Hello, my dearest readers. I should really be tracking how many you (if any) actually read my blog posts. I’d love to hear about what you think of my post over DM on Discord if you’re interested.

It’s now October. The sun sets an hour after work and I finally got both the motivation and opportunity to go on a daily 30-min walk.

Let’s celebrate what I have achieved over September.

Progress report

More Easy Clears!

The clears have been coming in slow and steady. I’ve gone from 30% of 地力 A lamps to 50%. I’ve also been trying to fill in the gaps and lamping easier stuff, but some charts are still really challenging to me (Thinking about yellow head joe SPL).

As for pushing the ceiling, I’ve gotten 3 more 地力 A+ lamps (4 in total 🥳):

• SOLAR ECLIPSE (EC): The ending was just easy enough for me to recover. I got owned in the middle.
• Initiation (NC): Recovery by HCN. I pretty much flatlined everything before that.
• ∀ (NC): I can’t replicate this again at all. Somehow the ending just made sense to me during my run. Random was 1526374 for reference.

Some 76%-78% off the top of my head were: NZM, Tiempo Loco, CHRONO DIVER -NORNIR-. I haven’t been able to replicate my best at all when replaying these charts (a sign that I need to play more BMS?), but I suppose they will be my focus for this month.

Overall, I’m glad that I have been making progress. Slow and steady wins the race.

Addicted to white lamps

I AM JUST A MOTH!

I am 20% away from HCing all 地力 C (we don’t talk about 個人差 here) and making good progress with 地力 B charts, sitting on a solid 166 HC lamps at the moment.

I am still getting owned by Innocent Walls (SPH), but on top of that I’ve learnt that SOFLAN is my archnemesis.

Shoutout to ONE MORE LOVELY for being so easy, yet so difficult with the trills…

EXHC is impossible

I just wanted to report that I’ve gotten my first two 12 EXHC lamps this month, with the charts being Primitive Vibes and thunder HOUSE NATION Remix.

When I was a child, my parents urged me to learn to play the piano so I can indulge myself in my own performance as a stress reliever, as opposed to chain smoking like my father. Right now, I don’t think there’s anything more satisfying than hitting chords in thunder HOUSE NATION Remix and EXHCing it. I just turn my brain off and let the muscle memory take me to a new dimension of being.

Fyi I gave up piano after like 2 lessons, because 8 year old me couldn’t see the appeal. Lies they told me include: “You have very big hands and long fingers perfect for playing the piano” (For reference, my hands are so small that I cannot wrist scratch).

My scratch crusade

After realising I can read scratch a bit better, and also getting better at partially one-handing the notes, I played a heap of ☆11 and ☆12 scratch charts. I am excited to share with you all that I’ve added EXHCing 灼熱 Pt.2 Long Train Running to my bucket list.

With ☆11s, I’ve pretty much HC’d most of the difficult scratch charts, with exceptions like ベィスドロップ・フリークス (those long scratches are unreadable) and SAMURAI-Scramble (I got close once, then somehow I kept dying at the start… Mindblocked??). My proudest of them all is:

(I kind of just got really lucky with the scratches. Got by barely needing to read slow or fast.)

As for the big boy ☆12 scratches:

• Lords Of The Roundtable (NC): This should not be 個人差 S, it’s easier than the charts that I can’t clear
• BLACK.by X-Cross Fade (EC): I got really lucky, but I really enjoyed playing this multiple times to get the EC. Probably one of the more enjoyable scratch charts
• The Chase (EC): This one felt just outside of my comfort zone. Harder than Roundtable in my opinion
• Miracle 5ympho X (NC): I absolutely got owned, but at least the ending is easy enough to recover to a NC.
• Level One (EC): This is too fast for me. In general I think I’m struggling a bit with the Level series

I also almost lamped Red. by Jack Trance and invoker. On some days I can almost get the EC, but on other days I feel like I can barely play them. The duality of scratch charts.

Reeeeeeead sloooooooooooow

I don’t have much to add here. I’m still struggling. I’ve been trying to play T.R.O.L.L. and stuff like Monkey Business a couple times a session. I will get owned.

My housemate (🤫), creator of theory.tools, is a nerd at making sure my numbers are perfect for SOFLAN charts, but somehow it still feels the same as rawdogging it… Am I just that bad?

BMS?

I feel a lot more comfortable scrolling through the sl5 folder. I have almost 10% of the folder cleared, and when I shit the bed I’m a lot closer to an AC compared to flatlining.

I tried a couple of sl and ★ Dans, but I found myself failing a lot on the 3rd track, no matter which course I am attempting. I can’t even get past the first track of ★2, but I’m finding myself more success trying to get ★3…

I really should be playing more BMS, but it feels off compared to IIDX and I can’t put my finger on how I can improve that experience.

Also I’ve been discovering a lot of bangers through BMS. Listening to MAGENTA POTION on loop.

October goals

For October, I have a lot of things planned. I’m going on a trip, and also I need to study for a certification that I paid $100 to apply. I haven’t played in 3-4 days and I don’t feel unhappy at the moment. It has meant more time to enjoy the outside world, fitting other games in my schedule and also doing some hobby coding.

So my goal is really just:

• Have at least 10 sessions this month

There we go, work-life-iidx balance!

Concluding remarks

I’m looking to share more about my adventures outside IIDX this month. Perhaps I will finally write a post on something non-IIDX related?

I recently finished setting up my just-over-$300 e-reader that I got (another reminder to do my taxes.. That hefty refund is still not enough to motivate me…). It surprises me that despite under a Japanese company, the Japanese integrations on the kobo is garbage. After getting KOReader and using a 90-degree rotated font to read vertically, I finally have a very decent experience reading Japanese books. It certainly reduced a lot of frictions (which hopefully will motivate me to read more) compared to physical books.

I am reading The Apothecary Diaries at the moment and I find it funny how many times she has to mention that eunuchs don’t have their ‘important thing’ anymore. 😂

Anyways, I hope I won’t completely neglect this game. See you in the next one 🫵.

Appendix

☆12 Normal

☆12 Hard