Beryl Running!

Yeah, I finally managed to get my main desktop to run Beryl. It wasn't easy (stupid ATI graphics card...), but here's a shot of eye-candy:

technorati tags:life

Powered by ScribeFire.

Finished My First Google-Summer-Of-Code Application

Yeah, I finished and submitted my first application for the GSOC. If anyone's interested, it's technically available here.

I dunno if it'll be accepted, but I guess there's no harm in trying. And odds are there'll be more applications from me in the future.

technorati tags: programming, gsoc

Powered by ScribeFire.

The Root Of My Problems (Copied From LiveJournal)

(Copying over from LiveJournal because of the importance of this topic)

Yeah, I figured I may as well write about why I feel so sad all the time, since people are always yelling at me about it ;-;

When I was younger, I, like everyone else, had to go to school. Unfortunately, my school experience was one of the worst you could ever imagine. The students pretty much all hated me; I was pretty smart, and I knew a lot (I could add and subtract, and read long before I went to school), and they were jealous. As a result, they all treated me like dirt. The teachers hated that I knew all the stuff they were teaching (they actually called my parents in and called them idiots for teaching me how to read and do math before I got to school!), and they didn't like that I wasn't much of a conformist. I had my own ways of doing things, and I felt they could all kiss my @$$, if you get the message. However, the worst was the principal.

My first principal was a nutcase with a capital N, a guy that was obviously a holdover from the old ways of teaching. He used to beat students with a leather strap if they didn't do everything exactly as he wanted, and he would pick out choice students from each grade level to target. I was his target from my grade level. For example, I got sent to the office and yelled at when I was 7 because I was sucking on my shirt collar, and that was "inappropriate behaviour" according to him. He threatened to strap me a few times when I was sent to the office, most of the time for trivial, pointless things like not waiting my turn to talk or for DEFENDING MYSELF from attacks.

When I was in grade 1, they started talking about having a class for gifted students. The principal picked out whatever students he wanted, and intentionally jumped over me despite my really high average (which was brought down by the teachers on the grounds of "disciplinary problems"; ie. I wouldn't conform to the "perfect student" mold). When my parents went in to talk to the principal about this, his comment was that I didn't belong in a gifted program; I belonged in prison. I would be a complete failure at life, and trying to help me was a waste of time.

Even after I got out of there, the principal's lies about my conduct went on my "permanent record" (which I read when I turned 16, because I had the right to). So even after I got away from him, I continued to have to fight the teachers who saw "troublemaker" on my record and assumed that I was an idiot who was determined to prevent the other students from learning.

When I was in grade 8, I had a math average of 100% (yes, PERFECT). The school went out of their way to figure out a way to not give me the math award despite that. The only institution that was interested in that mark was the high school, who were looking for gifted students at that time and saw my potential. It wasn't until I got to high school that things started to change, as the teachers started to treat me like an intelligent person rather than a troublemaker, and I was really popular with the faculty there. High school was the only time I ever really had fun at school, and I was really sad when I graduated. But by that time, I was so sad about my life that I ended up entering the darkest depression I'd ever been in, one I actually started in when I was younger, but didn't really immerse into it until then.

That was also the first year I got on the Internet, and started to write and do web design for the first time. I got screwed by a few people on the Internet in exactly the same way as I did in real life, and by that point I didn't trust people anymore. I still don't; I have yet to see somebody do anything that might break my beliefs that people are fundamentally only interested in themselves. I hate myself primarily because I know this attitude is the wrong one, but any other just leads to pain. Pain bothers me, and I don't want to suffer anymore.

Technorati Tags: life

Powered by ScribeFire.

First Blog Post

Hey! This is my first post in my new blog. So hi to everyone who's watching (which is probably nobody...)

technorati tags:life

Blogged with Flock