My New CSW Science Article is Here!: "From Virtual Reality to 'Goodbye Malady!'"

Hello, readers! I know it's been a long time. But fear not, my blog has officially returned! What has been going on that caused me to take such an extended break? Well, multiple reasons:

a. Eleventh grade was a lot.

b. 2021-2022 after I made my previous post has been... a lot.

c. I had so many post ideas but not enough time for them until now.

d. I was also working on the article linked below: https://curioussciencewriters.org/articles/2022/06/08/from-virtual-reality-to-goodbye-malady/

From Virtual Reality to “Goodbye Malady!” | curiousSCIENCEwriters: “In a matter of six weeks, you couldn’t even tell he had a stroke.” This is what Arik Yates, a physical therapist assistant, said about a chronic stroke patient who had tried virtual reality therapy…

After my article in 2020 about wearable technology paired with machine learning algorithms being used to help counter smoking addiction, I returned to Curious Science Writers for one more article with them! This time, I knew I had to write about VR - very coincidental timing involving the controversies surrounding Meta, which Facebook had changed their name to literally weeks after I finished drafting my new article! (And yes, I do plan on making a post about my opinion on all that soon.) I interviewed an awesome researcher named Arik Yates, who has been using VR headsets and some awesome videogames I've played like Superhot VR to help those with nervous system injuries and more. 

It was a super fun process getting to write that article, and I am so glad with how it turned out - it even topped my previous article, which I also had a blast researching for and writing! Mr. Yates, just like my previous interviewee, was a super cool guy to have a conversation with, and beyond the content that made it into the article we also discussed Beat Saber (which he is a competitive tournament player of) and the future of VR hardware. 

Oh, and about that picture at the very bottom - It's me from over 3 years ago. Note to self: Update my file photos. :') It certainly doesn't help that I'm unhappy with my more recent school pictures thanks to a certain worldwide pandemic making it particularly hard to get a haircut for most of 2020. Society has been having far greater worries than haircuts. 

Anyway, I will be making a few blog posts a week for the foreseeable future. Notice that I didn't say "try to", because I actually follow Yoda's advice. There's only ever "do". No more postponing. Despite this summer being the same time as my college applications, college visits, driver's exam (I turned 17 last year but due to the vaccine not being available when I turned 16 I---yeah), and general extracurricular endeavors, blogging is so fun and beneficial to my happiness that I figured that it was time to bring it back like Sheev Palpatine. Wait, that wasn't executed so well. Back like (insert thing that was brought back or revived extremely well)! 

It's time to take out that png in my saved files again.

This is Arca, signing off. 

(Never mind about including the signature. I want to make an updated version of that so just pretend it's here for now.)