Unformed Delta - review

空色♡ Birthday Card

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 02:00:00 +0000

I’m a bit of a data hoarder. Among other things, I never remove birthdays from my calendar once I’ve added them. Sometimes this leads to a pang of heartbreak when I look at my calendar to see it’s the birthday of a past crush. 空色♡ Birthday Card (literally: Sky-blue Birthday Card) captures my experience of this.

I’ll excerpt and translate the relevant lyrics; if you’re interested you can find the complete lyrics and a translation on the Idolm@ster Wiki. If you want to listen, I prefer the short MV version of the song anyways¹, or here’s a link to the full length version on YouTube Music:

大丈夫だ、って　もう平気だ、って

“It’s fine”, “I’m calm now”

The song has a chill, acoustic instrumentation. It reflects a peaceful, calm mood before the surprise of having been reminded of my past crushes’ birthdays.

そうだ… 忘れていた赤い◎(にじゅうまる)

Ah… it’s the red double circle I’d forgotten about

Even years later, just seeing the all-day calendar event can make me briefly drift into thinking about what ifs and counterfactuals.

(ふわ　空に溶ける)
Happy Birthday
(Far　遥かきみへ)
おめでとう

(Softly, melting in the sky)
Happy Birthday
(To you, far away)
I wish you Happy Birthday

These lyrics echo like the ruminative ifs and counterfactuals and my wish to wish them happy birthday.

(願ってるよ)どうか笑顔でいてね
“友達”として

(I wish) for you to keep smiling
As a “friend”

An unrequited crush feels paradoxical. After being rejected, my feelings remain strong and I want little more than to spend time with my crush, but it’s hard to tell whether I’m acting out of my selfish desire or in their best interests. I can only try my best to respect their wishes and act as a friend.

愛しい日々をありがとうね
きみに恋をしてよかった

Thank you for the precious days
I’m glad I loved you

I typically end up taking something away from an unrequited crush, and longer term don’t end up regretting having confessed my feelings. Usually, I end up recognizing that there was something I envied in the other person.

(見上げたら)ちゃんと笑顔でいよう
私らしく

(Looking up at the sky) I’ll try to smile
properly authentically

This helps me understand myself better, and become myself more authentically. I’ve learned to better explain why I like things, to be less ashamed of sharing even the obscure things I like, and to be more aware and present.

いつかいつか　ありがとうを

Some day, I’ll thank you

After drifting apart, it becomes possible to recognize that rather than being genuine, the desire to thank them for the insight I gained was mostly an excuse to have contact with them.

飛行機雲
なんとなく今日は
優しい消印みたい

In the vapor trails
Today, I’m able to make out
a friendly looking postmark

But the desire stubbornly sticks around, everyday occurrences end up being reminders. Over time, resisting, this impulse fades. Reflecting this, the ruminative echoes reprise.

First, just the parenthesized longing reprises without an action to express it.

(Far　空に溶ける)
(ふわ　遥かきみへ)

(Far away, melting into the sky)
(Softly, to you)

Then at the very end of the song the thanks is only written into the sky.

(ふわ　空に溶ける) Happy Birthday
(Far　遥かきみへ) 指先で「ありがとう」

(Softly, melting into the sky) Happy Birthday
(To you, far away) with my fingertip, I write thanks.

After all, the desire to thank them was mostly for catharsis, not for their benefit. If they are no longer in my life, I can be grateful for the impact they had on my life without needing to convey my thanks to them.

I went on what I thought was a “date” just two days before my birthday. Naturally, their birthday ended up on my calendar. I told them I liked them, but my romantic feelings were unreciprocated. I’m aware how I will likely feel when that date comes up on my calendar. And yet, I won’t remove it.

The verses are sung in relay with a rawer, more intimate feel than the full length version where the verses are sung in chorus. ↩

Review: The 6% Club

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 03:16:00 +0000

The 6% Club offers a 100% money-back guarantee if you complete the program, publish 2 pieces, and feel that the program didn’t help. I joined the program wanting to start publishing on my personal website again, published 2 weeks in a row in September, then not again until months later. I’m not looking for a refund.

I found The 6% Club on a distracted workday after reading an article by Utsav Mamoria, one of the program’s founders/mentors. The 6% Club is designed to help you build a creative project and habit in just 8 weeks. I scheduled a 30 minute call with Utsav, who helped me decide that the program was a good fit for me: I was journaling and writing frequently but was afraid of and lacked the motivation to publish.

I spent the next several months telling myself that I should improve my website, write more often, or otherwise prepare to publish, but the program starting in two months gave me a convenient excuse to procrastinate.

By the time the program started, the fire that led me to sign up for the program had dimmed, and though I’d known before, I was dreading staying up late for sessions that lasted until 2:30am because the program was based out of India.

The first session reinvigorated me. The community was inviting. Utsav and Chuck’s cats, The 6% Club’s “official” board directors, kept the session engaging. Utsav and Chuck’s instruction inspired me to believe that I could succeed.

The following sessions and take home assignments focused on refining my Big Idea. One of my hangups was that I thought no one would care about what I wanted to write about; it was validating to hear that my Big Idea should live at the intersection of the things that I was the best and most knowledgeable about.

But I was also beginning to feel uneasy. How would I truly understand my Big Idea before starting to publish? Some advice started to feel like it was coming too soon: we were looking at the trajectories of creators like MKBHD to see how they had started off unpolished and generic, but all I could see was how far there was to climb. Other program participants felt much further along than me, and because I’d declined to attend some peer-feedback sessions I was starting to feel like I no longer belonged.

By the 4th and final session I was starting to wonder if I had made a mistake. We received advice about storytelling, audiences, and some more tactical tips for particular mediums, but all I could think about was how I didn’t understand my audience yet, and didn’t think I’d be able to get better at writing until I was actually doing it.

The time to start publishing came. While I was on vacation, everyone made a commitment to start publishing on the schedule that they had chosen. As an accountability mechanism, they would post a link to their piece in the WhatsApp group.

I returned from vacation and made my commitment to publish a short piece once a week. We “graduated” before I’d published my first piece, which left me feeling even more like an imposter.

The next two weeks, I published a piece each week. The high I felt after publishing stuck with me throughout the entire week, even making work feel like it had color again. The third week, I spent longer writing than I had either previous week, but having lapsed on my Kanji flashcards, I no longer felt authoritative enough to publish my article comparing the tools I’d used¹.

At first, I hoped that someone would come after me and tell me, you didn’t fulfill your posting commitment. A couple of weeks later I hoped they never would, and stopped feeling guilty for being part of the 94%.

In the space afforded by not writing, I decided that I should probably quit my job. Slowly, I was able to regain my motivation and resumed writing. In February, I left my job, focusing on deepening my friendships, and applied to Inkhaven.

For just $250 and a few late nights, The 6% Club rekindled my joy for creation. I’d say that helped.

WaniKani and jpdb.io. I managed to write this during Inkhaven, it ended up being a 3 post series, starting with an overview of my experience with WaniKani, then jpdb.io, finishing with Against foolproof software. ↩