Hi! It’s Patch. After a some R&D, I’m finally live with my blog! If you’re unfamiliar with me (or if you just want to read more of my lovely words), please be sure to check out the About page. I want to take a moment to outline my current goals with this blog.

The idea that I might want a blog isn’t exactly new for me, but very recently I realized I could kill two birds with one stone – nay, three. Possibly more birds. Although I feel a little bad for the birds.

1. It can help me talk to people about my personal life.

   Whenever people ask me about how I’ve been, I tend to clam up or not be able to remember what I’ve been doing. My daily life doesn’t typically involve stopping to talk to people about things. It can really get in the way of talking to friends and family. Regularly writing here may keep me from clamming up so much. Hell, it may even provide me a way to explain things to people in a more digestible medium than blabbering and gesturing into the air.

2. It can help me persevere on projects.

   A few months ago, I received my Pebble smart watch. I wanted it to last a long time, so I wanted to make a 3D-printed protective case for it. I didn’t quite love all the ones I was seeing online, so I decided to try designing one myself. After all, Core Devices published some of the watch’s CAD files online. I spent a week or 2 learning some 3D modeling and CAD skills in Blender and OnShape, but things weren’t so easy and I put the project on hold. I printed someone else’s design in the meantime. I felt like a failure for not being able finish the project, having nothing to show for all that effort, but the reality is that I learned some cool and fun things. Maybe producing project write-ups can serve as a bookmark, allowing me to register my progress/learning and make it easier to return later.

3. It can help me divert my focus from social media and group chats.

   This one’s been brewing for a litte bit but it only recently came to a boiling point. Historically I’ve been a little too reliant on platforms like YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, and Discord for passing the time. Eventually I noticed this and started paring back a little bit. That solved the overuse problem but left another in its wake. Lately I’ve been finding that I get hurt very frequently in the environments that these platforms can create. Even after I had carefully curated my experiences on these sites, I still found myself reading very unpleasant things that would leave me upset for hours, sometimes even obsessing and ruminating over into the next day. Even limiting the kinds of things I see to just my friends’ posts, there are still too many ways for hurtful things to sneak in.

   I think this means I’m not really compatible with a large part of the internet. Almost a month ago, I decided to start stepping back from those spaces entirely. I’m trying to essentially limit myself to directly getting the information I need and directly talking with my friends. It’s left me with a lot more time on my hands for focusing on the important things in life – personal growth, pursuing passions, stuff like that. Ironically, it’s allowed me to focus on starting this blog in the first place.

There are a couple more reasons bouncing around in my head, but these 3 are the basic ones. I think this post is already a good size, so there’s no need for me to stick around enumerating every possibility.

Going forward, I’d like to write about my projects, and maybe a little bit about neat things that I’ve noticed, or things I’m looking forward to (like how yesterday Touhou 6’s remaster launched, or how yesterday Nintendo announced a new Kirby and a new Metroid game). I don’t have a schedule in mind, but I expect writing on a weekly-ish basis will feel pretty natural. Things will probably evolve over time though.

Thank you so much for reading, have a nice day.

– Patch