My name is Derek Andersen. I'm also known on the internet by the username Dechrissen.

I have a lot of interests, but the ones that have stuck with me the most over the years are writing, working on projects, programming, video games, and coffee. These also tend to overlap — for example, I like working on projects that involve programming, often they're game-related, and I like to reflect on them through writing about them. And I have coffee at the same time.

I've loved video games since I was a kid. Here are some of my favorite series.

In 2019, I got into speedrunning Banjo-Tooie on Nintendo 64. I don't do it anymore, but speedrun livestreams are still something I like to watch in my spare time.

At the end of 2024, I worked on a romhack of the Gen 1 Pokémon games which addresses some minor "issues" they have — but it's really more of a love letter to Gen 1 than anything else.

In college, I studied linguistics and took some programming-related courses. Language was interesting to me, so after a few changes in academic direction, I ultimately landed on linguistics as a major. I focused on Japanese as a second language at the time (for this reason, many of my academic papers relate to its structure). In 2018, I completed my Bachelor's in Linguistics. After that, I decided to pursue graduate school; in 2021 I completed my Master's in Computational Linguistics.

If you're curious about my academic work, feel free to peruse it here.