With another year coming to a close, another decade follows. From Y2K to the climate change meeting in Copenhagen; from 9/11 to the death of a Pop legend; from the war in Iraq to the devastation in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina. This decade has been fill with extraordinary events, inspiring people and heartbreaking reality. What do you remember most about these past ten years? What has affected you the most. Positively or negatively. What has shaped your world and what has changed your views. Or, what has solidified your views, beliefs etc.

I know a lot has happened to myself and my world. However, I'd love to hear what many of you have been through and what you remember most about the past decade. I'll share my thoughts afterwards. I just wanted to get the ball rolling.

Probably the most vivid memory I have from the past 10 years is September 11th, 2001. I was in 8th grade and none of our teachers told us what happened until late in the day. In one my early classes a faculty member pulled all of the students out who had parents that worked in New York City, needless to say this terrified me because I had no idea why. When we were finally told that the twin towers had been destroyed I was caught up in a well of emotions, fear and anger mostly. The few months after I, like most Americans, was fearing the next attack but also felt a strong sense of nationalism. Had I been old enough, I would have enlisted to fight in Afghanistan for sure.

I'll post more soon, this decade has had a huge impact on me.

Quote :

I'll post more soon, this decade has had a huge impact on me.

Same Same. Great idea, and will contribute over the next few days.

Good thread. Me being very young in most of this decade, I was 7 in ½ of the year 2000 I didn't understand alot of the things going on around the world, but I do remember them very good. I remember seeing the twin towers falling to the ground after school and I didn't understand what was going on. It seemed more like a action film than reality, and suddenly Denmark was in war with Afghanistan (we still are, and we have lost more in % than all other lands).

I have grown from a kid to a teenager and has no doubt been the biggest change for me, I've left my elementary school to gymnasium (don't know what that is equivalent to in USA) and that was also a big change from me, leaving people I've been with allmost everyday in the last 10 years.
In my time I've also seen massive technological changes, the older people in the have seen even more, but baah. From windows 98 to window 7, from computer being something that not every family have to having serval in the house.

I think what strikes me the most is that the world doesn't have changed to a friendlier (if that is a word) place, we still got the problems we had 10 years ago. China are semi insane, North Korea are very insane, war is raging in alot of countries, our news focus on all the bad things in the world - war, disease and the weather going nuts.

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I've left my elementary school to gymnasium (don't know what that is equivalent to in USA)

I think that's the same word the Germans use, in which case the equivalent here is high school.

Peter wrote:

I've left my elementary school to gymnasium (don't know what that is equivalent to in USA)

The equivalent in the USA is secondary education; whereas gymnasium encompasses 5th-12th or 13th grade, in the US we have middle school (6th-8th grade) or junior high (7th and 8th grade), then high school (9th-12th grade).

I think this decade has seen a lot of personal changes for me. I would have been 11 when the Y2K hit and I think at least as many personal events as much as public ones have shaped me. I'm sure people don't care much about the personal events, so i'll be brief: questioning the stability of your family, watching two close friends die, estrangement from many relatives, watching the effects of gang violence from your window, being mugged for a packet of biscuits (that was funny in retrospect), drug experimentation, started smoking early in the decade, quit again late in the decade, and helping the homeless. Oh, and living in east London as a general. Nowhere else in the world do joint smoking Jamaicans tell you be a rockstar whilst guys in a battered Ford try to sell recently stolen laptops and phones to the pirate DVD sellers outside the cinema.

I saw the twin towers collapse on TV, but something about it felt distant; I could empathise but it felt like international news. Until I returned back to halls after a night in central to turn on the news with a few mates and saw this. I was at Euston station with friends less than an hour before that bomb hit. Its one thing to see amateur video of something happening far away, but to know how close you came to it yourself is something else entirely. Less than 6 months later, the Buncefield attack woke me up. I thought it was an earthquake. Nope. (For those who don't know, Buncefield is an area a few miles from my hometown, and the oil refinery there exploded, most likely bombed though its difficult to prove). I remember staying up for the US elections and Obama's speech as well (one of the PHD students brought a TV to uni with him especially, and I watched over his shoulder whilst I prepared my samples), and feeling that only good can come of it. Then again, I thought Blair leaving was a good thing and we've been lumped with out of fashion 'tories (Cameron), politician gits who ban drinking on the tubes and go to Liverpool to yell "your all dirty scousers," (Johnson) and the biggest retarded nixon-look-a-like in town (Brown).

I suppose the other main event that's impacted me in particular would be the internet. I was never the most popular kid around, and so I ended up spending a fair amount of time in solitude playing games and so on. I got my first job when I hacked the school internet system to play Doom, made a (working) credit card generator and a mate hosted a porn site on the school servers. I got paid to stop basically. I spent the first half of the decade playing an online game pretty adamantly and I came to be friends with many of the people who played it, even sneaking out to meet up with them all a few times ("hey mum, is it alright if I go over to a house party filled with underage drinking hosted by a 32 year old single mother I met online?" Yeah. Not happening). We even once went to Ireland together. God that was fun; how many people are not allowed in the Guinness Brewery for a tour because they're too drunk? I'm sure half you think its sad but they became like a second family that helped me through difficult situations and I doubt I'll forget them quickly.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/photos/3166478/Top-100-Reuters-photos-of-the-decade

In case anyone hasn't seen it. Some are truly horrific. A few favourites:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

I don't even know where to start. I was from 10-19, so my entire teenage years - my identity, my maturation are all from here. God, this was such a depressing decade. I'll get my own memories up shortly

But hey, for one last time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AXB4O3851k

Wow, I was 7 when the 2000s rolled in, 16 now. I remember not really understanding/caring what had happened at the time on Sept. 11th, but looking back at it now that if I was older, i would have been strongly moved. These years so far have been the basis of my identity and I can look back at the pictures on my parents computer and see the cycle of friends I've been through, there was even a picture of my first girlfriend, which was weird.

On a lighter note, a lot of good things have happened, high school is awesome, having great times and making new friends. My interest in music has increased dramatically, started playing drums a few years ago and I started listening to metal about two years ago. My football career started and stopped, then my basketball career started and I'm still playing this year and I'm finally on varsity(I'm 6ft 7in for anyone whos wondering).

The biggest thing that has effected me in the past few years is drugs, sadly. Most of my friends had started smoking bud and I just never felt inclined to, I had no problem with them doing it and wasn't vocal about them doing it but a bunch of them pretty much abandoned me, which disgusts me, earlier today they actually fought over a five dollar bag of some shitty quality stuff. Lucky a few stayed with me and some got caught and were forced to stop. I've pretty much stayed out of all the drama that comes with going to high school other than that, and I don;t understand for the life of me why any one at this age would want to be in a relationship.

Everything In this decade has been pretty much overshadowed by the recent years since so much has happened and I've focused on it and haven't retained many memories of before it other than the big things like going to war, the attacks, and deaths in the family. For me I'd say it has been a positive decade.

Thinking of this now is making me try to get my head around that in a few years I'm gonna be living on my own and that I'll never see some of my friends again or for a long long time which is a bummer, I'd like to think someone in this group has had a different experience, or that a lot of people have had different experiences and this a false prediction.

"Most of my friends had started smoking bud and I just never felt inclined to, I had no problem with them doing it and wasn't vocal about them doing it but a bunch of them pretty much abandoned me, which disgusts me, earlier today they actually fought over a five dollar bag of some shitty quality stuff. "

I had this as well. Last I heard most of them failed their GCSE tests (in your case, they wouldn't have graduated high school) and one landed in rehab for a bit. I used to join them every once in a while but when it got to the stage that they did nothing else I told them where they could shove it. As for friends, I've kept in touch with most of the ones from my hometown even after living in another city for 3 years, and now i'm back things feel a little like old times. Its definitely possible, just remember them when you go back for holidays and make sure to drop them a line every once in a while. Don't think of it as losing old friends but making new ones.

It has been a long, up-and-down, depressing, happy, incredible and all too real decade for me. I turned 16 in 2000 and of course was incredibly happy to get my license. Coming from a family who embraced autos and being around muscle cars and such all of the time, I was incredibly excited. My first car was a light blue, 1988 Camaro. Incredibly redneck, but it was cheap and got me to many, many places. I remember the sense of freedom I got when I could finally just take off whenever I wanted to and never had to rely on my parents to get from point a to point b. Back then, I could fill my tank with $10. Gas was fluctuating between $0.90 and $1.00. Man, those were the days. My friends and I would drive from my town up to Binghamton, NY (about an hour north) in the middle of the night just to take a ride.

I remember the insanity that came with Y2K. We had just gotten a new computer in our house not long before. Before that, we had an old PC running windows 3.1. (I laughed when I read above someone experiencing Windows 98 to Windows 7). The internet was a whole new thing to me and I had just gotten deep into computers, programing and repairing them in high school. I remember grocery stores being emptied out like a blizzard was coming. Water, bread, etc were all sold out. Everyone thought the world was going to end. I just remember thinking that nothing was really going to happen. Then, nothing happened. And people thought the world was going to blow up.

That was the beginning of the decade. From there, it went downhill for a while. In June 2001, two friends of mine were killed in a car accident. The driver was rumored to be drinking. Besides my two friends, another younger kid was in the car and also died. The driver was fine. In fact, instead of helping the people injured in the car, he was chucking beer cans into the woods to avoid any trouble. My one friend I had grown up with. The other friend was Jen. I had had an incredible crush on her and she was an amazingly sweet girl. In a time when I was not very popular, she was kind to me and always took the time to have a chat with me.

When the attacks happened on Sept. 11th, I was in a psychology class in high school. I remember a teacher coming into our class and informing our teacher that a plane had hit the world trade center. At first we had thought it was just an accident like many did. As we were changing classes, news of the second plane circulated and we all knew that it was a terrorist attack. All I can remember thinking at that time was, "Well, it had to happen at some point." Up until that point, I think most Americans were in a false sense of security thinking that the troubles of the world could not land here in the state like in any other part of the world. I'm a realist and always knew that something could happen in the states, so it really didn't surprise me all that much. I remember absolutely LOATHING the bandwagon patriotism. The majority of the people flying their flags had no concept of the actual situation and just wanted to, "Kill me some sand niggers." I also remember hearing a bunch of talk about a possible attack on the nuclear power plant about 45 minutes south-west of me. I never thought that anyone would ever attack it. No one ever did.

The most I feel about Sept. 11th is just the pure disgust in humanity that I had prior to the events. I still find it hard to believe that people, in any country including my own, can be so completely cruel to one another. Devoid of any emotion or thought and hell-bent on furthering their own cause regardless of the costs. Human life holds no value to some people, and that is something that I cannot grasp.

I cannot remember exactly which year this happened, but a friend of mine ended up shooting himself. I remember that he was heavy into drugs and never really happy, but I wasn't nearly as close to him as some other people were. I wish I was, because I feel like I missed out. He was a great person, extremely kind and always very cool to hang out with. At his funeral, I remember a lot of people coming together that never usually would talk, and we all put a lot of shit behind us.

After graduating high school, I went on to college. The years I spent there were some of the best, and worst, of my life. The most positive thing that happened to me was the time I spent with Megan, my ex-girlfriend and the longest and strongest relationship I have had to date. Megan and I dated for just under four years. I wanted to marry this girl and probably would have proposed to her soon if we hadn't broken up. Her and I shared amazing times together and we continue to be amazingly close as friends. However, we were torn apart by my own troubles. I had started drinking very heavily. I'd finish whole bottles of Jack Daniels in a night, get extremely violent (not towards her ever), and just be a pain for people to deal with. I had a drinking problem. It tore apart one of the best things in my life and put a lot of friendships on rocky ground. During this time I found out who my true friends were. After being arrested for a DUI in 2006 and being told by many friends that they were tired of how I was acting, I cleaned myself up and stopped drinking like that. I almost completely abstain from hard liquors and especially whiskey.

I'm going to try and end this, because I feel like I've been rambling for a long time.

The last, biggest thing that happened to me only a select few people have heard so far. I feel that I've dealt with it enough in my mind to be comfortable talking about it now, however.

Early this year, I was living with a woman who I was with. First off, living with her was one of the most life-draining and stressful times of my life. She was bipolar, delusional and paranoid. Certifiably. She saw a shrink previous to me moving into her home and even took meds for her problems. After we started dating and I moved in, she quit both. After about five months of living with this and having my energy and life sucked out of me, I decided it was finally enough. I had dealt with enough women who I had just been filling Megan's void with and I finally decided that I wasn't going to do it anymore. I told her I was done and that I was leaving. A week after moving out and coming back to my fathers house to live with him and my brother, I got a call from her telling me that she was pregnant. She asked me what I wanted to do. (I'll save you a lot of back-story and just tell you that this woman never liked to be in the wrong, so she would try to avoid consequences and to push off anything bad that would happen to us onto me. She cannot commit to anything either. Now, I've wanted kids. I've always loved kids. I knew that having one with her would be a less-than-perfect way to have a child, but I didn't want to contemplate the alternative. I told her that ultimately, it was her choice, but that I would be there for the child and do what I'd need to do to be a father. That I wouldn't abandon a child that was mine. I poured my heart out and was completely honest with her. Ignoring everything that I said or pushing it off as what she liked to call bullshit, she decided to terminate. Now, I want children some day. I always have wanted a child, and when she decided to do this, it killed my inside. I felt like I had failed. Megan was the first person I told about this and she knew how I felt about kids. I remember her saying, "That could have been your little girl." Those words have burned into my brain and have hurt me every time I think about them.

And then my decade ended on a positive note. My sister had her child, my niece, Kahleigh. The first time I held her, I fought hard to keep back from bursting into tears thinking about the child that could have been mine. But, I was extremely happy to have a niece and I now spend as much time as I can with her.

Sorry if this was a lot of rambling.

Oh, the 2000s. So much happened to me.

I was really young for a good deal of it, hell I'm 21 now.

I remember:
The Y2K Crap, of course and watching the new year on TV all over the world.

9/11, and being appalled, angry, scared, confused. I was confused about our war aims then, and I still am now.
The rest is a big muddle...

My parents got divorced, there was a nasty custody battle. I called the cops on my own father at one point because he came in the house once when my mom wasn't home and wouldn't leave.

I turned 16. I dated a bunch of losers. My dad died when I was 16. In roughly tow years between 15-17, I lost 6 members of my family. It was a rollercoaster, emotional, awful thing. It's hard to face your own mortality at 16.

I had my heart broken. I dated an abusive, controlling cockbag. I never thought I'd be one of "those girls," but there I was. He currently tours the world, or did last summer, and I hate that people actually admire him as a drummer or a person. People insist I'm jealous of his success, but that's not it. I just don't like his facade.

I broke hearts. I dated enough weirdos to fill a school bus. Ok, not that many. But there are a lot of weird metal dudes that will chase after a teenage girl. I went to a ton of shows. I became a full fledged metalhead. A woman possessed. My parents still think its a phase. I went to Germany to go to Wacken and Party.San Open Air. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I started my own zine at age 15, because I found metal zines deplorable.

I'm in college, I graduate in Spring 2010. That shit is intense. I'm applying to graduate school to put off the insane choice of deciding what to do with my life. I really have no clue. Maybe if the economy was better, I wouldn't be so worried. Recently, my first ever "brother in metal" died. that broke my heart and I miss him daily.
On the plus side, I am dating the most amazing guy ever. I'm pretty convinced he's "the one." I have some amazing friends. I go to lots of shows. School beyond stresses me out, but the light is there at the end of the tunnel.
It's a good life, and someone's gotta live it.

Just make sure Dan doesn't fall in love with me at MDF.

This is semi-off topic, but I'll post it anyway. THis semester I had a class which studied the holocaust in depth. I have a much deeper understanding of the whole event now, and I really hate to see...so much hatred and violence still in the world.

it constantly surprises me how ignorant and hateful people are.
sometimes i find education to be a curse.
a blessing definitley, but this term has been trying.

Some nostalgia anyone?

Link 1
Link 2

I remember this OS. We still have a copy of Windows 95 around here as well. Oh god, I just remembered my first computer, an old amstrad that played tapes rather than CDs But now im rambling about the 90s.

Ok time to try to think of positive things about this decade.

I met my best friend early in the decade, even though ironically we hated each other for the first year. We've been through our ups and downs, he's been in car accidents galore, we've shared girlfriends (after I broke up with her, they went out) and we've become semi-adopted into each others family. We started drinking about the same time, got into trouble over the same things and ended up sticking our necks out for each other. If any good thing has happened to me this decade it would be finding someone I know I'll always be able to count on. Now if he'd just grow some tits and shave...

I've experienced lots of personal changes, like most people here I did my growing up in this decade. When Y2K hit I was 13, now I'm 22. I really went from being an insecure lonely kid, to an insecure lonely adult . In 2003 I lost my grandfather, who I was very close with and that hit me hard. Two years later my grandmother on the other side, which wasn't any easier. When I got to high school I began to question everything; I did almost no school work, I stopped going to church, dropped a lot of friends, etc. It wasn't until the very end of high school that I really found myself and accepted who I am, ironically an academic.

The end of 2009 and the beginning of 2009 I spent in Chile, which totally reshaped my worldview. It was the first time I was immersed in another culture, which made me want desperately to live outside the US.

The election of 2008 consumed my year, actually more like two years. I actively watched all the primaries, studied the candidates, and convinced everyone I knew to vote for Obama. That moment when he was sworn in was one of the most moving of my life. During the campaign he was the most inspiring person I've ever seen, however now I'm pretty disappointed.

Speaking of politics, I remember the 2000 recount and thinking it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen.

Watching the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was very strange for me. I remember thinking it was impossible for anyone to articulate what the point of the war was. It felt like war for war's sake.

Katrina was really the final nail in the coffin that made me realize how much this country had failed its people. I remember feeling very sad that the richest, supposedly most powerful country in the world couldn't even provide for the safety of its citizens, even though they knew it was coming.

Nautilus wrote:

I don't even know where to start. I was from 10-19, so my entire teenage years - my identity, my maturation are all from here. God, this was such a depressing decade. I'll get my own memories up shortly

But hey, for one last time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AXB4O3851k

That's exactly how I feel. Most of my really strong memories come this decade, it seems pretty much like my entire life. I am really worried about the future though. With this economy I have no idea how I will get a job with a history degree when I graduate in two years.

The Gozzfather wrote:

Nautilus wrote:

I don't even know where to start. I was from 10-19, so my entire teenage years - my identity, my maturation are all from here. God, this was such a depressing decade. I'll get my own memories up shortly

But hey, for one last time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AXB4O3851k

That's exactly how I feel. Most of my really strong memories come this decade, it seems pretty much like my entire life. I am really worried about the future though. With this economy I have no idea how I will get a job with a history degree when I graduate in two years.

Teachers will always be needed and the economy is on the turn-around. Unemployment will level off and begin to shrink and jobs will open up. Don't believe all the doom and gloom. It will get better.

The Gozzfather wrote:

Nautilus wrote:

I don't even know where to start. I was from 10-19, so my entire teenage years - my identity, my maturation are all from here. God, this was such a depressing decade. I'll get my own memories up shortly

But hey, for one last time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AXB4O3851k

That's exactly how I feel. Most of my really strong memories come this decade, it seems pretty much like my entire life. I am really worried about the future though. With this economy I have no idea how I will get a job with a history degree when I graduate in two years.

I have a history degree too!!

And Dale, teachers are NOT always needed. In this and the surrounding areas, there has been a teacher hiring freeze for the last year and a half.

Right now, you need a couple of years experience to be able to get a job stacking shelves. Im not even joking. People can afford to demand a year or two experience in EVERY field, leaving uni graduates out the loop. I graduated last summer and I haven't been able to get a job so much as pulling a pint or cleaning a floor. It is getting better, but that doesn't help me much now.

ThePitGoddess wrote:

The Gozzfather wrote:

Nautilus wrote:

I don't even know where to start. I was from 10-19, so my entire teenage years - my identity, my maturation are all from here. God, this was such a depressing decade. I'll get my own memories up shortly

But hey, for one last time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AXB4O3851k

That's exactly how I feel. Most of my really strong memories come this decade, it seems pretty much like my entire life. I am really worried about the future though. With this economy I have no idea how I will get a job with a history degree when I graduate in two years.

I have a history degree too!!

And Dale, teachers are NOT always needed. In this and the surrounding areas, there has been a teacher hiring freeze for the last year and a half.

I didn't say that you wouldn't have to relocate. There have been a lot of hiring freezes. The fact remains, however, that schools will ALWAYS be around and therefore teachers will ALWAYS be needed.

LegionOvDoom wrote:

ThePitGoddess wrote:

The Gozzfather wrote:

Nautilus wrote:

I don't even know where to start. I was from 10-19, so my entire teenage years - my identity, my maturation are all from here. God, this was such a depressing decade. I'll get my own memories up shortly

But hey, for one last time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AXB4O3851k

That's exactly how I feel. Most of my really strong memories come this decade, it seems pretty much like my entire life. I am really worried about the future though. With this economy I have no idea how I will get a job with a history degree when I graduate in two years.

I have a history degree too!!

And Dale, teachers are NOT always needed. In this and the surrounding areas, there has been a teacher hiring freeze for the last year and a half.

I didn't say that you wouldn't have to relocate. There have been a lot of hiring freezes. The fact remains, however, that schools will ALWAYS be around and therefore teachers will ALWAYS be needed.

Y'know, I did find a site that would let me teach English in Japan for only $5,000. If I had that kinda money i'd be on a plane so fast...

Rosalind wrote:

LegionOvDoom wrote:

ThePitGoddess wrote:

The Gozzfather wrote:

Nautilus wrote:

I don't even know where to start. I was from 10-19, so my entire teenage years - my identity, my maturation are all from here. God, this was such a depressing decade. I'll get my own memories up shortly

But hey, for one last time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AXB4O3851k

That's exactly how I feel. Most of my really strong memories come this decade, it seems pretty much like my entire life. I am really worried about the future though. With this economy I have no idea how I will get a job with a history degree when I graduate in two years.

I have a history degree too!!

And Dale, teachers are NOT always needed. In this and the surrounding areas, there has been a teacher hiring freeze for the last year and a half.

I didn't say that you wouldn't have to relocate. There have been a lot of hiring freezes. The fact remains, however, that schools will ALWAYS be around and therefore teachers will ALWAYS be needed.

Y'know, I did find a site that would let me teach English in Japan for only $5,000. If I had that kinda money i'd be on a plane so fast...

That's my plan once I graduate, probably not in Japan though.

Rosalind wrote:

Right now, you need a couple of years experience to be able to get a job stacking shelves. Im not even joking. People can afford to demand a year or two experience in EVERY field, leaving uni graduates out the loop. I graduated last summer and I haven't been able to get a job so much as pulling a pint or cleaning a floor. It is getting better, but that doesn't help me much now.

That's what I found out this past summer. I don't have any work experience, because I never needed to work during high school, and now that I actually need a summer job, it's almost impossible to get one. Even the local grocery store didn't call after I turned in my application. Hopefully it'll be better this summer