growing up, my parents had my younger siblings and i all learn how to play music. we all learned piano and at least one other instrument. my choice was the french horn for reasons that made zero sense given that i wanted to study computing in college.

god was i horrible at horn those first few years. my lips are relatively large and the french horn mouthpiece is one of (if not the) smallest one for brass instruments. i was able to get by in concert band without proper horn instruction, but my embouchure got all messed up due to the lack of specific guidance. but i did still like playing music.

eventually i wanted to audition for my program's symphony orchestra, the most prestigious group at my program. which meant i had to get much better than i was at horn. i'm grateful that my parents were able to get me private instruction for the horn. with that instruction, i spent a whole summer reconstructing my embouchure and expanding the range of notes and pieces that i could play. all of this so that i could show that i belong in the symphony orchestra with the assigned audition piece: tchaikovsky's romeo and juliet fantasy overture horn solo. and i did! first horn second chair!

why am i reminiscing about my symphony orchestra days?

it's easy to remember succeeding in that audition and all of the great music that i had the privilege to play in symphony afterwards. but it's important to remember two other things about that journey:

1. i wanted to be better, and

2. i sucked real bad initially

most things that i've become good at in life had those two points in common. but i've found myself avoiding the second point a lot in the last few years. i'd like to embrace it more in 2026 and going forward.

so that's what i'm trying to do with this blog. i feel like my writing ability has taken a hit since finishing my masters as most writing i do outside of an ide is technical and domain specific. i.e. i think i suck at writing now. but i'd like to get better. hopefully going through the sucky parts here (and improving) will also convince me to suck at other things in the pursuit of getting better at them too.

so if this post sucks, that's alright with me. because this is the bad part.