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Moe Smith

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It's probably a relief to be able to communicate your struggles with the school and also some pride in the major work you're doing for yourself. They're probably happy to have the chance to help a student in trouble. It sounds like that situation turned out well, all things considered.

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It's probably a relief to be able to communicate your struggles with the school and also some pride in the major work you're doing for yourself. They're probably happy to have the chance to help a student in trouble. It sounds like that situation turned out well, all things considered.

Yeah not bad! You know if I had that phone call a month ago, I probably would have just accepted it and said, "Yeah they're right, I need another break." But not this time. I WANT this. I want to be back in school. I want to learn, and do homework, and bond with my classmates. This is the time that I intend to give my everything, since I'm not distracted anymore!

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Hey Moe-gli. Glad to see your detox take 2 is going so much better!

That's really interesting about the school listening to you. I haven't been told to take a leave of absence before but I have had my name put before a similar committee. It was devastating, going from a member of the Dean's merit list to being considered to being removed from my program. And I only had one person to thank for it - me. Well that and Blizzard :D 

Are you studying remotely or attending classes? Attending classes might help a lot with getting back on track as you can ask questions and get answers straight away rather than waiting on forums or emails from staff. It might also help form a study group as well, as people understand things differently and use different thought patterns to get there, so hearing it from them rather than the lecturer might help. 

I'm curious to hear the outcome!

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Yeah this time around is going great! And yes I know exactly what you mean, I was on the two highest academic lists in my school for about a year straight, then I got back into gaming and it just went down, down, down. So yeah, I just get to blame myself and Riot Games :P 

 

And there is good news! The committee accepted my appeal about 45 minutes after I submitted it! HELL YEAH! I get to go back to school on Monday and put my new self to the test. I can't tell you how long i'ts been since I was actually excited to step back into a classroom and learn some new things.And yeah, they're physical classes that happen to be about a 30 minute walk away from my house. So when i have the chance, I hope I get to drive instead of walk. And yeah, my school has a standing study session on Wednesday evenings that I plan to take part in, but that's a good idea. I'm new to the current student body, since I took a break not too long ago and all my old classmates have already graduated. That being said, I need to find some new mates that I can hang out with and train my brain with. It's a little hard to do with a family and a much younger group of people, but I'll get myself there eventually. 

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Ah, @giblets was right, I did miss my post yesterday. It was probably because I pasted to Facebook instead. I figured I should let friends and family know I was still alive. Lol. 

Level Up: Game Free 13 Days (I'm on mobile today, so I can't make this green lol) 

So today was my first day back in classes in about 6 weeks. My last classes ended about 4 weeks ago so that should show how badly I was giving into my addiction during my last relapse.

I have been super excited to get back into the grind of school and make use of my better self. I only had one night class that stated at 6 p.m., but I was at the school from about 10-3 today just to be productive.

I made lots of meetings with the faculty that made my appeal go through. I apologized to a professor from last quarter who was desperately trying to help me. He and I actually ended up bonding a bit and he told me about his old addiction. I also studied from a textbook that I happen to have, which is supporting material for a class I have in 5 weeks. Who the hell studies for a class they're not even taking yet?! :-P Nerds like me I guess. Ha ha. 

When I finally got to class, my new teacher and I started a sarcasm war throughout class. It ended with him calling me a smart-ass. A few minutes later he told me to stop answering questions because I was already over qualified for the class. Lol. I'll take that as a definite win :-D He also gave my group more advanced steps for this week's project because my group was so far ahead of everyone else. There was also a moment when he said, "I have the highest hope for your project, the others are worrying me." Ha ha ha. This guy was rude, sarcastic, a realist, and I like his teaching method. This is gonna be fun. I thought QA & Testing might be a boring subject. Nope!

Oh, speaking of not boring... my laptop's power cord is fried. It decided to blow up and smoke when I plugged it in... which is largely what caused the sarcasm war with my professor. This is hence why I'm on a mobile device and I can't change my title to green. 

Lol. See what I did there? Full circle. Ha ha

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Level Up: Game Free Day 14

Who the fuck has time to play video games? Not me!

Long day. Productive day. Running day. Hardworking day. Meetings day. Cleaning day. School day. Family day. Stupid landlord day. Programming day. Did my homework ahead of time day. Good day. Good night.... sleep...

Edited by Moe Smith
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I feel the same way sometimes. How in the world did I fit in hours of gaming into an already crowded day? Then I realized that gaming never "fit in". It took over and crowded everything else out.

Right? It's ridiculous to think that I used to just game all the time and that all this other stuff didn't ever get done. Now I'm crazy busy trying to make all these different things in my life happen. Last couple of days I've had about 15 minutes of reading before bed, and that was the only "me" time I had. After today, I'll get a chance to go back to writing. 

What languages are you programming in? I really want to write some scripts. 

Working in C# right now. I took classes for C# for two years, but that was probably about 8 years ago. I have virtually no skills left after the rust has had its fill. So I'm kind of starting out from the basics. 

I might end up writing some scripts for my current class. I'm guessing there might be some exposure to Ruby since I'm currently going through a QA & Testing course. 

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Haha. Yeah I could see why they said that. I like it a lot, I've just let me skills erode quite a bit is all. I've gone through a Python course before. It was one of those, "Holy shit! Just try to keep up!" classes that made you wonder if you actually learned anything besides hard work. Now, that being said. I know Python can be AWESOME for connecting different technologies together. All I know about Ruby is that it's good for scripting. And that's where my knowledge ends. Haha. If things start to get a little less crazy, I want to start picking up some new languages on Pluralsight. Python & Ruby are high up on my list. I also need to work on my web languages and beef up those skills. 

 

Level Up: Game Free Day 15

So as I mentioned briefly yesterday, my landlord is an idiot. She is insisting on an inspection and bringing people over to see the apartment a full month before we are planned on moving out. WTF? Who does that? She's also a moron on top of being an idiot. Reads an email, and interprets the exact opposite of what I clearly said... uggg... Because of this nonsense, my wife and I have spent the last two days cleaning the house for this way-too-far-in-advance inspection. Why are we doing it this soon?! It's just gonna get messy again and then I'll have to do another deep clean. Bah!

Now that all my grumbling is out of the way.... Suck it landlord!!!! I finished the house today. Spent five hours on it today alone! Bring on the inspection crazy lady! I do have to say though, having a perfectly clean house is very nice... and rare when you have a 6 year old. Lol.

Since this is now over, as far as effort goes, maybe I'll be able to take a bit of time in the next few days to work on my book, do an art project, sleep until I want to wake up. That all would be very nice. Also @Cam Adair and @giblets, I know I have messages from you both. I will be able to get to those once my little girl goes to sleep tonight.

NOW! Time for more coding in "The language of the future."

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Well at least the stress didn't break you down and cause you to relapse. And like you said, you have a clean house! That's always a good feeling.

No it totally didn't! That's one of my favorite things about the new me, things aren't really stressing me out anymore. It's most like everything has shifted into this new perspective of: Prioritize, make a schedule, get it done. It's pretty amazing. I finished my 5 hour chore routine for the house to the MINUTE I had planned today. That was pretty rad :D 

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Level Up: Game Free Day 16

Today, unfortunately, I need to be brief. Things are going really well with my detoxes. I haven't had any triggers today that I recall. My current issue that I'm going through is twofold: energy & time.

First of all, energy. Since I spent a buttload of time this week cleaning the house to perfection I have spent more energy than I'm able to recover via sleep and food. And that's after sleeping through both my alarms for the last week. Ugg... Gotta find a better setup there. But I fear that I might be burning out a bit. I shirked a couple of duties that I was supposed to get done today. I didn't relapse by any means, but I consciously decided to work on my book for 90 minutes instead of 30, just because I NEEDED the break from being so damn productive all the time. I'm hoping things will start to straighten out after this crazy first week of classes for me. Also, I took an accidental (mostly) nap today, and that restored my energy a decent amount, but I unfortunately slept (at my house) through a meeting I was supposed to attend. Oops. 

My second issue is time: I'm really cherishing my alone time, my "Me" time, and the time I spend on my personal projects, but there is currently not enough hours in the day! Holy crap I've been moving like The Flash lately. Especially when in comparison to my old gaming sloth self. Even though I have been massively productive, it seems like when one thing gets finished, the next thing just eats up the potential time I had. I'm not worried about relapsing at all, because I have no desire to game right now, but I wish I could have a little more time to do the things I actually want to do. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the production and I like getting stuff done, but I'm not seeing the opposite side of the coin quite enough right now. 

I'm putting in effort to get the right balance going for me. I hope to see that come to fruition soon! 

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Well detoxing doesn't mean your struggles are at an end. You'll still need to flesh out a new balance for yourself. It's good that you're not feeling temptation to relapse. I know what you mean about the me time. I like to keep some time in the morning and evening carved out for myself and I guard it jealously.

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Level Up: Game Free Day 17

Still working through my wildley crazy busy days. I'm out dancing as a celebration, and partly because it's routine, for finishing my first week of my new class flawlessly. Perfect attendance, superb participation (my prof tells me to stop answering a lot, lol), I got a 29/30 on my first quiz (which I ACTUALLY studied for), turned in my paper, submitted my team assignment, and lead my team to an awesome project overall. My paper I wrote tonight was after my class got over at 8 p.m. and I postponed going dancing for 2.5 hours so I could write it and submit it on time. It's been years since I was a perfect student for even a week. This feels awesome. It was tough, and it will get tougher going on. I feel like I'm building good student muscles that have atrophied for years. Also, I started writing my paper 4 hours before it was due (research was already done), and turned it in two hours early. I've known about the assignment since Monday. I did NOT procrastinate it at all, however. I dolled out my time and effectively prioritized everythin I needed to do this week, and determined tonight was the best block of time for me to write it. Planning and prioritizing instead of procrastinating also hasn't happened... maybe ever for me in college..

I also got to hang out with my daughter and wife at a water park today for about three hours. IT WAS AWESOME! Especualy because it's super rare to see my family in the middle of a weekday. 

My wife is going out of town for a week starting tomorrow, and my daughter will be with Grandpa to visit an in-town family friend. So I have most of next week all to myself. That hasn't happened since I met my wife three years ago. Also, on the 27th my wife and I had our three year anniversary :-D 

I'm excited for more me time, and to have more time to get through my to-do list. Lots to do, I imagine I'll keep myself so busy that even being alone for so lone won't make me itch for games.

Tomorrow will be a hugely busy day as well. I'll apply to a cool part time job, look at three apartments, have my daughter for the night by myself, and see my wife off for her trip. I've got lots to catch up on here, so if you haven't heard from me in a day or two it's all because I'm awesomely busy and I have very little time to post, chat, and respond to emails. I'm still working on lowering my daily production load by a bit so I can have more time to relax. Slowly... making... that... progress... Rar!

Edited by Moe Smith
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I also got to hang out with my daughter and wife at a water park today for about three hours. IT WAS AWESOME! Especualy because it's super rare to see my family in the middle of a weekday. 

My wife is going out of town for a week starting tomorrow, and my daughter will be with Grandpa to visit an in-town family friend. So I have most of next week all to myself. That hasn't happened since I met my wife three years ago. Also, on the 27th my wife and I had our three year anniversary :-D 

I'm excited for more me time, and to have more time to get through my to-do list. Lots to do, I imagine I'll keep myself so busy that even being alone for so lone won't make me itch for games.

Tomorrow will be a hugely busy day as well. I'll apply to a cool part time job, look at three apartments, have my daughter for the night by myself, and see my wife off for her trip. I've got lots to catch up on here, so if you haven't heard from me in a day or two it's all because I'm awesomely busy and I have very little time to post, chat, and respond to emails. I'm still working on lowering my daily production load by a bit so I can have more time to relax. Slowly... making... that... progress... Rar!

I hope you wore a hat mate! The sun is a nasty thing that.

I hope you make the most of a day to yourself - early on I got really worried about having days to myself as I would be too tempted to game. I am still a little bit worried now because I am not studying, so I am trying really hard to stay busy as well. Do you have a schedule or a plan for the day to follow? That might negate it.

Great work about your studies! As part of your appeal, do they do regular reports on your progress or wait until the end of the semester? Either way they are going to be impressed mate!

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I hope you make the most of a day to yourself - early on I got really worried about having days to myself as I would be too tempted to game. I am still a little bit worried now because I am not studying, so I am trying really hard to stay busy as well. Do you have a schedule or a plan for the day to follow? That might negate it.

Great work about your studies! As part of your appeal, do they do regular reports on your progress or wait until the end of the semester? Either way they are going

I don't have a schedule yet, I should make one though. I find that if I make a schedule for several days, or try to do a blanket schedule, it doesn't work. I've had some pretty spectacular success with creating a schedule for just the current "today". I should definitely keep doing that, since I'll have even more time than usual. 

For my appeal, I have to meet with my student advocate, and I'm meeting with the Student Life coordinator on a weekly basis. Then I'll be meeting with the Registrar once a month. They also want me to get involved with a couple of clubs as well. I'm working on setting up a Game Quitters club at my school, to support those like me that need the help. Also i'm going to start doing some work with an Entrepreneurial Club that my favorite professor is working on. Plus some financial aid stuff. 

Way to go, Moe. You've really fallen into a wonderful and productive life. It helps to have that supportive family around you 

Yeah it feels pretty awesome to be super productive. However, it also feels awesome to be super lazy after a LONG and productive week. Basically, last night I watched Trolls with my daughter, then I read manga for about 3 hours. I almost started watching a t.v. show, but that part is on my no-touchie list for my 90 days. So, reading a new manga story was my way of compromising. Plus, it really was AWESOME to just stop and do nothing except relax for the purposes of relaxing :) 

Level Up: Game Free 18 Days

This is yesterday's post. I hung out at home with my wife while she was packing for Vegas trip. Then we went to look at three new apartments that we might move into within the next month. There were two that were awesome, and one was a dud. Not much else to report I suppose. Lol. 

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Level Up: Game Free 19 Days

Oh man, 19 days. I remember when I was going from through my first week, and that it felt so long before I was able to increase the number of days it had been. Now it just seems like they are FLYING by. 

It's a good day so far. I woke up with my daughter snuggled up to discover that my daughter had woken up, crawled into bed with me, and decided to snuggle me. That was cute :)Then we made some breakfast (cereal, "made" lol). Then we got dressed for the day, called my wife to say "Good morning," and played a silly Pokemon based board game. Then her Papa (bio-dad) came to pick her up. Now I'm looking to clean my kitchen a little... there was some old cooking that smells really bad now. Ewww... Then later today I'm going boating with a bunch of friends. I haven't been boating in years! I'm pretty excited about that. 

So yeah. Dealing with a couple of cravings for gaming (thanks Pokemon, lol), as well as porn. But I'm good. I think if I keep moving they'll dissipate in a few minutes. Anyways, that's most of what my day will be. If I have any brain power left over, I'll start doing some studying for a cryptography assignment I have. I'm both nervous and excited about doing that, because it's a brand new subject for me. 

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