Moving Back To Neocities (and Other Stuff)

Jan 21, 2024 | About 2 min reading time

After quite a while of being on leprd.space (I moved my website there from Neocities back in August), I recently decided this month to move my website back to Neocities.

There are a couple reasons for this:

I don't like CPanel and just looking at it makes my brain hurt
FTP/SFTP is really unintuitive to me and feels even clunkier than the Neocities file directory interface
PHP is cool and all, but it's complicated to set up a live preview with Visual Studio Code (which is what I use)
I could not wrap my head around SQL no matter how hard I tried

In the end, it mostly boils down to one thing: web development is a fun hobby for me, not a job. I don't want it to ever feel like one, even when I occasionally put out pay-what-you-want HTML templates for Neocities and Toyhouse. Introducing so much complexity to it made it feel like a struggle and worsened my already-existing burnout, which I had been slowly recovering from before that point. It also began to feel like an obligation, which I absolutely don't want.

So I've moved back to my previous setup with Neocities and the 11ty/Eleventy static site generator, though I have also learned how to use the command line interface with Neocities for updating my site more easily.

Other stuff that has happened recently:

Started making art in Blender 3D again, you can check the results out on my art page.
Finally got a doctor to take me seriously about my chronic migraines after years of struggling with them - did you know there are medications specifically for migraines? Also, did you know migraines aren't just headaches (they're actually a neurological condition, the headaches are just one possible symptom)? Anyways, the medication works perfectly, and no drowsiness either (which I normally get from pain meds)!
Still applying for jobs, haven't heard anything back yet unfortunately.
Stopped using Duolingo because of the situation with AI (they replaced some human translators with AI), now I'm using Busuu and Clozemaster. Honestly, Busuu is much better than I expected.
My stick insect nymphs are nearly full-grown adults! I think the two oldest ones just have one more moult to go.
Started watching the Percy Jackson and the Olympians show with my mom, it's decent so far and I love the casting. The script does seem a little bland at times, but nowhere near what the movie was like (my mom remembers hating the movie, but she loves the show). Plus, it's a Disney show, so some of that blandness feels expected (I don't know how to explain that, just... you know. Some Disney shows feel really bland at times). I'm also rereading the book series now (and then I'm going to reread Heroes of Olympus)!