Zach Likes to Yap

     Hey all, not going to be a super long blog today because I'm still recovering from an infection I was diagnosed with earlier this week. This just goes to show how important managing your stress is along with your workload, because I definitely had some mental symptoms manifest physically. I've been super nauseous the last few days, but I'm beginning to feel better with the medications they've given me. Although the medications make me nauseous, I feel much better than I did earlier this week, and I feel good enough to do some of my assignments to not have to worry about asking for extensions and what not.      I hope everyone is managing their stress well this midterm week, and just know that everything will be okay in time. Just have to get through the hardships and come out the other side a better version of yourself. Thanks everyone for the well wishes, I really appreciate it. I hope to see you all next week if my recovery journey goes smoothly.

       Fall break just ended and everyone is upset about it. Coming back to class after having some time to breathe would have been awesome if I could breathe underwater. I personally did not have a break to say the least, my break was spent on my laptop for over 8 hours a day working on assignments and get this, it was all for one class...     Over the course of the 4 days we had for fall break, I worked on reading a 400 page book, with a coinciding 10 page paper, an 8 page paper with 8 sources, a 5 page paper with a 30 minute presentation coinciding, a 3 page paper, and I still have yet to do really anything for any of my other classes. The funny thing is I didn't even get any of the papers done that I needed to finish because I simply did not have enough time to do it. Although most of these assignments are still a week or so out, the idea of all of them being due at the same time is really what's digging at my core. I know I am perfectly capab...

     (Pictured: Me when I get sick lol)      As the title suggests, everyone is sick right now. First it was the cold going around campus, then it turned into the flu, now it is in my own home. My girlfriend, Lily, is not feeling the best and I spent the last weekend taking care of her while she recovers. I know this is going to get me sick which I am not the most excited about, but the fact I'll probably end up getting sick during the most busy part of the semester gives me some comfort. If I am going to get sick, I'm already planning in my head the things I can get done school-wise, during the days I will not go to class due to being sick. This may seem counterintuitive but honestly, work and class are the only things holding me back from getting all my assignments this semester done. Having a few days where I'm bedridden will force me to occupy my time to distract me from feeling like dogwater.     I still have over 200 pages to read for my mul...

          Have you ever compared yourself to someone who was going through something that seemed way easier to deal with than what you have going on at the moment? Me too, and this feeling is often something I struggle with when it comes to accepting the position I am in. I compare often to other's situations because I find that it helps me to realize that maybe they don't have it as easy as I think they do, which in turn makes the things on my plate seem smaller. Although this is the goal I always have when comparing myself to others, I typically will end upset due to them having more than I do, or me not realizing I have just as much as they do. The idea I'm hinting at here is the ability for one to realize that each individual is living their own life, and their life is as vivid and complex as your own.     This realization is called to sonder. This is something that I have learned about at a young age and have taken with me through my entire l...

                                                        Hey all, just coming on here briefly to tell you to listen to more music. There is so much music out there from countless genres that use thousands of different instruments in many different ways that you have to experience to even begin to understand what is all out there. I personally began expanding my taste in music through listening to albums, which includes the songs that people don't necessarily think of when speaking to the salience of an artist. I started listening to rock music, slowly inching into classical rock, shifting rapidly to Hip-Hop and RnB, and finally landing in jazz. Listening to albums from artists like Steely Dan, Keith Sweat, Aaliyah, JID, and hundreds of others taught me that music is more than what it seems on the surface. I've been surrounded...

           Over the course of the past summer into the fall semester, I have taken on multiple projects creatively outside of school and work. I've detailed some of the projects I'm working on in my previous blogs like the game Scenario, the debut of Jazzmatik and many other side projects I haven't mentioned. On top of this, I failed to realize that going into senior year of college would make for a drastic change in the amount of assignments and research projects I would have to take on. Needless to say, I filled my plate and began using the table for the extra food.      Side and personal projects aside, school work this year has been absolutely ridiculous with the amount of things I have to work on. Multiple 1-3 page papers due at varying days of the week, three research projects/papers for my final psychology major classes, building a social media strategy with a real client and having a full 400 page book to read by October 16th. One wou...

            Over the course of the last three years, my friend Gabe has been working on a solo video-game project, developed in unity and drawing inspiration from media such as Superliminal, I Spy books, and attempts to capture the feeling of a dream-state like childhood wonder. Since the game is not fully complete, I will leave the description of the game at that point to not spoil. The purpose of this blog is to detail our efforts as a team to form a roll-out schedule to maintain and complete things necessary before the deadline of January 1st, 2026. Things we need to complete before January 1st, which is the proposed release date, are things like the Game Manual, which contains walkthroughs for each level that have been graphically designed from scratch, a storyboard or epilogue entry, how to use the base mechanics, and the system requirements for running the game. Along with the Game Manual, we need to have the game itself finished before the turn ...

     Over the course of the last few years, I have been trying to garner awareness for my music career, with many failed attempts of engagement tests and the lack of return on investment for promotions and advertisements of my brand. Failure however is the best teacher, and being comfortable with that failure can take you a long way toward reaching the goals you have in mind. To help myself build a better understanding of the landscape of social media I started taking classes for a minor in social media here at ONU. So far, I have improved my engagement and focus on things that are actually important like metrics and brand identity, rather than trying to force content into the mainstream by posting consistently without having a solid backing holding up the structure of my brand. Taking this class into consideration of my journey in social media fluency, I hope to learn skills to apply not only to my own social media presence, but also understanding what all goes into plan...

     Over the course of the summer of '25, a good friend of mine since childhood (Prismatica on streaming platforms) and I (Alphalpha on streaming platforms) began undertaking a new music project under the name of Jazzmatik. Jazzmatik can be defined as an experimental fusion of many genres including jazz, hip-hop, breakbeat etc., while not being bound by one specific niche. Our nights and weekends quickly became filled with discord discussions, password management pow-wows, music listening/critiquing sessions and developing the framework for our combined brand. It's common knowledge that it is not easy to carve a path influentially... and that idea seemingly folds over on itself ten times in regards to the music industry.     Jazzmatik is not a new idea by any means, which is why trying to carve a path using the stepping stones laid by some of the biggest influences in our lives is very important to us as a brand. Learning how to stick to a core set of values an...