It's Been A While. And It's About That Time I Came Out...

 ...of this long, hard, dark period of not updating this blog/personal website, silly!

Although I do have plans to catch y'all up on what has been going on with my life since the last time I posted anything here (like, back in 2017); there's just a few things that I want to mention, now that it is 2023:

• I did update a few things on this site between 2017 and now. But it was the "Books I Read (or have read)" sidebar that I updated, not the main blog itself. It was in 2020, when I added the books "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions by Alcoholics Anonymous." and "Narcotics Anonymous - Sixth Edition." Definitely more on this later.
  
• I am well-aware of who my readers are, thanks to StatCounter and the very few folks to whom I have given the website address. Having said that, even though this blog serves as an outlet where I can speak my mind, there are other blogs and journals online which I use for my more outspoken, uncensored ranting and venting. More on this later.
• My Twitter sidebar is indeed up to date, and it never failed to update this blog under the radars of RSS feeds and what have you.
• Many of my past entries will be removed from public availability, simply because the information shared in those entries are outdated and could possibly be interpreted as misleading.
• The idea of pointing the callmeroger.com domain name and moving to a personally hosted blog powered by WordPress still lingers in my mind until this day. But when that day comes, every single post from here on Blogger will be moved there. Comments will remain here. 
• This site operates as both a public front (the tip of the iceberg), and a private installation of secret pages that are only viewable by select individuals to whom I have given access. 
• The username "callmeroger" is not mine, and there are plenty of others who have beaten me to the punch, depending on the social media platform where the username is being used. But there are now a few notable social media platforms where I have resorted to using the username "callmeroger.com" instead, which I assume could potentially lead other people to visit this website out of curiosity. More on this later. 
• Blog updates will include posts about my return to Package Express, posts from BuJo DoJo (my handwritten journal), Project Centre, and Misery City to name a few. 

Changes are coming to this blog, as I am mustering the courage and the motivation to start blogging again. There are plenty of stories and thoughts which I would like to share on this blog. But for those who are reading this, sorry for the boring update. Just know that more updates are coming and they are probably going to be even more boring than this post. :p

My College Life as of Today: Health Information Technology Program

Two years ago, I wrote this entry in this blog about going to college and what program I was trying to get into. Time sure goes by quite fast, and now I finally got into the program of my choice: Health Information Technology (HITT) at Houston Community College - Coleman College for Health Sciences.

Prior to getting into the program, I busted my behind, taking basic courses, and some courses I actually didn't even have to take. At one point, my GPA was as high as 3.85 (out of 4.0). That was my GPA during my interview to get accepted into the program, but after getting hit with a B in Anatomy & Physiology, my GPA dropped a bit to 3.75.

Being in a program is a totally different ballgame. I am considering going to school full-time just to get my diploma early. I can see myself working from home within the next 5 years, even less than that! But first, I got to adjust to the type of student my professor wants me to be: very, very, VERY dedicated and disciplined. While that is not usually a problem, I am experiencing some financial difficulties at the moment, which I may mention later on in this blog.

I am proud of my accomplishments as a college student, especially since I didn't think I was going to end up going to college at my mid-thirties. I was a terrible student in high school, with a GPA that falls very low within the lowest quartile. Even then, I desired to finish high school with a diploma, and I obtained it through Houston Community College's Adult High School program back in 1999 and 2000. Now that I am in college, it seems like I am living the student life I should have had when I was in high school.

This maybe a half-way point of my college career, or maybe not. I will try to go as far as I can. I've been in college for two years, but this semester, is really, only the beginning of my actual college life.

The Gamer In Me...

Personally, I am not as much of a gamer as many would consider gamers to actually be. I'm certainly not an expert, enough to write reviews about them. At some point in my life, I felt like I grew up, and video games were no longer for me. But that only made me feel like a big part of me died.

From time to time, I would catch myself downloading ROMs and console emulators to play old video games. It helps with killing time, and I happen to be a sucker for nostalgia. I considered myself to be a classic gamer, since I enjoy playing 8-bit and 16-bit games. I'm also into RPG games, like Final Fantasy, but I mainly stick to the non-Final Fantasy games like Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Xenogears.

At this day in age, I failed to realize that there is a new way to play video games with friends. I knew about it, but I didn't even care to delve deeper into it. The world of MMORPG came, and I felt very, very left behind. I made a few attempts to get into it, but games like World of Warcraft, Starcraft, or whatever-craft didn't really appeal to my taste in gaming. I am way too into the whole side-scrolling, beat 'em up, earn EXP, talk to NPCs kinda guy. At some point in my life, most of my friends had some sort of IGN, or "In Game Name" from whatever game they were playing. I didn't, but it didn't really bother me... not too much. Okay, maybe, sorta.