For anyone who's wondering

Yeah, I guess I'm leaving this part of the Sim Blog world. I haven't been on in forever and I've realized I'm more into pictures/stories of Sims rather than the forum drama. After a while, I felt like I tried too hard to fit in with everyone else by writing in a pseudo-Nancy Grace tone. No offense, but when FuryRed vanished (seriously, where have you been?) I stopped checking these blogs daily, then weekly, then monthly, then I uninstalled Windows Live Writer, and I haven't been on in months. I'm more of a Tumblr person now, especially for their Simming community. There's never any drama there and it's easier to blog over there. It's more microblogging than original posts but yeah.

Anyway, thank you everyone for coming here for two years and for accepting me as a part of your community! This was the first fandom where I conducted myself as a (semi) mature adult (you really wouldn't wanna see me during my Pokemon phase :P). Thank you ShinyShinx, FuryRed, VidKid20, XXAngelicEvilXX, TheMaresNest, Mike, Kami, and everyone else I have met in the past 2 years! I definitely won't be forgetting you for a while! Even if some of you deleted your blogs or we never actually talked, I enjoyed coming home from school everyday knowing there would be new posts waiting for me.

When I started this blog, I was a shy and awkward 15 year old boy trying to fit in with the athletic crowd at school. Now, I found my own comfort zone and my own friend circle and I feel like I found my own voice as a person. I'm not gonna lie and say it's all because of everyone here but you definitely helped shape me as a person.

I won't be deleting this blog because one day I want to look back at my old posts and my melodramatic high school life. Not to mention, maybe one day I will come back. It probably won't happen, but as long as TheSimsResource keeps being jerks, or Newsea and Peggy keep making weird hairs, or EA acts horrible, I could always have stuff to blog about. I'd love to give my Tumblr URL out here but I have personal info (or at least my name and my picture) up there and I'd feel weird putting it up on Blogger, which I feel is a more public website. And some of the stories I've written here definitely would do more harm than good if anyone knew I wrote them in real life. So maybe I'll privately tell anyone who wants to know, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Oh, and out of curiosity, I decided to search myself on The Mare's Nest. I was surprised when I was mentioned in a few new posts.
I got involved in some Rud3bwoy scandal, apparently? I assure you, as bad ass as that would be of me, it definitely wasn't. As much as I tried staying updated on all the drama, I definitely wouldn't care enough to go that far to rat someone out. And I was in school December 23, 2011 1:PM. :P

Then came an interesting turn of events. Someone out there decided to give the beleaguered cage builder a little tip off – our prime suspect being Armenian Twin – which led to our incoming links page getting hammered with all roads leading to Fauna Classified, and hence how we were able to go over in time to watch the fun.

Quoted from that link; it's cool that I'm being remembered as someone who would try to stop a scammer, especially after being extremely irrelevant and contributing nothing to the Sim Blogging world for 2 years.

Jen is really TtnFn04?  I was surprised when I read this. Not gonna lie, I skimmed through most of it, I didn't bother clicking any of the screenshots, and I haven't followed The Mare's Nest at all in 2012, but apparently this blogger I befriended is a bad person (or at least, in the first world- blogosphere definition of the word bad)? I mean, we never really talked other than commenting on each other's posts, but yeah. Again, it's cool that The Mare's Nest remembers who comments on an irrelevant blog's two year old blog post.

And the other posts were me being mentioned in my tirade against Jarsie9. Not too bad of a legacy, if you ask me. :P

If anyone's curious, we gave up on the Timbersons. We had a chapter all ready to be uploaded in October but then Windows Live Writer wasn't working so we kept trying for a few months but it never got uploaded. :( If you're wondering, most of the heirs remained pale brunettes with a new purple hair streak. I realized that I like playing legacies more than I like uploading them. So I guess that's the 'real' challenge of them.

So yeah, if you want to remove my link from your sidebar, I completely understand! Maybe I'll pop in once in a while to check up on everyone. Thanks for a great 2 years!

2 Months

2 months ago, one of my close friends passed away. We were in school. I unfortunately didn’t have lunch with him that day, but my brother did. He said Eric seemed fine. I found out from a phone call from school that Thursday night. I was really hoping for a snow day, but instead, they said a student had fainted in class and passed away on his way to the hospital. My brother told me about Eric fainting, on our way home from school, but I didn’t make anything out of it.

While SS was having a hard time that night, I somehow kept it together. When we went to school the next day, they had grief counselors in the library. I started to cry a lot during my English class because of how everyone was talking about Eric, like ‘I heard he just pass out and hit the floor… their ribs break if CPR works…. no autopsy’, and so on. Like he was a CSI character rather than a part of our community. I went to the grief counselors, crying, for 2 hours. A lot of my friends were also there. We were all close with Eric.

I went to his wake and that gave me some closure. The guidance counselors got all of Eric’s closest friends and the GSA club (Eric was a member) to plan a memorial for him. I went there thinking I would be an active part of it but then it was just GSA members who I know Eric wasn’t close with planning everything out. They had a lot of teachers and administrators speak at the memorial and only a few students. I wrote a letter to Eric, but I backed out at the last minute because I don’t think I’m good at public speaking and I’d get especially choked up considering it was for a close friend. Some of his other close friends also didn’t read because they felt too upset to read. So in the end it was a lot of GSA club members who he wasn’t as close with and like 3 of his friends.

I still feel like I haven’t moved on. My family members called and texted me that weekend to check up on me, but now I think they’re all thinking that it’s time for me to move on. I don’t feel like I’ve moved on anymore since the wake. I’ve started hanging out with friends more but I still feel awful about it. I know I’ll never wake up smiling about this, but I feel like I can’t talk about it without tearing up.

I think part of it is guilt. We both were a part of our school’s animal welfare club, that’s where we met. And he’d always ask to hang out but I didn’t know if he was the mall type. And I couldn’t get rides to out of school events so he’d usually go alone. I don’t even have him as a Facebook friend. I always kept forgetting about it, until about a week before. I feel like I wasn’t that close of a friend to him, and it makes me more upset. I don’t know if I can talk to my friends about it because I don’t want to bum them out. My guidance counselor told me the school child psychologist is offering grief counseling, but I don’t know if it’s too late to join, and I don’t want my parents to think I’m a complete mess.

Rest in Peace, Eric. I miss you and love you. We’ll never forget you. Sorry for not hanging out enough. 1.5.12.