half-elf Paladin), and someone who knows nothing but wanted to hang with friends (Fairy Ranger). At one point the Hag they were fighting had advantage (someone was prone) and I rolled a Crit 1 and 20! Happy to say the person went down but did not die :). I love this game
Escape Rooms: International Edition
If you know me, my hobbies include reading, D&D, watching TV, Video Games, and escape rooms. Oh do I love escape rooms! Whenever I travel or have a free moment I always open the Morty App, think Yelp but for Escape Rooms and see what rooms are going on around me. Since I have been in Buffalo since 2019, I have done most of the rooms in this area. The only ones I have done have required 4 people or they are with a company that I have done another room of and I was not a fan. I thankfully have a best friend and fiancé that also love escaping locked rooms that are filled with various puzzles.
Since I have done all the Buffalo Rooms, when Sarah (Best Friend) comes to town we have to look at traveling to find rooms we have not done yet. Canada! Toronto is about a 2 hour drive in traffic and because it is a huge city there is a lot of Escape Rooms between Buffalo and Toronto and over the past 3 trips across the border Sarah and I (twice with Nick) have done over 10 rooms. The two of them love scary spooky, while I love fantasy mystery, and we are luckily enough to have so many places we can visit. So on New Year’s Eve we went back into our northern neighbors and set upon escaping 3 rooms.
We did this one room call Horror Circus and the task was this one clown had gone to the dark side and was killing some of the employees of the circus. The ringmaster was locking in a trailer and we were tasked with getting him out and stopping the clown from killing us. The room was a 3.5/5 in difficulty and relied on some jump scares. The three of us work well together, Sarah and I are typically on the same wavelength and Nick is by themselves. It works great because when Sarah and I are stuck Nick will typically come in and solve it or say something that gets my brain going and then gets us out of the sticky situations.
Alas we got out in Almost record time but got stuck on this one puzzle that had to do with a hammer swing and getting the bar to a certain amount of power. it was a BEAR of a problem. (Inside joke mixed with abstract thinking is what solved it)
Future Posts
I am thinking about what I want to write about in the next coming days/weeks. Some ideas
- Recap and rating of my 2024 reads
- Daily tarot readings
- First year of rad school review
- My thoughts and feelings
- time capsule
- Predictions for the year that we will revisit at the end.
Those are just ideas but what do you think about them? Is there anything you would like to read about from my perspective?
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