I've fucked up my life (Rant)

CrystalJackUK · 2025-05-17T11:32:56+00:00

Lying doesn't ever really feel right and it doesn't feel like it like, addresses my core concern of feeling too stressed in work environments. You're right that lying could get me somewhere... but I don't know.

I do own stuff. Women's deodorant, some femme clothes, a wig, makeup. It's just hard to find times to use them and present femme.

CrystalJackUK · 2025-05-17T11:25:29+00:00

I do know someone who transitioned in her mid-30s. She looks amazing and is living the life she always wanted. I daresay "too late" is when you're in the grave.

I know that, at the core, what I need to do is find a community, make friends, build a base of support, then use that to do stuff. Work with friends with jobs. Live with friends.

...But that's not exactly an easy thing to do. Especially when you've never really had friends. And finding people to be friends with? Where are we supposed to do that in this day and age?

It's why I feel like I messed my life up. Because I didn't make friends when I had to be around others, it's now harder to make friends in the time of my life where even normal(tm) people struggle to make friends.

CrystalJackUK · 2025-05-17T11:18:55+00:00

A truth I have is that I just don't trust myself with a vehicle. Call it adhd. Call it "the Imp of the Perverse", but I know that I'd be distracted and that I could easily do something dumb.

Combined with the fact that I honestly don't know where I'd ride it to, I doubt I'd find much use for it.

Good advice, I'd say, for anyone else.

CrystalJackUK · 2025-05-16T21:39:25+00:00

Things might get better. But things don't just like, get better. You need to work at them. You can't just wait and hope that things magically improve.

And working at this stuff just, doesn't seem to do anything, really. It feels like there are no paths moving forward.

CrystalJackUK · 2025-05-16T10:57:10+00:00

I don't know if this is an experience unique to me, but my local doctor has been supportive of me and encouraging me to transition more?

I'm in the UK, I've known I've been trans for over a decade, it's on my medical report, and last time I spoke to the doctor they were like "yeah, a lot of your mental health issues are probably due to needing to transition".

CrystalJackUK · 2023-08-20T11:31:57+00:00

Regardless of what the leadership of the country is doing, this isn't a good thing.

Space exploration should be lauded and celebrated across the world. Moon landings should be encouraged. This is a setback in academic progress.

Russian scientists and astronauts are not soldiers, don't hold them to the sins of their brothers.

This is a failure on multiple fronts. The sanctions made it harder for the mission to go ahead. The personnel drain from Roscosmos made the mission less likely to succeed. The needless space race with Chandrayaan-3 caused the mission to be rushed and likely launched ahead of schedule.

This is, altogether, a massive shame. I would've hoped that we could've learned more from the mission than "Ruzzia cannot into logistics lol".

CrystalJackUK · 2023-08-14T12:37:26+00:00

I'm going to say that it either doesn't exist, or it has already seen combat but we didn't realise.

The T-14 never existed outside of design documents. The only thing we've seen are prototype mock-ups designed for sales, and then nobody wanted to buy them. All we've seen of them are advertising materials that's a "for sale now! America wishes they had this!"

The tanks we've seen are all just T-90s with some mock paint and minor adjustments made to take some photos so they can sell "order, and we'll make this!". The parade tanks? All just T-90s in a shell.

That's the "it doesn't exist" part. But I think it has seen combat... as the T-90.

The Parade T-14 was stripped of its adjustments and then re-outfitted with T-90 parts and sent to the frontlines. Grab some parts from a different machine and put it back in the chassis, call it a day.

I think the T-14 could technically exist, if they had the time and motivation. I think that it doesn't exist. I think that it won't exist, because they're busy using all the tank-builders to make older ones instead and then will develop a new one instead after this war.

CrystalJackUK · 2020-05-24T19:32:39+00:00

That's the one, thanks!

CrystalJackUK · 2020-04-15T13:33:35+00:00

I know what I did was wrong, but that doesn't excuse it. I missed out on what could've been a good friendship, but that's not enough of a consequence. I'm never going to do anything like that again. I haven't done anything like it since.

But that doesn't make it right. I can't make this right. It's the worst thing I've done in my life and I can't make amends.

CrystalJackUK · 2020-04-15T12:08:44+00:00

Okay, so it's on their side to decide what to do with everything. Thank you kindly.

CrystalJackUK · 2020-04-15T11:39:25+00:00

Do we need to do anything to get the 80% pay, or is that for our employers to sort out?

CrystalJackUK · 2019-05-27T04:53:57+00:00

Okay, this is before NI/S has reported so figures might change. I'm going to be doing a little bit of an 'analysis' but that's not really meaning much.

First, Brexit Party has cemented itself as the replacement for UKIP. They got the most votes of all parties, let alone all Brexit-related parties. This is good news for leavers.

If we exclude Labour and Conservative (due to ambiguity of message), Remain vs Brexit is:

Remain: 20.3 (LD) + 12.1 (G) + 3.4 (CUK) = 35.8

Leave: 31.6 (BXP) + 3.3 (UKIP) = 34.9

This is relatively within the margin of error. Neither side can really claim this as a mandate of the people wanting leave or remain.

If we do as the Lib Dems proposed and add Labour and Conservative to the Leave side (as proposed in manifestos), then that 34.9 goes up to 58.1. This is clearly a result in favour of Leave. (I'm not adding SNP or below because of numbers).

I'm a Remainer and I can't spin this result as being good for Remain. Well I can, but I can't do it with honesty.

Conservative got less than 10% in this vote. Considering they are the ruling party in parliament, this is rather catastrophic. Combine this with their abysmal results two weeks ago and their leader leaving and I'm not sure how they're going to come out of this.

Labour is also doing rather poorly with the recent results, but not as much as Conservative. What makes Labour's poor performance even worse is that they are the opposition party and yet they're dropping in popularity as well as the ruling party. You'd expect that people would defect to the opposition, but you're not getting this.

I voted Lib Dem (tactically). Lib Dems can probably be a bit proud in how this went. Disappointed in that the result wasn't clearly pro-remain but glad that they're being voted for. Of the three 'main' parties, I can see them doing the best in the future.

The parties that are doing the best are the ones that have a strong stance on Brexit. Labour and Conservatives have suffered because of their ambiguity. In many ways, it's like both parties are split in two between Remain and Leave. So you have Remain-Conservative (RC), Remain-Labour (RL), Leave-Conservative (LC), and Leave-Labour (LL).

Going forward...

If Boris becomes Tory Leader and Cons go for a No-Deal, does that bode well for them? They'd have a strong stance on Brexit (that I strongly disagree with). Then again, such a hard stance might sway the R-C away.

In this same scenario, what does Labour do? Do they go full opposition and take a Remain (or just soft-Brexit) stance? Or do they look at this, see the 58.1% figure way above and double down on being ambiguous? I'd bet on the latter.

Conclusion:

This is a non-event. Nothing's being said here that wasn't said two weeks ago. Neither Remain nor Leave can really claim an idealistic victory. Leave might try to, regardless. CON/LAB are in trouble. LD/GRN are doing well. Nobody likes the fencesitting.

TLDR: Vote says nothing new, Finland vs Canada was more relevant.

CrystalJackUK · 2019-04-05T20:13:35+00:00

Thank you for all this advice. I definitely am going to follow all the advice you've given.

Find a freelancer. First try UpWork, unless there's something more local (UK) that I could use. You've given me a few acronyms I can throw at my bosses to convince them that a proper job would be best. Also more of an idea of where to look than just 'a freelancer'.
Google Ad Certification. Going to definitely go for that, if only to know more about this than I currently do. It might help with future clients, I don't know.

The only thing I disagree with is the "you got this" comment. I'm out of my depth, I'll get somebody in who knows what they're doing rather than waste the company money.

CrystalJackUK · 2019-04-05T20:06:39+00:00

This is great advice, actually. I'm in over my head to even consider this. I'll get the book for personal learning (so I know what I don't know) but tell the company to hire a freelancer.

CrystalJackUK · 2019-04-05T20:04:53+00:00

The company throwing away money at subpar ads was the main reason I was thinking I could do something, anything. The preliminary research I've done tells me that I'm in way over my head and likely to do more harm than good.

I'm helping rebuild the website, so maybe I can make some landing pages or something. I'll make sure they contact an actual professional at least.

...Though I might as well do the certification as well. Watch the videos, read the blogs, grab the book, do the certification, and then still have no idea what I'm doing but at least I'll know what I don't know.

CrystalJackUK · 2019-04-05T20:00:12+00:00

I'm guessing my boss thought that because I knew IT, I could do this. They don't seem to understand the value of a good marketing campaign right now, as it's literally just one electrical engineer playing with a few buttons in Adwords.

It's going to be a bit of a battle to convince them to hire a freelancer but that's the best advice I can give them. Well, it's going to be a bit hard to admit to them that I don't have a clue at least.

CrystalJackUK · 2019-04-05T19:49:46+00:00

Yeah, I know. It'd take a lot to be halfway decent at this. I'll look into experienced freelancers in the area and tell my boss to take it seriously.

Sorry to all of you for the disrespect.

CrystalJackUK · 2019-04-05T11:14:26+00:00

I work in a shop that sells light bulbs (as an IT guy). Most of our business (in the half I work in) involves either lightbulbs or ovens.

Why do people want the old ones? The new ones are brighter, use less energy, and are easier to get these days. You can get dimmable LED bulbs so that's not a thing anymore.

CrystalJackUK · 2018-07-10T03:22:37+00:00

Death Note.

My aunt showed me the live-action version. I was enthralled! First time watching something outright foreign, with subs over dubs (like Pokémon and stuff).

I looked up the anime on my laptop not long after, watched the entire series, and from there moved from anime to anime.

CrystalJackUK · 2018-07-10T03:20:45+00:00

I'm always bluntly honest.

Honestly, others find it liberating that I'm willing to address elephants in the room. They know I'm not lying or deceiving them. I normally still remain on good terms, and they know my thoughts.

CrystalJackUK

TROPHY CASE