I’ve gotten more free time since the last entry that I wrote, which although posted less than 24 hours ago, was written at the beginning of the new year. However, I still feel like I have so many things to do and little motivation to do them. Depression is an ugly thing, even more so when it’s clinical depression. It just hits you out of nowhere for no apparent reason and with no regard for the plethora of things in your life that you are already sad about.

I do not want this to be an emotional post though, so I will back off of that subject and save it for my personal blog. I am still dealing with being a bit overwhelmed but in a positive way… so I want to remain positive. I finished my paralegal certificate program with stellar grades that I know my parents would be proud of. Having an education in computer networking and the legal field has been an odd but surprisingly useful path for me already. I am still looking for a day job so that I can take care of some leftover debts from the pandemic and gain some financial independence. However, I am finally putting a real focus on doing things I love in my free time. I have managed to get a bit better at writing regular updates here instead of going an entire year between entries but I’ve always wanted to do so much more than that.

I have had an obsession with technology since I was able to sit up on my own as a baby, I clearly do not remember this but my dad assured me it was a fact. I also love pop culture as a whole which is demonstrated in my about me tab on this site but was also a prevalent part of my now defunct YouTube channel. I still intend to revive it and begin anew, but there is only so much time in a day… and because of that, I have decided to only focus on a few things at a time instead of everything, all at once.

My newest venture is going to be occasional streaming on Twitch. I set up a profile years ago with the intent to be a creator, not just a viewer. Unfortunately, life gets busy and priorities change so I’m only now getting the chance to give streaming a try. Two of my best friends and my older brother have been very patient and supportive regarding my journey of increasing my social media presence and I started to feel a bit guilty about leaving them to wait for all eternity.

I received a beautiful purple wired Xbox controller to use with my PC late last year, and more recently a wireless headset that matches it. You can see both on my Instagram. These two items essentially checked off my main components to start streaming. Initially, I just wanted to share my screen and jump on the mic in discord, but I knew that was the easy way out and even managed to get called out on it by a close friend. As a result, I decided I would do a proper stream this weekend to show people I mean business. I did research on streaming games in full screen for viewers despite my ultrawide display having a 21:9 aspect ratio and not 16:9 (tip, the easiest way is to put your game in windowed mode and then fit that layer to the size of your OBS scene). I won’t get super technical with the details, but I managed to set everything up and even edit a nice overlay for my first stream.

I am nervous and excited all at once about going live, I’ll be elated even if I only get 3-5 viewers. While I would love for this to turn into an opportunity to bring in additional income… that isn’t my primary motivation. I want to enjoy doing something I love while sharing it with others. If they find the games and/or myself entertaining then it’s a win for me!

My first stream will feature me playing Hogwarts Legacy and representing my fellow Hufflepuffs. I intend to look into other games that I can play with friends in the future and I will likely attempt streaming my other two primary games soon, Marvel’s Midnight Suns and Lost Ark (an online MMORPG). I’m behind on all of these games compared to their release dates because of school… so I have a lot of catching up to do. I have the hardware capable of sharing my gameplay and finally got a chance to test my streaming setup… so the next step is to “just do it”.

I’ll update Twitter and Instagram when I chose a date and time for my very first stream, please join if you can, even if it’s just a quick hello. I will appreciate it more than you could imagine.