Interview of a JetPunker #24 - cathlete

Hi my dear cathlete! Once again, you have all my congratulations for your victory on the sixth WITJ! Now it's time to think about the interview that you choose to keep for you (you did the good choice, in my opinion).

Hello! Thank you very much, and figuring everything out was like a fun puzzle! And whenever you are ready to send your questions, it's ok for me.

Perfect, so let’s start this interview! First, could you present yourself on JetPunk quickly for our readers who don’t know you?

Greetings! I’m Nick, better known as cathlete. I’ve been a “JetPunker,” if that’s a word, for quite some time now, having first created my account in 2012. I remember somehow coming across JetPunk all those years ago when I was a freshman in high school. I thought it was so cool to see how there was a quiz on almost everything imaginable, and I wanted to contribute. That’s what led to the birth of my first quiz about the kingdoms of life, which I decided to make since I was in a biology class at the time and noticed that such a quiz had not yet existed. I basically forgot about JetPunk for a few years until 2018, when I started taking more quizzes. Later that year, I realized I could contribute to JetPunk by creating Catholic quizzes, which inspired me to change my username to cathlete. Without realizing it, my mission on JetPunk has stayed the same since the day I created my account: to offer meaningful content to JetPunk that contributes in a unique way. 

You are the first interviewee active on the site in Spanish. What do you think about the JetPunk Spanish section? Do you think that you helped it with your numerous Spanish translations of English quizzes?

So I started out making quizzes only in English, but since I was no longer  taking Spanish classes, I hardly ever had a chance to practice Spanish (not many Spanish speakers in Ohio). This is where JetPunk served as an opportunity to practice Spanish in a new way. I grew to really enjoy taking and making quizzes in Spanish. I decided to help out by translating some English quizzes into Spanish. I think the most fun part of quiz-making in Spanish was doing my series on all the Autonomous Communities of Spain. 

I think with how much I contribute to the Spanish section of JetPunk (making less quizzes in English), I am sometimes thought to be a native Spanish speaker, but that is far from true. I majored in Spanish in college and even taught it for a short time, but I am simply an American who has had a love for the language for about a decade now!

You became known on the English blog section with your publications about mathematics. How did you come up with this idea? What is your relationship with this area of knowledge?

I remember first blogging shortly after the creation of blogs many years ago, just to ask if there was a way to get notification when someone responds to a comment, but later on I realized how embarrassing that blog was, and I deleted it. So I assume no one remembers my actual first blog, but as you stated, my true blogging began when I initiated the “Eurekas” of Mathematics series. I was so amazed at the creativity of the other bloggers at the time, and I wanted to contribute a blog which was different. I realized that there were blogs about science, history, geography, JetPunk, etc., but mathematics was neglected. Hence the creation of my blog series about interesting discoveries or other counterintuitive facts found in the field of mathematics. Saying I became known in the RUB by this series might be an overstatement as it seems were seldom read, but I appreciate your kind words!

I am currently in grad school for mathematics, and studied it, along with Spanish, during my undergraduate years. I foresee myself teaching mathematics, or at least working very closely with it, when I finish my studies, so I suppose there will be no escaping it now.

As explained in this blog, one of your blogs is the most liked of the Spanish section. Are you proud of it? More generally, you are with no doubt the most important blog writer of the Spanish section, although this one is not really active. Do you think it could be developed in the near future?

I am not sure I would say that I’m proud of the blog, though I am flattered that I was mentioned in one of your esteemed blogs. Sadly, the Spanish section is not active. I believe I was first inspired to begin blogging in Spanish because of prolific French bloggers like yourself. I thought writing some Spanish blogs could increase the activity, though this didn’t exactly succeed. It seems like most comments and likes that Spanish blogs get are from active bloggers that decide one day to check out the other languages. 

I was once again inspired by the blog you mentioned to hopefully bring some life to the Spanish blog community, so I posted a simple blog there. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if no one has noticed it, and if anyone did, they likely didn’t read it. It would be awesome to have other bloggers on the Spanish section, though it seems that the activity on the Spanish section of JetPunk as a whole has been dwindling the last several months.

I'm definitely convinced that the other blog sections could have their own and desserved place on the site. So courage, dear ambassador of the Spanish section!

You have also been an important publisher of JetPunk charts. Was it a good experience? Do you see them as a true part of the site, like blogs or quizzes?

I did post several charts shortly after the release of this feature, and would frequently check out other users’ charts. Unfortunately, this was a short-lived habit on my behalf, and I haven’t published a chart in quite some time. I personally am not sure I would consider charts to be at the same level as blogs and certainly not as quizzes. I think they can be a great way to enhance a blog. But it seems like they are commonly forgotten, as I sadly exemplified. 

Some interesting charts are still published, time to time. This feature is probably one of the most underrated of the site, in my humble opinion.

Some users also know you as the leader of the Imperium Sanctus. Could you quickly explain what it is?

Ah, yes, Geopro’s esteemed blog series, Dawn of the JetPunk Empires (DOTJE). I like to think of DOTJE as JetPunk’s ‘verse’. You’ve got the MCU, the DC(E)U, Star Wars’ “mandoverse”, then you have the DOTJE. Back in 2021, Geopro asked if anyone wanted to head an empire, so I decided to throw my hat in the ring. My empire was named Imperium Sanctus, Latin for Holy Empire. I’ll be honest, there was a point where I started to lose track of all the events happening in his series, but I regained my interest when bloggers started creating their own spin-offs. This inspired me to expand the universe more by publishing a blog about the history of the Imperium Sanctus.

I can’t wait for Geopro to release Part 17 to see the continuation of the storyline.

What is your own quiz you are the proudest of? And what about your favourite own blog?

This is where the questions get tougher for me. It’s hard for me to pick favorites. But if I had to choose the quiz that I am proudest of, it would have to be between either US Catholic Dioceses Map Quiz or Name All The Catholic Saints. The former initially took me a long time to make because I could not find an SVG of the US Dioceses, so I went to work drawing in the boundaries by hand. They didn’t look the best, which you can see in the Dioceses regional quizzes, so when I finally found a better SVG online months later, I decided to swap out my hand drawn SVG for a more professional one. The latter quiz also took quite some time as I tried to find every single saint by looking through Wikipedia and asking friends. Obviously, I wouldn’t be able to list them all since there is no written record of all of them. There are some individuals that were canonized centuries ago who have since been forgotten. Listing them in order of their death and providing a word to describe them made the task even harder.

I am not sure what my favorite blog is, so I’ll mention the blog that was most fun to write. That was the blog Pequeños y fascinantes: los colibríes. I had a lot of researching unique hummingbirds and sharing my findings.

Do you have big projects of quizzes or blogs in preparation?

I wish I could answer yes, but I do not. Thanks to winter break, I was able to complete all of the quiz and blog ideas that I had pending in my mind. I do plan to write another Eureka’s of Mathematics blog this year, which I think will be on shuffling cards!

What is the most important event in your own life as a JetPunker?

I think the most important event in the JetPunk realm of my life is probably winning your previous WITJ and receiving this interview. I remember seeing some of your first interviews and thinking how it is such an honor for them to be interviewed. I never imagined I would be interviewed.

But I think maybe this is a cop-out answer, so I’ll give a more fun answer that intersects with my real life. Back in the 2019-2020 school year, I was teaching a Spanish 1 class. This was the time in my life where I started to take a lot more quizzes on JetPunk, particularly in Spanish. It dawned on me one day that I could offer an extra credit opportunity to my class. I told them that I would be offering a chance for them to earn extra credit by naming countries in Spanish and that we would be using JetPunk (in case they wanted to practice). They earned 1 point of extra credit for every 5 countries they could name. I did have one student earn over 10 points of extra credit.

That's a cool initiative and an excellent way to evangelize people to the saint JetPunk website.

If you had to sum up your JetPunk adventure in one word, what would it be?

I think I would have to go with the word creative. I generally don’t consider myself a creative person. But thanks to this interview, I’ve had the chance to reflect on my time spent on JetPunk, and I realize that it’s helped me to tap into my creativity. I’ve had the chance to enhance my Spanish skills, come up with ideas for quizzes and blogs which haven’t been thought of, and even create a fictional blog. All of these things pushed me to think more creatively.

Would you change something to your JetPunk adventure, if it was possible?

I don’t think I would change my JetPunk experience whatsoever. I’ve enjoyed all the time I’ve spent taking quizzes, reading, researching, and learning. If I was forced to make changes, the only thing I would do is go back and keep myself active during the 5-6 years I more or less forgot about JetPunk.

If you had to choose just three JetPunker for their quizzes, who would it be?

This is probably the hardest question for me, but I would have to go with

mightythor

Momillo

islabonita

I also love overtired’s quizzes, but I tried to pick my favorite JetPunkers who aren’t as well known.

And for their blogs?

My favorite bloggers are 

hugopernia

baptistegorce

Stewart.

Thanks, I'm honoured.

What are your passions in life, excluding JetPunk?

I’ve already talked about some of the major things that I’m passionate about, so I’ll list some other hobbies of mine: running, traveling, bird-watching, plants, board games, ...

“JetPunk actuality question”: The JetPunk Daily Word Search will reach its term in a few days, for its first birthday. What do you think about it? Were you one of its regular players?

This is a good topic to mention (and a timely one too). It is sad to see the Word Search go, but I do understand the demanding time commitment that it takes to create them on Stewart’s part. I really appreciate all the work he has put into them. There was a certain point in time where I didn’t miss a Word Search for a few months but then I went on a trip to Europe which got me out of the habit of doing them everyday. Then with the hectic studies I had last semester, I stopped doing them altogether. It wasn’t until Stewart announced their eventual end that I decided I better start doing them again before they’re gone forever.

You are on the JetPunk Discord server, after having left it for almost two years. What do you think about this server?

Yes, I am on the Discord server, but I don’t use Discord at all, so between my lack of activity and the fast pace of conversation on the JetPunk server, I find it hard to keep up with its activity. I had initially left because I felt I didn’t have much to contribute and couldn’t keep up. I think I’ve realized now that if I open Discord (which doesn’t happen much), I can check out what’s going on in the Discord. Otherwise, I don’t really need to keep up-to-date with the conversations. It’s nice to drop in and say hi or take a look at what’s going on in the server every once in a while, but unfortunately I don’t have the time to be active on it.

What do you hope for JetPunk development in the next few months?

This is a bit biased on my part, but I would love to see more expansion of the Spanish section. I understand that it doesn’t get as much traffic as other sections (like French or Polish), but I would enjoy an increased activity there. I think the more quizzes/blogs that are published on the Spanish section, the more activity it will receive. And the more activity that it has, the more quizzes/blogs it has. But when you’re low on both of those, it’s hard to get unstuck.

Another nice change to see would be a RUB re-awakening. Perhaps the return of The Blog Games?? A return of some of the RUB-renaissance bloggers would be great too. But overall, I’m honestly pretty content with the change the RUB has seen the last few months. It was really dead towards the end of last year.

But neither of those are really related to JetPunk development. In terms of development (i.e., things that Stewart and QM control), it would be nice to see something new. I can’t think of any examples of cool, new stuff, so really anything to keep us on our toes and excited. It’s always nice to see bigger changes on the website; it keeps things fresh!

Do you have a message to pass to the whole JetPunk community (or at least to the few users reading these blogs…)?

I’m not good with messages, but I think I would just tell everyone to make the most of your time on JetPunk. Enjoy increasing your knowledge by taking and making quizzes. Enjoy reading and writing blogs. Enjoy the community that we have (take that, Sporcle). But most of all, find what it is that makes you enjoy JetPunk. There’s no point in being here and spending (likely) a lot of time on the website unless you’re getting something out of it.

Maybe another note worth making is to take people’s advice as it is. I’ve noticed a lot of users love to be very critical about the quality of quizzes and blogs. Don’t take it personally, but take it as it is. Analyze whether what they are saying is worth your consideration, or if they’re just trying to show off how smart they are by pointing out minor flaws.

Okay, the last thing I want to say here (I guess I had more messages to give than I expected) is to keep doing your thing. Even if you get no takes, or your blogs get no likes. There’s more on JetPunk (and in life) than # of takes or likes!

As you probably understood, it was the last question of your interview.

I would like to send my greatest thanks for your interviewing me. It was quite the pleasure!

It's me who thank you. It was perfect. That's always gratifying to have an implicated interviewee.