#woodworking

Just so happens everyone's problems are well within my area of expertise. Languages just so happens to be my area of expertise. I won Gang-Wars three times. For those who aren't old enough to remember it, it was a browser-based online game where you could recruit gangsters and buy drugs on a fictional drug stock market. You would win if your gang was the #1 ranked in value at the end of each month. There were something like 50,000 gangs playing each month and I won twice in 2002 and once in 2003. I also once had the world record for Pikachu's Break the Targets in the N64 version of Smash Brothers. You would take a photo of your time and send the photo to the site that kept the records. I don't think I have that record anymore but at the time it was about 11 seconds. I'm still trying to get there at something legitimate (like my podcast or YouTube channel). I'm almost forty and I'll worry that I'll never be there at anything that isn't trivial or small. Most of the things I do rely on other people to validate and I can control that. Maybe someday I will be the best, but for now I just keep trying.
Only real thing I was any good at was woodworking. back in high school I entered a contest my junior year. It was at a local county level, and my teacher pushed me to do it. I was expecting something like dead last, but came out first. After county, I took some more local school competitions and my teacher sent me to the state Skills USA competition. I did not place that year. My senior year, I went through and honed my skills the best I could for the upcoming competition. I slammed region and school level, and made it to state expecting the same result. Turns out I got first. Now after state, there is Nationals and then a four year waiting period where all the best in the world are gathered for the competition. The national competition cost a pretty penny, but I got to go thanks to my supportive parents. I busted my ass for a week stressing out over the contest, looking to make my parents and instructor proud. Everyone around me was having fun and laughing it up the entire stay in kansas city waiting for the competition. When the time came and the judges did there thing, I waited for the medals to be handed out. I wasn't third, or second. I wasn't first either, much as I would have liked to be. I came home feeling depressed like I had failed my family. They said they were proud of me, but it still felt like I lost. I later checked with my instructor and it turns out I made 4th place. Not enough to get a medal, but pretty damn high up there. Really that's the only story of "being the best" that I have, and it isn't much but maybe it's what you're looking for.

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You just do. I have a wonderful wife and we always support each other. But in the past I had a tough time, with losing a parent, a job I’d had for 12 years and going through a divorce in a two year period. I started seeing a therapist and that helped a lot. I also realized that things just happen, it’s random and not personal. You can get angry, but the anger doesn’t help you or those around you. Being down is natural, I found I needed to make time for myself to just stop. Give myself some peace. I guess the answer is to find what helps you.
I went through a time in my mid 20's where i ended an 8 year long relationship, lost my house, dog and moved to 3 different cities then got sued by my ex. My grandfather died, I crashed a car into a tree at 40mph then my cat got attacked by a dog i developed a drinking habit and generally got kicked in the nuts with every major life event you can imagine this was all in less then a year except the getting sued part that was about 1.5 years after the relationship ended and i lost my house. I kept coming back though. I focused on my passions; Welding, Woodworking, and music. I just lived for those things and gave myself permission to ignore the bad in life. Despite it all I worked out at the gym got my health back after the accident, I got $6/ hour worth of raises found a new love in my life bought a new and way way better house with a 1300 sqft woodshop and 1600 sqft garage for the same debt i previously had on my old one but this time it was %100 in my name. 2 years after my life imploded it was %400+ better than it ever had been. I have come to the firm belief that without contrast in life you really can't appreciate what you have. I still have ups and downs though i'm about 6 years away from that mess but I enjoy my life and appreciate the people who have supported me through it all and everything that i have.
I’ve had some success recently by applying Murphy’s law to life. Simply put, Murphy’s law states that everything that can go wrong, will go wrong eventually. Not every time of course - but it will happen with some frequency. As someone who is very focused and goal-oriented, I’ve come to realize that I’ve often ignored the ways in which things can go wrong since I’ve become so invested in my goals. This especially applies to events where something went wrong due to chance, due to circumstances completely out of my control, or due to someone else making a mistake or in any way fucking up/not following up on obligations. Usually if I'm falling short of something it's because I'm focusing on the wrong thing. The short-term goal I'm aiming at is too big, it should be broken down into smaller short-term goals that are more achievable. Or, it's because the short-term goals I'm aiming at aren't guided by long-term goals I actually want to achieve (most often, I'm working without any kind of long-term goal, or my long-term goal isn't ambitious enough so I'm not really excited about it).

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Hi I assume this is @dadcliffe! I'd love to try woodwork, thanks for the suggestion! The last time I tried it was in high school and we were tasked to make a trophy out of wood. Unintentionally, mine came out looking like a coffin and I threw it away. But yeah, all those power tools are a bit scary... I was thinking of sticking to more manual tools, like hand saws and hammers. I guess that limits what I can do.
Oh yeah, I'd also like to try my hand at pottery, we also got to make clay artworks for a term in high school and it was so much fun! I love that yarn bowl you're currently making!
Re knitting, I think one of the hardest early part of the learning process is deciding whether you want to knit via the "English" method or "Continental" method. The main difference is which hand you hold your yarn. I started learning use the English method (hold yarn in my right hand), though recently, for double knitting, I've learnt both methods so I can knit with two colours at the same time. Youtube tutorials have been an absolute godsend! Good luck to you if you ever want to pick it up, I'd be happy to help if you have any questions!

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I feel kind of ill-equipped to answer this because my memory is so bad. I think a lot of my experiences at school were despite the mediocre (not terrible) teachers, rather than enlightened by amazing teachers. It probably has a lot to do with who I got on with more than their actual teaching abilities too.

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First to mind is Ms Vilcins for art and photography (subjects I LOVED). She was just the sort of teacher a goth kid would like, very easy to get on with. Sadly she went on mat leave on my last term of HSC and was replaced by a teacher I didn't get on with heaps and I think my marks suffered a bit as a result.

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I also enjoyed Mr Tully. I found I was able to manipulate/charm him into letting me do slightly strange projects (a triangle box instead of rectangular, and I made a Stargate and set of SG1 figurines at one point). He also helped me out with the woodworking component of my art major work, and I felt like he treated me like an adult.

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Ms Harman was also pretty fair. I had her for accelerated chemistry, and she pushed us pretty hard, but not in a cruel way. I think she was a good teacher, although I probably resented her at the time.

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Mr Menkes was certainly memorable, but not because he was a good teacher. He was more cruel and abusive than anything else.

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I had Kabenny for a term of English once (despite being a history teacher), and we studied "When I'm 64" by the Beatles for some reason?

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I had respect for Mr Mansley, but loathed Mr Holden (he tried to stop me doing textiles for school ranking reasons, despite his wife being a textiles teacher and spat lettuce at me and a friend by accident one time).

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One time I doodled some dumb stuff on an exam and Mrs Menkes pulled me out of class to check I was ok. I was MORTIFIED at the time, but in hindsight I appreciate her taking the time.

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I had bad interactions with a few teachers because of dating neb and 30cm rule garbage. Also Me Chamas accused me of having a "sarcastic mental conversation" at one point.

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Probably there were teachers that were ok but I didn't like the subject much, and teachers that weren't much good but I put up with them because I liked the subject. Sorry I can't say more nice things, I don't want to get too mean here!

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You can't get any more accurate than the 10,000th digit. Again, you may know theory, but you can't apply the theory to practice. You're the one who theorizes that if cold air is descending fast enough that it won't warm up when the law of ideal gas (PV = nRT) says otherwise no matter how fast it's descending and that's basic physics. You also theorize that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects in the absence of air resistance when Newton's second law of motion (F = ma) states that acceleration remains constant, at 9.80665 m/s^2 for all objects, which translates to 9.80665 Newtons per kg, therefore, all objects fall at the same rate. You also end up cutting up the wrong things in tech class and only excel at computer science because it's also abstract theory, otherwise, you cut up your arm with the saw or cut up other people's finished woodworking projects. You also remove guards from the saws and make the environment unsafe for us local students.

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