Over years of texting and communicating through IM, you develop linguistic conventions that communicate emotion even through the impersonal medium of text. For me, an ever-present one has been the ellipsis; it denotes a moment without words. Often it's slackjawed astonishment. Sometimes it's laughter.

Yesterday it was tears.

I've had my head firmly buried in Drupal for nearly two years now, and it's starting to show.  I've come a long way.  My starting point was "I have seen mentions of this software, I do not know what it does, but it might suit our needs."  Since then I've progressed to having built a multi-site install, managed by CVS—entirely on my own.  The development of my knowledge can be traced on my user account on drupal.org; my questions have slowly become more knowledgeable as I've fought my way—solo—through two very difficult conversions/migrations and a few others that were significantly easier.