It’s been a little bit since I’ve done one of these “how im doing overall” sort of posts, so I just wanna write something to catch up on how I’ve been so far.

A small cactus and a rock in the middle of a dirt and stick infested ground

IT’S HOT.

Really, really hot. Scorching hot. I’ve been making more of an effort to get out of the house by walking to Goodwill everyday now, but it’s been getting harder to do that because it’s so damn hot outside, everyday it’s like 110 degrees and when I actually go outside, I can’t sit out for more than 5 minutes unless I want to melt like an ice cream. It sucks, so when I move to Washington next month, I’m going to have much more of an appreciation for that weather. Speaking of Washington…

MOVING.

Sometime next month, I will be moving to Washington with my family. My plan is to take a gap year so that I can be considered “in-state” for college and then go to UW Bothell (maybe Seattle if I really try IDK). I’m pretty excited, but also scared too, because I feel like while I am moving for several valid reasons, I’m also moving for nostalgia and old friends.

I already made friends here, despite me not really wanting to. It’s not like my friends are bad, not at all, but I feel like now I’m torn between two places because of it. And now that I’m moving with that in mind, it makes me feel a little conflicted… I’ll see what happens when I move though. It’s unpredictable.

As for what I plan to do in the gap year, I will probably find a job (one that’s hopefully better than the one I have right now), meet with friends, and work on personal projects like the comic more often.

THE COMIC AND ART STUFF IN GENERAL.

I have actually been working on the comic mroe often. Almost every day now actually. It’s hard though because I’m doing this neat bit in the 2nd chapter where I make the entire thing in paper scraps. It’s a neat idea, and it’s been sort of fun making it, but also extremely time consuming. However, I am making progress. As of writing right now, I have 5 pages of Chapter 2 complete, and once I finish up to Chapter 3, I will upload those chapters online. I feel that doing this will give more context to the story and hook the readers more than just uploading a single chapter (especially since Chapter 1 is only 9 pages!… I think.)

A bunch of cut paper on a table, a pencil and Xacto knife, and in the corner of the photo, an unfinished panel from my comic

The art for the comic isn’t very great… the story so far isn’t either… but the point of this comic isn’t necessarily to be good, it’s to be a learning experience for me, to make me better at art mostly, but writing too, both of which are skills I want to be really good at, which is why I’m making this comic, so I hope it turns out okay at least.

I’ve been working on it since last year, most of that time being spent doing nothing. I actually made half of Chapter 1 and shelved it for many months before coming back to it and working on it periodically since then. It’s been kind of a rocky journey of ups and downs and whatever, but it’s been fun. So… yeah.

I have also wanted to start making more art in general as well, and if that goes well, making a seperate brand for myself.

Not as in like a brand for merch or anything weird like that, I just mean like a separate alias from “Nick64”. That alias is more personal to me and I want to keep it that way. I don’t really want things like the comic being associated with my personal accounts, so I’ve been thinking. Perhaps when I release the comic, I will launch my new alias online. I will see.

BRANCHING OUT FROM TWITTER.

Twitter has not been great recently. Actually, that’s a lie, it hasn’t been great for a while. All the changes being made to the platform in terms of the algorithm, restrictions, new systems, it sucks. And worst of all, apparently, I just learned this a week or two ago, adding links to your posts actually lowers your viewership immensely. So how do I advertise new posts for my blog if no one will see my posts? I will still be using Twitter because of how many other people use it, and also the demographic of it, but I want to try to branch out more to other platforms.

Mastodon might be good for that. I actually had a small, small Mastodon presence at one point, by using the Twitter –> Mastodon bridge to link my posts, but that has been down for a long while now, and since then, I stopped using Mastodon. However, I’ve been recently thinking about going back on there, and I actually made a post this morning discussing that a tiny bit (my Mastodon stuff is in my “Info” page :D).

Threads just released from the Zuck Machine, and apparently people are enjoying it. Data collection and Zuckyness aside, I don’t really know that much about the demographic on there, so maybe I should check it out and see what’s going on there. Since the platform is new, it might also provide me with an opportunity to make more of a presence somewhere.

Instagram was also on my radar too, but the demographic of people there don’t seem to care for my kind of content, not really sure.

Tumblr… I don’t know anything about it, but I’ll look into it maybe.

Social media seems kind of meh in general right now. I hope somehow, something changes. God, you know, I wish that someday, we’d all go back to making our own personal websites, or MySpace pages, or whatever, instead of the short-form 3-second-attention-span-grabbing garbage we have today. I think it would be really cool to see more websites and pages like that.

AMAZON’S PRIME DAY

Prime Day is today. I ordered a few things:

An Amazon order consisting of a JanSport Superbreak Plus black backpack for 42 dollars, a USB 3.0 to SATA optical drive adapter for 26 dollars, a pair of Linsoul 7Hz Salnotes IEMs for 21 dollars, and a SATA to IDE adapter for 10 dollars, all of which are arriving tomorrow.

I ordered the backpack as part of an effort to look cooler and to have more style, while at the same time having the things I need on me at all times. The USB 3.0 to SATA adapter is for my Blu-Ray drives and ripping Blu-Rays, since I want to separate that task from my server for when I make my new one in the coming future. The IEMs are for me, since my old ones broke. These are different from my old ones (a pair of Moondrop Chus) because I wanted to try something new. And the SATA to IDE adapter is for my Pentium III PC, because I believe the drive is dying.

I don’t really have anything else to say about that. It’s all coming tomorrow, so that will be fun to unpack.

CONCLUSION

This post has been getting really long, and I feel that I’ve used it less to talk about me and my wellbeing so far and more about random things I’m doing.

If I had to describe how I feel right now, it’s… fluctuating. Some days I feel really happy and motivated, and others I want to do nothing and cease to exist. I’m not really sure why. Maybe it’s some undiagnosed bipolar thing since I’ve been like this since… forever. I don’t know anything specific about mental issues or anything like that, and this isn’t a self-diagnosis by any means, but if I did get officially diagnosed. I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve grown to live with it though, so it’s okay… for now.

And as of right now, I feel okay. Not great. Not bad. Just okay. I have work in a few hours, I need to prepare to look into my driving test to get my license. Life is life. A bunch of obstacles and things I need to do. But at least I have things to look forward to, things to motivate me, all that.

So I have something to live for.