This week has felt like a lot of preparation. I thought I would be able to get straight into things and that it would all run super smoothly, but this just was not true. I struggled with multiple things such as, my streaming set-up, setting up coach art sessions, and setting dates with my tutor. I didn’t realize until now how hard it is to schedule a week when you have so many things going on. This is definitely one of the biggest challenges so far for me. I almost feel like I have to motivate and figure out everything on my own and that is scary and hard. Procrastination and missing deadlines and appointments is getting especially difficult not to do. Sometimes it is easy for me to play video games, but in a non-productive way and forget about something I had scheduled until the last minute. Another challenge I have been facing is the fact that everything is online. I have to do online tutor sessions where I teach these kids how to play video games, but it does not feel like I am truly getting to connect with them, I also feel that I am struggling to understand what they are saying, many of them have chronic illnesses that make it really hard to communicate to begin with. I have started to get better at this but it is still extremely difficult. I also feel the same way with my tutor, where I just wish he was there to help me and tell me how to move my mouse and what buttons to click at exactly what time instead of struggling with what he is saying from just his voice.

Other than that,  I hope as this project goes by and at the end of the project I am able to handle my own schedule and get my work done without the push of it being graded, or from a person. Even with this said I believe that things are going super well and I am having an extremely fun time.  I have never been more glad that I picked one of my favorite hobbies. It makes it so much easier to get up knowing I’m doing what I love. I not only get to play video games I get to grow and work with kids during that process. Some of my favorite moments from this week are when one of the children I was working with, Azir, lit up when I finally helped him finish his house in minecraft (we even put flowers in the front)! I also have enjoyed growing a small audience for my streams, it makes me feel like what I am doing is actually entertaining people. I hope that it continues to grow as I become more of an entertainer and practiced in talking to an audience for hours. I  also definitely feel like reaching my hours has been easy for me. I sometimes feel like I can go so much over time that I get carried away and forget to record what  I have been doing. While this is good, I want to make sure I am recording all my progress because it is easy for me to forget. This project is way more exciting and different than I expected it to be, I have never and might never get the chance to explore what I like with nothing else to do, so I feel I really need to take advantage of this time and make sure I am having a blast while doing it. A lot of people have told me that a project on video games cannot be meaningful, but I think by the end of my project I will easily be able to prove them wrong.