Geektoria's Secret: March 2015

Sunday, March 29, 2015

LEVEL UP!: Wisdom

Wisdom

Wisdom, or WIS, is not the same as Intelligence. In game, WIS determines the character's decision-making skills and willpower. WIS is the street-smarts to INT's book-smarts.

For Level Up!, WIS is all about being a responsible adult. Gross, right? Bummer. Things that have to do with your career, finances, future, and general responsible common sense stuff will go here.

Need help learning how to be a wise guy? Voila:

♦ Work on your career, whether it's starting one or working your way up the ladder!
♦ Revamp your budgeting.
♦ Set up an emergency/college/whatever you need to save for fund.
♦ Get spare keys made in case of an emergency.
♦ Make an emergency kit for your car (first aid, flares, batteries, blankets, clothes, etc).
♦ Prepare for the future.
♦ Set goals for school.

LEVEL UP!: Intelligence

Intelligence

Intelligence, or INT, obviously, refers to how intelligent your character is. Duh. But, there's also Wisdom, and they aren't the same. INT refers to how much knowledge you have and how quickly you can learn new things. This is often the most important stat for magic users, since they need to learn spells in order to be useful to the party.

For Level Up!, we're looking at INT as the "book-smarts" aspect of intelligence rather than the "street-smarts" of Wisdom. INT is all about experiencing and learning new things, taking in new information and developing new talents and skills. I'm including creative endeavors here as well, because I'm a writer and artsy-fartsy sort.

Need some examples? Boom:

♦ Learn something. Knitting, a musical instrument, a language...learn anything.
♦ Read a certain number of books, or a genre you haven't read before.
♦ Watch new films.
♦ Do something creative; paint, write, build, just make something with your own two hands!
♦ Experience new things, like food, theatre, places...explore your world!

LEVEL UP!: Constitution

Constitution

Constitution, or CON, relates to, at it's core, your endurance. In-game, it's how much damage you can take, whether it's physical attacks or things like disease and poison damage, or things like how long you can walk without hitting exhaustion.

For Level Up!, we're looking at CON from a health standpoint: what are you doing to make sure that your body can take care of itself? Are you eating healthy? Hydrating? Keeping up on regular doctor's visits? CON is the category in which you take care of your body while you let STR and DEX shape it into the badass awesome machine that you were always meant to have.

Some ideas for your CON category include:

♦ Eat clean for a week/month/forever.
♦ Drink at least 64 oz of water a day.
♦ Catch up on all doctor's appointments (Physical, dental, optical, OBGYN, etc).
♦ Start a vitamin regimen.
♦ Kick bad diet habits (I'm a pop-aholic, so I'm trying to kick my daily need!).
♦ Track what you eat for a week and work on improving your diet.
♦Research your family's medical history and begin preventative measures against any genetic diseases.

LEVEL UP!: Dexterity

Dexterity

Dexterity, or DEX, is a game's measurement of speed, hand-eye coordination, agility, balance, and reflexes. Ranged attacks (such as shooting a bow or gun) depends on one's DEX, as well as speed of movement and various "rogue" abilities such as stealth and pickpocketing.

In Level Up!, it all sort of matches up to the game. Anything involving speed, balance, flexibility, and coordination will fit in this category. Physical activities such as yoga, dance, acrobatics, and possibly even martial arts would apply, as well as sports and activities that require speed and coordination, such as track and field, archery, etc.

I've compiled a list of activities that could help improve your dexterity below!

♦ Do yoga.
♦ Take a dance class.
♦ Do gymnastics.
♦ Stretch every time you work out (dynamic stretches first, static stretches after!).
♦ Work your way into being able to do the splits.
♦ Manage a one-minute headstand or handstand.
♦ Learn to juggle or sleight-of-hand tricks.
♦ Take an aerial or pole class.

LEVEL UP!: Strength

Strength

Strength, or STR, is the most straight-forward of the skills. It means your physical strength. In game, it determines how hard you can hit someone with a melee (non-ranged) attack, how much you can lift and carry, etc. It's the Mr. Obvious of all the skills.

For Level Up!, I've determined that STR is going to apply to one's physical fitness. Any cardiovascular or strength-based exercise would belong here. Workouts that focus on flexibility and/or precision/grace, such as yoga or dance, will be addressed when we discuss DEX.

If you're lazy and unfit like me, this category is easy to fill up with goals such as "run a mile without stopping," or "do twenty push-up." If you're already a fitness guru and can push out a 5K like the rest of us push out a Netflix marathon, you can put some more creative, adventurous goals like rock-climbing or doing the Warrior Dash.

I have listed some different options to help you make your list below:

♦ Participate in a marathon or physical competition.
♦ Do a physical feat (x number of push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups).
♦ Be able to lift a goal weight.
♦ Run a mile without stopping.
♦ Run/walk/bike/etc a goal amount of miles (100? 1000?).
♦ Complete a fitness challenge or program, like P90X, Insanity, 200 Squats Challenge, etc..

Saturday, March 28, 2015

LEVEL UP!: Charisma

Charisma

Charisma, or CHA, is all about influence. Between physical appearance and personality, the higher your charisma, the more people listen to you, and the more you can influence things in your favor.

For Level Up!, CHA is sort of a catch-all, but the main concept all focuses around emotional and mental health. It's about doing things that make you feel good about yourself and make you happy. This can be things regarding how you portray yourself, things that have to do with your social life, things that bring you inner peace and zen, things of a spiritual nature, whatever makes you feel good about yourself and your life.

Some secrets to inner happy:

♦ Freshen up your appearance, whether it's a new hairstyle, a new lipstick, new outfit...
♦ Have a spa day and pamper yourself.
♦ Do something fun with your family.
♦ Go on your dream vacation.
♦ Play with puppies.
♦ Keep a journal.
♦ Go outside and run around barefoot.
♦ Make a list of happy thoughts.

Friday, March 27, 2015

The LEVEL UP! Project

We're five months into 2015, y'all. How are those New Years' Resolutions going? Shitty? "What resolutions?" I'm the same way, folks. If I had as much drive as I did imagination, I would pretty much be the second most perfect person in the world, right after Tom Hiddleston. But I lack willpower and I'm a procrastinator. Heck, even this blog post is about four years in the making because I just...didn't wanna.

Why do we have such a hard time sticking to plans? Well, I think a large part of it is the fact that we make big, general goals and then don't have a clue where to start. We want to lose weight, read more, be more responsible, take more risks, all of which are great goals to have, but if you don't have your stepping stones, how are you going to get across the pond?

I'm all about self-improvement projects, even though I have a hell of a time sticking to them. I love the idea of making my body, mind, and soul all-around better. You may have guessed by my blog title, but I'm also a geek, and my mind tends to twist things into geek terms. So, naturally, my brain went "Self-improvement! LEVEL UP!"

I ran with it. I created a program that takes different facets of my life and organizes them based on the six standard character statistics you will find in most role-playing games: STR(ength), DEX(terity), CON(stitution), INT(elligence), WIS(dom), and CHA(risma). It took a bit of tweaking, since I don't have any intention of wielding a melee weapon or casting arcane magic anytime soon, but I managed to apply each of those statistics to different aspects of myself that I want to improve.

If you're unfamiliar with how RPG's work and how this program will work, here's a breakdown:

In RPG's, you gain experience points (EXP) by completing quests, winning battles, etc. Your EXP starts at level one as a whole, and rises as you complete your tasks; in my project, the maximum level is 20. My EXP chart will work as follows:

EXP Required per Skill

Level 01 - 02: 10 EXP

Level 03 - 04: 20 EXP

Level 05 - 06: 30 EXP

Level 07 - 08: 40 EXP

Level 09 - 10: 50 EXP

Level 11 - 15: 75 EXP

Level 16 - 20: 100 EXP

Each skill, STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, and CHA, must reach the amount listed above to reach the next level. For example, to reach level one (you start at zero, which doesn't happen in game, this is one of the tweaks I mentioned), you have to earn 10 EXP in each skill. To reach level 2, you need an additional 10 EXP in each skill for a grand total of 20 EXP each. Level 3 requires 20 more EXP, for a total of 40, and so on and so on. Once you reach Level 20, you'll have at LEAST 1175 EXP in each skill.

All six levels must reach the EXP goal in order to level up. This is to keep your self-improvement target balanced. You shouldn't spend all your time focused on improving your body and ignoring your mind; having 500 EXP in STR doesn't matter much when you have 10 EXP in WIS. Remember, this project is designed to make the best overall you.

What I love about this project is that you design it. I give you the skeleton, but you mold the body. You get to decide what your body and mind can handle. Want to get in shape but hate the gym? Make goals involving less conventional exercise, such as pole-dancing classes, hiking, even getting out to play with your kids for an hour in the park. Want to bulk up your literacy points? Make a one-book goal for a month if you're not an avid reader, or go for a book or two a week if you are. I'm planning on compiling various lists to help everyone along in creating their projects, and if you find yourself stuck, feel free to leave a comment and I can offer suggestions!

As well as choosing your activities and goals, you will choose how many points they each get. You can "cheat" and make reading a short book worth ten points, but you're really only cheating yourself. Easier tasks should be worth no more than half a point, whereas those that are a bit more challenging can be worth up to two, maybe three points. I have also personally given myself "big" goals in each skill set worth five to twenty points, which are hard to attain goals like paying off big debts, running a 5k, or learning to play violin.