[CS-FSLUG] That'll be $0.01 ;-)

[Don Parris]

On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 02:22:44 -0600, N. Thompson <n.thomp at sasktel.net> wrote:
> I'm not sure how many people would have noticed but lately I've almost
> disappeared from the list except when I need to fix something Linux
> related and don't know how or when I feel the need to boast that I've
> actually stuck with a distribution for more then a few weeks (back to
> MDK 10.0 now btw), I've forgotten who almost everyone was although I was
> pretty bad with the names before and aside from Josiah Richie, Tim
> Butler, Fred Miller, Groundhog (who's got so many names its confusing) I
> can't seem to recall who everyone else is (sorry). Things in my life
> have drastically changed, I'm now living in a town probably well over
> twice the size of what I've ever actually lived in before, I need my
> parents to go with my to the mall just so I don't get lost in there and
> everywhere around me other kids are getting jobs and drivers licenses
> even though I'm older and never accomplished any of these things yet. It
> seem like life has slipped out from under my feet and now I'm
> desperately racing to catch up, I don't know what will happen from one
> day to the next, I'm frustrated, intrigued and yet surprisingly also
> content with my situation even if I do quite often like life is just
> passing me by but I don't have the means to make use of that time.
> 
> I'll probably be graduating from school in 2006 or 2007 depending on how
> hard I want my workload to be, I work hard every night doing homework so
> I don't have time for a job on the side and I don't have much to do
> aside from what little programming I can learn during what little free
> time I have. I'm 18 now so I can do a lot of things but I'm just not
> interested in anything aside from my education, getting a job if I can,
> programming and my interests in carpentry and building custom computers
> as well as learning how to make machines, computer peripherals and micro
> controllers. I have not turned away from God, in fact now I try to keep
> a log every time I want to write down something before bed and often the
> topic relates in some way to God or the Bible. Kids at school are
> getting drunk underage, a lot of them can't understand why I don't even
> touch alcoholic beverages at all and I personally don't feel the need to
> even risk the chance of becoming intoxicated, I'm more or less alone in
> a crowd at school because they are all party animals in some way or
> another, some of them are unpredictable, others seem bent on remaining
> anti-social, some appear to be associated in some way or another in cult
> like groups and the only think I have in common with the people I would
> consider decent people there is my shyness.
> 
Keep that Log!  It can be a vital thinking tool.  It'll come in handy
sometime in the future.  It's also good to see what you're thinking. 
That way, you can look at it and say, "maybe I need to look at this
differently" or something ingenius like that. :)  It keeps you in
touch with yourself.

> I don't know what I'm going to do when I finish school or whether I'll
> even have gone to the trouble of getting a drivers license by then, I've
> considered the possibility of working for a few years before going to
> college or university, I've also considered going straight to university
> if I manage to get some sort of scholarship. I'm very proud of recent
> increases in my marks at school, last I checked all of my marks in
> school this semester were over 80%, math was 86% and history last I
> heard was 91%. I've developed a strong interest in cryptography and I've
> still got the same concrete interest in programming, I've found history
> to be more and more enjoyable compared to other topics in school and
> I've found out that psychology is something I don't really enjoy much at
> all. I find now more and more my concern is focusing on what kind of
> job(s) I'm going to have as an adult, this are getting increasingly more
> complicated and jobs increasingly less pleasant as time goes on, I'd
> personally like to be self employed but that may be more punishment and
> risk then its worth.
> 
You'll have to explore that jungle when you come to it.  Take your
time.  But at least you're counting up the cost.

> I frequently get this heavy feeling like I've got something very
> important to do and I'm going to regret it later if I don't but I don't
> know what that is and often it leads to frustration. Over the last two
> years or so I've compulsively purchased a few keyboards and mice without
> really even realizing what I was doing, now I have three keyboards in my
> closet, one with a year or two of use, one with anywhere between 6 and 7
> days of use, a mouse with a few months of use, another mouse I gave to
> dad which had a few years of use and my new wireless keyboard and mouse
> which I recently got from Walmart while I was passing through there for
> some reason.
> 
Well, if you plan to compulsively buy @ 256 or 512 MB of RAM, let me know! :)

> I don't watch TV as much as I used to, in fact I'm down to 1 hour of TV
> a day, I don't really play games that much either any more and my free
> time is spent either doing homework or working on my programs, the
> Internet is also becoming less useful to me, I get so sick of
> advertisements and sub par online services taking the place of good
> software, I'd take a good CD-Rom or printed encyclopedia any day over
> Wikipedia or Encarta online.
> 
You sound a bit like me here.  Might be good to find something
recreational, though, just to maintain balance.  I'll finish watching
this last season of NYPD Blue, and don't know what I'll watch after
that.  I do watch college football on Saturdays, but not much else,
unless I can catch a Major League Soccer game.  I watch part of AFV
before I go to work on Sunday evenings.  That's my whole TV routine.

> Several minutes have passed since I started writing this e-mail and now
> I'm not even sure why I started writing it, I'll send it anyway in case
> someone else can tell me. I did manage to pass some time and think about
> what I wrote though, I guess that counts for something.
> 
> Just thought of the subject line, in case anyone doesn't know it has to
> do with the quote "penny for your thoughts", its figurative of course :-) .
> 
You needed to express yourself. ;)


-- 
DC Parris GNU Evangelist
http://matheteuo.org/
gnumathetes at gmail.com
Free software is like God's love - 
you can share it with anyone anywhere anytime!