Catching Up: Where Has Everyone Been These Past Five Years?

[{JOG}Mastaisac]

Kind of wanted to make a topic for all of us to share  our stories of where we've been, what we've accomplished, and the personal struggles and other life experiences we have been through over the past five years since SOR was around.  I figure that all of us were so close, that we would all want to share and learn from eachother. 

The last time I was in SOR was around 2008.  During this time I was finishing up middleschool and ended up joining JOG in the summer of 2008.

In terms of just my SWBF2 career after SOR, I have remained in JOG for five years in total.  In 08, I was promoted to council member in about five to six months and have remained on the council ever since.  There was a civil war in which Chicali and Jeff had differences and I took Jeff's side and worked with him and others to create the nationofjog.com site.  Some of you may remember that site.  It lasted from about late 08-11.  After about a successful three years at NationofJOG and competing with what remained of the SWBF2 community, JOG decided to retire from SWBF2 alltogether in 2011 where we shut down the site and merged with TeamJOG after Jeff and Chicali were able to solve their differences.  After about a six month stay at teamjog.com, a lot of the Star Wars guys were getting ancy to get back into SWBF2 (namely me and Neji) and we decided to bring back the nationofjog for solely SWBF2 play.  The site you see now has been up from 2012 to now. 

Obviously, I'm glazing over a lot of things in terms of challenges that five years of leading JOG has encompassed, but, this has been a general overview of what I have done in terms of SWBF2 after SOR.  And yes, I still do play SWBF2 and have played it after SOR on a very consistent basis.

Personally, I've had a lot of struggles ranging from depression, serious medical issues, and other things as well.

My Highschool years were ok.  They weren't great and they weren't horrible, they were just preety typical.  In my senior year of my first semester, I got extremely sick and was admitted to Children's Hospital around late '11.  While there, I went undiagnosed for two weeks, had three surgeries performed on me, and had a myriad of other things performed on me to try and find some sort of diagnosis.  I practically lived there, lol, I stayed in that hospital for a month until they were finally able to give me a diagnosis.  I had developed endocarditis which means I had bacteria growing on my heart and growing on other vital parts of my organs as well.  If left untreated I would have died.  So, this eventually was able to be cured through use of drugs adminstered through me three times a day for six weeks.  This was done by means of a tube (called a PICC line) that went through my arm to my chest to get closer to my heart so the drugs would be more effective. 

After this experience, I finished up my senior year of High School.  I graduated with a 3.9 GPA and received a 16,000 a year scholarship to a Private College University, Vanguard University, in Southern California.

Prior to starting my second semester however, doctors had reccomended I go under open heart surgery over the summer of 2012 to close my heart murmur that I was born with.  This was in hopes to vastly minimize the risks of getting Endocarditis back again because people who get Endocarditis and have a heart murmur have a high risk of getting it back.  So, in the summer of 2012, I underwent open heart surgery to close the hole in my heart and minimize the chances of getting Endocarditis back again.  The surgery was successful albeit, very painful.  I woke up to some tube through my stomach draining fluid from my chest, tubes in my neck, IV's in my wrist, and an assortment of other things. 

My whole summer was just spent recovering from the operation and gearing up for my first year in college.  I got a cool looking scar though running across my chest

I had a very good year in college and actually just finished up my Freshman year about a month ago.  Ended the year with two A's and two B's.  The first semester was five A's and one B. 

Obviously, I have a very different outlook on life and things in general from what I've personally experienced...  But I feel I've come out better for it and am very happy I can share my story here with all of you so you can take it as a story of inspiration and put things in better perspective. 

And please, this wasn't meant as a pitty thing, lol.  I do genuinely want to know all of your stories as well if you feel you want to share them.  I thought it would be unfair if I ask all of you to share your stories and not share mine. 

Anyways guys, things have been picking up for me and I have been feeling a lot better.  I'm glad you all are back and I'm glad to see all of you again.

[{SOR}DarkShadow]

Mastaisac
You're blessed my brother.
And by everything you said, it sounds like you're pretty close to my age, I think one or 2 years ahead of me lol.


Well, my tale might not be as inspirational as Masta's, but..here it goes..
Well, I believe last time I was in SOR was around my 8th grade year. I hated my Middle School so much and everyone in it. Mainly because I was bullied.
Fast forward to 2010, my sophomore year of highschool . After years of being bullied and having no girlfriend, even being told by the doctors that I was in bad health, I finally said F*** it and decided to lose weight. I got down to about 115 pounds...lol . Really skinny.
Junior year, 2011, I decided to join the wrestling team. I wrestled 120, and at the beginning 126. I wasn't all that great, but again it was my very first year. After the season I decided to quit because I had decided to take 4 AP courses. What I did take from wrestling , however, was crazy stamina and weight lifting.
My senior year I tried to get back into weight lifting. And I want to . I plan of joining a gym soon( thanks Parallel). 
Fast forward to now, I ended up graduating with a weighted GPA of like 5.2-5.4 . I plan of attending the University Of Florida in Spring of 2014. I hope I can get scholarships though, because times are tough. But no scholarships yet.. -.-. Omega Psi Phi recently denied me of a scholarship(idk why). But worse comes to worse ill stay at USF .

[the_joshua333]

After swbf2 i played games still, but notreally competitively. My main focus was football in highschool. By the time i was a senior I was starting on our football team and helped lead our team to the State Championship Football game of Texas against the best team ofall time, which we lost, but an experience I will never forget. I Now go to school at UTSA University of Texas san antonio,  live about 5 minutes from headshrinker, and had a great first year. I befriended the starting goalie here at UTSA and have turned into a pretty mean keeper , and now one of my favoritee sports. College is a blast

[the_joshua333]

atta way to fight through that Masta. Much respect for that, I used to have  a heart murmur as well,luckily it went away over time.

[{SOR}Parallel]

Well for those of u who didnt know, I am now 19 years old. I coasted through that shithole of a high school, putting forth no extra effort whatsoever. I fucking hate school with a passion, and did not care what my GPA was as long as I graduated. And yes I did graduate lol. Got a decent 23 on my ACT and that was enough to get me into SIUE(university in my city). 

I literally went there for a week before telling myself I can't deal with 4 more years of school. I dropped right on out of there. After that i Got a full time construction job. That shit sucked so much dick I can't even explain it. They had my ass up there  helping with the new bridge goin across the Mississippi River in st louis. I could not handle working 10-12 hour days every day of the damn week.  After about half a year, I realized how much that shit sucks, and decided to go back to school.  

I have had one serious hospital trip since the time I've seen y'all. I went to some party and ended up with alcohol poisoning. I remember absolutely nothing from the party. 8 hours after i stopped drinking, the ambulance picked my unconscious ass up and took me to the hospital where they said I had a BAC of .48. i got into the hospital on saturday at 9 am, and didnt wake up until sunday at 2am. Woke up with a life support tube down my throat, not to mention the tube they shove up ur dick. They also tied me sown so i didnt rip the tube out of my throat. I also puked in my lungs which led to pneumonia. I did not fall asleep once from Sunday 2am, tilthe time I left the hospital on Wednesday. I could barely stand when up when I left. I ended up losing ten pounds total.  Got home and the cops showed up and gave me a 200$ ticket which pissed me off. The absolute worst part about all that was how hungry/thirsty I was. Even though your getting all your nutrients through the IVs, it feels like your starving to death. The paramedic in the ambulance also said I flatlined for 15 min but I didn't see the light so I don't believe him lmao. Lets just say the experience was a wake up call, because I used to get absolutely plastered to the point of blacking out and/or puking every time.  Alcoholism runs in the fam that's what got me worried. 

Nowadays all I do is workout, work, eat, sleep, and throw in some fat grizzly wintergreen pinches. I rarely jump on cod and if I do it's to fuck around w my buddies.  I have so many stories but it's so hard to put them on paper, so one of these days we will all have a beer together and share

[{SOR}Parallel]

And ur welcome darkshadow

[{SOR}Parallel]

AND if y'all haven't realized I'm 19 but I act like an immature idiot because its fun

[{SOR}ELMOisINNOCENT]

As far as games go, I think I was uh... dismissed sometime back in late 2007, early 2008 from SOR and never joined another clan for any game ever again.  Still sometimes play SWBF2, for the longest time I've been playing Battlefield Bad Company 2, Rock Band, Street Fighter, and Madden.

I must have been in Freshman year of High School when I lost contact with all of you.  I went to a private high school and the transition between an underfunded, poor public school district and a privately run institution was pretty damn dramatic.  Different people (mainly privileged assholes) and those goddamn uniforms.  No one could tell the difference between me and my brother in those things and it pissed us right off.  Immediately people would either like or hate us just because we were twins, it was hard to make any actual friends, most people saw me and him as some sort of packaged deal.  I got through freshman year pretty OK.  Like my brother always says, "Those were strange days"

In sophomore year I actually got into Fencing.  Pretty damn interesting, our team starting competing locally, then we were competing in different boroughs and long island, then to Jersey and Pennsylvania, and the next thing I know, we were all the way in San Jose for the summer nationals.  I guess I wasn't too terrible at the sport. lmao  It was around this time that my migraines started coming back and I would be absent some days, but it wasn't anything too terrible.

The summer after junior year I got a job at a concert venue as an usher.  I still have that job every summer and it is fucking awesome.  I get to see alot of good bands/singers, I make a decent amount of money and some of the older crowds even tip.  Some nights are bad and I've seen some messed up shit over the years, but its all worth it for the stories and free high you get from all of the smoke blowing hippies.

I stopped fencing in senior year and got pretty fuckin fat but I had good grades and did well on my SAT's.  I was a really good bullshiter and procrastinator back then and weaseled my way into college.

I go to Rowan University in New Jersey and so far I have learned that you shouldn't go to school in New Jersey if you're from New York.  It's just like my old high school, but this time instead of being immediately known as a twin, I'm known as that guy with the funny accent. (It's a damn good thing I got thick skin).  New Jersey is like a whole different planet sometimes, but I've found a good group of friends.  First years were mostly fun, I struggled in some of my classes and missed a semester because of those damn migraines, but I'm almost caught up.  I started going to the gym and lost alot of weight too.

I major in Electrical Engineering and it's a nightmare, I hardly have free time now that I'm in my junior year and all of the fun I've had in the first years is completely gone.  My classes are too damn hard for me to goof off, but I still got time to go to the gym.  Now I'm back home in NY still working at concerts, enjoying my time off from school, and training for Tough Mudder.

[{SOR}ELMOisINNOCENT]

Masta you are a very brave soul.  I though kidney stones were bad, but what you went through is much worse, I'm glad you're ok.  It's awesome to see your success with JOG, and it was very noble of you guys to take in SOR during our rough patches.

DS, congrats on your weight loss, you must be proud of yourself when you look at your highschool pictures.  As far as scholarships go, there are a couple of websites with competitions and contests you can try cappex(dot)com.  If you aren't successful there's always student loans, but I am regretting those already...

We need more details from you Josh lol.  Good to hear you're having fun in college though. Congrats on your success in futbol!

Parallel, seems like you had too much fun in college. Seriously though, I'm glad you're alive, thats some scary shit to deal with bud.  Construction work sucks balls, but if you're part of a union it pays damn well.  Going back to school was probably the best choice to make, I wish you luck in your studies young scholar.  I would love to chill with you sometime, but if we can't meet up in person we could chat via PSN like we did a couple years back or skype or some shit

[{SOR}Antifreeze]

5 years ago I was planning to move across the country from BC to Ontario to move in with my then long distance GF. 1 week before I was about to move I found out that she had cheated on me. Spare the details here, a year later, I met the love of my life. Well that's technically a lie, seeing I always knew her, I worked with her at Staples. She was a cashier, I was the furniture guy bringing chairs up on his shoulder giving her a corny smile every time I walked by. One day I was asked to do a planogram by the cash, at the time she decided hey I'll help him out. I proceeded to flirt and managed to get her phone number by the end of it. After dating for only a year, I proposed to her. We got married July 30/11 and we are still strong as ever.
Some people say that you should wait a while to marry, I say that when it feels right and it's what you want just do it. She's been the best thing that's ever happened to me.

After driving around a 1993 chrysler dynasty for 4 years, 2 months ago I finally purchased a brand new car. a 2014 Chrysler 200, cherry red. If it was possible, I would lay with this beautiful car. The first time I have had a car below 190 000 kms. I'm in love!

For our wedding day, we didn't ask for gifts seeing we had already been living together for 2 years, we asked for money. Which I recommend every single one of you do. We were able to rack up 10 grand and use it towards the purchase of a new home. No more renting! We have a little yard up front, where my wife has planted a beautiful garden. I have a patio where I can do some of my BBQ'in, Tim Allen grunt, and just a perfect house for the two of us.

Shortly after starting to date my wife I decided to go to University after graduating 4 years ago. I took out a student loan and took 3 classes to get me started. Turns out I waited too long to go back to school and wasn't even close to being motivated enough to do homework or hell even show up to class. I ended up dropping the one class and finishing out the other two with C+. I was a low A high B student all through highschool. I just didn't have the work ethic or the motivation to succeed in school. I dropped out.

I went back to work at Staples this time pushing to get into management. I was quickly promoted to a Third Key Holder at a store near by, the youngest manager in Staples BC. After promises of being promoted after 6 months being there, I have now been there 2 years and 6 months now. The worst part is the fact that I am doing exceptional, but the fact that I'm unwilling to move to northern BC or travel 1.5 hours in traffic to down town Vancouver, there is nowhere to promote me. The district manager tells me that I am doing an amazing job but the fact that I am unwilling to travel long distances, I will have to wait. So currently I am looking for another career.

[{SOR}Antifreeze]

[{SOR}DarkShadow]

Parallel- I'm glad you learned your lesson and are on the right track
Elmo- I've always wanted to do fencing! I hope my college has a fencing team. And yeah dude about loans, honestly I refuse to take student loans. I do not want to be in debt, HEAVY debt.
Anti- Congrats dude. You've good a good looking wife. She's a keeper lol. I hope the two of you continue being strong together. As my economics teacher always said, Relationships are very important .

[{SOR}ELMOisINNOCENT]

Congrats on your wifey Antifreeze.  I wish you two only the best.  Should we be expecting Antifreeze jr.?

DS- you should totally start fencing!  I fenced Foil, but Epee and Sabre are fun as well

[{JOG}Mastaisac]

Glad I made this topic.  It's been so interesting/fun to see where all of you guys have been, what you've all done, and where you're going to next!

Anti: Beautiful wife man.  She's a gem and I'm sure she's you're shining star in the cover of the night.  I wish you two only the best. 

Elmo: Good for you on getting into college and working hard to make your body healthy.  Keep at it. 

Josh: Keep at it with soccer man!  I'm sure you'll do well and I'm glad you're having fun in college

Parallel: smh...  But hey, seriously though, sometimes people need expereinces like that to learn...  They do say experience is the best teacher, ahaha.  Me and you share a similar medical story, eh?  ahaha.  And I know what you're talking about with the tubes, easy to put em in, painful as hell to pull em out

Elmo: I used to have migraines as well.  It actually got better getting massages every other week or so.  A lot of it for me had to deal with stress.  I'm glad you're in college though and I hope you graduate and build a successful career for yourself!

[{SOR}ELMOisINNOCENT]

I tried alot of wierd shit to get rid of them, including massages and even acupuncture! I kind of out grew my migraines for the most part, they dont come around as often. Migraines suck, you have my sympathies isac

[{SOR}Heaadshrinker]

if my memory is correct i left sor around the time everyone was playing warhawk, which was the second semester of freshman year in high school. my freshman year was rough, i was new to my school so i knew absolutely no one. i stayed on the swim team all four years of high school, I didn't make it to state or break any school records, i was just the average kid trying to survive high school and move on to college.

As some of you know i played pretty much every cod game that came out, usually on zombies most of the time playing with the few friends i made in school. 

I'll be honest, i'm pretty burnt out of playing video games. i'm hoping that the ps4 will have games that will make me want to start playing online again because right now i only play madden offline.

Like josh said, i'm currently a junior at UTSA, i'm about to turn 20. if i'm not struggling doing homework for my classes i'm working at a nice fine dining seafood restaurant as a barback, hopefully i'll be promoted to bartender soon. 

So yeah, nothing too crazy has happened to me in 5 years, which is kind of sad, but oh well. i like living the simple life.

[{SOR}Heaadshrinker]

but my younger brother is CRAZY good at video games. he's only in 6th grade but damn can he play. i think it would be smart to recruit him once the ps4 rolls around. trust me, iv'e never seen anyone play cod like him.

[{SOR}SHREDER]

Oh lets see, after I left SOR, I pretty much for clan wise, I Jumped around to JOG and UDN for quite some time.But those where never mu ome, i did at some point go back to battfront 2 just to how things where, made some new friends on there but i dont talk to them now. After that I went back to MW3 and the first black ops, my entire MW3 career, ask KDog haha. I was ina clan Called 1BaM, and with that clan I had 700 winstreak on my mw3 profile, and I made allot of good friends and very skilled friends has well that taught me allot of different things on call of duty. I know play for trophies because that clan had died. And I play for fun and i might play on my own standards. Competively.

Umm life wise. i turning 20 June30. I went to not having a licence and no care to owning my license. and owning 2013 Toyota Tundra. That is very expensive but its deff worth it. paying bills allot of them and for the past 6 months 3 weeks out of each onth bring in 45 - 48 hours a week. but last week. I work 50 hours and 30 inins last week. so i bust my ass off at work. I will say i have done some serious mest up things that I will not share with you, but all of mystakes have made me a better person and ive learned form them all.

[{SOR}KDog1800]

Pretty much aside from work I haven't played as much as I used to. Still do Cisco Network support. Like HS I lost my drive to play games as well. I pretty much play only Madden, COD, NBA2K(mostly my cousins and friends), Borderlands 2 and Battlefield 3 occasionally. I might get a game here and there that I wanted during sales.

I played with Josh, Shred, OX, AKM, PBR and Zam whenever I could. If it wasn't these guys I'd be playing with RX2(Scratch, Moebewan, Dabaka and Nero).

The only thing that happened was that I was arrested last year for the first time in my life just because the f'n cops were dickheads. All because I twas recording them mistreating my neighbor. They tried to take my phone, maced and punched me. They tried to slap me with resisting arrest, obstructing a government official and inciting a riot. Funny how I was never told I was under arrest. Funny how the cop shoved me and asked me "if I wanted to fight". They arrested another guy who was passing by. All he said to them was why are you doing this and he got clubbed in the head. Busted him open. Multiple times I asked to get my eye flushed and his head checked and they did absolutely nothing. In total 5 of us got arrested(they let one go at the precinct). They didn't even have an arresting officer for me SMH. All because of some fight that happened up the block from where we were and they came down to f'n bother us. They got pissed when we told them we don't have to go in our houses...it's not martial law and that fight had nothing to do with us. So it pretty much escalated from there. I was in the house watching the Finals when the argument started with the NYPD.

The case ended up being thrown out for 3 of us (sealed for me) and now I currently am suing them for that BS.

[{SOR}Antifreeze]

Holy crap KDog. That's ridiculous. Good for you for suing.

[{SOR}Antifreeze]

Isaac I am so glad to hear your doing better now. Learn to appreciate life all that much more.

Parallel you're stupid. lol. Glad you're doing better as well.

[{SOR}Aids]

Well, since we've all talked I finished high school with a high score in skipping haha. However I passed all my classes and managed to get into university. I was huge on woodworking throughout high school. I'm now graduated from University 1 year later with my Carpentry Certificate. 4 more years of work and I'll get my "red seal" which will make me a journeyman. Journeyman's make the big bucks.

On the side I like to make wood furniture (If you are all interested I'll upload some pics)
I've made a bench,a bookcase, bed frames, tables, and a stool. Currently i'm making a project for my grandpa who recently passed. I'm making him a urn to hold his ashes in(Which will later be buried in the ground). I put my heart in to all my work and all the hard work shows.

I have been playing League of Legends with my spare time on PC. I finally got around to playing some ranked games, however my internet had other plans and started going haywire. I miss the competitive play of gaming, and want to keep doing so.

2 years ago I got an ulcer from drinking to many energy drinks (Averaging 1 a day) Worst fucking pain in the world and to this day I still try to warn people how dangerous they can be. However i'm fine now, I stick to coffee, and only 1 per day.

Back to playing COD4 with CGF, darkshadow, parallel, SORA, has been a blast as well. I'll be playing a lot more of this for sure!

[{SOR}DarkShadow]

KDog- You should know this man. The heat would love nothing more than to lock another brother up in jail; They think im going to jail, they really on that dope.
Shreder- Ive seen you change alot dude. Im proud of you. Youve been moving forward alot. Keep it up
Aids-  Ive heard ulcers were a major pain. And one day ill pay you to make me a house !

[{SOR}KDog1800]

@Darkshadow There will never be any love for me and police. I used to say all the time that there are some good ones but all that went out the window that night. I don't trust those SOB's.

See I live in the Bronx and they like to harass people here for absolutely no damn reason. If you walk around with a styrofoam cup your automatically drinking alcohol. The bodegas(corner stores) sell the these cups with ice in it. The Chinese restaurant also sells them with iced tea in it. Now there are people who buy em and put liquor in it but not everybody does that. These jackasses like to f'n automatically assume that your drinking alcohol. Some even want to smell your cup but that doesn't fly with me because you are not putting your f'n nose over my drink. The f'd up part of this "open container" summons/ticket BS is that NYPD aren't supposed to come onto your property(stoop) to harass you but they still do it anyway. If your on the street drinking it's fair game which is understandable.

If you ever watched the movies Crooklyn or I Like it Like That, my neighborhood is the same. Everybody knows each other and will sit on each other's stoops to talk and chill. Different generations. Kids will run up and down the block playing with each other. We all pretty much look out for each other's kids and each other. We all pretty much stick up for each other and the NYPD hates this because we will call them out on their BS.

The funny thing is 2 months ago a 13 yr old girl was shot and killed on a bus in Queens(NYC), another(11) was shot in the neck and paralyzed from the waist down two weeks ago and this past weekend one kid(10) was shot in the stomach but is OK. Funny how all this violence against kids is going on but their f'n priority is what a person is drinking in their cup.

[{SOR}DarkShadow]

@KDog It just goes to show how even people with power are not best fit for the job. The sad thing is I have met really chill and respectible police officers, but the ones like you described are the ones that ruin it for them , and are even the reason why some of the good cops get murdered when they've done nothing but take their job with dignity.
I really can't relate to where you grew up at, because I always grew up in a middle class "white" area(Call me the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but not rich, and without Carlton). But I've still encountered assholes every now and then.
I guess the best you can do at this hectic point in society is just to keep yourself as away from trouble as you possibly can and try not no be suspicous.
The authority of the country will hopefully wake up someday, but im not counting on it.

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