Sky Castle

Are there any Linux users around on my flist? I'm looking for advise and opinions...

Alright, so I've been sick of Windows for a while now. It's slow (specifically on my netbook), they ask money for everything and anything, except when they install stuff on your computer that you neither want nor need, but have no bloody choice over. Wait, scratch that, even then they're bound to ask you money for it. Also, you can't de-install quite some of the stuff one might want to de-install (*coughinternetexplorercough*).

When I first came into contact with computers I was about 9, the computers ran DOS and I actually got pretty good at figuring it all out pretty quickly. Back when we first got our own computer at home (some 2 or 3 years later), we had a computer than ran Windows 3.11 and I must admit I was master and dictator of the system. My mom couldn't use it, my sister wasn't interested, my brother screwed it up whenever he touched anything but preinstalled stuff (and even then...) so I made the system settings into what I wanted them to be (which admittedly led to a lot of crashes and my neighbour coming over to fix it again) but also allowed me to learn and change whatever I wanted or needed. Windows these days is a complete different matter. With each new (and more 'user friendly' *rolls eyes*) version of Windows, you could change less, and these days they make it so hard to change even the simplest options that I often end up wanting to kick it.

Anyway, my housemate and me were talking about installing Linux yesterday. This would solve a lot for me, including the fact that I'm running windows 7 on a windows XP machine and it's bloody slow, but I CAN'T DEINSTALL IT because I don't have a bloody external CD drive (or, in fact, money). Open-source stuff would fix all that very nicely indeed.

So we come to my question; Which Linux distribution? What interface? Stuff like that. It's a whole new wide world, with a whole new vocabulary that I'm not fluent in, and too many options to count. I've been hearing from a lot of people that, as a starting linux user, Ubuntu is the way to go because it's quick, easy and pretty comparable. The way I see it though, that makes it exactly the same as windows; It comes with a shitload of things pre-installed (which... Oh, right, is one of the boons I have with windows) only this time you get firefox rather than internet explorer... Which is, of course, an improvement, but still.

My housemate was talking about Arch, which is about as basic as they can make it, I think, and I rather like the sound of that, but everyone warns me away from it because you have to do everything yourself and apparently if you're not a nerd extraordinaire that is really hard? I don't know, I never tried... And am kind of scared that once I install Arch, I can't go back to windows. I know Ubuntu can be ran side by side with windows, does anyone know if Arch does the same? Supposedly there's a very specific guide on installing it and getting everything you need, and since I do have two laptops, I should be able to have that up while actually doing the installing.

Any other systems that I should know about? And does anyone have any tips, tricks, whatever for an about-to-begin linux user? Anything you want to gush about because you love it so much? :P

I have... Not had the easiest life one might have. I've been through a lot of things and if you make a pro's and cons list I'm pretty sure it'd end in the negative... And yet...

And yet when I look back, I feel I've had a happy childhood.

Because, and really, these are words I've lived by since I was too young to understand that I was; life is what you make it.

Being happy, having a happy life, isn't about good or bad things happening. It's about what you do to deal with them. It's about choosing to have a glass half-full rather than half-empty. And yes, I say choosing. Because this is a choice. It's a choice I make each and every time something sucky happens. Feel crappy, get a hug, reletivate, find the humour, laugh about it and move on. Cherish the good and not the bad.

It's a lesson some people in my life right now might do well learning. It's frustrating to see them focussing on the bad and let all the good just slip away. It's even more frustrating that they won't or can't let me help them see it. They'll get through it though :)

In other words, yesterday I had the presentation from my master thesis and the evaluation of my internship. Presentation went far from good but that's no less than I'd expected but I have a 7,5 out of 10 for my stage, and got a lot of compliments. I can be very proud at what I did at my internship these last 7 months (The story of my climb three years ago can be found here btw :) )

My mom has taken up doing crisis fostercare a while back (basically means they call you to ask if you have the space and time to have another fosterkid and somewhere between an hour and a couple of days later there's the kid standing on your doorstep. They usually stay between 3 and 6 months, although officially they aren't supposed to stay for more than 3 months while stuff gets sorted out and either they return home, or move on to a permanent fosterfamily. Hardly ever happens in time, sadly.)

Right now, she has two brothers of 8 and 10, who'll move back home after summer. They are genuinely sweet boys, but have very obviously grown up in the lowest social class of society. It's very interesting to see them adapt to our family which is, while not upper class, higher middle class at least.

A while back, we were all watching the news and there was an item about the legalisation of gay-marriage in New York. I reacted happily and my mom nodded her approval. One of them asked why it was necessary to let retards or idiots marry. Turns out they only knew it as a insult. Obviously, I explained it to them and we got to talk about how it's really pretty normal for a boy to fall in love with a boy and a girl to fall in love with a girl, and that it would be really mean not to let them marry, since they loved each other. I think they did get the gist of it.

Sometimes I forget how incredibly lucky I am to have grown up in the family I grew up with. Had I been born into, say, the family those two boys come from, I wouldn't have been half the woman I am now. Oftentimes when judging people for the way they act and think, we forget that we are shaped by our past. It's not those kids' fault that they're so ignorant, but if I'd caught either of them using 'homo' as an insult, he'd get a very stern talking to in the very least. If he was 10 years older than he's now and I'd caught him using it as an insult, I'd have looked down on him, judged him or gotten pretty damn angry. But how the hell is he to know that it's wrong if no one explains to him why it's perfectly normal for people to be homosexual and that there's nothing insulting about being 'homo'?

I'm still not sure if I'm bloody stupid since I've been horrible about writing anything lately, especially challenges, but as many of my older friends know; I'm an absolute nut for h/c and it's very much my forte... And as such I present to you all:
( My hc_bingo card )

Not sure what to make of some of the prompts, but we'll see... Anyone out there up to joining me? The world can't really have too much h/c (or so I feel)!

I am finishing my masters degree on university level.

I have ADHD and dyslexia, I am ill more often than almost anyone my age I know, for years and years people have been telling me it would be too hard and I wouldn't be able to make it and yet I am finishing a fucking mastersdegree on university level. I must we one smart cookie and a bloody hard worker. So anyone who doubts me (not in the least me) can go and take a walk, because against all odds I am finishing this thing. Because I rock.

There.

And now to remember that.

 For starters; Between May and September last year I lost 15 kilo's. Since September I've gained 5 back. So no, in the last couple of months I have not lost weight. As a matter of fact, I've gained! Yet, especially the last couple of months, I've been asked if I'd lost weight more often than in the months that I was actually losing weight. You can imagine both my surprise and my amusement and, scientist/psychologist that I am, I wanted to figure out why.

Except for weight, I've gained some other things though. Mainly a bucket load of self-confidence. Ever since I started my internship two months ago, I've been feeling a lot better about myself and the world at large. I feel better about my ability to make it in the world, to realize my ambitions and dreams and just generally to make it in the big scary 'adult world'. This 'feeling good about yourself' thing seems to have spilled over into other areas of my life as well and I think in general you could say I just feel a lot better at home in my own skin.

And it shows. I stand up straight, hold my head up high and my shoulders righted because I Am Good. I Am (as a matter if fact) Awesome. And Screw You if you don't agree. This has nothing to do with weight whatsoever. Had I not lost those 15 (now 10) kilos I'm sure the same thing would have applied... And people would still be asking me if I lost weight.

 I wrote my first poem in... Quite possibly over a year?

Going on twenty-three

Am twenty-two, going on twenty-three,
Come take a look at my life and see;
I'm growing up, I'm settling down,
In the adult ways upon which I used to frown.

Am twenty-two, going on thirty-three,
Take my own responsibility.
Cook my food, pay my bills,
No pizza or fries because it kills.

Am twenty-two, going on forty-three,
My days no longer free.
I go to work from nine to five,
Earn my very own way through life.

Am twenty-two, going on fifty-three,
Have to look respectable now, you see?
Will never wear clothes in black and grey,
Well, that's what I used to say.

Am twenty-two, going on twenty-three,
But tonight I am age-free.
Bring out the sexy dresses, bring out booze,
Sometimes even pretend-adults have to let loose.

Thursday we had a congress and since the company I do my internship at is among the organizers I got to go for free. Yay! Cool speakers, amazingly luxury food and even a cool certificate by the end. The topic was multiculturalism in mental health care, so interesting too.

One of the workshops was given by my direct boss and one of the other psychologists from my division and of course I got planned in with them. So basically we were talking about the differences between how an 11 year old Moroccan boy might see my white, male boss and Moroccan, female colleague.