I'm back 😄 + very brief 3.5-yr hiatus summary
Posted on: August 16, 2020, at 03:22:35pm

Never thought I'd be writing this, but I'm back after 3.5 years! What was pretty funny about this was that the first random thought I saw when I got back was my retirement post 😂.


And actually, reading that was really fascinating, because a lot changed since then, and who would have ever thought a pandemic would be what brought me back to this game.

In early 2017(When I "retired"):
- I'd just moved to a new place and started an internship in biotech
- I was 25 almost 26
- Had just graduated from an M.S. program

Since then:
- As I mentioned in that post, I started playing DDR more which meant I pretty much had no time to commit to FFR, and boy did that result in some life changes.
- Most importantly, DDR was one of the reasons I made a career change out of a profession that was making me miserable into something I liked and found stability in (this was science -> software engineering). I confided in some friends on some personal career issues and they guided me towards making this transition. To this day I still can't believe how well this all worked out. Without DDR and the folks I met through it, I don't know that I would have made this realization myself.
- I played in tournaments for a few years and improved in skill quite a bit; stuck with DDR for the exercise.

Now:
- I'm 29.. I'll definitely be 30 before arcades open again
- Arcades are closed, so no more DDR for who knows how long. But in a way, when this happened, I ended up not minding too much. Reasons being:
- Tournaments created a nice chance to travel around, meet new people, etc, but honestly after a while I was losing the thrill of doing it, and having to maintain/improve skill while commuting to arcades *every single weekend* and sometimes during the week, all while working full-time was starting to feel like a chore. I'd likely met all the people I was going to meet and made all the friends I was ever going to make. So there weren't really any more positives to focus on, and this tended to shift my focus over to only the negative.
- So when arcades open again, I'll likely go back; I think having it taken away for a while will make me appreciate it anew when we get it back. But for the time being, let's do something else and re-skill at FFR!
- At the moment, I'm playing at about a high-D4 level. After playing for about a month, I've started improving some 3.5 year old scores on FMO's/FGO's and am hoping this trend continues!
- GLAD TO BE BACK! 😊

1. 1: Kawaii025
   Posted at 8:19pm on August 25th, 2020

   Welcome back to the keyboard smashing world. <3