Post by 🌿 ~ Spottedleaf ~ 🌿 on Nov 24, 2018 20:40:22 GMT -5
Nov 23, 2018 6:01:16 GMT -5 @spottedleaf123 said:
Dear Tyler,For the last six years, I always had something planned to celebrate your birthday. In 2012, I created a video that included a nice message, and I posted a thread. In 2013, I knew that I was not going to be around on your actual birthday, since I was at a church retreat, so I posted your birthday thread a day early. 2014 was when I started the group PM thing where several members on the forum drew pictures, wrote letters,etc, and I put them together in one big thread. I was gone for the same reason in 2014, so I organized the group PM, made sure those who were going to make something gave their stuff to me by the date I asked them to, and put it all together with the formatting, Dawnleaf posted the thread in my place.
In 2015, 2016, and 2017, I was around to post all the stuff myself. Like in 2014, the group PM stuff was done in the last three years as well,but there were slight variations. In 2015, people submitted drawings of their forum OCs, and I put them together in a forum music video. Then, in 2016, I collaborated with @navyblue32 and made a rogue clan with the cats in it named after members on the forum, who submitted what their characters looked like. I summoned all the cats, and Nav edited the screenshot. Finally, last year, there wasn't really a big project that was worked on, but I did double up on the group PMs. There was a group PM on here and on the Cattails forum. The only other thing about it that can be noted is that I used a template, that someone else coded for me, to put all the stuff in. It just made the thread look a bit nicer, kind of like a virtual birthday card. Every year, even if it wasn't much, I always came up with something to tell you Happy Birthday, in a slightly more than simple way. I ended up being sick on or near your birthday two of those years, but that still didn't make me slack off. I always made it work because it was important to me.
It's important to me because you have been an important person in my life over the years. In 2012, we were just starting to talk frequently, but it all just grew from there. I think I started talking to you more and more back then not only because I hadn't talked to many other people on the forum yet, but also because I felt like I could trust you and you actually seemed to care. From there, I kept coming to you when I needed someone to talk to. Even if you didn't have advice to offer, or much to say, it was nice to have someone who would at least listen to what I needed to get off my chest. I know that I was probably way over dramatic about a lot of things, and I know that I was (and still am) a terrible patient when I didn't feel well. Still, you didn't tell me off, nor were you ever rude to me. Instead, you were the opposite. You either told me to feel better soon, reassured me that everything would turn out alright, or anything along those lines that fit with whatever I said was going on. It really meant a lot to me back then, and it still means a lot to me now.
As I got older, I started to look up to you more and more. I looked up to you as a person, and you inspired me with what I decided to major in. Before I met you, I wanted to do something related to YouTube, since I really enjoyed making videos. My YouTube channel didn't actually kick off much until a little bit after we met. By that, I mean that my channel existed at the time, but I hadn't seen much of a spike in views or subscribers just yet. Still, that didn't change my mind at the time. It wasn't until 10th grade that I began getting other ideas. I took my first computer-related class, and I discovered that I enjoyed that more than the broadcasting classes that I was in at the time. I think I was either going into or coming out of 11th grade when I first started talking to you about learning to program. It was from that moment on that I first considered going into that once I started college. In 12th grade, I took my first programming class, and that's when I decided that it was what I wanted to go into.
It might sound like it was more of a self-inspiration thing, but I probably wouldn't have considered it as much if it weren't for you. I think I started getting that inspiration when I watched you mess around with things in WC:UT, and as updates for version 15 were released. The technology class I took in 10th grade just gave me that extra push to start asking you about where I could start learning code.
Even after I started college, the inspiration I got from you kept growing, especially when Cattails was first announced. This was all a major reason I gave that speech about you in the Fall of 2017. I enjoyed being able to talk to you and ask about how you got started with everything related to programming and all that.
I guess this is my way of saying thanks for being (and continuing to be) that inspiration for me. Without you, I'm not sure where I would be in my life right now. If you can inspire me like that, then others are probably inspired by you too.
Thank you for everything. I'm blessed to have someone like you in my life. Remember that I'm not ever going anywhere. I've always cared, and I always will. I'm here if you ever need a friend, or anything at all.
Happy Birthday! Have a good one because you deserve it for being the awesome person you are.
Your friend,
Spottedleaf <3