My Generally Insane Dedication Part 1: Origins

Image by CJ from Pixabay

Disclaimer: I am not always dedicated. For example, I often feel reluctant to do family duties like manning our family store these days...but I do it anyway. This goes double for most schoolwork.

One defining trait of Asperger's syndrome is sheer dedication, both to their interests and to specific people. Most people roughly my age and younger have given up on Minecraft and Pokémon these days in favor of the currently popular games (plus Among Us, battle royales, and VALORANT), but I still remain a Minecrafter and Pokémon Trainer. I'm still friends with my high school science teacher--I still share science-related stuff with her.

(Down a glass of water in one go when you read this part.) I got the idea to write this blog post thanks to Genshin Impact...again. I'm probably one of the few players who actively watches both theorycrafting videos (boyish, meta) and comic dubs (girly, waifu)--most people have no idea what I'm talking about when I say "IWinToLose Gaming" (theorycrafting) or "Sylleblossom" (comic dubs).

Lately, I've been furious about me frequently encountering unusually quiet, slow-witted, and sometimes unruly students who I call "Nobushi". As such, in Genshin Impact, I follow a Nobushi farm route, KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM, and show off the hundreds of Old Handguards I loot from them to friends. (I don't actually need the handguards--I collect them as Battle Trophies.) I TERRIFIED EVERY SINGLE ONE AS I LAUGHED LIKE A SERIAL KILLER.

I replied to her with some possible origins of my sheer dedication besides simply having Asperger's syndrome (which I didn't mention since I don't know her well enough).

I didn't give her an essay--just some bullet points. However, since this is my blog, bullet points aren't really a good idea, are they? It's essay time.

To a lesser extent, I also got this idea from--I'm not sure what to call her--my Bible study teacher? (I keep using the word "sensei" in my head.) She observed that I'm currently the only...errr, student she's ever had who takes these Bible studies seriously week after week.

Gaming

I think I was addicted to video games ever since I laid my hands on a Game Boy Color back when I was 4 years old. I don't remember much about that one specifically, but I know I spent hours on my Game Boy Advance. Gotta clear that last dungeon floor in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team, dang it!

I greatly enjoyed the gift-giving mechanic in the now-shut-down Facebook game Pet Society where players can gift each other most items. (I know you can gift furniture and mystery boxes but can you gift clothes? I can't remember.) As such, 9 years old is when I first started strategizing like crazy in video games--I devised gift plans, plans for the Stadium minigame so I could hoard more prize money, and...plans to steal my parents' and my big brother's PCs just to play.

Back in 2011 (or was it 2010?), Dad got me a Pokémon magazine which taught me some complicated terms like effort values (EVs). I had very little idea of what I was basically reading since I didn't even understand how the stats (Attack, Defense, etc.) work, but as I read about the stats, as well as re-reading the article in the magazine, I eventually understood, thus beginning my dedication to playing competitively in general.

In 2015, Pokémon X and Y was where I actually put this knowledge to good use thanks to the Super Training feature which allows the player to quickly increase a Pokémon's EVs of the player's choice, as well as the Nintendo 3DS being able to connect to the more secure WPA and WPA2 Wi-Fi security protocols (our Wi-Fi uses WPA2), unlike the Nintendo DS which connects to the less secure WEP only. I often challenged random players around the world to battles...and I think I won about 30% of them since I mostly used my favorite Pokémon with well-chosen moves and well-optimized stats rather than the "meta" choices.

Friends

I had a Friendless Background until I was 14 years old...when I "hijacked" my younger brother's friend, YoSquid, based on a common interest in Minecraft.

Before 14 years old, my way of getting friends was through Receiving Gifts in terms of Gary Chapman's The 5 Love Languages, hence my obsession with giving gifts in Pet Society. I was intensely afraid of rejection in purely verbal social interactions which I did not know how to do with strangers and acquaintances but still wanted to show I care about someone so I figured I'd follow the Latin saying "Verba volant, scripta manent" (Spoken words fly away, written words remain)...except I'd give gifts in addition to letters. (Yeah, handwritten friendly letters were drilled into my head in school even though I knew how to use Facebook and send e-mails.)

I started playing The Sims when I was 8 years old and, in that series, becoming best friends with someone is as simple as spamming friendly social interactions by just clicking buttons. I think it really manifested as the Quality Time and, to a lesser extent, Acts of Service love languages when I turned 14 and had a crush on a 7th-grader who I'll call "Keqing" (a.k.a. Mareeta in my older blog posts but you probably don't know who that Fire Emblem character is). I would call "Keqing" every night and talk about what was on my mind at the time, including psychology and wrestling.

In March 2018, "Keqing" and her mom invited me and my mom to a sports center. "Keqing's" laptop needed a Windows reinstallation, I think, so I created a USB installation drive at home just for her. Although I failed (the darn thing was too slow), I still got to eat chicken flambé and play tennis with her...and I got rekt by her superior movement. Regardless, for me, that was one of the best hangouts I ever had with her...mainly because it's rare for us to have a chance to physically hang out together with no one but our parents. (I didn't say "we" because I don't know how she feels about it.)

When I reached 17 years old and played the Minecraft competitive team-based game mode Annihilation, I needed friends, or more accurately, teammates, for practical reasons. I was fairly bad at PvP so I figured I'd make up for it with teamwork and strategy while I do a significantly easier support role where I just mine and enchant equipment for the team.

Using a Dynasty Warriors analogy, I was basically a combination of Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang for my Annihilation team--I treated my teammates like brothers in arms and I was the strategist who wrote a lot of articles. I regularly chatted with my team about things other than Minecraft--we often dove deep into our personal lives. I even collaborated with my Minecraft and now Genshin Impact friend NachoPizza to write two Annihilation guides. (Thanks again for helping me way back then, man! May Shenhe come home at low pity!)

Combining the two dedication origins together, you can see the results: I have over 30 blog posts all about Hytale, many of which focus on co-op strategy. My 6-part series about gang wars in Hytale has a combined total of over 10,000 words: something that's difficult for me to achieve while doing schoolwork. In comparison, my 18-page thesis is 5,000 words long.

Writing

Although I wrote short stories as a 6-year-old, I got serious about writing when I was 17 years old when I wrote Minecraft Annihilation strategies. I also kept a journal to keep track of what I did right in my games, what went wrong, and things I should remember about my teammates and enemies.

In 2018, when Mom raged at me again for doing poorly in college and not having a job, I started this blog in a fit of rage since writing was the only money-making skill I had at the time and I knew some blogs run Google ads.

I'm not quite sure how I got this dedicated, though, despite not having run Google ads for 4 years in a row. Perhaps it was the hope that someday, Google will let me run ads. Perhaps it's because I drilled the every Sunday schedule into my brain. Maybe it's simply a force of habit.

But now, I have a bunch of essays on my PC that are either for my eyes only or for friends, some of which are 1,000+ words written almost effortlessly.

What Sets Your Dedication Apart from Others?

My dedication is actually no different from that of most adults and some kids and teens--the kinds of people you see in the news and such.

Many are actually more dedicated than me, even kids and teens who gain the intelligence and skillsets of adults. While I look for work-life balance and fun at the kind of work I'm good at, others literally live for their work and studies, fun or not, and practice it religiously. I cannot relate well with this kind of person since almost all they care about are work, studying, and if applicable, their families.

In general, though, I know a lot more about my main fields of interest than others. In video games, I sound like a combination of a coach and a military commander. When I brag about or explain martial arts, one of my Japanese students thinks I'm a ninja while, when it comes to friends, I terrify them when I explain how to score critical hits in real life.

With friends specifically, my intense loyalty shows through staggering feats.

In addition to my attempt to fix her PC, I also taught "Keqing" math at Starbucks when she was in 8th grade.

Although I run the official D&D adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak with my Hytale teammates Aby and YoSquid, I wrote several pages of homebrew content containing Hytale characters and mobs, rules for Genshin Impact elemental reactions, and preparations for the weird and wacky stuff Aby and YoSquid would pull off like maybe treating the issue of the mimic eating gnomes as a game of Among Us--I'd allow the mimic to disguise as a gnome.

Speaking of writing, I often have a lot of things to say in my mind that I may forget later on so instead of presenting things one at a time like in a normal conversation, I have a habit of writing to people in essays. I gave a fellow English tutor a 10-page document full of tips for improvement. I gave a Genshin Impact friend (or not anymore?) a 5-page strategy guide. About 30% of the time after a lesson, I present my thoughts to my Bible study teacher in essays that are about 3 pages long.

And I don't just follow a Nobushi farm route in my own account. I have permission to borrow another friend's account and, in exchange for a Blessing of the Welkin Moon, I do her Daily Commissions, spend her Resin, do the Spiral Abyss (and get better results than her), and...HOARD HUNDREDS OF HANDGUARDS FOR HER IN A FIT OF WORKPLACE RAGE. (And they say I should leave work at work.) SHE NOW HAS MORE HANDGUARDS THAN EVEN HILICHURL MASKS (hilichurls are the most common enemies in the game).

As for YouTube, okay, I'm still lazy to edit and commit to a consistent schedule.

But I like to think I'm unique in the comments section.

It's fairly rare for many YouTubers to heart comments, let alone personally reply to them. When they do reply, they're usually simple one-liners like "Thank you!" or a quick joke.

On the other hand, I reply to a lot of comments in paragraphs and with follow-up questions. (Why have I never seen a single YouTuber ask follow-up questions in the comments?) I feel like, if I put a lot of my thoughts, the reply feels more personal and the commenter feels a greater sense of appreciation from me rather than a cliché "I know, right?"

TL;DR summary: My dedication to gaming and friends comes from me being so addicted that I would make strategies to win in games and win friends through acts of service. Today, I show people I care by writing insanely long essays and KILLING NOBUSHI IN GENSHIN IMPACT TO RELEASE MY WORKPLACE RAGE.

(OUTDATED) My Younger Brother's Unpredictable and Seemingly Endless Online Military Training

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay

IMPORTANT NOTE: This post is now outdated. My brother now does the vast majority of his military activities outside of home. LIKE IT SHOULD BE!

Note: I have full respect for our military, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). They have protected us from terrorists before and continue to do so now, including the ISIS-aligned Maute Group and currently, the communist terrorist organization called the New People's Army (NPA). I wish you all to continue fighting the good fight.

Hopefully what I'm about to say in this post is still covered by freedom of speech because this is a mostly negative post...

More importantly, I hope I'm not sharing any classified information...

I can't remember when exactly, but during the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) was once again made mandatory for college students. I didn't need to take it since my university doesn't offer it, but as the title suggests, my brother is taking ROTC.

If you're a civilian like me who has no military experience at all, you might have different views when it comes to military training. You might think of something very similar to the movie Full Metal Jacket: a rude drill sergeant who puts recruits through brutal physical training regimens. You might think of the Navy SEALs' Hell Week: 4 straight days of training with almost no sleep. You might think of Shang or Xin Zhao making a man out of you.

All these three things I wrote down have one thing in common: They're mainly done in military camps or outdoor environments.

COVID-19 Pandemic Recap

Just in case you're reading this after the Wuhan coronavirus (a.k.a. COVID-19, a name I still hate) pandemic (I wrote this while a weaker sub-variant of Omicron was spreading), the vast majority of the world locked down. In the early months of the pandemic, millions of businesses and schools around the world closed, forcing employees to work from home and classes to either be suspended or forced to go online.

I was affected by both, being my mom's assistant in our family store and a game development student who was going to a physical school early in 2020.

Our store was closed for many months and, although we have been open for about a year already, many of our customers are either too scared to go out or have completely forgotten about us.

As for game development, we went completely online. (I'm just thankful that, when we were still meeting physically, I played Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the first time.)

The vast majority of my younger brother's academic activities are also online. And these include...ROTC.

And, given the three examples I enumerated earlier, as well as my Singaporean friend NachoPizza having military training in actual military camps even during the pandemic, my expectations have been shattered and so has my sanity.

Basic Details of My Brother's ROTC

Note that I don't actively pay attention to this because I don't want to disturb my brother and I know he only likes talking to me when it's important. The last thing I want to happen is both of us getting in trouble for my ruckuses. Being a slightly soldier-like gamer, I also understand the importance of morale.

The "main" academic part is made of two parts: physical training and a traditional online class.

During physical training, my brother takes a PC upstairs and does, y'know, workouts. I'm usually either fast asleep, in our family store, or teaching English with my headphones tightly worn so I almost never get disturbed by this.

During the "traditional online class" part, his superiors do a lot of the talking; sometimes with, sometimes without a PowerPoint presentation where they discuss things like etiquette, human rights, tactics, and such. This is ironically the noisier part of ROTC since he mostly does this in our bedroom where I also teach English--he mostly says "Sir/Ma'am, aye, sir/ma'am!" and similar responses.

The schedule of these classes is wildly unpredictable. Sometimes, he starts at 5 AM; sometimes, he doesn't. Sometimes, he stretches all the way to 1 AM.

He mostly does this within Monday to Saturday inclusive...but what I REALLY can't stand is the occasional ROTC meeting during holidays and special days like Halloween even on Sundays where they still observe military etiquette while wearing Halloween costumes and trick-or-treating.

Forgive me for referring to high-ranking officers with informal language, but dudes, most Filipinos are Christians and Sunday is traditionally a day of relaxation! If you wanna have meetings on special days that fall on Sundays, how about you make some regular Sundays class days if your point is similar to Kujou Sara's: that the battlefield never waits until you are ready?

Unless maybe the idea is to make cadets forget about mentally associating holidays with relaxation...

But the classes aren't the worst part.

Before and/or after classes, the cadets engage in casual conversations. I'm not sure if these are required or part of the classes, though--a "Ma'am, aye, ma'am!" may be placed in the middle of what sounds like a typical conversation in an adult's birthday party. (Is there a better analogy? I keep thinking of barkadahan which I don't think I've ever heard another Filipino say.)

My Problems with This Online Training

The biggest problem is that, sometimes, my brother's ROTC interferes with my daily schedule.

Although there is the occasional bakery delivery or trip to the gym with my mom, my schedule from Monday to Sunday is more or less the same. My shift in our family store starts at 11:00 AM and ends at 8:00 PM which is also our closing time. From 8:30 PM to 12 midnight, I teach English to Japanese students. I then play Genshin Impact until 2:00 AM which is typically when I finally fall asleep.

This training mainly interferes with my English teaching and my sleep.

My students were already caught off-guard by my brother bellowing "Ma'am, aye, ma'am!" or a question to his superiors--my students thought I was giving them instructions or questions. On the other hand, I don't want my brother's superiors to think he's speaking without permission--after all, I often hear something around the lines of "requesting permission to speak freely/make a statement" and my brother and I have similar voices and English skill levels.

As for sleeping, I'm a light sleeper since, as lazy as I am, I can't stand being late and I have a "ready for emergencies" mentality. As such, many sensory stimuli can wake me up, including but not limited to drooling on my pillow by accident, hearing my parents talking about me while they're eating breakfast, and obviously, hearing ongoing military training.

Thanks to my brother's...exemplary achievements, he currently holds the position of 2nd Lieutenant and has more administrative roles than physical grunt work.

Unfortunately, alongside those...he occasionally has to record their classes using my gaming PC. This prevents me from teaching at all. He started out, I think, in September 2021 so, if this goes on for 2 years assuming a best-case scenario for Hypixel Studios, I may not be able to experience Hytale on Day 1.

But the casual conversations with his squadmates (I know they use "batchmates" but I want to use a term that civilian average Joes can relate to) are the worst.

While I admit I'm guilty of using the full power of my voice while my parents are asleep during my lessons and YouTube videos since I'm a wannabe voice actor and I want to engage my students and viewers in a unique way, my younger brother has a naturally louder and more commanding voice than me because as a child, he shouted at full volume a lot when he didn't get what he wanted. (Or maybe his personality is just how he acts when he's with other people in general whether they're family members or not. There are moments when he genuinely feels lazy and just watches gaming videos or plays with our horse dog alone. When I'm not teaching or doing YouTube videos and I don't feel a surge of strong positive emotions, I often speak quietly and minimally or just grunt and nod in acknowledgment.)

My brother's tone of voice at night with his squadmates is the same as during the day. Once, this chatting stretched to 2:30 AM so, although I felt super sleepy at the time, I continued to play with a Singaporean in Co-Op Genshin Impact since I might as well do something while that booming voice that can burst into unrestrained laughter at any second (not even any minute) is preventing me from sleeping. I mean, even Mom complains about that booming voice.

Assuming no shyness or hardware problems, I also notice a lot of people, both gamers and wannabe voice actors, don't want to voice-chat or practice voice acting at night to avoid disturbing their neighbors or other family members. These cadets, however, don't seem to give a firetruck at all.

Heck, if you've played or watched a military-themed game or movie, you might notice that soldiers swear quite a lot--it's no different in these casual situations. I get extra nervous when my brother says any sort of swear word in any language I know during my lessons--Japanese people are very proper, many of them know that "fuck" is an English swear word (ファック (fakku) is a common word according to jisho.org), and a few even try to speak Filipino to me. Once, I had to profusely apologize to my student after I said "Good morning." and my brother let out an Atomic F-Bomb in response.

And as of writing this specific paragraph on March 29, 2022, at 1:25 AM, I heard my brother's phone ringing at about 1:05 AM while he was fast asleep after 3 days of a tree-planting and beach-cleaning activity with the Navy. I simply heard it vibrating while my brother wasn't paying attention so I just let it slide--I thought maybe it was an alarm but he only wanted it to vibrate to avoid waking me up.

But the phone rang again so I lazily paused watching gameplay footage of Yakuza: Like a Dragon and investigated the phone. It simply showed a phone number--there was no name so I assumed it was a scammer or a wrong dial. I ignored the call a second time.

And it rang AGAIN. I thought, "There is NO way a scammer or wrong dialler would call this many times." So I lazily picked up the phone. The caller responded, "Good morning, batch."

I introduced myself as his brother, Juliann Baloran, and stated that my brother was asleep. I stuttered a lot since I did not know the right military lingo and I was scared that it might have actually been one of his superiors or maybe one of them is listening behind-the-scenes--I know what one of them sounds like and this one sounded terrifyingly close...or maybe most Filipinos just sound the same to me.

I said, "Sino po sila?" (Who is this?)

The caller gave her name and as far as I know, she wasn't one of the superiors. (Phew.)

I pressed the squadmate for more information. "For what purpose?" (In English because I felt "Bakit?" (Why?) felt too direct and informal.) I don't want to wake my brother up just to participate in a casual conversation that serves no purpose besides boosting morale--I wanted him to get some good rest after all the hard work he did. He can do this morale stuff during the day, I thought.

The squadmate simply said it was "super important" or whatever. (Or maybe I wasn't listening clearly.) Yeah, this is clearly not one of his superiors--otherwise, if she deliberately wanted to hide the purpose, she would have said something around the lines of "That is classified information." using more formal language--"super" as an adjective or adverb is too casual.

I lazily said "Thank you. I will wake up my brother." and ended the call.

And waking up my brother is exactly what I did just in case this is some huge emergency meeting that he absolutely, positively cannot miss.

Edit, April 3, 2022: On Saturday, while my brother was upstairs doing his ROTC, another one of his squadmates (or is it the same one?) messaged my brother while I was playing his Genshin Impact account, saying "Batch".

Uhhh...what? Why would you say that in a private message to a single person in a video game? The simplest way I understand the term "batch" is a group of at least two people.

I did the same thing: I introduced myself as Juliann Baloran, his brother. In addition, I said "Please state your purpose. He's a very busy man." He/she did not reply after that. (My brother has gotten angry thanks to unexpected visitors to our house asking for him before.)

Anyway, my point is that while military training is a great thing (sometimes, I feel like I also need it to get rid of my chaotic neutral alignment), doing it online for the most part is, for me, a stupid idea.

I'm pretty sure the main reason for this training being online is because of COVID-19. Dude, Omicron is very weak, only a few hundred people get the Wuhan coronavirus every day in the Philippines now, and some countries like Denmark are finally scrapping all pandemic restrictions! (But I suppose they can use the rising cases in countries like Japan, South Korea, and European countries to justify staying online...)

According to Mom, some college students have worse living conditions than our family does--some live in even smaller houses with just two or three rooms (one room being the obligatory bathroom). To add to that, I think many college students still live with their parents considering how family-oriented Filipinos are in general--they want to help their parents. As such, our family is probably not the only one experiencing the problems I stated above, but also the families of the other cadets. Not all of us are binge-watchers, gamers, graveyard shift employees, or students, pal--some of us actually need proper sleep!

Dad once told me that he handled a real M16 back when he was in ROTC. Last I checked, however, my brother and his squadmates only saw written and illustrated instructions--I bet they've never even touched a real gun in training. This is the biggest disadvantage of any sort of online learning--there are some things one can only really practice physically, not in the "metaverse" or whatever the heck Big Tech calls it.

I'm just glad though that there were a few things they actually did physically like attending an award ceremony (I think?) personally hosted by an admiral, as well as the tree planting I mentioned earlier.

Although the tree-planting got my brother off my back for 3 nights, I still was unable to sleep well thanks to the now blazing-hot temperature of this bedroom forcing me to use airconditioning especially to maintain my patience with some...peculiarly dumb and unruly students. The temperature changes caused me to get sniffles (Filipino: sipon).

But anyway, I would really like to read your thoughts in the comments.

Have you had similar experiences with someone living with or close to you like a family member or neighbor?

Do you think my complaints are justified?

Or do you think I should just put up with my brother's training no matter how physically draining it is for me just for the sake of my country as a whole? (This is what I'm trying to do.)

Anyway, if you're a current or former member of the Armed Forces of the Philippines or a Philippine government official and want this blog post removed, I will do so immediately with my sincerest apologies and comply with any and every other legal order.

But regardless, I want every last criminal, especially every last terrorist, put to justice. Don't think I haven't thought of y'all, you scum of the earth being the reason we have military and police officers.

TL;DR summary because this was a surprisingly long rant for me: I have no idea when the heck my brother's online military training or his casual conversations with his squadmates start or end, even on holidays. Sometimes, this messes with not only my sleep and work but also Mom's.