Early spooky season

With all the rain this month, I found myself craving some dark fantasy world to escape to – in a video game, obviously. The very second VTMB’s menu music kicked in, I knew it was exactly what I’d been looking for. It’s a vampire RPG where you get to play as a newly-sired as they try to figure out the politics of the vampire world and discover the truth behind a newly-found relic. The game is set in the early 21st-century Los Angeles – with its lonely beaches, afterhour museums, rave clubs, and even haunted houses. All very grim, very goth-punk, very vicious, and very spooky-seasoned. Also, the soundtrack is a masterpiece! – Marina

Weight training 

My school self would have hardly believed it, but my September was marked with another step towards sports. As the cycling season is about to end I was bound to choose some weather-independent physical activity. The local gym ticked all the boxes. My first visit there brought up all my insecurities – lost among the variety of devices too complex, surrounded by all these people who allegedly know what they’re doing and are probably judging me for the wrong movements. After convincing myself that the first problem was nothing I couldn’t fix, and the second probably wasn’t true, I felt more enthusiastic. A great help is my dear ChatGPT, who tailored a beginner-friendly program and answers all my stupid questions. The goal for the next month: to grow enough muscles to open our stiff office door without any visible effort. – Elizaveta

Calisthenics

Looks like fitness is one of the themes for our office this fall! Over the summer, I discovered that I can’t really do more than two solid normal push-ups, so in September I’ve finally gotten around to trying to fix that with calisthenics. Essentially, it’s just training with your own weight; but online calisthenics is usually associated with all kinds of cool skills like handstands, pistol squats, and insane pull-up progressions. That’s the dream, of course, but for now I am happy to report I’ve progressed from sets of wall push-ups to inclined ones. By mid-October, I am hoping to be able to comfortably do ten normal push-ups and next… we’ll see how long it takes me to do a handstand. – Catherine

Title image credit: Alexandra Tran on Unsplash