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With 2014 on the horizon, it’s time to take stock of 2013′s resolutions. Which of my nerdy ambitions did I realize and which did I leave by the wayside? Furthermore, since I’m not going to stop resolving with 2013, what nerdery should I strive to carry out 2014?
2013′s Resolutions
Make My Passion My Profession – Failed…
Definitely haven’t done this yet. Regrettably, life required me to be employed instead of taking the time to find a job in one of the fields in which I’m most interested. Despite this year’s setbacks, I’m always keeping an eye on this goal and considering how best to reach it. It occurs to me that this particular goal was probably far too vague. Perhaps concrete tasks would be more attainable than the nebulous objective I listed last year, so I’ll be on the lookout for better-defined undertakings that will take me in this direction.
Play and Watch DotA2 - Succeeded!
I nailed this one. At first it was slow going, but throughout this year, I invested more and more in both DotA 2 and its incredible pro-scene. The inconvenient times when DotA 2 live streams tend to occur notwithstanding (there are many more in Asia and Europe than the US), watching DotA 2 is more fun than ever. Particularly notable DotA 2 events of the past year were the amazing International 3 tournament and my discovery of Purge’s educational videos, both of which captivated me at various times during 2013. Only in the last few months have I started playing DotA 2 regularly, but every time I do I learn something new (and have tons of fun to boot).
Finish Doctor Who and Young Justice - Succeeded!
At the beginning of 2013, I still had a long way to go to complete BBC’s 50-year-old science fiction program, but I finally caught up with it in time for the second half of the seventh modern season, the fiftieth anniversary, and the departure of Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor in the recent Christmas episode. After consuming the whole show I remain a Who-phile, but I think some of the show’s earlier seasons were more engrossing than the newer ones (even though Smith was a constant source of joy). Hopefully Clara and Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor can rekindle some of the magic of Nine, Ten, and the early days of Eleven. In contrast, Young Justice was easy to complete, but that was because of the show’s premature and unfortunate demise. Young Justice stayed quality TV to the very end (though the rushed finale hurt a lot), leaving me sad that completing the show wasn’t more difficult. Curse you, Cartoon Network!
Beat More Games – Unclear
It’s indisputable that I did beat a lot of games this year, but I’m not sure whether or not I beat more games than in years past. That’s what happens when you don’t keep track. Luckily, I now have a list of the games I complete in a given year. In 12 months, I finished 10 games. I probably could have gotten through more, but considering how many endless games I play (like Final Fantasy XIV, League of Legends, and DotA2) that’s not a bad score. However, I definitely should’ve finished a few games, such as The Last of Us, FTL, or Rogue Legacy (I’M CLOSE I SWEAR) and I probably should’ve started a few that are in my backlog (Deus Ex: Human Revolution, inFamous, Mirror’s Edge, or Limbo). BUT THAT’S WHAT THE NEW YEAR IS FOR.
Write More Stories for my Pokemon Tabletop – Succeeded!
When I committed to this resolution, “more stories” referred to various side stories of our FLC campaign. I never managed to complete any of those, choosing instead to leave them by the wayside as I pursued other hobbies (like writing for TeamLiquid and all the gaming I’ve already mentioned). However, when we completed another campaign, the GM torch passed to me so I could start my own main storyline in our beloved world. When it did, I went a little nuts and composed a long series of interim tales that led up to the campaign I conceived. Now, after a few months, those tales are completed, and successfully so I might add. The players certainly seem happy with them, which in turn makes me extremely happy. As such, I’d absolutely consider this resolution successfully met, and I’m excited to continue this trend as we begin my campaign.
Make the N3rd Dimension Ever Better – Failed…
As I’ve recently written, I don’t think that the N3rd Dimension improved since its inception. I’ve certainly kept it going through the entirety of 2013 (it’s first full year), but improved? Not so sure. Hopefully I’ll be able to make more explicit and direct improvements this year, which will help since this also fell in the category of vague resolutions.
Not bad, all things considered! But now it’s time to stop looking back and start looking forward. After all, that’s what the New Year is all about, right? These are my resolutions for 2014.
2014 Resolutions
Play The “End-Game” of Final Fantasy XIV
Way back in my early high school days, I was a big fan of Final Fantasy XI, Square Enix’s first major foray into the MMO genre. FFXI was always extremely fun, but it quickly became too much to handle. After slowly progressing through the first 30 or so levels, I signed off of the game for good, choosing to save myself lots of time (and my folks lots of money) and leave the subscription-based game behind. Some of my friends, on the other hand, managed to get all the way to the MMO’s “end-game” and enjoyed the challenging content therein. Flash forward to the present, where a far different Squeenix MMO, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is suddenly a huge and popular addition to the MMO genre. I’ve never reached the end game content of any MMO before, but I really love FFXIV, so it’s my goal this year to get there in this game. This should be far easier than with FFXI considering the mechanical streamlining and leveling ease in the newer MMO, but it’s still going to be a large time commitment. Regardless, I can’t wait to enjoy that end-game (and hopefully with friends!)
Create a Great Pokemon Campaign for my Friends
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve written many side-stories and world-building tales for my Pokemon tabletop, FLC, during the last half of 2013. Yet now that those are finished, it’s time for the real deal: my own campaign. Of course, this campaign isn’t fully plotted out just yet, so I’m not sure about every detail, battle, or NPC that will be a part of the story. Despite this, the successful and entertaining completion of this campaign is one of my most important goals in 2013. I feel that my initial side stories set a high standard for the kind of fun that I can bring to the tabletop, so I can’t stop producing that quality. It’s time to make things even better than before and set a strong bar for the kinds of tales that can be told in our Pokemon universe. Plus, once I’m done with all of that, I get to play again, and that’s reason enough in itself to quickly craft a good story.
Restart my Japanese Journal
Once you stop practicing a language with frequency, it becomes extremely difficult to remember it. That was my initial motivation to keep a Japanese language journal after I returned from studying abroad in Japan. The need for this journal became even greater once I left college; at school I had classes and other academic impetuses to speak and study Japanese. I kept up with the daily journal for a while, but eventually it fell by the wayside when continuing became boring and repetitive. Of course, what I failed to realize is that practice DOES trend to be a bit repetitive, but the rewards are far greater than the price of some momentary boredom. I’m slowly (when I’m lucky) losing my ability to speak Japanese with any measure of competence, so it’s time to start up the journal again. Not only that, I should probably try to do some actual grammar and vocabulary practice as well. Basically, I want to bring Japanese back into my life, and there’s no better way to start than with a former habit: my journal. What will keep this practice fresh? This time around it’ll all be digital. Thank goodness for iPads and styluses.
Write Every Day (Even If It’s Just a Little)
As you can tell from my last two resolutions, I get myself involved in a lot of writing projects. Those are only two of them: I also have my writing for TeamLiquid and this blog. That’s a lot of stuff to work on so, unsurprisingly, I find myself pushing back deadlines, changing plans, or rushing a lot. I have very little discipline with the work I do because it’s almost all self-motivated. The few externally imposed deadlines I manage to maintain are the same ones that I frequently rush like crazy to meet (and to their detriment, I think). In 2014, I’m resolving to change that. I don’t want to make too big a change to the deadlines (self-imposed or otherwise), so I’d rather make it my mission to write at least a little bit every single day. I don’t know exactly the length that means just yet, but I know that I want to make a bit of progress on SOMETHING every day of the week. It’ll be in small, easily managable chunks at first, but I hope that the habit will snowball into a crazy amount of productivity. Even if it doesn’t it’ll still be SOME regular productivity. There’s always time for that.
Get to Gold in League of Legends
Here’s the truth: I’m really bad at League of Legends. Silver League may be higher than most of the LoL-playing population, but the players in Silver (like me) are still incredibly bad at the game. Considering how passionate I am about the professional LoL scene and how much I play the game, I think I should be showing better “results.” Of course, I also can’t donate all of my time to this game because there are still plenty of others that I want to finish/play. That’s why I think that simply getting into Gold League is a good compromise. I don’t think I’lll have a hard time making it this year, but I do think it’ll take a while since I don’t spam games very often. Maybe I can even do better than Gold, but I want to keep this one simple because it’s the baseline rank I think I should have in the game. In theory, I’m very close now, but my rate of progression is VERY slow. All in all: Fingers. Crossed.
Another year, another set of nerdy (and non-nerdy, though those aren’t listed) resolutions to keep. Thinking about what I can achieve in the new year is exciting, and it truly helps me meet a new revolution around the sun with eager anticipation.
How about you?
What are your nerdy resolutions in 2014?
