January - March : Anesthesia residency at Boston Medical Center. Learn that all patients lie and like everyone uses drugs. I work 18+ hours six days a week and start to drink. Heavily.
April: Anesthesia residency at Quincy Medical Center. Find a rural area outside of Boston where people still hand-roll their own cigarettes and smoke without filters. Everyone is fat. Continue to drink heavily whenever possible.
March - August: Anesthesia residency at Mt. Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, MA. More 18+ hours in the hospital and learn to appreciate the yuppie Ivy League patient. Drinking gets worse, but still am never late to the hospital, don't kill anyone.
Generally became a high functioning alcoholic.
September - Current Day: Anesthesia residency at several other Boston based hospitals. Different specialties.
I had no idea my entire life was going to be forfeit for this stupid fucking specialty.
January: I begin preparations to move out of my parents house and move in with my friend I've known since middle school in a house he's bought in Delaware. I have a retail job at a grocery store which pays moderately well and $3000 in savings.
I apply for a supervisor position in my department. I am single, soon-to-be independent, and all is well.
February: I am settled in my new home. I appreciate the manual labor my job provides and the slight authority I have over the part-time workers in my department. I make friends and enjoy going out with my roommate to bars because we is two swingin' bachelors. I end up going out to some nice clubs and spend a few hundred of my savings through Feb and March, thinking I can always make it up later by being frugal in later months.
March: I meet a girl at work who shows interest in me. We go out a few times and end up hooking up. She tells me she feels a connection with me and that she doesn't do "this" with just any guy. A few weeks later, I fall violently ill with food poisoning. I'm sick for three weeks solid through a business trip to upstate NY. When I come back (three days later), she's fucking another guy. I am furious, and proceed to make her life a living hell by airing the dirty laundry out in front of everyone we work with. She is labeled as a whore, but continues fucking said guy. Not my finest moment. I never speak to her again and things go back to a pseudo-normal routine.
My car needs new tires, a new alignment, and a serpentine belt, which costs me $600 of my savings to purchase and install.
April: I nod off and crash my car at 3 a.m. against a guard rail on the highway after coming home from a friend's house and spin the opposite direction of traffic. Surprisingly, the car still works and I'm able to drive it home the 2 miles since I only collided with a wall. I slam my shit in my room, angry as hell that I nodded off and that I didn't pull over to fall asleep when I realized I was tired, and find my roommate with a gun pointed at my head. He is still half-asleep, and thought someone was breaking into the house with all the noise I was making.
Not surprisingly, my car is totaled and I spend $1800 (read: the rest of my savings) to purchase a shitty '95 Ford Escort to get me to and from work until I can get myself situated financially.
May: I continue saving money to replenish my savings, essentially going to and from work and nowhere else to save gas (my commute was 28 miles), going out occasionally. There is a heat wave with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. The house does not have air conditioning, so I sleep naked for days while I have ten thousand fans blow on me.
In the heat, the Escort blows a cylinder on the way to work and my car develops a hydraulic "hop" to it. I take it to a mechanic who cannot reproduce the problem after 7 hours of working on it, so I drive it around the block with him in the passenger's seat and he watches as it hops up and down. He still has no fucking clue what it could be, so I continue driving on it until I can get it to a mechanic who isn't a dumbass.
It's also my birthday month! I go home for my birthday and go to a local bar that does karaoke every Tuesday, and meet my current girlfriend there. A week later, my car stops moving. Her father, a former mechanic, recommends a good shop and the mechanics there immediately diagnose it as a bad cylinder, pricing it at more than the car is worth.
In the midst of this, I interview for a position at a company in New Jersey that does medical writing.
June: Time to go car shopping again! I spend a Saturday with my parents going from dealership to dealership, finally settling on a Pontiac Grand Am with relatively good mileage. I tell the salesman I am strongly considering purchasing it but ask him to hold it for me while my parents and I go to lunch so we can talk about it. We go to lunch, and I intend for my father to drive it when we get back.
We return 30 minutes later and the car is gone. Someone came into the dealership while we were gone, drove the car, loved it, and paid for it up front in cash. As that was the only car in my price range at the lot that wasn't a heap of junk, we prepare to leave. Just then, a woman comes in with a New-Edge Mercury Cougar as a trade-in. I drive the car, like it, and put a deposit down on it so the car doesn't disappear.
I purchase the car and take out a loan and begin using it as my day-to-day car. Not two weeks after I buy it, it refuses to start and the check engine light comes on. I have it towed to the only mechanic within 3 miles of my house because I don't have a premium AAA subscription (normal AAA members only get towing for the first 3 miles) and it's the same guy who couldn't figure out my Escort had a bad cylinder.
Just as you've suspected, he can't figure out why this car doesn't start, because it starts for him. Chalking it up to a fluke, I take it home and think nothing of it. Well, it happens again. And again, and again, from different angles. Finally, I figure out I can start the car by shooting starting fluid straight into the engine.
July: Intermittent car problems continue to happen. Work becomes stressful as my former supervisor gets promoted and promptly replaced with someone else, completely overlooking my application. This company, which prided itself on promoting from within, hires some asshole from outside the company. I am not pleased.
August: After four interviews with the New Jersey company, I get hired on as a medical writer. I am ecstatic and immediately put in my two weeks. My coworkers, who knew from the beginning I would leave if something in my major comes along, wish me well. My new supervisor and corporate give me a hard time about giving me my paid time off. I threaten to walk off the job instead of training my replacement if they don't give me the time. They quickly change their attitude, as the new supervisor, who I also helped train, doesn't know everything I do from being there almost a year.
My new job starts, and it's fantastic.
September: My battery and alternator go in one big messy fit. I have the car towed from an Autozone, where the sales associate failed to get the car started with his Mustang, to a National Tire & Battery to replace the battery and alternator. The mechanic replaces the battery but cannot get the car started. I have it towed to a Ford dealership down the road to finally have it properly analyzed, which ended costing me $800 with battery, alternator and crankshaft positioning sensor included (the car has since never failed to start, hooray!). I am on a first name basis with the AAA tow drivers at this point. His name is Jesse, and he was very nice.
October: The new job is going well. My roommate and I throw a Halloween party where we end up throwing out one of my former coworkers from the grocery store for lighting up in our finished basement and for generally being a drunk dumbfuck who was hitting on my girlfriend and my roommate's sisters hardcore.
My car is driving funny when I get it back from the Ford dealer, so I take it back they analyze it for free, concluding I need a new lower ball joint in the front of my car. Normally, the task would take less than an hour, but my special needs car is such that you need to drop the transmission in order to get to it, so the repair is quoted at $1200. I take it to a shop by my work and they quote me at a much more reasonable $375.
November: I start to get signs that my transmission might be going. I hit a rock on my new commute home and split the oil pan open on the bottom of the car. Having maxed out the amount of money I want to spend on this car, I instead start to save and hope I don't crash and burn before I pay off my car loan.
At Thanksgiving, I learn my parents are moving to North Carolina as of January 2, so my brother, who is currently living there, has to find an apartment in my fucking expensive hometown on a retail hourly rate. I cannot move in with him because that would increase my commute to 1.5 hours each way and he does not want to move down to where I am because of his girlfriend. I also now have no avenue to ask for help from family in the area.
I guess this is what being an adult feels like.
December: I am writing this.
Sorry it's so long, I sort of got carried away there.
A good time for reflection. This year was a tale of two halves.
The Bad Half January: The year starts. Things are looking good. Returned from a great trip to visit the In-Laws in Canada. Grandma is in the hospital but life is going ever so terribly well. February: Grandma passes on. I start getting flu symptoms the day before her funeral, but dammit I'm going to be one of her pallbearers because it's my Grandma. I come down with full-blown influenza. Out of work for a week. Lose 10 pounds. After the flu, have headaches for the next month, but damn I'm glad that's done. March: Stomach goes murgle gurgle at me. Lose another 5 pounds not eating while trying to figure it out. Thankfully the cause of the problem was taking too much advil on an empty stomach and nothing more severe. Moderation in medications learned. However...between an immune system that's still somewhat shot from the flu, and not eating for a week, something else crept in...suddenly I get dizzy for no reason. Balance is fine, but damn I keep getting instantaneous dizzy hits. April: Diagnosed with Vestibular Neuritis. (aka, I'm always dizzy). Although very treatable through therapy, not a fun condition to have, at all. I can't even eat half the time because the act of chewing makes me dizzy. I drop yet another 5 pounds. May-October: Recovery. The last 10% took twice as long as the first 90%. Lessons Learned
I'm one of those blessed people who has never been sick for any length of time in his life. Get sick? Go to sleep for two days and wake up feeling like new. Not this time! This experience taught me patience, and what I'm mentally and physically capable of. I was 172 lbs in January. At the end of all the crap before I started feeling better, I was down to 151 lbs. Fully Clothed. (and I'm 6'1)
My wife was a godsend throughout the entire sickness, and I'm lucky to have her. Now, this patience and experience I have will treat me well, because...
The Good Half July: We're expecting! August: Life is almost back to normal from my dizziness! September: Get my first flu shot ever because damned if I'm ever going through this year again. October: Get a raise! And a promotion! November: It's a girl! December: We're moving into a cozy house! Lessons Learned
Be thankful for what you can do and what you have, and don't squander it.
But you know what? If I had a choice, I'd still take this year over a year back in middle school.
For my final cool thing for 2011, I'm going to get up in the morning and go play with wolves, camels, and tiger cubs. Fuck the weather, I'm going to matter what.
ThreeCubed on
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I Win Swordfightsall the traits of greatnessstarlight at my feetRegistered Userregular
Finished high school
Attempted suicide
Got better
Feel the best I've ever felt
Punched a window in its smug goddamn face
Went to the ER for the first time ever
Ate a chili burger
Pretty good year
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Year started with a payraise, ended with a payraise. My anxiety levels only go up with each increase in pay & responsibility, but I'm coping. Still not paid anywhere near someone of my skills/certs would make in a major city, but I actually enjoy my job and my pain is all self-inflicted, so hey.
Spent the first half of the year basically building a Remote Desktop server farm infrastructure by myself from near scratch, growing out of a simple request from my boss to get folder redirection working. Spent the middle/last half of the year implementing an electronic records management system with the rest of my team, which involved (For my part) creating more RDS infrastructures and increasing the complexity of the environment like nobody's business.
Moved out on my own in March. Been living paycheck to paycheck ever since. Financial Peace University from April to July/August didn't help much. When commutes are added in my workday is approx. 11 hours, so I have very little time to myself.
Quit Wow in May/June after seeing the mountaintop. I -LOVE- the PAA and the Knights of Arcadia, but I couldn't take the bullshit/drama, and I needed the time to study for work.. and later, to actually relax when I realized there was more than work.
I've made 2 failed attempts at starting to exercise. I took my first vacation ever from work, after 3+ years of working straight (since 2007 if you consider being in school "work"). Still need to get to a doctor.
Started getting interested in MLP:FiM around august, but the thread it was discussed in over in Debate & Discourse just didn't have enough meat to have a real conversation. As a direct result, I started coming to SE++, and I've been lurking ever since except for a couple of posts here and there. Place is still intimidating at times, coming from G&T and a treehouse back in the day, but it's growing on me and I'm slowly learning the rules.
Really sad to read how sucky everyone's years have been.. And I really wish I knew Macera, the sticky thread almost made me cry a couple times, but I didn't want to join in because I didn't know him.
Major props to you, Munkus. You've always been in my top 3 favorite mods, and are probably on top now due to the active mods changing. It'd suck not to see you around.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I'm one of your top three favorite mods? I don't think anyone has ever said that. I'm not even one of my top three favorite mods, and I'm incredibly narcissistic.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I'm one of your top three favorite mods? I don't think anyone has ever said that. I'm not even one of my top three favorite mods, and I'm incredibly narcissistic.
You've been a long time part of my life, what can I say. Usually when I think mods, it's you, mcc, cardboard tube, Thanatos, Captain K...
... What I'm basically saying is that I'm old and you are the one of the only ones still around.
Finally learn to swallow pills
Get and treat shingles
Finish my undergraduate degree
Husband gets and awesome new job that he loves
spend the next half of the year trying to find a job and utterly failing.
For my final cool thing for 2011, I'm going to get up in the morning and go play with wolves, camels, and tiger cubs. Fuck the weather, I'm going to matter what.
Jan: Overseas.
Feb: Overseas
March: Overseas.
April: Overseas
May: Overseas
June: I'M HOME BITCHES
July: Reintegration (lol)
August: Terminal Leave - I pretty much slept and played video games for 30 days.
Sept: Terminal Leave - Wife is back home. I pretty much ... well.. you know. For 30 days. (NO BABIES! )
Oct: Finish my obligation to the U.S. Army. Sign my papers and hang my uniform up for the last time. Realize that litigation against the U.S. Army results in having you benefits frozen.
Nov: Realize that I am back to where I started when I joined except now I have no patience for people and excuses. Drop the lawsuit. Benefits are being restored.
Dec: First Christmas with my Wife. (fucked up eh?) Going to be magical. Decorating the house, tree, have a new dog... I mean I can't ask for more.
All in all, this year wasn't terrible. I'm broke but I have hope, and if that doesn't work I've always got a rope.
I'm one of your top three favorite mods? I don't think anyone has ever said that. I'm not even one of my top three favorite mods, and I'm incredibly narcissistic.
if it means anything, you're my favorite mod that's a lawyer
January - March : Anesthesia residency at Boston Medical Center. Learn that all patients lie and like everyone uses drugs. I work 18+ hours six days a week and start to drink. Heavily.
April: Anesthesia residency at Quincy Medical Center. Find a rural area outside of Boston where people still hand-roll their own cigarettes and smoke without filters. Everyone is fat. Continue to drink heavily whenever possible.
March - August: Anesthesia residency at Mt. Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, MA. More 18+ hours in the hospital and learn to appreciate the yuppie Ivy League patient. Drinking gets worse, but still am never late to the hospital, don't kill anyone.
Generally became a high functioning alcoholic.
September - Current Day: Anesthesia residency at several other Boston based hospitals. Different specialties.
I had no idea my entire life was going to be forfeit for this stupid fucking specialty.
Hey MegaMan, I got into nursing school
looking forward to this bullshit.
In 2011 I was newly-arrived in Atlanta and started things off by having @Stale, @Zoel, @Aneurythmia, @Sara Lynn and @Butters over to our tiny apartment and then getting lost taking a few of them back to the train station and causing Stale to have a seizure and lose vision in one of his eyes and landing him in an eye-patch for a few months. @Zoel blamed himself though so I was off the hook.
Next I got to enjoy being unemployed for 6 months, the longest I'd been out of work since voluntarily doing so to focus on my college 6 years ago.
During that time I discovered Dungeons and Dragons is a radical game thanks to a very generous Secret Satan's 2010 gift from @Tossrock. It helped me get out of the house and do something interesting without spending much money while I searched for a job.
Now I'm working to sell phone plans out of a Staples in Midtown but it's not all that bad. I started off at part time and quickly rose through the ranks of my co-workers due to my patented "giving a shit" method of doing my job. Now I'm full time and helping train a underling co-worker. I'd still like a better job but it pays the bills and I really hate job hunting.
I had my first away-from-home Thanksgiving this year with @VisionofClarity, a couple we know and a childhood friend of mine who was unexpectedly in the southeast at the time. It is gonna be a similar thing when Christmas comes-around only we're going to be inviting forumers. I do believe we're getting better at this kinda thing too, which is good because the New Years Eve party was ultra-boring (which was our bad).
There really wasn't much that happened other than what I've mentioned. No brushes with death or life-changing events. Hopefully I'll have more to report in 2012.
A lot of stuff happened this year. In light of the fact that this stuff all occurred in the same year, some decisions I made feel hasty and childish
January: Immediately-after-graduation limbo exited thanks to landing a college bookstore job and moving into a kinda shady apartment with my girlfriend, in a town where I have no other friends. Start working as a substitute teacher on the side.
February-March: End up with a regular gig as a substitute/translator/ESL instructor at an elementary school, which I eventually leave to try out teaching older kids, for reasons I still can't articulate. I start applying for every archaeology contract job I can find, planning to spend my summer working on a dig.
April-June: I alternate between substitute jobs and working at the bookstore. Realize teaching is not for me and am relieved when the school year ends. I continue applying for every archaeology job I can find, and start branching out, applying for anything tangentially related. Rejection letters keep rolling in.
July: My girlfriend and I start having problems. My sister moves out to Oregon for a job. Still just bookstore work for me. Depressions.
August-September: There is a stabbing in our apartment building. I get ridiculously sick of Indiana. I decide I'm going to follow my sister to Oregon, thinking the whole thing will take months. Within a week of telling our landlord we want out of our lease, he finds more people for the apartment, and we move out. Couple weeks in limbo, then my girlfriend and I say our goodbyes, saying we'll stay together.
October: I drive out to Oregon and have an awesome trip. I start living in my sister's house. Thinking I will have another shit job in no time, I take a number of climbing trips around the area and burn through too much money. I start crossdressing more. No job materializes. Towards the end of the month, in a sobbing phone conversation, girlfriend and I break up for realsies.
November: I realize I left a paying if shitty job and a stable if vaguely unsatisfying relationship for a land of uncertainty and tough job markets. I console myself with hiking in a state with actual topography and unfortunate online dates, in between applying for jobs. I accept charity from my parents for the first time in years.
December: I start volunteering with the Forest Service and Portland Art Museum while trying not to get too discouraged.
That was a lot of text for just whining about my dumb choices
I have had a fantastic, fantastic year and I am super excited about the next year as well
I hope things get better for those of you that have had difficult times! In fact I'm sure they will.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I would have to go with Skyrim because of just how much content and customizability you get for the price. The bugs will be worked out eventually, and then the construction kit will drop (for PC), and then it will be one of the best games ever made.
2011 was the year I decided to stop being a sack of shit and do something with my life. Very transitional year, but pretty successful in that regard.
January: Cliche as it is, I decided to resolve to lose weight. It took me a couple days to figure out how I wanted to go about that. I decided after two days on those shitty no/low carb diets that I hate being restricted on what I can eat. So I just decided to stick with eating less and eating better. My job is physical enough to take care of the exercise.
February: At this point I had already lose 15 pounds. That is what getting off regular soda does to you, kids. Not much else to report besides doing the FAFSA and shit in prep for school.
March: It's PAX East! My second year going, and this time I do not get into a car wreck. At this point I have lost 25 pounds or so. I can zip my hoodie up.
April: I can't even remember what the fuck I did in April, so it wasn't a big month. Weight loss continues at roughly 35ish pounds.
May: This is when things get hot in my area, and I have no AC in my car. So I basically hate the fuck out of summer. My job was at Walmart, and things get progressively more awful around this time of the year too. Around 40 pounds gone.
June: Finally apply to the local community college. Due to being a dunce, I have to wait last to get to pick classes. At this point I am down 50 pounds, and I stall out on account of lots of eating opportunities.
July: Start the horrible process of getting my grant and loans. They actually send my loan stuff to my old school, which means I have to cancel and start the process anew.
August: Basically I spend the whole month fighting with people regarding loans and trying to juggle school time with work. I end up just quitting my job and going to school full-time. I reach my lowest weight of roughly 215, which is 60 pounds lost.
September: School starts in earnest, and I do pretty well. Not much to report here, except my friend gets a kickass job, which means he doesn't have to work two jobs anymore. We can hang out more often now. Weight goes back up a couple pounds, and that's where it has stayed up to now.
October: Just school, for the most part. The only noteworthy thing to mention is that this is when I got modded for G&T.
November: I basically kick ass in all my classes, except Art for which I joined late and felt I couldn't catch up. I didn't need it for anything, so I dropped it. Guess I'll never be an artist.
Pretty good year, and I accomplished my major goals. Not that life absolutely sucked before 2011, but I was a fat layabout working a job I hated. My only regret is that I wasted three years of my life a Walmart getting no forward momentum in life. Better late than never, I guess?
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
In 2011 I was newly-arrived in Atlanta and started things off by having Stale, Zoel, Aneurythmia, Sara Lynn and Butters over to our tiny apartment and then getting lost taking a few of them back to the train station and causing Stale to have a seizure and lose vision in one of his eyes and landing him in an eye-patch for a few months. Zoel blamed himself though so I was off the hook.
Next I got to enjoy being unemployed for 6 months, the longest I'd been out of work since voluntarily doing so to focus on my college 6 years ago.
During that time I discovered Dungeons and Dragons is a radical game thanks to a very generous Secret Satan's 2010 gift from Tossrock. It helped me get out of the house and do something interesting without spending much money while I searched for a job.
Now I'm working to sell phone plans out of a Staples in Midtown but it's not all that bad. I started off at part time and quickly rose through the ranks of my co-workers due to my patented "giving a shit" method of doing my job. Now I'm full time and helping train a underling co-worker. I'd still like a better job but it pays the bills and I really hate job hunting.
I had my first away-from-home Thanksgiving this year with VisionofClarity, a couple we know and a childhood friend of mine who was unexpectedly in the southeast at the time. It is gonna be a similar thing when Christmas comes-around only we're going to be inviting forumers. I do believe we're getting better at this kinda thing too, which is good because the New Years Eve party was ultra-boring (which was our bad).
There really wasn't much that happened other than what I've mentioned. No brushes with death or life-changing events. Hopefully I'll have more to report in 2012.
Hey I know I've said this in other threads and I may have missed a reply, but we should hang out.
I've been down here since August and have not chilled with any forumers yet. I've only been going to the gym, looking for a job and hanging out with my lady and her friends.
Should be at least $100,000 or so. You're easily worth a more luxury vehicle.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Posts
April: Anesthesia residency at Quincy Medical Center. Find a rural area outside of Boston where people still hand-roll their own cigarettes and smoke without filters. Everyone is fat. Continue to drink heavily whenever possible.
March - August: Anesthesia residency at Mt. Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, MA. More 18+ hours in the hospital and learn to appreciate the yuppie Ivy League patient. Drinking gets worse, but still am never late to the hospital, don't kill anyone.
Generally became a high functioning alcoholic.
September - Current Day: Anesthesia residency at several other Boston based hospitals. Different specialties.
I had no idea my entire life was going to be forfeit for this stupid fucking specialty.
January: I begin preparations to move out of my parents house and move in with my friend I've known since middle school in a house he's bought in Delaware. I have a retail job at a grocery store which pays moderately well and $3000 in savings.
I apply for a supervisor position in my department. I am single, soon-to-be independent, and all is well.
February: I am settled in my new home. I appreciate the manual labor my job provides and the slight authority I have over the part-time workers in my department. I make friends and enjoy going out with my roommate to bars because we is two swingin' bachelors. I end up going out to some nice clubs and spend a few hundred of my savings through Feb and March, thinking I can always make it up later by being frugal in later months.
March: I meet a girl at work who shows interest in me. We go out a few times and end up hooking up. She tells me she feels a connection with me and that she doesn't do "this" with just any guy. A few weeks later, I fall violently ill with food poisoning. I'm sick for three weeks solid through a business trip to upstate NY. When I come back (three days later), she's fucking another guy. I am furious, and proceed to make her life a living hell by airing the dirty laundry out in front of everyone we work with. She is labeled as a whore, but continues fucking said guy. Not my finest moment. I never speak to her again and things go back to a pseudo-normal routine.
My car needs new tires, a new alignment, and a serpentine belt, which costs me $600 of my savings to purchase and install.
April: I nod off and crash my car at 3 a.m. against a guard rail on the highway after coming home from a friend's house and spin the opposite direction of traffic. Surprisingly, the car still works and I'm able to drive it home the 2 miles since I only collided with a wall. I slam my shit in my room, angry as hell that I nodded off and that I didn't pull over to fall asleep when I realized I was tired, and find my roommate with a gun pointed at my head. He is still half-asleep, and thought someone was breaking into the house with all the noise I was making.
Not surprisingly, my car is totaled and I spend $1800 (read: the rest of my savings) to purchase a shitty '95 Ford Escort to get me to and from work until I can get myself situated financially.
May: I continue saving money to replenish my savings, essentially going to and from work and nowhere else to save gas (my commute was 28 miles), going out occasionally. There is a heat wave with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. The house does not have air conditioning, so I sleep naked for days while I have ten thousand fans blow on me.
In the heat, the Escort blows a cylinder on the way to work and my car develops a hydraulic "hop" to it. I take it to a mechanic who cannot reproduce the problem after 7 hours of working on it, so I drive it around the block with him in the passenger's seat and he watches as it hops up and down. He still has no fucking clue what it could be, so I continue driving on it until I can get it to a mechanic who isn't a dumbass.
It's also my birthday month! I go home for my birthday and go to a local bar that does karaoke every Tuesday, and meet my current girlfriend there. A week later, my car stops moving. Her father, a former mechanic, recommends a good shop and the mechanics there immediately diagnose it as a bad cylinder, pricing it at more than the car is worth.
In the midst of this, I interview for a position at a company in New Jersey that does medical writing.
June: Time to go car shopping again! I spend a Saturday with my parents going from dealership to dealership, finally settling on a Pontiac Grand Am with relatively good mileage. I tell the salesman I am strongly considering purchasing it but ask him to hold it for me while my parents and I go to lunch so we can talk about it. We go to lunch, and I intend for my father to drive it when we get back.
We return 30 minutes later and the car is gone. Someone came into the dealership while we were gone, drove the car, loved it, and paid for it up front in cash. As that was the only car in my price range at the lot that wasn't a heap of junk, we prepare to leave. Just then, a woman comes in with a New-Edge Mercury Cougar as a trade-in. I drive the car, like it, and put a deposit down on it so the car doesn't disappear.
I purchase the car and take out a loan and begin using it as my day-to-day car. Not two weeks after I buy it, it refuses to start and the check engine light comes on. I have it towed to the only mechanic within 3 miles of my house because I don't have a premium AAA subscription (normal AAA members only get towing for the first 3 miles) and it's the same guy who couldn't figure out my Escort had a bad cylinder.
Just as you've suspected, he can't figure out why this car doesn't start, because it starts for him. Chalking it up to a fluke, I take it home and think nothing of it. Well, it happens again. And again, and again, from different angles. Finally, I figure out I can start the car by shooting starting fluid straight into the engine.
July: Intermittent car problems continue to happen. Work becomes stressful as my former supervisor gets promoted and promptly replaced with someone else, completely overlooking my application. This company, which prided itself on promoting from within, hires some asshole from outside the company. I am not pleased.
August: After four interviews with the New Jersey company, I get hired on as a medical writer. I am ecstatic and immediately put in my two weeks. My coworkers, who knew from the beginning I would leave if something in my major comes along, wish me well. My new supervisor and corporate give me a hard time about giving me my paid time off. I threaten to walk off the job instead of training my replacement if they don't give me the time. They quickly change their attitude, as the new supervisor, who I also helped train, doesn't know everything I do from being there almost a year.
My new job starts, and it's fantastic.
September: My battery and alternator go in one big messy fit. I have the car towed from an Autozone, where the sales associate failed to get the car started with his Mustang, to a National Tire & Battery to replace the battery and alternator. The mechanic replaces the battery but cannot get the car started. I have it towed to a Ford dealership down the road to finally have it properly analyzed, which ended costing me $800 with battery, alternator and crankshaft positioning sensor included (the car has since never failed to start, hooray!). I am on a first name basis with the AAA tow drivers at this point. His name is Jesse, and he was very nice.
October: The new job is going well. My roommate and I throw a Halloween party where we end up throwing out one of my former coworkers from the grocery store for lighting up in our finished basement and for generally being a drunk dumbfuck who was hitting on my girlfriend and my roommate's sisters hardcore.
My car is driving funny when I get it back from the Ford dealer, so I take it back they analyze it for free, concluding I need a new lower ball joint in the front of my car. Normally, the task would take less than an hour, but my special needs car is such that you need to drop the transmission in order to get to it, so the repair is quoted at $1200. I take it to a shop by my work and they quote me at a much more reasonable $375.
November: I start to get signs that my transmission might be going. I hit a rock on my new commute home and split the oil pan open on the bottom of the car. Having maxed out the amount of money I want to spend on this car, I instead start to save and hope I don't crash and burn before I pay off my car loan.
At Thanksgiving, I learn my parents are moving to North Carolina as of January 2, so my brother, who is currently living there, has to find an apartment in my fucking expensive hometown on a retail hourly rate. I cannot move in with him because that would increase my commute to 1.5 hours each way and he does not want to move down to where I am because of his girlfriend. I also now have no avenue to ask for help from family in the area.
I guess this is what being an adult feels like.
December: I am writing this.
Sorry it's so long, I sort of got carried away there.
The Bad Half
January: The year starts. Things are looking good. Returned from a great trip to visit the In-Laws in Canada. Grandma is in the hospital but life is going ever so terribly well.
February: Grandma passes on. I start getting flu symptoms the day before her funeral, but dammit I'm going to be one of her pallbearers because it's my Grandma. I come down with full-blown influenza. Out of work for a week. Lose 10 pounds. After the flu, have headaches for the next month, but damn I'm glad that's done.
March: Stomach goes murgle gurgle at me. Lose another 5 pounds not eating while trying to figure it out. Thankfully the cause of the problem was taking too much advil on an empty stomach and nothing more severe. Moderation in medications learned. However...between an immune system that's still somewhat shot from the flu, and not eating for a week, something else crept in...suddenly I get dizzy for no reason. Balance is fine, but damn I keep getting instantaneous dizzy hits.
April: Diagnosed with Vestibular Neuritis. (aka, I'm always dizzy). Although very treatable through therapy, not a fun condition to have, at all. I can't even eat half the time because the act of chewing makes me dizzy. I drop yet another 5 pounds.
May-October: Recovery. The last 10% took twice as long as the first 90%.
Lessons Learned
I'm one of those blessed people who has never been sick for any length of time in his life. Get sick? Go to sleep for two days and wake up feeling like new. Not this time! This experience taught me patience, and what I'm mentally and physically capable of. I was 172 lbs in January. At the end of all the crap before I started feeling better, I was down to 151 lbs. Fully Clothed. (and I'm 6'1)
My wife was a godsend throughout the entire sickness, and I'm lucky to have her. Now, this patience and experience I have will treat me well, because...
The Good Half
July: We're expecting!
August: Life is almost back to normal from my dizziness!
September: Get my first flu shot ever because damned if I'm ever going through this year again.
October: Get a raise! And a promotion!
November: It's a girl!
December: We're moving into a cozy house!
Lessons Learned
Be thankful for what you can do and what you have, and don't squander it.
But you know what? If I had a choice, I'd still take this year over a year back in middle school.
Attempted suicide
Got better
Feel the best I've ever felt
Punched a window in its smug goddamn face
Went to the ER for the first time ever
Ate a chili burger
Pretty good year
Spent the first half of the year basically building a Remote Desktop server farm infrastructure by myself from near scratch, growing out of a simple request from my boss to get folder redirection working. Spent the middle/last half of the year implementing an electronic records management system with the rest of my team, which involved (For my part) creating more RDS infrastructures and increasing the complexity of the environment like nobody's business.
Moved out on my own in March. Been living paycheck to paycheck ever since. Financial Peace University from April to July/August didn't help much. When commutes are added in my workday is approx. 11 hours, so I have very little time to myself.
Quit Wow in May/June after seeing the mountaintop. I -LOVE- the PAA and the Knights of Arcadia, but I couldn't take the bullshit/drama, and I needed the time to study for work.. and later, to actually relax when I realized there was more than work.
I've made 2 failed attempts at starting to exercise. I took my first vacation ever from work, after 3+ years of working straight (since 2007 if you consider being in school "work"). Still need to get to a doctor.
Started getting interested in MLP:FiM around august, but the thread it was discussed in over in Debate & Discourse just didn't have enough meat to have a real conversation. As a direct result, I started coming to SE++, and I've been lurking ever since except for a couple of posts here and there. Place is still intimidating at times, coming from G&T and a treehouse back in the day, but it's growing on me and I'm slowly learning the rules.
Really sad to read how sucky everyone's years have been.. And I really wish I knew Macera, the sticky thread almost made me cry a couple times, but I didn't want to join in because I didn't know him.
Major props to you, Munkus. You've always been in my top 3 favorite mods, and are probably on top now due to the active mods changing. It'd suck not to see you around.
You've been a long time part of my life, what can I say. Usually when I think mods, it's you, mcc, cardboard tube, Thanatos, Captain K...
... What I'm basically saying is that I'm old and you are the one of the only ones still around.
Maybe in 2012 I should try and do something with my life.
Hit on Debra
Get rejected.
Finally learn to swallow pills
Get and treat shingles
Finish my undergraduate degree
Husband gets and awesome new job that he loves
spend the next half of the year trying to find a job and utterly failing.
Meh.
whaaaaa
hoowwwwww
that sounds amazing!!!
Feb: Overseas
March: Overseas.
April: Overseas
May: Overseas
June: I'M HOME BITCHES
July: Reintegration (lol)
August: Terminal Leave - I pretty much slept and played video games for 30 days.
Sept: Terminal Leave - Wife is back home. I pretty much ... well.. you know. For 30 days. (NO BABIES!
Oct: Finish my obligation to the U.S. Army. Sign my papers and hang my uniform up for the last time. Realize that litigation against the U.S. Army results in having you benefits frozen.
Nov: Realize that I am back to where I started when I joined except now I have no patience for people and excuses. Drop the lawsuit. Benefits are being restored.
Dec: First Christmas with my Wife. (fucked up eh?) Going to be magical. Decorating the house, tree, have a new dog... I mean I can't ask for more.
All in all, this year wasn't terrible. I'm broke but I have hope, and if that doesn't work I've always got a rope.
if it means anything, you're my favorite mod that's a lawyer
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
Hey MegaMan, I got into nursing school
looking forward to this bullshit.
It may be the painkillers talking
But I like you, right now, Zonugal
Next I got to enjoy being unemployed for 6 months, the longest I'd been out of work since voluntarily doing so to focus on my college 6 years ago.
During that time I discovered Dungeons and Dragons is a radical game thanks to a very generous Secret Satan's 2010 gift from @Tossrock. It helped me get out of the house and do something interesting without spending much money while I searched for a job.
Now I'm working to sell phone plans out of a Staples in Midtown but it's not all that bad. I started off at part time and quickly rose through the ranks of my co-workers due to my patented "giving a shit" method of doing my job. Now I'm full time and helping train a underling co-worker. I'd still like a better job but it pays the bills and I really hate job hunting.
I had my first away-from-home Thanksgiving this year with @VisionofClarity, a couple we know and a childhood friend of mine who was unexpectedly in the southeast at the time. It is gonna be a similar thing when Christmas comes-around only we're going to be inviting forumers. I do believe we're getting better at this kinda thing too, which is good because the New Years Eve party was ultra-boring (which was our bad).
There really wasn't much that happened other than what I've mentioned. No brushes with death or life-changing events. Hopefully I'll have more to report in 2012.
I suggested Soda. Which she found funny, but refused. So then I suggested Seven.
And it turns out she goes to highschool with a girl who is literally named Seven...
e: okay she is on facebook but I don't think I'm comfortable linking it
February-March: End up with a regular gig as a substitute/translator/ESL instructor at an elementary school, which I eventually leave to try out teaching older kids, for reasons I still can't articulate. I start applying for every archaeology contract job I can find, planning to spend my summer working on a dig.
April-June: I alternate between substitute jobs and working at the bookstore. Realize teaching is not for me and am relieved when the school year ends. I continue applying for every archaeology job I can find, and start branching out, applying for anything tangentially related. Rejection letters keep rolling in.
July: My girlfriend and I start having problems. My sister moves out to Oregon for a job. Still just bookstore work for me. Depressions.
August-September: There is a stabbing in our apartment building. I get ridiculously sick of Indiana. I decide I'm going to follow my sister to Oregon, thinking the whole thing will take months. Within a week of telling our landlord we want out of our lease, he finds more people for the apartment, and we move out. Couple weeks in limbo, then my girlfriend and I say our goodbyes, saying we'll stay together.
October: I drive out to Oregon and have an awesome trip. I start living in my sister's house. Thinking I will have another shit job in no time, I take a number of climbing trips around the area and burn through too much money. I start crossdressing more. No job materializes. Towards the end of the month, in a sobbing phone conversation, girlfriend and I break up for realsies.
November: I realize I left a paying if shitty job and a stable if vaguely unsatisfying relationship for a land of uncertainty and tough job markets. I console myself with hiking in a state with actual topography and unfortunate online dates, in between applying for jobs. I accept charity from my parents for the first time in years.
December: I start volunteering with the Forest Service and Portland Art Museum while trying not to get too discouraged.
That was a lot of text for just whining about my dumb choices
GoFund The Portland Trans Pride March, or Show It To People, or Else!
Stick with it. My mom paid for my family's extravagant lifestyle and loves her work still doing what you're doing.
GoFund The Portland Trans Pride March, or Show It To People, or Else!
I hope things get better for those of you that have had difficult times! In fact I'm sure they will.
I see you finally hooked up with Isabella.
-Spent $2000 on camera equipment and new desktop. Holy-moley!
-Got a new job. Wowee!
-If everything goes well, maybe my first date?
I'm not a very exciting individual.
you think?
probably portal 2 since valve arent in the habit of breaking the entire game with a patch that hasnt even been tested
you must not play tf2
January: Cliche as it is, I decided to resolve to lose weight. It took me a couple days to figure out how I wanted to go about that. I decided after two days on those shitty no/low carb diets that I hate being restricted on what I can eat. So I just decided to stick with eating less and eating better. My job is physical enough to take care of the exercise.
February: At this point I had already lose 15 pounds. That is what getting off regular soda does to you, kids. Not much else to report besides doing the FAFSA and shit in prep for school.
March: It's PAX East! My second year going, and this time I do not get into a car wreck. At this point I have lost 25 pounds or so. I can zip my hoodie up.
April: I can't even remember what the fuck I did in April, so it wasn't a big month. Weight loss continues at roughly 35ish pounds.
May: This is when things get hot in my area, and I have no AC in my car. So I basically hate the fuck out of summer. My job was at Walmart, and things get progressively more awful around this time of the year too. Around 40 pounds gone.
June: Finally apply to the local community college. Due to being a dunce, I have to wait last to get to pick classes. At this point I am down 50 pounds, and I stall out on account of lots of eating opportunities.
July: Start the horrible process of getting my grant and loans. They actually send my loan stuff to my old school, which means I have to cancel and start the process anew.
August: Basically I spend the whole month fighting with people regarding loans and trying to juggle school time with work. I end up just quitting my job and going to school full-time. I reach my lowest weight of roughly 215, which is 60 pounds lost.
September: School starts in earnest, and I do pretty well. Not much to report here, except my friend gets a kickass job, which means he doesn't have to work two jobs anymore. We can hang out more often now. Weight goes back up a couple pounds, and that's where it has stayed up to now.
October: Just school, for the most part. The only noteworthy thing to mention is that this is when I got modded for G&T.
November: I basically kick ass in all my classes, except Art for which I joined late and felt I couldn't catch up. I didn't need it for anything, so I dropped it. Guess I'll never be an artist.
Pretty good year, and I accomplished my major goals. Not that life absolutely sucked before 2011, but I was a fat layabout working a job I hated. My only regret is that I wasted three years of my life a Walmart getting no forward momentum in life. Better late than never, I guess?
Yay!
kiss me
tonight, we are slaves to no-one
except the rhythm
also, regarding vids
I try not to say anything about best games of the year
it's just not a terribly useful or interesting conversation, most of the time
especially since Gears 3 and MW3 are going to top a million lists and both of them are utterly ordinary
I just got the bill for my recent hospital stays and for my new insulin pump.
This bring my out-of-pocket total for 2011 to $26,750.
That's a mediocre new car. Just to keep me alive.
Hey I know I've said this in other threads and I may have missed a reply, but we should hang out.
I've been down here since August and have not chilled with any forumers yet. I've only been going to the gym, looking for a job and hanging out with my lady and her friends.
I want to see my own friends
Should be at least $100,000 or so. You're easily worth a more luxury vehicle.
Don't you qualify for Medicaid or a hospital assistance program?