In Which Gustav Starts Writing and Does Not Stop

[Gustav 6,469]

My Internet is slow and my sleep schedule is already ruined for the week. Who knew that being up until about 3 in the morning over my long weekend would make me want to continue doing that into my work week? Time for some VHL and chill.

 

• In light of @Fire Tortorella and @eaglesfan036 dropping some of theirs this week, you can consider this my own random VHL thoughts. I don't know why I love their format so much, but it works for both writing and reading--if you have a lot to say, you can do it quickly and end up with something that's full of things worth saying in just a couple minutes. And, of course, you can read a lot of things worth reading in that time as well if it's written well.

 

• It's been a hot minute since we had some super motivated first-gens from a recruitment drive. It used to be typical to see people like @LucyXpher or @Noodle Enjoyer or @Nathan_8 or @UghSike or the rest of you that I'm sure are reading this but who I can't name off the top of my head after a recruitment drive, but that hasn't happened in a while. Perhaps it's becoming typical again--and I hope I get to rule over you as my VHLM GMs one day!

 

• You may have noticed that I've been more active lately. That's because I've been more bored lately. The end of the year in my program is a common time for people to go home, in some cases across the world, and that happens to include some of my friends. For me, it also happened to be a time when I finished up a time-intensive project, and now I'm putting my energy into things like this because I'm not sure what else to do with it. When I stop dropping a new Hall of Not Bad every week, you'll know I'm enjoying life a little bit more.

 

• Art Vandelay is currently 11-1, and my chances of reaching 300 wins are looking very good. It's ironic that I've spent a lot of time in my VHL life ripping on @Rin for hitting that milestone and not making the Hall of Fame, and now it looks like I'm headed that way as well. Speaking of Hall of Not Bad, though, I think I'm a prime candidate and I'm going to have fun with it. I hope Art was at least an inspiration to some younger members looking to build their own goalers.

 

• Please, for the love of Gustav, do your own damn point tasks. Most of the enjoyment I get out of this league comes from putting work into things, watching people enjoy those things, and being proud of them. That's way better than the TPE I get out of it and I feel that it's such a loser move (and one that wouldn't make me feel that radiant VHL glow) to have some website do it for you. 500 words goes by way, way faster than you think (at least, it does for me because I'm great at using too many of the stupid things), and if that's too many, 150 words goes by faster than you think as well. No one wants to read your GPT output. Go write something people will want to read and you'll be better off for it.

 

• As an add-on to that last point, I've gained some real-life skills through the VHL. I'm decent with Excel in part because I've done a lot of sim league nerd stuff, and I'm decent with Photoshop because I've spent time trying to get into graphics. Plus, do you have any idea how many words I've typed into this forum? I have no clue, but I'm positive that it's made me a better writer. The only exposure I'd have to writing otherwise is through some class projects, and I went through those projects watching lots of other people have a way harder time writing their parts of the project than I did. I don't think I was naturally smarter; I think I've just done a lot of organizing my thoughts and putting them down for other people to read...because I do that every week here and I put effort into it. Who knows--would I even have done well on the things I applied for after graduation had I not built that up here? Sometimes I look at my old articles and laugh a bit, but it's a little less funny if I try to picture my old statements of purpose written the same way.

[Victor 11,020]

2 hours ago, Gustav said:

Plus, do you have any idea how many words I've typed into this forum? I have no clue, but I'm positive that it's made me a better writer.

This has always been a big part of the appeal, I've definitely improved and lots of others have said the same (especially in the grading days).