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Post by JessieMB on Jun 4, 2020 15:56:18 GMT
So, yeah, a lot has happened since SC began it's decline. Snoopy and I were kids when we first started talking to each other (18 & 20, I think?). We had our year of will they/won't they for dating, and we've officially been together since one week after my 20th birthday. We used to play MMORPGs together, work on manga together, and watch anime together. And now I basically hate all of those things. >_> - MMORPGs take sooooo much time and then make Snoopy so angry when something he worked really hard for doesn't work out in his favor. Also, I super hate being snyped by someone way higher than me who just feels like killing me when I'm trying to do a 100% non-PvP quest. ARGH. So, yeah, we don't do MMORPGs anymore.
- Anime/Manga - I have become such a feminist in my old(er) age, and I just cannot tolerate panty shots, giant breasts, and incredibly stupid/worthless/helpless female characters anymore. I also seem to have a deep disgust towards harem scenarios. Ain't nobody in life so awesome that he/she has *THAT* many people fighting for his/her affection. It's stupid. It's just stupid. And finding the good manga that don't have any of the above-mentioned s**t and do still have a good plot has become difficult. It takes so much time, and that's time I could be spending reading actual books or going on walks or doing training to further my career or playing outside with my kids. Anime & Manga just is not worth it to me anymore. And, of course, Snoopy doesn't have the same feminist aversions that I do, and that causes arguments/fights when he's watching something with a lot of fanservice. "No, I swear, this isn't normal in the anime/manga. It's only when you're looking at it!" Yeah...sure.
We did martial arts together for a long time, and we were soooo close to getting our black belt. But our martial arts school gradually got farther and farther away from our work and home. And, in Austin, traffic is horrible. We would spend 2 hrs commuting to a do a 1 hour class. And we were okayish with that - we found value in the class. And then I started IVF and couldn't participate anymore for my own safety, and then I got pregnant and couldn't participate anymore for the safety of the babies, and then the babies were born and they couldn't go to the dojang for the safety of all the glass that exists in a dojang (think mirrors). And eventually, it wasn't worth it to us anymore. I really miss it and I also feel like I just don't have the time for it right now. Raising twins is hard. We got married on our 10th anniversary as a couple, and then went to Peru for our honeymoon. That was amazing~~~~ We spent a total of 19 days in Peru, and 12 of those days involved us hiking through the Andes. On day 3 of the 12-day hike, I fell and sprained my ankle. So I spent days 3.5-8 on a mule while Paul hiked. Days 8-12 no mules were allowed, so I used two hiking sticks and a lot of awesome music (including music from the Rocky movies, of course) to help me finish out the hike. We got to visit a number of Incan ruins that most people don't get to see, and of course, the big one that most people do see - Macchu Picchu. Pro Tip: If you are going to do a long hike that includes Macchu Picchu, START with Macchu Picchu. If you end with MP and have seen the other locations first, MP isn't as impressive as you expect it to be. But if you start with MP, then you are starting on a high note and just keep getting better. If you have a chance to go to Choquequirao, you should do so. Right now, the only way to get there is by foot after a 2 day hike, and it is 100% worth it. Winya Wanya is also amazing and is actually only a 4 hour hike away from Macchu Picchu - so a lot easier to get to than Choquequirao. I could go on for ages about our Peru trip. If anyone is interested in that, let me know. I'll be happy to create an entire thread dedicated to my honeymoon. =p About a year after we got married, we started IVF to try to have kids. There is a medical issue that makes it impossible for us to have our own biological kids without extensive medical help. So, yeah, IVF. IVF is another thing I'm willing to have an in-depth conversation about with anyone who wants to know more about that experience. We were able to successfully get pregnant, with twins!, and our boys were born exactly one month prior to our 12/2 year anniversary (to the date.) Raising twins is hard. It's so hard, that most major cities have Support Groups for parents who have multiples (that's the hip lingo. Multiples = more than one kid born at the same time. Singlets = Kids who are born by themselves.) And those support groups are vital, vital, vital to helping us check our sanity and make sure that XYZ is not a "just us" problem. Hallelujah for support groups. I had postpartem depression for about 1.5 years after the boys were born. That's really, really common in women who give birth to multiples, by the way. It's actually really common, in general, and it's almost guaranteed for women with multiples. This is yet another topic I would be willing to talk about with anyone. I'm a very open person and I strongly believe in open-dialogue conversations. When I was 3 months pregnant with the boys, we became the (voluntarily) legal guardian of my then-14 y/o niece, too. So we very suddenly went from dual-income-no-kids straight to dual-income-two-infants-and-one-teenager. And 9 months after the boys were born, we went to single-income-two-infants-and-one-teenager. Banzai~ Izzy graduated from high school this May, the boys are toddlers now (3), and we are still single-income. But we're making things work. Thankfully, I have a high paying job in the IT sector, so cheers to that. COVID is kicking our butts emotionally and mentally because...well...we have twin toddlers and a teenager who has basically lost all of her social outlets. Also, we adopted a young puppy in mid-February. Our house is very loud right now....and it has a disproportionate amount of extremely energetic young-things compared to mentally & physically exhausted adults. But...we're making things work...sorta. That's a brief overview of our Life After Snoopycool.
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Post by JessieMB on Jun 4, 2020 15:57:44 GMT
Oh, and Snoopy did a stint as a fencer (with swords) for about 5 years, novelist for two years, woodworker for about two years, and has spent almost one year now on developing his own video game. I'll post links and pictures of his various hobbies later, in the hobby thread.
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amanharan
SnoopyCool
you don't have to be perfect, just be better than you were
Posts: 37
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Post by amanharan on Jun 4, 2020 18:03:20 GMT
since SC let's see, that has been a minute hasn't it
Gaming: knowing that i was simply too obsessive, had seen too many marriages fall apart citing MMORPG's, i tried to just stay away, this left me with a massive depression that i was finally pulled out of by happening upon Felicia Day's The Guild, discovering it when the second episode went live and following it the entire way, the final episode being published on the day I finished reading the last book of the Wheel of Time, felt, bittersweet to say goodbye to two things that got me through several very difficult years, instead of MMO's i play a lot of tabletop games and have had roughly the same DND group playing about every week for almost 20 years now. play a lot of magic and battletech (because who doesn't love giant stompy robots) probably the best part though is getting to take my kids with me to play in magic tournaments.
Anime/Manga: it took a while to get back into it, not really finding ones that interested my wife and I, then one day we realized the last anime we watched was Lodoss War and Fushigi Yuugi for the 8 millionth time and we should actually try something new instead of just lamenting the days of fansubs and waiting for the next tape to be subbed and brought to the US. Some of my favorites lately have been K and fullmetal alchemist (thanks to my kids for pushing me to watch it) and i'm watching through D Gray man with my daughters. They each have their own manga and series they've been enjoying and have picked up different hobbies from (one decided to learn Go after reading Hikaru no Go, and the other daughter has started playing volleyball this year thanks to haikyuu) my son likes some of them but with his own tourette's he hasn't quite gotten the hang of reading subtitles quite as fast, so insists we watch them dubbed (means we're not showing him tenchi)
life wise, let's see, graduated college with a CS degree, after a nasty political battle with the music department that ended badly. I now work for a risk analysis company doing linux systems engineering after spending 5 years as a sysadmin for the FAA. received a diagnosis of Tourette's Syndrome which came with so many answers and more eye opening of things than i'd expected. I've been rather vocal in support for groups that have been or are discriminated against in any way, I acknowledge i hadn't done so in the correct way and had been at times a rather bad ally to some causes, but as i grow i can only strive to be better than i was yesterday. Anyway, my job lets me work from home (i ended up requesting it as a reasonable accomodation for Tourette's) so covid while it's been stressful didn't impact my work too much.
i've been in martial arts almost constantly, having to take some time off at bursts for various reasons (graduating and moving away from kendo, major fights with Luck, injuries, etc) but i kept getting to almost black belt before leaving the school. My wife pushed me to judo and I've been loving it, though my judo instructor pointed out that he could tell aikido was my real first love. so while i'm about a year and a half out from black belt in Judo (would be only about a year now...thanks covid) my Judo instructor pushed me to find an aikido school and return to it and cross train. I was promoted to black belt right before everything shut down due to covid.
within the last year i decided i wanted to pick up and learn a new skill and decided to start learning photography. having OCD like i do means that i don't do anything half way, and obsess over every little aspect pinching other hobbies to pay for new ones and i've been loving it. i might post some of the pictures i'm more proud of at times, i'll post them to FB every now and then but mostly i'll share them to twitter and instagram when i get around to posting them. it's been really fun to look at pictures i shared last july when i first got a camera to the ones i've taken more recently, analyze what all i've learned and what mistakes i keep falling into, etc.
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Post by JessieMB on Jun 4, 2020 18:24:38 GMT
Congrats on the black belt. I'm super jelly~ (Sorry, South Park taught me that word a few years ago, and I kinda love it.) I would love to see some of your photos! Are you willing to add your instagram account to your profile or share a link here? If not, can you share the link to me in a PM?
Paul really, really enjoyed photography while we were training for and then in Peru. But, with all things, that eventually fell to the wayside so he could chase his next passion. (I forget which one it was.)
Congrats on the CS degree and the career. I'm sorry that some things didn't go the way you hoped, and I hope that you are happy with the way things are going now. It sounds like you have a strong family/home-life. I'm an IT Project Manager, and before that I was an IT Business Analyst for 10 years. I know just enough about IT and Systems and Software to sound like I know what I'm talking about~~ <3
Games - Do you use BoardGameArena or TableTopOnline? And would you be interested in running a boardgame of some sort for the rest of us if A) there is enough interest and B) we can ever successfully sync up our calendars? <--This last question was really the one thing I wanted to say in reply to you, and I figured I should add other things in before I made the ask. =p
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amanharan
SnoopyCool
you don't have to be perfect, just be better than you were
Posts: 37
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Post by amanharan on Jun 4, 2020 18:37:54 GMT
i've added my insta to my profile, really i can be found almost anywhere as amanharan.
the black belt itself really is a comedy of errors at this point. because we tested, but our instructor had run out of belts, then covid happened and i couldn't make it to the meeting to get mine, and he forgot whose belt it was sitting in his car and tested the next brown belt for his black an gave him...that belt...so i've been promoted to the rank...just...don't have the piece of cloth in hand yet lol
games, i've tried using tabletop simulator, and found none of my systems at home are quite up to being able to handle it. and so i haven't tried anything else yet. but depending on timing and if i can get a system able to run something it's be fun
some of my favorites are unearth (roll dice to dig up treasures and ancient ruins) elder signs (cooperative lovecraftian yahtzee) star realms and hero realms (space battle and midevil fantsy deck builders, i list them together cuz they are basically the same game just with a different skin) and i've been playing a lot of star wars x-wing with my son too.
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Post by JessieMB on Jun 4, 2020 19:32:15 GMT
Aman, I've moved our chat about martial arts into the Hobby sub-forum. It's under Hobbies -> Other Hobbies -> Martial Arts.
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Post by JessieMB on Jun 4, 2020 19:59:05 GMT
So far, the biggest similarity this forum has to the old forums is that my name is on almost every thread as the most recent update/post. >_>
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amanharan
SnoopyCool
you don't have to be perfect, just be better than you were
Posts: 37
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Post by amanharan on Jun 4, 2020 20:01:37 GMT
hey, i'm trying to keep up lol
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Cosmos
SnoopyCool
Reminiscing Typesetter
Posts: 37
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Post by Cosmos on Jun 5, 2020 0:46:18 GMT
Life after SC, huh? I have to think back to when everything started to change and I stopped posting in the forums. My mom passed away November 2008 from a sudden heart attack and it changed my life forever. I got off my butt and started seriously thinking about how each day could be our last. It was the first time I seriously ever lost someone in my life and it shook me to my core. 2009 brought about Japanese classes and a trip to Japan planned March/April 2010, we made a really good friend during Japanese class and got close to another that we casually knew through an anime group during that time (they went to Japan with us) and they continued to be our IRL hanging out buddies through the better part of 10 years (until mostly unknown reasons recently). Another person very close to me (a friend that started getting me out of my shell in 2003 and introduced me to my husband) also passed away after a 2 year (ish) battle with cancer in 2018, once again altering my perspective on life, friends and the world. Wow, a depressing first paragraph. In the happy times, we were able to conceive after year of trying (I had a 6 week miscarriage after the first month of trying, so a year was tough!). Terra was born in 2012 and has always been everything I thought having a kid could and would be, plus more. During our first three years or so, as I now recognize, I was also a victim of postpartum depression and had mommy guilt and freedom issues that lead me to taking "off work" to be a "stay-at-home" mom. Both of those are in quotations, because I don't think I ever did something that required so much hard work (emotionally and physically) or managed to get social and out of my house so much before. I joined several mom groups during that time and spent everyday out at the mall, baby classes or "friends" houses until coming to the realization I was once again a social outcast and disjointed from all but several in a group of 40+ that were talking behind my back like high school girls. Gotta love social media and living in suburbs that are located in the richest county in the US of A, but I did pull one really good friend out of that mess, so there's that. We found out when Terra was about a year that a lot of stuff we were told was "normal" and we were dismissed on (new inexperienced parents) was actually not normal. She screamed every chance she had for the first 6 months of life due to not getting enough food. Breastfeeding never worked out well, I had the "breastfeeding is the only way" burned through my head and was depressed and unable to cope with it well. And she NEVER SLEPT. At a year old or so she had a slight cold, not enough for me to take her to the doctor or give her "real medicine" and I stumbled upon a "natural remedy" safe for small kids night time formula, after much internet research I decided it was safe and gave it to her. Stumbling upon something life changing, Melatonin allowed her to sleep. MELATONIN LET HER SLEEP! To this day (8 years old now), she continues to require it about 30 minutes before going to bed or we never get to sleep or sleep very poorly (as in "we", I really do mean all of us). At the same time I battled G.I. and "woman issues" that finally came to a head this past November as being Endometriosis. It was an insane ride and I was/am so happy to finally have answers, surgery was done in late January and I was just coming back full-force (6 weeks being a "full-recovery" timezone) as COVID-19 hit. COVID has proven to not change our life in some of the drastic ways other have dealt with it (as in work/income cuts or directly being hit by the illness). Self-isolating has almost brought me to a PTSD place where I was homeschooled and isolated as a child, so that has been interesting. I now spend my weekdays working from home and am still fighting with a completely isolated only child on everything from chores and homework to what we watch on T.V. On a personal note, I went from running a very small branch office at a law firm into accounting when I found out I was pregnant. I was FINALLY doing what I thought I wanted to do for the rest of my life career-wise and then was bedwritten at 6 months due to early contractions and eventually quit, when I returned to looking for work it was on MY TERMS for the first time in my life. I was no longer the young adult with no education and no experience begging for a job. I was the 30-something with 5 years of odd jobs and 5 years of office management under my belt. I knew what I was looking for and learned quickly I was interviewing the employer the same way they were interviewing me. Within 3 weeks, I had 3 job offers and accepted what has come to be the best job I never knew I wanted. I re-entered the accounting business in a small tax firm (think 2 office, 13 people total) and after 5 years I am the sole office manager standing with 2 admins under me managing everything from IT to building contracts and actual tax and client work. My bosses are flexible, kind and understanding and I'm making more money than I had ever imagined someone would pay me. Unfortunately, after a series of bad financial decisions, we are still crawling out of a mountain of debt, but we are comfortable homeowners chipping away at what accumulated during the harder years. This past year or so has brought me clarity and a lot of thoughts of the future. We visited Japan again during the holiday season 2018/2019 with a then 6 year-old and eventually my 60-something dad (he lives with us, BTW and has since 2010). It was, by far, the best vacation I ever had. I spent countless hours of research and planning, pulling off a three week trip to the Kyoto and Tokyo regions (by that, I mean we stayed in a Kyoto townhouse and an Asakusa apartment, but took the train anywhere within an hour of each). We walked MILES a day with a kid in tow, spoke enough Japanese to get by and never met someone that made us feel unwelcomed the entire time. We have securely passed on the love of manga, anime, video games and all things Japanese to Terra. She is fully emerged in the culture and has also started to study Japanese. For the first time in my life, I have also started to make real progress studying Kanji with a website called WaniKani and am fully at N5 level at this point, the entire program should take about 2 years to complete. I still have an unexplained draw to everything Japan. I don't feel I have the culture obsession of "Otaku fever" that is popularized so much nowadays. I have no illusions about grass being greener on the other side and am well aware of the culture difference, racism and other things that are par for the course. However, I spend my days watching NHK world and still find myself most content when consuming Japanese entertainment and learning of cultural and local crafts. Speaking of martial arts, I have always wanted to try Akido and am severely jealous of you two being so advanced in the practice. I share in the sentiment of not being able to maintain such hobbies during the course of life. We leveled out of formal Japanese courses around Intermediate Level 1 and fell out of practice for the first 5 years of Terra's life. Classes, even in this area, tend to be hours of commuting on weekdays. Akido studios are near impossible to come by and can cost up to $300 a month for a single person membership as well, so I've never had the chance. It's on my list of many things Japanese I would immerse myself in, given the chance. And that's where I stand. The years have gone by quickly, but as I attempted to look back on how I made it through the most isolated parts of my life (and likewise, starting to feel nearly that isolated again), I find manga, Japanese culture and friends made as branches of it to be my rock (aside from my immediate family of course). Where I find the most relaxation and pleasure. I can share in the sentiment that it is SO mainstream and there is SO much harem and other fan fodder out there that it is incredibly hard to find the good ones. But when I find the good ones, the feeling is incredible. The remake of Furuba is amazing, Fullmetal Alchemist still holds a place in my heart. Catching up on oldies, but goodies Terra can watch like Ranma 1/2 and Hare+Guu has been incredibly entertaining. I still stumble across new series that speak to me, one such being Reincarnated As a Slime. If anyone is getting "into" anime, and wants something newer, or given up on it, I would wholeheartedly push that series on them and make them watch. And on that note, I'll end this. I got into the bad habit of rambling like I always used to on forums and livejournal, yikes!
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Post by JessieMB on Jun 5, 2020 2:38:34 GMT
Forums are designed for rambling. It's kinda the point. ^_^ Besides, we all have a decade of catching up to do - a decade where we changed from being 20-somethings to being almost-40-somethings, which is a huge change. There's a lot to talk about.
I think it's amazing that you've managed to find a job you love, inspire a love of other cultures in your child, and actually make a couple of trips out to Japan. Well done! As for the Aikido, Aman says he wants to start teaching it some day. Maybe you can talk him into doing some virtual lessons with you. ^_~
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Post by snoopy on Jun 5, 2020 4:20:22 GMT
Jessie covered most of the major ticks in our lives. To move in an existential path, I've had a very hard time replacing my sense of belonging and accomplishment that came with running SC. I was shit at it until about halfway through (and it was shit to me), but everyone seemed to enjoy what I did, and that gave me a much-needed confidence boost. When the site finally petered out, I was lost for a long time, and to a certain extent, I still am. I have the family, of course, and that's lovely (when the boys aren't trying to literally murder each other with xylophones), but my professional sense of self is still floundering around in the past trying to make a profession from a hobby.
Since I dropped out of school due to the workload at the site (priorities, people!), I didn't get my degree until 2012. I worked at a shit job for eight years with really great people, and then we were all summarily released when management decided we could have done better (I'm still not entirely sure what the whole point was, since the positions were all refilled with people making the same amount with less experience... but you know, not bitter).
While I was working there, I decided I wanted to write a novel. Two years later, and I have written a novel. Two people have read it.
Then I sort of fell back on creativity, I guess. I started woodworking, which was fun, but our babysitting support network (my elderly aunt) broke her arm last year, and that meant that I no longer felt comfortable leaving the house for the long hours at the workshop anymore. I still have two tables that are in pieces in the garage and one that I assume has been parted out for lumber at the workshop since I wasn't there to collect it for the past eight months.
Now, I'm basically doing the same thing I did when I first started SC: I began a project that I could never possibly finish with my current level of skills. Only instead of translating a ridiculously long manga with shit knowledge of Japanese, I'm making a game starting with next to no knowledge of coding. The only thing I'm lacking in this endeavor is the naive optimism of a college sophomore. Also, I only have eight hours a week to work on it.
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Post by cchhunter on Jun 5, 2020 13:27:20 GMT
I spent my introduction on a little bit of the things I did after SC in the scanlation world. While I haven't fallen out of love with anime (or what little manga I do manage to read) I do find it hard to focus and find something I enjoy, much along the same lines of us that still watch. Gaming has become my primary form of entertainment and that has consisted of games like Fallout, World of Warcraft, Simulation games (Harvest moon, Animal Crossing, SimCity, CitiesXL, Civilization, etc) countless mobile games, and of course consuming any new Metroid game that may come into existence. I've considered myself lucky over the past few years. I'm 11 years in the same job as a Gov't I.T. contractor (different contracts but same organization, a feat in and of itself). Heavy an 'essential' job has been a blessing during this COVID thing and it hasn't affected us, at least monetarily, as hard as it could have. As Cosmos mentioned, digging out of a pile of debt which has seemed like an uphill struggle for years may have finally peaked as we get on the downside of what remains to be a 3 year plan (I think it's 3 years). Once that's done and over with, hopefully we can do some serious looking at a move to Japan. In the internet realm I've managed to continue working with the Metroid Database on running one of the longest running video game websites on the Internet. My role today is much less than what it use to be as I don't have the time to contribute like I did back in our forum days. I recently stepped down as their FaceBook admin on their group to focus on a different group. That other group is playing an admin on a 65k+ FB group for the company First 4 Figures (they make video game/anime scale resin statues (and PVC now)). I've been with their FB page since day one and have harbored the nickname "The Law" due to my heavy handed use of banning assholes and rule breakers,though even that has waned as the company becomes more public and the bureaucracy of the licensors such as Nintendo and Capcom take notice. It's a great volunteer position and helps me get discounts on my Metroid statues I get from them In the personal life, having a child has definitely had an impact on our way of life and the way we see the world, especially with all the craziness going on now. Being a parent is truly an eye-opening experience with many pluses and negatives. Now that Terra is a bit older, the release of more of our freedom from the clutches of her attention reign is a breath of fresh air and also depressing as we lose more and more of that 'parental need' that she once had. Granted, with COVID and the lack of social interactions, that attention has skyrocketed back to unprecedented levels. One thing I've learned is that you can't be a parent, a teacher, and a playmate all at the same time. She has eventually just lost all interest in us trying to educate her while she is out of school and her calls for attention while we are trying to work can be absolutely unbearable at times. Right now, I'm sure she is running this house just so we can keep our sanity. Like, Cosmos, I've been also self-learning Kanji through the wanikani website. This has been one of the only personal learning resources that I've actually been able to learn and retain from. It's exciting to be able to recognize kanji but I'm even more excited to being able to start utilizing it in full sentences at some point My hope is to get enough kanji in my that I can then turn to the genji books to start learning grammar structure and such again. Most of those basics we got during our few semesters of Japanese but I quickly lose that stuff but hopefully a lot of it will jive once I start getting back into it. I think over the last 10 years, my biggest struggle has been with myself. My mental health started on a dive and I find myself depressed, unmotivated and just downright scared of life to the point where I feel like I'm wasting my life away. I've had no desire for career promotion, I've been perfectly happy where I'm at and with what I'm doing. I've been told I should want to strive for better, but I don't feel that way. Shutting down became a constant defense mechanism anytime there was an argument. I've felt, especially during this COVID thing, like I'm alone and that no one really cares about me because no one ever reaches out to me just to check on me (except one friend who does so rarely). It's made me scared of getting older and being that 'old guy in the retirement home that never gets visitors' to the point where old age is a depressing and fearful exchange of thoughts. Last year, I started talking to a therapist and began to work through some of these things. I could feel a positive direction starting to come out and while I haven't completely reverted, COVID has definitely put me back some as I haven't been able to do any office visits to talk. I could do 'telehealth' but it's too impersonal for me to want to be genuine in conversation. Definitely more work and more of a journey to take and I know (or at least I hope) in the end I will come out feeling better about myself and better equipped to handle emotions and situations better. Overall, I've found life to be easy in the day to day in a physical/job/waste time and difficult in the mental capacity. I'm hoping, that once we get out of debt, have a bit more freedom, and a change of scenery, that things will start to really click into place on the things I and we want to do. I'm sure there was more I was going to write, but I got distracted by a Metroid video lol.
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Post by JessieMB on Jun 5, 2020 16:15:21 GMT
We do virtual meetings for our therapy. (Apparently, we all need therapy, these days.) It's not nearly as good as an in-person visit, but it does have benefits. At the very least, we sit and talk and have a face-to-face (kinda) conversation with someone for an hour. Just talking about grown-up things. (And not the kind of "talking about grown-up things" we have to do with the 18 y/o as she prepares herself for her own walk into adulthood.) We hate being parents. We absolutely hate being parents. Before kids, I was a hiker, a long-distance walker, a runner, and a martial artist, Paul was a fencer and martial artist, and we went hiking across some of the tallest peaks in the Andes for 12 days (one of us had a sprained ankle during that time, too.) Now I'm fat (100 lbs heavier, in fact), we never do anything away from the house, our social circle has become damn near non-existent, and we don't really like each other anymore, either. And then there is the screaming. The constant screaming. And the breaking things and the crying and the always filthy (not just dirty, straight up filthy) house no matter what we do and the extremely emotional (and a little emotionally damaged) teenager. And fucking hell. So...yeah, we do therapy. It's not great, but it does give us one hour every week where someone else is telling us that we're normal and not as screwed up as we feel like we are.
I encourage you to try the teledoc stuff. It's not great. But it is much, much better than trying to fight through all of it alone. Depression is an evil poison that cannot be cured by ourselves alone. //end preaching and bitching
P.S. I do a lot more cussing these days than I used to.
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Cosmos
SnoopyCool
Reminiscing Typesetter
Posts: 37
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Post by Cosmos on Jun 5, 2020 18:06:35 GMT
Jessie, I do very much agree with the telehealth. I began therapy first and have also continued with the "online visits", I'm at the point where I think I want to change therapists because all I do is moan and groan for 50 minutes about how life it hard. Justify it with how everyone probably has it harder and end the call. But it does help to just have a one-way conversation with an adult about adult things and then get on with my life for the next 7 days. We haven't worked on any of my deep seated issues or personal growth since COVID and teletherapy started, it's seriously a $40 copay to complain for 50 minutes to someone and then I hang up. But I usually feel a little better afterwards and have resigned this to being life for now. We also have a network consisting of exactly one person to help us through life, my dad, who lives with us. He's not much emotional or parenting support - but we can pretty much leave the house during any set hours he's not at work and be human adults by ourselves. No kids or parents, which is a huge asset to not be overlooked. With no standard network of grandparents, cousins, aunt's, uncles and even decent friends it becomes very daunting sometimes. I plan to capitolize on that lack of connection where we are and pick up to move to Japan in the future, but for now it has no merits.
Snoopy, where I am in a solid spot with a job right now, I feel very similar as far as a career goes and this is actually one of the major reasons I began therapy. I have recently shaken my values down to the core to try and figure out what the hell I'm doing. I feel like in reflection everything was done on a set path that I'm not sure I ever actively engaged in choosing. Married > Move for better jobs > Have a Kid > But a House. Everything to support that was just there and didn't have much thought or meaning behind it. Why did we move for better jobs? To support the other two. The kid came before owning a house, simply because we decided that was how it needed to be. But the house is there to support the general family structure and overall financial being. Do I actually want a house probably 2x bigger than we really need? Do I want a yard that has superficial meaning behind it? Do I want to sit behind a desk 8 hours a day? Started asking questions like this lately with the answers coming up as "nope, why am I then?"
I would love to have a solid conversation with like minded people about career and how they feel about it. I'm assuming I would one day be happy being in a career that supports the "hobby" in some fashion (very much in quotes, because as mentioned I am pretty much taken by anything Japan). Does that mean I translate? Blog? Photographs? Become a merchant? A craft person? Martial Arts? I have no clue. I even thought it would be sorta awesome to do many lettering, design and negotiations, but the tainted companies bent on profits rather than quality would probably kill that for me. You can't get a VISA in Japan without getting hired someone or having a pretty solid portfolio and proof you need to be there. So yeah, this will be fun.
And to end, Jessie - hell yes, I started "cussing" here and there too. After a very long conversation about how I don't/never have cussed because I was brought up in a Christian household where my mom sounded more like a sailor, but told me I was to NEVER say those words because the Bible said so. I could never find the fated list of banned vocabulary, not to mention I cannot even find much mention of cussing at all being discussed. Taken upon also the hit that my logical brain has taken the liberal side of religion and a hell yeah or sh*t when I stub my toe escapes now. *shrug*
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Post by JessieMB on Jun 5, 2020 18:25:20 GMT
Cosmos, I've recently started doing some soul searching about jobs, too. I am someone who is never 100% satisfied with my job and I've never been able to figure out what job I "want". I've been working for the Texas State Government for six years now, and it's fine. It's a stable job with co-workers I truly, truly love like (almost) family. They are amazing and wonderful people, and having worked in places with less wonderful people in the past, I know how blessed I am to be surrounded by co-workers I would 100% invite to my house for a game night every night of the week (if I were less ashamed of the filthy state of my home.) And I still want "more". Long ago, I worked a job with shit, shit, shit management and a noble goal/purpose that really spoke to me. I grew up in a poor family, like never-really-sure-if-we-would-have-Christmas-this-year poor. And when I moved here to Austin, I got a job that helped get kids like me into low-cost health insurance plans for parents like mine could take their kids to doctor visits instead of having to buy over-the-counter meds and pray that the issue was nothing serious. We received many letters from parents thanking us for the CHIP program and telling us stories about the medical help they were able to get their kids that would have otherwise been out of their reach. That meant a lot to me. Like...I'm all teary-eyed and breathing deep so I don't cry while I'm typing this right now. (Caveat: I'm so emotional during COVID lockdown that Michelle Obama's book has me crying ((for NO REASON)) every 10 minutes. So take my tears with a grain of salt.)
My current job doesn't really have a purpose like that. We raise money for the Permanent School Fund of Texas, which is supposed to be used for...schools in Texas. But A) I know damn well most that money gets siphoned off for other political purposes and B) we raise those funds through a lot of oil and gas drilling and fracking. Every time a community gets concerned about a large oil pipeline going through their area or have proof that nearby fracking is contaminating their well water, we bring in our big-boy lawyers to shut them up. That doesn't sit right with me, and still I go to work every day and earn my Oil-Money paycheck.
More and more, I have started to want to go into a non-profit job or something that genuinely works towards empowering others or improving the lives of others - and does so in a way I believe ethical. But I literally can't afford to do so. Even with a government paycheck, which are usually lower than private company paychecks, I still make more money than I could possibly hope for at a non-profit. And our family can't live our current lifestyle on less than I bring home now - not really. I've talked to Paul about maybe buying a smaller house, but the housing market here is so crazy expensive that even a small house would still cost as about the same as our current mortgage that we bought into 6 years ago.
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