I see you're still alive...
 

So am I.
I missed you guys!! :crymeariver:

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Hay Struct, how are things :)

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

I'm doing just fine Leshy, thanks. I hope everything is well on your side of the interweb too.
I just cancelled my WoW subscription for the sake of getting a real life. Bearing the disappointment for one and a half years of not having a night elf girlfriend was just too much.
So, instead I'm planning on becoming a fleet commander once more. Atleast that's a feasible goal. ;)

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Are those real threads, or do posts also count? Like, three posts equal one thread? The problem is, although I have plenty of intellect as a mage, I can not really use it for anything else but shooting laserbeams out of my eyes and fireballs out of my arse. So 35 threads are not (hardly) an option.

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Hey, those are both pretty noble goals!

I'd cancel my WoW subscription, but the expansion is just around the corner and looks like heaps of fun, so I'll continue playing and take on the extra burden of not having a Blood Elf girlfriend as well. Good to see you're still alive and doing well, however :)

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Who? Dace?

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

That comes as a surprise.



No really!! I'm surprised!



Dace was Scottish? Eeeeeuw!

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Whilst bringing back the old meme wasn't a bad thing in and of itself, you did such a bad joke with it that the following smiley is deserved:

:mad:

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Still recovering from the shame that I had to look up the word "meme": Hi MrL!

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Word up

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Hello.

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

hey SI :) how you doing


long time no see

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

SI!

I asked about you at the GD meet yesterday while we were all having lunch. You made this thread at around the same time :o

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Hey Furball. I'm not sure what I think is creepier: that people are asking about me in GD-meet lunches after about a year of absence, or that we might have a mental bond so that we think about eachother at the same time.
Though I must say that I really appreciate the attention. :-)

RR_0, dude, long time no see indeed. As I mentioned earlier everyting is going fine with me. Still in the same ol' programming business. I guess some things don't change over a year's time.
And how's our roadrunner_0 doing then?

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

You have never be gone for a year. I'm sure that cat has been hanging around.

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

I checked it out, and you're right. I made a short visit in March this year.
Bloody cat... spoiling my entire comeback. ;)

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

not bad :) not bad at all mate, not sure if you know but i have a child nowadays so a lot more of a hectic lifestyle than i used to have but i wouldnt swap it for the world :)

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Really? I did not know. Congratulations!

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Sup dawg, homies 4 life

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

oh me too

that quote


'powering whatever that needs to be powered....sometimes'

still pops up in my mind every once in a while


followed by a discrete giggle of course

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Hi SI :)

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Hehehe* SI welcome back.



*that avatar makes me giggle.

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Oh my god you're back!
How's 3D pong (that was you wasn't it?)

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

He's also the guy with the pc server build in a original NES case <3

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

whutup muhfukuh

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Hey SS!

Yooo Megla! How are you doing? I've been out of touch with the GD community for too long, not realizing what a nice clique this really is as an outlet.
Pong still exists... and so does the NES server (had to toss in a new harddrive a few weeks ago). Pity I haven't produced anything since. More than enough ideas, yet no energy to really take my time for it. I guess working in the real world takes its toll. ;) (though that's a lousy excuse)
But working in the real world also made me grow up a bit, in the sense of being more realistic and communative and being more assertive when it comes to my own wellbeing (bosses walking over you is a great way to come to that realization).
And I recently found my newest passion in Philips Research doing Extreme Programming and Agile way of development with fancy graphics and multimedia. So, as you may notice, I'm really happy about my current situation.

And I could tell you a lot more of what I learned recently that makes me feel so good, but I don't feel comfortable to write down many more words about myself without feeling like an attention whore. So without further inquiry I won't.

Good ol' times. :)

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

then you can tell me. I'm a big enough attention whore for the both of us.

please.

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Well, I have the odd feeling that I'm going to be labelled as naive (which I am), a chicken, cheesy and mentally unstable, but just for you... But, I first want to warn you that this is going to be a lot of text, and it's going to be cheesy as hell.
I should also apologise in advance for the poor grammar and spelling. My excuse is that I've been been going for 20 hours straight now doing programming, driving from the Netherlands to Germany and back, going on intake for a new project and doing technical chitchat with various people today. So my mind is not as clear as it should be. I know that's a crappy excuse for not learning proper English, but I can't help it for now.

So, I do not know what I vented on this forum about my work situation for the past two and a half years but to fully understand where this all comes from I must do this introduction.

I had yet another change of job three months ago and before that I was a pretty depressed person. This was the aftermath of that moment of personal distress about one and a half years earlier. Or, a near mental breakdown if that's the right choice of words.
Before I continue I must say this was my own fault as I didn't have the guts to make decisions or to speak my mind at that time. But that kind of changed.

My first job after I graduated was in a very small company where my boss, a rather arrogant individual in my opinion, sat right infront of me telling me what to program while he himself did the sales and customer thingies. He could have pretty dramatic mood swings where one phonecall could make him go from "normal mode" to "agressive mode". Don't worry, I didn't get beaten up, but I saw a few moments where he almost took a swing at for instance his sister who also did sales. Or he was yelling like mad at his father or even his business relations. All in the same room where I was working.
With him being an Aikido practitioner, so he knew how to kill you with two fingers, I was pretty scared at moments when that phone rang and he could have one of those mood swings.
I kept working at that place for nine months without making the decision to leave or to speak up because I was simply scared. And after those nine months something just "snapped" in me and I quit right away.

That was the moment when things started to get better. And although it was not a pleasant experience, I am very happy that this happened to me because I learned one thing: learning to identify and venting (in a political correct way) your discontent and having the guts to act upon it. This is definately the most valuable thing an introvert and nerdy individual like me can learn.

After that I started to work at a contracting company called TOPIC, and throughout the one and a half year following I learned more and more about myself while trying to find new motivation to keep on going. My "snapping" gave me quite a dent in my self-esteem but also in the way I perceived my work and colleagues.
I got one or two assignments and the job I got just before my current one was not my thing at all and instead of putting up with it as I did earlier I told TOPIC and to my surprise they listened and acted. I felt proud of myself to have "stood up" for myself. I am deliberately putting "stood up" between quotes because this might seem something very trivial to all of you, but it was an accomplishment for my persona.

The assignment that followed was the best thing that ever happened to me because of two reasons:
- I got into a company/department where appreciation is openly said, rather than assumed
- my coworker is doing/learning NLP and Personal Coaching and studied psychology in his spare time

The open appreciation thingy may again seem trivial, but if you pay attention to it you may notice it is not as often done as you may think. Those few words "I am really proud" or "I am impressed" or "you did an amazing job" can make a huge difference in atmosphere and how you perceive your work. And I am definately going to try to make a difference by expressing my positive feelings, rather than letting people assume them.
I feel that this open culture has been really good for my self esteem and is really helping me get back on track, better than before.

My coworker gave me many tips in the area of Personal Coaching and psychology especially in identifying my personal feelings and moods. By being constantly aware of your mood and how you feel you can spot moodchanges. And when you can spot moodchanges, you can find the cause. And when you know the cause, you can take action to improve or keep.
For example when you grow angry because your coworker throws away your code and rewrites it. If you are not aware of that anger because it might be very subtle the moment passes and you are left with a rather uncomfortable feeling towards your coworker. But when you identify that subtle anger and are aware of the cause being your coworker throwing your work overboard, you can act on it by asking him why he doesn't like to code and perhaps improve on your coding skills.
So, identifying moods is the first step from making bad into good.
Currently I am feeling a relief and happiness because I can write about my own experiences in the past. But I feel a bit uncomfortable with the amount of text I wrote already, and it's cheesyness. But I'm writing it anyway because even in the remotest possibility if anyone reads this and is helped by it, it will have served it's purpose.

My next step will be taking this mood stuff a bit further and turning it into motivation and energy. I do not know how to fill that in yet, but I do know there are techniques to put yourself into an euphoric fantasy of you achieving your goal. This can give one a lot of motivation to work towards a goal.

If you like to know more about this personal coaching stuff, Anthony Robbins and Michael Bolduc are two big names that I heard of (my coworker is fan of them). You can find audio tapes of them in "various places" (read: p2p).

I would like to conclude this huge piece of text with my appreciation to anyone who stayed with me this far, I really appreciate that (see what I'm doing here).

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

There's more text in that post than a weeks worth of GD threads combined.

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

I hope that also applies to the quality of it.

Re: I see you're still alive...
 

Life if full of coincidences. The title of this thread is the same thing my wife says to me each morning when I roll out of bed.


s|k---If the local newspaper follows through on an article they said would be in our local newspaper this weekend, I shall post a thread tomorrow about the axe murder I spoke of when I was still a gimmick.