Journal
Tuesday, April 28, 2026 • 2 min read
It took me ONE HOUR to add a new blog post to my site.
That’s too much time.
I wrote a list of steps. Almost thirty.
I need other options. The hosted kind. Bearblog is my favorite option so far. It gives me a discount for being in a developing country (very kind!). It has custom CSS and RSS feed. I want the paid plan to add a custom domain.
I also want a blog for it to be something moe casual. The blog on my site leans towards being “professional” and updated every so often.
I guess the place I want to leave is micro.blog 🤨. The intention was never to engage with others and a transitional place as I get comfortable microblogging in public.
Bearblog has most if not all the features that I current use to post. Well except an app. Maybe it works just fine on my mobile browser. I’m going to have to try it out again.
I guess this isn’t an announcement that I’m leaving micro.blog but a statement of intention to try other blogging platforms. I had a blog on bearblog till about a month ago when I redesigned my website to have a solid blog feature. Time to use bearblog for reals this time! It’s all part of the learning journey!
Monday, April 27, 2026 →
I think I keep conflating hobbies versus careers. I have a personal website. I have a blog. I want to talk about science with others.
Where am I going with this? Some about being paid for doing a thing. A job. Hobbies. Joy. Capitalism. Labor. Wages. Fulfillment.
Maybe this is an artificial dichotomy that I counjured up but I don’t have much evidence to consider work ‘fun.’ There are different expectations when someone/something else depends on. It’s not that I don’t have experience with those expectations and I trust myself with being able to be professional. I don’t really understand my thoughts.
Monday, April 27, 2026 • 2 min read
As my internship turns to an end and my commencement trip rears close and with that another chapter of my life begins, I’ve begun to think about the difficulty in meeting other scientists and science communicators.
I’ve had an easier time in the IndieWeb space where alternative forms of communication are the norms. Forums, online meetings, the Fediverse, and others. However, perhaps because I haven’t given enough time to the task, finding spaces by and for scientists and science communicators has been a struggle.
I wonder where they at? 🤔 Well, I do have some ideas. A few years ago during the pandemic I was really into learning about the local environmental community who are either exclusively on social media or have a website. I’ve been meaning to add their feeds to my RSS reader instead of the native app.
Yeah, I think I should look back first. I have the bad habit of neglecting relationships and just try to form new ones every few years. Well, I don’t know if it’s “bad” per se but a symptom of something larger and quite manageable with today’s science. That sounds like a good place to start.
Really wish in person was an option for me but with the way things are where I’m at, the risks outweigh the rewards.
Wednesday, April 15, 2026 • 1 min read
All that writing about the Fediverse made me a bit nostalgic about Sharkey, another microblogging software like Mastodon. The UI is to die for and it has so many more options compared to Mastodon. It was also really easy to get started.
Alas, what I truly need right now is a blog. I don’t want to worry about inundating my followers timeline with long posts like today’s (unless the signed up for that). I’m leaning towards RSS feed subscriptions for posting and reading instead of following/follower counts because I don’t have to worry about who is reading and any potential reactions. This blog is about me for me. The only way to interact with these posts are through a micro.blog account and I have not written a statement that invites reader to participate in conversation. Thus, this is a blog without social features. This is a BLOG first and foremost! A blog where I can write what I want. Write for myself. It’s just so liberating and I fucking love that.
Wednesday, April 15, 2026 • 2 min read
It’s really funny in a not funny way that to build connections on social media the users also have to suffer all the shit that people throw into it.
My biggest gripe of mainstream Mastodon is the same as other corporate social social. No sense of community, no boundaries. People who don’t add content warnings to upsetting non-illegal content (ex. complaints), people who don’t tag political toots.
I got so tired of sanitizing my Mastodon feed that I felt I had to be on my toes every time I scrolled through my feed. It’s like people don’t even consider how their words could affect others. It’s like people are talking at the reader and not to them. It feels condescending, childish, and it gives me a negative opinion about that person’s character.
This issue of all mainstream social media is incredibly complex and my frustration fuels my fascination with human behavior in digital spaces. On the one hand there’s freedom of speech while on the other the mental health of the casual reader. Decontextualization is also a pretty issue. The whole quote toots/retweets function.
I got a bit carried away with my fascination with anti-social behavior. I was complaining about social media not doing a dissection of human behavior, wasn’t I? Ah yes, the first paragraph was about how I had to metaphorically dig through a pile of negativity in an attempt to forge professional connections. That was a huge commitment! And at the cost of my mental health! My precious and fragile mental health. So yes, a few weeks after changing instances, I couldn’t keep checking my feed. The risk reward balance was (is) skewed against me. Thus, after maybe a month or two, I started feeding some Mastodon mutuals feeds into my reader.
Writing all of this down… makes me feel pretty good! I don’t feel like I should beat myself up for being unable to hold a social media presence and stay at the fringes of the interwebs. I’m working on my website and am enjoying it a lot. I’m learning web dev and improving other skills. I’m doing okay and I mean that! I’m doing my BEST! My best is all I can do!!! (^_^)
Wednesday, April 15, 2026 →
I am inundated by worry and doubt. Do I really want to write as a living? Reading these articles from The Open Notebook make me feel unpleasant in a way I cannot describe. What do I really want?
Am I unable to write because I do not want to, or because I have convinced myself I am unable to? I can’t seem to make heads or tails from my feelings.
I am lost and do not where to go.