So, I bought a Ukulele… – A little update on Life, Studies, Health and the Blog

I’m sorry.

I haven’t written a post in a while and wanted to get back into it again but picking this hobby back up after a break feels more and more difficult the more time has passed. Recently, I published my review on Scorn which I’m pretty happy about. I’m not happy with the quality or any improvements or whatever… but rather I’m happy that I finally wrote a new review, that I actually got to work and finished the thing and then published it.

Hitting “publish” is perhaps the hardest part for me these days.

I actually have a bunch of drafts in the works but it just feels very draining to work on those when there are so many other things I’d rather wanna work on.

With exam season and everything going on IRL and in my family, I just kinda didn’t find the energy to write a post. Then I had the majority of my exams finished, and decided to play Scorn on stream and write a review on the next day after finishing it. That felt very motivating if not even liberating.

I also wrote a post on the Steam Next Fest demos that I loved… and I didn’t publish it in time before it ended, so I needed to rework it since a lot of it didn’t age well. Stuff like “play the demo right now over here” or “Coming out on this date” (and the game came out on that date, so no need to write that anymore, I guess).

I just still wanna publish that post but I’ll have to reword it in a way that essentially shows you that I really want to recommend those games I played the demos of… and yeah.

I also wanna finally publish some of those posts that I’ve been working on over the past few years but I keep having to rework them because of new developments. Gosh darn it.

And some posts even just aren’t relevant anymore, so no need to write about those. I had a post on The Day Before previously but didn’t publish it because everyone already wrote what I had to say about it, so… idk.

More recently during my internet-less period I ended up working on a game but I didn’t make much progress there and still gotta finish learning how to use C# and stuff… it’s annoying. I’ll get to that eventually again. Currently, I have other hyper-fixations and hobbies in mind, after all.

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Speaking of which, I purchased a used ukulele for pretty cheap (about 25% of the original price) and started learning to play it. I’ve never touched a string element before and as such, I’m pretty excited about this. I’ve been practising a lot and have already learned how to play “Anal Beads” (A great song!) on it.

The reason why I thought this would be a good idea was primarily because learning an instrument is kinda cool. I’ve never tried to properly learn any instrument. I used to play the piano by ear and knew how to play “What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?” and the Moonlight Sonata on the piano… and that was all.

Never knew how to read notes or play properly, so I was just winging it, relative ear and all that.

So, I’ve looked at tutorials and learned how to read the ukulele tabs, and I’m really struggling to understand how the fuck my big fingers are supposed to play “G”.

Like, I gotta play the first string open, the second string needs to have a finger on the second fretter, the third string on the third fretter and the fourth string on the second fretter, too.

This means that I essentially need to have my index finger on the second string and my middle finger on the fourth string within the same fretter/column while my ring finger is on the third string on the third fretter… and that feels weird. It’s difficult to do. Who thought of this? Why does it sound so good and why is it used in so many songs?

Anyhow, Anal Beads by either Pink Guy or Drifton (whoever made it first) essentially consists of G, Bm7, Cmaj7, Cm and Bm. I kinda have gotten the gist of it already and I now just need to figure out how to do the strum patterns properly and how to switch between G and Bm7 or Cm and G quickly without my fingers cramping up.

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Another reason as to why I wanted to get a ukulele was to change my “before sleep habits”.

Currently, I go to bed with my phone in hand and try falling asleep to videos or my incredibly toxic Twitter feed. It’s a very healthy habit and it does not at all hinder my melatonin production. I definitely do not need to change this at all. this is a joke

So, to combat this, I figured learning a skill might be a good idea before bed. It gets me away from my phone and I get to learn a little something before I drift off into slumber. My ukulele already has a spot on my end table, after all.

Strumming along quietly in bed seems, after all, like a much better activity than to stare at a bright screen at an unhealthy distance.

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And well, at least, the other reason was because I thought “hey, comfy is what I go for in my streams – and wouldn’t it be cool to play Crywank songs on stream? Shame I don’t have the space or money for a guitar… Oh look, someone is selling their old ukulele!”

I genuinely think it’s good content to play silly songs on stream sometimes. Not to mention that ukuleles are probably the comfiest of instruments, so it seemed like a good idea. Shame that I can’t play it properly yet… aside from “Anal Beads”, of course. It’s a rather simple song, after all, written for the Uke.

So, I thought that’d be a fun idea.

Maybe I’ll learn some indie rock songs or punk or something. It’d be funny to rage against the machine on a uke, lol.

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But yeah, Ukulele shenanigans aside, I’m trying to get back into writing posts. Good ol’ ramble-y post-y posts. You know… the usual.

With that said, I keep adding too much pressure to the point where I burn out easily, so I gotta figure that out for myself.

My sleep schedule has been a bit messy these days but that’s just because I’ve got some blood sugar issue, I think? At least I googled the symptom and it says that it’s diabetes, so clearly that’s the diagnosis. Google is our friend, after all. They wouldn’t lie to me, especially after I typed in a symptom!

No, jokes aside, I’ll go see a GP at some point and ask them if they can run some blood tests or something. I’m not sure why but it feels like I’m starving even though I’ve eaten already multiple times today. Maybe it’s a stress issue and thus psychosomatic… maybe it’s something simple that a change in diet or whatever could easily fix. Will find that out once I find the time to go to a doctor.

I also gotta write some essays for uni and got one more exam at the end of March. Can’t wait. Huzzah.

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With all that said, life is good but my sleep schedule is fucked. I’ll get that figured out tonight. I’ve not really drank coffee in ages so maybe I’ll have some in the morning. There are some gaming-related rambly posts I wanted to write about, too, so look out for those.

I just wanna have fun again with writing, especially because it doesn’t hurt my fingers as opposed to this stupid ukulele.

This post was originally written by Dan Dicere from Indiecator.

If you see this article anywhere else other than Indiecator.org… then this article has been stolen. Please let me know of this via E-Mail. Other than that, feel free to stop by my Twitch streams!