The View Through The Branches

Incoming:

totally non-WoW related, subjective, stereotypical post about my choices in men. I will try not to get too graphic.

I am 23. I had my first boyfriend when I was 14. He was 17. I remember, very awkwardly, my first kiss. My Italian wasn’t up to much at that point, and his English was non-existant, so through a variety of friends we ended up kissing. Not literally, they weren’t all like, stood in a line…

Anyway. We went out together for about 9 months, and I dumped him, face to face, but through the gate blocking our garden off to the rest of the street, cos he freaked me out a bit.

I was then boy free til I was 17, and I lost my virginity to a Sid Vicious look-a-like (I had a bit of a thing for him) who said, “the magic has come!” when he did. We dated for about 6 months.

Then I moved back to the UK, and went to uni, had a couple of unfortunate one-night stands and ended up, when I’d just turned 20, going out with a guy a fair bit older than me – 28. He was a musician, owned his own recording studio and we fell in love quite fast. He was lovely to me for the first 9 months or so, but then things turned sour and he became quite nasty. I discovered, after we broke up – he broke up with me and I spent 6 hours snotting and sobbing over my then best friend, Will – that he’d been abused as a child. He’d been in therapy when we first got together, but had stopped going because he thought, having been with me, he’d been “fixed”.

Obviously, these things aren’t “fixable”, and it had changed his personality quite dramatically.

I then went through a string of rather odd boyfriends/friends-with-benefits, including Will, who has pink hair, and Remi, who was French.

Since then I have also dated a pair of Mikes and one Stephen, and, of course, Aaron.

I have discovered, over the past 9 years, that there are a variety of factors which affect my relationships, and there is no way any relationship is going to function if one of these is unfulfilled.

Using exec-speak, I presume this is because these four values are related around things like “ambition”, “family values” and other such terms which one presumes need to be compatible in order for something to work long term.

These are, as follows:

1. No Children.

I have all the respect in the world for people willing to take on somebody else’s children. However, having dated two men who both have children – one who say him every other weekend/Wednesdays, one who had sole custody – I’m afraid to say I can’t do it.

Time to admit a shameful fact. Although I would like 1 or 2 of my own one day, I don’t like kids. I don’t like babies. They don’t make me “coo”. They just seem to scream, shit and scream some more. I avoid it when people bring small children into the office. Like, I physically move somewhere and hide in a toilet so I don’t have to pretend I think they’re awesome.

So, going out with someone with a child? It’s a no-no. I think the turning point was when one of my child-carrying exs said to me, “do you ever say you have a son?”. I was like….wait, wtf? No freakin way.

I’d like to repeat – major props to the people who DO take on and love other peoples children. It just isn’t for me.

2. Education

This is kinda a bit difficult. I’ve got an International Bacc (equivalent to A-Levels), and I’m nearly half way through my OU degree. I’ve been very lucky in that I’m well travelled, my parents have always been very pro me learning and discovering and understanding and I’ve always done a lot of reading and research myself from a young age.

However, I’ve been out with three men who haven’t had their GCSEs, let alone their A-Levels or any higher education. Now I don’t know about the rest of the world, but in my social circles, in my generation, that’s pretty rare. All three of the people I dated who had no further/higher education were both anti-further/higher education, saw no value in it whatsoever. All three were unemployed, had no interest in gaining employment and were derogatory of my opinions on further/higher education.

Education here also links to real life education. Being open to ideas, opinions that differ from one’s own, travel, culture, new experiences, and most important the fact that everyone is entitled to an opinion. None of these men had these characteristics either.

One of them used to actually shout me down every time I voiced an opinion (he was of the “they turk our jawwwwbs” type of person, so essentially anti-immigration, let’s “throw everyone out” of Britain, etc etc. Once I realised he was a total bigot and an arsehole, and after he’d actually shouted at me in the street in the middle of Manchester because I was pro-the smoking ban, I dumped him).

So for me, both a basic level of education, which shows ambition and a desire to progress in life, as well as open-mindedness and a willingness to explore, are essential characteristics in a life partner.

3. Employment

This is kinda summed up as above. I believe relationships should be equal. I have no objection to being the breadwinner or not being the breadwinner, but I think that sharing, contributing and having equal says in your lives are inportant.

My mother also always taught me to make sure I was skilled enough to manage on my own, and that should anything happen, I wouldn’t be left stranded. I will always be capable of working (I hope), and be able to work. And want to work.

A good work ethos is important because it means for a more equal, happier household. I’d also like to be able to stop work when I have children, for at least enough time to get them settled somewhere. I’d like to be a working mum (I think? who knows), but I wouldn’t like to feel forced back into work.

4. Social Skills

This one is a bit of a recent discovery. I never considered myself particularly social. I’m a bit grumpy, I don’t like the majority of people.

However, social skills are clearly essential.

If I’m going to spend the rest of my life with someone, they need to be able to do the following:

1. Chat. To my friends. To my family. MAKE conversation. MAKE an effort. Converse. Not be a total numpty. Be able to ask questions, answer MORE than monosyllabically. Be social for the LOVE of God.

2. Be able to make a good impression. I’ve always been good with meeting parents. I’m good at talking, I have a lot of redeeming qualities in the eyes of a parent (good job, education, attempts to better myself, yadda yadda yadda, basically all the boring shit no MAN actually wants, but his mother does). It’s important to me that the person I’m with is also capable of making a good impression.

3. Understand basic social etiquette. Eating? Yea, it requires a knife and a fork. You don’t just shovel with your fork. You use both. You don’t slurp off your spoon. You CUT, you MOVE on to your fork with your knife, you PLACE in your mouth.

Seriously, is it that fucking difficult?

4. Walking. Manage to put one foot in front of the other without continuously falling over, tripping, falling off pavements or generally making a dick of yourself.

Also under this list comes not constantly sniffing (there’s nothing more annoying in the world than constant sniffing).

Now. Sometimes, we find ourselves lucky enough to chance upon someone we think is perfect for us.

I have, in the past, launched into relationships with reckless optimism on the presumption that they might be “the one”, so I’ll give it a good go and see what happens. It also means I break up with people quite quickly because I don’t see the point of continuing a pointless relationship.

I am OCD, and I do plan, and I like my routine, and I am probably the LEAST impulsive, least reckless person you’d ever meet. The fact that I’m embarking on one of the biggest relationship ‘things’ you ever do soon is a big deal for me.

But it feels right and hopefully it will be right. I am the eternal pessimist – for me to be feeling like this is right and feeling like I’m set for life, for wanting to settle down. I’m thinking, this is right.

I’ve actually found someone who ticks list numbers 1,2,3 AND 4, and he’s fit, AND he fancies me. Surely I’m on to a win win situation.

And here endeth my utterly pointless post about my relationships. Apologies for sticking it up but I am very….happy, which is strange, and excited, which is strange. And truly looking forward to the future, which is even stranger.

I feel like the luckiest girl in the world, you know who you are and I’d like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for not only what we’ve had so far, but for the next 60 years.

Cos, you’re dying first, you used to smoke. Make sure you leave me everything in your will.

Here’s to us!

Please feel free to leave encouraging comments and notes about your own marital bliss to add to this hmm?

Sophx

I was getting in to one of those debates on MSN earlier which I probably shouldn’t have been doing.

It resulted in me writing a list of the things I wanted to achieve before I died. I even (here’s the OCD coming out right here) had a rough age at which I wanted to have achieved most of these things. Worryingly, most of the age limits are “30″. Unless I miraculously become a millionaire, it’s highly unlikely these are actually going to happen, but hey, it’s worth a bit of ambition hmm?

Here is my current list of things to do before I die (separated into handy categories!, along with some sort of…”you must really do this more often, Soph”

Personal Image:

• Be a size 14/my average BMI (whichever comes first) – for info, I started ‘losing weight’ on 15th June 2010. Since then I have lost 11.5 lbs (5.2 kg – far less impressive in kgs) of weight. It’s a long and slow process but I will get there! I have 5st 3.5 lbs (33kg) left to lose.

Fun:

• Be able to beat any man ever at Mario Kart – I have a seriously large competitive streak. Mario Kart 64 is my game. It is what I excel at.
• Read all of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die – since gaming took over my life (ahem), I’ve found that I don’t read enough. I have this book of books, and I really want to actually READ some of them. I do not know enough stuff, basically.
• Visit the cinema once a month – I love the pictures, but I never go, or ever get to go. I need to actually start GOING occasionally.
• Hold a season ticket for the theatre – why will nobody go to the theatre with me? Everyone’s so bloody miserable. The theatre is AWESOME.

Travel:

• Fish off Jersey/go sea fishing – I don’t eat fish. I don’t like fish. But for some reason I’ve got this desire to go sea fishing. Like, on a proper boat and stuff. I’d throw the fish back and everything. I just wanna…go fishing.
• Visit Egypt – I want to ride a camel.
• Visit Longleat – I realise this isn’t that far away, but you try and find someone willing to drive all the way to Longleat JUST to look at some animals.
• Tour America - I’d really, really like to pack up all my cliches, get in a camper van and spend 4 or 5 weeks just driving round America, seeing all the things I want to see and experiencing all the different things the country has to offer.
• Visit the Galapagos Islands - I want to go and chill out with some iguanas and tortoises before they all get made extinct.
• Visit Whipsnade – as above with Longleat!

Money:

• Own my own house/flat – with a mortgage? without a mortgage would of course be ideal, but really I’d just like to have somewhere to call my own. debate about mortgage courtesy of @velidra!
• Be earning a comfortable wage – and by this, I mean being able to afford one nice foreign holiday a year, and being able to shop at Marks & Spencers at the weekend, and not to have to worry about what I put in my shopping basket. I don’t wanna be loaded, I’m far too logical for that. I’d just like to be comfortable.

Family:

• Earn enough money to support mum & dad - my family have done so much for me. I hope that when they get old(er), I can at least help them in some way.

Sport:

• Do a bungee jump - something I’ve wanted to do for a long time!
• Go Zorbing – as suggested by @mysterybutton – this looks like the most awesome. thing. ever.
• Learn to horse ride – I’m doing this now. I’ve been riding for over a year and I love it. 7-8 on a Monday night is the BEST hour of my week. It’s the only time I’m totally happy, totally care free. I want to be able to jump properly, to be able to ride more confidently, and to be able to maybe one day do a little course – maybe an amateur show jump, or an amateur cross country. Something small. But my God, what an achievement that would be.
• Learn to scuba dive – This is another one of those things I’ve “always wanted to do” but never quite sure why…

Work:

• Get a Ba(Hons) History - I’m currently nearly halfway through my degree. It’s tiring, it takes willpower, and effort, and sometimes time I just don’t have. But if I can actually get it it’ll help my career more than anything else.
• Get promoted again – I’ve already been promoted once whilst working here, cos I work my arse off. I’d like for my work to be recognised again at some point and hopefully gain further promotion.

I think this is one of those questions that’s probably been asked and answered many, many times, but it’s something I like to come back to. I look at Elsen, with her never-changed hair style or colour, her body shape I am so used to seeing, her in tree form, occasionally, slightly disturbingly, her in battle chicken form.

Playing her feels like second nature.

It feels like second nature to drop into cat and hit Dash after a wipe and a reentrance into ICC, secretly racing all the other druids back to the boss (I spent two hours wiping on heroic PP last night, bare with me if my mind is a tad squiffy today). How many other druids do that? I bet it’s almost all of you.

Elsen was born on January 1st, 2008.

I don’t know if I’ve told this story before, but I actually played World fo Warcraft for ten days before that, on the trial. I had read about some people playing it on a now-defunct music forum I used to post on, and decided to give it a go.

I downloaded it, I started a human mage – I liked magic, and I liked being a human, and I liked being able to make someome look pretty. I called her “Sophierach” – I had no understanding of character names.

I made my way from Northshire Abbey, pootled around Goldshire, and then I had to log off. Goldshire was busy, and I was having serious problems logging off. How do I save my game??? I was panicking…

I ended up talking to someone sat on the ground with <AFK> above their head. They didn’t respond. I thought they were very rude. Some kind soul eventually said to me – they aren’t at their keyboard. And you don’t need to save – you just log out.

Apprehensively, log out I did.

I ended up making it to level 16 (no talent points spent, no gear upgrades), and one day logging out in Westfall and going to PC World to buy myself the full game. Home I came with the battlechest, and I typed in my code.

Cannot be authorised – incorrect region.

Yes, I had in fact spent the past 10 days playing with the Americans. No wonder there was never anybody online when I was.

So, I started from scratch. I reinstalled the whole game, and in the Battle Chest box my games had come in, there was a game guide. A double page spread on each race, information on all the classes…perfect for me to make an informed decision. So, in the many hours it took the game to install I chose my character.

1. I had just done the first 16 levels as a human. I didn’t want to do them all again – that knocked humans off the list.

2. The horde were dead (forsaken), ugly (orcs), animals! (tauren) and had TUSKS (trolls). Blood elves were an option but that meant I’d have to play with the rest of the horrible crowd. Alliance it was.

3. draenei…wtf? No thanks.

4. Gnomes + Dwarves. Let it be known I have only dated a man shorter than me once. He was only shorter than me by an inch but it caused major problems. I realise at 5ft7 I’m pretty tall for a girl, but seriously – I can’t deal with short things. Gnomes and dwarves – both out.

5. That leaves me with night elves – not too bad, if it wasn’t for the massive fuck-off ears and glowing eyes, they look almost human.

So I knew I had to be a night elf.

How did I choose my class?

My options were a priest, a hunter, a druid, a rogue, or a warrior.

1. I don’t like “fighting” per se. Big swords and stuff…not really me. I liked magic n shit like that. Zelda, that sort of thing. Bye bye warrior, bye bye rogue.

2. the pet mechanic…wtf? totally confused me. bye bye hunter.

3. starts to read up on druids….”I GET TO BE A KITTY CAT? OMFG AWESOME ROLL A DROOD”.

So, I choose a druid.

Elsen was born.

I’m looking at the character creation screen, and thinking – fuck me them ears are big. I need hair that’s going to COVER those as much as possible. Long hair, no ponytails, nice and girly going down her back.

Blue? Green? nah…I need something more person-like – silver/grey. That’ll do.

Now…a name. She looks kinda…vikingy. Let’s give her a vikingy name. *Opens Tamora Pierce book reading at the time. Sees the name Elsren for a boy. Let’s make that a girls name…*

And she’s stayed that way. Elsen is now, as Elsen was on 1st January 2008, when I clicked whatever button it is you start with – Start Game or whathaveyou.

And I watched the starting sequence, and got thrown into killing nightsabers, wandering around Teldrassil et al.

Els levelled as balance, and from roughly 20-45 levelled alongside two feral druids I met in Darkshore. I gave the healz, they did the pewpew.

“Old school levelling” – you know, where you meet people and do stuff together. It was awesome.

I think I’ve said before, Elsen has truly developed a personality as time has passed, but mainly in that she’s become very much like me. Although I have a human character, and a space goat, and others, it’s only when I hear Elsen’s combat noises/vocals/spell not ready yet etc that I really pay attention.

I was levelling my pally through Zul’Drak over the weekend and kept wondering what girly human kept squeaking. Then I realised it was my girly human.

It is when I play Elsen that I play ‘myself’. On Sapph, or the others, I have…a part of me in there somewhere, a little bit of me, but they do, over time, take on their own little mini personalities, own little mini backstories.

I’ve spent so much time with Els ove the past 2 and a half years that she has truly become like me, she is me in many ways and when I log back on to her it’s like coming home.

I don’t think I could ever swap mains. Whatever they do to druid healing, I’ll always be a druid, and I’ll always be a healer. I’ll always be Elsen, with Elsen’s back story, Elsen’s achievements, Elsen’s gear, Elsen’s vanity pets, mounts, bank full of shite, Scepter of the Shifting Sands, eclectic collection of old tier gear, slightly cynical looking stare, very occasionally changing facial tattoos, Elsen’s preference for a horse over a nightsaber, and every other little quirk she/I/we have.

World of Warcraft is a strange thing. It has masses of social stigma attached to it still. I don’t know anybody IRL who games like I do. Friends of friends, occasional other people I have a slight bond with over ‘gaming’, when boys are on that, “would you like me more if I played WoW” thing they pick it up for a bit…but I still feel very much an outcast.

I think throughout my entire life I’ve been/felt like an outcast – at school I hated stereotypes. I hated people that tried to fit in. I hated the fact almost my entire year at school smoked pot just because 6 months earlier we’d had a new kid and he did it and he was cool. I was quite happy spending my lunchtimes and break times working in the library. My mum was the school librarian – I ate with her if I could do in order to avoid my peers. I knew most of the teachers on a first name basis.

I got bullied consistently throughout school for being overweight – Shrek, Fat Mountain amonst other names and whatnot. They really, really hurt. I left school and spent an utterly awful year at university doing a course I didn’t want to do in a subject I didn’t enjoy. I was surrounded by superficiality, nasty people, gossipy, bitchy girls. I made one real friend, who I still know now, and who I hope to see again soon (after having not seen her for like, a year).

But then there was Warcraft. Through Warcraft I have met people who have appeared, and disappeared. I met a man called Dan who I will always look up to and worship as both my temporary psychiatrist and someone who always gave me sound advice.

I saw marriages fail because people used Warcraft to find other partners, I saw guilds fail because people fucked people they shouldn’t have fucked. I made a couple of stupid mistakes myself that’s for sure. I’ve given my all, my whole being to a set of people only to feel totally worthless, and then I’ve moved on. I mean…I miss Nyo, and my other friends from Flames, but there’s not a lot I can do about it.

And of course, I met Zal, who is my best friend, my confidante, my agony uncle, my saviour, my lifeline, someone I can depend on, someone I can trust, someone I adore.

It pains me sometimes to see the friendships that I’ve lost, be it, through moving guilds, through people quitting the game, through personal disagreements, but I also love the new friends I’ve made – my new class leader, Dal, a lovely lady boomkin, Thimian, who is fabulous to talk to. My new GM, of course. The people I interact with throughout the days (although apparently my love for Jeremy Kyle has awarded me the nickname “Chav-Chick”, not too sure if I like that one or not…). They are all lovely, and I hope these friendships continue as well.

Warcraft gives me a release school, university and work never has done. People see me for me – my neuroses, my madness, my quirkiness, my total OCD, but also my reliability, my loyalty, my tendency to give something/someone my all, and all the squishy love I’ve got in my heart that I dedicate to my friends and guildies.

My life is a real rollercoaster of emotions. I recently realised that I’d spent 10 months looking after someone, caring for someone, loving them with all my heart and soul, supporting them through all manner of things, only for them to turn round and reject me straight out, yadda yadda yadda (ie, there is more, but it’s boring and your typical story of someone knowing how strong someone else feels for them and using them for their own ends and then getting bored). I sort of came to this crazy realisation that rather than looking after them I was actually allowed to look after myself, and that I was allowed to be important in my life for a change. They didn’t like that, and have been quite nasty in a way I haven’t seen before.

If it hadn’t been for WoW, and mostly for Zal and Dalmont, I don’t know what state I’d be in. They’ve helped support me through it and looked after me through it, and I’m eternally grateful to them for it.

I want to say thank you to them, thank you to all the lovely peoples on Twitter, thank you to all my lovely guildies. And thank you to my readers for putting up with my squishyness, my inconsistent posting, the fact I can talk for hours about absolute shite, and for carrying on reading.

Here’s to three years of Warcraft for me, nearly 6 years for many of you, and to many more years of WoW to come.

Is there anything anybody else can reflect on that WoW has done for them or changed for them since they started playing? Any friendships or relationships that have been forged and since then broken or unbroken? And most importantly – something to reflect on. We may be “geeks”, we may be “nerds”, we may be weirdos that play a computer game. But does it matter, when we get so much pleasure, so much happiness and so much support from not the game that Blizzard has produced, as such, although that is of course a massive source of enjoyment and one I will be very sad to lose, when it finally does go, but support from the people we’ve met, the community we’re growing, and the lives we’re leading?

Yes! That’s Right! I PASSED MY TRIAL!

I am now a full member and raider of Praetorian Guards, of Terenas EU.

So, in celebration, I’m going to do a lovely long screenshot post full of lovely memories over the past couple of months.

There are some from a lonnnng way back but life wasn’t particularly fun filled in May and early June, so there’s just a few from then added with all the glory that’s happened since. So, chronologically, first we have Zal (no surprises there) lamenting about Gunship:

Please note, we’re talking about Zal the fat paladin here, not Zal in real life, who’s actually quite skinny.

Fabulous – when I start to go mad, I mix my words up. Somehow, rather than a three phase fight, we ended up with a three fight phase! Sounds pretty epic to me!

The easily distracted Yanader tries to farm a Hyacinth Macaw. Funnily enough, he got bored.

Someone gets a bit pissy when he’s the only paladin….

For some reason it’s always Zal that makes me giggle the most – I do quite like the idea of a hacker who secretly drives players mad!

Why go all the way outside when you can have a friendly warlock do all your leg work for ya?

Some strudels, you just shouldn’t trust.

Zal tries to level a new bank alt but gets exasperated with the nelf starting zone… gummy nightsabers?

a QQing sponge – snigger.

There was a reason. My mum wanted to see the cat…I’m not really one of those awful people that is always putting their pets on YouTube.

Total faith in my own abilities, as ever!

I was trying to make a joke when I was newly dinged 80 – trying to jovially say, “I don’t stand in void zones”. The two raid leaders who said “but it’s a frost boss” in response to my lighthearted comment “I don’t stand in fire” actually horrified me.

I’m dead classy, me.

The first time FotP attempted the Lich King… the healer channel may have degraded into mindless chitchat.

I was pimping out my druid in the Cenarion set – green furry shoulders and antlers for the win! Way way better than the paladin set!

Sometimes, our flames raid leader used to be a little bit more detailed than was completely necessary…

This is what happens when you look at the same character for three years without changing. When you play something new you get VERY confused.

Baby Spice + Gnome + Pet Biscuit + Kirin Tor Familar = epic win.

South Park + grinding Mana Tombs together for keys for Zal’s rep = slight insanity sets in.

That’s me told for whinging about money…what’d it be like with an alligator hmm????

To put into in to context, he nearly died in Escape from Durnholde cos he pulled the pack whilst I only had one leg in my tights whilst getting changed. Hopping across the room to save a paladin whilst having one foot in and one foot out of tights is NOT EASY.

And then I joined PG. Since then things have changed massively. My WoW experience has changed massively. I am constantly absorbed in what I’m doing. Things are new, and exciting. As I posted earlier today, me and Zal have become PvP fiends. Well, he already was one. Now I am a slightly inferior one. Very inferior! But anyway still awesome. Since I joined PG I have experienced:

Algalon – on 25 man. For a guild first:

I also got to watch one of our guildies complete the quest:

I have also been part of some other very exciting bits and pieces, such as:

Killing one of our poor guildies (thank you Manda <3 ) 179 times for Halaa tokens for our mounts… a team of 3 boomkins and my favourite pally:

Since joining PG, I’ve had the chance to work my way through some of the Ulduar meta-achievements, leaving me just Firefighter (blergh), Saronite and Yogg + 1. I’ve been desperate since the place was released to really go back and explore, and I’ve really enjoyed doing that recently. Fabulous stuff.

My happy times with my Zal continue withe the creation of RealID:

he’s got no faith in me does he? bloody paladin.

And then, there was this amazing day:

Me and Zal, back under the same guild tag again. That’s what makes PG even better. It’s an amazing guild, with an amazing selection people, and now my amazing best friend.

Since then the good times in PG have continued:

I got to defeat Halion,

Progressed further through ICC on heroic on 25 and 10,

Had some serious giggles,

took the piss our of a Geordie (it’s got to be done, thanks Thyphs!)

And of course, completed one of my other major goals of the game:

Die to…

then defeat…

The Lich King!

THANK YOU,

Praetorian Guards, their fab guild leader, officers and of course Dal my class leader for accepting me into your ranks

This is an amazing guild. I love it.

I hope I am happy here and can make people giggle and have fun and contribute to the amazing success they have already achieved.

Fabulous.

Long live Praetorian Guards – onwards and upwards!

No, not my trial.

But my website. The past 4 months I have been redesigning, recreating from nothing, and building up the website for my workplace.

And finally, it’s complete.

And god dammit I’m proud of it. Some bits probably don’t work yet, and these things are never perfect, but from what we USED to have, I’m genuinely really, really proud of myself.

I present to you, the University of Salford, Careers & Employability.

(PS, if I pass my trial I have the most AWESOME months worth of screenshots and warcraft news to compile in to a post. Get ready for a seriously over excited Soph if I pass!!)

Where were we last time I did a new-guild update?

*goes to look at own website because cannot remember what bloody day it is*

Firstly I want to say a massive thank you to all of you for your support. I know those that have followed me for a while have followed my own very public…squishyness.

You all saw me gush at how wonderful Mike is – to only realise that maybe some people have always been single for a long, very conclusive list of reasons which aren’t my problems to fix, to be brutal.

I’m 23. I want to enjoy myself and my life, not look after someone else.

You’ve all seen me come to terms with my own anxiety, and start counselling. Last Thursday, my counsellor said she truly believed I’d turned a corner. I’d started to realise that…a lot of the reasons I was unhappy were, whilst not necessarily completely my own doing, I hadn’t done anything to stop them, or to fix them.

I’d let myself be unhappy. I’d let myself be upset, let myself be backed into a corner and let myself be put upon because it gave me an excuse to be unhappy.

However, things are a-changing.

I have now been on a calorie counting diet for two weeks, and have lost 4 lbs. I don’t know what that is in kilos. It’s not a lot, but it’s a good start.

I have a list of objectives in my diary for every day of the week, and I try and do four to six of those objectives every day. I’ve started small. “Make my own lunch” is on the list, for example. As is, “Netherwing dailies”. I’m giving myself lots of little things to tick off – my mind likes that system. Same as my mind likes being able to type exact calorie numbers into a database and have things worked out for me. I’m a bit OCD like that.

I’ve turned a corner.

If I’m upset – I’m fixing it.

I’m unhealthy – I’m fixing it.

My game experience was bad – I’m fixing it.

From somewhere, as well, I seem to have acquired a boyfriend. That bit sort of snuck up on my unexpected, but I’m going with it so far! It does mean getting my passport stamped, visa acquired and every jab possible everytime I cross the England/Wales border to visit him, but…ya know, I’m dealing with it.

So, on to that game experience

Since 1st July, I’ve done some lovely raiding. Thursday was quite a relaxed night for me – an off night. I did some dailies, wandered about Azeroth and chatted a lot. Listened in on Teamspeak and absorbed some more tips and whatnot.

Friday we steamrolled through ToC and VoA as per usual. I also went into Molten Core and dinged revered. Now. Here’s a query for you all. I am now 1005/21000 with the Hydraxian Waterlords.

One boss run of Molten Core nets me 1050 rep. I need 20994 rep to hit 999/1000. That is 20 runs of Molten Core. That means one run every week for 20 weeks will take us to 24th November 2010. We all know Cataclysm is going to be out before that.I know the last 1000 is impossible so for now let’s just concentrate on me hitting Exalted.

What do we think is going to happen to Molten Core? I know Raggy’s off for a wander to the Fire plain thingies. But will the instance die? What will happen to the reputation faction? I’m going to try and do an MC every month, because even if I can’t get myself all the way to exalted, I’d like to get myself as far through revered as possible.

Any speculation? Does anybody actually KNOW the answer definitively?

Anyhow. I had awful internet problems for a lot of Saturday, however on Sunday we raided again.

We did Deathwhisper on normal, Lootship Heroic, Saurfang on normal, and then Valithria Dreamwalker on heroic.

Now THAT was a fight. That was a hard fight. Luckily, oh oh oh so luckily, I got to stay outside. We had a few wipes but we managed it. I’ve never, ever gone oom in that fight, ever, and towards the end I was literally waiting for my trinket to repop, for my mana to creep up for one more rejuv, just clinging on depserately.

And we did it.

Valithria Dreamwalker on heroic.

I’d be interested in any tips from anybody who’s done this a few more times than me, here’s the basic info:

Although the night wasn’t great for the guild – they’ve progressed much further than this and done a lot more on heroic – I had a fabulous time. I feel like I proved myself to be decent. I feel like I did my job, and although I ran oom, I know both the shammy and the holy priest who were outside did too.

I certainly felt, after Sunday, one hell of a lot more confident about my abilities to pass my trial than I had done the week before.

That’s when things started going wrong. Last night, after a fabulously lovely long walk with Jess (the bezzie), her mum, and three mad dogs, I got home to find a totally deceased internet. Latency varied from 5.5k, to 1.7k, to 2.5k, ms. That’s in between a 2 seconds and nearly SIX second lag on cast times. That would be a wild growth applied and expired before I would see it get through. I spent 90 minutes on the phone to BT, I had to cancel arena (Sorry again chaps ), and I couldn’t sub in when needed in the guild’s raid.

HOWEVER! The 90 minutes with BT seemed to fix things enough to play with, so I’m hoping to actually get something done tonight, and get some proper gaming done.

I might get a chance at an ICC10man tonight, which would be quite nice.

So yes! In summary, I am most definitely feeling more confident about my trial than I was.

Which is good.

Before I leave you, I’d like you to watch the below video.

I don’t know how many of you know about Ikea. And about Ektorp sofas. But as you can see by this lovely advert, the sofa covers are washable.

I have TWO cats, and one puppy. One of my cats, the siamese, likes to sit in the soil in the garden, then sit on the white Ektorp sofa covers.

But it’s OK, right? That man! He split tea, and they’re WASHABLE.

But let me tell you this. Try and get the FUCKING covers back on after you’ve washed them is physically impossible. I spent 45 minutes last night struggling to get the (yes by the way, mud does come off, they were as good as new) fucking covers on. FOURTY FIVE MINUTES. All that had been achieved was that I was very red and very sweaty and very exhausted. I had the two back corners on, and one arm. But the other arm would not go on.

So I gave up, put the cushions on and threw a blanket over the uncovered arm.

My dad gets back from a fortnight in Italy tomorrow. I’m going to see how long it takes him to notice.

Adieu,

Soph

I’m currently working on a super special project that’s nearly ready to launch which unfortunately takes me away from the proper blog for a week or so.

I will probably back write and post the tourism once I’m done but this is currently taking priority!

I just want to say a MAJOR thank you to all the people who commented on my guild ranks post, I loved reading them and will respond properly when I have time!!!

Thanks,

Sophx

There’s no right or wrong answer here really.

When is it appropriate to post about your opinions on your guildies, your friends and your life? I read a blog post a few days ago, I forget by who, about how they just don’t want to read about personal information in blogs.

They would unsubscribe, apparently, if there was too much squishy shit in the blog to read. My blog is full of squishy shit. My subscriber numbers don’t really go up or go down. In fact they’ve been at the same number for some time really.

So I figure the people that read here don’t really care how much squishy stuff they get. Some, who comment, are very kind to me when I’m down – they give me virtual hugs and just by stopping by they make me feel better. I mean that, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

So, incoming squishiness. If you don’t want to read squishy, then just skip it.

My anxiety varies between really really bad, and fine. I am trying to write down my thoughts and my anxiety and whatnot in a lockable diary, to get it…out of my head and on paper, in the hope that releasing it from my mind would make it easier to deal with. But sometimes it doesn’t work.

But my anxiety plummets into a kind of depression sometimes, because I’m quite (read: incredibly) lonely. I broke things off with Mike last Wednesday, because out relationship was making me more stressed out and upset because unfortunately, well, we just weren’t a good fit for each other. We make very good friends, but a not-very-good couple. I need things Mike can’t provide.

So, although I know I broke things off for the right reason, it simply makes me more lonely. My best friend got a new job, so her time is mostly spent at work or with her boyfriend (understandably) leaving me with the company of Warcraft and my ever expanding menagerie of pets. I love my ‘internet friends’, I truly do, but I am one of those people that craves physical contact and physical attention. One of the major things I miss about my friend Aaron having a girlfriend who wishes to smite me down off the planet with a big…smitey stick (again, understandably due to our history), is that I don’t get any hugs and cuddles and whatnot anymore.

(horrendously unattractive picture of me but quite a sweet one of the two of us)

Getting to see him last week for what was probably the last time – due to the girlfriend of the smitey stick, was bittersweet. He gave me hugs and made all the pain of the week before float away, but then he was gone and I was feeling even worse.

So the companionship I get from Zal, and the others, is so gratefully received, but sometimes you just need someone to give you a hug and go for a walk or to the pub or something…

So I am quite down at the moment. The worst bit is I’m crying all the god damn time. On the way to work in the car, sat at my desk, I’m just a big squishy weepy mess. Although I don’t actually cry, I just get that tight feeling in the back of my throat and concentrate on something til it goes away.

The one thing I have come to realise over the past few days is that however much of a cliche it is, is that I really need to start liking myself. Because at the moment, I don’t even like myself slightly. Not one tiny bit. And even me, in my twisted sense of mind, can see that that ain’t a good thing.

There are some great things in my life though. Warcraft wise, we hit 1400 rating in our 5v5 team yesterday, my priest dinged 43, one of my best in game friends got made raider, I’m working my way into the flask market and trying to make a bit of cash.

In real life, of course, the puppy has arrived. This is my puppy, baby Zal. He’s a lovely lovely puppy and I am very happy to have him. Anyway, sorry for the squishy guys. Sorry for my chunk posting of tourism posts, but at the moment I’m mostly focused on getting through the day, blogging kinda comes second.

I’ve really enjoyed reading the posts people have written about there plans for before Cataclysm, and as we all know I am certainly a fan of lists.

Here’s mine.

On Elsen:

1. Defeat the Lich King. Ten man raid progression is where it’s at for me, and I can’t wait for the equivalency that will be coming with Cata. I hope that our ten man raiding team can take down the Lich King before Cataclysm. We have 9 bosses on farm, can take down Putricide on a good day and have defeated Sindragosa (once…). I know we’ve got a long way to go, but I think the Lich King will die (well, die “more”) before Cataclysm.
2. Get as close as is possible to completing my BiS list. Some are quite unachievable because our 25 man “team” simply doesn’t have 25 members that pull their weight or who are competent players – so I doubt I’ll get my 25 man BiS shoulders, or my BiS staff (Sindy 25). But I’d like to get myself as maxed out on Elsen as I know I can do.
3. Reach a 1550 rating in our 5v5 team. We only get to play about 15, 20 games a week, but we’ve worked our way up to a 1313 rating. I don’t think the 1550 rating needed for the achievements is possible, but I think we might be able to get to 1400 if we carry on doing as we have done.
4. Build a proper PvP set and get “good” at Battlegrounds again. I was quite decent in AV at 70, although I know the way these games are played have changed a lot. I have a basic PvP ’spec’, but I have problems remembering new cooldowns and new buttons and whatnot. But I would like to improve.
5. Reach 8000 achievement points. I’m currently on 7255, with no PvP achievements (really), a lot of reputation achievements to work on and lots of dungeon/raid achievements to work on. I’d like to work on getting my Ulduar Proto Drake, and to completing the Naxx Raider achievements. Things like the rep achievements will allow me to also grab things like extra pets etc. I’d also like to complete Bloody Rare and Frostbitten. This encompasses a lot of my PvP goals, as well, along with a lot of other stuff.
6. Collect all vanity pets available to me that don’t involve real money. This means that at the moment, I’m missing 1 crocolisk, mr. pinchy, the dark whelping, 2 raptors, the sewer rat, mojo, kirin tor familiar, mechanical chicken, little phoenix, and hyacinth macaw. Also missing out on the summer elemental pet, peanuts, the wolvar from childrens week and the nether ray fry.
7. Stockpile 10000 gold. My biggest amount has been about 8k, but I’m back down to roughly 6.5 again now. Levelling my paladin and death knight through Northrend may well massively help with that goal.

On Alts:

1. Level Ellenaie, my death knight, to Level 80, alongside Mike’s paladin Mihr. We make an awesome twosome. Currently level 71.
2. Level Sapphrina, my paladin, to level 80. Currently level 72. She’ll have to wait til Elle is 80 because Elle’s wearing her heirlooms.
3. Level Baeletha to at least 65. I really need to stop being such a DICK and do something about my priest. She’s stranded at level 42, poor thing.
4. Max Leatherworking and Tailoring – currently both at 300 because of the above priest.
5. Spend more time on my warlock – level 15 blood elf sat on Argent Dawn. I would really like to see some of the quest lines from a Horde perspective, and to interact with the Horde side of things a bit more, although I don’t know if an RP server is the best place for me to do that. I would like to get her to a high level just so she could be a maxed skinner and I wouldn’t feel like I’d left a profession not completed, as skinning got dropped when Elsen took up alchemy.

There are lots of other things I’d like. I want to go back to Ulduar and build a Val’anyr. I want to see Algalon. I want to go and finally do the Leeeeeeeroy achievement. I want to collect 100 mounts, clear Sunwell Plateau, reach 40 exalted reputations and reach 5000 honorable kills. I’m not sure if I will complete all my WoW goals because life changes so much.

Real life is, as always, hectic. Work is good – I am a fortnight in front of my schedule on the creation of our new website which should in theory allow me a little more time for touching up and finishing before launch day. I have a very good friend at work I didn’t have 6 months ago.

But due to the fact it’s spring time, my non-specific allergic rhinitis has teamed up with everyone’s old favourite hay fever to cause me more sneezing issues than usual.

It’s horrendously hot here for some reason, meaning I want to be outside but I’m not, I’m stuck in the office, I had a massive lunch and I am therefore lethargic and grumpy.

The doctor officially diagnosed me with anxiety and has given me some tasks to try and help, such as writing my feelings/thoughts down in a lockable diary only I have the key to – which is actually really helping, and I’ve rebuilt some bridges I burnt some time ago, including with an old school friend, an old housemate, and Aaron. I also sorted out some unfinished business with a couple of people. I am learning to deal with my issues and I’m trying to, slowly but surely, fix them.

Most excitingly, I’m getting a puppy.

In theory, if I manage to drive to Carlisle on Sunday, I will be coming home with a wire haired dachshund puppy, who’s about 2 months old. I’ve been doing puppy shopping today, and am just a few items off being ready for his arrival.

I think I’m going to call him Zal – after my best friend who has stuck by me, looked after me, watched over me and loved me despite my thousands of faults.

I will post a picture or two for people to “squeeeee” over when he arrives – presuming he does.

I’m hoping having a puppy and someone to look after will inspire me to turn my life around, make some changes and hopefully do something with myself.

but look

Chinese lanterns with friends from Jess’ (my best friends) mum’s birthday party.

Turned us big kids into little kids again!

Finally uploaded my photos from York with Mike,

And this is my Jess, who rides horses with me and does her best to keep me sane.

I love her