Character Sheet

The ‘Character Sheet’ lays out a representation of my skill, knowledge, and attributes as if I were an RPG character. It’s a fun exercise in eludicating what I think of myself, the things I am good at, and where I want to go next. In part, I am inspired by youtubers who specialized in the genre of learning and mastering new skills, many of which are varied.

ATTRIBUTES:

• Vitality: 3.
• Strength: 4.
• Endurance: 3.
• Agility: 3.
• Intelligence: 7.
• Wisdom: 6.
  • Starts at 5.
  • +1 For completing the Quest: Finish a Crafting Project

• Charisma: 3.

• Vitality: How healthy you are and how fast you could recover. It is a new stat added after the six original.
• Strength: How strong you are. Like, how much you can lift, or squat, etc.
• Endurance: How much can you repeat a physical movement without tiring.
• Agility: How fast you are able to move your body.
• Intelligence: How smart you are.
• Wisdom: How good is the ability to turn intelligence into efficacious action.
• Charisma: How good is your social skills.

I felt I am not remarkable in anyway, except maybe my intelligence. My wisdom is middling only because I managed to avoid bad outcomes. My Charisma is certainly not the best becauseI struggle to build friendships, let alone find a romantic partner. I am in poor health, which is why my vitality is very low at 3.

Strength, endurance, and agility is something I am trying to work on diligently, but I don’t consider myself a fit person yet. I should probably find a more objective measure such as vo2 max and other things. It’s more important that I am following a routine that I can do everyday rather than trying to optimize my stats as much as possible.

SKILLS:

Skill level:

1. Novice - Total beginner.
2. Beginner - Learned the basic.
3. Intermediate - Know enough for day to day basic.
4. Journeyman - Know some theory, often formal knowledge. Example: Graduate student,PhD canidiate.
5. Master - Can create anything I want. Top of my field, etc.

• Crafts:
  • Programming: Intermediate. However, my biggest regret is not necessarily skill related, but the lack of projects that I can be proud of. Nonetheless, it is a potent skillset that can take me far anywhere. I just need to apply them.
    • OpenSCAD. I know how to create and design objects that I turned into 3D printed objects.
  • 3D printing: Intermediate. I know how to operate and fix 3D printers such as Prusa MKS3S+, Mini, and Creality’s Ender. In addition, I accomplished assembling a Prusa MK3S+ from kit. The most difficult part is simply dealing with the pain and troubleshooting issues.
• Performing Art:
  • Improv: Intermediate. In 2023, my experience and knowledge extended only a year, and I continued to take classes. People saw me performed and given me praise, many unprompted. Summing up various people opinions: I am very funny, chraismatic, and creative, especially so given my experience level in 2022/2023.
  • Harmonica: Beginner. I can only perform one song and is working on learning another song. It seemed difficult at time to pinpoint any amount of progress, but I nonetheless try to practice at least twenty minutes a day.
• Language:
  • American Sign Language: Beginner. I learned a bunch of a vocabulary and is able to sign a little bit. I struggled with comprehension, especiallly at the speed people signed at.
  • English: Near Native or Native. This is my default language.
  • Vietnamese: So-so. I can comprehend some and is able to speak some, but I struggled beyond the basic. This is my native language, but is unfortunately neglected.

Knowledge:

Sadly, this is where I am the weakest. I graduated from high school and never graduated college. Much of my knowledge is very informal, reflecting my wide ranging interest. They are not what I would consider anyhthing beyond ‘surface level’ knowledge. It is something I like to change, but it has to support skills that I am developing.

• Math: High school. While I have tried to use Khan Academy to improve my mathematical knowledge, I have not advanced beyond high school level.
• Science: High school. No breakdown into specific level, because in general my scientific knowledge stood still.
• History: High school+. I feel confident in that I learned about real history in excess of the usual taught in high school, mainly through reading a blog on history written by a historian.

Overall Apprisal and Goals

I am a middling to low average character with no exceptional skillset or talent. Yet, this is not the issue. All my investments in knowing things and having skills are nothing unless they can be manifested as some kind of project or product I am proud of.

My goal for May 2023 and beyond is to continue my investments in my crafts and the performing arts, while also building something with it.

Quests

Reset

• Objective: For seven days, achieve all items on my habit tracking app. Will reset the objective if there’s a failure.
• Action plan: The most difficult part is starting resistance training before 10 AM. I plan to do that ASAP as soon as my medicine and monitoring is taken care of.
• Why: I haven’t been sufficently consistent for the past month or so for varieties of reason. So I am not seeing the results I wanted.
• Reward: Attribute gain of one wisdom.
• Start date: 06/11/2023
• Log:
  • Day 0: June 10, 2023. Moved things around so that I can get off to the right foot.
  • Day 1: I need to make sure that my phone is charged in the morning. Otherwise, I managed to get all my exercise done by afternoon, except 10K steps which is very close to being finished.

Sell an Item on Etsy

• Objective: Can I sell an object I designed and 3d printined on Etsy.com for at least 5 dollars?
• Action plan: Progress is defined by a 20 minutes attempt per day until success.
• Why: I was never a good businessman. This challenge force me to work toward to earning five dollars out of doing the necessary work to get there.
• Reward: Attribute gain of one wisdom.
• Start date: 6/08/2023
• Log:
  • Day 1: Started application on etsy to see what I need to do.
  • Day 2: Printed full prototype of the 2mm thick stackable containers I want to sell. I identified what I need to solve.
  • Day 3: I learned from a youtube video that you could put texts or designs in between layers. Did a bunch of design work and fixed a bug or two.
  • Day 4: Experimented with embedding designs between layers so that I can stamp a hidden logo onto things.

100 Squats a Day

• Objective: Do 100 bodyweight squats in a row without rest.
• Action plan: Progressive overload is defined by how many bodyweight squat I can do within a single session. I ‘rest’ every other day buy doing very easy sets to reach 100 squat.
• Why: I’ve never done any fitness challenge with the explicit goal of making gains. I always have goals that are effort based, like walking 20K steps, but I don’t pay particular attention to fitness improvement. Plus, it seemed that I kept doing exercise without seeing fitness improvement for a long time, with the exception of improving my running. It isn’t true that I don’t see strength gain, but I never made note of it. I want to know that I made gain, and to be able to believe that my body is capable of improving physically.
• Reward: Attribute gain of one strength and endurance.
• Start date: 5/22/2023
• Log:
  • Day 1: 21, 34, 47, 56, 65, 73, 79, 86, 100.
  • Day 2: Easy 10 sets of 10 reps.
  • Day 3: 35, 51, 70, 91, 100. Achieved 5/23/2023.
  • Day 4: Easy 10 sets of 10 reps.
  • Day 5: 36, 55, 80, 100. Achieved 5/25/2023.
  • Day 6: Easy 10 sets of 10 reps.
  • Day 7: 37, 61, 88, 100.
  • Day 8: Easy 10 sets of 10 reps.
  • Day 9: 38, 63, 93, 100.
  • Day 10: Easy 10 sets of 10 reps.
  • Day 11: 39, 67, 95, 100.
  • Day 12: Easy 10 sets of 10 reps.
  • Day 13: 40, 71, 100. Achieved 06/03/2023.
  • Day 14: Easy 10 sets of 10 reps.
  • Day 15: 41, 73, 100.
  • Day 16: Easy 10 sets of 10 reps. I thought I would complete this project within a month. I don’t think that’s a realistic prospect right now, because rather than trying to achieve 100 squats in a row as fast as progress, I am slowly chipping away at the goal instead. Also, the challenge’s difficulty make me procrastinate more than I should.
  • Day 17: 42, 75, 100.
  • Day 18: Easy 10 sets of 10 reps.
  • Day 19: 43, 78, 100.
  • Day 20: Easy 10 sets of 10 reps.
  • Day 21: 44, 80, 100.

Sleep at 12

• Objective: Go to bed at 12 am.
• Action plan For 30 days or more, try to go to bed at midnight.
• Why: To Habituate myself to sleep at the proper time.
• Reward: Attribute gain of one vitality.
• Start date: June 2, 2023
• Log:
  • Day 1: Last night, I didn’t go to bed until around 6 AM. It was a good time as any to start this new quest since it was clear by then I need to fix this.
  • Day 2: I “went” to bed at 12 midnight, but I was already tired prior to this and arguably already intermittently sleeping. Woke up at 2am, went to the restroom and went back to sleep. My watch reported my resting heart rate to be 53.
  • Day 3: Having trouble falling asleep at 12 AM. Since I wasn’t able to sleep, I went outside of my room and started working on my projects. I plan to go to back to bed at the end of the work session and see if I fall alseep. Otherwise, I will keep repeating the process.
  • Day 4: Was able to get to sleep relatively quickly. Still need to stop browsing the web when 12 AM hit. I got in about 7 hours of sleep. It was of poor sleep quality and I went on to nap at noon. It didn’t prevent me from excessive sleepiness later on, however.
  • Day 5: Fell asleep easy enough. Slept eight hours. I remembered interruption in my sleep period in the first half of my sleep period. Want to acquire high quality melatonin.
  • Day 6: Trouble falling asleep 12:18. Decided to get up and do some work while waiting for brain to get tired.
  • Day 7: Messed up due to willful eating habits. Restart the next day.
  • Day 1: June 10, 2023. Yesterday, melatonin pills at 3 mg arrived. I used it for twenty minutes before bed, didn’t work instantly. Also engaged in unnecessary media consumption. I also decided not to reset the next day since I did make an effort, just only half heartedly.
  • Day 2: Despite sleeping at ~1 am instead of 12 as I intended, I somehow got a good deep sleep.

Weight Loss Goal

• Objective: Lose 2 lbs every week until the end of the month.
• Action plan: However you achieve it is up to you.
• Why: I need to lose weight for health gain.
• Reward: Successful completion is one vitality.
• Start date: June 1, 2023
• Log:
  • Day 1: Think I might have eaten something this morning. Maybe not. Probably conflating my nighttime eating habits. I failed to accomplish my exercise routine because I was too focused on other stuff, and because squatting 39 times in a row felt daunting.
  • Day 2: Ate a banana in the morning when I couldn’t sleep but was wide awake. Started logging what I eat into myfitnesspal. Ate a steak for dinner. My protein intake was about above 80 grams, which is too low for what I need at my target weight(150 lbs). Weight recorded is 193.1 lbs.
  • Day 3: Weight recorded. 191.5 lbs. Achieved June 3, 2023! According to MyFitnessPal, I am able to meet my nutrition goal of 120 grams of protein and stay significantly under 1500 KCal. I also received an order of stacked food container. I planned to take a picture every time I lost weight.
  • Day 4: Weight recorded: 188.9 lbs. Achieved June 4, 2023.
  • Day 5: Weight recorded: 188.4 lbs. Achieved June 5, 2023.
  • Day 6: Weight recorded: 188.1 lbs. Achieved June 6, 2023.
  • Day 7: Weight recorded: 187.3 lbs. Achieved June 7, 2023.
  • Day 8: Weight recorded: 188.9 lbs.
  • Day 9: Weight recorded: 190.4 lbs. No good, ate a midnight dinner last night due to smell and sight of delicious pork ribs.
  • Day 10: Weight recorded: 193.5. This is not good. It exceeded the weight recorded on the second day because I went out for hot pot. Decided to try to fast until I reach a new low, which should be below 187.3 lbs.
  • Day 11: Weight recorded 190.2 lbs. I fasted for nearly 48 hours before breaking my fast due to intense hunger. I ate McDonald. Maybe I should try again? I expected to see weight gain in the morning.

Completed

• Goal: Finish a Crafting Project
• Objective: In June, I should complete a project.
• Action plan: Just need to keep at a project until completion.
• Why: It had been a long time since I last completed a project, full stop.
• Reward: Attribute gain of one wisdom.
• Start date: June 1, 2023.
• Finish date: June 7, 2023.
• Log:
  • Day 1: The project I wanted to complete is a tubular parallete. My supply of tennis balls for dogs is missing, so I ordered a new set. I also completed a textured design of my stackable container which required some refactoring to make future designs easier.
  • Day 2: The tennis ball arrived. Spent all of my time trying to take apart one of the parallete and not making progress. Need to go to Freeside for proper tools.
  • Day 3: I spent all of my time working on parallete, but nothing else, which is not ideal.
  • Day 4: Did not spent any time on parallete. Instead, I moved supply of materials and tools from my storage area to my car. I spent the rest of the time mostly staring at OpenSCAD, not wanting to do any hard work whatsoever.
  • Day 5: No work was done.
  • Day 6: Spent some time trying to tighten the paralleete. Decided it was good enough that I don’t need to bother in trying to make it really tight. As long it doesn’t fall apart, it’s good enough. Goal achieved!

Ideas

• Study American Sign Language.
  • What would be the objective?
    • Being able to interact with speakers at a certain speed?
    • How would I do it?
      • Need to be able to understand people at speed. Watch video without closed caption?
• “Earn* a degree in electrical engineering.
  • Extremely challenging and difficult to do.
  • Should probably be splitted up into multiple smaller quests instead of trying to do it whole. It also required a great deal of committment to be able to efficiently complete.
• Anki
  • Start up a new anki routine and maintain it at least 30 days.
    • Focus on the most relevant topics?
• Music
  • Accelerated learning aiming for 20 hours per week.
    • Not so much focus on end result as effort.
    • Seems the most doable.
    • Would probably benefit from a live teacher.
• Finish the book Learn the Interpreter
  • Unfortunately, required a detour into learning C & Java, but maybe doable.
    • Accelerated learning for 20 hours per week, same as doing music.

Updates

• 05/24/2023: Add Day 3 and 4 to my 100 squats a day challenge.
• 05/27/2023: Update squat quest. Also change reward to 1 to strength and 1 to endurance, instead of just 1 to strength.
• 05/28/2023: Add quests that are not mere ideas. Update squat quest. Add a new attribute called vitality and describe all attributes.
• 06/08/2023: Forgot this section exists. Anyway, lot of update since then. Today is an important milestone for the completion of a quest.