@writing★ A HOBBY I'M LOOKING FOR ★
I don't know if there are people like me who search for a hobby not directly related to work. I work in music, by the way. A few years ago, I picked up a DSLR camera just to play around with it. Turns out, my pictures were loved by lots of friends because they thought the results looked very professional. In the end, I had lots of music projects that used this hobby, and it turned into side work too. After that, I tried pencil drawing, digital drawing, coding, music blogging, digital journaling, etc. After months of doing it, sure, I was quite good at them, but I felt like they weren't the hobby I wanted. So I practically spent 6 years without a hobby, and I felt lost. But during that time, I thought about two hobbies I might really like because I'd already been doing them silently for years: old games, especially 2D games (#RetroGaming), and typing. I really like typing, especially with a mechanical keyboard—whether for blogging about music, coding for my own website, making web-based apps for my music work, or just journaling in general (#WritingCommunity).
1. Retro Gaming
I've only followed the Android emulation community on Reddit and occasionally watched retro gaming videos, but I was never part of a community, nor did I think I was passionate enough to join one. But if I'm being honest, I really loved my Sega Genesis console that I had back in junior high school. After being apart from it for over 10 years—because some relatives asked my mom to give it to their kids—I missed it so much. So I tried emulation on Mac, and it turned out flawless. Then I installed it on other hardware like Windows and Android. I've been doing retro gaming emulation for around 15 years now. I've emulated many systems: Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation One, PlayStation Two, and PlayStation Portable.
People might ask: why emulation instead of real consoles or handhelds? For context, I live in a poor country where $144/month is the minimum wage in the city I live in, and even then, less than half the population in the whole country earn that much. Sure, I earn more than that, but buying something expensive isn't wise in a country where social inequality is very real, and many crimes happen simply because of jealousy. So my decision is emulation only, especially on Android, and half the time with Samsung DeX (Android desktop mode via a phone wired to a TV or monitor). I might write about Samsung DeX in the future.
On March 24th, 2026, I joined Retro-Gaiden.com on #Mastodon. Within just a week, the experience was great. It felt like MIRC all over again—people genuinely love to have conversations. I was blown away. The specific topic is great too, though it also has limitations. I've tried a couple of other servers, instances, or the fediverse to write about things other than retro gaming, but the 500‑character limit is a big wall for me. Okay, I'll come back to that in a minute. But now, let's move on to my second potential hobby: not just retro gaming, but also writing.
2. Writing
This one is quite personal. My family was poor, like most of the population here. The only times I could use a computer were at school, at a rental place, or at a friend's house whose parents were rich by local standards. I remember when I was in high school, I slept over at a friend's house nearly 20 km away just to use the computer. I even drew a QWERTY keyboard in a notebook to learn how to type faster—going from using two fingers to all ten, like a drummer learning without drums. LOL. That's how poor we were back then.
Eventually, when I was in university, my family was able to buy a computer because writing a thesis digitally had become mandatory—no more analog typewriters. I took two semesters off from college to work in an internet café. I discovered that chatting on MIRC and using Yahoo Search were the first movements that made internet cafés boom in our city. At that place, I worked as a cashier half the time and as a technician the other half. While doing that, I also chatted 8 hours a day for over six months on MIRC and sometimes in Yahoo Messenger groups. My typing ability improved a lot.
Then I wrote a blog about random things for a couple of years, then focused on a music blog for over 15 years. From that blog, which I eventually turned into my own website, I was able to earn income through music projects. After graduating from university, I volunteered to work with my music lecturer. One day he suddenly said, "You know tech, right? Please build a website for us." I had no choice. I doubted whether I could, but I agreed to try. Now I can code in HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript to build websites and my own web‑based apps. But one thing that never changed is my love for typing—especially with a physical keyboard.
Now, with that in mind, let's return to Mastodon's writing wall. I think I should explore more of writing on Mastodon. That's why I'm joining a couple of other instances to explore how long I can write on each, and which one I'll eventually prefer—short (500), medium (3000), or long (11,000+).
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PS: If you ask me, "Is that your hand in the pic?" — sure is. I try my best to use my own image whenever I post, though it might not always be possible
