What Made you Smile/What Ticked you off Today?

[pepharytheworm]

Originally from California, and got fed up with the place and left.

How...How does that work?

Would seem very easy to get fed up living in CA

California is so big and vertical, that moving from north to south there is a big difference in the people, weather, landscape even the stores you can shop.

[Tanooki]

Well it's not that hard to imagine. I've only visited north of LA county once for my honeymoon so keep that in mind. I lived in the south. It was overrun with consumable expenses (utilities, gas, food, etc) costing me 30-35% more than where I am now. The crime on the whole in that state compared to here is worse. It's far more dirty and covered in graffiti. A strong prevalence of Spanish has taken over in the last decade where English in various areas comes second, and when I had moved back there for 3 years I had intended to stay and couldn't find a job (thankfully kept my existing one remotely) because I'm not fluent in it which I think is a farce. The traffic is just downright awful where it can take you 20min to go 5 miles in a lot of places if not worse. Nothing is ever really close so there's a lot more driving and driving distance which adds up. And while I am politically fairly center/center-right, due to LA, San Fran and a few other pockets state politics on the whole including presidential and senatorial races always lean far left which I hated too. The only plus there is the usually year around nice weather and if you like it, beach access.

I know central and much of the northern part of the state can be pretty laid back and rural, but it still suffers from the stupid decisions of bad people in the large pockets of population in the state and I pity them for it. Here I live in a partially red state which flip flops governors, the county here leans left but not psycho left, and the senate, at least one seat is usually up for grabs either way. Far less crime, dirt, no spanish needed to get a job, I can get anything I need on a daily basis going no more than 3miles in maybe 10min from here and I can easily get out of town and visit multiple states very easily or just hit the countryside in 15 minutes or less. And as I noted earlier, cost of living is a good bit less.

[noiseredux]

smile: Just got home and opened the mail. Had some packages which I figured were gifts I bought for my wife. Opened one and out came a Three 6 Mafia album. I panicked for a second thinking maybe I opened a package that was a gift she ordered for me. Looked at the label again - nope, def addressed to me. Then it hit me. Know who loves Three 6? Dug deeper in the envelope to find a gift label. Early xmas from my dood TSTR.

[mjmjr25]

That's really cool. Nice Teester - good on ya kid.

[Czernobog]

I've been officially accepted into graduate school! I begin in mid-January and should have a Master's in less than two years. Even registered for classes and everything. The hour and a half commute to classes is going to suck in the winter though, especially since.....

One of my clunkers is leaking gasoline and the other was leaking coolant. Looks like the coolant leak I took care of, but I'm afraid it's something more significant as the air was taking too long to become warm despite what my gauge was reading. As for the gas leak, I'm afraid the car's so rusted out underneath that doing anything will just cause everything to break apart. The lines will definitely break at the very least. Plus, gasoline fumes are kinda dangerous.

[TSTR]

I should note that Monday brought my own huge uncontrollable when upon receiving not only a GPU we had worked out a deal for, noise also went above and beyond by including a copy of Fire Emblem: Awakening. Totally unexpected, and immensely appreciated! Early Xmas rules, and so does noiseredux.

[KalessinDB]

Sold BoneSnapDeez my poor unloved Channel F (You are the hero that rescues dusty systems from my basement, d00d)... and turned that money (plus more of my own... more than I'd like to admit, but shut up) into a beautiful component modded toploading NES! Should be headed my way tomorrow! (well... today, but shut up)

Cannot wait to see my NES as it should be!

... This means I may have a composite modded one to sell soonish...

[lisalover1]

Smile/Frown/Flabbergasted: I finished my last exam this morning... after what might have been one of the luckiest moments in my life. 0_o So, basically, I THOUGHT my psychology exam was this Friday, but it was actually yesterday, and I didn't show up. But, out of insane luck, there was a half-citywide power outage two minutes before the exam started, and it was rescheduled to this morning. I took it, did well, and no one was the wiser. Wow.

Just Smile: I'll be flying back home to Kalamazoo this Saturday for the holidays! Yay~! ^o^

Sorta Frown: I leave at 1 AM. D:

Dreadfully Nervous: I promised myself I would "officially and definitively" come out to my parents over break. Now, this wouldn't be as bad, but my mom essentially made me "promise" that I wouldn't even consider starting HRT until after I graduated and had a job for a few years. I knew that there was no way in hell I could wait that long, so I already broke that promise. It'll be tough getting past that...

[AppleQueso]

Dreadfully Nervous: I promised myself I would "officially and definitively" come out to my parents over break. Now, this wouldn't be as bad, but my mom essentially made me "promise" that I wouldn't even consider starting HRT until after I graduated and had a job for a few years. I knew that there was no way in hell I could wait that long, so I already broke that promise. It'll be tough getting past that...

That's an incredibly unreasonable promise to ask someone to make anyways.

"Don't do this life affirming thing until after this arbitrary time frame has passed."

It's ridiculously unfair to you, and frankly the way these sorts of things work is that you'll reach that "having a job for a few years" mark and get told that you should wait longer still, because you shouldn't make drastic life changes until other people in your life are ready to accept them or something I guess.

...and really, what it boils down to is that you're an adult and that ultimately these sorts of decisions aren't the kinds of decisions that parents get to make for you, especially when it's a question of living a life that's as honest, authentic, and as true to yourself as possible.

How that helps you navigate that conversation though... I don't know. I've been lucky in that my entire family has been 100% supportive of my transition, so that's not an issue I've had to face.

General advice for this sort of thing though that I hear: think of the worst case scenario that could realistically go down (emphasis on realistic, don't want to work yourself up over highly unlikely or impossible outcomes after all), and prepare yourself for that.

Transition is really, really tough. It's the toughest thing I've ever dealt with in my entire life. Supportive family means *so* much when you're going through something this big, and I hope your parents recognize this and show you the love and support you deserve.

I've known too many people who didn't get that.

[Erik_Twice]

Wish you luck, buddy.

But,hey, going by that exam anecdote, I'm sure you'll have it, don't worry