Bump time activated.
Three things that have been keeping me busy recently:
GO (board game)
Bumped into an app on the Play Store that provides you with situations where you have to find the solution to playing out the rest of the game.
Unfortunately there was no tutorial or reading I could do in the app, so I found myself putting stones in the incorrect spave without understanding why it was incorrect in the first place.
So whenever I have a chance for casual reading, I'm reading up how the game works. I'm sure it's just my poor reading comprehension skills, but attempting to understand how to play by reading it up alone is probably as challenging, if not more, as reading up how to play Mahjong.
AQUASCAPING
You know when you spend enough time jumping from one video to another, you eventually find something interesting and you keep looking up more of it?
Today it started with looking up scenic natural landscape to go see in another province, then it turned into recalling the visit to a local aquarium, then it turned into rewatching that one video of the Okinawa aquarium (currently second largest aquarium in the world). Finally, it turned into watching a reknown aquascaper composing massive aquariums (4 meter and 7 meter long tanks).
I hadn't heard of the term before, but it is essentially landscaping an underwater environment.
This reminded me of this fascination I have aquariums; the artificially created natural-looking environment. I wanted to do something like this ever since I was a kid, but any projects I had were either compromised due to expenses or commitment to maintenance.
Composing aquariums is currently an interest. Composing a terrarium was also of interest at one point. I may look into aquascaping more because the sheer amount of plants in this picture is very relaxing on the eyes and it is very beautiful to look at; something I could spend an afternoon gazing at with music in the background.
ANT FARMS
Reading up on this topic took place earlier than the aquascaping, but the interest springs from the same reason; creation of an environment inhabited by life. Having physical control of the environment's size while letting the life of animals and planted flourish without direct control. I'm unsure if that's an interest that spring from the appealing idea of observing a "world" from a higher perspective, where you can emotionally be a part of the world without actually being in it, or if it's some kind of desire to be a ruler... or a god.
Unlike an aquarium, there's no need to maintain water levels nor water conditions. The usual cleanup is picking up the garbage pile a colony establishes, and that's 100% dry land. Only down side is the risk of ants running amok if a spill or crack occurs, and the need to accommodate space (i.e. more nests, more outworlds) for a growing colony.