Bay 12 Games Forum

Heh, I have a similar experience (after realizing I wasn't going anywhere in my life, I moved somewhere else far away from home, got a job, and now works toward being independent and later on going back to college). I'd say go for it. It will be complicated, sure, and you'll run into a lot of unexpected difficulties, but it'll be worth it even if you fail and go back home.

The most important thing is that you actually do something. Are you looking for jobs online and doing phone calls to companies to see if they hire ? Are you looking for places to stay and roommates in Austin ? Or are you just talking about it, putting your thoughts online, and see what happens ? Start now, even if you don't know how to do everything. Even if you're scared of the unknown ! After all, you're planning to jump into it head-first.

I also think talking to your parents is a good idea. They would probably be happy to see that you're trying to move on and do something. They also have already lived all the things you intend to do, and can surely give you concrete, realistic advice about getting a place to live and a job. And a lot of unexpected things you never even thought about. I know the point of moving to Austin is to actually force yourself to do something by putting you in an environment where nothing is handed down to you, but if my experience is worth anything, you'll still need all the help you can get

And if moving to Austin become too complicated and unfeasible, just work toward getting a job. Walk inside every shop in your little town, and say you're looking for work, and ask if they have any positions available. Or phone them and ask them that. Or use the internet, but walk in in person before you phone, and phone before you email. And don't give up ; it might take some time before you find something (it took me three weeks). And if you're anything like me, don't worry about your lack of experience : if you're on time and do your best, then you'll do fine. Most entry-level jobs aren't complicated. With a job, you'll have responsibilities and money to spend on things, and I suggest you try and go back to college with it.

The biggest thing is that you get up and do something really.

And good luck on your projects !

+1 for the forest. We should tell Omo about our necromantic powers before going inside, though.

Well, what can I say, you've all been much more luckier than me !

"Educational games" invoke politically correct horrors and memories of intense boredom for me

Quote from: DJ on March 25, 2012, 01:21:13 pm

Quote from: Flying Dice on March 25, 2012, 01:17:10 pm

For that matter, the whole "sworn in on a Bible" thing is a much more serious triviality than the money.

Wait, don't people swear on their respective holy books? Ie isn't swearing on Bible only for self-proclaimed Christians?

Unless something has changed recently, AFAIK all oaths of office, swearing into courts, etc. are done on a Bible, though people can 'affirm' rather than 'swear'. In either case, what of atheists?

Atheists should swear on On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin :p

But seriously, yeah, I gripe a bit over that too. Swear on the constitution, not the bible.

As for mandatory sports, I can guarantee that they would not bring all that you hope for. It somewhat reminds me of Lockhart's Lament, actually. Kids play sports because they are fun, believe it or not. Most don't just do it for the exercise. There is a world of difference between doing a sport because it's fun and doing one because you have to, especially when you're dealing with rebellious teenagers. If, as a freshman, I was forced to do a sport, I would never have applied myself to it. "Everyone has to do one, there's nothing wrong with not being very good at it." I was terrible at cross country when I started it, my 5k time was 25:30. If someone had said to me that I had to do better, I wouldn't have tried so hard. Because I was there because I wanted to be, I worked like crazy to get better and help the team. Do you think someone that is forced to run for an hour and a half each day after school is going to find it as enjoyable as someone who wants to be there? Because if it's not enjoyable, they're not going to try very hard, and it will just end up wasting their time and the school's money.

Hey, that was a great read. It answered a lot of questions I had about maths, most notably "what's the point ?" It's nice to know that it's indeed basically pointless. This might make math interesting the next time I will have to suffer through a math class when I get the chance to go back to college.

And I agree that teaching intensive sports won't work. Once again, the problem isn't so much that school fails to give access to knowledge (whether it's sports or general knowledge or anything else), it's that it fails to give kids the willingness to be taught. A heavy dose of sports won't change that, even if every kid had magically access to a sport they actually like. It's like educational games (which is really an oxymoron) ; and school have already tried that, and it failed. Neither the stick nor the carrot works.

I think the biggest problem with school is that nobody really knows what's the point of school anymore. What's the point of school for you (you who reads me) ?

Lots of people I met says it's to learn a job, or get a job later, or ease access to a job, or something along those lines. But that doesn't sound right, does it ? The vast majority of what you learn at school is going to be useless in nearly every job. The vast majority of what you would like to know to get a job is not taught at school. Plus school keeps you from working until a very late age - at least eighteen (technically you can start working at sixteen, but it's extremely complicated to do so). If school is here to prepare you for a job, then it's fantastically inefficient at it.

My dad says that school is here to teach you to think by yourself and everything you need to know so that you can participate in the democratic system. It's an interesting idea. After all, at least in France (I don't really know in other countries), the idea of a school that should be both free and mandatory for everyone emerged with the republic. And democracy needs every citizen to participate in politics, so every citizen must be able to. But school isn't very good at this either - the many examples of both stupidity and conceitedness that people gave in this thread shows that school is failing at giving kids an open-minded, critical approach to things necessary for participation in the politic life of the country. Actually, my dad says that school should do that, and fails, but that's beside the point. 

So school teaches you a lot of stuff you will never need, with no clear goal in sight, is forced upon you, and gives you no real gratification outside itself (your work essentially means you'll be given back good grades and the permission to continue to the next level, yay). It is little more than a daycare until you're deemed old enough to take care of yourself and go get a job. No wonder kids hate it !

I have come here thinking it was a silly idea, another attempt to simply erase religion from public view because the mere sight of it might be offensive to someone, and then this thread changed my mind. First time it ever happens to me on the internet, heh.

I still think it's not worth the effort though.

Knowing how to create a golem from your own vitality and being able to demonstrate thus to questioning minds like Omo or Order Wizards... is something different then exclusively making golems that way. ;-)
You want them to believe that you are doing it all from your own vitality. That you borrow a bit extra now and then... is something they don't need to know.

Yes, but that's lying. We want others to think we're nice and trustworthy ; deceiving them will only hurt us in the long run, since necromancy isn't highly regarded anyways. A "lite" version of necromancy will not convince people on its own, so we have to remain honest and morally good. In fact, I'd even say we have to be extra-good, heroically good, rather than just normal good, since necromancy is such a huge social handicap to begin with.

PTW !

This is awesome !