Venting thread that still excludes eddy (2)

[malloc]

I am deeply angry about the fact that even if I make it to Seattle now, it will ring hollow given my current age. I will have wasted my entire youth, the best years of my life, in a place I hate with no opportunity to enjoy life as well as others.

[finlay]

go?????

[Io]

Oh Christ, Edmond, are you still on about the Seattle thing?

[gach]

One of my back up hard drive's connectors broke, so now I need to find a way/person to fix it.

Can you easily take the drive out from its case and buy it a new one, or perhaps connect it with a dock? Or is it one of those with an unserviceable designer case?

[alynnidalar]

In the throes of terrible cramps at the moment. Took acetaminophen, but it's only taken the edge off. If I were at home, I'd pop some ibuprofen as well, but I'm at work and don't have any. Furthermore, I've developed a horrid cold. Between the two, I feel nauseous and unable to focus, but given that I slacked worked from home three out of the past four days at work, I feel I have to stick it out for the rest of the day. (oh yeah, and the reason I was working from home was because I was in a car accident last week. Everybody was OK, but my car decidedly was not, so I was carless until Monday evening when I got a rental. Yayyy.)

Anyway I'm extremely grouchy at the moment and really want to just go home and curl up with a hot pad, but it ain't happening. Also I'm going to my aunt's for dinner tonight before church and I really very much want to go! But if I'm still feeling this awful when I get home, I probably won't be able to.

(and then there's the never-ending to-do list... ship back the shirt I ordered online that's too small. Take care of the citation for the accident (yes, it was my fault, it was a very stupid mistake). Deal with my insurance company. Argue with the tax filing website I used for my state taxes until they give me a refund because it turned out they filed my tax return but didn't actually pay the taxes, even though I paid them large amounts of money so I could do so through them. Figure out what on earth is going on with my job because I'm supposed to be moving to a new team next week but my new manager has barely said anything about it and I have no clue what his plan is. I've just... had a lot of annoying things happen lately.)

[finlay]

Oh i hate that... I'm not allowed ibuprofen because of a stomach thing I had in my teens (it'd probably be OK but there's no way i'm risking it), but paracetamol/acetoaminophen* is not strong enough usually (I've been prescribed ibuprofen a few times by doctors but they have to give me a stomach protector drug too - basically a base to neutralize the acid)

*paracetaminophenol?

[kuroda]

I am deeply angry about the fact that even if I make it to Seattle now, it will ring hollow given my current age. I will have wasted my entire youth, the best years of my life, in a place I hate with no opportunity to enjoy life as well as others.

Seattle would mostly like you to fuck off -- any more deeply angry men showing up here for comfort and refuge and excellence, well, that welcome already ran out fifty years ago; and we're still, somehow, not much interested in providing you with the opportunities and enjoyment you're apparently entitled to. We suck. Don't come near. Everything about Seattle is wrong and hateful.Get clear while you still can!

[vampireshark]

One of my back up hard drive's connectors broke, so now I need to find a way/person to fix it.

Can you easily take the drive out from its case and buy it a new one, or perhaps connect it with a dock? Or is it one of those with an unserviceable designer case?

Unserviceable designer case, it appears, but I do have a person I might be able to use to help me fix things (bribery always helps).

Also, in minor-ish vent: paper got rejected from PNAS. So now it's time to edit/rewrite/reformat for another journal, which is already becoming a huge headache...

[gach]

Also, in minor-ish vent: paper got rejected from PNAS. So now it's time to edit/rewrite/reformat for another journal, which is already becoming a huge headache...

The joys of getting rejected. I have one old manuscript from the start of doing my PhD that got rejected by a quite rude referee and hasn't seen much work since then. However, I've since included the interesting physical results in another paper with a bunch of other data and found out that, while the initial results were good, they were only marginal. As a result I have to do quite a bit of mental juggling to decide what new science is there left in the manuscript if I ever want to resurrect it for publishing. My current plan is to pick up the method development side and plug it in some other suitable paper with new data.

If it makes you feel any better, my supervisor had a rejected manuscript from the 90's that he tried to sell me to complete. That never materialised and the thing still remains unpublished. Luckily you also get papers that have no trouble with the referees and seem to get through the publishing process before you even notice.

[Pogostick Man]

Every time I think I've gotten to the point where I'm content to have given up, I get proven wrong.

[jal]

Somehow, the ZBB failed to send me notifications on this thread, and I kinda forgot it existed (not in the least b/o being busy and such).

@Io: good to see you're being active more on ZBB, your long sabatical kinda saddend me.

Short rant of my own: I want to go on skiing holiday in February with the family, but everything is booked out already. Come on, it's September, the holiday is 6 month from now, and everything is already gone... Well, at least the places I can afford/am willing to pay for that are roomy enough for 5 and are at a location I feel comfortable driving to in a day (and are not in France, I don't know France in the winter, I'd like German speaking people, who are also more likely to speak English, though all my English enquieries came back with German answers).


JAL

[vampireshark]

If it makes you feel any better, my supervisor had a rejected manuscript from the 90's that he tried to sell me to complete. That never materialised and the thing still remains unpublished. Luckily you also get papers that have no trouble with the referees and seem to get through the publishing process before you even notice.

Oh, that's "fun". Yeah, I had one manuscript that was floating in the air for about two years, which is definitely not as long, but it was still a bit of limbo as we were trying to find a suitable home for it. In the meantime, though, the one paper I had started but which my then-advisor kinda poo-poo'd off at first ended up getting accepted in about eight months! Academic publishing really is hit-and-miss, it feels, and especially when you get very disparate reviews from the referees...

But, yeah, this week's involved a lot of juggling, especially with the review committee meeting next Wednesday and trying to make sure I give a good impression before then. Might need to do some experiments on Sunday as well...

[alice]

Am I *ever* going to feel something resembling normal again?

[jal]

Am I *ever* going to feel something resembling normal again?

That depends on many factors. For one, your definition of "normal".


JAL

[Travis B.]

Am I *ever* going to feel something resembling normal again?

You probably will, in time; just because things may never seem like they will be better now does not mean that they won't be.

[Vijay]

My dad and brother have started trying to convince me to do something I don't think I want to do. (I haven't written anything more detailed about it because for all I know, they may be right, but I'm still not inclined to do it).

[Imralu]

Short rant of my own: I want to go on skiing holiday in February with the family, but everything is booked out already.

Have you checked Oberwiesenthal? It's on the Czech-Saxon border (on the German side) and that's where I went skiing hurtling out of control down a mountain thinking I'd end up like Michael Schuhmacher a few years ago.

[Risla]

I fainted on the train. Had to get carted off to the hospital in an ambulance, where they ran some tests then let me go. They said they think it was probably vasovagal syncope (I sure have learned some interesting Japanese words) and were appalled when I said I'd had thirty or forty episodes of feeling similarly sick (minus the actual fainting) over the past six months or so, which I actually described in this same thread around that time, and that I went to a doctor about it and she told me to suck it up. Going back for a walk-in appointment on Monday or Tuesday. Now that I actually have evidence of "I fainted on the train, people saw it happen, this is real," I might actually get taken seriously.

Frankly, I'm more suspicious than ever that this is ultimately a weird symptom of Crohn's in which digestive tract inflammation overstimulates my vagus nerve and causes presyncope (and now actual syncope). I've been on budesonide (a steroid) for the last couple of months and have had MUCH fewer such episodes, and the inflammatory markers in my blood have slooowly dropped during that time (my C-reactive protein went from 110 back in June to 40 as two and a half weeks ago). My gastroenterologist has been unsure whether the budesonide has really been working, since 40 is still kinda high (the target range is below 17). But over the last two and a half weeks I've been tapering off, have gotten several episodes of feeling grade-A awful, and today in the ER, my CRP had jumped back up to 71. I have two suspicions: 1) budesonide is indeed a good treatment (which (thank god, it's far preferable to harder drugs like prednisone or an anti-TNF agent), and 2) my inflammation levels are indeed correlated with these episodes I've been having. Unfortunately, "I think Crohn's is causing presyncope" is outside the realm of expertise of my gastroenterologist (who is generally amazing and is definitely the best doctor I've ever had), and I've been rather reluctant to see anyone else. I've had so many terrible experiences with doctors and generally feel like I have a sign stapled to my forehead in medical contexts that says "IGNORE EVERYTHING I SAY" so I haven't felt like I'd make any progress trying to get treatment. Maybe now that I have hard evidence that I do indeed have a real problem...

Also, a thing I'm annoyed about: when I went down on the train, it was in front of these two old ladies who couldn't have been younger than 75. One of them jumped out of her seat and basically shoved me into it, They were super great; asking me how I was feeling and talking to me. They helped me off the train and over to a bench and called over a station attendant and explained what happened and made sure I was in good hands before they left. I was super appreciative, but I can't help but observe the behavior of everyone else: the rare person who even looked up from their phone at all just stared. Frankly, it's embarrassing for everyone on the damn train that when an elderly lady gave up her seat, nobody else offered to give her a seat. Honestly, this has pretty consistently been my experience: the over-70s in Japan are about the kindest people ever to exist, but there's a huge gap between them and the younger generations. I gave up my seat on the train home to an old man (even though frankly I'd have been totally justified in keeping it).

Sorry for rambling and also for spending so much time in these NotA threads and so little time on conlanging. I was starting to get back into conlanging (which is why I came back to the ZBB in the first place), but then came under an enormous amount of stress, and that tends to dry up the creative juices. On the plus side, if I get admitted to the hospital, I'll have plenty of time to focus on conlanging!

[Vijay]

Sorry for rambling and also for spending so much time in these NotA threads and so little time on conlanging. I was starting to get back into conlanging (which is why I came back to the ZBB in the first place), but then came under an enormous amount of stress, and that tends to dry up the creative juices. On the plus side, if I get admitted to the hospital, I'll have plenty of time to focus on conlanging!

Don't worry, I've been here for almost two years and I've barely ever said a word about conlanging!

[alice]

(lots of scary stuff)

Maybe I should recalibrate my definition of "normal". Feeling tired most of the time is nothing compared to what you have to endure.

Sorry for rambling and also for spending so much time in these NotA threads and so little time on conlanging. I was starting to get back into conlanging (which is why I came back to the ZBB in the first place), but then came under an enormous amount of stress, and that tends to dry up the creative juices. On the plus side, if I get admitted to the hospital, I'll have plenty of time to focus on conlanging!

Don't panic. You did get "syncope" in there, after all And it's good to know you're still around and elliptically destroying carved images.

[rotting bones]

Risla: Get well soon. (Don't know what else to say.)

[Risla]

Don't worry, I've been here for almost two years and I've barely ever said a word about conlanging!

Pfft, two years. Newbie.

Maybe I should recalibrate my definition of "normal". Feeling tired most of the time is nothing compared to what you have to endure.

I have to say I dislike this particular line of reasoning. It reminds me of when I was twelve or thirteen and incredibly sick with ulcerative colitis (or Crohn's disease, as that may be…) I was terrified and exhausted and in a whole lot of pain, and one day I was at my grandma's house and was having a cry (sidenote: this feels like such a Britishism but just saying "crying" feels weird to say here) about it. My grandma's response was to tell me "cheer up, you have it better than your cousins" (who both had Duchenne's muscular dystrophy).

But, obviously, it was completely reasonable for me to be upset, and thinking of "well my cousins have it worse" is not something that could make it better—in fact it still actually makes me feel worse to think of people being even more miserable than I was at the time. Keeping perspective about your own issues is one thing, but IMO it's best to keep that in the context of your own life ("have I survived worse than this?"). It's not as if complaining has a minimum threshold of acceptable misery. Also, I'd rather not have my own issues be used as a tool to guilt anyone about being unhappy and thereby add to the total sum of misery they are responsible for.

Not that you meant it to that extent, of course! But it's this whole line of logic that I don't like. It's been filed away in my mental folder of Ways of Thinking I Don't Like even since the incident described above, just because it was so transparently ridiculous at the time (I mean, I was a child in distinct danger of dying in a horrible painful manner…). Also, I've spent a lot of time being tired all the time, and it 100% sucks and I'm sorry you're dealing with that.

Don't panic. You did get "syncope" in there, after all And it's good to know you're still around and elliptically destroying carved images.

Hahaha, my consciousness vowels got deleted.

Wait, if syncope means deletion of vowels AND loss of consciousness…are vowels consciousness? Are speakers of languages with a higher consonant:vowel ratio less conscious than speakers of languages with a lower ratio? If you continued down this line, you could invent some really bizarre linguistic racism.

Also, thank you. You've always been super nice to me even when I was a dumb 17-year-old with a newbish conlang and a super pretentious username (why did you remind me of that, so embarrassing ). I appreciated it back then and still do.

Risla: Get well soon. (Don't know what else to say.)

Good idea, I'll try to do that.

[alice]

Also, I'd rather not have my own issues be used as a tool to guilt anyone about being unhappy and thereby add to the total sum of misery they are responsible for.

Not that you meant it to that extent, of course! But it's this whole line of logic that I don't like. It's been filed away in my mental folder of Ways of Thinking I Don't Like even since the incident described above, just because it was so transparently ridiculous at the time (I mean, I was a child in distinct danger of dying in a horrible painful manner…). Also, I've spent a lot of time being tired all the time, and it 100% sucks and I'm sorry you're dealing with that.

I agree, it's not a productive line of thinking. But, when there's nothing obviously wrong with you (no missing or broken limbs, all detectable internal organs working properly, etc.) it's hard not to hear a voice in the back of your head saying "My father had to go into t'hospital to get both arms and legs amputated, and he were back at work t'next day, typing at t'keyboard with t'tongue".

Hahaha, my consciousness vowels got deleted.

Wait, if syncope means deletion of vowels AND loss of consciousness…are vowels consciousness? Are speakers of languages with a higher consonant:vowel ratio less conscious than speakers of languages with a lower ratio? If you continued down this line, you could invent some really bizarre linguistic racism.

Might we possibly have stumbled onto something significant here?

Also, thank you. You've always been super nice to me even when I was a dumb 17-year-old with a newbish conlang and a super pretentious username (why did you remind me of that, so embarrassing ). I appreciated it back then and still do.

Thank you too; you've brightened up my day. Have some good karma!

And we've all been dumb 17-year-olds, although my conlangs weren't worthy of being called "newbish" back then. But that's another story.

[Travis B.]

That sucks Risla, but at least now someone may take this seriously rather than brushing it off, and you know now that there is something does help it, which is always a plus.

The thing about that things can always be worse is that one's own problems shouldn't be delegitimized just because someone else may have something even worse than that. Of course it is easy for both oneself and for others to think this way, which I very much am guilty of with myself.

[Imralu]

I've just had probably the longest period without crying that I've had in years. I don't think I've cried for a couple of months, which makes a nice change from crying every day. I'm quite a fan of SSRI's!

I broke that non-crying streak tonight though ... and the Auslöser was something really stupid: there was a rather attractive gay man in my house, a friend of friends of mine, and although he wasn't really my usual type and there was no chemistry between us, my brain went to imagining scenarious in which he might possibly like me, and all of them then ended in him not liking me (because I'm completely consumed with baggage and afraid of / uncomfortable with / not really sure I'll ever really be interested in taking part in sexual behaviours with another human) ... the conversation around the table turned into sex at one point and everyone was talking about whether they liked it if their partner makes noises during sex and to what extent, and I just felt completely unable to say anything - I don't have an opinion, and then someone mentioned an ex who had cried during sex and I just thought "Oh, that's the one thing I can relate to in this whole conversation, yay" ... and basically, I'm crying because I just feel completely incapable of loving and being loved by anyone the way I really crave. (Like, I was once, but it made me feel awful, like I didn't deserve it, like I was just taking something I didn't really appreciate and just pretending to give back in return, and in the end I had to run away.) I know a lot of people who are completely fine with being solitary most of their lives, and I'm trying to just be OK with that, but right now I feel this huge hole inside me, that a lot of the time, I can ignore, but I can't ignore it forever ... and it feels like it will never be filled (I don't mean that sexually!) and I really just want someone to hold me and for me to just be enough and for me to accept that and be OK with it.

Once I've got a rental contract (other issue ... don't currently have a contract for the place I'm living and I feel really unsafe because my paranoia makes me feel like everything's going to go wrong because I'm doing everything wrong and getting everyone off side), I'll feel safe and I'll be able to consider therapy. Maybe I can fix myself ... but I kind of don't want to get my hopes up. Maybe all I can hope for is accepting what I am and dealing with the pain a lot better.

Hugs for Risla and Alice! <3