2013 in Review
Entry posted by Aanchir
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So 2013 was a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I've done an amazing amount of MOCing this year. Many of the MOCs I've created are ones I'm incredibly proud of. I've created some art, too, though not a whole lot, all things considered. I've gotten a job (albeit a temporary, part-time job I'd never have gotten without my mom pulling some strings). I had the time of my life at Cloudsdale Congress (which exposed me to the incredible brony music scene), attended lots of fun brony meetups both in Boston and my hometown, and got to meet some of my best friends from BZPower at Brickfair Virginia.
But on the other hand, this year has been quite an ordeal. My latest semester at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston was... regrettable. It's clear to me now that going to this school was a mistake from the very beginning. It caused me trouble with my health insurance, created a soul-crushing level of anxiety, and made me feel further from achieving my dreams of being a LEGO designer than ever before. It's clear to me now that I do not have the skills to get a degree in Industrial Design, and it's possible I never will. And I hope and pray that these aren't essential skills for a career in that field, because if they are this dream will never become a reality.
I've started getting counseling again to help me with this anxiety, and I honestly don't know how it's going. I haven't had nearly as much anxiety since I left Wentworth as I had when I was there, but that might be because I have neither school nor a steady job to keep track of. And counseling is expensive. Relations with my family have had their ups and downs. No huge fights lately, and the counseling has helped a bit when there have been fights, but I'm remaining wary.
I have been getting help with my job search from the Goodwill Job Help Center, which thankfully doesn't cost any money, but I don't know how much it's helped me. I've gotten a number of interviews including several with Goodwill. None of them has resulted in a job. Rather, my job search has been a constant reminder that I'm not even qualified for the type of low-prestige retail work that most of my friends and family are either trying to get out of or happy to be done with.
My brother has gotten a lot of great video games that have been able to entertain both of us, including the Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton series. I haven't played any video games in a long time. Playing video games just doesn't feel as rewarding to me as watching other people play them. It just creates more goals when I'm struggling to deal with the ones I've set for myself in real life. On one hand, this means my time can be spent on more social activities. On the other hand, it makes me feel sad that I don't have the level of commitment it takes to maintain a hobby like that.
There is no romance in my forecast. As lonely as I feel sometimes, that's simply one more thing than I can deal with. There's a girl I really like, but she doesn't feel the same way about me. If I'm lucky we can just maintain our friendship, since I'd be happy to mean SOMETHING to her even if I never mean as much to her as she means to me. There have not been any other girls that I feel the same way about. Maybe one day that will change, but until a girl like that shows up I can't afford to be preoccupied with thoughts of romance when I'm still struggling to be a functioning adult.
This entry makes it sound like the bad stuff really outweighs the good stuff, but it's not really like that. I have a family that has gone to great lengths to house, feed, and care for me since I am not prepared to house, feed, and care for myself. So getting a job isn't something that I need to do to survive, it's more about proving to myself that I can do it. I still have my Associate's Degree from Landmark College in Vermont, which doesn't seem to have helped me at all in my job search but at least demonstrates that my college experience hasn't been a complete disaster, and that I managed to overcome my learning disability in at least one key respect. I'm not strapped for cash, yet have managed to keep control of my budget, even in Boston where I needed to buy my own groceries. My reputation in the LEGO fan community remains strong, at least among people who have heard of me. And I've still managed to keep moving forward, even if it's not against the same steep odds that some of my peers have had to deal with.
So yeah. The year has been one of ups and downs. But I will continue to hope and pray for the best for myself and the people I care for. Bring on 2014.
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