| :. | Society |
Normally, when people mention society, they're talking about how bad it is. How corrupted its values are. How horribly modernization has warped it. How cruel it is to the Gifted. Oh, the humanity! The fact is, love it or hate it, you're part of society. You can go become a hermit in the wilds of British Columbia if you like, but otherwise, there are other people in the world, and you have to deal with them.
The good news is, childhood and teenage society are among the worst you might encounter in your life. People really don't have their priorities straight, and usually they're in a position where they can shove it in your face, and you can't do much about it. In my experience, there are three things in life that are truly worth pursuing:
1. Having work that is worthy of your time and effort, whether it is schoolwork or a job. If you need to change classes so that you're challenged, that's your perogative, and no one has a right to make you feel bad just because you're trying to find work that is worthwhile.
2. Having outside interests that make you happy and fulfill your needs. The fact that you're interested in anime or in chess club or band or Dork Anonymous is your concern, nobody else's. The purpose of hobbies isn't to make you look cool. It's to do what interests you.
3. Having relationships in your life that are fulfilling. You have a right to friends who care about you and are part of the natural give-and-take of friendship. You have a right not to put up with someone who hurts you or disrespects you. As a teen or an adult, you have a right to be in the mating pool, just like everyone else, and guess what! being smart begins to look good on your resume. If you're being treated badly, know that it's not always going to be like that, and you have a right for something better.
But you also have to manage not to annoy anyone while you're at it. It's all very daunting. Take a look around.
| 6th May 2010 |
| Social Networking (beta) A social networking tool (Elgg) has been installed here. It is still in a test phase, though, and there is still work that needs to be done in terms of interface, and integration to the rest of the website. |
| 6th May 2010 |
| Ownership change The website and domain are now owned by Sam MacNamara (email). |
| 1st January 2010 |
| 2010 Happy New Year! |
| 6th December 2009 |
| Website update Parents FAQ page added Staff information updated |
| 23th July 2009 |
| New theme uploaded Privacy bugs fixed New chat system! |
| 20th July 2009 |
| The Haven globally recovered from the crash, but we still have a few problems left, mainly the fact that it is still impossible to edit something on the wiki. In order to fix this, we will hold a week-long maintenance starting on this day. We will also be implementing a lot of new stuff. Contact French Frog if you wish to participate to the effort. |
| 17th May 2009 |
| Due to a crash of our former webhosting company, we experienced a month-long downtime. The forum, chat and portal are up again. The wiki should up again shortly soon. If you are a new member, you might have to reregister. If you had a comma in your username, then the comma disappeared due to MyBB 1.4.6 not allowing them because they generate bugs. We apologize for the inconvenience. |
| 10th January 2009 |
| Major website update |
| April 2008 |
| New webmaster team making changes to the site! |
This site was created by Lis Davies in 2004, and is now owned by Samuel McNamara. Send an email to him at : sam@giftedhaven.net
The Gifted Haven is now moderated and maintained by a small but dedicated army of volunteers and contributors. Send questions or comments to us at : webmaster@giftedhaven.net. Criticism, comments, or notice that you're just dropping by are welcome.
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Text © 2003-2008 C. Davies 2009 Gifted Haven Staff and C. Davies