Week 25, 2024

And this week will enter my personal history as “the week when I became completely aphonic”. Due to a mix of bacterial sinusitis and cold, I felt my voice progressively losing its strength, to the point where, last Thursday, by lunch time, it was completely gone. I had to work only by messaging my peers and joined online meeting only with my mic muted. And from the looks of it — and my doctor's evaluation —, it will take a long time for my voice to join me again.

Now, I have become hoarse in the past, as it does happen to many people once in a while. But, I've never completely lost my voice. I'm not liking the experience — it's awful. This morning, for example, I needed to drop by the drugstore and needed to write down what I needed so that the clerk could help me. Being voiceless makes me reflect on being able to speak, something really valuable, while subject to not being valued. I mean, we usually take our voices for granted, right? After all, they're always there (except when they aren't).

Anyways, here's to me, hoping that my voice returns sooner than later. I miss it dearly...

I guess I forgot to mention that I FINALLY finished reading Acceptance, by Jeff VanderMeer, the last in “The Southern Reach" trilogy. I don't remember having read such a boring book in my life — and, why not say, such a boring trilogy overall. I couldn't put up with the last book most of the time, and I dragged myself to its end... and the end was disappointing.

I got excited with the first book, because of its pace and characters, but now I reckon only the first book is worth any while. After completing the read last June, 5th, I can say the rest of the books and the plot, at least for me, honestly felt like garbage. Waste of time.

As soon as I finished the trilogy I felt I needed to read some quality reading, as a means to detox from the bad experience. The thing is I've been reading a couple of work related, non-fiction books, that have kept me busy for some time, as studying them is important for a task I'm going to start performing soon. So I was obliged to postpone my detox by 3 weeks.

Now, on May, 31st, as I've mentioned before, I bought myself a digital copy of You Like It Darker, the latest book by Stephen King. If there's someone who could cure me from the bad sensations of reading boring books, this person is Mr. King, for sure. Before starting to read his latest book, though, I decided to read two other, older titles, also written by him, as there seems to be connections and mentions there to at least one of his new book's tales. First, there's The Dead Zone, a book from 1979, that I've already started to read yesterday and I'm already 12% in, and then there's Cujo, from 1981, which I'll start reading as soon as I finish “The Dead Zone”, and only after finishing it will I read “You Like it Darker”. The upside in all of this is I cannot go wrong when reading three of Mr. King's books in a row: it's guaranteed detox! 😊

I've bought myself a new roguelike too: its name is Path of Achra, and it is a recent release, which came out last May. As really well-put by YouTuber Splattercat, who I happen to follow, this game is...

"A stunningly simple, rapid fire condensation of the roguelike formula. What ToME was to the games that preceded it, this game is to ToME. A faster, leaner, more aggressive experience with 0 downtime."

Now, I love “Tales of Maj'Eyal”, the same as I love other classic turn-based roguelike games. The thing with “Path of Achra”, though, is that it is more straight to the point. Just create one character from hundreds (thousands? IDK) of combinations among culture, class and religion and enter the fight to kick some ass with bare fists or helped by spells, weapons and prayers. It's a combination so good that hours will pass before you notice you've got something (else) to do.

While I'm talking about roguelikes, I might as well mention Dwarf Fortress, a genuine masterpiece which established a genre of its own, preceding games I love, like Rimworld. Although I've bought Dwarf Fortress sometime ago, according to Steam my game time in it is currently only 42 minutes, what means, of course, I've only opened it, taken a initial look and have yet to come back.

The reason I decided to mention DF is that while I was looking for “Path of Achra” gameplays to help me get acquainted with the game, I came across good YouTube tutorials in the form of playlists, and this kind of caused my itch to play the game to awake. So I might finally get that gameplay counter moving soon enough...

And before calling the close on this week's notes, I guess I should mention my Japanese studies are at a stop. It's hard to study anything with my throat aching and my head doing the same, not to mention the weakness which came along with my aphony — just remember it all came from a sinusitis.

With piles of messages from my language partners accumulating, I hope I get to find some energy to answer everyone.