7 Years of Bird: A reintroduction of sorts

Overshadowed by EMC's birthday, I come bearing my own history here.

- 7 years on EMC -

The 25th of July, in the year of our Lord 2012, I joined on the recommendation of a friend.
I did not know it was EMC's first birthday at the time. I was playing on a CRT monitor. My frames per second would better be counted as seconds per frame. Regardless, I stuck around and got my old friend, BrenJone, to join. This was the summer before high school began. A laptop came into my possession at Christmas that year. Lo, I got my weird friend BurgerKnight to join me in my now-5-fps escapades.

Sophomore year things began to pick up a little. I got some other classmates to join EMC (who all stuck around for varying amounts of time, none permanently). BrenJone and I had started a base together out on Smp3. How I got anything done in that time is beyond me, considering I moved in game like a slideshow. By this point I believe BrenJone, BurgerKnight, my brother, and I all had reses next to each other. My res was, for lack of better words, a beautiful mess.

Late that school year, the ICC drama hatched forth. In a weird way, the drama brought me closer to the forums than just for auctions. I was following along in that and other threads (drama was, like, really bad back then), which in turn caused me to post more. The dynamics of the forums were different back then, in some ways good and others bad.

The biggest change, however, came in the August of that summer, 2014. I was asked to become green. Yay, I get to be a part of the inner circle, I thought. It was about that time the mod team was becoming consistent in their policies. A fine mix of chaos and order at the time was just the right fix for me. And while the dynamic is different almost 5 years later, chaos and order still describes it best. Weeh and I were part of the same green generation. Now, we are the two most senior mods (I have him beat by some hours, hah).

From there everything was a consistent trail of improvement. I started putting actual effort into my builds at my res and base. Bren and I started making more rupees. I eventually passed 7 digits then 8 digits of r. Our farms were working great. The present day base can get just about anything it needs in the most ridiculous quantities (either self produced or bought), with pure effort being the only limiting factor.

I started building ships on my reses, with Bren and I working to build them at our own base. They are by far my favorite builds. The other build of mine people should be familiar with is my casino. It is perpetually under construction, as I am more interested in actually designing the redstone than reproducing it on my res. The games that are there get some good attention, though. I do have a museum. It is not the overdone promo museum, either. It's an air and space museum. All of it is my own design (excepting the shuttle on the neighboring res) based off of an actual museum and real aircraft. My mistake here was thinking expanding it was a good idea. Now the hangar underneath looks half-finished.

Perhaps I will add some old pics I saved in another post. A visual history, as it were.

- 7 years of real life -

Real-life. Ew.

As I mentioned, it was the summer before high school. I had known BrenJone most of my grade school "career". Freshman year, I met the biggest dork during cross country. He is who you might know as BurgerKnight. It is a wonder either of us got anything done on EMC on our school wifi. We went to a boarding school that started in the 70s. It was a nice campus, but the infrastructure was... lacking. We made do with what we had.

I was a straight A student, but I liked the sciences more. BK was definitely a history buff with an affinity for reading many books (mostly fantasy) outside class. Not the most compatible of combos, but it was a complementary one. We shared a bunkbed...

Warning, I'm going to get some heavy stuff out of the way. A classmate who let me use his laptop freshman year because mine was so bad, was the first classmate I met, and generally loved by everyone, was killed in a car accident sophomore year. It took a heavy toll on everyone. Junior year, another classmate who commuted to school, and my roommates and I offered to let use our dressers during the day, took his life on an early morning my Junior year. This was a small school, so back-to-back tragedies such as this for a single class was unprecedented. To say we were devastated was an understatement. Silver lining, however, was a class-wide reflection on things like mortality and mental health. I can attest to rethinking my own issues over and over again, considering "these events could have been me". I sought the intercession I needed, both as a means to improve my mental health and to decide my vocation.

Thus, I overcame my classes after a short gap in achievement (especially with writing; putting thoughts to words became increasingly more difficult with a clouded mind). I was applying to colleges and generally tried to enjoy my senior year. Fortune brought me an offer I couldn't refuse with a great scholarship to my state college. The deciding factor aside from the scholarship was they have renown for a major I was excited for, Biological Systems Engineering (in which I have emphasis in Biomedical Engineering).

BK never left me, surprisingly. Going into my senior year of college now and he's still my roommate, now in an apartment. I like to joke no one else would take him, so he became my burden. He makes an alright roommate, tolerable enough to be around. He does computer science, so good for him.

My bro BrenJone went to college in Kansas and despite talking to him all the time, I really only see him in the summer. This is basically us https://youtu.be/5KnFcsSIzbg?t=109 .

I worked as the "do everything except cashier" guy at a grocery store near my house during highschool. After I graduated I worked as a painter at a mall with BrenJone. The next three summers including this one I have worked at a medical center for environmental health and safety, which deals with radiation and chemical hazards for all of our campuses.

As I approach my senior year of college, I have one more big change to make. I am applying to med school. The MCAT is August 3rd, and from the look of things it is not easy, surprising no one. With luck, I will be going to school at the very same place I work. It's one of the top institutions in the region, and it's local, perfect! Until that time though, I have a lot of work to do for that and finishing up undergraduate.

Now then, you really thought you'd leave here without me rambling about my birds?
My namesake comes from my first bird, named Lucky, who happened to be green. He was the sweetest little friend one could ask for. Always docile, always wanting to be petted, fairly smart too. In the last year or so of his life he got a friend from people we know whose own birds had eggs. He was named Baby Blue. My freshman year of college, Lucky passed on. It's hard to describe, but he was an integral part of my formative years, sort of symbolically and more simply as just my pal. That left Baby Blue, and with living an hour away in college, I only get to see him so often (mostly summers when/if I live at home). I like to say my lack of involvement is the reason my family can't tame him. He's an ornery bird and as swift as the wind. His favorite thing is his own reflection, the little narcissist. I love him though and frankly he can be just mindbreakingly adorable.

I'm not sure what else to say, really.
tl;dr birds

This thread is now an AMA, have fun

saved if I need it, lol

Where is the bird pic I was expecting at the end?

Congrats on 7 years , and almost 5 years as moderator.

My question is are you Imperial or stormcloak?

Congrats on 7 years!

What would you say is one of the most important things you've learned from EMC?

If you could create a new species of bird, what would you name it? What would it look like? What would it sound like?

I don't think so. He's going to have another year or two in our current college town, while I will be in my home town an hour away. It is not impossible, however, for BrenJone to become my roommate if he does grad school in the same city.

House Dagoth

I've learned people are idiots and so am I; we make it work.
A new bird would be called a wobble. It would be egg shaped and green. It would make *galumph* sounds.

on smp8

birb meme

best moment mighta been winning the archery event at the EMC Games

Whether 'tis nobler in the nervous stem to suffer
The hooks and nets of outrageous fortune,
Or to take Tentacles against a Sea of sharks,
And by opposing end them: to swim, to ink
No more; and by an ink, to say we end
The tentacle-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That Calamari is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To swim, to ink,
To ink, perchance to dye; aye, there's the fish seasoning rub,
For in that ink of squids, what dye may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal ocean,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamari of so long life:
For who would bear the bisques and sushis of time,
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud squi's Contumely,
The pangs of disprized Food, the current’s delay,
The insolence of Fish, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy lakes,
When he himself might his Squidious make
With a bare Squid-beak? Who would tentacles bear,
To squeak and swim under a watery life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered ocean, from whose bourn
No squid returns, puzzles the nervous stem,
And makes us rather bear those raw fish we have,
Than swim to sharks that we know not of.
Thus semi-conscience doth make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of black ink
Is stickied o'er, with the pale cast of Plankton,
And enterprises of great splish and splash,
With this regard their Ocean Currents turn awry,
And lose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The fair Burki? Squid, in thy Blueness
Be all my sins remember'd.

Ahoy Admiral!
This was a nice read. Glad to know more about you and wish you all the best in Med school. My second son is a doctor and i know what dedication is involved.
See you on the high seas!