Blog Update: Ken Sir is alive.

Hi guys. Ken Sir here.
Well that's a name you haven't heard in a while eh?
Hello. lol.

Celebrating my return with my fav pic from the blog

Hello again

First off, allow me to apologise before I explain my complete absence for the past 10 months of so. I think I last logged into my accounts as Ken Sir around March (?) from the looks of my Facebook.

• Funny story - it all actually started with me changing my computer, losing my password, then getting lazy to reset it.
• Combined with the fact that my gaming laptop is a bulky 17inch, 2.5kg which I left at home for majority of the year. (I moved to my College dorm since my freshmen year).
• Yugioh stuff (images, decklist, ygopro) , Overwatch, L4D2, Dota, League of Legends etc are all in that said bulky laptop. (I swapped into a lighter and  Lenovo model which would actually let me see the lecture tables when I place my laptop on the tables.
  17inch-2.5kg just cover the entire lecture tables.

Explanation time:

So, I moved to College. I actually didn't move out of my country. It is a local college, and like I mentioned, I stayed on campus. This actually started quite a while ago, last year around August 2017 when my Freshmen semester started. But my first semester was a rather light one, which explains why I could still be involved in YOTSG2017 last December.
However, starting January, things started to pile up.
Assignments, tests and projects.
Being in college, and also in dorm, I joined clubs and co-curriculum activities. That took up more than half my time each day. Suddenly from a carefree day to day life I used to have, I had more responsibilities and social obligations to fulfil. For a while it was really a big change in lifestyle for me.


I also got more involved in sports. Well, we all have/had a life before Yugioh and apart from Yugioh right? I joined my dorm's Squash club and Recreational Slowpitch Softball club. Being a part of a community meant I have the chance to join these teams. Softball was something I previously did in my teenage years and it is nice to be able to revisit this aspect of my life.
Trainings were on Tuesday evenings and Saturdays and with that...

• Saturdays went from visiting locals at 1pm
• to Wake at 9, train til 12, lunch and then nap, then dinner with teammates 

So that meant that I couldn't attend Sat locals. And usually, Sun would be my rest day or rush-assignments day. Otherwise, after spending 6 days of the week away from home, a day with the family is really really much-needed.

Summer (May to July) was another busy period for me, despite the fact that there were no classes. I was involved in two separate events, as part of the planning committee. These were for the orientation programmes for the incoming freshmen. September arrived, and my second year of college begun. And another busy semester that didn't treat me so well. I also took on some leadership roles in the clubs and societies I am in, which burdened me with workload and paperwork. Once again, Yu-Gi-Oh as a pass time was out of the question.

And now in December, my semester has just ended. I reconnected with my friends and got a sense of how 'Link Monsters are meant to slow down the game'. Lol obviously it didn't even do that.


Contrary to popular speculation (which I am flattered that people would assume so), I am actually not seeing anybody special LOL. Nope, still single, not dating. Wasn't a girl or relationship that brought me out of the game. 

Moving Forward

Yu-Gi-Oh! has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I played it as early as a kid, when i was 10, before I even knew the rules of the game. I slowly progressed and played throughout my teens, learning and making new friends.

A trip down the memory lane:

• My first deck was a warrior deck, from a warrior Structure Deck my friend bought for me as a birthday present. Colossal Fighter became, and still is today, my favourite card that day.
• I went on to play Junk Doppel after I learned it topped a local Asia, since I was also a Yusei & 5D's fan.
• Chaos Dragon caught my eye next. It was the first deck I formed from scratch, scouting for cards, buying Structure Decks etc. Unfortunately I was late to the party. Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon was hit along with Future Fusion. I ended up entering the competitive scene during the Dragon Ruler era.
• Chaos Dragon research led me to explore the Ninja engine, and I discovered the Hieratic engine. Soon, I jumped on the hype train and played Hieratic Dragon Rulers for a while. It was a fun time wit the OTKs that the deck can consistently dish out.
• After that I rotated frequently between HEROes and Tellarknights before stubbornly sticking to Yosenju for longer than I should.
• It was around this time I got to make more friends in the game and found other 'loners' like me. The first interation of Dueling C was formed with just four people, albeit an unofficial formation. One left and more joined, becoming the group of friends we are today.
• The rest of this part of my history would probably be on the blog. I went back to read through a few posts, and despite their lazy formatting and representation, sometimes even lazy reporting, I choose to keep them as it is as I think it shows the improvement and change in my blog posts.

Team Dueling "C', otherwise known as Team Di3-jo-bu is pretty intact throughout 2018. Although most of us have also stopped attending locals regularly. GeoTheBacon was the only one that remained.

• SanganFTK enlisted due to his National Service obligations.
• K.Xavage and DAM SON were focus on their tertiary education,
• whereas Burning Herpes and I did the same, being overly and unhealthy involved in our College and Dormitory life, even though in many aspects of it, our hard work and efforts paid off.

As just a team of friends just playing the game, I feel that we have really come a long way. Especially this blog. I initially founded it alone due to my interest in writing combined with my love for the game. Soon I was joined by many others and even though they don't blog regularly, we had fun discussing blog topics and dissing each other. Basically your textbook-guy-circle type of friendship.

I was just a guy that wanted to have fun. I recall the days when I wondered if anyone else would even want to read the adventures of a player in a small country in Southeast Asia. OCG, no less. I vividly remember how I felt when I wrote the first post of the blog. Back then I expected myself to be the only one who will ever read it. Turns out that wasn't the case and somehow our view count started to accumulate. Things snowballed, and I was offered opportunities to write at events and other sites as well. Was, am, and will always be thankful for things like this.

I do admit it was a pity that something I worked hard towards was tossed aside when I left so abruptly without any warning and I thank anyone who is still invested/interested enough in this blog to be reading this now. Viewership will drop, definitely, but I have never been concerned with just views. It was the pride of ideas and sharing them that made me feel that blogging is something worth continuing. But what I do admit is that I probably disappointed or left many people puzzled with my Davidcopperfield act. And for those who were patiently waiting for an update to the blog, thank you, and congratulations.

But back then, with my College commitments and workload, my life was slowly falling apart into pieces as I found less and less time for myself. My understanding of the game slipped from my hands slowly, and I couldn't will myself back into the game. Slowly, days became weeks and weeks became months. I wasn't in a good enough place in life to be investing time in my hobbies, especially Yugioh.
Had a couple of family issues and personal problems to add into the mix of my new hectic lifestyle. And I didn't have enough knowledge to be blogging about the game. And the last thing I want is for me to not know what I am blogging about, or blogging for the sake of blogging. I feel that this goes against my personal philosophy and principle, something which I couldn't compromise upon. So while it wasn't the best course of action, I decided to stop rather than struggle and carry on writing content which I would not enjoy writing.

I felt that I have grown plenty in the past year, learning many tangible and intangible lessons. This year has probably been the most eventful year in my recent years, and I believe it is one of the many turning points in my life. A couple of writing modules I took in College helped me look at blogging from a different perspective. And look at life from a different perspective, generally.

After a long while of constantly playing Yugioh on a weekly basis, I think more often than not I started to ask myself if I was contented with being the 'guy that just wanted to keep having fun day to day'. I didn't feel fully comfortable with the place I was in my life, which was why I opted to quit the competitive and take a step back to the sidelines. But even that didn't really solve my 'life crisis issue'.

Gladly, along the road despite a few hurdles, I am able to see things differently and move myself to a better spot in life (emotionally and spiritually speaking). I am in a much better place now, after a tough year. And I hope that 2019 is better (wow the year is really ending), and I am glad to be back to the game, the community and back to blogging.

The future 

Cue poster boy for Future/Hope/Friendship/you can't negate friendship

As of now, I am unsure where Dueling "C" is headed in the near future.
Content-wise, I will have to revamp/redesign the direction of the blog, to provide it with a more streamlined idea of what type of content the blog should be focused on, and how regularly should I update it. 

I am keen to keep this blog, or a blog, while at the same time, restarting work on my previous 'workplaces' - BeyondTheDuel, Ygoprodeck. I hope to be able to meet some personal milestones I set for myself, which is to consistently push out quality articles.

I am open to the idea of changing our blog domain. I started out using Blogspot because it was the old trendy option and it was linked to Google accounts, which I found convenient. Old trendy meaning it was the domain where old blogs like DuelingSociety and DuelingDays use to reside in.

Either way, I will be sure to leave a link to direct readers to the new site if we ever change our site. And regardless, we will leave this blog here so that the old posts can be revisited by us or any other viewers whenever interested.

Youtube......
Many did suggest it to me but honestly videos and talking to a camera isn't really my thing. I prefer putting my thoughts into words and pictures.
I won't exclude the possibility of a Dueling C Youtube Channel though. I would like to upload game matches every now and then. (Especially Goat Format)
But if so, that will be another platform that I have to regularly update and manage. So I really have to think this through before I commit to the idea.

But you guys can commit Krad/GoeTheBacon to start his own personal Youtube channel.

Conclusion

Long story short: Life changes + Poor time management contributed to my sudden disappearance.

I want to thank my friends and acquaintances for checking in on me. Sorry for not replying sometimes. I wasn't in the best place in life.

Thanks to everyone who welcomed me back with open arms and waited for me in patience.




As you can see, the structure of this blog post is slightly disorientated and the formatting is very casual. I kinda lost track of all my blog settings, so I have to sort/reset them or start anew on another domain (maybe Wordpress) I just wanted to get this post as soon as possible and opted a more casual tone, hence the formatting. Also, my blogging and writing has become pretty rusty, as I have not been doing any writing outside of Yugioh.
My Facebook and Twitter are revived again, so feel free to say hi there.
I have to revive Dueling "C" Facebook Page too.