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9:15pm Dec 19 2012
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Normal User
Posts: 3,426
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Okay, I'll try to keep this short but no doubt I'll end up rambling. Sorry.
As some of you might know, I lost my cat over a month ago to sudden cancer. I had her for over ten years, and even though she was approaching 13 years of age and was rather overweight, she was very healthy and content and active. We took her to the vet when I noticed her sides seizing up and she was diagnosed with cancer that prevented her lungs from draining fluid. She died the next night.
What I haven't really expressed is how much her death affected me. I was closer to her than any human. We had a connection that I don't even have with my boyfriend or best friend. Just her being in my room comforted me. She understood me like no one else was able to, and she protected me when my paranoid mind became my worst enemy.
I needed her and without her I'm suffering. My depression, which was already intense, got worse, and half the time I'm in actual physical pain in my chest, like I'm on the verge of an anxiety attack and am very desperate. I desperately want to find a replacement for her, to get another cat because I need one in my life. Although I hate myself for seeking a rebound. As much as I adore cats and have always wanted more, I recognize the need for what it is and it bothers me.
And that's where my first need for advice comes from. I have two basic options: get another cat now, or wait. Emotionally, I want to rush into it, but logically I feel I should wait.
Emotionally, I need another cat. I need that rebound, but I'm worried. I'm distant by nature. I don't form close bonds easily now a days, and I'm worried I won't be able to feel "enough" love for the cat or bond with it after I adjust to it. I want to love the cat for itself, not just as a replacement or a short-term thing. I'm also worried about the cat itself. In my lifetime, I've encountered a lot of cats, and it's about 50/50 as far as which ones adore me and are more social and which ones avoid me and are more timid. I couldn't handle being rejected by a cat right now. I'm also worried about the cat growing up without me and becoming too distant or loving someone more than me. I'm a high school senior, so next year means college. The dorms don't accept cats, of course, so for most of the year after the first 7-8 months, I'd be gone. Plenty of time for the cat to stop caring. Logically, it'd be better to wait four and a half years until I get out of college and get my own place, but the wait feels unbearable. Another concern I have is if the cat ends up throwing up a lot. It may seem minor, but I'm extremely phobic and wouldn't be able to have a cat like that but there's just no way of predicting.
The second piece of advice I need is career wise. Again, some of you might know I'm studying to become a game developer/programmer. As much as I want to learn programming anyways (at least certain languages to do certain things), it was definitely me "settling" because I had to face reality. I really want to be an artist because I love drawing and coming up with stories. Creating manga is something I've been especially passionate about for years, but as far as talent goes, I'm mediocre at best, and being successful off of drawing comics just doesn't happen easily. I tried to face reality and pick a job that was a learnable skill instead of a talent but would still allow me to create things. I'm worried that was a mistake because I'm not that bright in the knowledge and memorization department (If you don't believe me, I took the true-false/multiple-choice portion of my programming final and got a 60%). I also quickly grow bored with programming as I'm not that good and it's a very slow and tedious process. I want to do fun things in my life because I already hate it, and it's far more fun to plan out comics than it is to plan out how a program is going to work.
For almost a semester, I really tried to stick with it despite having a poor teacher. Maybe if I had a better teacher, I wouldn't struggle so much. My programming education is like swish cheese. I can program things, but there are a damn good amount of holes in what I can do or understand. The first quarter was stressful but great, because we were learning PHP, a language I really wanted to learn. But now we've moved on to Java and Android, two language I hate and never want to use. I don't want to work with programming phones ever, and that's my biggest downfall. If I don't like it or want it, it's 10x harder for me to do. I'm less willing to really try to go that extra mile that my teacher won't go like I did with PHP because Java/Android are one of the last things I want to do. And as my teacher says, I'm extremely picky. And with a poor teacher and not being that bright, it makes it a lot harder.
It's a combination of currently hating my programming class and a representative from the Art Institute coming in yesterday that are making me doubt my career choice. I was practically drooling over the student examples he was showing us, and what they were doing was what I really wanted to do - character design, animation, even 3D art and animation; almost desperately.
Despite already having my college picked out (and I'm pretty much set as they're drooling over me because of my current school being special despite me being not so special), I still requested information about the Art Institute. I'm not too scared money-wise about considering a different college. The army is paying up to the highest public tuition (even if I want to go to a private college) for me because of my dad's service, and finding money for room and board is about the same problem no matter what college I go to. However I'm still scared to tell my dad I want to switch to a less-reliable major before I even get into college. It's not that he doesn't support me, quite the opposite, he's way too understanding and would support any choice I make, and that's what's scary. This is my future and I'm really prone to mistakes.
To make matters even more tricky, my boyfriend has made the decision that he's going to get a job as well, despite my original intention to be the one who pampers him. He keeps encouraging me to do whatever I want to do to be happy. He's specifically said that if I wanted to make comics, I should do that and he'd take care of me even if that career never took off, and it most likely wouldn't no matter how hard I tried. I hate being dependent on people. It bothers me and makes me feel guilty, and the last thing I want to do is take advantage of my boyfriend.
... This ended up really long, but I wanted to try to get everything I was feeling across so anyone trying to give me advice would hopefully understand everything.
I don't know if anyone can give me really good advice, but even a fresh viewpoint would be nice. Most of my close friends are not extremely good at giving advice and I don't want to ask my other friends because it's not their responsibility to help me and I don't want to make them uncomfortable by asking their advice and them feeling obligated to answer if they don't want to.
So yeah. At least this way, people can choose to answer or ignore this and it's their own free, unpressured will. And yeah, I am posting both a blog and a thread because from what I've seen, different people hang out in different parts of the site so a wider variety of potential advice.
Thanks for your time.
HypnoxSpazz 5evr |
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9:55pm Dec 19 2012
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Normal User
Posts: 173
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lol you sound a lot like me, a few years ago i lost my childhood pet, at the ripe age of 18, as it turns out she had kidney failure for years but we already had her on a special diet because of her food allergies. i was so sad when she died, it was worse because my mom said they could help, but they put her down as soon as we got there. she was my beloved jitterbug. when she died i cried for a few days, but i soon stopped.. because it still felt like she was here with me, and she really is <3 as i remember her, i did art of her and it helped me get over the loss of her. i have yet to have the same connection with another cat, and getting a new one would be a tragic mistake as no cat will ever be the same, but you can love another cat, but in a different way. i find going to no kill animal shelters and playing with the cats to help ^^ they are all so cute <3
as far as the job thing, again similar i wanted to be a scenery game artist but if you dont like coding to much and like doing art.. why not meet in the middle, animator? you need to know a bit of coding to do this but otherwise pretty simple.
and guys will be guys, never once has my boyfriend approved of my buying anything on our dates. he even offered to let me move in with him free of charge while i go to collage -_- saying he would pay all the bills and take care of me. but he stopped when i told him i want to do at least one thing onn my own, and dont want to be looked after, just loved. relationships should be equal, not one side dominating, that way if anything ever happens you would still be able to survive.
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6:51am Dec 24 2012
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Normal User
Posts: 655
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I'm very sorry about your loss.
I think you should wait until you are feeling more yourself again before you get another cat (and likely wait until you get out of college, as well.) As you already mentioned, it's all too unpredictable and it seems the chances you'll be hurt and disappointed or too great. Rebound is hardly healthy.
I don't encourage it a hundred percent, but have you tried medication for your depression? It's helped out some people a great deal.
Career wise, I'm not clear on how a lot of this stuff works since I'm rather young, but have you considered an art minor? It's clear that programming isn't fitting you so well, and you need to search for another subject. Is there anything else that interests you? Maybe a science? There are a number of scientific fields that involve creating and designing things, and may fit you better.
Either way, I think it would be a waste for you not to take some art classes in college since you love it so much. I'm assuming you're interested in art in general and not just manga. If you were to go for an art major, you could possibly go for a job in the Western entertainment industry, perhaps as a 3D artist (if you are up to still using some programming skills), or as a cartoon animator or something. It's a rough road and chances are, if you do get a job in the animating industry, you won't get to create much of your own accord for a little while, but people work their way up and sometimes get their own shows greenlighted.
Though, taking into account that you don't want to be dependent, I would say your best option is to find a new field where you have some interest and can support yourself (mechanical engineering?), taking some art classes, and drawing comics as a hobby. It's a surefire way to get everything you want.
It's a little hard to type all this stuff on an iPod, so please excuse any typos or if I missed anything. My Rmail box is open, as always, and I wish you the best.
they/them/theirs :)
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