Setting of a Personal Goal

So I was thinking of trying my hand at NaNoWriMo / NaBloPoMo, one or the other.  At first I thought I would probably do NaBloPoMo as it wouldn’t require as much time and effort, but somehow I found myself signing up for NaNoWriMo, just for the heck of it.  I wasn’t sure if I was really going to do it until I read the cute little auto-generated email that goes out with every signup:

1) It’s okay to not know what you’re doing. Really. You’ve read a lot of novels, so you’re completely up to the challenge of writing one. If you feel more comfortable outlining your story ahead of time, do so. But it’s also fine to just wing it. Write every day, and a book-worthy story will appear, even if you’re not sure what that story might be right now.

2) Do not edit as you go. Editing is for December. Think of November as an experiment in pure output. Even if it’s hard at first, leave ugly prose and poorly written passages on the page to be cleaned up later. Your inner editor will be very grumpy about this, but your inner editor is a nitpicky jerk who foolishly believes that it is possible to write a brilliant first draft if you write it slowly enough. It isn’t. Every book you’ve ever loved started out as a beautifully flawed first draft. In November, embrace imperfection and see where it takes you.

3) Tell everyone you know that you’re writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who’ve had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.

3.5) There will be times you’ll want to quit during November. This is okay. Everyone who wins NaNoWriMo wanted to quit at some point in November. Stick it out. See it through. Week Two can be hard. Week Three is much better. Week Four will make you want to yodel.

How cute!  I’m sold.  I’ve always wanted to write a novel… well more of a graphic novel/comic book really.  I usually start out strong with these awesome ideas and then just… peter to a stop.  Having a goal of pumping out about 1,667 words per day no matter what words they are might really get me somewhere.  I’m stoked!  I’ll probably be picking up on this old idea I had:

A heart-pounding adventure full of peril!  Epic battles between the forces of good and evil!  A fearless young protagonist on the cusp of discovery!  Ferocious monsters!  Impossible odds!  Friendships!  Enmities!  Betrayals!  Triumphs!  Awkward dialogue!  Adverbs on adverbs on adverbs!  Reckless switches of past and present tenses!  Very Cheesy Main Character Names!

Well, if I’m not too disgusted with the finished product, if indeed it gets finished, which I’m by no means guaranteeing at all, I might somehow make it available to any interested readers.  Those are some pretty heavy ifs though so it’s a good thing I’m sure nobody’s interested! 

Anyway!  So if you don’t see me blogging much in November, it’s because I’ll be click-clacking away on the road to becoming the next J.K. Rowling / Stephenie Meyer.  <:^D  Wish me luck in not giving up halfway…  >.<

Updates on my excitingly timid life

Hey so I just heard that the Hand of A’dal title is still available if you were on the last part of the quest when 3.02 hit!  ZOMG!!!  Now I just have to find a raid that will take me……..

…which might not be that difficult!!  Ever since the patch hit, I’ve been having amazing luck pugging T5+ raids!  And what’s more, I’ve gone farther with these pugs than I’d ever gone with a guild!  I’ve now completely cleared TK (Kael’thas was cake!  Cake!), got Archimonde down to 65%, and *ahem* cleared 8/9 bosses in Black Temple.  Seeing Illidan for the first time was a bit of a surprise (he’s a lot shorter in person ain’t he?), but still very exhilarating.  You know I always felt sorry for poor Illy… he ain’t evil at all, just misunderstood & really he was the one that got wronged by everyone!  Locked up for so long and all he wanted to do was save his people…  I feel your pain Danny…

xD  Right so anyway, I gotta tell ya, the BT fights were soooo fun.  I especially had a blast during the Bloodboil, Reliquary & Illidari Council fights.  Mother Shahraz- not so much.  Wutta beach!

I almost feel though that we sped through it all so fast & easily that I didn’t get the chance to thoroughly understand the fights.  I used to be really diligent about preparing for new fights by studying strats and watching videos and all that, but I admit those days have passed and lately I’ve just been lazily winging it.  Mostly cos I don’t expect to raid and when I do get in a T6 pug it’s always a random chance opportunity.  To make up for it I listen really hard when the pug leaders explain the fights instead of zoning out (maybe it’s because they’ve explained it so many times, but it often seems that when raidleaders go into Explanation mode their voices automatically go into a deadpan monotone, causing the listeners to go into Math-class-after-lunch-period mode).  Despite it all, I guess I did okay… the only time I notably messed up was in the Mother Shahraz fight (there was a thunderstorm and I got disconnected during the explanation and they didn’t wait for me to log back in before pulling!  Note all the petulant italics expressing my acute displeasure.  QQQQQQQ!!!!). 

Anyway!  So that’s what’s been going on in my life.  My WoW life, anyway.  IRL, hmm you know who’s been kinda sorta insinuating himself into my head these days?  Biggie!  You might’ve noticed his being mentioned here and there in my blog before, but although we’re acquainted in real life (I think I’ve known him distantly since about third grade!), we actually only got to really know each other and became good friends through WoW lol.  Lately he’s taken to texting me constantly throughout the day, and today he kinda-sorta asked me to hang out on Halloween (“Okay how about this. If u don’t feel like going crazy and u have no plans, lets hang out then.”).  Actually I was invited to a couple of parties but I hadn’t planned on going, since I have stuff to do the next morning (I get tired easily these days… another sign of my aging, alas).  But!  Um.  I dunno… I guess I’m nervous.  So I think I’ll go out to one of the parties after all!!  Hehe. 

I had a friend who once admonished me, “I hate girls who play mind games!  Just be straight!”  It jarred me.  I never thought I was playing games… is this a game?  I just get nervous & sometimes I don’t know what I really want, myself.  I don’t want to hang out with Biggie alone.  The party doesn’t sound too bad, and I like dressing up in costumes anyway… Yea this is just an excuse.  I’d probably have fun at the party but I couldn’t really care less if I skipped it.  I dunno.  I really just kinda was thinking about staying home & playing WoW… I dunno what Biggie would wanna do if we “hung out”…

The Lady, the Mouse and the Spartan

Usually when the driver says, “No more seats”, people don’t board the express bus.  The aisles are extremely narrow & basically if you don’t get a seat, it means you’re standing for an hour and a half without the poles & straps that are on local buses. 

The other day, however, it was rush hour & people boarded anyway.  This tired-looking old lady came to stand a little in front of my aisle seat.  I reached automatically for my bag and tensed to get up & offer her my seat… but then I froze. 

You know, I have a problem: I am a fucking mouse!  I’m so fucking timid…  Why did I freeze?  Stage fright?  Did someone glance my way and scare me?  Was it subconscious reluctance to suffer standing for an hour and a half?  I don’t know.  In any case I hesitated for a couple of seconds, and then it was too late to make it naturally smooth.  She stuffed her bag in the overhead compartment and turned her back to me.  Sitting, I was eye-level with her butt.  Thoughts kept going through my head like, Do I pat her leg?  Tug her shirt?  It was beyond my limited courage to make noise to get her attention.  By the time I got my act together (I’ll just tap her on the back!), it was like 5 minutes later and I had a whole new set of timid anxieties to sweat over.  If I ask her now, isn’t it weird?  It’s really late now!  Why didn’t I do it immediately?  Maybe I’ll just sit…  She’s wearing comfortable-looking shoes… Omg I’m such a coward!  Gotta do it.  Wait, at the next light… Now!  Omg, why didn’t I do it??

It was so pathetic!  I sat staring at her with burning eyes for about 15 minutes, my face a rictus of anguished lameness.  I probably could’ve gone on in this pathetically sad way for the rest of the ride & then gotten off all ashamed and disgusted with myself, but in the middle of my stupid useless inner turmoil… I remembered the Spartans.

In my Wikipedian adventures, I once came across a passage in the entry about Sparta that made a big impression on me.  Namely, this part:

“An elderly man was trying to find a place to sit and observe the Olympic Games, as he went to each section. All the other Greeks laughed as he tried to make his way through. Some ignored him. Upon entering the Spartan section all the Spartans stood and offered the elderly man their seats. Suddenly the entire stadium applauded. All the Greeks knew what was the right thing to do, but the Spartans were the only ones who did it.”

Well.  That pretty much closed the deal.  It was funny- with that single thought, all my worries & paralyzing timidity just abruptly got crushed under the weight of ”AM I A SPARTAN OR NOT???”  Heart pounding but with newfound courage, I reached up and tapped her on the back, gestured at my seat & mouthed silently, “YUWANNASIDDOWN?”

Mm. 

Well…

She said no.

I managed to press her like, “Are you sure?”  <– vocally this time.  She was sure.

In hindsight I probably should’ve just gotten up anyway, because honestly, no one would prefer to stand.  But at the time I just acquiesced and sat back, face burning, a little trembly inside, pretty mortified and dejected (after all that!), but still glad.  Glad that I wouldn’t have to slink home knowing I’m a jerk.  Might’ve been 15 minutes late but I still did the right thing in the end! 

It really was all worth it cos at the end of the ride as she was getting off, she came back to me and thanked me again really nicely, embarassing me more but making me feel happy too.  I think next time though I’ll just get up without saying anything, cos then they can’t refuse.

Not to get all self-righteous or anything cos Lord knows all my internal drama wasn’t necessary either, but one thing that sticks in my mind is the two guys on the other side of the aisle.  Well-dressed young businessmen in their 30’s, chatting with each other and playing with their Blackberries.  Never even looked up.  You know… even if you’re rich and successful and fit and got it all, if you can sit all comfortable and carefree with a tired old lady standing right next to you for an hour and a half, you’re actually pretty worthless aren’t you?  Meh I guess I sound pretty preachy for a mouse… but you know what?  I’m a Spartan mouse.  And that is just fine with me.  <=]

Off-topic…

LOL I just stepped out for lunch & look what I saw!

I thought it was just a protest, which is pretty common around here… but upon closer glance:

Ew I thought I got a clear shot but I guess you can’t really see him at all.  It was Ralph Nader!

You know you’re bored when…

…you start taking random cell phone pix sitting at your desk at work.

Tra La La~ Working very hard as you can see

Browsing websites...

Game sites BLOCKED YOU SAY??!?!?!!

Hmm yes, so camwhoring aside, I am no longer raiding with Strategos.  It’s pretty disheartening the way it happened- after I told him I wouldn’t be able to join his guild at least until Wrath, he said it’d be best if we part ways then.  I tried to keep it on friendly terms but he was pretty curt about it: “Okay.  Ty.  Goodbye.”  Sighhhh. 

Luckily I have a lot of things to keep my mind occupied despite no more raiding. 

SO.  Blizzard.  What have you to say for yourself?  Hmmmmm? 

As Biggie put it so succinctly last night, “I just LOVE paying $15 a month for lag!  I love it!”  Snuffles and I were so bored on patch night (you know, the day when nobody could get online & the wow site crashed) we ended up playing Yahoo chess.  In which I kicked his sorry ass, natch.  But yea… Blizz… I’m scared of what’ll happen when Wrath hits if it’s like this now!

You know what really sucks?  NO MORE BONGOS3 / TITANPANEL / GRID!  How’s a girl supposed to live???  So I’m using Dominos now for my bars, which is okay but I liked Bongos better… the minimap configuration IS important, sir!  As for TitanPanel, honestly it’s not that much of a loss EXCEPT that function it had to adjust the… I don’t even know what the term is, but it made everything (unitframes, bars, everything) scale down in size.  Right now no matter how I adjust stuff, everything is just too big on my screen.  /sadpanda

As for Grid, I hear they’re working on a new version and anyway it seems my raiding days are over for now, so that’s okay.  Pitbull has a working version thank gosh so I can do a ZA or Kara at least.  I guess it’s too bad that I’ve become so dependent on mods in order to function… I was literally sitting in IF freaking out over configuration for about three hours last night.  I couldn’t do anything until everything was just so, and I mean seriously feng shui with perfectly aligned angles.  If a bar wasn’t painstakingly 1 pixel apart from another bar, like if it was 2 pixels apart, I went all super-emo-weepy-angsty-insane.  Like you heard of the old fairytale about the Princess & the Pea, who proved that she was a true princess by feeling a pea underneath like thirty feather mattresses?  I’m like, the Princess & the OCD.  I can tell if it’s a pixel off. 

I was very mean to everyone who whispered me to do stuff: “I CAN’T DO ANYTHING MY SCREEN’S A MESS LEAVE ME ALONE YOU’RE MESSING ME UP YOU’RE MESSING ME UPPPPP AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!“  But uhh… 3 hours later it was all okay.  Until I forgot to exit config mode & accidentally moved a bar to a random spot.  =^D

Ch-ch-check it out:  My current resto build (THANK YOU WOW-TOOLS FOR A WORK-FRIENDLY CALCULATOR *happyface*).  I did a Heroic Ramps yesterday… can someone spell E-Z-M-O-D-E?  Honestly, I think the super-fast GCD with Gift of the Earth Mother is actually messing me up a little.  I guess I’ll get used to it though.  The reason I didn’t put 2 points in Imp. Tranquility is cos, well, what with Wild Growth & all, I really don’t see myself needing to take advantage of that faster cooldown, and I’d rather work on getting Nature’s Splendor as fast as possible.

I also spent about 35 gold or so in the new Barbershop.  =x  LOL… sad thing is.. I ended up looking exactly the same!!  I mean… I thought I wanted bright green hair and flashy tats, but once I saw myself from a distance, it just didn’t feel right!  And the purple hair was even worse!  So uhh I just went back to my usual look hehe.  I’ll just consider that money well spent, on the price of learning to appreciate one’s original appearance.  =P

Am I an idiot, or is he an asshole?

Maybe both?  An exchange between my brother & I regarding my desire to apply to Strategos’ guild left me with a lot of food for thought:

ME: Hey Bro, Babyfresh wants to join StrategosGuild. To be honest, I do as well. I really like their organization, leadership, raiding with them, and they have concrete Wrath plans.

BRO: Honestly, I’m getting really sick and tired of your waffling back and forth.  Go join them then.  I’m going to start a war with that friggin guild tho.  Their guildmaster is a shady piece of shit and he was actively poaching you two gullible fools.  He even admitted to Quagmire that he was poaching you guys.   What a scumbag.  I’m calling him out ON his vent and in trade chat.

ME: Omg… We wanted to raid and he let us raid with him. It’d be different if our guild were raiding and he tried to get us to raid with him instead of our guild…. But since our guild isn’t raiding it’d be obnoxious to accuse him for doing us a favor!

BRO: Doing you a “favor” with the SPECIFIC MOTIVE of poaching 3 already guilded players.  That’s not a favor.  That’s a dirty trick.  Especially since all their officers were in on the scam and they were laying guilt trips on you guys.  This is NOT according to me, this is according to Quagmire and [Anonymous].  These guys are scum, making their own guildies sit out so randoms could play, just so they could guilt you into eventually joining.  And you fell for it.  You know, you may have raided a lot in the past 4 months or so, but in reality you’re such a noob when it comes to WoW, it’s not even funny.

He’s scum.  And you’ll find that out eventually when you’re on the OTHER side of seeing him telling guildies to sit out so randoms can take their DKP.

I would never ask guildies to sit on the bench so I could poach randoms. Any good guild leader wouldn’t.  It sets a terrible precedent.  And I’m sure you think he’ll never do it again, right?  If he was any good as a leader he’d have made you guys app instead of spitting in the face of all the guildies who HAD TO APP to get into his guild.

And I like how you put in that they have “concrete” plans on what to do in Wrath, like anyone’s plans for Wrath are ANY DIFFERENT from ours.

I have to lol at this.  Stealing guildies, yes, that’s a HUGE favor!

Well!  I take his words with a grain (more like block) of salt, but still I am a bit disturbed.  LOL the part about me being a gullible noob at WoW really stunned me, and I look back at this post with new eyes and wonder if it was extraordinarily naive of me.  Either I’m to be really naive, or really cynical huh!

Archimonde 2: Judgement Day

Archimonde is fuqqing hard with a buncha first-timers!

Last night we dedicated about 4 hours to Archie attempts.  Our best attempt got him down to about 76%, I don’t think we ever made it to 3 fears.  Despite it all, I’m happy to report that, what with an extremely sweet and supportive pep talk from Angel beforehand (which was especially heartening cos I haven’t seen much of him lately as he’s been raiding Sunwell with his new guild), I performed pretty well!  The first few attempts I admit I did step in a fire or two, but the next dozen attempts I was really on my game.  Top on Decursing AND healing, generally one of the last few left standing.  /beams

Personally I would like to go back and get him down… but somehow I doubt Strategos will ever wanna see Hyjal ever again.  He was getting steadily drunker with each wipe, and can I just say, he makes a mean drunk.  Every time someone died he went kinda ballistic on them, which is understandable because each death really does matter in Archimonde, but still I was like, terrified he was gonna reach through vent and strangle someone.  Or strangle himself in a drunken rage.  He was alternately screaming at people, muttering slurred death threats, choking out garbled wordless howls of fury, and spamming increasingly misspelled raid warnings.  I thought briefly once of Mr. Moderate’s calm, modulated, Jesus-like patience in the face of incomprehensible idiocy & had to laugh.  The funniest thing about Strategos is his accent… I think he must be from Texas or something, he’s got this cowboy accent & occasionally yells things like “Hoo-eey!“  Heehee.

Anyway!  Yea I think Archimonde is loads of fun & I definitely wanna see him downed.  Since Strategos said in definitive tones last night that he would never be coming back there, I might have to look for another way to get back in there.  Angel says that there’s a very elite pug group that regularly full-clears on weekends, so I’ll have to look into that, although he says their standards for invites are pretty high.  Hopefully I can make the cut…

Friends with (raid) Benefits

Sooo… You’re lookin at a BT raider.

Contrary to my expectations, even after being informed that I would not be joining his guild, that retired military GM (let’s call him Strategos) continued to invite me to their raids.  Quagmire, Babyfresh & I have become “part of the family” (quoting his words to me last night :^D), & can always expect a place in his raids, even though we’re in a different guild!  Woot!  And honestly, they did give me a bad first impression, but the more I raid with them, the more I’m starting to like them.  Strategos informed me that he held a guild meeting  last night & everybody’s feedback was unanimous: they considered us “Good people, considerate, top of their classes & eager to raid“.  Heh!  You dang skippy!

So I’ve helped them down Naj’entus & Supremus in BT.  IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!  I love BT.  I also love Strategos… he’s going out of his way to treat us so kindly! 

Like, Babyfresh & I started our Hand of A’dal quest chain.  FYI, the second part of the chain involves a few 25-man raids: you need to kill Fathom Lord Karathress in SSC, then Al’ar in TK, then Rage Winterchill in Hyjal.  Strategos, bless his gallant heart, arranged his whole raid to get Karathress & Al’ar down for us, and I’m sure he’s going to schedule a Hyjal quite soon as well.  And we’re not even in his guild!  It’s too much!  <:^D 

It’s really amazing, I would think that doing so much for non-guildies, or even our constant presence in their raids, would cause grumbling & complaints within their guild, especially since a couple of my friends have won loot from them.  I don’t know if it’s excellent hardcore officer leadership or just an extraordinarily whiner-free compilation of guildies, but they seem to harbor no ill-will at all.  It’s all just really humbling.  Lord knows the little circle of QQing beeches in my previous guild would’ve had plenty to say if our officers had let outsiders become a regular part of our raid & roll on lewtz. 

Not to belittle our contributions to their raid though… I’ve been giving their top healer a run for his money & have become mighty quick on my feet (Boar’s Speed ftw!), which means basically I haven’t died a stupid death in a while & have created kind of an expectancy for being the last healer standing.  And Quagmire & Babyfresh are also consistently headlining the damage meters and, with a little secret bullying, I’ve made Babyfresh get really sharp on summons & soulwells while their own locks sit oblivious, which hasn’t gone unnoticed by the officers. 

So yea, I do believe it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.  But like… Strategos sometimes allows me to bring in some less geared newbie friends out of pure generosity.  I mean, he even benched his own officers once to give my undergeared friends a chance to see new fights.  And they were all so gracious about it!  The benched folks sat on vent and cheered us on instead of complaining about being taken out for lesser-geared non-guildies!  It’s incredible, and just a really nice thing to have found, when I was so bleak and depressed about not having any opportunities to raid in this casual friends guild.  And we found each other so completely randomly, I feel blessed I really do.

<:^]