Paul19806

This is a goal I can never mark as done and I will fail at it a lot, but if this causes me to make even one good decision regarding my time/money instead of a bad one then it has served its purpose.

So far I’m at 3 weeks. In general it’s been easy with occasional cravings. I’m having one now… right now I want to download The Elder Scrolls: Arena or Oolite and play the hell out of them. If you’ve heard of those games, you’re an addict too. :)

So I’m doing OK. I’m writing more, I’m playing chess, I’m able to sit down and work a little bit easier without procrastinating. I guess I work out a little earlier during the day. The problem is, it seems like 80% of my saved time is spent doing other useless crap like watching TV or surfing the net. I was never a big TV watcher and I don’t want to become one. If I’m just gonna do that I’d rather game, since it’s at least interactive and requires thought.

But we’ll see. Maybe it’s still too soon, and something interesting needs to just drop into that vacuum.

I think Chess trains the mind and makes a person better at concentration, planning, and helps improve attention span. So becoming a better chess player is my stated goal, but I like the side benefits of it, too.

I’m not that bad right now. I’m not tournament level, but if I play a random person in a social game I’ll win most of the time. Chessmaster rates me at 1045.

It’s my goal to get my rating over 1200 by September. I think 1200 is the line between average and good. I intend to do it by playing a bunch of games and maybe learning one opening from a book really well, so it’ll help me when I’m playing as White.