The 18 things I’m most proud of

Our next Iron Pentacle class is on the point of Pride, and part of our homework was to think about what we’re proud of. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

The 18 things I’m most proud of, in roughly chronological order

1. The Great Poem. In retrospect, most of it is inane, but it’s still cool that I wrote a 2000-line epic poem between 7th and 11th grades. There are some sections of it that I’m still very fond of.
2. Klonetris. Klonetris is a clone of Tetris I wrote in highschool. I’m proud that I was able to make a game so fun and cool when I was that young. I still enjoy playing it occasionally. (:
3. 04detect. It’s a pretty cool song I wrote in highschool. It’s my favourite of the songs I’ve written.
4. RMG… almost. I’m proud that I got RMG to the point where some people think it sounds pretty good and where I’ve thrown a marginally successful RMG dance party. I’m proud of the ideas I’ve had for it, but when I think about RMG, I mostly think about the lack of actualization of those cool ideas. I just think of it as yet another cool thing I started and never finished.
5. Pace D&D. I really like Pace D&D. I like its game mechanics, and it’s really well fleshed out in certain respects. It strikes a good balance between realism and playability, which to me is the key game mechanic to balance in an RPG.
6. The Silastran Campaign. This campaign has reached legendary status in my mind. The characters and the story ended up being so incredibly cool that Kelan and I started writing a novel about it. We only ever finished about 3 chapters of it, but we still have the 80+ page Chronicles, which are our notes from the gaming sessions. I feel really proud of myself and Kelan for coming up with such a cool plot, doing such good work on the backstory, NPCs, and visual aids, and bringing it all together in the actual campaign.
7. Having done well in school. I got a 3.9 GPA overall at Carnegie Mellon, with a 4.0 in Computer Science (my double major). I’m very proud of that. I studied a lot and did really well in some really tough classes, like Operating Systems and Japanese.
8. Transition. I’m really proud of how I handled my transition. I got through it with less pain and suffering than anyone else I know of. This was partially due to “luck” because I didn’t have a clue that I was female until I was financially and emotionally well-prepared for transition, and it was also very “lucky” that I had pretty great support from my family, loved ones, and friends. But a lot of it was due to me just doing a good job of transitioning, doing lots of self-work and introspection, and keeping a positive attitude. And you know what, I get to take credit for some of the “luck”, too. I did a good job at hoarding money, I surrounded myself with good friends, etc.
9. Being out. It’s been tough at times for me to be fully out about all the freaky things that I am. I’m proud of that. And I feel like I’m doing a really good thing, proving that it’s possible to be all these things and still live a happy and healthy life.
10. Being good at DDR and ITG. This one is a mixed bag for me. Yeah, I’m pretty good wrt accuracy. I’ve AAAed Let The Beat Hit ‘Em (6) in DDR and I’ve AAed most Heavy songs. I’ve placed 1st in statewide tournaments in Texas, Georgia, and Florida. I can get triple-stars on some 6s in ITG, which is over 99% (pretty much all Fantastics and single digit Excellents or close). But my stamina really sucks compared to what it used to be. I once passed every Heavy song on DDRMAX2 in a row (with short breaks between sets). It took me 7.5 hours. I used to be able to pass all the catas and some of the pockies. Now I can hardly pass catas anymore. If this is the price I have to pay for being a girl, so be it. But I haven’t accepted that yet. I’m still measuring my stamina against what it used to be when I was a boy, and I still haven’t given up hope that I might be able to work back up to that someday.
11. Being a Zendo master. I was the world champion of Zendo for two years.
12. Being good at video games? Hmm. I’m quite good at video games. But am I proud of that? I don’t think so. I don’t really care enough to be proud of it. I guess this is a gilded point for me. I’m sometimes arrogant about it, but I’m not really proud of it in a particularly positive way.
13. Being good at programming? Hmm. I’m a good coder and a good software engineer. But I don’t know how much I care about that either. It’s a useful skill, I’ve had lots of practice, and I’m good at it. But I don’t think I care quite enough to be proud of it. I’m not sure. This one’s a borderline case.
14. Being good at almost anything I set my mind to. But I guess it generalizes to this. For my entire life, I’ve excelled at just about everything I’ve set my mind to. I’m very proud of that. It kind of feels more about who I am rather than something I do, and it feels weird to be proud of something I am.
15. Doing well financially. I’ve done a good job in my life financially. My parents helped me pay for college and I’ve been paying off student loans ever since, but I immediately got a really good job, got several raises, paid off all my other debts, and started hoarding lots and lots of money and investing it wisely. I’m very proud of that, and it will help make our dreams come true much, much sooner than would have been possible otherwise.
16. My family. I’m incredibly proud of the relationships Sera, Kyeli, Dru and I have with each other. Especially with me, Sera, and Kyeli, we’ve practiced communication so much and gotten so good at understanding each other and understanding ourselves. We’ve worked through so many tough problems and come out stronger and happier at the end. I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve put into our relationships and how well it’s paid off. (:
17. The Usual Error. I’m amazingly thrilled that we were able to take all the relationship work we’ve done and turn it into a presentation that’s both wonderfully fun to present and truly useful for those who attend. It’s ridiculously fulfilling and I’m very proud of what we’ve created. I’ll be even more proud once we finish the book. (:
18. Self-work. I’m proud of all the self-work I’ve done, and how I’ve grown. I’ve faced a lot of my fears, accepted a lot of difficult things, overcome a lot of habits that weren’t really serving me, and gained a better understanding of what it is to be me.

One thing that became really clear to me while coming up with this list is that I really need measurable goals to stay motivated. It became especially clear with self-work. At first it felt so vague and unquantifiable. Have I really accomplished a lot of self-work? How can I measure that? I’ve decided that I want to set measurable goals for my own self-work, so that I can feel accomplished when I achieve them. Also, I want to go back and look at a bunch of stuff that used to stress me out a lot and see how well I’ve gotten over it — to make a retroactive self-work to-do list and cross out a whole bunch of stuff immediately. (: That’ll make me feel good.

A lot of the things I’m most proud of are creative accomplishments. I constantly feel like I was really creative in highschool and college and after that, it just tanked. I mean, look at all the hyperlinks at the beginning and the utter dearth of them thereafter! I’m still not really sure why. Perhaps I’ve been expending my creative energy at work instead. But does work really take such a different kind or amount of energy than classes did in college? I’m not really sure. I wonder whether I’m out of alignment in some way, because I often wish I did more creative things but almost never have the motivation to actually work on any of them. If I really wanted to get them done, wouldn’t I want to do them? In any case, The Usual Error is a creative accomplishment (the first notable one in over 8 years), so hopefully that’ll help satisfy my creative urges.

I’ve got both gilded and rust aspects of Pride. I’m often arrogant and egotistical about things I’m proud of, and I’ll brag about them. But about other things, I’ll beat myself up about them and fail to acknowledge the aspects of which I deserve to be proud. I’m looking forward to class on Friday and I’m hoping to get a lot out of it.