37 replies to this topic

[Rocket]

Ginger. Bitch.

[sprockets]

Ok I'm sorry I'm a unfamiliar with what bouldering is - you don't use any rope or harness????? How is that safe?? Do you do this in nature or just in a controlled environment (like a gym)? Why wouldn't you be able to travel and compete in this? There's nothing really stopping you if you want to. 

 

That's actually a super interesting sport, though. I don't think I've heard of that here. Is there a large community for it?

 

His new stuff is the worse. And have you seen his hair? He looks like female Eminem.

 

Nope! No harnesses, ropes or a belay partner required (sure you can use the autobelayer but those routes aren't generally that great for top roping).

 

Most people are familiar with top roping where you have a rope that goes through a single anchor point above you.

 

I suppose bouldering originated when people thought it would be a good idea to climb large boulders - these routes are generally a lot lower and you don't necessarily just go straight up. Since it's lower generally people just get away with crash pads and people spotting them, inside a gym it's low enough that you don't need either since you can't reach terminal velocity from the fall. 

 

Anyways my uncle has been a top roper for years so perhaps you may say that climbing is in my blood even though I never went with him. 

 

Why don't I compete? Because I know I'm nowhere near as good as some of the greats like Sean McColl, Alex Puccio or Shauna Coxsey,  And it'll take me years to get to as good as them. I mean.. check out the next two sends 

 

There are two, a boy and a girl. We're whittling it down slowly. Milo/Amelia, Felix/Felicity, Juliet/Joel... and any of those may be replaced by Ford, Fisher, Elmo, Blair, Elroy, etc. We have opposite ideas of what makes an acceptable name lol

 

I personally think matching/similar names are a bit silly but they're not my kids.

 

 

Btw @Jess, I still vote Elmo.

 

I vote Elmo too 

Edited by DonJonathan, 19 July 2016 - 04:53 PM.

[cara]

Londoner, violinist, runner, wifey. One of those for sure.

 

I'm loathe to be defined by my relationship but honestly I'd say he's intrinsic to who I am. Aside from a half brother, he's my only family, he's my best friend and having been around for so many years, has probably had the most influence over the person I've become.

 

London, we've been elsewhere and I do think we'll move away one day. Violin, is always a bit of a torrid love affair. Running, I get waylaid by injury a lot and while it's part and parcel, it means I have a lot of days of not feeling like a runner.

 

I like to think that we are all the sum of the people we meet and the experiences they bring. 

 

But your description reminds me a bit of Marshall and Lily from HIMYM. Which is awesome. And it's funny you should say violin because I have definitely always associated that with you. I remember way back in the day when you would speak about playing it professionally ..

 

I've been thinking about it, and I have no idea how to answer this without it being a list of things other people in my life think I am, which is something I should definitely work on fixing.

 

Ah, I don't know. I'm not capable of answering the question either, which is why I did not. But it is something we should both work on. And I look forward to hearing what you come up, if you do. The way others see you isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if you are referring to your loved ones I would imagine, but it doesn't mean what they think defines you. I think only you can define yourself.

 

Ginger. Bitch.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Nope! No harnesses, ropes or a belay partner required (sure you can use the autobelayer but those routes aren't generally that great for top roping).

 

Most people are familiar with top roping where you have a rope that goes through a single anchor point above you.

 

I suppose bouldering originated when people thought it would be a good idea to climb large boulders - these routes are generally a lot lower and you don't necessarily just go straight up. Since it's lower generally people just get away with crash pads and people spotting them, inside a gym it's low enough that you don't need either since you can't reach terminal velocity from the fall. 

 

Anyways my uncle has been a top roper for years so perhaps you may say that climbing is in my blood even though I never went with him. 

 

Why don't I compete? Because I know I'm nowhere near as good as some of the greats like Sean McColl, Alex Puccio or Shauna Coxsey,  And it'll take me years to get to as good as them. I mean.. check out the next two sends

 

Omg HAHA I'm sorry but I cracked up at the first bit of that video. I was like 'ok .. ok .. she's climbing, interesting, cool ..' and then I guess she did a cool move and the crowd went totally crazy. It made it pretty intense. I didn't realize people got so into this. But ok, it does look a lot safer in this video. I thought you meant like mountainside climbing without a safety harness.

 

Lol they get good by practicing. I don't know how old you are but you're too damn young to give up on your dream .. if this is your dream, I'm not sure. But it would be a pretty fun life to travel and compete in these competitions.

[Nonexistent]

I wish I could be nonexistent, I wish

[Alexiel]

I've been popping by this thread a few times now, hoping to have an answer. Took two days before I finally figured it out though. 

 

For me it's my heart. Always has been and always will be.
It's a heart full of hope, passion, and dreams.
A heart filled with potential.
One that's been broken, beaten, and bruised... but continues pumping strong. Like a mighty Saiyan warrior it grows even stronger with each defeat.

One that's made some deep, beautiful connections with the few people I truly let in completely. They or their memories will be with me until the day I die.

 

It takes love and happiness to great heights. And for me, there truly isn't anything greater than being in and sharing that love.

It connects me to oh so many geekdoms and the people within them. Gods I could talk geek with someone with endless excitement and passion for hours upon hours. Especially if it's Doctor Who. lol

 

Some people may wear their hearts on their sleeves, but for me I am my heart and it is me.

 

Comics books, Funko Pop! figures, gunpla, etc. are all just physical incarnations of the various different aspects of it. While music is it expressing itself in another form. 

[NapisaurusRex]

Omg, Fisher. Love that one.       
 
Congratulations!!!!!!!! Twins are awesome, it's like having a life long friend. Are they paternal or fraternal? When do you find that out?

They're fraternal, boy and girl sets always are. During the ultrasound, we were both sitting there going "please don't be identical, please don't be identical" cause we're both face blind lol

[cara]

I've been popping by this thread a few times now, hoping to have an answer. Took two days before I finally figured it out though. 

 

For me it's my heart. Always has been and always will be.
It's a heart full of hope, passion, and dreams.
A heart filled with potential.
One that's been broken, beaten, and bruised... but continues pumping strong. Like a mighty Saiyan warrior it grows even stronger with each defeat.

One that's made some deep, beautiful connections with the few people I truly let in completely. They or their memories will be with me until the day I die.

 

It takes love and happiness to great heights. And for me, there truly isn't anything greater than being in and sharing that love.

It connects me to oh so many geekdoms and the people within them. Gods I could talk geek with someone with endless excitement and passion for hours upon hours. Especially if it's Doctor Who. lol

 

Some people may wear their hearts on their sleeves, but for me I am my heart and it is me.

 

Comics books, Funko Pop! figures, gunpla, etc. are all just physical incarnations of the various different aspects of it. While music is it expressing itself in another form. 

 

It's so interesting to me to see some people having immediate responses without hesitation and others having put so much more thought into it. Goes to show how different every person is.

 

Awesome response, though. I felt happy just reading it lol. Good for you for having such a positive energy. We should geek out together some time. 

 

They're fraternal, boy and girl sets always are. During the ultrasound, we were both sitting there going "please don't be identical, please don't be identical" cause we're both face blind lol

 

Hahahaha. And all babies look alike to begin with. But that's interesting, I didn't know that. I like the idea of matching names. Even when my rents had my brother and I they said they wanted names that sounded good together because people will say it together half a million times when growing up.

[sprockets]

Omg HAHA I'm sorry but I cracked up at the first bit of that video. I was like 'ok .. ok .. she's climbing, interesting, cool ..' and then I guess she did a cool move and the crowd went totally crazy. It made it pretty intense. I didn't realize people got so into this. But ok, it does look a lot safer in this video. I thought you meant like mountainside climbing without a safety harness.
 
Lol they get good by practicing. I don't know how old you are but you're too damn young to give up on your dream .. if this is your dream, I'm not sure. But it would be a pretty fun life to travel and compete in these competitions.

 
Maybe it's one of those things where you wouldn't realize how impressive it is until you're actually put in that position? Like the Iron Cross on the rings for gymnastics. Like I said before - the community is incredibly supportive. And despite how "into it" people seemed that's nothing compared to say the Stanley Cup or Eurocup Finals. 
 
Yea... I'm not crazy enough to do free soloing unlike Alex Honnold. When people on reddit saw this video, the first thing they did was look him up to see if he's still alive. (He's still alive as of right now)
 

 
Haha, I'm 26 so I'm not exactly as young as most of those that compete, had I started younger then sure. Plus I've got a rather addictive (or maybe focused is the better) personality. When I get into something I really get into it and go all in which can be good but at the same time that results in it being a huge chore to do something if I don't want to do it. With that in mind who knows if there's something more of my calling that I have yet to discover. 
 
Thanks for the mini pep talk though.
 

They're fraternal, boy and girl sets always are. During the ultrasound, we were both sitting there going "please don't be identical, please don't be identical" cause we're both face blind lol

 

I thought you could tell the difference between Asians though which is better than a lot of people but maybe that's Kate

[Tetiel]

What's your favourite cool science fact?

That despite what many people still believe, your genetic code does not determine your fate. There are so many factors involved that make you the person that you are. Many of them, like your genetics, may have been inherited by the circumstances that your grandmother or great grandmother endured but are not actually apparent in your base DNA code. The stressful life that your grandparents had during economic hardship may increase your baseline of cortisol, the stress hormone, causing anything from increased susceptibility to mental disorders to metabolic syndromes.

Health disparities are a real thing. In Baltimore, one neighborhood only a mile away from the other may have as much as a decade lower in life expectancy because of poverty. About 20% live under the poverty line, 64% of those who are African American. Nationally, African Americans experience health disparities disproportionally. As a result, according to Johns Hopkins which extensively studies the phenomenon, African American babies are 9x more likely to die within the first year of age than white babies, they also have the highest rate of death from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.

What I have learned from my studies is that it isn't enough that you end poverty and discrimination now - you inherit the problems from previous generations. What has happened to those who are minorities and impoverished will likely affect them generations on due to the resetting of what the germ cells believe to be normal methylation of DNA (the basis of epigenetics, the regulation of what is actually read from the DNA). My lab is working on figuring out how many generations it takes of outcrossing with normal populations to get rid of disease phenotypes. It's not looking good and it's something we need to really consider when we're treating an entire population of people like shit.

[Romy]

Absolutely nothing.

 

I'm too irresponsible to stick to one singular thing for too long. I arbitrarily jump from one interest to another because I get bored. 

 

I honestly can't think of a single thing that defines me. Should that bother me?

That despite what many people still believe, your genetic code does not determine your fate. There are so many factors involved that make you the person that you are. Many of them, like your genetics, may have been inherited by the circumstances that your grandmother or great grandmother endured but are not actually apparent in your base DNA code. The stressful life that your grandparents had during economic hardship may increase your baseline of cortisol, the stress hormone, causing anything from increased susceptibility to mental disorders to metabolic syndromes.

Health disparities are a real thing. In Baltimore, one neighborhood only a mile away from the other may have as much as a decade lower in life expectancy because of poverty. About 20% live under the poverty line, 64% of those who are African American. Nationally, African Americans experience health disparities disproportionally. As a result, according to Johns Hopkins which extensively studies the phenomenon, African American babies are 9x more likely to die within the first year of age than white babies, they also have the highest rate of death from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.

What I have learned from my studies is that it isn't enough that you end poverty and discrimination now - you inherit the problems from previous generations. What has happened to those who are minorities and impoverished will likely affect them generations on due to the resetting of what the germ cells believe to be normal methylation of DNA (the basis of epigenetics, the regulation of what is actually read from the DNA). My lab is working on figuring out how many generations it takes of outcrossing with normal populations to get rid of disease phenotypes. It's not looking good and it's something we need to really consider when we're treating an entire population of people like shit.

Eww. Epigenetics.

[Junjie]

Absolutely nothing.
 
I'm too irresponsible to stick to one singular thing for too long. I arbitrarily jump from one interest to another because I get bored. 
 
I honestly can't think of a single thing that defines me. Should that bother me?

But you've liked Pokemon consistently right?

I don't think it should bother you. Then again, I'm kind of like that too so ehh.

As for my own response to this thread: I'm quite stubbornly individualistic, so I guess that's what has been defining me, the thing about "doing my own thing". Many other things have been defining me and still have their defining influence over me though: From my upbringing to my education (and relative success/lack of success in it, at times). The friends/people I hang(ed) out with. My interests (reading, writing, speaking, doing events work). Gender (being a boy - and being different types a boy, being a transvestite/crossdresser, being someone who rejects gender labels or rather merely thought of myself as that, etc).

I really, really hate being labelled and then defined from there though. So I seem to have this habit of growing(?) out of labels which use to define me super well.

At one time all I really knew how to do was study, but then I gave it up and literally started failing classes, when before I was on the Dean's List.

At another time, my whole life was this life coaching organisation and its courses there, which I discovered after I all-but-gave up on my studies (still completed that degree though). I spent basically all my free time and space for like 3 years there. I still hang out there, but haven't been volunteering with them or taking any courses since last year.

And I don't really crossdress much these days. I have like, articles of femme clothes I keep, wear them sometimes in private when in the mood. But otherwise. I haven't even gone shopping for like a year or so.

Okay, now it's beginning to sound like I simply should be doing more with my life.

[NapisaurusRex]

I thought you could tell the difference between Asians though which is better than a lot of people but maybe that's Kate

uhh... you can tell the difference between a white person and a mexican, right?

 

Spoiler

jk, I actually think this happened because when I lived in okc, I was near a ghetto and a reservation and those natives get PISSED if they're mistaken for a latino/a person, so I'm fairly good at those little differences between large groups of people, but within those groups, forget about it.

[cara]

 
Maybe it's one of those things where you wouldn't realize how impressive it is until you're actually put in that position? Like the Iron Cross on the rings for gymnastics. Like I said before - the community is incredibly supportive. And despite how "into it" people seemed that's nothing compared to say the Stanley Cup or Eurocup Finals. 
 
Yea... I'm not crazy enough to do free soloing unlike Alex Honnold. When people on reddit saw this video, the first thing they did was look him up to see if he's still alive. (He's still alive as of right now)
 
 
Haha, I'm 26 so I'm not exactly as young as most of those that compete, had I started younger then sure. Plus I've got a rather addictive (or maybe focused is the better) personality. When I get into something I really get into it and go all in which can be good but at the same time that results in it being a huge chore to do something if I don't want to do it. With that in mind who knows if there's something more of my calling that I have yet to discover. 
 
Thanks for the mini pep talk though.

 

Jeez, to think that 26 is not considered young is crazy to me. I definitely don't think it's too late to get into doing it professionally, but I'll take your word for it as you are obviously a lot more knowledgeable on that.

 

Maybe you're right though - doing something as a hobby can, I think, be just as fulfilling as doing it as work. Do you actually go out and do this? You should film yourself and post it on here, that'd be pretty cool. 

 

Thanks, I try.

 

That despite what many people still believe, your genetic code does not determine your fate. There are so many factors involved that make you the person that you are. Many of them, like your genetics, may have been inherited by the circumstances that your grandmother or great grandmother endured but are not actually apparent in your base DNA code. The stressful life that your grandparents had during economic hardship may increase your baseline of cortisol, the stress hormone, causing anything from increased susceptibility to mental disorders to metabolic syndromes.

Health disparities are a real thing. In Baltimore, one neighborhood only a mile away from the other may have as much as a decade lower in life expectancy because of poverty. About 20% live under the poverty line, 64% of those who are African American. Nationally, African Americans experience health disparities disproportionally. As a result, according to Johns Hopkins which extensively studies the phenomenon, African American babies are 9x more likely to die within the first year of age than white babies, they also have the highest rate of death from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.

What I have learned from my studies is that it isn't enough that you end poverty and discrimination now - you inherit the problems from previous generations. What has happened to those who are minorities and impoverished will likely affect them generations on due to the resetting of what the germ cells believe to be normal methylation of DNA (the basis of epigenetics, the regulation of what is actually read from the DNA). My lab is working on figuring out how many generations it takes of outcrossing with normal populations to get rid of disease phenotypes. It's not looking good and it's something we need to really consider when we're treating an entire population of people like shit.

 

You blinded me with science.

 

I might be making an incorrect comparison, but I do recall reading something to that effect of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. I can't quite remember the exact estimate, but it was pretty disturbing.

 

Absolutely nothing.

 

I'm too irresponsible to stick to one singular thing for too long. I arbitrarily jump from one interest to another because I get bored. 

 

I honestly can't think of a single thing that defines me. Should that bother me?

 

No, why should that bother you? People are dynamic. You and I are both not the same person we were ten years ago, and we will not be the same person in ten years. I would define myself now totally differently than I would ten years ago.

 

But, if you are not unable or feel as though you cannot accurately define yourself in any context, there's nothing wrong with that either. Like I said in my initial post, I don't want to deduce anyone to one characteristic or interest. You don't sound irresponsible, you sound like you're always looking for the next good thing. And that's freaking awesome.

 

 

As for my own response to this thread: I'm quite stubbornly individualistic, so I guess that's what has been defining me, the thing about "doing my own thing". Many other things have been defining me and still have their defining influence over me though: From my upbringing to my education (and relative success/lack of success in it, at times). The friends/people I hang(ed) out with. My interests (reading, writing, speaking, doing events work). Gender (being a boy - and being different types a boy, being a transvestite/crossdresser, being someone who rejects gender labels or rather merely thought of myself as that, etc).

I really, really hate being labelled and then defined from there though. So I seem to have this habit of growing(?) out of labels which use to define me super well.

At one time all I really knew how to do was study, but then I gave it up and literally started failing classes, when before I was on the Dean's List.

At another time, my whole life was this life coaching organisation and its courses there, which I discovered after I all-but-gave up on my studies (still completed that degree though). I spent basically all my free time and space for like 3 years there. I still hang out there, but haven't been volunteering with them or taking any courses since last year.

And I don't really crossdress much these days. I have like, articles of femme clothes I keep, wear them sometimes in private when in the mood. But otherwise. I haven't even gone shopping for like a year or so.

Okay, now it's beginning to sound like I simply should be doing more with my life.

 

Ok so your biggest problem is that you haven't been shopping in a year. Shopping is amazing and magical and you need to go out and buy some cuteass dresses before you start to stress me out.

 

Seriously though, like I said above, people are constantly changing. I don't think it matters so much what you do rather than who are you. I remember reading a quote along the lines of 'don't ever regret doing something, because it was exactly what you wanted or needed in that moment'. Now I'm probably butchering that quote but you get me.  There's nothing wrong with loving life coaching five years ago, but your interests grow with you. And you outgrow things. And move on the next big bad thing. Except shopping. Shopping is life.