Silent Torture

Tonight I realized how much my kind is misunderstood, or at least how little experience I have in this world. Perhaps both. I was in the car with my brother who is a freshman in collage and we got on the topic of how much people change over time. Drawing on my own experience I said that people change the most throught middle school(grades 5-8). My brother just graduating from high school said that people change the most through high school. Obviouly we are both drawing from two different life prospectives.

From that subject we got on the subject of the different groups in high school. Now before I go on I am going to give some context to the two of us. I am a super nerd who likes computers and science fiction and I usually get good grades in school. My brother likes weight lifting and stories of war and get average to poor grades in school. As you can see we are near polar opposites of each other.

So how the conversation got started was I said that I believed that Nerds were playing a closer "game" to reality then other people in my same age. My brother on the other hand stated that he thought that nerds are off in there own little land of fantasy. So in response to this I said how we nerds have to learn how to hold our tounges and make friends outside of the social norms. He merly stated that he has seen nerds talk out quite a bit.

At this point in the conversation I decided that this was a battle that I can not win because my brother and I have totaly different life experences, or at least different life experences as of 5th grade and up. Now I wonder if it is possible for me to descibe what sort of "silent torture" I go through to someone with out my life experences. Or perhaps I am overblowing the entire issue.

Freshman Orientation- and all the confused kids

Freshman orientation was interesting today. We got all the usual stuff; planner, schedule, ID, and achievement test scores (apparently I am not stupid). We were lectured by the staff about dress code, involvement in the school's activities, and other such boring topics. All this, of and in its self was not important enough to blog about. But a few things seemed to catch me off guard from what I expected.

For one other then the normal clubs and sports, I found that they have a place to sign up for being a tech for the school. This position allows the signed up student to work with the school's computer system and such. Also we will get payed for our work. I was so excited about it till I talked with a student already enrolled in the program. He said he just bluffed his way in and all they really did was sit and do nothing. I guess I will still give it a shot because I get payed and it will look good on a resume.

Another thing I realized is that I am still viewed as kid. Things like them walking us around and making sure we don't get in trouble tipped me off. I guess I can not blame the considering what I have seen of my class. Maybe I am just over analyzing what I see or perhaps I always look for the worst in myself. Then again on the off chance that I am right, all I am is a immature kid.

The Beauty of Small Communities

It seems as though it is a very rare occurrence these days for there to be small communities such as forums, and websites. Either the community is way to small and there is nearly no member that post often. Or the community is to large and the average user feels lost in a world of ideas, and words.

I think I have found a community that hits just about in the lower middle of this scale. It is the wonderful forum at http://www.opticonstudios.co.cc/forums/. This forum main purpose is for C++ game development and related subjects. But it is not rare for there to be subjects about a persons favorite video game to people's thoughts on religion. The community is small enough (about 8 active members) that you don't feel lost, but big enough that there is a constant stream of forum posts.

Another forum that comes to mind is Moosader forums at board.moosader.com/ . This community is a lot larger then the Opticon Studios forums, but there is still a strong feeling of companionship and friendliness. You see many crazy antics on this forum, from game programming contests to tutorials for beginners.

Perhaps what I am saying is that I am in love with these small communities that no one has ever heard of. So I would invite you (if any one is crazy enough to read the blog) to join us in these wonderful communities to voice your opinion and knowledge to anyone that bothers to listen.