I now know that DDKs don’t necessarily know 9 joseki by heart. .
I’ve participated in an official international tournament of any kind for the first time of my life.
I’ve moved across the country.
I’m on the wrong side of 40.
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Heh yeah, guess theres been quite many personal changes in the last ~10 years ^____^
A lot of stuff, like, i’ve found a wonderful person as my spouse and moved into nice little cottage, i’ve gotten excited on gardening and farming, i’ve gotten one bachelors degree and am now studying for another one… Lot of happy things
One big thing might be that i’ve learned to “just be myself” instead pretending that im something better. Kyu is good enough ^^
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I learned how to web dev hehe
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Life changed quite a bit since then, for better or for worse.
Me? Not so much.
I did improve something that had been bugging me since I was a kid and despite my age and total lack of talent, a bit of perseverance paid off and gone is my horrible style of aiming and launching the ball and here is the new one (it has improved even more since the early covid quarantines):
I even managed to hit 10 out 10 last time I went to play/train (a feat that years ago I wouldn’t even have dreamt of) and improved my mobility and gained some dribbling skills.
Which goes to show that age, sometimes, is just an excuse we use on ourselves to not do what we want or like or aim. Give it a shot, you never know 
And even if you fail or you do not improve, you will have had fun in the process, so it is still a win.
Next step? Trim some weight.
If I could succeed in something that I was “too old” to achieve, then there is no excuse on failing on something that I am still young enough to do. 
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Would you be opposed to me moving this to Lounge @Gia ?
I would feel better if these comments weren’t getting scraped and indexed by search engine bots.
I intended this for the whole community, not only Reggies. It’s in general chat to include everyone.
You can close it, that’s ok with me.
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Nah I won’t close it. Hopefully just asking the question prompts people to choose carefully how much they share 
it’s a great thread
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I had to check my old OGS account to see when I became an OGS member for the first time.
Apparently it was in 2007, when I was still a bit younger than 40. This was probably my last win ever against @Uberdude: OGS Tianyuan 2007 (Main Class), Round 3 Group 1
In the meantime, my son became an adult, my work-week changed from 40 to 32 hours, I started two youth go clubs and I was a board member in the Dutch go association.
During that time, my sister got four children and a PhD (economics), my brother got one additional child and a grandchild. Also, two stepfathers, an aunt and my brother died.
But I don’t really know if I changed much myself during that time, besides getting more grey hairs and wrinkles, becoming about 1 stone weaker at go and growing a bit weaker physically.
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That reminds me, I got a new credit card and the number is 4277 8170 9898 2651! (don’t worry I added spaces to prevent scraping)
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That’s young 
I feel I aged much more between 40 and 50 than between 30 and 40. Physically I lost a few hairs but still have almost no white hairs or wrinkles. On the other hand my physical condition and health have deteriorated.
Checking my game history, I created my OGS account in January 2016 and only played 12 games that year, all of them against bots in Jan-Feb 2016. At that time I just wanted to try go a little bit but didn’t play seriously, I only joined a go club in September 2016 and then decided to study the game more deeply. My first IRL tournament was in February 2017 and got promoted from FFG 17k to 14k. However I still didn’t feel confident playing and spent more time solving tsumegos (badly) than playing, I only started to use my OGS/KGS/IGS accounts more actively by the end of 2017.
Since then, a lot of things have changed. I wouldn’t say that OGS changed my life, but rather that go has become part of my life. I like playing online and have probably played about 4000 games so far, but what I appreciate most is to meet people and create bonds with people from different generations and different cultures. Playing go or accompanying other players in competitions gave me the opportunity (or excuse?) to travel to several cities and countries. I don’t know if I’ll play for the rest of my life but I’m pretty sure that I’ll continue for at least several years.
The other main change in my life is probably happening now. My son recently became an adult and my daughter will be adult in a few months, which means my role as a parent will quickly decrease, or at least its nature will change.
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Which side is the wrong side? 
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Well … I’ve aged ~40 years.
At least it definitely feels so. And it is certainly NOT about wisdom gained.
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I think it’s been over 6 years since I first came on. I’ve moved twice, gone into treatment for mental health, went to like 6 dif schools for at least one class, got my first job, and gotten slightly more comfortable at the idea of adulthood. My family also got two dogs who I love a lot and we got some fish. I also learned to better choose the number of games I play on here so I don’t get overwhelmed causing it to feel like a chore.
Still in the process of learning/acknowledging that things change though. Even if I am not there, they still change regardless.
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I didn’t even know this website has been around that long tbh
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It hasn’t
It’s just that I’ve acquired the habit of saying that I’ve aged ten years in every single of the past few years (so it would actually have to be quite a few more than only ~40 years) … for diverse reasons: depression, burn-out from work, and worst: way too many close friends and family dying—or losing their minds.
At my real age of meanwhile 66 years, however, I’ve got to get used to those latter things, painful as it is.
And people losing their minds is something that I’m seeing in too many younger friends and folks also, though, and that’s also painful to witness—and probably to be expected in a world whose complexity is getting more overwhelming with every day.
Anyway, I’m also not too healthy, having smoked way too much in my life (DON’T DO THAT!), and I‘m prepared to drop dead any time actually … I’ll leave quite a mess behind, what with thousands of books in the house … but hey, used-book stores will be happy to take them all in bulk 
At least I’m retired now, so I have a little more time “in my head” to try and make sense of all that’s happening. In reality, though, it doesn’t “make sense”, it just happens.
And I sit and watch, and—be it nice things or bad things—I’m, like, “Wow, THAT I did not expect!”.
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I only joined OGS a little less than 4 years ago. Well, a lot has changed.
Go-wise, I got a bit stronger and more confident. I also got to know so many people here, which was especially nice and helpful during the lockdowns. 
Apart from OGS, well, there’s always a lot going on in my life. Aging included. My kid is in school now; I can hardly believe it. And because I have ADHD, I immersed myself into many different topics and hobbies over those 4 years. But all the time, I kept playing Go regularly. 
Sometimes more, sometimes less.
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