Tag: dailyprompt

What are your future travel plans?

My future travel plans are simple and could be silly to some people, but I don’t care if it’s silly. It’s where I want to go because I want to increase my exploration skill in-real life! Below are the places I want to go just because I want to go there:

• Iceland (between August and September): I want to participate in the Puffling patrol; you find baby Puffins (birds native to Iceland) in the city, rescue them to the nearest sea cliff, and throw them over. It is said that they live close to the sea and they get lost following the city lights, mistaking them for moonlight, which is how they navigate to the ocean.
• Greece (May-June & September-October): I’ve always been fascinated by Greek mythology, later lessons from a YouTuber, AMO Pankration, about Hellenistic practices regarding training, health, and their history. I am also a fan of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, so I wanted to experience one of the main hubs, the architecture, presence, and culture, that shaped the modern world into what it is today. From Athens, to Laconia, to Mykonos, I want to visit the places in-game protagonists, Kassandra and Alexios, lived in.
• Belgium (April-May & September-October): I wanted to visit Belgium mainly to eat authentic Belgian chocolate. Although, I would love to experience what the country has to offer: Gravensteen Castle, Belfry of Bruges, Basilica of The Holy Blood, Bruges, Ghent’s Old Town, museums, and food I’ve never tried before. Walking tours sound amazing as well.
• Titanic Museum (Pigeon Forge, TN and Branson, MO): I came across this by chance on a YouTube short: visitors could explore a replica of The Titanic. What got my attention the most was when people could experience the water temperature the passengers felt as The Titanic sank. That was said to be one of the last things they felt before they died; chilling, icy cold water, that burned every fiber of your being. As morbid as it is, tragedy reminds us to not take what we have for granted, and sometimes we need to physically experience those reminders. I might walk out more depressed than when I walked in, but I am willing to go through with it!

This is not the entire list of places I want to go, even though going is inspired by a video game, the places are real. I collect foreign currency because they are reminders of places I’ve been to or came into my possession by chance. I want to broaden my horizons and increase my exploration EXP to the next level.

If anyone has been to places that are:

• Decently known, not as widely known.
• That has great sights, good food, is safe for tourists to explore.
• Something new to offer: exhibits, hiking, or is interactive and has great gift shops (authentic memorabilia and craftsmanship).

Please let me know where any of you have been, why, and what the experience was like. I would love to expand my list of places to explore and visit while I have the chance.

What do you listen to while you work?

I listen to the sound of a conveyor belt, it’s machination thrumming in the background, moving the freight we have to sort through at work. It often squeals, like agitated birds, whenever the belt is overloaded with more weight than it can move and abruptly halts. It resumes once we’re able to reduce the weight on the conveyor belt down, then we resume work too.

Music had been banned in the warehouse; I don’t know why, though it’s a blessing and a curse, because we used to have someone repeat the same three Māoli songs: “Shoot Down”, “I Would Look Good on You”, and “Every Night Every Morning.”

It got to the point where, if I heard either of those songs, I would get a visceral reaction: a brick dropping in my stomach, my body would shudder with anger and irritation, and I would use ear plugs to reduce listening to those songs. I would prefer giving in to hitting my head against the wall than listen to these songs. It’s gotten better, I don’t react as strongly as before, and I’ve grown numb instead. The songs start playing, no reaction, though I still would change it to something else.

Somehow, along the way, we weren’t allowed to play music, even songs most of us grew up listening to. So, my coworkers and I have conversations, have our own little karaoke sessions, and do what we can to stave off boredom at work.

What’s your favorite game (card, board, video, etc.)? Why?

My favorite games vary on the situation; if I’m playing with family, then I like to bring my Left, Right, Center game because it can get intense when we play for money. Nothing too crazy; either quarters or dollar bills and we keep the money if we win. Nothing too crazy, no harm, no foul, and we become an ATM if we want to keep playing and we can break larger bills from our wins. More money for us! And standard family fun.

For the PS4, then I’m obsessed with From Software’s games, “Elden Ring and Bloodborne”. These games are fun, challenging, and engaging because, unlike other video games, you can’t change the difficulty level and you have to get resourceful when trying to get through a game that doesn’t tell you what to do, where to go, except your objective. The storylines are engaging and it forces you to rethink your current play through in order to beat a low level enemy or a main boss.

Although, my favorite XBOX360 video game has been “Final Fantasy 13” from Square Enix. When FF13 was released in 2010-2011, I was blown away by the graphics, the character designs, and the storyline as a teen. Much like the movie, “Eragon”, Final Fantasy 13’s graphics look better than some current video games and it holds a special place in my heart.

I reminisce about replaying Final Fantasy 13 and get nostalgic when I watch the cutscenes on YouTube. Now that I got a new controller, I’ll be able to see if my XBOX360 still works. Otherwise, if it’s too old to function anymore, then I’ll take my system to my rage room job and sell it for $10-$20. I won’t be able to watch memories be destroyed by strangers and I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to destroy my gaming system!

Else, if it’s on my phone, then I enjoy reading games where your choices affect the story. I happened upon a text based game company called, “Choice of Games LLC” and their child company, I’m not sure if that’s what it is, called, “Hosted Games LLC” back in high school. Give or take 2010 or 2011, when I first played “Zombie Exodus” in class and getting scared because of how the story was written and I wanted to make sure everyone in the game survived.

I got a lot of the survivors killed because I wasn’t paying attention to my resources or the integrity of our stronghold and majority of the support was destroyed by the sheer force of the undead. My mismanagement led to a lot of survivors I liked to die horribly. I had to retry so many times because I didn’t want to accept that their deaths were final or canonically unchanging, despite everything I did.

I enjoy the games on Hosted Games LLC because they were written by fans of text based games. They use the company’s source code, create a story, and can produce it as their own, like a partnership in a way. I am waiting for the next chapters of “Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven”, “Fallen Hero”, “Wayhaven Chronicles”, “The Golden Rose”, “I, the Forgotten One”, “The Fernweh Saga”, “Samurai of Hyuga”, and “The Soul Stone Wars.” I’m not promoting these games or stories, but I am waiting patiently for the next books to release so I can know how the story progresses and ends.

Are you seeking security or adventure?

Picking between security and adventure can be difficult. Though, even if we were to define what security and adventure looks like for us as individuals, wouldn’t it be a fun thought experiment to claim we are seeking both?

I can understand the need to feel secure: in a home, relationship, in a career, with our finances, our life in general. Although, being able to have stories to tell, share, and recall would require we break out of our comfort zone. And, to break out of comfort zone, we have to do something that scares us. On the bright side, for the adrenaline averse, it doesn’t require jumping out of a plane, running from bulls, or street racing.

For myself, I’ve been socially averse and anxious throughout most of my life, so getting a part time job at a rage room pushed me out of my comfort zone; It’s interactive customer service, providing safety procedures, a new experience, and it lets me work on several personal skills:

• Customer service
• Adaptability
• Attention to detail
• Sales
• Social skills

It’s a social job that I thoroughly enjoy. Compared to the customer service jobs I held prior, I like interacting with customers. I get to help them get excited to break things. It’s a different experience, we’ve been conditioned to take care of our things, and most people struggled to break their items because it goes against what we were taught not to do.

It’s understandable, it’s an adventure of itself, and no one has to worry about being arrested for vandalism and destructing of property! Unless customers choose to do that after we go over safety, then that statement goes out the window.

Where Does Security Appear?

My part time job offers a steady paycheck every two weeks. This helps me, on top of my full time warehouse job, build my financial buffers. I won’t have to worry about not affording something because I have extra money coming in. And I can plan for my future self while having my own kind of fun in the present. It’s a win-win, even though I’m working two jobs.

The app my part time job uses, Gusto, is amazing because I’m able to save 15% of my paycheck and have it moved into a rainy day fund, rather than a set dollar amount. Saving a percentage is better in my opinion because the number always adjusts to the total.

Say, for example, you have to work less hours due to an injury, illness, or taking care of a loved one. With a set percentage, the amount of money being moved could be adjusted to what you earn. Same if you worked over time and that number increases. You could be saving more in that rainy day fund over time than if you set it for $20, $30, $40. You get the picture, but how you allocate your funds is ultimately up to you.

What are you most excited about for the future?

The thing that I’m most excited about for in the future is seeing how much I’ve grown and how far I’ve walked from the person I used to be. My past self used to be someone I would describe as being very fortunate people put up with her. If I was a stranger interacting with my past self, then I would have ‘noped’ out and away from her.

I could recognize, in hindsight, that I was toxic; although, I’ve gotten better at communicating, associating most feelings with words, and admitting I’m wrong. It still comes out snarky sometimes, but that’s a defense mechanism I’m working on dismantling.

Another thing I’m excited about is getting out of debt. I have just shy of $16,000 left to pay off: $4,000 in credit card debt and $12,000 from a personal loan, but I’m paying them down aggressively so I can save more, invest more, and be more generous with my money. If I’m able to build up enough of a buffer, I’d like to be able to take time off from work and pursue opportunities I’ve never considered before.

I’m getting bored with just working, going home, and repeat these days. I do visit my family as often as I can or I call them if I can’t, though I hadn’t volunteered since high school and that was for promoting science to elementary school children. Might as well give this a go, see what happens, and learn from people taking charge and making a difference. Who knows what kind of stories I’ll be able to tell when the time comes!