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Primmulla

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Everything posted by Primmulla

  1. Hello, my aim is to take a detox from GoT so that I will totally lose interest in this franchise and have no need to follow the series or the books anymore. As for blocking, I have already done it, as I mention in the first post, and so far, it works all right. During the day, I usually have no cravings, though I still get dreams about GoT. And now to the post about writing which I promised yesterday. When I was a little girl, I wanted to become a writer In fact, I wrote a lot of poems and short stories as a child and a teenager, not to mentioned numerous "unfinished tales" which were meant to turn into novels but never did. However, with time I started to write less and less. Ideas and inspiration used to come to me in most inappropriate moments, for instance when I was studying for a test or late at night, when I should have been sleeping. There was also the time when school was more and more intense, there were more subjects to learn and I had less free time. Also, though good grades at school had always been important for me, it was then when I had to spend much more time studying, as I wanted to get best grades also when I was not particularly talented at a given subject, such as maths or physics. And I came to the conclusion that I was in fact not a very good writer, so it would be better to spend my time studying rather than writing. And when these ideas and inspiration came, I pushed them away, until they ceased to appear. I was a very good student so maybe there was no need to give up my writing, but I had high demands of myself, and during my time as a pupil and later to some extent as a student, the only thing I was interested in were school subjects, homework and grades. I had virtually no interests outside of school curriculum. And do not talk to me about delaying gratification, for this is what I was constantly doing from the day I started school. I did not watch interesting films when I had classes on the next day, during school year I usually read little outside of the curriculum, for reading books could take my mind away from studying. My parents never demanded of me to excel in every school subject, but I demanded it from myself and nobody could stop me from making these demands. And writing went to the margins of my life together with our pleasures. The Muse was offended by this treatment and stopped to visit me. I had a huge writing revival during my extramural studies, when I had to commute to Krakow every two weeks, watching the changing landscape and listening to music during an hour and a half long journeys provided me with a lot of inspiration for writing short haiku-like poems, which my Mum enjoys very much. I wrote a batch of poems almost after every journey to the university. However, when I graduated and I no longer had to take such long commutes, the inspiration went dry. I still write poems sometimes, when I see something which strikes me as especially beautiful etc. but this happens very rarely in comparison to the frequency I wrote during my studies, I usually write a couple of times a year, I may write more poems during one month, but this month is followed by a couple of other months when I do not manage to write anything. Now I want to write more because I want to give my Mum some poems for Mother's Day, which is celebrated on May 26 in Poland. I wrote a little more and I also started to use writing prompts, which helped me a lot. The problem is I am mostly inspired by nature, but now I am suffering from severe allergy and cannot take walks outside as I am allergic to the pollen of many plants. I have a terrible cough and can hardly speak, when I try to speak I am almost choking. So, this also clips the wings of my Muse I read a lot of creative writing websites, e-books with writing prompts etc. and they usually say how important it is to write every day. I guess they are right, yet in spite of this I still cannot make myself do this exercise and write every day. My attitude to writing has not really changed, I still consider it a bit of a waste of time, and believe that I am not very talented and because I have no idea what to write about, there is no point in trying to write anything, since it would be worthless anyway, reading or learning something new is a better and more enjoyable way of using my time than writing when I do not have any inspiration. The result of this approach is that I do not get anything written (but what to write about, if I do not have any ideas). When I have a lot of work, I do not write anything, but even on a free day I prefer to read somebody else's texts instead of trying to create my own. Maybe I really should not bother writing?
  2. The article was very funny, though it seems to me that life is too serious to be compared to game, which is after all something what is done for fun and which we can opt out if we do not like it, which is of course not the case with life, and most of all, everything we do in life has consequences, sometimes very serious. While for me, game is characterised by no consequences, first and foremost, when your character dies, it is revived and you can play again, while in life, it is not possible, and second, in a game you can take a difficult quest many times and do it until you succeed, while in life, you usually have only one chance to complete an important quest, such as getting a dream job or asking your beloved to marry you, there are no second chances Once it is gone, it is gone forever.
  3. Danni, thank you for you thoughtful and kind message, it is really very supportive and you are a great help If the addiction is defined as you described above, it seems that I have never been addicted to anything, be it games or other stuff, since nothing has ever affected my life in such a negative way. I believe you are right about its being obsession rather than addiction. I have observed that there are several stages in my fascination by various popular books or movies, first there is "falling in love" stage when I begin to be interested in something, followed by a "honeymoon" when it is most like an obsession, and I want to read and watch as much as possible about this new fandom (this usually includes not only the original books/movies but also fanfiction, fanart, fanfilms if there are any), and after this "honeymoon" things can go two different ways: either there is "integration": something becomes a part of my sense of self, I identify as a fan of X, but no longer have to read about X every day, in fact there are often quite long breaks, but X is something which I return to and which continues to give me joy. So far, this happened only with Tolkien. Or alternatively, there can be a "divorce" in which case I totally lose my interest in X and rarely return to it, and X becomes indifferent to me. Sometimes it happens naturally, I simply get bored with it, as it happened with Hunger Games, or I force this process by forbidding myself to read anything about it for an indefinite period of time. I do it mainly when there is something morally unsavoury with the given fandom, for instance with matters discussed in books/films as with GoT, or when the show/book itself is OK but due to problems with availability of it in Poland I used to download it from the Internet or watch on foreign TV channels through VPN. And usually after this detox, my interest in the franchise seriously decreases, to the point where it no longer plays any role in my life, and I have no need to read further on this subject or watch a new season. This is the case with Harry Potter, of course I sometimes read news and articles about it, but I don't care e.g. about watching the upcoming "Fantastic beasts" film, perhaps it would be cool to see it, but if I would never see it, it would not be any problem for me, since I no longer care about it. With Tolkien, I re-read the books and re-watch the films from time to time, and I cannot imagine a future in which I would never read Tolkien again, though currently I am not reading anything by him and it is OK with me. My interest in Tolkien waxes and wanes, but I identify myself as a Tolkien fan. I guess I did not manage to explain it clearly and it is quite difficult to follow, but this is how I feel. Thank you for you patience. As for GoT, it is lucky that this show is available only on a paid channel to which I do not have access I have to be wary only when I am online as there are no adverts for the show in traditional media, I saw one or two in Polish television but it was before the new season started airing, so I do not think I am in any danger of encountering GoT there. The only problem now is my friend, who is currently very keen on the show and before I decided to start this detox, we discussed GoT in our e-mails (she is my pen-friend) and now I do not know how to explain it to her that I do not want to talk about it any more (since she is not very religious). I guess I have to go back to discussing Tolkien, as she is also Tolkien fan and this is how we became friends. As for the journal, it is hard for me to be consistent with it, I do not think that writing about myself is worth the time, but I believe I owed a reply to Danni for her help. Danni, thanks once again for your support There are always more interesting things to do than writing a journal, for instance the course on Shakespeare or the Italian exercises. Though this brings me an idea for a new entry tomorrow, maybe I would find the time to write about writing, and why I do not write in spite of wanting to be a writer Goodnight everyone
  4. Good luck with your exams, I keep my fingers crossed for you I am sure you will make it. When do you get the results of the exams, do you have to wait long before you know whether you passed or not? Waiting for exam results is a terribly stressful time, maybe even worse than the exams themselves. As for studying, I believe you should not study at the computer as research shows it is much less effective than off-line study, if you have materials you have to learn in form of computer files, PDF, Word documents or whatever, it is very advisable to have them printed and study them on paper. I used to type the notes I took during lectures on my laptop because of my bad handwriting, but then I printed it all out, which also allowed me to use the highlighter. I am a visual learner, so I marked various sections of the material with different colours, which enabled me to remember it better during the test (I could associate information with a colour in which it was highlighted). You can also try rewriting the printed notes by hand, since there was a research showing that we retain more information if we write it by hand instead of on our computers. I used this method also and it is quite effective. Generally, I do not support learning on the computer, I am from the older generation who learned mostly from paper, and for me computer is still considered rather a toy It does not support concentration and focus as paper books and notes do.
  5. I may be hated by everyone here because of confessing to returning to gaming, and maybe this is why there are almost no replies to my post, but I would continue with my diary. The thing is I simply chose stuff which is less harmful in the long run, and the GoT franchise harms me much more than games ever did. I do not know if it can be called proper addiction, but I tried to get rid of it several times and failed, the thing is I am absolutely repulsed by everything what happens in the GoT books, even more so by the television series, but every time the first episode of the new season is available to the general public and not only to HBO subscribers, I go along and watch it, even though I know I would have huge pricks of conscience afterwards. If this is not harmful, I don't know what is. I also know that watching or reading it is considered sinful and I do it in spite of this awareness. I really need to quit this destructive franchise once and for all. The problem is I have such huge cravings and everything seems to bring some association with GoT, for instance I have a liquid soap with a stag on it and it immediately brings a certain sigil to my mind. The same thing is with an image of a blue rose and a bear on my toilet paper When I start whistling a tune, it turns out that it is the main theme from the series Even images of wolves and dragons bring back memories of the books, so I should avoid them. When I was browsing the Shakespeare subreddit, I came across a link to a BBC series "Hollow Crown," and I wanted to watch it, but stopped myself because it was called "The War of The Roses" and this is what GoT is also based upon. Anyway, I should not watch British series, since they are not available in Poland and I would have to use VPN to access them which equals stealing. I have a long list of vocabulary which I wrote down from the English edition of GoT books, but I believe it would not be a good idea to put it down in the glossary as it may be a trigger, I would do it after my detox is complete.
  6. Hello all, I have noticed that there was a person here who was taking a detox from eating sweets, so maybe I can post also my non-game-related detox here. It would last 90 days just as Cam suggested about gaming detox. I would like to detox myself from the "Game of Thrones" franchise, I do not have HBO subscription but I read two volumes of the novels and I followed the plot of the series via various websites and forums dedicated to the franchise. This franchise had a much worse influence on my life that any game, as it lead me into sinful thoughts, which was not the case with games. As for gaming detox, I completed the 90-day period this January, and after considering everything, reading your journals, I concluded that I was never really addicted to games. I can moderate my gaming quite well, and it does not have any adverse influence on my life. I still play sometimes, though I do not enjoy it as much as I used to when I began gaming, maybe because I simply got bored by the game and its newness and hence attraction has worn off. I hope it is OK with you since you claim that there is nothing wrong with gaming itself if it does not have negative influence on our lives as a whole. I concluded that GoT has much more adverse effects in my life, and yesterday I decided to quit it, I have already blocked all the sites I was frequenting using Leechblock, together with keywords such as "game of thrones" and its Polish equivalent. I had some trouble with the Leechblock as it started to blocking this forum as well as my favourite Tolkien forum, where there was a thread discussing the series. I also could not access YouTube, where I used to watch many GoT-related video. Now I am marking all GoT-themed videos on YouTube as "not interested," it is quite a lot of work, but soon I would be free of them. I guess it is useful to "explain" to YouTube why I do not want to see videos like that since the algorithm may work better if I use this option. So this is the second day of my detox, but I have already had a dream (or nightmare) in which I was browsing these websites Never again! I hope that I would not have these cravings after the 90-day detox, once I took a similar detox with Harry Potter, though I do not remember how long it lasted, but afterwards I was no longer interested in this franchise. The problem is, I haven't finished the GoT books and so I have not reached closure with the series, and maybe this is what keeps me returning to it in spite of being appalled by the content of the books. It was different with Harry because when I started the detox I had already read all the volumes, so in fact this franchise did not have much more to offer me. So far, I am participating in a course on Shakespeare and another teaching Italian, these take my thoughts away a bit. I also do my Duolingo, Memrise and Khan Academy every day so as not to lose the streak. I guess I can interpolate Cam's ideas about quitting games to use them in the context of the TV series. Though I would not avoid gaming, it is helps me to stay away from GoT.
  7. Thanks, that is sound advice The best time to study these courses would be when there are no "live" courses in which I am very interested or when there are not many personal or professional duties. Courses are only a hobby and they should not take precedent over "real life." As for self-help books, I am not a big fan of them, I tried several through the service Blinkist, which is described here on the forum, and most of them turned out to be rather disappointing, there was really nothing "revolutionary" or life-changing there, nothing which I could not have come up with on my own or heard from friends or family. It seems to me that some of them may be the authors' attempt to get famous and earn some money. If they helped you, that's OK and it is understandable to like them. But I believe I can actually get better advice from people around me, who know me unlike the authors of these books. Anyway, people are different and what worked for the authors of these books may not work for you, and if it doesn't, it does not mean that there is something wrong with you. I believe you should not follow blindly any advice these books (as well as Internet gurus) give. Personally, I prefer reading academic or scholarly books from which I can derive factual knowledge rather than self-help ones, which may or may not work.
  8. I used to subscribe to the notion of finishing every book no matter what, but later I came to the conclusion that life is simply to short to waste time on books which I do not enjoy. Unless this book is an obligatory reading for your school or university, you are absolutely under no obligation to finish it if you do not like it. What is the point in plodding through a boring book if there may be dozen others which would genuinely interest you or even enchant you? This is turning what should be a pleasurable activity and a joy into some kind of weird torture No wonder so many young people avoid reading books since they associate reading with being forced to go through texts in which they cannot find anything interesting. But reading is actually one of the most wonderful pastimes if a book is well-chosen. Good reviews do not mean that you would enjoy a given book, so if you do not like a current bestseller, there is nothing wrong with you at all I once started a fantasy novel which has positive reviews and the blurb also seemed enticing, but it turned out that the characters were not only flat, but also behaved in a totally unrealistic way as far as human psychology is concerned, and the plot was quite predictable, so I simply stopped reading it and switched to another book. I have read quite a lot since and most of these were great reads, unlike this unfortunate novel. Maybe it is more important to be consistent with courses, but what is the point of continuing a course if it stops to be relevant to you? The course description may often seem promising, but if the actual course does not live up to your expectation, why should you devote your precious time to it? Anyway, I usually subscribe to every course the subject of which may remotely interest me now or in the future, so that I can download the course materials to study them later on my own pace. When the course is finished, in most MOOCs (apart from FutureLearn ones) the course materials are no longer accessible, but if you are enrolled, you can download them for later study. Otherwise you have to wait for another edition of the course to view the lectures. And since I would not get any certificates, it does not matter when I would actually view the material.
  9. I wonder why only one, at school we do not start geography only when we are done with history, during one day at school various subjects are taught, often quite diverse such as humanities and sciences, at least this is how it works in Poland The same thing happens at the university, where the students do not spend entire semester only on one subject. So why MOOCs should be any different? Particularly because most MOOCs are definitely less demanding than school or university courses. I thought about combining several MOOCs to form a self-made school curriculum
  10. Primmulla

    One Week!!

    I keep my fingers crossed for you, good luck I am certain that you can make it, believe in yourself.
  11. So many people in the journals and elsewhere state that they watch documentary films as a new form of relaxation, but the titles of these particular films are never mentioned, which is a pity because other users of these forum could get some recommendations. Maybe it would be a good idea to share information about interesting documentary films here?
  12. Your drawings are really sweet Have you thought about starting your own webcomic perhaps?
  13. I love MOOCs - Massive Online Open Courses. I often participate in several courses at the same time. The problem is, I do not finish most of them. I am primarily interested in subjects such as literature, especially poetry, and history and other things which are not very "useful" or practical. These are not exactly the skills which can get me a better job, and even more, I would not get any certificates from these courses since these are quite expensive when converted to Polish prices (and of course I would not be spending money on something which is rather a kind of hobby). And as a result, I often fail to complete these courses, though initially I am very interested in the subject matter. What can I do to be more consistent and finish every course which I start?
  14. I guess you may be exaggerating things a bit with procrastination, doing unproductive things after work or school is not procrastination, it is relax, you procrastinate only when you do something else during the time you should be working, even if it is something productive, e.g. cleaning your room is definitely a productive thing, yet when you clean your room instead of studying for an exam, it is called procrastination. Pharmacist, you may not be right about planning "relaxing activities" in detail, in this way what was supposed to be refreshing may turn into a stressful exercise, a rush to "tick off" all planned "relaxing activities" and in this way defeat its very purpose, which is to regenerate after work. You are turning relax into yet another chore, and it would nor work out well. In one of the books which were on Blinkist, I've read that our brain needs time of unproductive activity to rest and be creative, so by denying this to yourself you may in fact be doing more harm than good.
  15. I wonder how blocking the keywords works, if I block the series "Game of Thrones," and there is a a discussion about the series on my favourite Tolkien forum, does it mean that I would not be able to access the entire forum, or only the threat dedicated to Game of Thrones? Also, I would like to know if there is a way to block something (either specific websites or keywords) for a particular period of time, e.g. the 90 days of detox. This Lent I wanted to block websites about my favourite TV series only for the length of Lent, so I simply removed the block after Lent, but maybe there is a way to set up how long (in days) a block should work? There is only an option to choose days of the week, but I want to block for a specific period of time such as a month or more. How to do it? Thanks, you are my Leechblock expert
  16. I have a reflection not about relaxing itself, but rather on what brings about the need to relax: IMHO what makes one wanting relaxation is not a lot of activities, but rather stress related to them, especially being expected to do your best, present both at school and at work, having to fit into particular schedules and having to finish your tasks within the allotted time. For instance, when I am starting working on a new translation, my main fear is whether I am up to the task and whether I would be able to complete it before the assigned deadline. I want to do my best and prove that I am not too stupid for this text. And this stress tires me much more than the work itself ever could. For me, a relaxing activity is the one in which my performance would not be assessed, one in which I can fail with no consequences.
  17. Hello Piotr, I don't think you should beat yourself about not completing your third goal, you wrote that you were helping your mother instead and this is great, I guess helping a loved one is much more valuable than sticking to the plan. You should not follow the plan blindly, it is only as a guideline, and not law written in stone It would be a bad thing if you told your mother that you would not help her because you have to complete your plan. I am sure you definitely chose the better part Sometimes I got the impression that the whole detox and the hunt for new hobbies is too self-directed, like thinking about ourselves and how we are going to please ourselves without games, while using the time freed from games to help others would be much more beneficial and I guess would make much sense. Why stop doing something you enjoy like gaming only to replace it by some other hobby? -> seems rather pointless to me. But to stop playing in order to e.g. do some voluntary work, help with the housework, it makes so much sense and it is more motivating because we do something for another person. I guess it was rather a rant and not directly related to your post. As for your earlier question about reading fantasy books, I also love this genre though I usually try to read it in English, and to be honest I consider reading fantasy in my native Polish a little wasteful. Same with TV series and films, if you do it in English (or any other language you are learning or want to keep from disuse), you can turn something which is mindless entertainment into a learning experience. This is particularly good when you have little contact with the foreign language of your choice in your daily life and work. I studied English but if it hadn't been for English-language books and TV series I would probably have forgotten much of what I learnt by now.
  18. There is no time limit to reading, unlike gaming, you can read 10 hours a day (with breaks for eating, toilet) etc. and it is OK. Of course it is humanely possible to read for so long, particularly if the narrative is interesting and you literally cannot put the book down. Reading is a healthy "addiction," so you do not have to set any time boundaries as to how long you may read. Unless you are still in school and have to read particular books for your classes, remember that reading should be a pleasure, if you do not like a given book, switch to another, life is too short to waste on books you don't enjoy, particularly as a great read may be just around the corner I believe you should not restrict your reading list to self-help books, this is not a healthy reading diet For me, reading only these kinds of books would be terribly boring, as many of these self-help books are quite similar in their contents and tone, it makes for a very repetitive and tedious reading. If you stick only to these, you may quickly become bored and return to games You should definitely include interesting fiction books such as novels in your reading, particularly if you want to write fiction yourself. If you want to write, reading other authors (literature, not self-help books) is a must. I love fantasy, but you should choose the literary genre you really enjoy.
  19. WorkInProgress, how do you block specific terms? I use Leechblock, but when I want to start a new blocking rule, I can only add specific websites, it says to "enter the domains," so I guess I must put website addresses in there? Anyway, I was looking for something which would stop me from entering certain keywords into search engines, rather than blocking specific websites, in my case searches related to popular TV series rather than games. It would be great if Leechblock could do the job, as I already use it.
  20. I haven't seen the video yet, since I am on an old computer for which even a youtube video is a huge challenge but I have some reflections about the shame of gaming, I consider gaming quite shameful, and for some time, I was hiding the fact that I was gaming from my father, and when my cousin called me that she would come to visit me and I was playing at the moment, I did not want to her to see me gaming, mainly because I consider computer games something childish and infantile. Games are something that primary school children may be doing, and not adults who should prefer more sublime and intellectual entertainment. So this is something I should not entertain myself with, being in my early thirties, it simply does not become people this age.
  21. Yes, I am Catholic, and both pornography and masturbation are mortal sins in Catholic church, they seriously offend God and can get you damned forever whereas gaming, as such, is not a sin =evil at at, it can be when it is taken to extremes and leads one to abandon one's duties, or e.g. to behave violently towards people as a result of playing violent games. Both pornography and masturbation are morally wrong in themselves, which makes them much worse than gaming. Games are just a form of entertainment like films or popular books, if someone has a problem with overusing them, of course he or she should do something to curb the problem, but eliminating gaming before pornography etc. is like curing acne when one has a cancer as well. It is better to eliminate the more serious threat earlier, and then progress to the minor one.
  22. What about your pornography addiction? Have you tried fighting it and quitting it cold turkey? If you have two addictions, I believe it is wise to start from the worse one, and eliminate it before you begin to struggle against another. Pornography is infinitely worse than gaming addiction, for one thing, it is a bad thing in itself, and not only when it is overused as it is the case with gaming. Pornography has much more detrimental influence on human psyche than gaming, of course gaming in excess is something to be avoided, but it does not make one treat other people like sexual objects without any human dignity. I have also read in a magazine about fitness and healthy lifestyle that watching pornography can reduce one's intellect, so it is best to avoid it completely. I have never watched pornography myself, and even its very existence offends my sensibilities, so I do not know how addictive it may be and can give no advice other than to quit it cold turkey forever.
  23. I don't like the new colour scheme, it is so sad When I loaded the forum today after a break, I was afraid that maybe someone from the forum has died as some websites turn on black colour to show mourning. Is there an option to return to the red forum? Maybe the black is more friendly to the eyes, but the red one was definitely much more optimistic. I believe it is possible to have several "skins" for users to choose from, the Tolkien forum I use has a couple of these, and each user can specify in their settings which skin they want to see.
  24. Hello all female game quitters, the time when I feel most tempted to play is when I have my periods, I have tried various painkillers but they only dull the pain. I am looking for some activity which is intellectually undemanding, but at the same time engrossing enough to help me forget the pain. Gaming fitted the job description perfectly Do you have any suggestions? What about colouring books for adults, which are all the rage nowadays?
  25. I read that you can start practising a sport at any age, but if you start later you would probably never be as good as professional athletes, and you have to accept it. The same goes for musicians playing classical music. If you hadn't started practising as a child, you have little possibility of reaching the levels e.g of the winners of Chopin competition. We have to be realistic about our goals, or there is a huge disappointment in store for us. It is similar with learning foreign languages: you can learn at any age, but if you begin as a child, you would probably learn to speak without your native accent. Not so if you begin as an adult.
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