How did it work out?

I quit marketing in tech in Canada, moved to China to teach English "for a year or two" in 2001 to get in touch with some family roots, never left, found Twu Wuv™, haven't left.

Everybody in my life said I was making a huge mistake. I've had better outcomes from this huge mistake than most of the people I left behind had.

Better outcomes just career wise or also social and personal fulfillment?

I mean, transitioning was a big one. It's going pretty well. Having boobs is great, despite them mostly being overgrown nipples at this point.

Linux, I suppose? I tried CachyOS for gaming, and it worked well. Then I tried Arch with Hyprland for everything else, and it worked well. Then I got gaming working on Arch.

Then I broke Arch. I reinstalled it with Sway instead, and ditched CachyOS. Yesterday, I migrated to Artix (with Runit), because Systemd lowkey sucks. Who knows where I might go next? (I've been trying out NetBSD in a VM, so maybe that?)

Dropping out of college (online, which sucks if you have no friends irl and live in a rural area) to bedrot at my parents' house work a part-time job. Still waiting to see how it goes.

Career wise it's just been ... you know ... work. (I've stopped identifying myself by my career; that way lies toxic madness!) So all social and personal fulfillment.

The word "career" is made for suckers who play the rich peoples' games.

I relatively recently did a switch at home to Mint. Which I like well enough, though I'm very happy I fuck my technical support so he feels obligated to help when I whine. 😂

(I kid! Mostly...)

But honestly, when more machines start showing up with the desktop version of HarmonyOS I may make the switch over to that. Doubly so if it's based on chips that aren't made on behalf of American companies like Intel or AMD or whatnot. There's a lot of stuff Huawei is doing that's looking really good and at a far lower price point.

There was a point when I was in college where I kept getting sick. Sick enough to land myself in the hospital multiple times and no one could figure out what was wrong with me for years.

My family was really unsupportive when I dropped out to focus on keeping myself healthy and paying my bills.

Well, now I have a diagnosis, had a thriving career as a wedding photographer, and have otherwise landed on my feet without being saddled with college debt. It was a blessing in disguise.