Obfuscation
So I have Jury Duty on the 18th, initially I intended to use medical reasons to pull out of it. However I have found an awesome use for it. With the results from my applications coming in on or around the 20th, it should give me a little leeway with work to sort out what the hell I'm doing.
As to that, they haven't fired me from work yet. Manager hasn't really given us a performance review at all though, so pretty much no one knows how they are doing. Except one person who actually saw his own review file sitting on the managers computer while he was away from it, but hey it's all in the spirit of the game.
I will be able to drink to my success or drown my sorrows in peace and then probably be held in contempt if I rock up stupidly / obviously drunk. (I hope not)
I'll just need a few days to blur the lines.
Changes
After listening to a few conversations yesterday at work I had to write up something.
While I was not well and maybe a little before then (while out on the mines) I picked up a game and started playing, mostly because I was isolated and wanted something to do to occupy my time. It was a bit of a refuge and escape to jump away to something and somewhere else.
Personal epiphanies are easily exonerated from the actions they cause when you don't voice them, public epiphanies are far more fun. So we're heading up to the 2 year point now from the first day I entered that world and I exited it only months ago, what do I think of as I look back on my experiences in that game.
People, pure and simple.
I wont go back to the game and I doubt I'll miss it given time, but I will miss the people I met there and the community I found. What deserves a rather more special note is that I was not alone in my situation, these worlds are a refuge for a large portion of people with nowhere left to be and they go largely unnoticed for a greater part of your experience. Basement dwellers aside, my heart goes out to the people still left in that game who still have some time or an eternity left to them without other options for social interaction.
Relationships in this disconnected and rather antipodean social environment are the reasons people stay, not every gamer is there for the loot. Proportionally the relationships are also markedly alien to normal social interaction and given time can alter how you interact with people in a normal environment. Coming in from the metaphorical winter of my own personal social climate, I find myself constantly forgetting that I'm not always acting in ways people expect, a touch too open here and a tad far more forward than I used to be.
So what?
I enjoy the changes in me and I hope they stick, so here's to you and my love to the people still stuck in their own personal winter.
Matt.
Edit: I've also made it a goal to give something back to the community I enjoyed.
Eventuality
Today I revel in the first decent thing to occur to me for near on 5 years and I'm glad to see it finally happen. I got my STAT results last night and for all indications it works out to a TER/ATAR of 93.8, that's not half god damn bad for sitting the test half drunk and not having slept for 24 hours.
Either way I've thrown my application in to return to uni for;
Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology (BSc)
Psychology (BPsych)
Psychology BSc(Psych)
Environmental Biology (BSc)
Psychology/Commerce (Human Resource Management & Industrial Relations) (BSc/BCom)
Laboratory Medicine (BSc)
and a few others.
Hopefully I get in based on those criteria and my previous studies added in, but you never know so I'll also apply for mid year intake with UWA for their Mature Age Entry Program for BSc (double major).
