What the f*ck are you doing?

[Snowzak]

Take your 'scaping frame of mind. Now think: what am I running away from by playing this awesome virtual world.

What drives you in life? Do you want a house, a car, a girl and a kid? Do you want to save the world? Smoke weed and party with no tomorrow? Become a celebrated author, scientist, astronaut, have a front page post on Reddit?

I wanted to ask people to re-intro 'cos I don't know them, but I feel this is an approach that could be more interesting.

What drives me: for the past 5 or 6 years, I wouldn't really see past university and committed myself to that and travelling the world whenever I could, but didn't really think about medium to long term life. I'd say now is the time when I'm realizing I want to get in more creative shit, not necessarily to make a living out of them, but I feel like I want to produce something worthwhile, and maybe even beautiful. Will probably try to get back into music and drawing. On a more serious side, I'm a committed environmentalist, mostly specialized in climate change, so getting a job related to that is on my list. Also keeping a foot in France while managing to speak tons of other languages seems like who I'd like to be, so roaming around the world seems like a good idea.

[slayer123121]

What drives me?

Travelling, seeing different cultures, having a nice car/house and really in general not looking at how much money i have left or what i "can afford". Im currently working a Ft 45 hour job and doing a Business Management Degree eventually i'll take over my dad's IT business but i want to do that once i've seen/done all the things i want to  :) Gf also loves to travel so the list is extensive! In my leisure time then i like to watch films and catch as much footy as i can (Man U  ## ##) as i don't get a great deal of free time due to work/uni/gf!

Nice topic.

[Snowzak]

Work, uni AND gf, you've got it sorted ##

[Wayshow]

Of course, my goal right now is to finish school and find a job. As an international student in the states, it's pretty rough. My dream job is to work in finance (or something non-engineering but math related) for Boeing, but we'll see! Im in no hurry to find a house or a partner, I'm actually quite content by myself. I also don't want to be tied down by the payments for a house, so I'll probably just rent until I'm 35. I also want to learn new languages (learning polish atm) and backpack all over the world, eating anything good that I see (and hopefully learning how to cook them).

[Scimmy]

My goal right now is to get accepted into the Canadian Military, I've finished the PT and now am waiting till i turn 16 to start my appitude test, then a medical exam followng a interview, i'll hopefully be doing a co-op which will put me two years ahead while making 9k , i'll be in the reserves for the reminder of highschool then hopefully go regular force after that to become a weapons tech. What drives me is I want to serve for my country which put me where i am today as well as becoming the best person i can be :D

[Snowzak]

Which part of Canada are you from Scim?

[Scimmy]

Ontario, just north of toronto and south of bordon

[Keith]

A lot of stuff has changed for me recently! I graduated from college (university) a little over a year ago and just got a job finally. I majored in geology, but my job isn't exactly in my field. It's a science still, but closer to nuclear engineering. As of less than a week ago I moved 600 miles (almost 1000 km) from Massachusetts to Virginia (USA places). Essentially what I'll be doing is sampling to ensure there are no radiation leaks on aquatic vessels that have nuclear reactors onboard. It's a government job so it's a great place to start. In a few months my girlfriend of 2 years will be moving in with me for the first time, and from then on we'll be kind of starting our lives together. I'm not sure if I want to take my career in the nuclear engineering direction or try to guide it back towards geology again, but with time I'll know. Either way, I'm thinking of getting a master's degree. But again I'll know with time what I really want to do.

Aside from work/education, my main hobby is competing in triathlons. I qualified for nationals last year through a team and this year as an individual, where I'll have a chance to qualify for team USA/ worlds if I do well enough. That certainly won't happen this year but I'm hoping in a few years I'll be able to! My unrealistic dream is to compete in the olympics someday, can't hurt to try. I'm very far off at the moment but I think I might have the potential if I get myself focused and consistent with my training.

[Snowzak]

A lot of stuff has changed for me recently! I graduated from college (university) a little over a year ago and just got a job finally. I majored in geology, but my job isn't exactly in my field. It's a science still, but closer to nuclear engineering. As of less than a week ago I moved 600 miles (almost 1000 km) from Massachusetts to Virginia (USA places). Essentially what I'll be doing is sampling to ensure there are no radiation leaks on aquatic vessels that have nuclear reactors onboard. It's a government job so it's a great place to start. In a few months my girlfriend of 2 years will be moving in with me for the first time, and from then on we'll be kind of starting our lives together. I'm not sure if I want to take my career in the nuclear engineering direction or try to guide it back towards geology again, but with time I'll know. Either way, I'm thinking of getting a master's degree. But again I'll know with time what I really want to do.

Aside from work/education, my main hobby is competing in triathlons. I qualified for nationals last year through a team and this year as an individual, where I'll have a chance to qualify for team USA/ worlds if I do well enough. That certainly won't happen this year but I'm hoping in a few years I'll be able to! My unrealistic dream is to compete in the olympics someday, can't hurt to try. I'm very far off at the moment but I think I might have the potential if I get myself focused and consistent with my training.

Triathlon, impressive! I'm trying to get started by doing some casual races, I like all of the three legs, so I thought it might be nice as a hobby. Any pro training recommendations for a newby like me? For the past few months I was mostly focused on swimming as I was the most shit there. I'm now at ~24-27 minutes for 1km but seem to stagnate at 20 mins best, and the 1,5k seems out of reach...

[Wayshow]

I've been swimming a lot in the past year too, since I bonked up my knee and can't run 10 milers anymore :P

[Keith]

Honestly I don't think I can help you out too much in the swimming department, it's my weakest by far since I can never train it (until now, living in the city gyms galore), so I'm not too too much better than you are! If I had to give any advice, it would be as follows in no particular order or importance:

1. Get a wetsuit. Not only will you be able to swim in open water for longer during the year and be able to race in wetsuit required races, but you get extra buoyancy so it can make things a bit easier.
2. Triathlons are open water, so get used to being in waves and if possible, swimming with people in your way. The start of a tri is usually a clusterfuck of bodies and kicking and punching and whatnot. People will be accidentally (and maybe intentionally) grabbing and pulling you depending on where you start in the pack. You can usually stick to the outside if you're nervous about the crowd, but after a few races you'll probably want to be in the middle with everyone else.
3. Sighting. You're going to need to be able to locate where buoys are floating and make sure you're still on course. When you're in a big crowd it's easy enough to go with the flow of everyone else which is usually enough to send you in the right direction, but sometimes everyone is doing the same thing and not making the most direct route to the buoy. Once in a while switch out of freestyle/crawl swimming into a breaststroke or something so you can still advance forward but realign your trajectory to the buoy. It's easy enough!

That's what I can think of for tri-specific swimming, but as far as technique what has helped me:
1. When you're trying to improve your technique work at one thing at a time until you can do all of the little things you need to do at once. At first it's a lot to handle but as you practice it gets easier. I'm still struggling with form. Letting my chest sink a little to elevate the rest of my body has helped, and make sure you focus on your kick. The kick can be ignored by a lot of new people but if your legs aren't parallel to the rest of your body you can end up dragging big rudder-like feet and legs through the water behind you which ends up like an aquatic parachute and slows you down a ton. I have big feet so I'm trying to stretch them to where I can point them down like a ballerina so they don't cause too much drag.
2. Watch videos online of form, and look up drills, and have someone who can swim that you know watch you every once in a while to see what you can work on. You can only go so far with self-improvement on form because you can't really see yourself, and thats where someone critiquing your form can really help.

[Wayshow]

Streamline streamline streamline. I find that imagining myself as an arrow shooting through the water helps. I need to work on my kicks more tho

[Patty]

so I hardly play Runescape now days, I've been doing a degree in computer science, the more I think about it the less I want to pursue a career in that field, I guess I can see my life mapped out if I followed that path and it doesn't sound fulfilling to me personally. I really love music, I play/practice guitar multiple hours every day, I would love to put out an album some day, even if it's just some stuff I record by myself and put out on the internet for 5 people it's not about becoming famous, more about getting to a point where I can express myself and perfectly execute the music/ideas I have in my head eventually. Also would love to go to Wacken, a metal festival in Germany.

[Al]

so I hardly play Runescape now days, I've been doing a degree in computer science, the more I think about it the less I want to pursue a career in that field, I guess I can see my life mapped out if I followed that path and it doesn't sound fulfilling to me personally. I really love music, I play/practice guitar multiple hours every day, I would love to put out an album some day, even if it's just some stuff I record by myself and put out on the internet for 5 people it's not about becoming famous, more about getting to a point where I can express myself and perfectly execute the music/ideas I have in my head eventually. Also would love to go to Wacken, a metal festival in Germany.

Why not do a little degree/certification in music? Not classical formal training, but maybe a school where there's more a modern style of teaching. If they don't have them there you can study abroad maybe for that while.



Since I'm from the Bay Area and live close to the Silicon Valley, I've been influenced by the tech scene here. I think we have an innovative culture and a lot of thee people think big ideas. I've had lots of classmates who are jumping into it here and it's kind of inspiring--it shows how reachable it is if you have the guts. I think it's incredible to create technology to make life simpler or more advanced for people. I'm no engineer or coder by any means (I took a computer class as part of my required curriculum in 8th grade), but I'm always inspired by things around me. I have a penchant for envisioning ideas, but I never had the technical background. So I've always thought about connecting with those who can.

Just for example...while we drive home, why don't navigation systems tell you what roads on the way are jammed by an accident or roadwork? We follow the same route everyday and already have technology that allows us to simply mutter the word "home" and our cars can direct us, but the voice should be able to notify us or automatically suggest another faster route, if it is. Sometimes these simple ideas make tons of money.

When I first started college one of the reasons I went for a business degree was because I thought it would teach me how to start a businesses off of these. It turned out I was pretty wrong, because I learned that I should rather be focusing on hard skills such as engineering or programming. Business deals mostly with management science and it did little for me when I knew I had an idea I could build on but had nothing to show for it.

So after 2 years at community college I decided to get the associate's degree for business and then change my major, since I already finished most requirements. Now before you get confused, all the ideas stuff is just a part of "what drives me." I never considered very seriously of pursuing engineering. I was never strong in math and disliked and did horribly in that programming class in 8th grade, so becoming a doctor seemed more realistic. From high school to now, I'm actually realizing more and more how unrealistic becoming an MD would be. I read more about going to medical school and I came to some consensus--that my desire isn't strong enough to trade 10-15 more years of my young life for more education on top of undergraduate work for it. However, I'm still in the same general direction, just now veering off into a more specific path.

Gratefully after a third year at community college, I got accepted to some schools to study kinesiology/human physiology, which is a good major for a stepping stone to health professions. As an athlete for most of my life and a health and sports science enthusiast (more on that later), it seems like the best for me right now. I have a personal story from the past where I wish I had proper medical care for injuries but didn't, and it hampered my performance in additino to my health in general, so that partly inspired me to pursue the health field too.

I envision a different, improved future when it comes to people taking care of their health...people are becoming aware of the atrocities of the food industry (I'll speak for America only here), old myths of exercise and physical education at an early age, better tabs on what to do and what not to do (such as how harmful idleness can be)...athletes are becoming more knowledgeable on how to improve their performance...nutrition, supplements, more advanced and targeted exercises, advanced technology in apparel/shoes...list goes on. My professional emphasis for my upcoming study is physical therapy...and some of the reasons I chose that is because I don't think I can handle surgery (after reading a book about it as well as the extra years of training), and I want to physically work with athletes specifically, unlike a family doctor or sports doctor that refers out specialists.

All in all I want to do something significant and not end up another tombstone. I want to do something important and not be forgotten. I don't want to work for the man and take a dead-end or stagnant job, or be confined to a salary and a typical 9-5, etc.[/spoiler]

[Snowzak]

Al, once you're up and running as a physiologist/kinesiologist, get into the sports/health apps business ##

[Al]

Al, once you're up and running as a physiologist/kinesiologist, get into the sports/health apps business ##

Right now I have a simple idea that improves a piece of boxing equipment. (I box, will get into that later.) Gonna send it to my friend who did EECS.

What's good about the health apps business? Like iPhone apps?

[Wayshow]

Also, I have a few violin pieces in mind that I want to be able to play (I.E. prokofiev's 1st violin concerto). Music improvement takes so long though :P