|
|
Saturday, April 7th, 2001
|
10:00p - while dead(horse) { beat(); }
So.
Today was a successful day. I lazed about, did some laundry, I wrote some code, I talked to some wonderful Californians. I wrote some e-mail.
My coding project is going well. I've just finished the major back-end portion. The rest of this is gonna be pretty easy.
I even got kudos for my professionalism for a work-related fiasco.
All things considered, a damned fine day.
Looks like everything is falling right into place. I wouldn't want it any other way.
I really hate it when things don't go this smoothly. Granted, coding is never a smooth process, but at least when I'm coding I'm working towards an end-result.
Speaking of coding... let's go off on a tangent shall we? Let's delve a bit into my deep-dark past.
Firstly, a word of warning. I hold no illusions about my past. It wasn't completely hideous, but at the same time I feel that it really ought to have been better. I'm still very angry at how many things were handled. This shit is pretty much the main reason as to why I'm so bitter and cynical. Its also where a large portion of my moodiness stems from.
Learned behaviors, learned reactions. Breaking old habits is very very very hard. Especially when they're so ingrained.
Its not an excuse. That's just the way people work. Its a struggle I fight daily.
Anyhow... here we go...
As many of you know, computers are my thing. I eat sleep and breath computers. For a 22 year old, I know a hell of a lot about these machines. They are my first love.
I've grown up this way. From the time my grandfather first taught me PR#6, I was sold. These machines were mystical. Magical. More entertaining than anything I had previously experienced. Granted, my first computer experiences were around the age of 6, so I didn't have a lot of worldly knowledge... but they fascinated me like nothing else.
As I grew older, and learned more and more about these incredible devices, I started getting into programming. At first it was just basic stuff.
10 Sin
20 Goto Hell
That sort of stuff. Nothing really major.
Now here's the problem, as I see it.
My grandfather, the wonderful man that he was, introduced me to computers. Every time I visited him and my grandmother, I'd be spending hours upon hours in front of their Apple ][, and subsequently their XT, then their 386.
Now, one would think that, my parents would notice this, and help me to broaden my skills with computers. Its only logical. Help me step from simply playing games to actually writing my own.
But no. That wasn't the case. For some reason that I still cannot fathom, my parents saw my enjoyment of electronics to be a bad thing. Every time we were shopping and I paused to watch the NES game demos, they would chastise me. Any time they dropped me off at my grandparent's they'd wait until I asked to play on grandpa's computer and they'd scowl at me.
As I got older, they just got meaner about it.
See, that's another thing with my parents. I guess they thought that ridiculing their child was ok. Somehow in their twisted logic, I guess they figured that if they called me names and hassled me, that would dissuade me from doing it.
Wrong.
It just made me want to work with computers more and more.
Well, they ridiculed me about other things, but I'll leave that story for another time.
Anyhow... I ended up inheriting my grandfather's original Apple ][, and when that finally gave up the ghost, I inherited his old XT. With a whopping 8 Mhz and a CGA moniter, about 30 Mb of hdd space. Not really a whole lot, but it was mine. So, i started playing. I started reading manuals. I practically read the DOS manual cover-to-cover. By the time I was a junior in high school I knew more about memory management than my computer teachers.
Problem. Being that I had inherited the computer, it then resided within my parents' domain. So, when things turned sour (as they almost always did), their main form of punishment was to take away my XT's keyboard. So that I could not use it.
Now stop and think a minute. They're taking something away from me that I spent about 90% of my time at home using. Of course, by this time (I was in high school at the time I got the XT) my parents and I had withdrawn from each other that we barely spoke as it was.
Heh. I guess in some demented way its kind of funny. My parents always chided and ridiculed me for my intrests. Then they always wondered why I never wanted to talk to them, why I never wanted to do anything with them, why I avoided their contact when at all possible.
Fucking morons.
You don't force your own interests on your children. You watch them and see what they're interested in, and if you have no interest in it, you at least support their interest.
Duh.
So, in all this round-about shit that I had to go through with my parents. I'd say they probably set me back quite a good five years at the very least.
I figure, had they actually supported my efforts to get into programming, and other techie stuff, I'd easily be in a very very comfortable employment position right about now.
But, that didn't happen. So, I'm doing all of this on my own. I'm finally picking up where I left off years ago.
After high school it took me a couple years to get on my feet in such a way that I could actually work on my own growth.
So... in the end, here I sit. I own two computers, I work for an ISP, on the side I'm developping web applications among other things.
Fuck you. Fuck you very much mom & dad. All your efforts were for naught.
current mood:  thoughtful
current music: Mindless streaming house techno. (comment on this)
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
wakko's journal