Three Less

My finals are over, and school is out.  There’s an upside and a downside to this.  Downside is, I’ve still got one class to take care of, so I have the looming threat of going back.  But the upside is, I’m finally free to do my own thing for a while.  It’s been too long, and I feel like somehow school has sapped away my creativity and ambition.  Now don’t get me wrong~ I love learning.  I spend countless hours just researching and learning things, whether I have a need for them or not.  But I don’t do well with schedules, and I don’t do well with “other people’s interests”.

If I’m not excited about something RIGHT NOW, I’m not gonna learn it, and I’m not gonna care.  Simple as that.  But that’s why I’ve been looking forward to this time so much.  I’m gonna do what I’m passionate about in the moment, instead of what I should do.  Because there IS nothing I should do, even if only for a little while.  Current plans~ Work on the Robosquid site, get back into making Trackmania maps (now that I’m a good enough player to make something worthwhile), and program.  Program what?  Who cares?!  ^_^  Whatever I feel like in that very moment!

So am I finally free?  Yes.  I’m free to go in the direction I need to begin regrowing my thoughly school-downtrodden soul.

~Chloe <3

I turned 28 years old yesteday, and it didn’t totally suck.  I mention this because it was only last year around my 27th birthday that I finally lost it, had a breakdown, and admitted that I really couldn’t handle being male.  Since then, I’ve seen a counsellor, gotten a prescription from an endocrinologist, changed my name, and begun dressing as my true self, give or take the difficulties of starting a whole new wardrobe from scratch!  And I feel better.  A lot better.  No, things aren’t perfect.  It puts strains on some relationships.  I get odd stares sometimes.  But even then, I know I’m doing what I have to do, and that through all the difficulties, my life is worth living again.

Wasn’t life worth living before?  Well, yes and no.  It wasn’t until I was eleven or so that I understood “what” my problem was, although I’d felt it long before that.  When it finally clicked, I started trying to ignore it, or pretend it wasn’t real.  Afterall, it’s not possible to become a girl, right?  So why upset anyone with news like this when it’s not something you can have anyway?  So I stayed quiet.  I even “forgot” for a while.  My repression had worked in a way.  I still felt all the feelings.  I still envied the girls.  I still couldn’t relate to the boys.  I never did feel right.  But it took a long time to figure out why, because I’d blinded myself to the idea.

When stresses finally broke that wall down, it fell hard.  I realized the meaning of one memory after another, and in the end, I felt like an absolute fool.  How could I have wasted so much of my life pretending to be what I’m not?  But now that I had, what could I do about it?  I didn’t want to hurt others, but it was hurting me to do nothing.  And I knew that part wouldn’t stop.  Could I really live the rest of my life, knowing that I’d never get to really be me?  I struggled with this for a while, but ultimately, it was obvious.  There’s no point in being if all you’ll be is a puppet.  Regardless of any problems it might cause, I knew I had to do something.

So I did.  And I don’t regret it a bit.  My only real regret is that I hid away for as long as I did.  But regrets are in the past, and it’s the future that really matters.  And my future finally looks bright.  Each new birthday no longer holds the threat of loss and regret, but the promise of progress and self contentment.  I’ll overcome the obstacles.  I’ll make it through the tough parts.  I’ll keep on fighting.  And most importantly, I’ll be me.

In the time since my last post, robosquid has gone down. Permanently, it seems. Best I can tell, the founder simply let the hosting run out, and has gone silent. I’m still trying to contact him, to at least transfer the domain, if not get the whole thing up again, but that looks pretty unlikely at this point. So meanwhile, I’ve begun work on a replacement. For now, it’s a simple forum, but I’ll be shaping it back into a fully featured site over time.

I’ve set most of today aside for exactly that, but don’t expect the full thing up by morning. I’m not a robot. But I’m planning it all out and working on the database needs. Right now, I’m taking a bottom up approach, setting up the user system and simpler internals that will be needed in order to switch to a top down approach further down the road. Or in other words, features can be added one at a time, but there are a few core details that the whole can’t function without.

The big landmarks I’m looking at right now are something like this~ User registration > Posting system > Security levels > File uploads > Advanced user details/blogs > Project system > Realtime chat > Battle system

One thing I’ve noticed across many sites I’ve been a part of, or just passed by is that there tends to be a large distinction between “the forums” and the rest of the site. For now, we’re stuck in a similar situation, but I really want to avoid that, and the way I’ve decided to do that is to make a generic posting system that can be accessed by all parts of the site and viewed in different manners.  What this means for you is that if you make a blog post, upload a project, or start a battle, they will simultaneously appear in forum format, but remain bound to the additional logic applied to these situations. Perhaps more importantly, the reverse will occur. If someone posts directly in the forums, the posts will be automatically bound to a blog, project, or whatever is appropriate for the posting location, to keep everything easily searchable, votable, and visible.

Of course, making changes to the plans will be easier the earlier they’re made, so if you see any problems, or have some cool ideas you’d like to share, please do. I’m making this site for you guys. Help me make it great for you.

Whether you’re coding, designing, or just playing them, video games are an important part of the creative flow.  Games include so many forms of media at once, and are great creative outlets that are perfect for promoting teamwork, but because they have it all, they can also inspire almost anyone to work their craft.  That’s why I’m proud to say that I’ve been given an opportunity to give back to the indie gaming community.

There’s a site out there called Robosquid, which is built around the idea of bringing people together to create games and media.  There are battle, so people can challenge their fellow game enthusiasts in a variety of ways.  There are missions to keep the creative juices flowing.  And anyone and everyone are welcome to create and upload projects for other to critique, play, or even help out on.  But what it’s been missing lately is freshness.  I love the site, but the activity level has been dwindling of late.  I feel that this is in large part due to the fact that the core engine of the site was still in the works when the site’s author got too busy to continue on at the normal pace.  Not his fault.  It happens.  But that’s where I come in.  I’ve been handed the keys, so to speak.  I’ve got some extra time for a while, so I’ll be filling in that gap, and with any luck, kicking things back in gear!  Want to check it out?  Come visit Robosquid!

~Tizzy <3

I keep hearing arguments from proponents of California’s Proposition 8 (banning same sex marriages) that the voting is over, the proposition passed, and everyone should get on with their lives.  They treat this as if it’s some wholly unimportant thing that’s happened.  A minor annoyance swatted away.  But we’re talking about a constitutional amendment passing by a tiny majority to revoke human rights.  Regardless of the fact that I don’t believe any constitutional amendments should be passable by such a small margin, regardless of their intent, using the very documents that give us all our rights to take them away is madness.

We would all be fools if we just lied down to accept our fates when something threatens us.  The same is true in this matter.  As in the past, the downtrodden are rising against unfair oppression.  And as in the past, the fight will continue on until the opression ends.  Black rights, women’s rights, or gay rights, it makes no difference.  We all deserve the same rights, and we wouldn’t truly be a democracy if we didn’t make ourselves heard, and fight for them.  So that is what we do.

Congratulations America for making the right choice for the presidency.  Maybe we’ve got a chance to recover after all.  It’s surprising though, that even though you happilly elected a black president, you still feel the need to get in the way of love.  Banning gay marriage has no real benefit to you, but is a huge burden on those around you.  Is this really the limit of your tolerance after all these years? I’m glad for the progress there is, but there’s a long way yet to go.

There’s an arcade style racing series called Trackmania that I played a little bit a few years back.  Recently, I picked it back up, and I can’t let go.  It’s really geared towards perfectionists, but that doesn’t mean that anyone can’t enjoy it.  What it does mean is that when you go up against other players, you’ll find yourself instinctively restarting the track just because you bumped a wall, and lost a few hundredths of a second.  That may sound harsh, but the tracks are usually pretty short, so it’s not that bad.  More importantly, though: Trackmania is free, and just plain fun.  You can download it directly from the official Trackmania website, or if you’ve got a Steam account, you can install it from there.

One of the big features, especially for online play is that anyone can make and share their own tracks with other players.  In fact, the video you see above is me driving (not that well) on a track of my own creation.  If you want to try it out for yourself, grab the whole first set of tracks here.  There’s fifteen maps in this set, and I’ve got another set in the works.  And, hey.  If you make some tracks of your own, don’t hesitate to link them in the comments.  I always love to find fun new tracks!

See you on the road,
~ Tizzy <3

So on the advice of a friend, I’ve decided to start writing a blog.  I can’t say I’m entirely prepared for this, and it’ll probably take some settling into place before I’ve decided on a proper content subset, but I suppose we’ll see how it goes.  For now, I can say that if you come around here, you’ll probably hear a lot of ranting about potential improvements of various things.  For the moment, though, you just get this tiny placeholder-ish post to keep WordPress from whining.

~Tizabet <3