Post by Bannanachair on Aug 3, 2017 4:23:57 GMT -4
Okay, so this is a thread I've been pondering making for a while now. I guess I'll split it into three or four parts, maybe more, depending on what I'm thinking as I'm writing it. This thread is basically just my ideas for the future of me and this community as we get older and head out into college and then the world. To my knowledge, nobody here is a graduate of college, though I know for a fact that several people here are students in college at the moment, so those of you who are are a couple years ahead of me on this stuff, and some of you are a couple years younger than me as well. Some of you may be interested in my ideas, some of you may not. I hope that those who are my closest friends here will have at least a tiny bit of interest in what I have to say here, though.
Through to the end of this year
I should have talked about this a while ago, but I will be inactive through to the end of this year. Like, really inactive. On the 25th of this month I have an English oral examination, then a couple months of studying, then a lot of tests - over 25 hours in total, if I'm not mistaken. The final test should be sometime around mid-November, with the bulk of the tests being around mid-October to early November. I will try to be on when I can, but until November 20th (±5 days) Bannanachair, ROBLOX and roleplaying will not be my priority. These tests are externally examined by Cambridge University and are the equivalent of a US highschool transcript, but the entire thing is just based on the tests alone. And the tests are designed to be hard. If I get good grades I'll be able to get into a good college and get a good job. If I get bad grades it will have a permanent negative domino effect on my life for at least the next ten to fifteen years, barring a miracle, and maybe more, depending on how things change for me as time goes on.
The next four to six years
After the exams I'm taking at the end of this year (Singapore Cambridge GCE O levels, in case anyone's wondering) I have a choice to make. I can either go on to the next set of exams, called A levels, which are another two year course of studying and will give me college credits equal to one third of a year of college per subject (and I'll be taking two to five subjects, though I have yet to decide) or I can just go directly into college. Next year I will be 18, a legal adult, and if I choose to take the A levels before going to college I would be entering college at the age of 20. I have not formally taken a language learning class in close to five years, though I used to use DuoLingo a tiny bit. I have multiple hobbies, though I'm doing none in a particularly structured manner (I swim laps for fun, not as part of a swim-team, etc.). Entering college will basically depend entirely on my grades and SAT scores, and if I choose to go to college immediately, I'll be left with the goal of deciding which college to apply to, and applying in January to February after I get my results back. These are going to be a chaotic few years.
Bannanachair
With this knowledge of my personal future, my thoughts turned to the only place where I really have friends: Bannanachair. I have several ideas for what might happen within this community here as we all move to college and then out into the world. The first idea is that the community will fizzle out and all that will be left by 2027 are some fond childhood memories. I sincerely hope that this is not what will happen. My second thought is that we will remain an online group of pals much akin to how we are now, occasionally roleplaying and writing (or going on to other mutual interests), but unless the focus of what brought us together manages to change entirely, this will, over time, grow to resemble idea 1 as our interests begin to change. Idea number three is that we become "real life friends" - arrange to go to the same college or just do a regular real-life meetup as I speculated about previously, etc. In all three of these ideas there will inevitably be people who drift apart or remain in contact outside of the community, however, none of them seem particularly permanent, and as commitments begin to pile up as time goes by - first with school, then college, then (eventually) the workforce, the only place where I have friends will eventually, slowly, over time, become a graveyard. However, I have one more idea which I am hoping may be more successful.
Publishing and Business
We can go into the writing business together. Those of us who are better writers here occasionally produce stuff which, with a tiny bit of polishing, could probably be published works. All of us could easily practice reading and writing to become better writers than we are currently. Many of us have great ideas which could probably be adapted into great books (I know I do). And, if we band together to form a publishing company, we could self-publish our stuff without interference from any superiors, having eachother proofread our writings (with as harsh criticism as would be possible) and hopefully be able to turn a profit. I know that this won't interest everyone, and that many of us are just writing as a hobby, and I don't even know if this is what I want to do, but I think that us going into business together and writing as much stuff as we can is the best way to keep in contact with one another. I myself have several ideas for novels and series (specifically, I have solid concepts for a historical fiction romance novel, a five-book Sword and Planet series, an ongoing series of short stories in the vein of comic books but just written down instead of drawn about space pirates and rough concepts that I want to explore further relating to Norse mythology, history, philosophy and a post-apocalyptic setting), and that's not even counting stuff that could be direct adaptations of Interest Check threads and roleplays I posted over the years, and I'm certain that many of you have plenty of ideas that might make good novels. Self-publishing is relatively easy to do nowadays with Amazon, and forming a company just requires a tiny bit of paperwork.
This is not something I would like to explore in the immediate future; as I said, I have upcoming exams and then the clusterfuck that would be college applications (especially for me). However, it is something which I think I might be able to manage once I start college, depending on the amount of free time I'll have. If anyone is interested in this, please let me know. Additionally, if we decide to go this route, we could use eachother for advertising. For instance, if I write a book, I'll tell all of you guys about it and (hopefully) you guys will tell all of the people you know in real life to get it, and they'll tell their friends about it, etc.
Through to the end of this year
I should have talked about this a while ago, but I will be inactive through to the end of this year. Like, really inactive. On the 25th of this month I have an English oral examination, then a couple months of studying, then a lot of tests - over 25 hours in total, if I'm not mistaken. The final test should be sometime around mid-November, with the bulk of the tests being around mid-October to early November. I will try to be on when I can, but until November 20th (±5 days) Bannanachair, ROBLOX and roleplaying will not be my priority. These tests are externally examined by Cambridge University and are the equivalent of a US highschool transcript, but the entire thing is just based on the tests alone. And the tests are designed to be hard. If I get good grades I'll be able to get into a good college and get a good job. If I get bad grades it will have a permanent negative domino effect on my life for at least the next ten to fifteen years, barring a miracle, and maybe more, depending on how things change for me as time goes on.
The next four to six years
After the exams I'm taking at the end of this year (Singapore Cambridge GCE O levels, in case anyone's wondering) I have a choice to make. I can either go on to the next set of exams, called A levels, which are another two year course of studying and will give me college credits equal to one third of a year of college per subject (and I'll be taking two to five subjects, though I have yet to decide) or I can just go directly into college. Next year I will be 18, a legal adult, and if I choose to take the A levels before going to college I would be entering college at the age of 20. I have not formally taken a language learning class in close to five years, though I used to use DuoLingo a tiny bit. I have multiple hobbies, though I'm doing none in a particularly structured manner (I swim laps for fun, not as part of a swim-team, etc.). Entering college will basically depend entirely on my grades and SAT scores, and if I choose to go to college immediately, I'll be left with the goal of deciding which college to apply to, and applying in January to February after I get my results back. These are going to be a chaotic few years.
Bannanachair
With this knowledge of my personal future, my thoughts turned to the only place where I really have friends: Bannanachair. I have several ideas for what might happen within this community here as we all move to college and then out into the world. The first idea is that the community will fizzle out and all that will be left by 2027 are some fond childhood memories. I sincerely hope that this is not what will happen. My second thought is that we will remain an online group of pals much akin to how we are now, occasionally roleplaying and writing (or going on to other mutual interests), but unless the focus of what brought us together manages to change entirely, this will, over time, grow to resemble idea 1 as our interests begin to change. Idea number three is that we become "real life friends" - arrange to go to the same college or just do a regular real-life meetup as I speculated about previously, etc. In all three of these ideas there will inevitably be people who drift apart or remain in contact outside of the community, however, none of them seem particularly permanent, and as commitments begin to pile up as time goes by - first with school, then college, then (eventually) the workforce, the only place where I have friends will eventually, slowly, over time, become a graveyard. However, I have one more idea which I am hoping may be more successful.
Publishing and Business
We can go into the writing business together. Those of us who are better writers here occasionally produce stuff which, with a tiny bit of polishing, could probably be published works. All of us could easily practice reading and writing to become better writers than we are currently. Many of us have great ideas which could probably be adapted into great books (I know I do). And, if we band together to form a publishing company, we could self-publish our stuff without interference from any superiors, having eachother proofread our writings (with as harsh criticism as would be possible) and hopefully be able to turn a profit. I know that this won't interest everyone, and that many of us are just writing as a hobby, and I don't even know if this is what I want to do, but I think that us going into business together and writing as much stuff as we can is the best way to keep in contact with one another. I myself have several ideas for novels and series (specifically, I have solid concepts for a historical fiction romance novel, a five-book Sword and Planet series, an ongoing series of short stories in the vein of comic books but just written down instead of drawn about space pirates and rough concepts that I want to explore further relating to Norse mythology, history, philosophy and a post-apocalyptic setting), and that's not even counting stuff that could be direct adaptations of Interest Check threads and roleplays I posted over the years, and I'm certain that many of you have plenty of ideas that might make good novels. Self-publishing is relatively easy to do nowadays with Amazon, and forming a company just requires a tiny bit of paperwork.
This is not something I would like to explore in the immediate future; as I said, I have upcoming exams and then the clusterfuck that would be college applications (especially for me). However, it is something which I think I might be able to manage once I start college, depending on the amount of free time I'll have. If anyone is interested in this, please let me know. Additionally, if we decide to go this route, we could use eachother for advertising. For instance, if I write a book, I'll tell all of you guys about it and (hopefully) you guys will tell all of the people you know in real life to get it, and they'll tell their friends about it, etc.
