Warren Shea - World of Warren

Archive for the ‘Past’ Category

Maybe I haven’t changed much in the last 9 years…

Sunday, April 11th, 2010 at 9:32 pm

“Happiness only exists through your perspective on life. Only dream if you believe. Never forget the child within. Remember to smile. Regret nothing. Dance like nobody’s watching.” – Warren Shea, High school yearbook Class of 2001

I was 19 when I wrote the above. That was my summary on how to live life. 9 years ago. And surprisingly…not too much has changed.

Happiness only exists through your perspective on life – This sounds like it came from “the glass is half full” side of me but I still strongly believe in it. Happiness is what you make of your life. If you’re not happy, you have to work towards changing it. Right now, there’s an aspect of my life I’m not happy with but I’m spending my nights and weekends trying to work towards changing that. If you’re unhappy…you’re looking at life wrong. Hm. That sounds a bit…preachy…but…if you can change the way you look at life…turn the bads to goods…you’ll be happier. A negative outlook on life doesn’t get better once you achieve the things that are making you unhappy now. New things that will make you unhappy will come up because you’ll make it so. Because that’s how you see life. Start looking at the positives.

Only dream if you believe – This sounds like the naive dreamer side of me. 9 years ago, I was ambitious in life…looking towards the future to achieving the dreams I had not yet reached. I know a number of people in my life right now with dreams…something they’re working towards, or something they want to accomplish in their life. A friend of mine has a dream and he spends so much time, effort, and discipline towards that dream. He believes in his dream and sacrifices everything for it. I impressed with the determination and dedication he has for his dream. He believes in it. I admire that.

Never forget the child within – Safe to say I haven’t forgotten him. It’s pretty obvious to anyone that knows me even remotely well that I still am my own child.

Remember to smile – Despite all my b!tching and darkness, I genuinely smile a lot. I like to laugh and make others laugh whether it be with me or at me. I’m able to wear my smile often, even when I’m stressed. A friendly smile brings a much better aura than no smile. A friendly aura can brighten someone’s day whereas negativity can easily breed more negativity. I try never to be the latter type of person…despite how I’m actually feeling. Even the fake smile that I wear often…is so I don’t spread the negativity.

Regret nothing – I wish I could say I live by this but there’s always a few regrets here and there. Generally though, I try not to let things of the past affect me or at least, learn from my mistakes. I can’t say I completely live by this though, the way I handled UWaterloo for example was a regret of mine and something I can’t really forget…

Dance like nobody’s watching – heh. This might be the one quote that doesn’t really apply to me anymore. In high school, I used to DDR. A LOT. That’s where this quote comes from. Out of my close group of high school friends, maybe 6 or more played DDR…some of my friends didn’t play though. I’m not sure if they were just self-conscious or thought it was stupid…but in high school, I was more confident than I am now, I would dance like nobody’s watching. Can’t say this is true anymore, I’m more insecure now and physically much less fit than I was 9 years ago….the specifics of this rule is gone but the general idea is to do what you want, when you want. Who cares what others think. Be yourself.

Hm. Don’t really like this post, sounds a bit preachy. Still….I found it pretty interesting how these lines from my yearbook still apply to me. There are some changes here and there but the way I live my life, the fundamentals on how I see life, they’re the same. I’m still me, even a decade later.

Posted in All Posts, Friends, Introspection, My Life, Past | 2 Comments »

UWaterFail

Sunday, March 28th, 2010 at 6:02 pm

I realized that today might be the third last time I set foot on University of Waterloo campus. The second last being the time I help Zena move out and the last being Zena’s convocation, if she so chooses to attend.

UWaterloo. For me, it might possibly have been 5 of the worst years of my life. Well, it started out good…school was good, friends were good….but after 2 or 3 terms, it just went to hell.

If Waterloo were a test, a test on independence, a test on studiousness, a test on the ability to prioritize, a test on intelligence, and a test on determination, I’ll have considered it a failure.

They tell you that highschool does not prepare you for university. They are correct. Highschool was dirt easy in comparison, I could get 85-95 with minimal effort. And better if I tried…which I rarely did. The only thing I learned from highschool was how to be cocky. How to be arrogant. How to underestimate everything and everyone (or maybe, how to overestimate myself). In highschool, one of my quotes was “The only thing I don’t know how to do, is fail”. How arrogant of me. But university is not highschool. Oh, how those lessons I’d learned backfired on me in Waterloo.

If Waterloo were a test and 50% were a pass, I’d have gotten 50%. Not 50.1%, 50%. I graduated, yes. But I literally might not have graduated if my marks were slightly lower. It was personally shameful. Given my past, my potential…I should have been above average. I’d never not been above average. A couple years in and I started to feel defeated. I’d never known this type of defeat, I didn’t handle it well. Like a downward spiral, I just fell, lower and lower. School didn’t really matter to me anymore. I just wanted everything to end.

Eventually, it did. I’ll confess something here, my post:
A recurring nightmare is basically a dream of not graduating. I was not kidding about that 50% thing above, the difference was as small as a needle point. It was stressful as hell, and clearly it was traumatically stressful. And while I did graduate, I personally let myself down.

The most difficult thing to live with after these 5 years was my shattered confidence. I think one of the reasons I’ve got two minds about everything is that I have one side telling me what I should do, and the other insecure side, giving me doubts on why I can’t do something. Like the spirit of Warren from ages 1-20 is fighting with the spirit Warren of 21-27 (and by spirit, I don’t mean an ethereal manifestation, I mean a mood of determination and will). I’m well aware of this confidence problem, it might be the reason why my social anxiety disorder symptoms are so much stronger now than they were 5 years ago. I’m very hard on myself, despite generally doing above average on everything I do (I think). The insecure Warren feels like it’s never enough. I hate getting praise because I don’t know how to respond to it….but…I need it. I crave it. I need people to blow smoke up my ass because even if it’s insincere (or sincere), it feels good. Like it helps redeem me. I have a self-deprecating attitude and I use self-deprecating humor. And consciously so, so that people blow smoke up my ass. It’s not a good quality to have…but pobody’s nerfect.

Waterloo fucked me up big time. With Zena graduating soon, my trips there should be less frequent, if ever. I’ll be happy to never visit that god awful place again. I need to put that place behind me…

Posted in All Posts, Past, UWaterloo | No Comments »

Hi. I’m Warren. I’m a web developer.

Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 8:55 pm

While I’m on my life high, I thought I should write about this profession that I love. I’m a bit disappointed though, there’s not really any passion in this post…despite being a profession I love. I guess I’m not feeling it today….

I originally started out as a web designer. My skills were mostly focused around Photoshop and some Flash/Premiere. I had an artistic background and at the time of developing my Photoshop skill, I was (relatively speaking) one of the better digital artists that I knew of. Looking back at it now, it was probably because I had more exposure to Photoshop than everyone else…not because of my artistic skill (which I find pretty lacking – maybe because I haven’t developed it in years).

I continued to be a web designer with minor development skills from high school, all the way until a few of years ago (2000-2007~). I would occasionally do development. I eventually started using <!Doctype> instead of <html>, <div> instead of <table>, css instead of default tag properties. I slowly learned vb syntax. I slowly learned about databases and SQL. I slowly learned c# syntax. All of these things were very gradual, picking up pieces of information here and there…but it was never really my focus. I loved my Photoshop. I thought I could spend all day using Photoshop.

Eventually…my tastes seemed to change. Even with my current eBusiness team, I was originally hired as a designer. A couple of months in and I turned into a hybrid, a designer/developer. I mostly focused on design but I also helped the developers. I was good at debugging, I understood code, logic, etc. Eventually, I made the decision to switch from designer to developer…and I haven’t looked back.

I had two concerns regarding being a developer. First, I wasn’t sure if my skill would be enough. Being surrounded by awesome developers all day, everyday in Waterloo made me question my skills. Relatively speaking to them, I was a bad developer. But relatively speaking to the general population, I’m average or slightly above average.

My other concern 3 years ago was that I couldn’t see myself looking at code all day. I thought it would be boring….but I could see myself using Photoshop all day. This goes back to one of my lifelong goals of finding a profession I enjoy. I wanted to make sure that whatever I was doing, I was having fun. A few more months of Photoshop all day and I started to realize that it didn’t quite stimulate my mind like development did. I could do either all day but…development challenged me in more of a traditional sense whereas I felt that design challenged me only if I actually challenged myself to look at things differently.

I started to slowly be drawn into the development world. I like that development focuses on many logical steps to create a seemingly illogical solution. I like that you can develop something, test it, and either feel a sense of accomplishment or reevaluate the problem, test again, and repeat to eventually feel that sense of accomplishment. I didn’t really feel that with design. Design is subjective. I could do something that I felt was my best work, only to have some half wit tear it down. I doubt I could handle idiots telling me what they think is best. It would make me frustrated. That’s rarely an issue as a developer – except that one recent time when other developers were analyzing/judging my code…that pissed me off >:(

Anyways, I’m a developer now. And I love it. I’m not the greatest developer (not talking web, talking about in general)…but web is seriously EZ MODE in comparison to what’s out there. Which is why it’s perfect for me. I’m not intelligent enough to be a great developer, I’m not a quick learner and I don’t love development like I could/should. I rarely, if ever, look at tech blogs or read up on the latest technologies. But. I’m intelligent enough to do my job well. I’m quick enough to do my job well. I don’t need to read about the latest technologies because I wouldn’t touch that stuff anyways.

The fact is, I’m good at my job. And I’ve chosen it because it doesn’t challenge me like some jobs could. I like being over qualified rather than being under qualified. I don’t think my pride could take being frequently defeated. I know I didn’t handle that lack of ASP.NET knowledge well…I freaked out. I was motivated to learn it but that sort of….wore off…I’d much rather watch House :)

There are more challenging jobs out there…and I admire those that want to try them, that reach for the stars, that always want to jump to the next, harder project. I’m a bit more realistic, judging the situation according to my abilities and myself. I don’t want to make life too difficult for myself. I enjoy being challenged but I also enjoy being lazy. Working too hard leads to burnout. For me, the key to life is always about balance.

I realize that a younger me would call myself a coward…running away from my problems. But I look at life now and say that I’m happy. Not too difficult…not too easy. Balance works. I’d kick that little kid’s ass anyways. Though he could probably outrun me. Little bastard.

I think I’ll stop this post here.

Posted in All Posts, My Life, Past, Web Developer | No Comments »

My old room (again)….

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 1:22 am

I don’t wanna spend too much time writing today. I thought of 2 topics for future posts tonight at work but they’ll wait…I’ll just put up what I was working on last night at 2am…

I attempted to create a Panorama shot of my old room (from 2000) using the off angle, poor quality images that I had. The images have lived through 2 hard drive failures but I was able to restore the files (tho they seemed to degrade). I never intended to make a panorama image when I took them, they’re completely horrible for that sort of thing…oh well, I did 40% of my best. That’s good enough.

Click the image to see a larger (2MB) image panorama.

Posted in All Posts, My Life, Past, Shopping | 3 Comments »

A recurring nightmare

Sunday, February 14th, 2010 at 11:09 am

My eyes suddenly open. I glance around and slowly recognize where I am. The stress I’ve just experienced slowly begins to disappear as my mind begins to throw logic at me, convincing myself that what just happened in my head did not actually happen. My hair and clothes are slightly damp. I’ve just had a nightmare. The same nightmare I have had at least 3 or 4 times a year. Every year.

This is what I felt a few moments ago. I know I said I wouldn’t talk about dreams but I’m going to make an exception because this is a recurring one. The dream and issue is personal so I’m going to use a basketball (I know, wtf eh?) analogy in its stead. The dream plays out like this:

I’m on the court playin’ the game. I’ve got home-court advantage. The score is 68-70 for our opponents. There’s only 4 seconds left in the game. I’ve got the ball between my hands and I’m just behind the 3-point line. I’m wide open. But I’m nervous. I’ve made this shot more times than I can count. But the pressure, the stress, it begins to overwhelm me. I know what I have to do. I take the shot. The ball floats up in the air. Everything slows down. I can feel the crowd hush and stand up, praying the shot is good. It looks good. From my point of view, the angle is perfect. The ball seems to stay afloat forever but it slowly begins to descend from it’s perfect arc. As it approaches the rim, it looks like it’s going to swish. *Boing* The ball bounces off the rim and flies away. Everything picks up speed again. The crowd goes silent. My head and heart drop as I fall to the floor, defeated. I’ve let everyone down. I’ve let myself down. I’ve failed. I wake up.

I open my eyes. My heart still racing, the stress still overwhelming me. My mind starts throwing reasoning and memories at me. “I did make the shot” it tells me. My memories clouded because of what I have just experienced and felt. As I calm down, I realize that I DID MAKE THE SHOT. I won the game. I didn’t let everyone down. I didn’t fail.

SO WHY THE FRAK DO I HAVE A REPEATED NIGHTMARE THAT I DID?

It’s been so many years now since this incident occurred. Everything turned out great. It was a very stressful situation at the time but it turned out okay. Why am I constantly plagued with a feeling that it didn’t?

Posted in All Posts, Introspection, Past, UWaterloo | 3 Comments »