I completely missed posting for Music Monday yesterday–lately I’ve been really exhausted and, honestly, burned out. As part of allowing myself to be human first and not placing self-worth on my productivity, I just had to drop the ball (brush) yesterday.
BUT we’re back today, with a belated Music Monday (which I guess technically makes this Music Tuesday, but that’s not as fun to say)!
Continuing the thread of “blasts from my past,” today’s track is something completely different: the soundtrack for a mobile app game!
Neko Atsume was just starting to get popular when I was in grad school. At that time, they hadn’t even translated all the menu options or anything else into English yet, so you just had to GUESS what you were doing! Luckily, the gameplay is super simple: you purchase items for your in-game home, and go away for a while to find ADORABLE CATS waiting for you when you come back!
Grad school was an incredibly difficult time for me, for many reasons (which are posts for another time). Neko Atsume was hugely instrumental in helping me keep my head above water at a time when my mental health was the worst it’s ever been (before or since) in my adult life. Silly as it sounds, knowing that there was something as simple and joyful as a potential new cat waiting for me–maybe even with a present!–helped get me through the day.
So today, enjoy the delightful soundtrack to Neko Atsume, the background music of my grad school life!
Riffs on the Reg 