Hey not trying to slip up on these updates I've been keeping them pretty good. So here's some new information!

Sleep schedule

I have been making a couple changes to my sleep schedule. I'm on a more or less North American sleep schedule right now. Waking up around 9:00 PM KST and streaming for about 8 hours. Stream numbers haven't been climbing quickly but my regulars are definitely growing. More familiar faces and more community building. Slow and steady and I'm keeping up a good flow of content for the stream.

League of Legends

I've just made it back to Gold 2. Been a bouncy boi. Ups and downs and a lot of games I could be winning lost. I'm definitely learning. My current role is support (WHAT?!) Thresh, Alistar, and Taric will be my free ticket to Platinum. I feel like the Gold 2 players are nearly my current skill level. Most understand rotation and can look at the minimap. Mechanical skill is much more commonly to an acceptable level where I can comfortably trust people to follow up. Still having a good time but I've been going a month straight on League with over 300 games already. Keep up the good fight!

Korean living

I attended a few matches of GSL vs the World and had a great experience. Serrel is a monster. I am keeping up with LCK and GSL and would like to make some YouTube videos around them. Loving it. Food situation is really coming together for budgeting. Not that I can't afford food but a key part of my living here is to keep expenses to a complete minimum. So far I've had no difficulty in staying below 100,000 Won /$100 a month on food. All together I'm at about $600 Canadian a month. I'll detail some more budgeting and price breakdowns soon.

Thanks homies!

So I've been here for just over a week now. It's Friday the 20th. Here some information on my league climb so far.

Placed Silver 2
Failed Silver 1 promo one time
Silver 1 to Gold 5 first try
Gold 5 to Gold 4 first try
Gold 4 to Gold 3 second try
Demoted to Gold 4. Been here 3 days.
Been jumping between Gold 3 and 4 for a week. Made it to Gold 2 for one day but went on a ride.a

I currently sit with around 200 games with just over a a 50% winrate. I've traded down from mid to ad as my primary role. My Annie winrate is lower but with a higher KDA which to me means I'm just not familiar enough with the role to carry with a lead. Anyway I'm defaulting to Lucian and Cait on the bot lane. I've had great success against most mages going bottom. My largest shortcomings is CS past 100. By this is mean after I hit 100 CS around 12 minutes I seem to just stop last hitting at the same rate I was before. I'll stick around 180 to 225 even at the 30 minute mark which is definitely a problem. Playing patient with passive or unskilled autofilled supports is another thing I struggle with. I think I just need to get into the rythem.

My goal is still D5. I'll raise this if it looks pretty sure to be achieved. Set you sights high. I'm Gold 5 on my main in NA right now been in plat promos 3 times but went on a little whoopsie spree down the slide.

I don't yet feel I'm playing with people who are as skilled as me. Might be my perception alone but most losses are much more influenced by my teams than me. Namely people that just end up getting killed over and over or are unable to farm.

Anyway I'm still working on improving. Winning isn't everything but it would be nice to get Plat already.

Peace.

Korean culture is practical. Cars are small. People are small. One thing I didn't think was practical was not being able to use all my change to refill my subway/metro card. Only 15 coins per transaction what a fuckin crock baby! Anyway both my cards got declined when I tried to take out some bills but I'll try again later. The cards works fine 80% of the time but keeping 50 dollars cash is always a good idea. Most ATM transaction fees are about 4 dollars Canadian ~3 US so keeping those to a minimum is preferred if you can store some in your room to restock. Most ATMs only allow 150,000 Won per transaction.

On the train right now writing this. Bought an iced coffee from the venting machine on the waiting platform. Fucking 7 hour layover in China is the worst because they don't have wireless. Well actually they have "free wifi" free to connect to the captive portal and be asked for login credentials for a pay by the minute system.

Dropped my phone and did a little damage to it. My phone is too big to fit in the pockets of the shorts I brought to change into. I had some cool techwear long sweatpants on before I hit China but it's a hot mess of a country. Anyway I had my phone in one of my backpacks pockets and didn't zip it up. It was at the baggage claim so i made it 99% of the way into Korea before breaking it. Just cosmetic damage to the top glass on the Pixel 2 XLs back around the camera. I'll be ok. Might even do that clear mod now that I have a reason to. It was about a waist high drop I'm pretty sure the glass in that window is shit because of the way it smashed. Didn't break like a screen would have imo. I'll be careful not to break it past here. I brought my iPhone 6s as a backup of I do something really stupid like forget it somewhere.

Last time I came I bought a 30 day pre paid simcard at the Airport. 71,000 Won for unlimited 4G data isn't a bad deal at all compared to Canadian plans but I'm living the frugal lifestyle. Adding 85$ a month to my tab isn't something I'm down with right now. I'm staying in a new place this time so hopefully I can find my way with some map screenshots.

I've been using a language learning app called LingoDeer. It's so good. Compared to Duolingo for Asian languages it has a lot better teaching style and format. If you're looking to get into Japanese or Korean I HIGHLY recommend it. While you're in the app store download Blumail because it has no ads and a dark theme to make your life a little less anonying. Why Google wants to push ads in my inbox in the default Gmail app on their own phone I can't be sure.

Posting this a week late but I'll have a better writing schedule now that my first week is dialed in. Thanks for reading!

Yo. So last blog post detailed some goals for my trip and stated I quit my job. What's my plan? Why'd I quit my job? Have I gone fully insane? You're going to get bottle on B?! Anyway here some details.

Why I quit my job:

Ok. I repaired laptops and did remote and on site system administrator work at a local repair shop. We mainly focused on phone screens and battery replacements but I did PC and Mac repair. The job was alright. The guys I worked with were all enjoyable to be around. The work I did wasn't exceptionally monotonous or stressful. Having been my first job right out of school it was basically all I could ask for. I was paid a decent salary considering my experience and was respected for my skills.

I'm a good worker. I show up on time, I'm respectful to authority, pleasant with customers, and I know my way around technology. I'm a gritty person and could force myself to stick to a job like this but it was just... boring. I don't have a big need for money right now. I want to be fulfilled with work. Financially I'm well off for a 22 year old. My parents paid for my education and I don't have a car payment or debt of any kind. That kindness and ass busting on the side of my parents give close to $100,000 dollar head start on most students. I've had 3 years of some pretty great summer jobs which essentially went straight into a savings account because of this. I transparently would like to say I understand my privileged position here. A lot of people likely wouldn’t be openly accepted back in a parents house after graduating high school. Some are kicked out before they even make it that far. I rolled pretty high in the socioeconomic lottery of life which I can eternally feel remorse and guilt for or just accept I was not only born a genius hunk but also fairly wealthy... Anyway.. If you can swallow your pride and leverage some hospitality from family or friends to get yourself ahead I would highly recommend it. Again, I have no debts to pay, I lived in my parents basement rent free, I don't have a kid, I don't buy expensive shit. Money adds up fast if you're spending but also adds up fast if you're saving.

My boss attempted to make some win-win arrangements for me to work a few hours a week remotely but I respectfully declined. Door still seems to be open if I reach out. Being professional in dealing with higher-ups in businesses can't be understated. 48 laws of power baby.

Anyway I'm an artist at heart. I want to be my own boss. I'm working to build an income with content creation. If it doesn't work at least I tried.

Removed some dark shit from the end of this but I'll do a post on that some day too. Not the best to lead in with.

Peace

I'm pretty set on making YouTube videos. I have a lot fun watching videos from a huge variety of different creators and think I have something of value to offer *tip tip*. I've made videos in the past but those were mostly technology tutorials. Anyway I have some experience with video editing and the basics to what makes something I'd consider above garbage. Big thing to overcome here for me is to release things in a "good enough" state. I'm terrible at spending way too much time for very little benefit. 80 - 20 rule is going to be brought up a lot I'm sure. I'm also self-conscious about things I make too so with time and releasing a bunch of content hopefully I can overcome that to some degree. I hope to touch more on that someday too.

Social media and brand building is hard but setting goals around these bars seems reasonable. It gets easier and easier to grow as you build a larger following and pick up momentum. I'd put the D5 goal on top for personal satisfaction and Twitch follows for second place there. I haven't moved past the 300 follower mark on Twitch in the last 4 years so breaking that barrier is also something I'd like a lot.

Soft goals/good habits:

Exercise daily. I do have 99 Strength on OSRS (seriously high scores me: downthecrop) but strength training isn't for me IRL. I think I'm more cardio focused. Stairs or a few blocks jogging just until it's uncomfortable should be enough. Habit building is best done by taking embarrassingly small steps forward every day so it might be fun documenting that too.

Meditation. I've read a book on Shamatha meditation and practiced it for a while at work when I got extremely bored driving my forklift in 2016. I never experienced any extreme enlightenment or calmness. From doing more research on other meditation practice I might have been looking for the wrong results. Correct meditation is not a state of relaxation. It's a state of extreme focus. It's not a comfortable or easy task to stop your mind from wandering. If you're curious I read The Attention Revolution by Dr. B. Allen Wallace. I can remember quite a funny chapter where he explained his stay at the top of a mountain. He practiced his meditation for a few months up there but his spot to sit still and meditate had a bunch of red ants that kept fucking with him. Read it here. I don't think it was that great. All the smart fuckers I listen to try for 15 minutes a day. I probably spend 15 minutes a day trying to justify why I don't meditate so why not give it another try. 15 minutes feels like an eternity while you're starting. I'll bump that to 5 minutes for the first few weeks I think.

Making videos gives me more reason to explore new topics and ideas so I'd like that too.

Anyway... I'll be writing here at least once a week. Videos once a week with a summary here and on Reddit. I have plans for a Podcast and I'll be streaming every day for 5 months.

FrankerZ 7

2019 edit: I didn’t do the exercises or mediation but reading this is not as cringe as I expected. Guess my goals haven’t changed much in the last year. Did break that 400 follower mark on Twitch though and started making YouTube videos. Progress. Proud of myself .