Positives, negatives and everything in between fickraken

Wow, it's been a while. Hello, Odin.

Pos: Done with school (for now).
Pos: Managed to finish a couple of drawings.
Neg: Winter.

Pos: Was sick last week, finally feeling 100% myself today, went for a hike.
Neg: Suppose to rain for 4 days or so. I like the rain, but hate not having the option to leave my home unsoaked.
Frick: Slowly getting back into drawing. Did a bunch of goofy spooky stuff for December to post on my instagram (called it deadcember. the only other people using that hashtag were deadlifters.) Now currently working on a Bowie piece to celebrate his birthday/his death -_-. When finished, if looks good, might frame and give to coworker who loves Bowie. Maybe i'll post here if it's good enough.
Pos:Got my copy of Batman Return of the Caped Crusader in the mail today.
Pos: It's hilarious.
Neg: My friend David haaaated it <_<

Negative: My Granfather died
Negative: I'm too poor to afford my medication... and food.

My condolences Sam, I hope things otherwise have been looking up. Whenever you are able please update us, my thoughts are with you.

Neg: Moving really, REALLY sucks, especially when you have gained a lot of crap due to living alone for nearly 8 years. Putting things in boxes, cleaning things up, taking apart things, it is all such a pain

Neg: And now I keep thinking about all my friends who are staying here, which sucks because Knoxville TN is a 10 hour drive, so its not like I can just go and visit them. I hope I am able to get on with Southwest by the end of this year, that would be nice...

^ Moved to Georgia with family first week of October, I know moving pains.

Then I spent the last four months unemployed, only to land two retail part-times within a week and a half (the latter this morning) that pay better than my previous jobs. And a five hour substitute teaching orientation tomorrow just in case I still have days with nothing on them!

I've been reading to fourth grade boys at a nearby elementary school during their lunch break a day week for the past month through the public library, it is as fun as it sounds. The longer it goes on, the more comfortable they get. A Jeff Kinney biography held us most of two days, this week we had a book with a bargeload of silly illustrations, some with Where's Waldo levels of intricacy- but only a few sentences a page- basically built to get goofy gut reactions out of kids.

Awesome you got that gainful employment!

That library thing sounds AMAZINGLY adorable, I love libraries so much T_T

Been so busy lately with exams, interviews, regular work and wedding preps!

Regarding that last point, with 5 weeks to go before the deadline, we have 55 ''Yays'', 3 ''Nays'' and 47 hasn't answered yet. We sent the invites at the start of February so I suppose the rate of them coming in is normal? Sometimes, we worry about them coming in too slowly...

March Break is giving me a chance to relax a bit. No more interviews scheduled for now and the 2 incoming midterms shouldn't be too hard.

Rainstorm wrote:

My condolences Sam, I hope things otherwise have been looking up. Whenever you are able please update us, my thoughts are with you.

Things are better, I suppose.

Positive: Hap top surgery yesterday
Negative: It hurts

That's really good to hear! If you ever need an extra ear for listening to anything, I can provide that, I'd like to provide anything I can and that's the only thing I can think of.

I'm glad the surgery went well, I hope you have a speedy recovery!!

Neg: I got rejected from every grad school I applied

Pos: I have the support, I got through the crushing everything, no idea what the future looks like, I'm going to reapply probably, but it was scary. I didn't think I could do anything other than research with my life, I didn't think I was able, I still don't know if any other career can even make me happy.

I'm taking a programming degree with co-op, it'll be good for research skills, it'll be employable, it'll be something. I'm deciding where I want to go from there September 2018 when its time to reapply to graduate school. I hope co-op will help me understand what I need to do.

Its scary, the path is all gone, its freeing too. I breathed a sigh of relief I didn't realize I was keeping in.

I also have to live at home, I've been trying so hard for that to not happen, I'm so scared, I'm scared I'll lose myself, who I've built myself up to be, all my independence. My parental relationship is complicated, they are the best, but my mom didn't take my queerness well, and it can be restricting. I did say I would need my space, they were willing to get me an apartment, let me phase out and start my life. Which was absolutely amazing, it gave me a lot of hope, I could get a job, start doing payments on my own, just do me. But the diploma is my best bet at a career of any kind, and the program with the most likely ability to get co-op is in the city where my parents are moving to. So I'm living at home, its the only decision. I feel better that they are TRYING to treat me like an adult, I just have to keep trying to keep being me, being mindful of their feelings, but not backing down.

Home's gonna be hard, but I have hope I can make it better than it could have been. It's scary having to hold myself together when I'm not on my own, when I'm among my family. I tone myself down, I'm more polite, I'm different because they are all so much older. I don't resent that, it's just scary for me when I've come into my own, on my own, and now I'm going back into only that environment.

But it's just scary, I'm not stressed, I have an approximate plan, more than I can really ask for with how life works, I have support, my family is trying their best. I have my friends, I just won't be visiting distance for a while, it was nice to have that once in my life for a bit. Hopefully I can make some new ones, hopefully I can meet a guy that likes me back. I don't want my life to be on pause just because I'm home, dating is gonna be hard but I'm not gonna bring all that baggage with me, no one wants that.

I love my family so much, they really are trying. I feel bad, I know my parents just want to provide for me to set me up for a career without my having to incur debt, but college is just as expensive as University, I was intending on saving money during my Masters, paying for a PhD on my own if I got into that, or just starting my life after the Masters having that saved money to use as a down payment. Now, I'm not sure how it's gonna work, I don't know the timeline. I want them to retire as soon as possible. If I do a Masters i'm probably going to try to pay for it myself, save money with part-time jobs over the diploma I'm doing, use that to at least have first and last for an apartment/a cushion so I can actually afford to eat on a Master's stipend. It's scary, but I really have the support, I'm lucky.

Have I said it's all very scary? I get that starting out on your own and change is generally scary, I was prepared as I could be for THAT, it's really just the unsureness of how home is going to affect me, I was certain I would lose my success in managing my mental health, now I might have a fighting chance, but I don't want to go back to the places I've been before. Home, even just for reading week, usually made me have to take a mental recovery period to get back in my healthy groove. It's gonna be a fight, but I'll just have to fight it (I say to reassure myself more than anything)

That is my life, all one big pos/neg/fick I had no idea how to parse it all

Pos/Fick: So I haven't posted in here since last year, might as well give an update for anyone who hasn't been following along on facebook.

In the last few months my mental health has stabilized in a big way. That's not to say I'm "cured" or anything, or that certain aspects of my life don't still bother me. I'm just not completely crippled by those things.

For all I know, I may be a hopeless hermit with no offline friends for the rest of my life, and I will always be bothered by that on some level unless it changes. But at least now I can function and make the best of the positive aspects that I do have in my life. My job's going better than its ever been recently, and over the past months I've been catching up on a lot of gaming I hadn't gotten around to because of a lack of enjoyment in the activity due to depression.

My brother may still be moving, though it's nowhere near as set in stone as I thought it was. It's going to suck if he moves - he's the only person in this state that seems to give a shit about me - but I'll just have to deal with it if it happens.

That's great to hear Tenshi! And to be perfectly honest...I forgot what your real name was, I knew I had you on Facebook, but I couldn't find you. It just clicked and I remembered, found you!!! Thanks for the update! I hope your brother can stay

Honestly, hearing you say that gives me a lot of hope, managing my mental health in my home situation has never been good, I've gotten stable during my time away from it, but seeing you get through over the past few years, it reminds me that I'm gonna be okay (it just might suck for a bit)

Tenshigami wrote:

Pos/Fick: So I haven't posted in here since last year, might as well give an update for anyone who hasn't been following along on facebook.

In the last few months my mental health has stabilized in a big way. That's not to say I'm "cured" or anything, or that certain aspects of my life don't still bother me. I'm just not completely crippled by those things.

For all I know, I may be a hopeless hermit with no offline friends for the rest of my life, and I will always be bothered by that on some level unless it changes. But at least now I can function and make the best of the positive aspects that I do have in my life. My job's going better than its ever been recently, and over the past months I've been catching up on a lot of gaming I hadn't gotten around to because of a lack of enjoyment in the activity due to depression.

My brother may still be moving, though it's nowhere near as set in stone as I thought it was. It's going to suck if he moves - he's the only person in this state that seems to give a shit about me - but I'll just have to deal with it if it happens.

It sounds like you can take care of yourself. I've been stuck at the same retail job for 11 years because I don't have any connections, and I'm still living with my parents. I went to community college and I'm more than qualified for an entry-level office job, but I can't even get an interview. Its really depressing being at a job I hate for so long, especially since I'm starting to hate everyone I work with. Not being off on the weekends like the rest of my family is makes it even worse.

I'm not sure what your family situation is, but my sister and brother are about an hour away from me. Sometimes I feel like they're in another country because I don't hear from them very often, and they don't invite me to do things with them very often, either. I guess I have one friend, but he seems to be busy all the time and doesn't like going out after work.

^My sister is about an hour from me as well, but I don't have a car or a driver's license, and it's more like 3+ hours by bus. My brother is closer, at least for now, and we hang out every couple weeks or so.

I was stuck at home with my parents as well until a couple years ago, so don't be too hard on yourself about that. Even now I live in an apartment that's literally like 5 minutes (by car) away from their house.

I know how it feels being stuck at a retail job - I worked at a movie theater for about 8 years, and two of those were after I finished college. (That is to say, it also took me SEVEN YEARS to finish a two year degree at a community college...) The only reason I even found my current job (which I've now had for over 5 years) is because my dad works there and got me an interview.

It's also taken me those 5 years at my current job just to move up from QA into the Software Engineering career I've wanted since I was in my early teens, and again it was less through my own power and more because a coworker pulled some strings to get me moved to his team. The team I started on seemed to be nothing but a dead end no matter how hard I tried.

Positive: Overtime pay, finally take some pressure off the budget.
Negative: Car inspection is due. Needs at least tires to pass. Ugh, more bills.

Fickracken: Konosuba Spoilers

Laogeodritt wrote:

Neg: Holy crap am I busy this summer.

looool, two-years-ago me. loooool.

Negative: Holy crap am I busy this summer.

Pos: My baby girl Luna Lucina here! She's already one week old

Pos: 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim got a new/longer trailer. When are we finally getting the game, though?

Neg: No Animal Crossing news.

Pos, I guess?

I'm so hyped for Xenoblade Chronicles 2... I've been relistening to the OST and it's so good.

Pos: Just got a new graphics card for my aging pre-built PC. Before it had an AMD Radeon HD 5570 installed, but I got a GTX 1050 Ti to replace it and the performance upgrade is astronomical. Well worth the money and the nightmare I experienced installing it and adding new thermal paste to the CPU cooler.

Pos/Fick: Just did a one way video interview for a job I applied to, and holy crap did I sound awkward while recording it. I've actually never had a job before, so I hope something happens with this. It'd give me something to do while on my college vacation.

Pos: Got Symphonia for PC.
Neg: Oh my god how did I ever beat this game before. I died 3 times just trying to reach the Martel temple at the very beginning of the game. And I'm even using a controller with it, none of that keyboard nonsense.

Fickracken: 2nd anniversary was yesterday, to a very lovely lady I met in college and have been with for 8 years already.

Edit: Oh that's why I was having such trouble. I accidentally set the difficulty to hard.

Pos: Haven't been online for 2 years and what do I see when I get back? A new post in every subforum! All those orange gells are a welcome sight.

I just created a Discord account...

Neg: No friends on it

Harbinger wrote:

I just created a Discord account...

Neg: No friends on it :P

Oh c'mon, I totally count!

Slivendiferious wrote:

Harbinger wrote:

I just created a Discord account...

Neg: No friends on it

Oh c'mon, I totally count!

Ironically enough, I created a Discord account, then I posted here about having no friend, then I saw an unread message