So today I experienced success at soldering a small project together for the very first time in my life.

I am a little unhappy that one of the Resistors is still sticking up and not fully rested on the board because people always take pride in their craftiness in this field. But it doesn't really matter to the flow of electricity, it matters to looking as professional as possible, So it works. But, this was my first, and it was a minor project, surprising how long even this took ah well.

Right now I'm learning to deal with cleaning Solder out of Through holes as there's solder clogging some of mine that I'll later have to run components through. Taking some wick in with me, probably later today. I'm over the moon at this point. I've wanted to learn how to do this forever and it keeps being an issue. Want to test out fault injection attacks? OH, we'll sell you the parts to build it yourself, but we won't preassemble it for you. Oh, want to install mod chip? All the mom-and-pop techs in town will refuse due to legality being too murky.
Apple using soldered on components everywhere, the realization that this skill willl get me into PCB Repair etc.

my head is swimming right now but there's a path in front of me, I just need to walk it.