Tag Archives: Personal

Welcome To The Show!

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Hello everyone and welcome to my brand new website!

I’ve spent quite some time fiddling around with my blog, and I’m not quite done yet… But I finally found the right plugin that would transfer over all the content from my Blogger blog. So there’s that. I’m still fiddling around with my theme and widgets. I’m superhappy I can finally use the Warcraft one, although it hasn’t been updated in ages… As the rest of the week passes I think I will add more stuff to my blog, especially to the sidebar. Keep an eye out for my social media buttons, I will be way more active on Twitter and Instagram aswell as getting active again on Anook and maybe Player.me.

The makings of a new Exarch!

The makings of a new Exarch!

Warrior Times
I’ve been poking my nose into WoW quite actively again for the last few weeks, mostly focussing on Sandrian, the Warrior. I’ve had a ton of quests still lying around, so I’m slowly working my way through them. I finished off the Garisson Campaign quests for Tanaan and am currently working my way through the original questline for that aswell. I helped Yrel become an Exarch this morning. I forgot about that little quest and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed doing it again. Blizzard has made some awesome lore bits and pieces in this expansion… Too bad it didn’t save the expansion as a whole.
For now the plans remain to finish off the quests I still have and start working towards completing achievements. I’m also almost on the final stage of my Legendary Ring, so it would be a shame not to push for that either.
All in all I seem to be able to play casually and still have some fun while doing so. My guild has ceased raiding after they killed Archimonde HC again on monday evening, people couldn’t be bothered to show up anymore, myself included. The only thing I would still like to do that is raiding related is to get the raiding achievements done. I hope I can find or make a PuG for this myself, but that’s something to worry about later.

Toes and FFXIV Woes
As I’m writing this my toe is actually healing quite well. I got to take the bandage off last night, and even though it was partly stuck which caused my wound to reopen a bit again… It’s been healing up nicely. I barely have pain at all anymore, except when I try to walk on it like I would do normally. It looks like when I just stay clear of putting pressure on my foot I’m mostly fine, so that’s what I’m doing. I have a “pajama vacation” and am just sitting around in my pajama’s and a bath robe, gaming all day. It’s a really nice break from work, although being sick means I won’t get paid for this week… Which does kind of suck.
In FFXIV I feel like I’ve been hitting a bit of a brick wall. I’ve been farming hard for my Dragoon Zeta yesterday afternoon and am now on 4/12 Mahatma’s completed. It’s not really a hard grind, it just requires some patience… Which I obviously don’t have. If I can focus enough I do about 2 Mahatma’s per hour, which means I have 4 hours of farming to go still. I really want to finish it off this week, and if I can just motivate myself to keep on running Garuda and Shiva HM I’m sure I’ll get it done in no time. It’s just the motivating part that’s hard… I’m not having an easy time just getting absorbed by the game anymore, like I used to, and although I have a huge list of things I want to achieve… Actually doing all of that has become much more of a chore than I thought it would be. I’m still determined to see it through though. I just need to get out of this little slump I’ve been finding myself in after I dinged my Ninja 60…

As far as my new website goes. If you have any feedback, please tell me! So far I’m happy with the theme since it’s quite clean. I just need to decide on a proper background picture to go with it… And most likely look at a new header picture.
This also means that my old Blogspot address will no longer get updated with posts! So if you have me in your RSS feed, change it to this website, or you will be left wondering why I won’t be updating my blog anymore.

Sunday Morning Musings

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Actually by the time I’m writing this particular post it’s already past 2 in the afternoon here, but what the heck, it’s morning somewhere in the world right? So I’m just going to go with Morning muses…

Sunday is a weird day for me. I’ve turned it into my chores day for the week, since it’s usually the day that I know I will be at home to get stuff done. This means that for a big part of the rest of the week I let my room become this huge mess, which I then clean up on Sundays. This entails folding away a few days worth of clean laundry, taking all the dishes downstairs and clean them, dust and vacuum my room and changing my bedsheets.
It’s also the day I consider my “offscreen” day. Because I plan all my chores on this day, and because I spend enough time staring at one computer screen or the other the entire week, it’s nice to look at something else besides pixels on a screen.

This week I find it even more important to just stay away from using my wrist/mouse too much. I’m not sure how I did it, but I’ve hurt my wrist somehow with either sleeping on it the wrong way, or making a wrong move with carrying my bag. I know what RSI feels like, and this isn’t it. It just feels like a muscle pulled the wrong way at some point, and when I make certain movements it kind of hurts… Which also limits the time I’m able to use a mouse. Which is incredibly sucky seeing as I’ve been playing Diablo 3 a lot the past two days… Which you largely navigate by using your mouse.

Speaking of Diablo… I realize how much of a love/hate relationship I really have with that game. I always love the new Season starts, only to be disappointed about a week of playing in. You see, when I picked up this game at the inital launch we had a little group of friends that would play with eachother. That group of friends is still there… Only whereas they still play together, I feel like I’m being left out. I know that I can come across as whiny in all my posts about my friendships lately, but I’m just really sick of how things are going and have developed over the last year. I don’t always want to be the one to start things up anymore, or the one to stay in touch. And it’s affecting my gameplay and the enjoyment of some games, but most of all Diablo 3.
So for this season I’ve set my standards quite low. I just want to play my monk and unlock all the chapter rewards. I’m not aiming to be the best on the Greater Rift ladders (because honestly I really can’t be arsed to put in the time) but I do want to experience all the new stuff Blizzard has added. So doing atleast one Class Set Dungeon is quite high on my list. As of right now I need to complete about five more challenges to finish up my last chapter, all of which are tied to playing more so I can earn rewards to tackle content. This Season I don’t have to worry about gear, because Blizzard has been nice enough to hand you a full set for completing challenges in the chapters. So I’m rocking a 4/6 Sunwuko set with a really disgusting build. And loving it… For now.

Weekend Entertainment
A thing that has rolled around again is LCS or League Championship Series. Although I haven’t played League of Legends in forever, I love watching the various series in the weekends. This year I prefer the NA scene over the EU scene, simply because the players I cheer for and enjoy most are playing in that region at the moment. I’m cheering extra hard for Renegades this split, since they are the first team to have a girl on the starting roster and I’m damn proud that she made it up to that stage.
Other than that I’m still cheering my butt off for Doublelift, who should be able to become a formidable force down in the botlane now that he has Yellowstar as support. Although my heart broke when Doublelift left CLG and “Rush Hour” botlane was no more, I’m sure he can make it work with his new Support. So yeah, suddenly I became a TSM fan after being a CLG fan for many seasons.

I don’t actually actively follow all the games. There are a select few I will watch, the rest I listen to while playing FFXIV for instance. It’s nice background “noise” for my Botanist leveling. I have to say my hour per day approach is seriously working for that. With the GC manuals, the GC daily turn-in and just doing leve’s I’ve already managed to get to level 43. I think I’ll be 50 soon enough, especially if I keep on doing about 2 levels a day.
The only thing I need to motivate myself for now is farming my Dragoon Zeta…

So Many Deaths

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I wanted to blog about a completely different topic today, when Alan Rickman’s death suddenly popped up in a Whatsapp group chat. I couldn’t believe it, immediatly opened my news app on my phone and was sadly confirmed that he had indeed died at the age of 69.
With losing David Bowie earlier this week and Lenny of Mötorhead it feels like the start of 2016 has been a really bad one, in terms of celebrities dying. Although all deaths are tragic and to be mourned, especially by their loved ones, the Alan Rickman one hit me a bit harder than usual.

I grew up reading and watching the Harry Potter movies, and I hold the firm belief that he was perfectly casted for the role of Severus Snape. Snape had always been my favourite character in the books, way way back to when I started to read the first one and when I saw which actor portrayed him… I was so happy. He played him so well.
Ofcourse Snape isn’t the only big role he played. I especially enjoyed him as Metatron in Dogma and also as his role of Alexander in Galaxy Quest. Hell the only reason I knew who he was in Harry Potter was because I had seen him in these movies before. He was one of my favourite British actors and personalities, right up there with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Alan has always struck me as a kind and friendly man, even though he has portrayed a lot of villains in the movies he was in. He was a brilliant actor and I hope he is now free of the pain that his disease must have caused him.
He will be missed dearly by a lot of people.

Half a toe
I haven’t really been online over the past week in general. Work has been busy and I’ve been feeling exhausted when I got home, so mostly I spent my evenings staring at my PC and not getting much done of anything really. Going out to dinner last night kind of ruined my plans for the entire evening aswell, but did make me realize I had to go see my GP. You see I have a very painful spot on my pinky toe, I think the correct English term is a “corn”? Not sure, The skin is hardened anyway and it hurts and no matter what I do… It doesn’t go away. I can’t really be comfortable in any of my shoes anymore so I had to face reality last night as I was walking to the restaurant… And was almost crying because it hurt so much. Seeing my GP in the morning we both came to the conclusion that it needs to be cut off… Which will mean I will roughly get half my pinky toe cut off on monday (yes the spot is THAT big). Which also means I can’t go to work after seeing as I got the advise to let my foot rest as much as possible… Which is kind of hard if you have to get to work 3 days after you get a surgical procedure like that done.
So next week I’ll be sittting at home, with my foot up on a stool, hoping my toe will heal correctly and that I’ll be rid of it forever. This will also probably be the ideal time for me to catch up on a lot of things… Including some university stuff that I’ve been waiting to wrap up forever.
Although I’m happy I’m getting some time “off” I’m bummed I can’t go to work. It’s less income for me that way… And I can really use the money. Not to mention I’m majorly stressing out about the healing itself since from the 25th till the 30th my agenda is absolutely swamped. I’m going to an Ellie Goulding concert (luckily with tickets for seats) and I have two wedding parties to attend. And I really don’t want to cancel all of that because of a stupid thing on my foot.

I’ll keep you guys updated on how things go… And spare you the nasty pictures.

Sunday Scale – January

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Hello everyone and welcome to my monthly weight check up column type thing. I’m actually not sure how to call this but I just want to check in once a month and “report” on how my weight loss is going. I’m planning to do this on the first sunday of every month… Which will also be the time where I choose to stand on the scale.
I don’t like looking at my weight, since it’s mostly a confirmation of the horrible year that 2015 has been for me, marked by inactivity, binge eating and lots of therapy. I’m slowly coming down from that again now though and am currently 70kg (as you can see on the picture). As you can also see, my goal weight is 60kg and with the rate of weightloss I’m having now I should reach that goal in +/- 10 months.
I’m basing this off the fact that I’m more or less dropping 1kg per month now and that is on a pattern of technically not going to the gym and only on the activity I get on my workdays. I’m hoping to start dropping more weight, since one of my New Year’s resolutions was to go to the gym more often, which I am actually planning on doing.

Reward System
To keep me motivated to stay on my path of losing weight I bought a few Disney Infinity figurines yesterday that I want to use as reward every time I lose 2kg. Depending on how lazy I am this can mean I get one new figurine every two months… Or one every month. I’ve packed them up and stored them away in a cabinet so I don’t know which figurine is which anymore, thus making it a true surprise when I open one up. Something I will absolutely share on the blog here with you guys! I’m really excited to see this through and forcing myself to make atleast a monthly update will hopefully keep my motivation high aswell.

Music Wars
I entered an interesting conversation yesterday with a friend after he linked me a videoclip by Limp Bizkit… Who I never liked. I told him I could find way better music than that and with that started a sort of musical War. The rules are a bit unclear but mostly it’s about linking songs together. This can be done through various ways. It can be the same artist, there can be words shared in the title but also more complicated links are allowed like titles sharing a same theme or songs being on a same compilation CD. I even managed to link two songs together because they were directed by the same guy. Oh and I linked Led Zeppelin to The Who due to Keith Moon basically giving Led Zeppelin it’s name. So far it’s been a really fun game which we can keep on playing on and off inbetween the rest of our conversations. It took up most of my evening last night, preventing me from playing any games. But it’s totally worth it having a night filled with music and fun with a friend.

And who knew you could ever link Lady Gaga to U2?

2016, The Year I Finally Grow Up?

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Before looking ahead to 2016 and what the year will bring to my personal life, I need to look back at 2015 first.
To be fair, 2015 has been one of the roughest years in my life so far. Things were looking very grim at the start of the year when I decided to go into therapy to tackle my many many issues. Mostly they had to do with insecurities that were my demons and were driving me insane. I spent a good year of 2015 in therapy, from January untill September and even though I wasn’t always happy about going, I’m really glad I did.
I have some demons I will probably never get rid off. I’ve been firmly raised with the idea that nothing I did was ever good enough, so whenever something goes wrong I immediatly blame myself and kick myself over it again and again. I shouldn’t do that and I’ve come far enough to prevent it a lot now, but every now and then I still go back into that black mood. It’s almost cost me a friendship and probably a lot of job opportunities, but in the end I feel stronger for it. It was also the year where I was desperately trying to find a job and finally managed to get a permanent one in November.
For the first time in my life I have actually been challenged to manage my time better and even though the first weeks or so were panicky for me I think I finally managed to find a rythm that works and so I can start doing other stuff than just sleep when I come home from work.

I don’t want to look back on 2015 too much because all in all it has just been a painful year. Instead I want to focus on 2016 and how I plan to achieve my goals!

First off: The Weight Thing
I’ve been struggling with my weight for a very long time now and last year marked my peak where I was on my heaviest. A combination of not getting any exercise and binge eating brought me to 75kg, which is quite too heavy for a girl my length. Ever since I’ve started my job in November I’ve gotten a Fitbit and a more healthy lifestyle and the results are slowly paying off. Even though I’m not going to the gym as often as I should, I already am losing some weight and am hovering around 70kg now. My goal for 2016 is to get down to 60kg again and preferably a bit below. This means I will need to keep an eye on what I eat but also make more of an effort to go to the gym, especially on days where I don’t work.
My ultimate goal is to drop down all the way to <55kg but no further than 50. I have been down there in the past (about 3-4 years ago) so I know I can do it, it just requires some effort on my behalf.

To help me get there I decided to try out a reward system for myself. One of the game stores close to where I live has a sale on Disney Infinity Figurines and I’m planning to buy 3 of them and pack them up. Whenever I drop 2 kg’s I get to open one up and use it for my game. I really hope I can stick to this and that it will be positive reinforcement to keep on losing weight! Ofcourse this means I only have a reward for the first 6 kg’s going off, but I’ll think of more rewards later for when I hit 62 and ultimately 60kg. I want the 60 kg to be a big reward since it means I will have reached my goal then… Any suggestions in that area are therefore welcome!

Moving Out
The moment I got my job I started cheering. Not only does this mean I have a more permanent source of income… It also means I can start looking for a place to live.
I’m turning 27 in March and it really is time to get my own place. I’ve been desperately wanting to move out since I was 18, but real life happened and it’s been delayed and delayed. Now that I can start building a steady and solid income and put a lot of money aside I think moving out will be one of my biggest priorities in 2016.
This will mean I need to discuss a lot of money things with my dad and my uncle, mostly about whether I’m able to buy a house or that renting is my only option for now. For now I’m just waiting for my first real tax business so I can learn the ropes there and maybe get some money back that I’ve paid to much last year!

Other resolutions
Like most people I have to admit I’m more or less addicted to screen time. My job involves hanging infront of a computer three to four days a week and when I get home I immediatly transfer to another screen to play games. Put phone/tablet use inbetween and it feels like I am online 24/7. I want to try to limit this time by not allowing myself to take my tablet and/or phone to bed with me anymore.

Tieing in with this is my desire to finally get a healthy sleep rythm going in the first place. Going to bed early on workdays is something that is already happening, but I notice I just don’t get enough sleep. So I put an alarm on my phone that will go off at 22.45 on evenings where I have work the next morning, signaling me to close down and finish whatever it is I am doing and start heading to bed. This way I hope I’ll be able to fall asleep easier and at a more appropriate time so that I don’t feel so tired during the day anymore. Which also means I don’t feel the need to immediatly head to bed the moment I come home from work. If I can pull this off I will probably also feel much better on my days off… Which will help me be more energetic in general and pursue my weight loss goal by just going to the gym on the mornings I am off.

All in all I hope 2016 is the year where everything comes together for me. I’ve had such a shitty time last year on so many fronts… I really just need some positivity in my life.

Holiday Goals

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Typing this blog post on my tablet I realise how busy I have been over the past month and a half.
I started a new job in November and I have been making crazy days, leaving me to come home absolutely shattered and not wanting to do anything but relax and sleep. Even now during Christmas time I can’t really get properly rested seeing as I have a very full schedule and have to work a few days in between Christmas and new year’s eve.
However since I do have a bit more free time than usual I wanted to draw up a small post of things I want to get done within the next week. So here we go:
In FFXIV
● Finish off dragoon zeta.
● Level Ninja to 60
● Do starlight celebration on both Moogle and Cactuar character.
Other games
● Play through as much of the “Inside Out” plays et on Disney infinity as possible. Currently 3 levels done.
● Advance in Pokemon X as much as possible.
My FF goals have priorities over the other two, but I think only playing FF will drive me nuts. Plus I am not home all the time and I can take my 3DS with me on the road.
Hopefully a new year will bring a bit more peace to my life so I can start living more regularly and plan stuff better.  For now I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Where Did My Time Go?

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It’s a weird feeling for me. I am so used to doing nothing all day, and basically having way too much time on my hands, that actually getting cut down in time is harder for me than I thought. Especially on the weeks where I work 32 hours it feels like I just don’t have enough hours on the days I have off. Especially since I tend to plan a lot of activities in my free time, so getting rested is not really anything that is happening for me.
And unfortunately this is coming to bite me in the ass on the few days where I do try to rest and relax. I slept for about 9-9.5 hours last night and it has left me in a state of drowsiness and a nice headache on top of that. I guess I slept too long, or too deep, but it’s not really something I can influence since I actually slept all those hours. It wasn’t like I woke up after 7 hours, decided I could sleep in and rolled back over just to find myself waking up even more sleepy than I went to bed. So today I had a lot of things planned and didn’t do any of them, simply because my head was bothering me.

Maging it up
One of the few things I did manage to do today is obtain the staff transmog I wanted for my mage. I run around in Tier 6 (because I like purplez) and I needed a purplish/pinkish staff to go with it. I have always loved the look of Velen’s staff and decided to take the plunge and make my way to Shadowmoon Valley to complete the quest that awards that awesome looking staff. It’s the only way to get the model in the game next to killing Doom Lord Kazzak in Hellfire Peninsula. It took me about two hours to get there, the Cipher of Damnation and all it’s prequests are very exhaustive, but I’m super happy with the end result.
So I’m rocking item level 660 on my mage, with a Tier 6 transmog and that staff and life is good. Gold is flowing, and I’m having fun running content on a class that for once is not a hybrid.
On the Horde side of things I’m also leveling a Mage… But on my alt account. Sometimes I just really need to step away from the people I know. They are nice enough but I have times where I just want to do things for me and not want to be bothered and that’s when I retreat to my alt account. My mage on there (a very sexy Bloodelf) is now level 92 and I’m hoping to get her to 100 somewhere next week. This account is very much a fresh one when it comes to WoW and for once I would love to focus on only one character, so that Mage is the only one on there. I have to re-earn all my achievements, pets, mounts, toys and tabards but that’s something I’m very much enjoying. It feels fresh and new and challenging again, and way more fun than only hanging around in my Garrison on my main account.

FFXIV
I’m still leveling Ninja on Final Fantasy and she is close to hitting level 52. Due to me working I’ve not really had the time to run a lot of roulettes… But I am religiously doing the Vanu Vanu beast tribe dailies and the lowest level Hunts. Add that up everyday and levelling goes fast enough. I’m also slowly working my way through the Ninja relic weapon as a sidequest. I should put a bit more time in, but seeing as I’m still getting used to my schedule and how to divide my time it’s taken a bit of a backseat to playing World of Warcraft and Heroes of the Storm.

Speaking of the latter… I managed to obtain Cho’Gall via a friend. The champion is very interesting and fun to play with two people. Personally I think I’m better off playing Cho with that particular friend, mostly because I’m just better with map movements and lane movements in general. I know when to extend and when it’s overextending and I know how to be where I need to be. I’m not sure if this champion will see much competitive play. It takes very good coordination to work well and it technically takes a champion off the map. But he is definately a beast to play and very strong if built and played well. I hope I get to play some more… Assuming there are some people to play with!

Finding New Goals

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Quitting raiding in World of Warcraft has been both liberating and a very emotional experience for me. Ever since I achieved max level on my very first toon in the Burning Crusade I have always been in a raiding group. I’ve never stepped down from an active raiding roster or guild and the only lulls in my raiding career have been because of inactive people which left me with no possibility to raid outside of pugging.

Now however our raiding group was very much active and more or less stable and just walking away from that has been odd. In a way it feels like I gave up on my goals for WoW (which was mostly killing heroic Archimonde before the next expansion comes out) and I’m struggling to cope with the sense of logging into a game without clear endgame stuff to work towards. Ofcourse raiding isn’t the be all and end all in World of Warcraft (or any MMO for that matter) and with the addition of patch 6.2.3 gearing up itself has been made significantly easier with the reintroduction of valor points. But for me it’s not about the gear. It’s about the goal that I had set when we started the expansion: to clear all endbosses on heroic with this group of raiders. And it’s weird to let that go, even though it is probably the best decision I have taken for myself in a very long time.

So now I feel like someone adrift, someone in search of new goals to work towards and new ways of enjoying a game where my entire career has been about raiding in one form or another. I think I might try to pug my way through heroic Archimonde at some point (I was a tiny bit too late with subscribing to FriendshipMoose unfortunately) and I’m sure I will see him dead somewhere before Legion hits. I’m also free to devote more time to some of my other characters that I personally enjoy way more to play, but that I never really got a chance to this expansion. So I’m levelling my mage and I’m planning to do some Timewalking on both my Hunter and my Warrior.
Next to that I’m also relocating my focus towards other games. I’m intent on getting better on Hearthstone.. Which essentially means playing more, unlocking all my adventure wings and keep on unlocking more cards.
There’s also the thing that I would love to get my hands on all the heroes in Heroes of the Storm, which mostly requires me to atleast work my way through all the quests I get and level my heroes to level 5 for the gold you get then. It’s a bit tedious at times, but I enjoy myself immensly when playing that game, even if I’m on the losing team. I just need to find someone who I can play Cho’Gall with so I can unlock that for myself aswell and then I’m even more happy.

The major thing I did, ever since patch 3.1 launched, is pick up FFXIV again with a fervor. I’ve been steadily working my way through the new Vanu Vanu beast tribe quests everyday (and am now rank five or six I believe) and am levelling my Ninja which is my new favourite class. Currently she is level 46, but I get some challenge log bonuses when I do my low level and guildhest roulette today so in theory I should be well over level 47 after I log off later tonight.
I haven’t really picked up doing ex-roulette again, mostly because I don’t enjoy my Dragoon as much anymore as I did, but I think I’ll try to make up for it over the coming few days because I want to start saving up gear for when my Ninja dings 60… And what better way to do that than with some Esoteric pieces?

All in all I’m trying very hard to adjust to a more casual approach of games where I find the fun in other things than endgame raiding. In FFXIV it seems to be working out well, I really want to level all my battle classes to max level and start on the new relic so that will keep me going for quite a while.
In World of Warcraft I’m sure I’ll find my way around somehow somewhere… But for now even logging that game just feels weird and I can only hope that will pass soon.

Having Snapped

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For the past months I’ve not been in a good place on World of Warcraft. My current guild, which I’ve been in for about 4.5 years now, has become a place where I no longer really wish to hang out.
I came into this guild when it was in it’s dying breath (although I did not know that back then) and have always stuck by it, through good and mostly bad times.

Early on when I entered one of the last active officers left after a big fight that actually involved me. I won’t go into details but let’s just say couples in guilds are often toxic when one of them is in power and the other is abusing this power. After this, this was during Cataclysm, I stepped up in recruitment, raidleading and generally smoothing out the raidteam and making raids happen. After the raidleader also quit I was responsible for everyting fulltime and it was very draining on me… In the end I managed to get us to clear a lot of heroic Dragon Soul before Diablo 3, the Summer and patch fatigue shut down the guild untill Mists of Pandaria.

In Mists I managed to get a raidteam together for a few weeks after launch and then everything basically fell apart, at which point I decided to throw in the towel. I had to focus on my education and could not handle a fulltime involvement with a guild where I was the only one in charge left. The GM who promised me to be there decided he didn’t want to play Mists afterall, leaving me to fend for myself. I suffered major burnout then and didn’t really come back to the game untill Siege of Orgrimmar came out.

Around that time a lot of “old garde” people came back and I was interested in atleast killing Garrosh Hellscream before Warlords of Draenor would launch so I hopped into a few raids with them, got my kill and didn’t really care too much. As WoD was approaching I was helping out the “leader” then who, in all honesty, isn’t that good with the administration side of things. I helped him put together the raidroster, set up a poll for the raiddays and offered to fulfill the healer role I picked up at the end of Mists. This was not necessary and I decided to play Shadow Priest for the upcoming expansion.

Fast forward a few months and I end up levelling and gearing Shadow… Only to be asked to roll Holy. Less healers were showing up than they hoped and I was the only one who had the right class and experience as healer. Even though I was not feeling well mentally, and I didn’t really want to switch speccs, I said yes and we continued raiding in Highmaul. A few months later I broke. There was too much going on in my life to handle stress from raiding and dealing with our raidteam, which was filled with bad players. I snapped and stopped raiding for a while to focus on myself, instead of giving so much to others. In hindsight I heard my officer “friends” were trying to get rid of me then for not feeling well, something that hurt me beyond belief. I came back to raiding and just figured I’d focus on myself and getting enjoyment out of the game my own way. I asked to be demoted to Raider down from Officer because I did not feel comfortable in Officer chat anymore. I was in there with three guys who would just ignore anything I said or bitch at me. I didn’t and couldn’t deal with that well so I got the demote I wanted.

And now we are in the present. Raiding through Hellfire Citadel, which has not been a very smooth ride, and my frustrations with raiding and the group have been at an all time high. It’s become more and more apparent to me that it matters what position you hold in this guild. If you are buddies with our raidleader you can get away with everything without punishment, while the rest of us get scolded. Add to the fact that some “friends” who I have always treated well suddenly feel the need to treat me like shit and I just more or less snapped.

So today, with a lot of heartache, I have decided to stop raiding whatsoever. I need and want to focus on my own happiness right now and I don’t want to deal with such a big frustrating factor in my life. I feel betrayed, used and generally drained. After 4.5 years I’m more than done with this guild and the people in it. I hope for them that they get Archimonde Heroic down before the new expansion hits, but for me this is the end of my raiding career for now. I might log in casually just so I can get enough gold to buy a WoW token to keep my sub active. But I might just let it all run out and see.

Terror

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I want to start this blogpost off with a few words from me personally about all that has happened in the past 24 hours or so.
First off, the attacks on Paris have made me sick to my core. It’s in times like these that you realize how close you actually are to a city like that (it takes me about 4 hours to travel from my house to the center of Paris by train, let that sink in) and how frighteningly close terrorism has actually come to a continent that is supposed to be safe to live on. The general feeling here is that these terrorists are trying to take away our feeling that we are safe in our own countries and it’s damn well working. Events like these only make me want to avoid the big cities in Europe like the plague, scared that something will happen.
So many innocent people’s lives have been taken by a few that by all means are no better than savage animals. They murdered… no butchered innocent people in one of the busiest places in Paris, people like you and me, that go about their daily lives and never get involved in politics or global scale things to begin with.
For me there was an added layer of terror in knowing that one of the people I love and care about most in this world not only lives right ontop of Paris, but could very well have been present in the Stade de France watching that friendly football match. I got very early confirmation that said person was actually unharmed and safe at home, but still. Everytime I see it slip by on the news I get cold and think of all the people who have not been this lucky and have lost a loved one last night.
Whenever you see on the news that there is trouble in the Middle East or Israel it doesn’t make that big of an impact for me because it’s so far away and I don’t actually know anyone there. But with all the recent happenings and knowing France (and Paris) have been the target of multiple attacks over the past year everything is suddenly much closer to home, up to the point that I’m actually dreading Monday since my friend will have to go back into Paris for work then… And I can only hope and pray he is safe and nothing will happen.

Gaming and Work
I’ve started my new job last week and am in the process of learning everything involved… Causing me to come home extremely tired and irritable. The only thing I want to do after dinner is head to bed and catch up on all the sleep I feel like I’ve been missing.
Because I’m forced to think about priorities it’s also becoming more and more apparent to me that I need to take a step back from World of Warcraft. The struggle there is becoming more and more intense for me and it’s pulling me under. People who I thought were nice turn out to be not so nice and I’ve lost respect for a lot of others… I don’t really know what to do with this. Mentally I’m just exhausted with that part of my life and the only thing I would want is to retreat from the raidteam and focus on the aspects of the game that still make me happy, instead of logging on frustrated and emotional because of everything that has been, and still is, going on.
It’s hurtful for me on a personal level because I feel like I have given my all for this guild over the past four or five years and I never got anything in return. My heart and soul went in there, I was officer/GM/raidleader for a while, I helped setup the new raidleader, handled things like roster balancing, raidrules, lootrules and everything that came with maintaining a raidteam. I assist our current raidleader with tactics and calling things out while still needing to be focused on keeping people alive on my Priest. It’s all a bit too much, especially when you get zero respect and acknowledgement for what you are doing, it just feels like a spit in the face.
Add to that the fact that I’m already exhausted when I come home after work now and you just get a very volatile mix that can explode any minute. My heart is bleeding over this situation and right now I’m not sure of anything anymore… Only that I no longer find any enjoyment in logging onto the game.

Instead I have been playing a lot of FFXIV again since patch 3.1 came out. I’ve been steadily leveling away on my Ninja, who will probably hit level 40 before the weekend is over and am doing the new beast tribe dailies on my Bard, who is halfway to level 52. I’m really enjoying the game again, especially now that a lot of the lagg issues have been resolved. I really think I will make this game my maingame again and will probably devote most of my time to getting my Ninja to level 60 and geared up, while also slowly plowing away on my other classes.

Next to Final Fantasy I’ve seen a ressurection in my Heroes of the Storm play. I’ve been playing atleast 3 games every day and have been enjoying myself immensely. I’ve picked up Johanna on my alt account and am currently wrecking face on Jaina on my main account. It’s so fun to play different roles and feel like you’re actually good at them. Whenever my team wins a game by good communication and gameplay I’m just super happy and feel like I’ve achieved much more than whenever I killed a new boss on World of Warcraft. I’m saving up for the next champion to buy and I’m very much leaning in the direction of Leoric, Butcher or Artanis. I’m sitting at 7k gold right now so it shouldn’t take too long to get that 10k gold together to buy either one of them. Especially since I picked up doing my quest with a fever. Sometimes I will do them on Quick Match on champions I’m comfortable on, sometimes I will choose to play vs AI because I either lack time or need to play a role I normally don’t play (warrior/specialist). Either way I make sure quests are getting done and gold is getting earned. I really want to own all the champions in the game, so I guess I still have some work ahead of me!