Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Where are you and where are you going?
5ts
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by 5ts »

TopHatFox wrote:
Mon Nov 25, 2019 4:22 am
INTJs are great for me to argue with and ghost ‘cause they’re no fun.
Thank you, nothing better than getting ghosted as an INTJ so we can get back to important business.

I like the way you write. You should become a writer in some capacity.

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

yeah, agreed, you INTJs are the most successful group I know.

And thx! I’ll take all compliments <3

5ts
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by 5ts »

My path has loosely paralleled yours so far, albeit much less gregariously. I've had some plans blowup, mostly due to health, but I regret nothing. I am somewhat familiar with the part of the world you are traveling to soon, so I can answer some general questions if they arise. I hope you find what you want.

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Stahlmann
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by Stahlmann »

I also got tested as INFJ recently :-DDDD

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

JANUARY 2020

Update time! UTAAAAAAAAH. Okay, so I applied for graduation for my masters and will have my free degree this April after finishing the final round of six grad classes. Huzzah.

I've also made lots of progress on where to live. :) Utah! It's a red state<3, it's practically surrounded with nature, there are hippy girls everywhere, its winters are mild compared to Montana but it has seasons, it has plenty of jobs, and while being an educated state, it has less Masters-degree holders than CO and definitely than a place like MA. Also, pot is illegal, and I like that. I don't care what anyone says, using pot all the time ruins peoples' short-term memory. The weird drinking curfew doesn't seem too great, but maybe that'll keep out the degenerates that ruined California. Colorado is way too goddamn expensive, left-leaning, and morfing into California-lite, so I think I'll avoid it as a place to live. Maybe the side west of its mountains could be okay. Western Montana seems okay too, but it's frigid and it doesn't seem to have a lot of jobs. Nevada seems like too much desert for my taste, and I don't really like Vegas or Reno. Idaho is still a big mystery, but I think it's basically a midwest state, but pretty. Arizona seems way too hot and lacking in seasons. Utah!

Zillow has been a lot of fun in finding out places to start applying to. There are so many pretty 500-750 square foot stick-built homes I can buy for less than 150K, and often less than 100K. I feel so rich with just my current stash! I absolutely love that I'm a single guy that doesn't plan to have kids ever. It's like a super power.<3 I also learned that there are plenty of used hatchback cars that can not only be used as camper-cars, but that can have winter tires put on them. Yay! I've become much more comfortable driving long distances and just driving in general. I can't believe it took me so long to just drive a fucking car. I wonder if there's a Zillow for cars. It'll be even more encouraging to see what kinda hatchback I can buy [looks like there are plenty of 2013+ hatchbacks with 70k miles or less for $4.5k or less on CL, sweet).

I think my plan for now is to start applying for geology or administrative jobs in parks that pay 50k/yr or more, move out to the job, finish the super secret 3 month trial period, and if I really like the area and job, buy a little 100k, 500-square-foot house with a spare room to make my own and a hatchback that I can camp around the west in. I'd probably get a mortgage with a really low annual interest rate with my 700+ credit score and destroy the principal by throwing all my salary at it (although I'm not sure if paying a mortgage is tax deductible). Then all I have to do is run some day-game on the hippy girls and park one of their pretty butts in my spare room. And charge her rent.~

^-^

---------------

Networth: 105K

Salathor
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by Salathor »

Mortgages are largely not tax deductible anymore since the standard deduction increased so much. I would personally just pay cash for the house to increase resilience and reduce dependence on income.

Utah seems really nice. My dad lived there for a while as a young man to ski. Lots of Mormons, which is appealing to some and offputting to others. I think I'd like it.

Salt Lake City also has an incredible public library. Look up pics.

5ts
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by 5ts »

I completely agree with your assessment of CO, and it is much more red state west of the Divide, or really anywhere outside of Denver-Boulder-Fort Collins. Check out Carmax or Carvana for your hatchback. Overpriced but less hassle than dealing with a private party, although people in Utah could be more congenial about the whole car purchase process.

ZAFCorrection
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by ZAFCorrection »

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Last edited by ZAFCorrection on Sun Jun 06, 2021 12:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

Yeah, St. George and Moab are on the list! SLC is too, but maybe not the heart of it; I don’t like big cities

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C40
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by C40 »

Man, you are far off in your assessment of Utah people.

I've spent, idk 6 months in a various parts of Utah. I've only passed through SLC a few times fairly quickly. I can't comment in depth but I'm pretty sure about these (For SLC)

- There are a bunch of good looking single women there. I think what you have are 18-20 year old Mormon girls looking for a husband, and then 30+ year old divorcees who figured out LDS is BS.
- I'm quite sure it will have solid social groups of people who moved there from various parts of the US. But - it's not going to be a lot of people.
- It has bad air quality because the mountains trap in junk. Research that before you make any big decisions.
- Real estate is expensive
- You should definitely think hard about what part of the city you live in. The hip people are likely gathered up in certain neighborhoods near the city of the center. If you live out in a suburb - it's gonna people so square you can hardly believe it.
- Utah is also a land of white people. I'm basing the following off of one narrow example, but I think they may be quite racist. IDK your ethnicity, but if you're a brown guy, you may have some issues there that you wouldn't in other places.


Anyway - the reason I'm making this post is to tell you that there are absolutely NOT "hippy chicks everywhere" in Utah. Not in SLC or any part of Utah. I'll tell you what there are everywhere: weird mormons. Dude. They are strange people. Friendly, but they won't have deep conversations with you. Most are VERY naive, mentally sheltered, and essentially brainwashed. One of the most important parts of successful LDS fellowship is repressing independent thought.

Yes, there are SOME normal people in Utah. But not many. And yes, there are SOME really cool outdoorsy women there. (not hippy chicks). But there aren't many. And most of those women already have a boyfriend. It's a guy that's stronger and faster and better looking than you. He's a great climber and outdoorsman - the type these outdoorsy girls are specifically in to. Or - they don't have one and they don't care about dating.

Utah is a place I would love to live because when it comes to the land, it's the best looking state in the US, by far. The reason I'm hesitant to live there is because I feel I'd be risking having to live with a small social circle. IDK, maybe it could be that within the social groups of 'cool' people there, when someone new arrives who would fit in, they notice and absorb that person, but I can't say for sure.


I may sound a big harsh and negative here, and maybe I am being slightly. I just want to make sure you know what you're getting into and not setting off on a yellow brick road with rosy colored glasses envisioning a land of milk, honey, and hippy girls.

Cheepnis
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by Cheepnis »

I have no first hand experience, but based on my father's account attending high school in SLC as an Air Force brat in the late 70's and C40's account of Utah today: it sounds like Utah hasn't changed much in 4 decades.

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C40
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by C40 »

Yeah, Hasn't changed. I hung out in Cedar City for a few weeks. Man, it felt like the 1950s there. I saw kids all over. At the park with their parents. Running around town playing with each-other unsupervised, and so on. It was nice to see kids outside playing and exploring on their own for once.

It seemed that there was precisely ONE girl in that town for me to date. One.

reepicheep
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by reepicheep »

Summit County Colorado (where I grew up) is a weird liberal mecca surrounded by more conservative folks. It draws in people from all over, similar to a big city, but the draw is because of the skiing. It's a resort town with a hugely transient population and a bunch of PhDs waiting tables and operating chairlifts.

Definitely lots of hippy (snowboarder) chicks.

Town lives and dies by the snowfall. Ski resorts are having to make more and more snow every year, and open later/close sooner. Summer recreation season is also beautiful and very popular, but it's not the money maker that skiing is.

Literally everyone drives a Subaru.

All data about 10 years out of date.

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

JANUARY 2020 PART II:

Ploop ploop ploop, I still like Utah, but maybe Durango or other western CO towns are better. C40 seems more left-leaning than me; were the 1950's really so bad? Also good news: I am white-passing just fine. :)

Updates updates: I have a new gf! A pretty blue-eyed, blonde Ukrainian 25 yo who also speaks English & Portuguese. ^-^

Speaking of language acquisition, that's going quite well. I am fluent in English & Spanish, and can understand and have conversations in Portuguese and French. It's been fun watching Invader Zim in French. My next language to learn: Russian. With these five (and maybe a hard af bonus: Arabic), I should be able to travel to and interact with 90% of the world:

https://www.thedigitalglobetrotter.com/ ... -them-all/

I never understood why people spend hundreds of hours learning languages such as Italian or German; aside from their strong commercial home countries, they're hardly spoken anywhere else. Same goes for languages such as Urdu, Icelandic, or Quechua.

rube
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by rube »

Languages and effort: business or love.
BTW, a couple of hundreds of hours is nothing to learn a language?
Congrats on the new GF.

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

Thank you! It depends on how you go about learning it. If you just take classes, you're unlikely to learn the language, especially in compulsory schooling like most students. I know people that have taken years of Spanish in school yet can't understand basic phrases.

The way to learn a language with, say, 500 studying-hours is as follows:

1. Pick a language adjacent to one you already know
2. Take an introductory and intermediate formal class to understand its grammar (essentially, what its working parts are)
3. Daily exposure: change your phone, browser, TV, Kindle, & video game language, start with own-language audio + foreign subtitles
4. Continued exposure: switch to foreign audio + foreign subtitles, you'll begin to form basic sentences and even think
5. Practice speaking & pronunciation: find native speakers and videos to mimic facial patterns for proper pronunciation
6. Switch to just foreign language audio if you want to refine your pronunciation and conversation skills
7. Go live in a country that speaks the language, for a few months (if you can)
8. You should now have working proficiency to fluency and even be able to write well (thank you subtitles)

-----------------

It's also super helpful to periodically flash-card lists such as "1000 most common words in XYZ language with pictures"

Same with reviewing "most common grammar patterns in XYZ language"

I honestly don't really recommend memorizing verbal conjugations, you'll pick them up just by "what sounds right" like native speakers

It's also depressing to memorize verbal conjugations.

Languages like Mandarin or Japanese will take way longer than 500 hours, so good luck with that:

https://www.atlasandboots.com/best-lang ... #gallery-2
Last edited by TopHatFox on Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:05 am, edited 3 times in total.

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C40
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by C40 »

TopHatFox wrote:
Thu Jan 09, 2020 2:01 am
JANUARY 2020 PART II:

C40 seems more left-leaning than me; were the 1950's really so bad?
There are some big left-right political issues in Utah (like recent steps to essentially gift land to extraction industries (both large swaths of Escalante, and Bear's Ears - some land sacred to local indigenous people). Plus complete and total control of women's reproductive rights by old guys who don't know about reproduction.

BUT! The main issue with people in Utah is not about Left-Right politics. It is about religious indoctrination and control. It is: will you be cool living in a place where much of the population has been brainwashed by LDS - been intentionally kept naive and prevented from independent/creative thought?

People are brainwashed in all kinds of ways all over the world. Utah has more of this way than the rest of the U.S. Maybe you'll be ok with this one. Maybe not.

TopHatFox
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

Hm, perhaps. Would the brain-washing mean she's nice to me, stays fit, and can still hold an intelligent conversation? Ideally holds any job, but not 24-7?

Because the brain-washing in a place like NYC or Boston is that she's mean to me, is overweight, argues talking points from whatever easy degree or FB, and works 24/7. (Not to say guys don't have their own issues, they sure do).

I could definitely see an issue arising with the fact that I don't want kids or marriage, but co-habitation and a LTR ceremony sound great.

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Jean
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by Jean »

Top hat Mormon! I don't see you resisting the arguments your mormon wive will throw at you for more than a few weeks. You're so impulsive. Don't worry, you'll be a great dad.

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C40
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by C40 »

Not wanting kids or marriage (and not being LDS) would generally mean you're not a suitable suitor for LDS women until they've had children, gotten divorced, and left the church.

Your list, relating to LDS devotees
nice to you: yes
Fit - generally(?). Probably more than NYC.
Intelligent conversation - The majority of them: no, not really. Or, they only ca on some subjects. Some of them can get like 75% of the way there.
Work - many will expect to be a stay-at-home mom, or if they do work, for their husband to be the primary breadwinner.

The verbal combativeness in people from NYC and Boston will be gone.

The really churchy girls will just not enter your world (or, more-so: you will not enter theirs. If you try to, they will avoid you. They have a name for you: a "gentile". An 'other'. Outsider. Foreigner. Someone to be avoided or converted.
Last edited by C40 on Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

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