life story thread

[TC_Halogen]

Originally Posted by choof

oh yeah I didn't see that, yeah my charts are bad too but there's always been something cathartic about making your own charts and seeing them to completion

I've been asked over at osu!mania why I've made easier charts when being at the player level that I'm at (two times referring to this particular chart). It comes down to that exact thing; it just feels good to do and it's nice to see something you've wanted to create come to fruition.

As far as life stuff: put in a spoiler to as to not stretch the page.

---

For the most part, my life wasn't too bad growing up. I was raised in Chicago and lived there for the first 18 years of my life. Things deteriorated over time with my parents both suffering from alcoholism, though things have improved substantially on both sides with my dad slowing down and my mom being essentially inhibited in her consumption living with me.

I've heard stories from my mom about how she sheltered me from my father's side of the family and looking back at that, I'll have to definitely agree. My father's siblings and that side of the family in general was filled with a lot of deadbeats, with an overwhelming majority of them not only being educational dropouts but also involved with gang related activity for extended periods.

This person was actually connected to my dad's side of the family.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...273-story.html

I also lost a cousin and that cousin’s father to substance abuse.

My mom was apparently accused by my father's siblings for trying to make me "white" by keeping me away from them (note: I'm Puerto Rican). I definitely thank her for that.

My introduction to education was a little shaky due to having some issues with regards to reading but I eventually turned it around and seemed to be an educational savant compared to the rest of my family. From 4th grade through 8th grade, I played in our school's band. None of my immediate family on either side had any sort of musical inclination, so this surprised my parents. I'd initially intended on playing clarinet, but our school was so poorly under-funded that I was forced to play trumpet instead -- I was a natural at it. By 5th grade, our band director was already feeding me lower-level high school pieces because I was simply bored trying to wait for everyone else to catch up.

I ended up getting into a selective enrollment high school in Chicago (Lane Tech). My time at Lane was mostly great; the school was a melting pot and had so many students, making it pretty easy to become socially active. Despite selecting a technology-oriented curriculum, I continued on with the musical interests and played in the school's concert band from freshman year all the way through senior year. I also played in a pit band for our school’s production of Bye Bye Birdie, which was an incredible experience as well. Lane Tech was when my love for rhythm gaming also spiraled to a whole new level, after running into the school’s DDR club; the person managing the club when I got in as a freshman - aliased Darklink, ended up being a prominent individual within the Chicago scene due to getting their hands on a dedicated ITG cabinet and we stood in touch for a pretty long time after that.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all fun. In my senior year, a close female friend ended up getting involved in a relationship with a person who was quite frankly, extremely paranoid. They were under an active impression that I was trying to be a thorn in the relationship, even though said female and I had agreed that nothing would ever happen romantically (we simply never had that interest). The male in question eventually started catching me throughout random points in the day, threatening to jump me if I “continued what I was doing.” On a particularly bad rehearsal from band, I was threatened once more… and actually snapped. We’ll leave it at that…

This experience is essentially what caused me to get kicked out of high school. Through sheer fear of being caught in the halls like I had been in the past, I started cutting class throughout the second half of the day. Eventually, I got expelled for truancy.

At that point, I started getting on FFR a -lot- more, particularly in the video chat area. It didn’t take too long for me to run into Kayla and we started talking extremely frequently - not just on FFR VC, but on AIM (holy shit we’re old). My parents would often give me money to go play ITG over at Galaxy Comics, which was housing Darklink’s dedicated cabinet. I started putting away parts of that money away and eventually coordinated with my dad to get myself a train ticket to go east and move with her in January 2010.

I’ll summarize from that move on because it would take 10x longer to just handle that part…

Had first daughter -- Saphira, in March of 2011.
Got my GED in June of 2012.
Moved back to Chicago to live w/ my dad for him to help us out in October of 2012.
Left Chicago to go Maryland on April 1st, 2013 (nice date).
Had second daughter, Ariana, in August of 2013.
Worked at Kohl’s eCommerce for 13 months, hit a lead position but was denied full-time work for reasons I won’t understand. I guess at the end of the day, I can say it was the universe pulling me in the right direction.
On a complete fucking whim after Kayla said “what’s the worst that can happen”, applied for a web development job without a degree (was still doing my associates online), and actually beat out four people for the job.
Got my A.A.S. in Information Technology in July (?) of 2015.
Got into another web development job as a referral from my first job, and spent a pretty long time over there… before being let go with basically no reasoning back in March of 2018, exactly one day after purchasing a plane ticket for my mother to live with us after being horrifically impacted by Hurricane Maria and dealing with shitty family while living in Puerto Rico months earlier (fantastic timing).
After an incredibly long battle of job applications and constant feelings of rejection, landed my current software development job; I absolutely love the people I work with. I worked alone in my previous jobs, but actually feel like I’m a part of something bigger here and it’s a great feeling. Unlike my two previous jobs, I feel like this is my “career job” and I don’t see myself separating from this company anytime soon.

At the end of the day, through all of the struggles and craziness, I still wouldn't have it any other way. Kayla and I have been through a fair amount of shit while being together while also having our own shit that we dealt with before meeting one another and it's been an insane but continuously improving ride.

This still leaves a shitton out, to be honest. But it serves as a good summary of things.