Sleuth Home - Message Boards - The Gumshoe Lounge

May-16-2006 02:09

With great interest have I been reading the graduation thread.
It is one of the most interesting threads I have read in a long long time. I think we can pad ourselves on the back.

There is just something really interesting I noticed on the sleuth message boards, after being here for two years. Something that is quite different from other message boards and communities I have been in. Though we have brushed on topics what our favorite movies are, whether we think it is soda or pop, the books we read, and mystery games. We also know where we come from. On ocassion we discuss current events.

But no one ever posts about their actual life? Not only who we are, what we do, our family etc. But what happened in our lives, our day to day. Or anything behind being pretend detectives. I am one of the few people that for some reason (unknown to me except that jojo started) most people call Nikkie even on the message board, referring to my real name. As far as I know my bio, actual refers to me as a person outside of sleuth.

I personally would like to see more of that in here. But I am right assuming others don't? For as long as these message board exists we are still on the topic of new game ideas, newbie questions, and pub quizzes. I am assuming this is for a reason. Obviously no one has to share, but at the way our boards are now......I'd feel weird for it even being an option if I created a thread about something that happened to me today.

Personally what I like most about sleuthchat. Is that you are not talking to a bunch of pretend detectives, but actual people.

May-16-2006 16:48

*likes being pretend and hates slipping up in Sleuthchat*

Ummmmm...

*dashes out the door and as far from City Hall as she can*

May-16-2006 17:55

*likes putting down two cents comment and then runs off in a little corner to hide*


*as long as everybody knows what she's thinking everything is allright*

:-)

May-17-2006 00:07

Nikkie, something about the fact that you started this thread might explain precisely why it is that I so completely believe that you rule. I have thought the same thing; I had this idea of using the bio as a kind of blog to rant about crap that was going on in my life, but never acted on it. Maybe that's actually a good thing...my rants can get pretty time consuming. So anyways I bow down...

So. I'm Nat. I'm 31 and live in Toronto with my spousal equivalent of nearly 14 years. I have had some really godawful jobs. The prize for worst is a tie between fundraising door to door for Greenpeace (you really don't know what it is to be tongue-tied if you haven't had a guy in a really loose bathrobe tell you he can't give you any money because he needs to give his wife her weekly enema) and cooking in a restaurant where the owner used to scrape all the leftovers from customers onto a plate and invite me to sit down for an impromptu buffet. My "job" there mostly consisted of supressing my gag reflex and sweeping up the fur from her two massive dogs. Oh. and making their food. With the same food processor we used to make the house guacamole.

These days I'm limping towards the finish line in a PhD in sociology and education...seems to me from what I've seen around the threads there are a good handful of students on sleuth. Being a student is a really worthy thing to rant about. If you feel the need, rant to me.

I'm also teaching sociology at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, which is a smallish town not too far from where I live. The highlight so far was probably last week, when I managed to illustrate marxism with a series of hip thrusts. Don't ask.

What else...total food & cooking nerd. Music too. Very opinionated.

I better just shut up now...but:

*buys cfm a trunk full of disguises and hope she dresses up as a keyboard gangsta*

*thinks BadAss two cents are usually worth at least a buck fifty*, and

(more in a sec)

May-17-2006 00:13

(cont)

*never got around to saying how cool I think it is that Moira and Daniel (see how I'm maintaining the spirit of the thread by use of first names???) found each other here.*

k, done.

When you need long-windedness removed, do you go to a lung doctor?

May-17-2006 04:55

Thanks, great idea lilrach!!!
*blushes at crunchpat*

I answer to both Nicole and to Nikkie. I am almost 33 years old, though by looking at me I could easily pass for 21….ok maaaaybe not. I live about a 30-40 minute ride from the ocean, approximately 8 feet below sea level. This means, I am either a fish, or I live in The Netherlands. (burbs of Amsterdam to be exact.) I qualify as single and happy, or....old maid. :) I don’t have 10 cats, so at present there isn’t much to worry about… yet.

Though I have been born and raised in the lower lands, and consider myself Dutch, my life has always been immersed in a more international culture. Aside from having an Indonesian mother and a German father, I have been traveling the globe quite extensively, and lived abroad on a few ocassions. In different ways, study abroad, business trips, holiday get aways, adventure tour leading, but mostly bagpacking. This was mostly in the North America and South-East Asia.

I have had a lot of jobs. Before I became a lawyer, I was an intercultural communications teacher and legal advisor EU related matters to the local government. To pay off college debts I ended up working in the IT industry as a manager in various forms. Though I am a lawyer (specialization International Law), I haven’t practiced law since my legal advising days. The moment that the OJ Simpson verdict was read, is the moment I decided to no longer continue working on a career in the field of law.

May-17-2006 04:55

Even though legally I am a Senior Program Manager/director for a Pan-European IT company (similar to AT&T broadband, or NTL.) I haven’t practiced this profession since late 2004. Which is when I suffered from a major burnout, which later turned out to be a neglected burnout/chronic fatigue syndrome. This is because I forgot to sleep between the age of 15-31, and lived on the adrenaline of pressure and stress 24/7 in the last years. I am still recovering, which is not always easy when you are also in a legal battle with your company not just for harm done to me by my employer, but to secure a healthy and financially stable future. Sleuth ironically was advised by my burnout therapist, this explains my (may I say ridiculous) high score.

I am looking for a career change, and going back to doing what I love. Which has always been teaching and/or coaching people. Preferably in the sector of applied (business) psychology, I am for instance am a qualified MBTI trainer. I will either start my own company, or seek employment. I have lots of dreams and plans, and I am working on achieving them. I may starve of hunger and starvation in the process, but it beats being an overpaid and overworked corporate slave. :)

May-17-2006 08:56

Hi Nikkie! Just thought I'd send some emotional support from one burned out lawyer to another. In my case besides chronic fatigue I also managed to develope ulcers and lymphoma. I now work as a hotel clerk which leaves me underpaid but much happier. I also have time to work on my manuscripts. The publishers don't think I have talent, but who cares. As you say it beats being an overpaid and overworked corporate slave.

Hang in there! I'm pulling for you!

May-17-2006 16:45

*stops in to see what's up*
*considers for a moment to contribute*
*realizes that would put too many people in danger*
*quietly slips out*

May-18-2006 06:35

Thanks Joe. Ulcers and lymphoma, that's exactly what I am trying to prevent now and hired a lawyer that specializes in this stuff. :( How cool, manuscripts! I hope you get some luck soon. I guess you are one of those people that I keep hearing about....the ones that after suffering a major crash due to work related disease, end up much happier doing what they love. Instead of going back to the toxic environment they got sick in. I am determined to get out with my soul in tact, but I still have a few legal battles to get out of the way.

So who's next? BARRY-BARRY-BARRY????????

May-18-2006 06:40

Funny, I noticed Det Sean King/Ken who introduced himself in here.......has been around for over a year, and this is the one of the first times he posted. How cool!!!!