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Autumnpuma

Five Years On

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I've just looked at all the gobbledy-gook under my avatar and was shocked to see that I've been 'round these parts for five years (or, typical of five-year-olds, I should be saying 'five and a half').

Five years.

A lot of life has happened in those years. My second child has gone from an infant to an individual who argues with me constantly and my oldest daughter is now a teenager who sticks pages from teeny-bopper magazines on her wall. It's disturbing to walk in there and see a smiling Cody or Donny or whatever looking at me from that wall. My daughter has *got* to have better taste than this. Five years ago it was My Little Pony and Barbie. Now it's little boys with perfect hair and teeth and shallow smiles. The kind of boys I wanted to beat up when I was that age. *sigh* At least there's still hope for my youngest. I get a second chance at brainwashing because clearly my efforts with the oldest have failed.

I have more gray hair (but at least I still have all my hair) but it was more alarming to discover my pubic hairs are turning gray than discovering the hair atop my head is turning gray.

I have a house. Or the house has me. I haven't decided which is more true.

I have grown in both wisdom and stupidity. I'm now wise enough to not make the same mistakes twice, but I'm stupid enough to keep making new ones.

My painting skills and understanding of art have increased beyond what I ever thought it could.

My mom has died and that, dear friends, is a perspective-altering event. Having no living parents throws you into a place I'm still trying to survey and map out.

So, this is a short post by my standards, but there's a lot in it. I considered making this a blog post but with so many old-timers on this forum, it might be nice to hear from everyone. How long have you been here and what has changed for you since you started posting in this obscure corner of the internets?

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Six and a bit years for me. Less if you count lengthy absences.

What's happened in that time? Well, my hair was already mostly grey when I joined. There's just less of it now. On my head that is. It appears to be finding new places to sprout from every day. Especially the eyebrows for some reason. And the ears. Why on earth do we need hairy ears?

My mother died, which put Dad in a tail spin from which I don't think he's ever really recovered, not that he's ever admit it. Fifty years together does that, I suppose.

Nearly six and a bit years ago I met a girl (yep, still think of her as a girl. That's 'cos I'm only 12) I hadn't seen for 25 years. She is, of course, Mrs Gorilla these days. And we live in a money pit. As opposed to a pit full of money.

I bought my second Scimitar, and now use it for the drive to work. And it breaks down, just like the last one. At least it hasn't tried to kill me. Unlike the Beemer..........

I seem to have got a second wind with my architecture. Really happy with the stuff I'm turning out now. Really happy. And so are the clients, thankfully.

I'm kidless, by choice, but it's scary that my sister's boy is now taller, stronger, and smarter than me. On the plus side, he's old enough to buy me a beer.

I reminisce more. I need to take my glasses off to read the papers.

Other things.

Next?

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Great thread Mike.

Random changes since December 2005;

Through eating well and training hard, I now look like I should have done when I was 25. The inner confidence it has brought can not be attached to a value (just as well, bearing in mind the stupid gym fees).

I have bought my second house. I like it. Like Mike though, I own less of it than I would like.

I changed careers abruptly and relatively successfully. I'm a jack of all, master of none.

I got stuck in a foreign land during a scary time of civil unrest. I saw death. It changed me. I didn't realise how much I took our relatively peaceful Island for granted until the recent riots kicked off. Peace is a fragile state of existence.

I saved my Dad's life by lifting an RSJ off of him. I devoted six months of my life to ensuring he and my Mum were okay. The financial and emotional support I received from my wife during this period was nothing short of astounding, humbling and more gratifying than anything else other than the below;

I have an eight month old boy. Life finally has a true purpose. If I could spend every waking hour with him, I would. Love that gets stronger every day is a scary love indeed.

Worryingly, as a born worrier, I have stopped worrying.

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I´ve just 5 years old too!!! You guys made me think... I´m a 5 years old poster... many water went below the bridge in the last 5 years... Most important? i think 2 things: first to realise i´m happy with my life and to have the serious purpose to fulfill all the I want to do in my life: iafter my 4o ´s birthday I focused on projects (outside my professional career) Car Design Course, Table Tennis training, etc. etc. Now I´m involved in a slot car track -it almost cost me a divorce, but now i´m close to the end (of the track!). What´s next? next year I´ll go to driving academy and maybe start to race go kart with my kids! And travel as long as I can i want to travel!

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Will be 5 years here in October. Unless I get on parole before.

Lots of hair grown during this years, but most of them on Alonso.

Worryingly, my only concession to adulthood was to finally find my little spot under the sun (if you can call as such an apartment in the middle of the city). Actually, I love living in the middle of the chaos, but the building has a swimming pool, with a luscious garden with much taste filled with overgrown bushes and surprisingly hidden benches where I can just pretend I'm lost and spend long hours reading under the sun. I also have two carnivore plants. If you ever watched "Little Shop of Horrors" and, like me, thought it was a great documentary, you would understand how rippeed off I felt when I saw these 5 milimiters long leaves...My dreams of an army of carnivore plants to rule the world have changed to the more humble of ruling some small country that can be intimidated by my army of two plants and yours truly. Perhaps France, if I wear high heels and make my voice really hoarse and thunderous.

Other than that, my rebellious side keeps doing me more harm than good, and yet I cannot force me to leave it behind. At work, my situation hardly improves as I am anything but easy to work with. I don't like to give up my dreams and I still react too strongly against even the silliest examples of injustice. I am definitely not a corporate guy. And I do not feel guilty the least for that :D

Women...met my true love. The woman I would like to grow old with. The woman I was ready to give everything up to spend the rest of my life with her. She broke my heart. I got less ambitious the next time. She also broke my heart. My conclussion: Lennon was wrong. Women are not the niggers of the world. Women are the Kimis of the world :P

And, after all this years, I am still here, and I learned nothing.

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For me, its not the amount of time I've been here.

It's the fact that I turn 35 next month. I officially have four to five years left of my boobs pointing the way they should. Gravity will get me in the end. I can no longer wear mini-skirts, heels that break ankles, nor fill out forms that ask for your age as 18-34. Instead it'll be 35-55. Its not fair. Men get better with age and look quite sexy with a little grey in their hair (Mourinho), or bald. Women get to go through the change (which believe me is ten times worse than a period), gain weight and have boobs that are only good for expressing powdered milk. Balls to it all.

And its six years on October 12th I've clocked up here. In 2005, I was a finance manager. Now I'm a historian (student also). I'm where I want to be in life. Finally.

"You can do anything you set your mind to. Never sell out on your dreams and never doubt your own abilities." - My Dad.

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And, after all this years, I am still here, and I learned nothing.

I advise you to stop reading Paul's posts then.

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Geez 5 years, where did that time go.

Since I started here, I now have a daughter, who is 4, to go along with the lad who is 9. Both growing up far too fast for my liking, both noisy as hell, but both as happy as Larry too.......and they don't fight too much. Long may it continue.

I still have the same car, the same house, the same wife, the one I refer to as thick as 2 short planks and twice as ugly. Through terrible eating and no excercise, I have now managed to get to the correct weight for if I was 7ft 2 and a half. My hair still grows like wildfire and it still has a mind of it's own.........which is probably a good job sometimes.

I am happy and my family is generally healthy. Life is good.

Oh and Jack has joined me in my dream to go stormchasing. Maybe one day we will get to do it :lol:

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It's the fact that I turn 35 next month. I officially have four to five years left of my boobs pointing the way they should. Gravity will get me in the end. I can no longer wear mini-skirts, heels that break ankles, nor fill out forms that ask for your age as 18-34. Instead it'll be 35-55. Its not fair. Men get better with age and look quite sexy with a little grey in their hair (Mourinho), or bald. Women get to go through the change (which believe me is ten times worse than a period), gain weight and have boobs that are only good for expressing powdered milk. Balls to it all.

Learn to walk on your hands and you'll be fine :whistling::eekout:

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For me, its not the amount of time I've been here.

It's the fact that I turn 35 next month. I officially have four to five years left of my boobs pointing the way they should. Gravity will get me in the end. I can no longer wear mini-skirts, heels that break ankles, nor fill out forms that ask for your age as 18-34. Instead it'll be 35-55. Its not fair. Men get better with age and look quite sexy with a little grey in their hair (Mourinho), or bald. Women get to go through the change (which believe me is ten times worse than a period), gain weight and have boobs that are only good for expressing powdered milk. Balls to it all.

And its six years on October 12th I've clocked up here. In 2005, I was a finance manager. Now I'm a historian (student also). I'm where I want to be in life. Finally.

"You can do anything you set your mind to. Never sell out on your dreams and never doubt your own abilities." - My Dad.

My wife is 52 and still wearing mini skirts (less mini than befire but mini at last!). The youth is an illness and the only cure is time... To be old is a matter of time; to be a decrepit-old-man/woman is a self decision! Semper juventus (in your heart) We were parents at 37 and 41 yeras old for the first time... and for the boobs there are plastic surgeons!!!

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Learn to walk on your hands and you'll be fine :whistling::eekout:

Been there. Done that. Asking for a nosejob while walking on my hands didn't work, either.

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Since January 2007:

All four years of high school. I feel like I should say so much about that and yet more has happened from May 2011 - present that it's all so hard to even recall. The whole end of high school experience is something I'm still not over. Nothing felt more ****ed up than when I was home on a Friday afternoon and drove past my high school as all the students and teachers were leaving. The fact it all still goes on without me and my class...so many people I wish I could have met earlier, so many people I know I'll lose touch with but refuse to, so many people I never realized was there, so many people who never realized I was there, so much unfinished business, so many memories...miss the hell out of it all.

Toward the end of high school, I fell in love for the first time. I'd had girlfriends before and gone on dates and all that stuff, and you think it means something because it's all you know. And then you realize what meaning something is really all about. We met far too soon after her last serious relationship, and far too soon before we were both moving away to college, and after a few great months (albeit there were the days when it was a struggle; when her doubts got the best of her)...I guess we both had some personal things that we decided to sort separately rather than together, and both realized we really couldn't get anywhere without the other one. Once we moved to college, my main priority was to show her I still care, even though we're apart. We talk daily with few exceptions now. I'm making the journey to visit her, and it won't be my last. Some days we're friends, some days we're more. My friends here go to parties; I stay here and talk to her and it's the best damn part of college for me. Sometimes I look at the picture I have of us and I just start giggling. It's been confusing, it's been trying...it's also been glorious. No one has ever made everything so beautiful to me.

There's the whole college (university to most here) thing. I knew before going that I wasn't at the right place or in the right program. It was too late then. I went, I gave it a fair chance, and my gut feeling, as it so often is, was dead right. I don't think I'll be here next semester; evaluating my options for a transfer. I've always wanted to teach secondary education (high school). Until recently, I was somewhat embarrassed by that, and I guess I felt I could "do better." And financially, I could, but there's no doing better than doing what you want. I let people talk me into talking myself out of a passion. I've always been involved in tutoring and mentoring and I wish I could do more of that now. Wherever I end up next semester, I will be in the teacher certification program. It's what I ought to have done from the start. They'll laugh when I leave a prestigious university like this one to go to a "state school" to become a teacher. And I'll laugh right back.

I got a driver's license, got a car, drove it into a brick wall. It buffed out.

I finally made use of my non-existent curfew. Driving home as 4 AM becomes 5 AM is probably the coolest experience beyond being in a mall after it's closed. Something about busy places being empty and quiet really hits on something with me.

I'm really close with my family now after a long time of just being uncomfortable. I always loved them and appreciated what they did, but I was afraid to ever have a personal conversation with anyone in my family. I was so secure at school and so insecure at home; it was just wrong. I finally grew out of that and my mother, father, sister, and grandmother are three of the best friends I have. And they know it.

I found self-awareness and self-confidence. I'm young, I love, I am loved, I have direction, I'm gaining clarity, I'm really living. Four years ago, I wasn't. That's the big change. That's the best one.

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I've been here for just over four years. It is a long time for anybody, but even more so when you are still in your teens and "growing up", for want of a better phrase. In terms of education.. I finished High School, which I now look back on fondly and miss, but know for a fact I was for the most part frustrated and depressed during that period (memory is funny like that); school for me was sometimes incredibly fun, but mostly extreme tedium. Then there was college, which was better as I was more myself. It had all the fun of school but minus the boredom. The subjects and things being taught were actually interesting, the teachers were generally better and I got on very well with them, and it's where I found out I liked law. Did well enough at college to have the opportunity to go to university. Wanted to move away from home, not because I wanted extra freedom (my parents were never strict) but because I wanted the experience. Just starting my 2nd year now, so I've had the experience and this is what I learned: doing every day tasks for yourself is a massive ballache! :lol: I've forgotten what not feeling tired is like. But uni is fun, kind of, although it seems to suck the interest out of what you are studying a bit, and I imagine by the time I am finished I will hate law with a passion.

Other than that: biggest single event was losing a great friend from school in a car crash early last year, which didn't seem to hit for a while. Still surreal. Still hate stupid trees by roads! And the idea (esp. amongst young people) that speeding is cool. Erm, passed my driving test too, haven't crashed yet (ha, you suck Eric) *touches wood* although there is still time! Met a great girl, went out with great girl for almost two years. Decided to split with great girl. Still friends (with benefits, because hey old habits die hard ;)). Learned relationships are the most complicated thing ever, even when over. Parents split up (can't say it was a massive shock) but thankfully not in a Jeremy Kyle/Eastenders kind of way. Found a lot more confidence and know myself a lot better; stopped caring what people think (only to a point of course, I still bathe and don't walk around nude.. except when my flatmates are out obviously). Started being a much more positive thinker in general; something which does not come naturally to me. Discovered the Stone Roses. And mixed pickle. And getting hammered.

So yeah, life happened.

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Since I've enjoyed reading a couple of post, I will now punish you with mine.

Last year, everything changed for me. Before that, I studied, taught, published round the clock for longer than I care to remember. I think I signed up here in 06 or 07 and must have since given two dozens presentations and written a similar amount of papers. I also got a few monographs and a textbook out. It is difficult to say precisely because some of my research projects span half a decade or more. So lots of work, in any case... and the TF1 forums helped me along by allowing me to relax. Thanx for that.

Anyway, life went on, I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Visited ten or so countries I had never been to. Revisited another 20 or so... mostly work related (conferences and such). I met hundreds of colleagues, newcomers to my and other fields. Made quite a few friends too.

But, yeah, last year, my former life, my entire life really, came to a full stop. I am no longer allowed to do research (wife orders) and, although I was given the option to become an honorary professor (it has a specific meaning in Japan), I resigned. I like teaching but I could not see myself as an academic without a research agenda. Early retirement for me, then.

I have been doing volunteering work for the last few months. When I have free time, I am a freeloader/caretaker of one of my wife's properties. I no longer have assets of my own.

You guys take care.

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Most excellent memories of years gone by. Thank you all for sharing. I hope more people stumble in here and post, even if they've only been 'round here a short time. All time is worthy.

On a different tack, I'm thinking of posting how I've changed in my TF1 presence here during the past five years. Not everyone will have changed (some of you are remarkably consistent over the years). It's currently percolating in the miasma I call a brain. When I hear a 'ding' I'll know the fries are done and I'll put some words here.

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On a different tack, I'm thinking of posting how I've changed in my TF1 presence here during the past five years. Not everyone will have changed (some of you are remarkably consistent over the years). It's currently percolating in the miasma I call a brain. When I hear a 'ding' I'll know the fries are done and I'll put some words here.

I look forward to it.

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Ha! You can talk! Speaking of talking, how are the hormone pills coming along? Your voice more feminine yet? :P :P

(wuv u chris!)

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Its about as feminine as yours :P

How's the sex-line going, has business dropped off? :D

You should know! You took it over. :D

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Until last year I was a polymath extraordinaire. I taught and inspired a generation, my students would come back 50 years later to lick my boots and offer me all their wealth and their virginity (50 years too late unfortunately). I drew a penis on Hamilton's back when he wasn't looking. I wrote hundreds of papers in all possible subjects, received several Nobel prizes and profoundly altered our view of the world. I also published several books which are now in the hands of millions of people and will influence future generations and shape the world. It is difficult to mention numbers as some of my research projects would last several lifetimes for ordinary people, though they generally take me a few months. I wrote Alonso a long letter offering sexual favours which he will soon reply to.

I travelled to all of the countries of the world. Which of course included the UK where I took a dump on the graves of Hamilton's ancestors. I then visited all those countries again for good measure, chairing some conferences along the way that have brought about world peace. I met millions of colleagues of inferior intelligence, in my field and other fields which I already knew more about than those 'experts' One of them happened to mention he was a Hamilton fan so I murdered his family and drew a wee wee on his face when he was sleeping.

However last year everything changed. I was diagnosed with thirteen different malignant cancers and found to have a congenital condition called nanoanimushumanus loosely translated as being born without a heart therefore being a complete sociopath. I survived and recovered from these life threatening conditions just in time for the earthquake and tsunami to strike. I single handedly rescued hundreds of drowning women and children despite having just left hospital. I blocked a tsunami with my bare hands and saved three nuclear reactors (yes it could have been much worse). I went to the Japanese grandprix to kill Hamilton but they wouldn't let me in so I went back later and peed on a spot he had stood. I am no longer allowed to do research so that there are things left for other people to discover. I was offered the post of honorary emperor but when they refused to carry out my wish (of kidnapping hamilton and letting me smack his bottom) I resigned. I liked bullying people in the guise of teaching but hated the idea of giving away part of my intelligence to inferior creatures. So I chose to retire.

I am now a freelance volunteer, offering my services when needed to single handedly rebuild destroyed cities, bring peace to warring nations and stopping climate change which is easy since it doesn't exist. When I have free time I have some fun with my wife's properties (she runs a day care center). I can however no longer use my own assets, except when I slap my Hamilton doll with my pee pee.

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Ah, well, lewisterics and their obsessions... what else is knew around here.

Funny, even if tedious, post.

The resentment that motivated the effort is, as always, just plain sad. After all this time, whoever you are, please let it go for your own sake.

The self-important handle points to a Cavallino character... except that Cavallino was many things but a coward was not one of them.

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