On August 26th I'll be going back to school and I'm really excited.

I graduated with degrees in math and statistics back in 2013. Since then, (it's taken me some time) I've realized that that I need to learn more. I've realized I'm capable of a lot more than what I'm currently doing with my education (and to be honest, reviewing the same calculus problems over and over again with students gets old really fast)

I've been self-studying as a way to prepare myself for the tougher classes I'm going to take and have learned a lot already. I'm sure with the structure of a class as well, I'm going to go really far this semester. :)

I intend to eventually work my way into applying to some sort of graduate program if things go well enough and I cultivate further interests. I certainly hope I'll still be as active on FFR once school starts up.

yuppppp bring on the school year.

hello, just a sort update~

I've been slowly getting better. I am maintaining my current level of skill right now by playing in a tournament as well as playing a few songs on FFRmania against some others :) They're both really good so it's a great way for me to practice.

I'll probably try to go a bit harder tomorrow and this weekend and see what I can do about improving my stamina a bit. I'm also so close to buying a 126 dollar keyboard, but at the same time I just got a notice from the new apartment I'm moving to on the money I owe at the move in date and that just makes me not want to spend money all over again. x_x

If I wasn't dropping like 3k on a couple of classes and even more on my own apartment for the next year, I'd gladly buy the keyboard now. I'm thinking it's smarter for me to get some kind of part-time work in Gainesville first after I've moved before doing something like that.

so over the course of a few months I feel like I'm at a skill level that is the same as when I quit playing.

I'm fairly optimistic that I can continue improving and push far beyond what my skill was now that I'm back to my low D6 level.

I've recently gotten many scores which have replaced scores in my Top 50 on the leaderboards, most recently my booflag on Skeletor replacing the #4 spot I have. This is the first time that my FFR Rank has improved since the induction of the idea. My rank went from 183 -> 175. While indeed it is a small jump, it is my first jump and for that I find it extremely notable.

From here, I'm going to focus more heavily on playing files that fall in the 77-85 difficulty range, as well as spending more than half of my time on alternate engines such as FFRMania and play files that are outside my comfort level. As evidenced by my AAA's, I have strong FFR accuracy and now just need to build my reading ability to push into harder songs. By pushing into harder songs, my accuracy can transfer over to more difficult songs (70-80 range) which I'll be able to eventually AAA without too much difficulty.

I'll continue playing while balancing my work/school schedule as August approaches.

I feel like I could split my entire FFR experience into two major chapters: The time before and after the major site crash. Sounds like something I could craft into a book entitled "FFR: Through the ages" lol

The former time period was really a blast. I was extremely focused on playing this game and even made a couple of very close friends in the process. But most of my time was trying to improve at this game and I was really motivated to do so.

Ever since I came back some time after the site came back up, my whole approach to this website has changed. I'm more or less on here now just to talk to people (I specifically started playing TWG because it piqued my interest) and I spend very little time playing the game at all. Most of the time I can't find the motivation to really play at all anymore.

I find it really hard to decide which era was better, but I do tend to really miss the way I *used* to approach FFR, which seemingly would mean that previous experiences seem better. It's not that the game is more important or something, but when I did meet people back then, I really took the time to get to know them, even if I didn't talk to that many people.

I feel inclined to try and artificially replicate everything from that time to justify myself to still exist on this website. I keep thinking back to the times of FFR vid chat, the extremely dorky tournaments I would host, my overall competitiveness in any tournaments, the profile pets we had, my vague understanding of av-misses, the photo scavenger hunt I did, my OBSESSION with tokens, etc

I just see all this stuff and think to myself, "certainly I could make new experiences now that I'm back". However, maybe I'm struggling so much to get started because my will to be here isn't strong anymore.

Many people that greatly influenced me have moved on. Even I have largely moved on now. I work much more and essentially don't play the game anymore. It's probably just not feasible anymore to find that experience I once had and should just appreciate it for what it was.

I wonder when my time should be to go. Maybe I'm already overdue?

The point is, I have mixed feelings about being here. I'm not sure how they'll end up sorting themselves out, but until then I'll just go along for the ride and see what happens.

It isn't the worst thing in the world to be honest.

It has me go back through songs and replay them. I get rid of scores that I cannot even touch anymore and this may be a good way to motivate me to play/get better?

Sooooo, I'm not that upset~