The Good Ol' Days
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Well, you needn't partake if you don't care to, but I spent enough nights literally standing on a bridge contemplating going over the side to have earned my optimism just based on my continued existence in this world.Saskwach said:
If you'd like the gray lining to my silver cloud, I will also say that spending that much time in close proximity to death by falling gave me acrophobia. I have to take a glass elevator to work on the sixth floor every day and I have to stand in the corner where I can't see out the windows.
EDIT: Sorry to be all angsty and emo (or not) there - I've been thinking about that a lot recently because my life has gotten better quite recently, not because it's gotten worse. I am actually very optimistic today, and also conversely very grumpy, which is an odd combo.
I miss the days when i could consider these things to be untrue:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.58982#446507
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.59038?page=1
I also miss the days when I didn't have GCSE's in 3weeks
I miss the days when I didn't want to garrote a few people
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.58982#446507
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.59038?page=1
I also miss the days when I didn't have GCSE's in 3weeks
I miss the days when I didn't want to garrote a few people
I miss the days where school consisted entirely of me being present. Where my grade was only dependent upon whether or not I cared on certain days.
I miss the days when surrealist humor was moderately understandable. (I'm looking at you, every new show on [AS], I have no idea what's going on, and if that's the joke, then I quit)
I miss the days when cheating in school was expected, and not something to scare the living shit out of me, forcing me to prove in ten different ways that I've submitted original work.
I miss the days when my lunch came in a brown bag made specially for me before I left for school.
I miss the days when I thought beer was gross tasting.
I miss the simplicity of regular Calculus. Anything after infinite series makes me want to leap out of my chair and spear the professor like Achilles in the movie Troy .
I miss the days when I was bad at guitar, and didn't feel the need to constantly prove my prowess to random strangers.
/* note: on one of my calculus III exams I got a 70, then proceded to get kicked out of class that day the professor gave back exams because my celebration was a little bit disruptive, seeing how the class average was a 50, on your standard 90-100 = A scale. */
I miss the days when surrealist humor was moderately understandable. (I'm looking at you, every new show on [AS], I have no idea what's going on, and if that's the joke, then I quit)
I miss the days when cheating in school was expected, and not something to scare the living shit out of me, forcing me to prove in ten different ways that I've submitted original work.
I miss the days when my lunch came in a brown bag made specially for me before I left for school.
I miss the days when I thought beer was gross tasting.
I miss the simplicity of regular Calculus. Anything after infinite series makes me want to leap out of my chair and spear the professor like Achilles in the movie Troy .
I miss the days when I was bad at guitar, and didn't feel the need to constantly prove my prowess to random strangers.
I just have to laugh when teachers make exams in college specifically to have the class average in between 65-75 as most teachers do. If you think AP Chem is evil, just you wait, oh, just you wait...CodeChrono said:
/* note: on one of my calculus III exams I got a 70, then proceded to get kicked out of class that day the professor gave back exams because my celebration was a little bit disruptive, seeing how the class average was a 50, on your standard 90-100 = A scale. */
I can't imagine ever wanting to end my life. All my life I've been happy, and life generally gets better as you get older. I miss the things I did (and all that free time!) when I was young, but as you get older you have more freedom, more money, and better judgment. Perhaps it's growing up as an only child way out in the sticks, but I was never lonely or bitter. I'm not bitter now, still happy, but there are definitely things I miss and things I think changed for the worse. There are lots of things that are better, too - but that's another thread.mshcherbatskaya said:
It's good to know that there are people who basically default to happiness. Among other things, a clear-eyed, sensible person who is generally happy is fairly reliable proof that the world itself is not, in fact, made of shit. I worry that The World has gotten worse (mountaintop removal mining, vast pools of pigshit, oceanic islands of garbage the size of Texas) but My World has gotten much, much better. I still always notice good jump-off points, though. Reflex.werepossum said:
I'm not sure the world is actually getting worse - perhaps we just have more widespread knowledge. For instance, in the late 19th/early 20th century Copper Hill, Tennessee was turned into a virtual moonscape by the sulfuric acid (a by-product of smelting or extracting copper ore) and by complete clear-cutting (for smelting fuel.) Today there are some trees growing on those once-barren hills, and the acid plant's exhaust can be breathed in the stacks (assuming the scrubbers are working!) The Pigeon River in Tennessee was once so polluted from paper mill effluents from a Champion Paper mill in North Carolina that almost no aquatic life survived, organochloride (including dioxin) levels were off the charts, coal tar literally coated everything just into North Carolina, water flowing over the Tennessee border varied from an unnatural brown to bright, equally unnatural blue, green, orange, or yellow depending on what Champion was dumping at the time. Today Blue Ridge Paper Products owns the paper mill and has spent literally millions cleaning up the plant and the river, and in conjunction with the feds, Tennessee and North Carolina, and private not-for-profit groups such as Conservation Fisheries have restocked many species including darters, madtoms, minnows, and even mussels. The last advisory against eating fish from the Pigeon has been lifted; even carp are safe to eat. There are numerous other existing hazards and environmental damage that wouldn't be allowed today, and numerous other stories of great improvements during the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. (One of the reasons I so despise Al Gore is that during his first presidential run he wrote to the EPA to advocate against enforcing then-current environmental laws, let alone mitigating decades of past damage, for the then-Champion Paper Mill in order to obtain the support of powerful North Carolina politicians. If you have to protect jobs, fine; use tax money to fix the pollution source and clean up the damage, don't just pretend it isn't happening.) The Nolichucky Reservoir is so filled with mica and other sediment from early to mid-20th century mining that only 10% of its original impounded volume is still water. (Hmm, that one's not been addressed yet...) So it's not all worse; in a lot of ways things are better than they used to be.mshcherbatskaya said:
And congratulations on turning your life around; I know that?s difficult. I'd hate to never have known you over such a silly little thing as the world.
Feel free. All my best characters are plagiarized from life.The_root_of_all_evil said:
You know, I had two exit points under serious consideration, and one of them was removed a few years back They amended the structure an overpass to reduce traffic accident hazards and my spot was gone. I was kind of...sad? about it. I kind of liked being able to look at it and think, "That's the spot where I didn't kill myself."
Every day on my way to work, I ride past a bridge that is still nicknamed "Suicide Bridge" (for obvious reasons) but I never had the urge to go there. I just had to be a non-conformist, I guess.
@werepossum - Yes, some things do get better, don't they. The main river in my city almost never has floating poop in it any more. And given the fact that my state tried to enact what was damn near a Jim Crow law against gays and lesbians in 1992, the fact that the local gay youth resource center has been in operation for 10 successful years now goes to show that my efforts and those of my friends paid off for the kids coming up behind us. And when I think of all the cool people I wouldn't have met if I'd died back in '96 - yeah, SOOOO glad I didn't do that.
It's kind of sad when a river almost never having floating poop in it is considered progress, isn't it?mshcherbatskaya said:
Regarding the anti-gay law, the county in which I was raised a few years ago discovered homosexuals and were quite properly horrified. One Tuesday the county commission passed a law making it illegal for any homosexuals to reside within the county limits - since of course there were *certainly* none living there at the time! - and re-instating sodomy laws. It was freaking hilarious! They were on the national news and even made many international news broadcasts (Yahoo "Rhea County" "homosexual" and "Ban" and you too can enjoy it!) A carnival of national reporters descended on Dayton, which I should note is also the home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial. Two days later the county commission held a two minute meeting to withdraw the ban on homosexuals, running (literally!) a gauntlet of reporters to get in and out.
On a more somber note I should add that these are people I actually know somewhat. These are not bad or evil people, yet they saw no evil (and great virtue) in banning people from obtaining such basic necessities as housing (with their own money, no less) for what they prefer to do - or, more accurately I suppose, for whom they prefer to do it with - in the privacy of their own homes. Above and beyond the humor of the situation, the dichotomy of that viewpoint is - frightening is too mild a word. If you don't own your own sexuality, you don't own yourself; you are property.
Anyway, I don't know if there are any gay youth centers (or any youth centers really)operating there, but it's a safe bet the words "sodomy" or "homosexual" won't be uttered in county commission meeting any time soon!
I miss the times when you could shoot a man for lookin' at ya' funny
I miss the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth
I miss the days when my dog was still alive
I miss the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth
I miss the days when my dog was still alive
I still have yet to make that video response on Youtube of my Reaction to the 2 Girls 1 Cup wikipedia article. Praise the Lord I have not seen the video.
I miss the good ol' days where I found it really easy to balance schoolwork with my social life, as opposed to now, where I usually hand in essays a day or two after they're due. This is due to me being restless and waiting on MSN/Facebook for the chance to talk to a friend, like a Nintendo fanatic constantly hitting the refresh button on the Smash Bros. Brawl website.
I miss the good ol' days where if I worked on my homework a few hours after getting home from school, I was bound to get it done, and if I procrastinated, no more than a mere 2-3 hours of sleep had to be sacrificed. Back then, I didn't have to worry about the sun rising in a few hours.
I miss the days where phone calls for me were from my friends, as opposed to random people who want me to take part in some survey, or buy some insurance.
I miss the days when English in school meant spelling, grammar, and comprehension of stories, not this pretentious literary theory (foreshadowing, symbolism, etc) bullshit.
I miss the good ol' days where if I worked on my homework a few hours after getting home from school, I was bound to get it done, and if I procrastinated, no more than a mere 2-3 hours of sleep had to be sacrificed. Back then, I didn't have to worry about the sun rising in a few hours.
I miss the days where phone calls for me were from my friends, as opposed to random people who want me to take part in some survey, or buy some insurance.
I miss the days when English in school meant spelling, grammar, and comprehension of stories, not this pretentious literary theory (foreshadowing, symbolism, etc) bullshit.
