goodbye blog

Attention: This is directed to both members of the Christian Homeschool Team (also known simply as CHT) AND people in clubs/otf that happen to be following me, or are my friends. So please excuse me if you don’t understand everything/all the jokes/references, (unless you’re @jackityjackjack, @Admiral_ChessBeard or @NATIOYUJIN, ofc.)

Hey, guys, it’s me, Elijah, aka drummer (please call me Elijah, not drummer) aka RobTop (that pfp was not a face reveal) aka dude who asks for profile views too much according to some people (dw, me and @BasixWhiteBoy are on good terms now XD.) Basically I’m here to tell you that I will be LEAVING *😲* most of the social side of chess.com very soon. The reason being, chess has simply become more important than chatting in clubs and whatnot. And I’m going into high school this year, and I’m having less and less time to be active in clubs and otf. Priorities, man.

I’ve also just (just, yeah right) started going to tournaments, and reaching my chess goals is more important than earning/being admin in some really cool or big clubs, or other special positions as well. I came to the realization about six months ago that at the end of the day, this won’t get me anywhere and that studying chess needs to be the main focus, not clubs. But then, a couple of things came around...

I found CHT by simply searching for Christian clubs on chess.com and I saw it come up and thought "well I'm a Christian and I'm homeschooled, so why not join?" And the rest is history. CHT is legit the best club on chess.com, and I mean it. I've joined hundreds of clubs and have a lot of favorites, but CHT is just something else entirely. It's also very historic, and is the oldest (and largest) homeschool club on the site. Since then, I've gotten many QQs, have had an official reputation as the guy who makes useless forums (but which never end up being useless in the end), and have had a very fun time there. Best of all I've made many friends and I can't wait to meet them all someday.

For some reason I suddenly became obsessed with profile views. Idk why but even though I never thought I wanted to be "popular" or at least well-known in the community, when that actually started happening, I guess I thought it was pretty cool or something. If I'm honest, it was a great way to distract myself from everything else and a great way to fill the extra time I had over the late spring/summer. Plus I'm home pretty much 24/7 and I actually don't have that many friends (sound familiar to Nat's situation? Haha) so having chess.com as a place to "socialize" even if not IRL. 

XD

So those reasons are why I didn’t leave the social side of cc. Once I hit 5k views, I’ll be leaving a lot of clubs. Membership in clubs isn’t the problem, however. It’s the amount of notifications (or just notifs, thanks @Bruvoskity for the notifs idea and now notif is a term in CHT XD) that is the problem. I simply don’t have enough time to balance everything together. Balance is NOT the key to success/a successful life/whatevs/etc, it’s seasons. And right now I’m not in a position where I’m able to do that. I WAS in a season where I was able to do that since then it was summer and I had a lot of extra time on my hands, and now I’m not. 

And I've gotten plenty of those views until someone (not gonna say who, however they used to be fairly active in CHT) gave me the realization that at the end of the day, being known by a lot of people is useless and profile views don't give you anything concrete. So once I hit my next goal, I rly won't "need" any more.

The end of an era, I suppose, is what it would represent.

You’ll still see me around every now and then, but especially in CHT, I’ll now become an oldie, except I won’t be an inactive one (as in I'm not closing my account or whatever). I'll still be extremely active on chess.com, just not very much in CHT. I’ll still check in sometimes, maybe even every week, or every couple months. We’ll see.

I WILL, however, be posting a blog post every time I do a chess tournament, and thankfully, you’ll start seeing a lot more of those, as I will be (hopefully) attending a lot more tournaments in the next few weeks and months. So you bet I’ll be active there, especially in the comments, lol.

I was going to list a couple of people here with some words of thanks, but as I went through my friends list, I realized there are a lot of people that I need to thank! So...

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And now, a ton of thanks to everyone mentioned here for over the year and a half since I joined chess.com, without descriptions because there are simply so many people to thank! In no particular order: 

@BombCraft          @BasixWhiteGirl          @BasixWhiteBoy           @Admiral_ChessBeard         

@jackityjackjack   @Ximoon    @erik    @Lightning    @hunter_blaze_blue @Select_Chicken

@SweetPeaBuddy          @Fangz0          @JasRexus          @Jared          @Green_Sleeves

@Jay_Scott1          @SoulMate333          @JustADude80          @BasserBen      @Mark12291229

@Frosted_Magma          @certai          @Maethehuntress          @turnkit          @AlasseEstel

@InstructorJosh          @Zunayed_781038          @Lilyana          @theishvalan          @bjg1000

@TecDragoman          @Scemer          @GirlWonderingDaLife          @ConnectedCloud

@BlizzardLizard          @KingOfBrilliancy          @Serve_Jesus_He_Is_King          @Nyonnio

@Utkarsho          @Silverdove          @Mantissa3          @Annachess11          @Caden022510

@Cecilia         @The-Hose          @wsswan          @Brittanyluvsmusic          @Taken

@SusieMacd04          @JohanVA          @fishers4men          @rodilihp          @NiTheGuy

@Colonel_Spotter         @Black_Knight         @Staerex         @Six_Pack_Of_Flabs    @Pastor_Dan

@EvidentRoad        @mizza_pizzaa        @ResurrectedSon       @utbivasan3      @ItsTimeForTim

@Badly_Beaten_I_Will_Be          @thepasswordis1234          @RayFamily          @Waredude

@stormcloudsam          @Killua_the_assassin          @TheUnderDog001          @Seth_Isaac

@andreabellisai          @ImAwesomeAtChesss          @FaithfulServant          @Jesus-Rules

@CowgirlforChrist2015          @Advanced_player1          @Peace-on-Earth7          @MGleason

@thenomalnoob          @Luan          @GoPikachu          @hueychen          @ArtapuS

@GMLily          @Kotlcfangirl1111          @Lincoy3304          @TheBlazeWingDragon

@INZLF          @Bassoonist1          @Certified_Forklifter          @GMRafif          @Samibayadhi

@Lord_Of_The_Keys          @Traxxas          @Kyu13          @HolySpiritNitros      @alexjohnson77

@youngmanmightyinchrist          @Go2ChristLive4Christ          @RedThunderheart          @Fire

@Shmackled          @Jessa_Rose          @BelugaYT          @MaryLowe13         @FlyingHaggis11

@Rooster-1992AIC          @AgentRikLikesTacos          @bananapeelmaster123    @Zestythe5th

@TooMuchPuzzleAddiction                @F1-24            @NoahPiper          @Plasming

@womp-womp-im-him          @Yeshua          @NSASavvy          @GodIsGood144

@RobJones236          @KhloeHinson13          @BaconFan06          @Hannah_Stanfield

@tigerchess2022          @Hikarus-Office-Chair          @Praying_4_Peace          @God-first

@YUGSINGH123        @lukegk        @ChessKy538        @josephB772        @RareScarletBrook

@LiamPlaysRookb1         @KGreenGator         @DesperateKingWalk         @That_Guy_At_Chess

@Forever_A_Servant_Of_God      @Nimzo-IndianaJones       @KNVB          @TheReal_Joe_Biden

@doomsdaybear        @MrFuturePresident        @2000knights        @Verne9     @killchessshot

@jparr1          @GodSentHisSon4You          @NegativeEL0          @TheRealRizzlerOfOz

@thecastlemaniac          @TheSheeshKid          @LibertyB06          @CreeperBot33

@AbyssalSludge          @OneWayToChrist          @livybug09          @ChurchGang

@Dragontracker          @LHCSaraB          @dogs4evr          @CunningRedFox

@Truth-Finder       @JDC6123       @tidepool123       @King_Sam_2011

So this is my official and formal farewell, and good luck everybody in life.

(I feel like this is an appropriate place to post some kind of farewell song but I can’t find one that works so lol)

(Well, this is a bit too upbeat, so instead I settled on this: )