How was each year of the decade for you?

[Lord Garth]

I'll take the '00s over the '90s for entirely personal reasons. I didn't like junior high or high school and adolesence wasn't that great to put it lightly. It was a huge deal over a bunch of things that were completely trivial.

If I were in my 20s during the '90s (turning 20 in 1999 doesn't count), then I would've been the right age at the right time. I'd probably be a lot more likely to complain about the past 10 years. So, while I see where some people are coming from, I can't relate to them at all.

 

[ialfan]

2000: I don't remember much being 10 but it was average. I wouldn't want to relive. I was just a silly kid who wanted to grow up too fast.

2001: Same only 11. I got my first ever computer that year at home.

2002: Pretty great year. I turned 13, got our first nice new computer that year (AMD Athlon XP 1800+, 256MB Ram, 40GB Hard Drive) and it was great. I spent most of this year sitting online when not in school or church. Best christmas ever too. I loved getting Starfleet Command III.

2003: Decent year with nothing good or bad happening.

2004: Pretty bad year. Lost internet in June for 18 months. That's about it. Oh and I got my permit at the end of it.

2005: Got my restricted license, got internet back, made some close friends so it was looking up.

2006: Started working full time, saved up for my first car, same as before. Good year. Got a good internship in November.

2007: Worked at the internship all year. Plus I lost 80 pounds. Good year. Oh and I turned 18.

2008: Graduated high school a semester early. Got a full time job which I've had sense. Started college that fall. Moved out that July to another city with my own apartment. Got my dream car that December.

2009: Pretty crappy year overall. I managed to lose my five closest friends or I guess discover I meant nothing to them or was just a friend of convenience. Three of them got into a fistfight at my apartment (2 girls and a guy) at 2am in June. I had three bad relationships before getting into my current one which is going three month's strong.

I had two car wrecks and two warning tickets. My laptop broke. Plus I turned 20 and am feeling it a little. On a plus side I still have my job, relationship, my car is fixed, and I'm on the road to graduate college within 2 years.

 

[T'Bonz]

I had an excellent decade. I can't break it down into specific years, as I was out of school and don't have a lot of reference points, but it started out good and is ending well.

In the 2000s, I had three girls begin college. Two are done and on their own and one is in her final year.

My husband and I celebrated our 25 and 30th anniversaries. For the 25th, we went to Europe, taking our girls along for part of the trip. I always wanted to take my girls to Europe. They got to see some of France.

Visited RevdKathy in England after having gone to Europe for a rare genealogy (and sightseeing) trip. Had great fun. Mom joined me and got to see some of the coolest parts (that I've seen thus far), of England, Cornwall. We saw non-tourist stuff, the real England.

I found two jobs that I could do from home, funding my hobbies.

Fun trips - and I was all over the country. My brother and I came across country from California and I saw five new states. I visited my daughter in Boston after going to a wedding in Delaware, and added, oh, five, no six new states to my "seen" list. Also went home to Pittsburgh a few times and to Shore Leave in Baltimore twice.

Health was so-so. Had 3 herniations during the decade, which was the low part of any year in which they happened.

Lots of fun genealogy discoveries. Good holidays, with kids all coming back home all except for last year. Mom moving closer to me, my brother a bit further away.

Had lots of fun on TrekBBS, especially in the earlier years of the decade.

It has been a good decade. I began it as a 41 year old, and am ending it as a 51 year old. The forties were good for me, in spite of the weirdness of having moved from "adult" to "middle-aged."

I hope the next decade is just as good, minus any neck herniations.

 

[Bears Discover Fire]

I had a weird and less-than-pleasant decade.

2000: I graduate high school and start my undergrad at UC Riverside. My maternal grandmother, who suffered from advanced alzhiemer's, moves in with our family and we become her full time caregivers. My paternal grandmother suffers a stroke and moves into a nursing home a few miles away from our home. Over the summer, I take two road trips across the southwest/midwest. Those were pretty awesome.

2001: Both grandmothers die after long illnesses, within a few months of each other. My parents are devastated; my sister and I are just relieved. My childhood dog dies. My sister gets disfellowshipped/excommunicated/shunned from the family religion, beginning a period of estrangement from my parents that remains ongoing to this day. I join my college's newspaper staff as a photographer. My chronic depression I've been battling since I was 12 takes a turn for the worse, and I go on antidepressants at the urging of my general practicioner. This turns out to be the single worse decision I make this decade.

2002: Unhappy and unable to find an area of interest at UC Riverside, I transfer to a Photography school. I move out on my own for the first time, at age 20, landing in a small artistic enclave about 2 hours from home. 1 semester after beginning my photography school program, I begin having panic attacks, hallucinations and psychotic breaks. I switch to a different doctor, who loads me up on 8 different antidepressants, anti-psychotics and antianxiety meds until I'm a zombie 1/2 of the day and a screaming crazy person the other 1/2 of the day. I almost kill myself and my parents when I black out behind the wheel while on the freeway (fuck you, Xanax). I do not yet know this, but I do not have depression; I have a type of bipolar disorder that manifests as acute irritable mania when exposed to traditional antidepressants. The next few years become a smudge of psychotropic prescription use and extreme stress from attempting to complete my accelerated photography major while in a drug-induced irritable mania.

2003: My dad suffers a major heart attack and has emergency bypass surgery. I suffer two major psychotic breaks (fuck you very much, Effexor) and drop out of school for a semester. I get a chance go to to Europe for a few weeks while I'm out, so I take it. When I return, I change my major from Photojournalism to Commercial Still Photography. While at the time it seemed the right thing to do, in hindsight it pulled me away from my true interests. I relocate from my little artist town to a moderate sized beachy-suburb city, then to a moderate sized beachy-resort town, to be closer to my campus. I spend the rest of the year in and out of emergency rooms, psychiatrist and psychologist offices, trying to quell anxiety attacks and physiological malfeasance like heart palpitations.

2004: I don't remember much about this year. I take a trip to New York on one of my school breaks and become involved in my first romantic relationship, but its long distance and only lasts 2 months. I black out again behind the wheel (fuck you, Zyprexia), but fortunately my friend grabs the wheel and gets us off the road. My grades plummet as I continue to lose control of my mental state. I fail a class for the first and only time in my life, and have to take another semester off to regroup. I been on a long slow arc away from my religious upbringing and finally accept that I'm an agnostic, and cut the cord. My family does not take kindly to this, at all. My roommate also moves her non-English speaking sister into our apartment without my notification, promising she'll only be there a month. She stays for 2 1/2 years. My dad becomes ill at the end of November, but I'm told that its nothing serious. This is a lie.

2005: My dad dies suddenly on Jan 7th, and my sister loses her job a week later. I have to take another semester off to deal with my grief, and when I return, I discover automotive photography and find my niche -- I think. Thanks to a new, and for once competent, psychiatric doctor, I finally begin to mentally and emotionally stablize, although it takes about a year and a half before I begin feeling like myself again, and although I now have some permanent physiological and cognitive damage from my long, strange trip, my grades picked up along with my sanity, though..

2006: I graduate from Photography school, move back to my hometown, then spend 6 months unemployed. Shortly before graduating, I become involved in my first major relationship. I finally land a job in October, and move to Los Angeles. My sister lands a job with a major airline and moves out of state. I miss her.

2007: My first year as something other than a professional student. I find holding a job is way easier than holding good grades. I break up with my first serious boyfriend after a year of dating. This incurs a lot of drama and I lose a lot of mutual friends in the debacle, but it ends up being one of the better decisions I ever made for myself. I begin to forge new friendships, I live paycheck to paycheck, I adopt my kitty, and I start feeling sorta like an adult for the first time in my life. My job is not great however, and I try to find a better one. I fail. On the upside, I reconnect with my first romantic interest ever, and we begin dating again at the end of the year. Despite my apprehensions about dating, this ends up being a very good thing. On december 15th, I fall on the sidewalk and break my foot.

2008: I spend the year trying to physically recover from my broken foot while hunting for a better job and a less expensive living arrangement. I almost land a great job as an evidence photographer for the county sheriff, but the job offer is withdrawn at the last minute with no explanation. I realize that my current job is dead end. Money gets very tight, as broken bones and older cars are expensive to fix on a small wage. I decide that LA really isn't for me, but with no job prospects elsewhere, I decide to give the city another year. In november, I move from my expensive apartment into a less expensive studio apartment, and begin saving money. The relationship I have with my boyfriend continues to grow stronger.

2009: Starts off great, then quickly turns to shit when I'm assaulted in my new apartment building, re-breaking my foot amongst other injuries. Unable to physically live on my own, I have to move back in with my mom and I almost lose my job. Two months after my assault, I realize that my choices are to get fired and try to find another job in a county with 17% unemployment while disabled, continue the 6 hour round trip commute to my job, or move back to LA. So I move back to LA for one whole week, before landlord fuckery forces me back home again. I get another apartment, move back to LA yet again, and keep my job, dead end though it is. My mom ends her widowhood by impulsively marrying a guy who is BAD. NEWS. My other childhood dog dies. The rest of the year has been me trying to pay my medical bills and my rent.

It's vI've been through this decade, but I'm ending it standing on my own two feet, with my own roof over my head, my own food on my table, and my relationship with my boyfriend is as strong as ever. All in all, I think I survived.

I resumed job hunting at the end of this year and have resolved to leave Los Angeles when I find another job and/or my lease is up on this place, and I hope 2010 marks the start of a better era in my life.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Plus I turned 20 and am feeling it a little.

At 20, you're not allowed to feel your age (unless your primary mood is "horny"). You're not allowed to start feeling your age at all until about 25.

Please forgive for the mild resurrection but I just now found this thread in an unrelated search and I'm fascinated.

Now, my story (which I don't think will end up quite as down as some of the others...I think...)...

2000: Junior/senior year of high school. Very little to report. Why is everyone else in the drama department such an asshole?

2001: Starts out a very shitty year. Every year at my high school, the biggest event of the year is the spring musical. This year it's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I had small roles in the last 2 musicals, so I think I'm a shoo-in to get something. For optimism's sake, I audition for the lead role. Only one other actor auditions for that role. I'm in the running at every call back, but when I check the cast list, I'm not in the show at all, not even in the chorus. My social life & general self-worth hit an all-time low.

However, an old friend who graduated a couple years earlier invites me to audition for a show that he's producing over at Mesa Community College. Leaving behind those high school douches, I start getting appreciated at a college theatre level. That summer, I get one of my largest acting roles ever as Mr. Mushnik in Little Shop of Horrors. (Ironically, that was the one major male role that I didn't think I had a shot at getting.) That fall, I enroll as a full time student at MCC. I end up doing 3 plays at once-- The Miser, Of Mice & Men, and West Side Story. I also act in my very 1st film (The Last Class, which you can buy on DVD @ http://www.amazon.com/Last-Class-Kr...ef=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1273548678&sr=1-2 ). Also, the final performance of West Side Story & my 1st day of shooting on The Last Class correspond with the Arizona Diamondbacks winning the World Series!

2002: I continue to shoot The Last Class at a condemned building in downtown Phoenix. It turns out we're sharing the shooting space with another movie, called Autopsy: A Love Story. I have a bit role as a cadaver. I meet Joe Estevez (Martin Sheen's brother), although I don't realize who he is until many years later. I do some more plays. I make some good friends. I camp out to see a midnight screening of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

2003: I leave MCC for Arizona State University. I'm undeclared but with an eye towards Interdisciplinary Studies. It's a difficult transition because all of my friends are either still at MCC or have decided to go to Grand Canyon University. I become a Law & Order adict. (Jack McCoy is the man!)

2004: I leave the Interdisciplinary Studies program when I realize what a joke it is. I realize this when my BIS301 class is assigned to give a presentation on what our concentration areas are and why we are majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies. Half the class explains that they are concentrating on a combination of Accounting, Management, & Marketing, and they are in the BIS program because they didn't have a high enough GPA to get into the College of Business. I switch to Political Science. I force my non-fan friends to send postcards to the WB to try to convince them not to cancel Angel. My friends & I get together to shoot our 1st Star Wars fanfilm, Spirits of the Force. http://spiritsoftheforce.com/

2005: I graduate Cum Laude (0.02 points away from a Magna Cum Laude) from Arizona State University with a B.A. in Political Science. However, the bile & rhetoric of the 2004 election has left me soured on politics. I am unsure what to do. I spend most of the summer playing "Tetris & Dr. Mario" while listening to the Moody Blues. A couple guys I meet at the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith line-up introduce me to the greatest board game of all-time-- "Star Wars: Epic Duels." My aunt's roommate introduces me to classic Doctor Who (mostly Tom Baker with a little bit of Jon Pertwee thrown in there). The rest of the summer is spent shooting the next 2 Star Wars fanfilms, Fool's Errand & Reflections of Evil. http://spiritsoftheforce.com/ At the end of the year, I get hired at a local used bookstore. Chock full of fellow geeks, I think I may have finally come home.

2006: Things are looking good. I get promoted to Book Buyer at the bookstore. Taking our 1st foray out of fanfilms, we make the 3 minute short Silhouette for the IFP-Phoenix 48 Hour Film Challenge. Much to our surprise, we win 1st prize! Struggling for what to make as a follow-up for next year's Screen Wars competition, I take charge and make my directorial debut with the short comedy Todd's Women.

2007: A year of many goods & bads.
GOOD: Four of my closest friends get married (to each other). I write, produce, & direct my biggest film yet-- the 12 minute sci-fi comedy Professor Hu Hires a Temp.
BAD: In a word-- work. Of my 3 favorite managers at the store, 2 of them are demoted back to buyers and the 3rd is outright fired. I had great chemistry with the old Book Department Manager. But now, the Book Department has been placed under the direct supervision of the Store Manager. I think that she & I have a good relationship. If we don't understand each other, at least we have an understanding to misunderstand each other. I am wrong.

2008: Work deteriorates. I am removed from the Book Department and sent back to Customer Service/Cashiering. The Customer Service Manager is a fussy bitch who should not be in charge of anything. (Her management strategy seems to be to get really pannicked about everything and then pass that panic onto her subordinates.) Two of my closest friends move to Pittsburgh because she has been accepted to a law school there. On the plus side, our new short films Appetite for Justice & The Guilty win IFP-Phoenix's 48 & 36 Hour Film Challenges.

2009: January starts out pretty well when my newest comedy short, XL Sausage, wins Best Comedy at the Phoenix ComicCon. However, work becomes increasingly stressful as we all sense an encroaching corporate attitude to the store that hadn't been there before. Feeling far too comfortable in my position, I freely complain to anyone who will listen about my disagreements with corporate policy & store mismanagement. The store's Community Room is eliminated to make room for a coffee shop, with no consolations at all given to the Community Room's former occupants (which included an improv comedy troupe that I belong to). Unable to keep my mouth shut, I am fired on bogus charges of poor performance. Around the same time, my improv comedy troupe is indefinately disbanded because (1.) our director was laid off from the Mesa Arts Center and (2.) the Barnes & Noble where we started performing kicked us out because we "attracted too large of a crowd." Piecing things back together, I go on a whirlwind crosscountry road trip from Phoenix to New York and back again in 14 days (with stops to visit my sister in Chicago and my law school friend & her husband in Pittsburgh).

2010: So far kinda tough but looking up. Finding work is hard but I'm not hurting too badly for money. Meanwhile, my pet projects of converting everyone I know into Doctor Who & "Star Wars: Epic Duels" fans is well under way. I'm also working on a new comedy called Women, Sex, & Other Things I Know Nothing About.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Poor Thread was resting peacefully for five months. There, there, Thread. Go back to sleep.