World of Dots

I'm about to explain a bunch of stuff that's been going on with my life for the past year, and what will be happening in the future. There's a tl;dr after each section.

Last September I moved back home with my parents. I was paying rent via my scholarship, which gave me enough to afford a cheap apartment near campus. Unfortunately, that scholarship only lasted 4 years, and with my double-major plan, I'm going to be there for 7. So without that income, I had to either get a job or move back home. Seeing as how I can't drive, the job was out of the question unless I had planned in advance (oops). So I moved back home--I carpool to campus with my mom since she works nearby, so getting to class is pretty easy.
When I moved back home I made the decision to setup my computer and streaming stuff downstairs; it used to be in my room upstairs, but I would be really loud late at night. I figured I'd be nice and move downstairs so they can sleep in peace (everyone in my family said they didn't mind, but come on, when you mention it like every family get-together I know it actually bothers you). Problem is the basement is a pretty common area in our house since everyone's computer is down there. This is reason #1 that my streaming schedule has been terrible lately--I can't stream with people in the background. Not literally, but I get really uncomfortable when people (that are not part of the stream) are around while I'm streaming or in a voice chat. This means I can't really stream easily from like 4-10pm on weekdays, and even more on weekends.
Reason #2 for the terrible stream schedule is my sleep schedule. It always settles down to be like 6am-4pm. If I sleep when my parents are home they get on me for sleeping all day, and if I sleep at a normal time, I miss out on like everything that happens online (8pm-midnight). This leaves 10pm-6am for streaming lol. From when I wake up to around this time is when I try to work on other projects, like RGME, romhacks, etc. The problem with that is that there's been this looming feeling of dread around me, especially when my parents are around, which makes it hard to focus on doing anything productive. If I seemed a little gloomy are SGDQ, that's why. It was nice to spend that week with friends and escape the slum of home. I don't really understand it because I love my family and I'm grateful that they stick with me after all the decisions I make that they don't really agree with.

So what am I doing to fix it? Well, last year I started a YouTube channel called Retro Game Mechanics Explained, and it is the child/sequel to my SMW explained videos on my own channel. I set up a Patreon and I told myself I'd aim for high quality content to make it actually worth subscribing for. After about 6 months of work, I've gotten to the point were I can actually sustain myself (only just barely the minimum) on the income. And with that, I'll be moving out next month into another apartment with PJ and his girlfriend. It's kind of a ballsy move on my part because, while with my limited savings I can afford it for about a year, I'm going to be scraping the bottom of my bank account if I don't step it up. I know I have something good with the RGME channel, and I know I can build on that if I just had the motivation (the anti-dread) to work on it. I'm hoping moving out of my parents house will help with this.
In terms of my Twitch channel, I'm going to try to work on streaming more often, even if it is for shorter amounts of time, and maybe not speedrunning stuff. I have a lot of fun streaming Mario Kart, I had a pretty good art stream recently, and I know a lot of people enjoy my programming streams, so I'll try to mix in a bunch of everything. Getting partner is kind of like in the very back of my head; I always think about it but it's not much of a concern to me at the moment--I think that goal is pretty far away still.
This year will be my 6th year of college, so I have two years left total. I honestly still have no idea what I'm going to do after I graduate. It really depends on how well RGME is doing at the time. I know my mom specifically sees me getting a fancy 6-figure job and living the life (totallynotbailingthemoutofeverything), but honestly as long as I'm not living paycheck-to-paycheck I'm fine with living in a shitty apartment for a while.

tl;dr : I moved back home a while back; it kinda sucks which made me feel crappy, but I'm moving out soon even if it means I can barely afford it.

okay that's my real talk stuff, the rest of it is other crap I've been meaning to write pastebins for and have been lazy
----
SGDQ18

SGDQ was pretty good. I'm going to be very critical of it, so it might not seem like I enjoyed it, but don't worry I had a lot of fun. I'll go in chronological order:
Meeting up with people in Michigan was cool. I thought it would be kinda dumb to go out of the way first to head to MN but I think it was worth it. I dunno if I would have made it with just PJ with his truck for multiple reasons lol. Shoutouts to Bramz (except for the one time you made us pull over for a breath of fresh air) and Steven (except for the one time you almost ran over those pylon spikes) for being awesome car-buddies.
Minneapolis was.. interesting. It was a nice city, but I don't know if it was the best place for the event (I wasn't there for SGDQ17 btw). I loved the skyways, but everything closed super early. And if you did find somewhere that was open late, it was a spooky walk back to the hotel. Also everything was under construction which made it kinda annoying to navigate (apparently it was still under construction last year lol).
The hotel was okay. I didn't have too many problems with it but a lot of other people did. The rooms were nice, both the guest rooms and the ball rooms. My biggest gripe was the shitty escalators that broke down a million times. That, and the elevators were annoying. It's just plain hard to get to your room on the 23rd floor in a timely manner when everyone else is going to their rooms on other floors.
The event itself was fun. I didn't really go to the stream room much other than the relay and panga world/sm64. I was usually in the practice room either practicing myself, or watching others play. I kept a very normal sleep schedule the entire week (which only like 5% do). Since I don't drink, I usually ended up going to bed early. Which means I woke up early (as in 10am early), and used the extra time before everyone else woke up to practice for my run. I had a pretty good time despite the fact that I probably spent the least time with people this time around (see above, and combine that with introvertedness, bleh).
The Mario Relay was amazing. Easily the most fun I've had at a GDQ to date. I had a blast both watching and taking part in it. I am so glad that it ended up being as close as it did--I was kind of expecting the teams to be minutes apart from each other going into SMW, but all of us were within a minute. It was so crazy almost pulling off the comeback win, but hey, getting really close was just as exciting. Shoutouts to Aweglib for organizing the whole thing.
And finally I can't forget the ride home. Shoutouts to Sniper for driving us, your music kept me entertained for the majority of the trip (and it made Wisconsin go by quickly which was a godsend). PJ and I ended up getting home around 4am Monday morning, and I don't think I actually went to sleep for another few hours somehow.
Unfortunately with my money situation I don't think I'll be attending any more SGDQs--I'll probably just stick to AGDQ from now on. I can't wait to see everyone this January!

tl;dr : SGDQ was fun, hotel was meh. See you at AGDQ!

----
NCNSW Tourney

It's not finished yet, but I'll talk about how the tourney has gone from my point of view.
So I knew from the start that this was going to be a challenge to host; SMW speedrunning itself has been in a sort of lull for a while, and the category was not super popular and it isn't as beginner friendly as any of the cape categories we've done in the past. And then, when trying to iron out details before it started, it was hard to get feedback from the other organizers. Which, I don't blame them for, since they have lives and things to do. So I took it upon myself to get everything going. And so far I'd say it's going well, we're on schedule to have the grand finals match sometime this weekend.
I've had a heck of a time hosting, and I am super thankful for everyone who has stepped in to help with restreaming and commentating. I'll go more in depth for thankyous and stuff after the grand finals, but just know that I appreciate everyone who has participated and helped out.
I can't wait to host the next tournament--we're thinking about having these twice a year now, so you don't have to wait a whole year to participate in a large community tournament. I plan on having a bot that will help a lot with organization and scheduling, so the whole thing should happen much more smoothly.

tl;dr : tourney has been going smoothly, thanks for the help