I was worried enough about the pandemic in the days leading up to our campus closing that I could feel my mind going to a very worrying place. For all the challenges I’ve faced after Mom’s passing, I could at least formulate some vague notion of the advice she’d give me if she were here in the flesh, even if they were challenges she never faced herself. A global pandemic that shuts so much of daily life down is something that neither she, nor even…
[This blog contains spoilers for the video games Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, and Final Fantasy VII Remake, as well as the television show Newhart.] As the hype for Final Fantasy VII Remake grew in the years following its 2015 announcement, and especially after I was finally able to play the game last month, I’ve had a very intense internal debate regarding how I should discuss my feelings about it. On the one hand, I’m not the video game aficionado I used to be…
As meaningful as today’s fiftieth anniversary of the Kent State Massacre is for me, I have to admit that my thoughts these past few days have been far more personal. On top of planning to go to the remembrance ceremonies that had been scheduled before the COVID-19 pandemic brought so much of our lives to a standstill, travelling to Kent would have meant that I’d have gotten the chance to visit Toledo for the first time since I moved out over two years ago, and…
Something about the way I play video games changed when Final Fantasy IX came out. To start with, after getting the two previous Final Fantasy games on the days they came out, I waited a couple of years to get Final Fantasy IX because Final Fantasy VIII burned me so badly. (I got Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XII on their release days, never got Final Fantasy XI or Final Fantasy XIV because I don’t play online role-playing games, waited to get Final Fantasy…
After having lived nearly all of my life in medium-sized American cities, the transition to life here in Richland Center hasn’t always been easy. There’s a lot to love about this place — the quiet has helped me in more ways than I even thought possible — but as often as I miss my old haunts in Toledo, there are just as many times when I miss the conveniences of cities. Having to drive over an hour just to get to a Little Caesars can…