2017 in a shellnut

Yo
So 2017 was a pretty significant year for me. Maybe not THE most significant, but still. In this pastebin, I'll first talk about irl, then speed stuff.

My biggest highlight this year was probably graduating high school in June. At first, I thought this event would just be a super boring experience, but it turned out to be pretty fun. A big problem I faced in high school was an obsession I had. This obsession was to do with getting good grades. I did quite well in high school, having been on honor roll student for all 4 years of high school, which awarded me as an "Ontario Scholar" by the end. This was easier said than done, however. I sacrificed social life, family interaction, and my sanity to this obsession with getting straight As. If I got anything below an 80, I would bash myself for weeks on it. It also caused me great anxiety. Luckily, by the time 2017 rolled around I got over this obsession and wouldn't have cared if I didn't get honor roll in my final year. I still did, though, which was a nice plus. Perfectionism is a double edged sword... it has made me pretty successful, but caused me mental suffering. I've definitely improved at this this year, though.
It was nice to be able to say goodbye to high school honestly. 4 years of dealing with shitty teachers (not all, I still had some nice teachers of course who I'll never forget), painstaking nights, some bad friends, etc. Of course, I will miss the good times I had with the friends I made over those years. But, as Dr. Seuss once said, "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

I took the summer off after I graduated high school with the intention of taking a gap year and finding a job in September. I was able to work a warehouse job for an online company. My sister also works there. I worked a 10 hour graveyard shift (10PM - 8AM) Mon-Thurs. This involved my first ever job interview, and, obviously, the first working experience in my life. At first glance, this was a very nice job with great people, great pay, and easy work. However, as the weeks passed while I was working with this company, I realized that this company was not what it seemed. It was ran by people who have no idea what they're doing, the warehouse was a shithole, and it was corrupt. I didn't let this affect me though, and I carried on working without saying anything about it. Apparently I was doing well at my job; I had good numbers, no conflict with anyone, and all was good. I even made a couple of nice acquaintances. However, one day, I was brought into an interview room and told I was fired. This was the day where I learned several different things. A: Canada has a dumb law where as long as you haven't worked at a company for more than 3 months, they, can fire you without reason (WTF) B: This company truly is 100% as corrupt as I thought. There could be tons of reasons they fired me, but me and several others agreed that there was NO way the reason I was fired could have been my fault. It could have been that they had too many workers so they had to lay off or something like that. And, me and my family has a theory that one of my bosses, who has beef with my sister (she works on the daytime shift), got me fired to get to her. Disgusting. Getting fired pissed me off super hard, but I think I'm over it by now :P

Right after these events transpired, I decided that I would pursue post-secondary schooling rather than go find a new job. It took some time, but I decided that I wanted to try web development. I recently got accepted into an online college program for it, and I'll start courses in mid January. Exciting stuff!


NOW ON TO SPEED!

So, early on this year I got a 43:35 in crash 1 any% on emu, and before that at the very end of 2016 I got my 1:11:08 in hundo. After both of these, I pretty much made the decision to get console. The trickiest thing about getting console for crash was that I would have to learn to play with controller (I ran crash 1 and 3 with a keyboard for like a year and a half). It took quite some time and I'm still improving my zigzag, but I was successfully able to make the transition. Thanks to everyone on discord for the help and teaching about PS2s, capture card equipment, and how to zigzag with controller.

The big speedgames for me this year were Crash 1, Crash 3, and Super Mario Bros.


Crash 1
Any%: This was the first category in crash 1 I tackled when I got an NTSC-U PS2, so I improved pretty slowly while I was still learning and adjusting to zigzagging on a controller. My final time this year was a 41:37, and I previously thought that this didn't beat my emu pb if it were on FDS (43:35), but some new info on load comparisons has told me otherwise. Regardless, I'm far from satisfied with this time, and I would have brought it down more if it didn't take me so long to PB D:
100%: After I was done with any% for the time being, I whipped out my J console and went ham on hundo. Currently, my PB is 1:06:05, and eventually I would like a 1:04. I can't do any more attempts for a bit as my controller is rip and I have to take time to adjust to a new one. This has been my favourite category this year.

Crash 3
Any% No Item Glitch: 46:29. Could be better but this run felt pretty good. Satisfied. :)
105%: I brought my PB down from the 2:29 I had on emu to the 2:12 I currently have on PS2. It took a couple months, and it was a fun ride. I plan to come back and get a 2:09 or maybe even 2:08. We'll see.

Super Mario Bros.
Any%: 5:09. I did a pretty nasty grind for sub 5:10 while I was still doing fire flower strats, but I was able to get a 5:09 on the FIRST DAY that I switched to small mario strat lmao. I wanted a 5:07 in this but I got pretty bored. Maybe I'll return, maybe I'll not. I definitely wanna learn warpless.

Did some other games too but I don't care enough to discuss them. I'd like to re-learn most of the other games I did this year, such as Hit & Run and SMB2-U.

Overall I also think that my speedrunning mentality improved the most this year. I am way more enthusiastic about improvement, practice, and goals.

Big shoutouts to all the bois from twitch and discord: Rebag, WhitePaaws, Koji, Shadow, Riko, Trob, 1RD, Wingo, Rex, Vic, Burger, Rijiku, Bill, CrashRatchet, Redhot, 147, Gpro, zbm, Cam, Boomfan, Romatron, Lewis, Evil, Ivan, Hypno, Ghost, Joester, Zoey, Crash6351, SCT, and many more. Thanks for the many fun chats, races, help & support, and streams!
Let the good times roll.