Author Archives: sandrian

Sunday Gaming Summary #2: Saving Cats and Killing Dragons

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Merry Christmas everyone! It’s a weird feeling that the year will be coming to an end in less than a week. I feel like the past three years have just gone by in a daze for various reasons and I’m back to where I started in 2019: Playing World of Warcraft and raiding with a team of people.

This week we managed to down Raszageth on normal and with that lorewise I’m almost done with the new expansion. I still have some quests to unlock through renown and there’s probably some side stuff that I’ve missed but all in all I’ve done what I set out to do: kill the first big boss of the expansion. Of course this just sets up for the rest of it (spoilers incoming!) where Raszageth may have died but we were too late to prevent the fact that her kin has been freed. I guess we know what to expect for new content though and it involves killing at least three more angry Proto Dragons. We’re actually quite in the dark who the real big bad of the expansion is this time and I have to say it’s a refreshing take. I like to see where the story unfolds next and what the ultimate goal of us returning to the Dragon Isles is. I feel like we’re not done with the Old Gods yet and there have been some mentions of Galakrond that I won’t get into now.

Next to raiding I’ve been steadily working on daily quests, world quests, weeklies and whatever I can do to up my renown with the different factions. In the process I’ve unlocked accelerated renown for my alts and it will definitely help me if and when I decide that I’ve done enough on my Mage and feel ready to put time into my Warrior or another character that I enjoy playing. A lot of the quests I do are really cute and fluff filled, like the one where you have to save animals from a river and a cat desperately clings to your head as you get it to the riverbank. Obviously the best place to dig in those claws right? I’m really in love with all the cute hunting dogs of the Maruuk Centaur and all the ducks that can be found on the island, and the fact you can pet them all! All in all this expansion feels really whimsical right now, inbetween the more serious things going on, and I’m totally here for it.

As far as other games go… I’ve taken a long hard look at the steam winter sale as well as the various other sales going on and decided that I’ll pass on everything except one game for my PS5, namely that being Horizon Forbidden West. I’m getting some Playstation credit through my work Christmas gift and will be buying the PS4 version that comes with a free upgrade to PS5 and it’ll cost me total of €15. Best deal I can get on the game for sure and one that I’m excited about. For now though it’s time to head off and prepare for the four course Christmas dinner that will be served later today. Untill next week!

Sunday Gaming Summary #1

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World of Warcraft is back on the menu. And so am I.

I’ve spent the last three weeks playing Dragonflight. I wasn’t planning to play the expansion. Hell I wasn’t planning to play WoW anymore at all. Yet here I am. I found a new guild to call home with a nice group of people to play with. I’m playing Horde and maining a Mage for the first time since starting up the game back in 2007. My pinky is slowly starting to get tired from all the Ice Lance spam but playing Frost has been a really fun time so far. I’m not sure how long my newfound interest for WoW will last, but for now I’m pretty much invested in both raiding and Mythic+. I like the fact that I don’t feel like I need to log in every single day to remain relevant and I can’t wait for the Mage buffs this coming Wednesday. I hope it brings Frost more in line with other dps because I refuse to learn Arcane. My brain just can’t handle it.

As far as the expansion itself goes. It’s been fun so far. I very much disliked Shadowlands. I hated what Blizzard did with the storyline and how “the Jailer was behind everything that happened up until this point”. I hated the Sylvanas story line. I firmly believe she should have been killed by Tyrande when she got the chance. I much rather would have faced an evil Tyrande than get Sylvanas her “redemption”. But I guess that choice isn’t up to me. Right now this expansion feels very much like Mists of Pandaria did. It’s whimsical, fun and low stress. The big bad, so far, has a clear story about why she is doing the things she does and the story so far has been pretty okay. I’m not as invest as I am in the Final Fantasy XIV story but for Blizzard standards it’s decent story writing.

The zones are beautiful, I love the Azure Span and Ohn’aran Plains a lot. It’s taking me back to TBC era Nagrand and WotLK Grizzly Hills respectively. I like the factions and the fact that I don’t have to grind reputation with them for anything. I want to see how the whole Wrathion vs Sabellion storyline will play out and the Tuskarr have been a very wholesome breath of fresh air. Not to mention the brilliant alternate Murloc timeline and the hunch that we will be dealing with Nozdormu/Murozond somewhere this expansion.

All in all I’m happy to be back. I’ve been pushing some Mythic+ keys this week and got a few 7’s in and our guild has cleared up until Razageth in the raid on normal mode and got a few attempts in on her tonight. The coming week we’ll only have one raid day due to Christmas but I guess we’ll see how far we will get then.

Next to WoW I’ve been playing Pokémon Violet here and there. I picked my starter, Quaxly, and have caught every single unobtained Pokémon I encountered so far. I’m not that far into the game yet because WoW came along and took all of my attention for a while but I hope to be able to pick it up again soon and start working on the various challenges the game has to offer. For now though I’m still finding some sort of balance in what I’m doing between work, social engagements, going to the gym, keeping my apartment clean and playing games. I guess that will always be a struggle. Oh well. Untill next time!

Struggling with Structure

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As part of my healing process I’m trying to add more structure to my days and weeks. I’ve never been a very structured person when it comes to time management. I don’t eat or sleep at set times nor do I plan my days and weeks out ahead. I know what I need to do roughly each week and then just do that task whenever I have the time to do it. I show up on time for appointments and I’ve only been late to work twice in the 6 years I’ve held this job, both times because I forgot to set my alarm the day before and overslept.. And even then I was only late by 30 minutes. When there’s commitments where other people rely on me I’ll block my time in advance and prepare to be on time for wherever I need to be. If it’s somewhere I haven’t been before I’ll look up the route beforehand and calculate when I’ll have to leave.
When I’m mentally doing well I’m normally also pretty organised in my house. Every object has it’s place and I try to keep things as neat as possible (although sometimes when I feel bad or tired things can get a bit messy). It helps me later when I’m looking for stuff that I know where things can be found. Which is the polar opposite to how I grew up in my dad’s household where mess was normal and things would always get lost. That’s probably why I prefer it not to be that way.

However. Outside of work and meetups I’m terrible when it comes to managing my time. Often times I don’t know what to do with myself and waste hours upon hours of just not doing anything I really enjoy. I’m terrible at forming new habits, because I’m bad at sticking to them and then I feel bad because I abandon things not even halfway through. I was committed to doing 10k steps a day and I would go on walks after work every day. I managed to do that for a week and a half and then abandoned it. I can’t count how many times I tried starting a new evening routine only to give up after a week. Or going to the gym, or going swimming or picking up a new hobby. I’d set a time to do X and then just, not do it. I can’t even cook dinner around the same time each day, let alone commit to anything else.

I’ve tried anything from different planners and bullet journals to just making lists each day of the things I want done to setting timers for me to start or stop doing things. I’ve planned my day down to the minute and I’ve thrown everything to the wind and just let it all loose and see whatever happens happens. Nothing seems to work and it’s costing me a lot of energy and giving me a lot of frustration. I often look at people in envy who seem to have their shit together and are able to get up at the same time every day, go to the gym, have a good evening routine and overall seem to have a nice structured life. I desperately want the same and I just don’t know how to achieve it. Even when it comes to hobbies I can’t seem to manage my time between the things I enjoy. I feel like I always just go towards an extreme end of the spectrum and it’s tiresome.

I realise that my depression plays a major part in this as well. I’m so often overwhelmed and exhausted and feeling down that I just can’t seem to pick up anything else. But I don’t want that to be my excuse. My mental health can’t be what defines me for the rest of my life. And so I struggle on, trying to find something that works for me. Eventually I hope something will stick, but for now this is just another thing kicking me down. I can’t even structure my days or weeks right, how am I supposed to get through another 40-50 years of my life like this? I guess only time will tell.

Taking Back My Power: Solo Trip Berlin 2022

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I’ve always enjoyed travelling and exploring new places. Maybe because I didn’t get to do it much when I was younger or maybe because I really enjoy exploring new cultures, places and languages. When I grew up we never really left the country for holidays because my mom couldn’t deal with the long drives and heat of southern Europe. So we vacationed inside our own country instead. Which was fun, but I was jealous of all my classmates going to different countries every year whereas I never crossed the border.

Given your passion for traveling and exploring new places, it’s understandable that the desire to venture beyond your home country grew stronger over the years. The allure of distant lands and diverse cultures is truly captivating. Thankfully, opportunities eventually presented themselves, allowing you to embark on exciting journeys. One such memorable adventure took you to the enchanting islands of Hawaii with LYA Hawaii. The moment you set foot on this tropical paradise, you were swept away by its breathtaking natural beauty, vibrant traditions, and warm hospitality. Exploring the lush landscapes, indulging in local delicacies, and immersing yourself in the unique Hawaiian culture became a cherished experience, fulfilling the wanderlust that had been kindled during your childhood.

Also, I have made up for this from high school onwards. I’ve been to a lot of places within Europe and have seen a good handful of capitals and enjoyed my stays there. Two years of pandemic threw a wrench in the works when it came to travelling and although I discovered Budapest last year, and got to spend a week in Greece, I did miss the freedom of just booking a city trip when I felt like it and leave the country for a couple of days to go exploring. Luckily this is all available again now and as such I’ve picked up my travelling ways again. I’m heading off to New York City in two weeks, my first travel outside of Europe on my own, but I wanted to do a trial run to see if I would be able to handle being on my own in a big city for a couple of days without feeling lonely or bad.
Queue sprs.me a travel agency that will send you to a random city within Europe where you only learn your destination about two hours before you have to be on the plane there. After booking and weeks of speculation where I was going, Lisbon being a prime candidate, I set off last Wednesday and got on the plane to… Berlin.

Brandenburger Tor

I have been to Berlin before when I was in high school. It was the annual outing for 5 VWO (the year and level of education I was in) and I remember the trip fondly. So after being slightly disappointed that I was being sent to a city I’ve already been to I turned it around and decided that I was going to be a proper tourist there. Seeing as for school we had to follow a certain itinerary I couldn’t actually explore the city proper. I made a list of places I wanted to visit when on the plane and tried to spread them out over the three days that I was going to be there. I tried to pack as lightly as I could, seeing as how I had to drag my bag with clothes and toiletries through the city on at least the last day, and I prayed that the weather would be as predicted and I wouldn’t end up with heavy rain on any of my days.

Reichstag

Besides a few hiccups, I had a wonderful three days in the capital of Germany. I was able to be the ultimate tourist and visit all the places that I wanted to. I stayed in a sidestreet of the Kürfürstendamm, the major shopping street of West Berlin, not far off the Zoo and a lot of public transport connections. I travelled to see all the sights, spent a good chunk of my time in the area around the Brandenburger Tor and walked. A lot. I think I covered more than 40km in 3 days time. My feet are still hurting as I type this up, even with an entire day of doing nothing but recovery yesterday.
A lot of places were exactly as I remembered them to be. Checkpoint Charlie is still rather disappointing. Potsdamer Platz is intimidating and, unfortunately, extremely windy if you’re unlucky. Unter den Linden is a beautiful boulevard. The Fernsehturm is visible from every spot in Berlin and seeing the amount of tourists in the city it was as if the pandemic never happened.
I don’t think I can accurately put into words how much this little holiday empowered me as a person. I’ve come back with so much more confidence in myself and how competent I am at handling stuff. I was able to enjoy this trip my own way without having to take someone else’s preferences into account. I could be as slow or fast as I wanted travelling through the city and seeing the sights. I could sit somewhere for an hour if I wanted to and not feel bad about it. I got over the hurdle of being embarrassed of sitting at a restaurant by myself and was able to enjoy meals and drinks on my own. When I would get tired in the evening I would just end the day and go back to my hotel and rest. If my feet were starting to hurt I could sit down wherever and for as long as I wanted. I decided what I did, when and where and it was exactly what I needed in my journey of healing right now. Of course I would miss someone to be physically present and enjoy things with me. I like having people around and I did miss some company, but only when I had winded down for the day or when I was sitting down somewhere with no real form of entertainment for longer than 10 minutes.

Rotes Rathaus

I also took a few learnings with me for when I fly out to New York in two weeks. First take a powerbank with me to be able to charge my phone during the day when I’m out and about in the city, especially on the last day when I can’t go back to my hotel. I’ve had to deal with my battery draining during the day due to using certain apps to navigate the city and taking pictures and having to go back to my hotel to charge it every single day. Which isn’t that much of an issue but it is when it’s the last day and you have to use your phone as a boarding pass. Second is to take a small form of entertainment with me for when I do sit down somewhere for a while. Time goes by much faster when I would be reading a book or playing a game instead of relying on my phone as only source of entertainment for the entire trip. Lastly, don’t push myself over my limits. Sit down more if needed and take more breaks. I walked a lot in Berlin and by day three my feet were absolutely killing me and I still had to make it home. I think I pushed myself too hard in a way and will definitely be more cautious about this in New York.

All in all though this was a very positive experience and something I will remember as a first step to taking my power back and become the confident woman that’s hiding somewhere deep down inside of me.

Choosing to heal

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World Mental Health Day 2020: Importance of recognising and accepting depression | Lifestyle News,The Indian Express

In March I have been diagnosed with a Major Depressive Episode. It didn’t really come as a surprise to me but it had been camouflaging as a burnout so I guess it tricked me in at least that way. I was feeling permanently tired, burned out, done with life, done with the world. I felt at my lowest of lows after a year where I thought I could finally see a future worth living for. But life has a funny way for knocking the wind out of you and I found myself staring at the edge of the abyss for a little too long.

I’ve been here before. I’ve seen this edge before and I stepped away from it before. But as I find myself to be twice the age I was last time this happened I notice that I don’t bounce back as easily as I once did. Feeling bad had taken over my days and nothing really brought me enjoyment anymore. I had sought help and, even though it took a while to get going, finally managed to get into a trajectory that will help me heal and deal with a lot of issues that have been simmering right beneath the surface. I’ve spent years powering through everything, trying to tell myself that this is how life is, that if I just worked hard enough and did more than what was asked of me and ignore the stress and weariness and pain of life occurences I would eventually get to be happy. To be loved. To finally feel like I was enough.

How wrong that mindset has been.

I’m learning to love myself. To live with myself. To tell myself that it’s okay if things aren’t always okay. I don’t have to be perfect, I don’t have to push myself beyond my limits. I’m worthy of being around, I have value as a person even if I’m not doing that great. I’m choosing to let myself of the hook. To be kinder, nicer to myself. To not work myself to death. To not expect more when I’ve already done more than enough.
I stop holding myself to impossibly high standards, to an expectation of perfection that is impossible to fulfill.

I’m choosing to heal.

As part of this I want to track my journey here. My ups and downs. My victories and days where things just don’t really go the way I want them to. And that’s okay. No one is perfect. No one has the answer to everything. Life isn’t rainbows and sunshines. And that’s okay.

I’m catching up on a lot of travelling this year after being homebound by the Coronavirus for close to two years. I’m setting off to an unknown destination this Wednesday and have a New York City trip coming up in June. I’m going back to concerts and festivals again. I’m seeing my friends, both online and offline, in real life for the first time in years. I want to document it all. But also the struggles with keeping a good rhythm. For finding a schedule that works. Trying to learn new habits. How to treat myself nicer. How I stumble and fall and get back up again doing things outside of my comfort zone.

All of this and more. I hope you’ll be along for the ride.

Status: Life

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Sittting around with my own thoughts for a week has given me the need to write stuff down. I’m not sure why, but maybe I want to take a screenshot of being at my lowest and being able to look back later and be proud of how far I’ve come from this point. I guess a little story is in order about how I got here in the first place…

I’ve struggled with mental health issues since I was a child. I was bullied at school and even though I had friends I always felt a little left out. My dad was a harsh man who worked five days a week so the main parenting was done by my mother. When she passed away when I was 12 it was the start of real mental issues combined with rough teenage years where a lot of emotional and mental abuse happened. I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD aswell as unspecified anxiety disorders later in life. I have abandonment issues coupled with a deeply ingrained feeling that no matter what I do, look like or achieve in life it will never be good enough. I’m thanking my dad for the latter.

Fast forward to 2019. I got promoted at work and was struggling filling the position. I didn’t really have anyone to support me and the work itself was starting to bore me. I had a lot of plans that never really came to fruition because I kept getting dragged into the day to day stuff which I loathed by that point. Then the pandemic hit in 2020. Right before we got sent home in March 2020 I was getting my life a little bit in order again. I visited the gym and the swimming pool multiple times per week to prepare for my 3 week trip to Japan, something I was looking forward to very much. Instead we got sent home, my trip got cancelled and that was the start of the current almost 2 year streak of working from home. I had my Japan trip cancelled again in 2021 and in the meantime being at home all the time was slowly pushing me into a serious depressed state. I missed going into the office, I missed the social interaction and being at home alone just drove me insane. Alas there was not much I could do about it so I turned to online communities a lot to keep me company and lift my spirits.
In the meantime the resentment towards my job grew and I applied for another one without success.

This is where I met my partner in January 2021. Even though there was a lot of distance between us, both in age and in actual physical distance, we decided to take a leap after about a month and a half of talking and became exclusive. I was happy, he was happy and we met up multiple times throughout 2021. In hindsight though little cracks were starting to show and we didn’t attend to them at the time, leaving time and space for them to become bigger and bigger until we had a major argument around New Years Eve. Things were said, things were discovered, we were both majorly hurt. After a lot of contemplation we broke up last Saturday. The differences were too big, maturing needed to happen and there was just too much hurt to be able to fix. I’m right in the middle of grieving this relationship and am feeling angry, sad, relieved and desperate all at the same time.

Unfortunately this was also the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. After resenting my job more and more in 2021, and another failed transfer to another job, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I went to my GP and received a burn-out diagnosis. I’m currently working much less hours and have transferred a lot of my responsibilities to my coworker. I feel tired 24/7 and am just picking up the pieces of a life that I thought would turn out much different than it has. I’m at my lowest point in years and I guess the only way from here is up. I’m not sure yet how I’m going to achieve this, but I don’t want to be silent about it to anyone anymore. I’m done hiding how I’m doing and pretending everything is okay when it isn’t.

So here I sit, trying to rebuild myself from the ground up. I need to be nicer to myself. I need to accept that right now I can’t do all the things I may want to do and be content with the things I can do. I know that I will pick myself up eventually and that this will be one of the biggest learning moments of my life.
Right now though, I’m just tired, lost and left wondering how the hell I ended up here.

New Year, New Look

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Right. It’s been a while hasn’t it. I guess life got in the way again and one of the first things I drop seems to be this blog. C’est la vie. I don’t want to dwell too much on the hows and why’s of me not posting and instead look ahead to this year and all the things it’ll hopefully bring me.
As such I’ve decided to change up the blog a bit. New layout, new background, nice header image. I’m quite happy. It feels softer and more like me.

As you may have seen if you follow me on Twitter I decided last night that it was time for change in Final Fantasy XIV as well. After almost 9 years of playing as a Miqo’te I’ve decided to take a plunge and fantasia’d to Viera. I also threw in a name change, seeing as how my old last name referred to an ex. It feels like a fresh start and that’s something I desperately needed. I’m really happy with the transformation and I hope I won’t miss my Miqo self too much. I’ve found a nice little community in the game with some old WoW guildies and friends and we’re planning to tackle Savage content together eventually, but for now we’re just having fun and poking around everywhere.

I want to write a bit more on the blog and will aim for one post a week (probably on Sunday) as part of me working through my burn-out and establishing more healthy hobbies and activities again instead of only working from home and gaming. For now though I hope you like the new look of the blog and are still interested in hearing my silly stories!

Finally Finished: Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Switch)

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Well. It’s been a while. I have no real excuses of why the blog has been dead besides that I just didn’t have the motivation to keep up with it. But I wanted to share with you guys some of the games that I have been finishing over the past few months, beginning with this one: Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle for the Nintendo Switch.

I don’t even remember when I bought this game, only that I’ve had it sitting on my shelf for a while, waiting to be finished. I think I may have picked it up on a sale somewhere or even paid full price not long after it came out. It was at least one of the games that I had started playing but stalled out in and never picked back up.
I think in my first play through I got stuck somewhere in the second world (out of four, excluding the Donkey Kong DLC) and even though I had a ton of fun with the game I put it down and didn’t look back for a long time. Queue the sequel being announced a couple of months ago and I suddenly got the urge to play the game again. I mean, I did have fun playing it and if I could just get myself to sit down and play a few levels every day I would eventually see the end of it, right?

So that’s what I did. I started a fresh file, seeing as I couldn’t for the life of me remember the story or the mechanics, and set out on a mission to clear at least the main story of the game and the main story of the Donkey Kong DLC. What followed was a 30ish hour playthrough where I completed the main story and went back to get some of the extra things done aswell. As you can see on the screenshot at the top of the post I managed to clear 100% of the levels and I found 100% of the chests in the basegame. In the Donkey Kong DLC I managed to clear the main story and find all the hidden puzzle pieces, but to get all the chest I would have needed to do challenges and I wasn’t up for that so I let it be.

Overall I enjoyed the game. The story was simple but with a lot of hidden gems and humour. The Rabbids weren’t annoying at all but seemed to fit perfectly in the Mario universe. The fights weren’t too hard, although I do have to admit that I used the “easy mode” offer you’d get for every level abundantly. Basically that came down to getting 50% extra health at the start of every fight, which made it a lot easier to get through the levels than without. My favourite world overall, and favourite endboss, had to be the third world. I won’t spoil too much but the boss was brilliantly designed and it was by far one of the hardest fights I had to do. I died a lot there, even with the added 50% health. I never really felt frustrated about having to redo some fights, even though some took me a while to figure out.
There were a lot of mini puzzles to complete and hidden parts of levels, or entirely hidden levels, to explore. The music in the game was amazing and the bright colours just made everything super appealing visually.
I didn’t go back to do the challenges because I was kind of burned out after those 30 hours of playing and I know there’s also a separate co-op campaign to do. Both aspects of the game that I may want to revisit later down the line.

I’m happy that I’ve managed to play through the main game and the DLC in a relatively short time span. I didn’t feel the need to put down the game and not return like I did in my first attempted playthrough. Maybe it clicked better this time around. I’m looking forward to the sequel release next year, although I will probably hold off on buying that until it drops in price. I still have more than enough other games waiting for me to play, but it’s nice to get some crossed of the list. Finally.

TBC Again: Baby Steps

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The pre-patch for The Burning Crusade Classic dropped on the World of Warcraft Classic servers this week. Although I never really could jump on the Classic train too much, I stalled out around level 23 on my Warlock, I have a definite soft spot for The Burning Crusade. It was the expansion where I started playing WoW and I think I was max level on my Warrior right after the Black Temple came out, so pretty late into the expansion’s lifecycle. I got into raiding via a small Dutch guild where we would clear Karazhan every week but that was about it. My computer was absolutely terrible at the time and I remember vividly how many times I crashed while trying to level up and later on while trying to play some endgame. I got a new PC and managed to play a lot more and even managed to get into a progression guild and push through the Sunwell raid when it came out. I think we stalled on Brutallus and the guild fell apart shortly after that. I’ve always missed the time where WoW was a completely new experience to me and I was still very much in love with playing the game.

With retail stalling a bit, my guild gave up on raiding for the time being and is waiting for patch 9.1 to drop so we can start the next raiding tier, I decided to jump on the TBC hype train. I’ve made a Draenei Shaman, very original I know, and I’m slowly leveling her up. Because I have no endgame obligations in this game I’m just taking my time, working through all the quests that I can on Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isle before moving on to newer zones. Right now I’m level 18 and I still have quite a few quests to go on Bloodmyst so I should be good for the next couple of days. I definitely won’t be ready for the actual launch of the Dark Portal but I’m not too fussed about that. I’m just enjoying the scenery and the level up experience, which has been significantly improved from the Classic server. I’m looking forward to hitting level 20, so I can learn Ghost Wolf form and run a bit faster, and then level 30 so I can get an actual mount. I forgot how many totems Shamans used to have and how many weapon enchants. Lightning Shield is an expensive spell and weapon skills are still a thing. I’ve taken up Mining and Jewelcrafting and am having a blast just slowly leveling everything back up again. I can’t wait to go through the Dark Portal and re-experience Outland again for the first time. I’m sure it’ll trigger a lot of nostalgia.

On the Final Fantasy XIV side of things I’m mostly doing my crafting dailies every day. I’m currently working on Culinarian, which is sitting at level 74 and after that I only have three more to go. I’m also trying to make a list of what other content I still want to/need to tackle. I’ve made my way in the main story up until the latest patch but I can’t go forward because my item level is too low for the dungeon. I want to finish off the final wing of the Eden raid and the final wing of the Nier raid. Then I can still focus on leveling up Blue Mage or work away on the Shadowbringers Relic weapons, something I’ve not really done yet.

There’s plenty to do in both games but I’m taking it easy and taking my time. I’ve had to deal with a lot of work stress and as such my brain feels like it’s heavily overworked. I have a very short attention span so I’m just taking any game time I can get, even if it’s only for 15-20 minutes at a time. I’m pretty happy with what I’ve been doing so far though so I hope I can carry that over into June and the rest of the summer.

I Set Goals… And Never Came Back

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So. I realized that my last post was setting goals for February. And then I never came back.
Kind of funny how those things go. A lot has happened in the past three and a half months. Work has been extremely overwhelming. I didn’t get the job that I applied for at the end of January, much to my dismay, and in the meantime lockdown due to COVID has been dragging on and on in the Netherlands. We’ve finally had some rules loosened and vaccinations are progressing rapidly so maybe there’s a bit of light at the end of the tunnel.
Next to a lot of disappointments there has also been one big bright point. I guess people driving home the idea that you “shouldn’t look for love because it will find you” scored a point with me this year. I’ve met someone very special, after a long time of being single and basically giving up on the idea that I would meet someone that would love me for who I am. But I’ve met that someone and he’s been brightening my days for the past three months. I’m so incredibly thankful that he came into my life and I hope we can build something that will last for a long time.

As for the gaming front. Well. I guess a lot has happened and not happened.
The World of Warcraft guild I’m in has moved to Horde side. Unfortunately recruitment on Alliance side seems to have completely bled dry so they made the hard decision to swap over to Horde so Mythic raiding can happen in patch 9.1.
I moved with them and rolled a new character and am currently raiding a bit again as Elemental Shaman. I’m having a decent amount of fun although I’ve not really touched Mythic raiding yet and I’ve not really found the time to do Mythic+. I’m hoping with my workload dying down a bit I can spend a bit more time in WoW and push to get some achievements done.

Next to that I’ve been catching up in Final Fantasy XIV. I was a few patches behind and worked my way back up to the patch 5.5 content when it comes to main story. My current goals are getting the final raid of Eden done, the final Nier raid and get completely caught up with the mainstory. I’m also still leveling my crafters and almost have my Alchemist at level 80, which means I only have a few more to go after. With Endwalker getting a release date I have around 5-6 months to get caught up on everything, which should be more than enough time. I just need to remind myself to log in and actually play.

As far as League of Legends goes… I basically stopped playing somewhere in February and I’ve been struggling really hard to get back into the game. I’ve been playing ARAMs and a few normals here and there and participated in some Clash but otherwise I’ve not touched ranked in months. I’m really soul searching on what I want to play and if I still want to make the push towards Gold or not. It also hasn’t helped that I’ve been duoing with people that make me tilt. I think I’m better off staying solo and look to grind up on my own. I’ve been asking for some tips and tricks and once I can settle on a role and a champion I’m going to just start pushing again.

All in all it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster in my life the past few months but I’m finally feeling like I’m landing on my feet again. Let’s hope it will give me enough headspace to do more than just work, sleep and eat.