Saturday, May 13, 2006
An open letter to all my Counter-Strike/community friends:
Thanks for all the good times together, everyone. I’m sorry that I can’t write your name here to thank you personally, but I’ve met thousands of people through CS, and it would take a lifetime to thank everyone.
But I do want to thank you. Even if we didn’t get along well, I loved learning from you of what it means to be human in a game about blasting terrorists, of what it means to be part of and leading a community online, where emotions go through a digital filter and can be easily misinterpreted.
I hope I didn’t mess it up too much.
I fondly remember the many times I was so happy I could (and did) cry, and I’m glad of the (thankfully rare) times I was shocked and frustrated, because life isn’t fair and the earlier I can learn that, the better.
Two months ago, I celebrated my 20th birthday. Which means I’ve been playing CS for almost five years now, and I’ve been out of school for the last three and a half.
I’ve been trying different projects, but as I do more, I’m realising how much more there is to learn, and how much fun it would be to be with people just as interested in technology as I am, and to explore what I want to do with my life.
Sure, the Internet has opened my eyes to all this “cutting edge” stuff, and I’m never going to stop using it to learn and chat. Being a part of the CS community has helped me get through dropping out of high school and all the rest.
I’ve been scheming and planning for the past few years, and sometimes it felt like every week I had a new project idea to work on and talk about. But projects or businesses require money and people to get off the ground, and all I had was myself — my ideas, skills and time.
I’ve been realising lately that what I need most is a real day job. Something to pay the bills and help me establish myself as someone online. But to get that, I need more than a high school diploma. (Assuming I even had one of those.)
And so, I’m off to university to get formal recognition of what I’ve already been doing on my own; to explore what I don’t know and ground myself in the theory and math behind the scenes; and to meet people and have conversations.
Not much different from what I’m already doing, and yet worlds apart.
Going to York University is something I’ve planned on doing since forever, as I grew up on York when my parents moved here from Montréal, to study.
I’ll be applying before November 1st to go to York in January 2007 as a Mature Student, since I’ve been out of school for more than two years. Because the Faculty of Arts has fewer course requirements, I’ll apply to it for the first year, taking classes I can use as prerequisites or electives for later application to Schulich School of Business for an MBA or to other parts of York for a computer science degree, or something. I’m not entirely sure yet what I want to do, and this will give me a bit of time to think it over. I already know that I like arts and even see art in business work or computer code, so it seems natural to check it out first.
To help me fit in better and catch up on the grade 11 & 12 math that I’ve missed, I’ll be taking a Mathematics course from Sept. through Nov. on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 7pm to 10pm at Atkinson. Tuition for that alone costs $800, though it might be waived along with the rest of my tuition costs, as a perk from my Dad’s job at York.
But I’ll still need to pay for a laptop and textbooks (and tuition, after I turn 23). So to finance this change, I’m going to apply for a job at IKEA, Best Buy or Chapters. IKEA has a position open, as a Self-Service Sales Co-worker on the first floor “marketplace” area, and since I like IKEA stores and IKEA’s business model & values, I actually want to work there. (Enough to keep the beard shaved or trimmed, even.) Of the three, IKEA also seems to offer the most possibility for better jobs, since they like designer types and have their own IKEA IT company to serve their stores.
Once at York, of course, I’ll have a bunch of jobs to pick from, just within the campus. So that’s also an option to pay for tuition, if I get accepted. (Because York departments get bonuses for hiring York students, it’s been hard for me to land a job that fits me, with so few references and not even a high school diploma.)
What does this mean, to you?
Well, on its own, maybe not much. I’ll still have free time. But when I haven’t played CS in well over a month (and haven’t missed it), it’s hard to justify putting so much work into CS servers like I was doing back around my birthday, in March. I still love chatting with people from the community, but I haven’t been part of the forums this year like I was last year and the years before that. As much as I still love forums and online community, I’ve sort of grown tired of the politics and babysitting that’s required to keep one running smoothly.
I’m still leaving the door open to getting back into CS, starting CS Zen again, or any other possibilities you might be interested in. But I can’t promise I’ll do any of that, and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to keep it going for long, with all these future plans. I will try to be on instant messengers at least once a week or more (usually I forget to launch them) and I check my email at least every other day. (CSpotkill at Gmail dot com or LouisStAmour at Gmail dot com)
So please stay in touch. Or if I don’t hear from you, at least Google me in a couple years to see what I’m up to.
CSpotkill ☺
AKA Louis St-Amour
| AIM / YIM | Windows Live Messenger | Google Talk / Email | Gizmo / Skype | ICQ (old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CSpotK | CSpotkill at CSpotkill.com | CSpotkill at gmail.com | CSpotkill | 133757766 |