Burning Forearms
April 19, 2019 Uncategorized 7 comments aday19
According to my parents, and somewhat contradictory to my friends’ knowledge, I do not show a lot of emotion with most things. When my mother and step-father bought a new-to-us Polaris 800 Sportsman four-wheeler and showed it to me for my birthday, I barely had a smile. When my cat Roselina disappeared for good I had very little emotion and thinking back on it, it still doesn’t bring any feeling with the memory of my cat. My friends now know me to be sometimes overly emotional for no reason. Not in the way that is drama, but more for entertainment and just to annoy them. But I wasn’t always that way as my parents can tell you, and in fact, the thing that got me to show emotion has since become a hobby and potential career for me. When I was around the age of eight my mother asked my cousin Brooke DePuy to look after me during the summer time. Brooke is about four years older than I am and because of that, she had a different view of what to do day to day. I loved having the time to hang out with one of my many girl cousins and become closer to her, but about halfway through the summer, her older brother Cody came home early. He commenced to go straight into his room as most teens tend to do but neglected to close the door to his little paradise. As Brooke and I were about to head out of the house to walk down to her dock on the lake I heard a different sound coming from Cody’s room. I quickly ventured in to his room and found him staring at his tv playing Call of Duty’s latest installment, “Black Ops”. I sat down next to him just watching him move across the game map in complete amazement. After a while of me watching him, he asked me if I wanted to try my hand at playing, and before I answered he commenced to talk into his headset. As he was handing the controller over to me he told his online friends that his little cousin was going to play the rest of the round. From that moment on, I loved to play video games, more specifically I loved to play first-person shooters, however, I was always open to play other types of games. I found myself playing hours of video games on my PS3s, until my step-father came into my life. He had several different PC games, such as 18 Wheels of Steel: Haulin’, and the Command and Conquer series. Using the keyboard instead of a controller was a hell of a lot different, and I quickly found that my forearms were burning like hell when I was done, but I wanted to keep playing and find new games. My parents bought me a desktop to be able to play games on, but to get some of the games to work properly I had to edit some of the computer’s settings. I loved just digging around in the settings learning what I can change and what I can’t change. When the opportunity to learn more about computers came up with LRTC, I had to jump on it. I have learned a lot about how they work and what settings work best, but even as I am typing this my forearms are eager to burn like hell while looking up more information about computers and different computer setups.
Photo by Doug Kline on Foter.com / CC BY-NC
7 Comments
That’s such a great / fun way to find out what you want to do. Emotions are different person to person and blossom stronger or lesser dependent on who they are. Nothing huge, but, the fact that you were able to find something that you are passionate about and are going to pursue is just awesome!!
It is really cool to read how you have changed as a person. Going from almost emotionless to having so much joy is a great change. This is a good story to tell how video games can change someone favorably instead of negatively.
I relate very much to this story, although I am not planning on pursuing a career in technology I have always been very interested in technology and video games. I would love to learn more about computers and the different things that you can change within the settings.
It is amazing how we find our passions through everyday interactions. What id you didn’t go see what your cousin was up to. You might be a whole different person. It was a very well thought out story and you never left any detail out with a great tie in at the end. Im glad you found one of your passions because many people don’t at this early of an age. Nice piece of writing Andrew!
I totally know how you feel. Being introduced to games from my little sisters father completely changed my life. I could not imagine not having some sort of video game in my life. My guilty pleasure is a MMO called World of Warcraft. It has its haters, but to me – the game is a way for me to de-stress and give me something to look forward to every night. Something that rewards me with items that people normally wouldn’t think of as being “presents”. I love my computer – which I got through your help, and for that, i will forever be in your debt 🙂
I can’t help but be amazed at your passion for your computers! You seem to really be invested in everything about them and that’s pretty cool I know they’re not the easiest things in the world to figure out. I totally get your investment with video games as well. I myself have a PS3 and my mom bought me two games (Project Diva F and F2nd) that were rhythm games and they slowly took over my life. Those two games were the main reason I found the concerts for the video games and I found out that animating and music was something I wanted to do, I wanted to work for those concerts. It’s amazing what video games can drive you to do and I still find it awesome that you were able to find something you wanted to follow as a career because of something that most people would say is ‘just a hobby’. I hope you get to follow your passion far into the future!
I can definitely say that the change you went through was good. Even though you annoy all your friends now, it nice to actually see that change and I’m glad that video games gave you that passion for your future. I know you will do big things in the future Drew!