Tag Archives: Work

Switching it up: Job application

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I wanted to write a blog post yesterday about my experiences playing Crash Bandicoot 4 (it’s a really fun game) but something happened in real life that took over my time and as such I had completely forgotten to post. So I’m making it up today by telling you all what the real life thing was!

I’ve been working at my current department for over 5 years now. I got in on a temporary contract and managed to get a permanent contract in 2019. I also managed to get a promotion twice and the only jump up I can now make is to a fulltime manager position, a jump that I’m probably not able to make for a while yet.
Within those 5 years I’ve seen the department grow increasingly smaller. So many people were let go, partially due to a lighter workload and partially do to automating processes, thus needing less people to do the actual work. However we have hit the point that our team is made up now of the bare minimum amount of people you can possibly have.. And it’s causing a lot of stress. Especially when we are having extremely busy periods it’s all hands on deck and I feel we’re still not getting everything done we should be doing. The last two weeks have been one of those periods where I just shut down at the end of the day and have 0 energy left for anything else. To say I’m exhausted doesn’t even begin to cover it. It makes me resent having to get up in the morning and logging in to work. Something that is a gigantic red flag on it’s own.

However… This week a job application got posted for a job at a department that I have been side eyeing for the past two years now. It’s a department dedicated to implementing Robotic Process Automation throughout the entire organisations and it entails that I would be joining the team that designs and implements “bots”. I’m already in contact with this team due to the bots we have running on our own department and I’ve been developing some of them on my own as a sort of side project. They had put up job applications before but I never felt sure and ready enough to reply, but this time I figured I’d take the jump and just went ahead and turned in my application.

I hope that my familiarity with the team and department will help in my favour. I haven’t heard back anything yet so far but the application is still open to reply untill next Wednesday so I’m not sure when I will be contacted. By taking this step though I would transfer over to a department that has it’s own kind of stress and deadlines but also with a bigger team, less individual responsibilities and more structured systems in place. It’s probably the best step I can take for myself right now and I’m hoping really hard that they’ll consider me for the position. I will keep you all posted how it goes, but this could be the breath of fresh air I need to kickstart other more important life changes.

Vacation, finally.

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This past week has been rough. I’m starting a two week vacation today where I don’t have to do anything for my job and can finally relax for the first time since March. And for longer than a week aswell!
I’ve been looking forward to this for a while because I could seriously feel the burn from work. It’s been crazy with everything that has happened the past four months. The pandemic hitting, suddenly being forced to work from home and having almost no live social interaction for weeks to finally being allowed back into the office again for a few days a week and getting a sense of normalcy back.
Not to mention that it feels like there was an even bigger amount of work piling up than normal and we were going stir crazy with all the projects and last minute jobs that needed to be done.

Two of my coworkers had a few weeks of in the weeks before this and as such a lot of the day to day work had landed on my shoulders since we’re a really small team. In my current position I’m a senior and even though I do help with the day to day stuff I often don’t partake in a lot of recurring work anymore since my focus has shifted towards other things. So having to do my current job and part of the “old” work takes it’s toll after a while. I could feel myself just not being able to care about the work anymore and having an increasingly harder time focusing on just getting stuff done. That’s usually the sign I really need a break so I’m happy to have the coming two weeks to rest up, relax and hopefully tackle some of my backlog of games.

I have planned to take a long weekend getaway to a different part of the country in a bit of a luxury cabin with a sauna and jacuzzi. I’ll be in a very wooded area so I also plan to take a few nice long walks and enjoy the scenery, but mostly I just need a few days away from my regular environment. Being cooped up in my apartment for the last four months hasn’t been the best on my mental health unfortunately, so being able to get away is extremely nice. I’m probably going to pack my e-reader and my switch and just spend a few days in an extremely relaxed state reading and gaming and not being available to anyone.

As for the rest of my vacation plans… I will be attending my cousin’s wedding, in my country the COVID-19 restrictions have been slowly lifted so this is possible again, and otherwise it will hopefully be a lot of sleeping in and gaming and then hopefully be all fresh and happy to go back to work!

Sandy’s Sunday: Work Sucks

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As I’m sipping on a coke I figured I should sit down and write something.
Basically the past week has once again been super busy and chaotic when it comes to my job. My team is gradually growing smaller and as such we need everyone to be able to do everything. So my colleagues have been busy learning new tasks and I’ve been keeping an eye out for everything else that needed to be done. Couple that with a week with a ton of meetings and I was happy when it was finally time for the weekend so I could recharge a bit.
On Thursday I went out to dinner with a colleague/friend, which was really necessary to lift my spirits a bit. We had an awesome evening just chatting about everything and unwinding. Being in a warm and cozy restaurant enjoying a three course meal while outside it’s pouring has it’s charm. Luckily by the time we were ready to leave the weather had cleared up so I didn’t get home completely drenched.

Due to me getting home tired a lot I didn’t get much gaming time in. After I’ve finished leveling Ninja to level 80 and using Bard to level up my Trusts a bit I’ve been having a bit of a burn-out on FFXIV. I just didn’t feel like starting up the game at all so my Bard is still sitting at level 73 and otherwise I’ve not been making any progress. However I’m feeling the itch to log on again so I may do a few Trust dungeons today so I can finally leave Holminster Switch behind me and focus on the next dungeon in the bracket.
The game I did start up a few times over the week has been Pokémon Sword. I’ve been diligently working away at filling up my Pokédex and am currently sitting at 177 Pokémon registered. Only 23 more to get to my goal of registering 200 for this month! It’s actually gone surprisingly smooth. I’ve been focusing a lot on just evolving all the Pokémon I already caught and then I moved on to catching, and evolving, new Pokémon. I’ve also been participating in a lot of Max-Raids to try and obtain Pokémon that have Gigantamax forms, instead of just regular Dynamax ones. So far I’ve managed to catch a Gigantamax Snorlax, Butterfree and Coalossal. I’m still on the hunt for more!
In other Pokémon news, I haven’t actually watched the Pokémon direct but was nonetheless hyped when they announced an expansion to the Pokémon Sword and Shield games. Even though I wish that Game Freak wouldn’t be a sell out and just release a complete game from the start I can’t deny that I’m pretty happy to be getting more content to the game. As I’ve mentioned before I think the overall story of Pokémon has been a bit short this time around. Getting two new areas, with a lot more Pokémon introduced to the Pokédex, plus more story content, is exactly what I and others have been hoping for. As such I actually pre-ordered the expansion straight away so it will ready for me to play once June and November hit.

Finally instead of gaming I’ve been spending my time watching Netflix, specifically two documentaries: Don’t Fuck With Cats and Cheer.
The former has just been disturbing on all counts and I’m not sure if I would’ve watched it if I had known exactly what it would be about. It just goes to show that some people are deeply disturbed and should be locked away from society forever.
Cheer however has been a fun documentary to watch. I was a gymnast on a decent level from the age of 6-12. I never made national championships or anything but I was once in the top of my district for my age group aswell as making it to province (state for the US folks I guess?) championship. Where I was quickly desillusioned with my actual skills because my and our club actually performed pretty bad compared to the rest. Oh well. Anyway, Cheer is a documentary following the Navarro College cheerleading squad who have won a lot of titles. They pick out a few of the cheerleaders to follow more personally and basically show the preparation for the big National Championship that is held every year in Daytona Beach, FL. Cheerleading on that level is basically brutal. It’s gymnastics, tumbling, acrobatics and dancing all in one. Serious injuries happen, as shown on the documentary, and getting on the team that actually will perform the act on the championship is a struggle. Due to the stunts and acrobatics trust in your teammates is required. You need to be able to know that you will be caught if you fall. If someone fails to catch you the entire team gets punished. This sounds a bit harsh but is also understandable. You win as team but you also fail as team.
Watching that made me think of my own gymnastic days and give me a sense of missing out in a way. I think if I grew up in the US being a cheerleader would be totally up my alley, even with all the injuries. I think I would’ve absolutely loved it. Now however I can only look at these girls and hope they haven’t destroyed their bodies too much while doing what they love.

All in all it’s been a week of trying to get back into the work rhythm and giving myself plenty of time to rest up and relax after making long days in the office. Next week should be a bit more relaxed and with that I hope that I can get a bit more game time in when I come home!

A Week of Exhaustion

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Last week was brutal. I’ve come home feeling absolutely exhausted every day of the week. To top it off I also had to work extra during the evening because stuff wasn’t being done due to me and another co-worker being away on training. Never again. I’ve slept for close to 12 hours last night and I still feel like I can easily sleep 12 more. My brain is just tired and as such I don’t really get anything done. This has also extended to gaming and relaxing in general where I don’t think I’ve ever gamed so little while not being on vacation.

The little time I did spend on gaming was mostly on FFXIV leveling up my Culinarian (who is level 56 as of writing this) and playing around on Classic for an hour or so. So far I’ve gotten my Druid around 4 bars off level 20 and my Warlock halfway to level 15. Both have their issues when it comes to questing and killing mobs right now and I will breathe a sigh of relief when I finally get that catform and can actually kill things faster than I do now. Especially camps where I pull more than one mob are giving me trouble on my druid, often resulting in me having to run for my life or my actual demise. The warlock was mostly struggling with losing the voidwalker due to having no means to heal him up. However I now have health funnel so I should be able to heal him up inbetween pulls, which is nice. I’m still not spending too much time on there, purely because after playing for an hour or so I still get frustated with the constant running back and forth which takes forever. I can appreciate the oldschool feel of having to run around everywhere and your mount actually being an achievement but I would also have loved a “sprint” mechanic like FFXIV has where you can have short bursts of sprinting, making it much easier to get from point A to point B.
One of the things I do fully appreciate are all the class quests. I never really got to experience the oldschool class quests except maybe the Warrior weapon quest so having to do quests to unlock my Bear form, Aquatic form (still working on this one by the way) and Cure Poison on my Druid has been actually a fun experience. These are things that got taken out before I was able to do them way back when so having them back is actually quite fun.

I really hope that next week will be less crazy than this week. Inbetween training, picking up work outside of my normal hours and just a general exhausted feeling it can only go up from here. For now I’m going to use this weekend to sit down and game and catch up on all the stuff I missed out on during the week. I hope I can get my Druid to 20, it’s my goal for the weekend, and then pick up some stuff in FFXIV again, which will come down to doing my beast tribe dailies for my crafters and the odd roulette to level my Monk.

Go with the flow

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Random cat pic from the Googles

This week has been my first week back at work after having my two week staycation and man I’m absolutely wrecked. I’ve not been sleeping well all week and having to get up early every day doesn’t really help with that. I keep waking up at random intervals and I have a very hard time falling asleep to begin with. I’m not really sure why since it’s not melting temperatures outside anymore and I’ve actually had to close my windows due to it being too cold otherwise.
I think one part of this is because I have applied for a new position and I won’t hear anything about it for the next three weeks. I’m trying to let it go but it’s hard because I know I will be severely disappointed when I don’t get it. On the other hand I had to deal with the usual “crap” that comes with being away for longer than a weekend. Working headoffices for a large retail company means you only have two types of workdays: busy and extremely busy. There is never a dull moment but this also means that I tend to get home feeling completely worn out, especially when having to “catch up” with stuff that happens over a two week absence. As direct result of this I’ve been falling asleep after dinner almost every evening, either on my couch or on my bed. It’s a bit of a vicious cycle really. I come home from work, fall asleep after dinner, wake up around two hours later wondering what year I live in, be awake for a bit and then go to bed where I can’t fall asleep. When I do fall asleep I wake up multiple times per night and then the alarm goes off and I’m tired before I’ve even gotten out of bed.
I hope it’s just a getting back into the groove of things week and that things will feel more normal next week but for now I’m happy it’s the weekend and that I get to sleep in and not care about waking up in the middle of the night when there’s an alarm set to go off.

Due to me falling asleep a lot I’ve not really been able to do what I want during the evenings. My chores have all been postponed and I’ve put in way less time into gaming and being active than I hoped I would. It’s not like I’ve not done anything at all besides sleep in the evenings but I’ve not taken any of the walks that I wanted to and I’ve maybe put in 30 mins of game time if that per night.
Today isn’t much better with it being a League of Legends evening.. I’m spending most of it knackered out on my couch watching TV. I guess things will turn around a bit tomorrow and Sunday when I’m hopefully more well rested and in a bit better state of mind to get stuff done. I also have a big family BBQ to go to so there’s that.

So sorry for this being a bit of a lackluster post but I’m just honestly overwhelmingly tired and I can’t wait till I get to roll into my bed and drift away into dreamland.

Two weeks of freedom?

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As I sit down to write this blogpost I’ve had a really long tiresome day. Having barely slept last night I could only think of my bed when I was at work but now that I’m home, and it’s actually time to sleep, my head is a bit too filled with random thoughts to really settle down and snooze. So instead I’m just going to write down what’s going on inside this messy brain of mine today and see if that will help me clear it.

We have a midyear evaluation at work and I had mine today. I tend to get the same comments every evaluation: you’re not professional enough and you lack some communication skills. So far I’ve taken the criticisms as they come but there has never really been a follow up to them. I tend to get told that I’m a bit blunt which may come across as me being bitchy at times but I don’t really see it that way myself. It may come with the fact that the moment I step foot into the office people start asking me questions within two minutes of me sitting down. I get a bit annoyed by that sometimes because I really would like the first ten to fifteen minutes of my work day for myself to make a planning, look at what kind of mails I have and just settle down before the questions are fired. I’m already not a morning person by any means so stuff like this just tends to get me irritable, which I then show in my answers to people. It’s not something that is completely concious but it happens nonetheless.
My manager has offered me to work with me on my professionalism and my communication skills and I’ll gladly take any chance to grow as a person at work. I’m just seriously curious what exactly I should do to make strides and grow, but I guess I’ll see in a few weeks when we have our first “session”.

In other news my dad and his girlfriend departed for Spain this afternoon to enjoy a two week holiday over there, leaving me alone in the house untill the 28th. I have to say that I’m kind of happy to have this time to myself because I was getting irritated a lot by them lately and I just really needed some space. I do hope that I can use the coming two weeks to start getting into the habit of going to the gym again. My weight has been bothering me for a very long time now and now that I’m able, for two weeks atleast, to spend my time the way I want to I kind of want to use to start setting up a gym routine again. Working out is healthy and even though the first few weeks tend to be tough I also know that it gives me energy and stamina, which translates into a better mood overall for myself. I may use the topic of gyms and workouts for my blogposts the coming weeks but that is yet to be seen.
For now though I want to reserve some time on the weekends, probably in the morning, and weekdays after work to go to the gym for 30 mins – one hour. I realise that I have to start from scratch again but that’s okay. I’m not setting the bar extremely high for myself. I just want to make sure that I’m going again and build a steady rythm of getting myself to go before actually pushing hard for weight loss goals.

Tied into the whole gym thing I also want to cook healthy for myself these two weeks. I have one pizza in the freezer for emergencies but as far as I’m concerned I want to cook myself healthy meals every day if I can. This probably means a lot of rice and veggies since that is what I enjoy. I’m also stocking up on stuff like yoghurt and fruit so I can take that as a snack during the evening/weekends instead of candy or crisps and I want to make sure I’m taking fruit with me to work every day. I have a new backpack incoming and an insulated lunch bag which means I could cut myself some fruit in the evening and put it in a plastic container in the fridge so that it can go into the insulated bag in the morning, keeping it more cool and fresh than it would be otherwise. I could also try to do something with the yoghurt that way but for now I’m a bit hesitant because it’s dairy and already kind of sour so I don’t really want to take it with me where it’s not properly cooled, because I probably can’t taste if it’s gone “sour” that way.

As far as games are concerned I  want to cut back on time on those and spend that time on my gym stuff and some other hobbies instead. I am probably going to tackle Trine 2 with a friend and I will still be playing WoW probably on a daily basis but that will probably be it. During the weekends I will have a bit more time to do some more and branch out to other games like FFXIV or a single player game of my choosing but for the week nights it’ll be WoW exclusive.
I want to get back to reading my book and tackling an embroidery kit that I’ve started a few years ago but never finished. I also really want to build one of the Toy-Cons from the Nintendo Labo kit I scored for cheap a while back, probably the motorcycle one since I can use that with Mario Kart for fun and giggles. I will make pictures during my building process to post for my blog so definitely stay tuned for that!

At the end of the day though my plans for the coming two weeks are hopefully a foundation for a change that is more lasting. I want to step away from constantly gaming and work on my health. I also want to pick up some of my old hobbies and make myself less reliant on my PC/PS4/Switch for enjoyment or relaxation. The biggest thing is that I want to start having a more structured life where I am more calm and capable of getting things done. As for right now I feel like I’ve gotten off my chest what has been going on in my head, which means I can close down the house and get ready for a good night’s sleep.

Fate is sometimes kind

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I found this a very striking picture to start off my post with today. I was planning to do a post on the FFXIVxMHW crossover event but that will be postponed untill tomorrow.
Some stuff at work has got me thinking about where I am today and how I’ve got there. We are finally finishing off a huge automation project that will probably take a lot of the pressure off our department and get people off edge. It was fun partaking in this project and it’s so nice to finally see the fruits of everyone’s labour. For me personally it gave me an opportunity to learn how to program a robot, even though I can only do simplistic stuff, and to see the enthusiasm of people when they realize what this project means to them. If I hadn’t stuck around at my job this year I would’ve never had this opportunity. It must’ve been fate.

I can slowly feel the stress from work fading and it makes me more focused and happier when I’m at home. I’m also learning when I hit my wall in WoW after a week of expansion madness. I’ve been making small “quest logs” of my own in a notebook with all the stuff I want to do in game (and in real life) for the evening and I try to stick to it. So for today that meant I completed all my open emissary quests on my Rogue and finish off the Daelin’s Fort questchain in Stormsong Valley. On the Horde side of the fence I’ve finished off the Krag’wa questchain in Nazmir and some Herbalism quests to start getting my two star skills. I try to keep my goals small and realistic and I try to not do too much in the way of WoW because I don’t want to burn out like I did in Legion. For now my plan is to do a small bit everyday on my Rogue and Paladin and try to switch it up by either playing a bit of FFXIV, read a bit of my book or watch a show on Netflix. I’m not in the race for world firsts so I’m not in the race to gear up like mad.

Next to my gaming shenanigans I also want to pick up my courses in programming/IT again. I’ve been letting them fall to the wayside due to the stress at work and me just wanting to relax and sleep at home. Now that I have a bit more energy, and time, I want to see what I can learn and add to my skillset. Seeing as I’m 29 and my resumé isn’t that impressive I need all the extra skills I can get these days. So next to building robots with Automation Anywhere I want to be able to show off that I understand databases aswell as basic webdesign. I’m not sure when or how this will come in handy but having a bit of knowledge about how things work will never hurt. And who knows, maybe I’ll end up somewhere great because of it. And then I’ll look back and say “it must’ve been fate”.

Sunday Summaries #1

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So yeah. My official first Sunday Summaries post. I’m gonna look back on what I did during the week and what I have planned for next! My life is ever so interesting ofcourse.

First off, I’m still struggling with some health issues. My usual doctor has kind of given up on trying to find a cause and has sent me to see a specialist, specifically one that concerns the lungs. I’m still wheezing on many occassion when I exert myself and my cough is back in full aswell. This has caused me to feel absolutely horrible over the past week or so and honestly I’m kind of done feeling this way. So off to the specialist I go. My first appointment will be July 25th for another lung capacity test, after that we’ll see.
I’ve also been hard at work on my thesis, testing my cowokers and trying to get my approval for real. It’s all been a little chaotic with lots of things happening simultaneously but I think I can pull it off and be done with this major source of stress for good.
In the work department I’ve been asked to explain how our systems work to the new IT support team. We had a first meeting last week and a second meeting tomorrow. I’m sure they’re lovely people but they’re from India and I’m having real trouble understanding their accent. I’m not sure what’s up with that but not only do they have a difficult accent, they also tend to mumble instead of speak. Really annoying but the meeting was productive nonetheless. I had gotten some praise from some of my coworkers on the other teams afterwards so that’s really nice aswell.

Now onto gaming.
I’ve actually taken it easy this week. Work had gotten me really tired plus I felt like reading more than I did gaming. We did Omega with my new FC static and got everyone their loot for the week plus I think everyone has the Exdeath minion now, so that’s good. I’m rocking ilvl 317 average on my Ninja now and the only gear I can replace still are gloves, boots and chest. Seeing as Omega Savage launches next week I hope I can get some of that sweet loot aswell. We’ll see.
I do have to say that playing, and perfecting, the Ninja has been challenging this expansion. The Ten-Chi-Jin mechanic is not one that I really enjoy and I find it hard to incorporate it in my gameplay. I finally managed to nail my opener though, so that’s a thing. Now I just need to work on my Bhavacakra timing. It’s supposed to be always done during a Trick Attack window and I’m noticing that I’m not really handling that part very well yet. So I still have tons of room for improvement.
As far as leveling goes, I’ve mostly focused on the Red Mage and have gotten her to level 55. This is done via Palace of the Dead which is the fastest level method by far. It takes 3-4 runs of floor 51-60 per level so I could just sit down for about an hour and get a level done. It’s been really nice. I’ve opted to not do the job quests untill I’m level 60 and in full level 60 caster gear. I don’t want to buy things during a time where I know I won’t touch the class outside of Palace of the Dead anyway so that will save me some gil. I’ve also realized that I’ve held on to the HQ healer gear that I had gotten leveling up during Heavensward. I think I’m going to get rid of that aswell seeing as I’m taking the only healer I have left sub 60 (White Mage) through the PotD route aswell. I don’t think I’ll need any of the gear I’ve been saving up there. Plus as added bonus it frees up a ton of space on my retainer. As far as glamour purposes go, I can always get the gear again if I want to. For now I’m just settling on not getting any “new” gear untill level 60 where Palace of the Dead becomes moot and you have to actually grind your way up again through other means.

Next to FFXIV I’ve been poking around in Diablo 3 again after buying the Necromancer pack. The new Diablo season is starting this week so I might just poke my head in for that and play Necromancer for a change. See how the class feels and if it makes the experience fresh enough again for me to stick around.

Next to all the gaming I’ve been reading a lot as I’ve mentioned earlier. I finished off the last David Eddings book that I have in my possesion and started the Lies of Locke Lamora.

Next week…
I will have another busy work week. I hope to finish my testing for thesis and I have atleast one important meeting scheduled. There’s also the standard stuff that needs to get done so those will be four days well spent.
I really hope to finish the Lies of Locke Lamora. The book has me hooked, I really enjoy the story buildup and I want to read more! The only downside to finishing it will be that I will have to look for the second part, which I can obtain in various ways.
I want to get my Red Mage to level 60. It really only takes an hour of grinding Palace of the Dead per level or so, so it should be doable. I also want to focus on Miner a bit and get her to 50 and maybe beyond. We’ll see.
I’m going to dive into the new season of Diablo as Necromancer and probably make some sort of report of my journey along the way. I’ve not touched Diablo for quite some time now, enough to feel like I can sink a few hours in again without feeling the burn and frustrations that I’ve been feeling when I did the last few seasons.

All in all a very busy week for me! I hope to be able to tell you guys that I’ve met all my goals next week.

Hello from the Other Side

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September is in full swing and I realize I haven’t blogged in a while at all. I really wanted to post every day during August, but I really was an uninspired mess and I didn’t want to write subpar blogposts just for the sake of blogging.
My work has been an exercise in frustration. It’s been busy, more busy than before, and now you notice that some of your coworkers are just not dependable. We have a few around who do about half the work I do in a days time, while the other half they are looking at their phones, Facebook or even watch Netflix while “working”. It’s sucky and it’s making me very grumpy. Not that I’m not happy working there, the job is fine and I get along with most people. It’s just those few that suck all my energy out. Oh well.

In gaming terms I’ve been spending a lot of time in Azeroth. Legion launched a little over a week ago and I’ve barely picked up anything else. Now with the mobile companion app I’m even more invested in the game than I’ve been since Wrath of the Lich King days. It’s nice having a “fresh start” of sorts and I’ve been happily whacking away on my Warrior, Sandrian. I think it took me about 4-5 days to get to max level. My personal favourite zones were Val’Sharah and Highmountain, mostly due to the plot twists in the stories there, good and bad. Val’Sharah broke my heart, Highmountain made my jaw drop. Only Stormheim I didn’t really enjoy, with the Horde vs Alliance conflict saving atleast a bit of the zone for me.

I’ve also stuck my nose into the Rising Event on FFXIV today and took a few screens that I want to share here.

First off the amazing dressup of Ul’dah. I really love all the shinyness and banners and everything. Square Enix did a great job.

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I got to play out the Calamity on stage…

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And then ran into an old friend who I watched the fireworks with.

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Followed by a huge SE wink to a very familiar character.

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All in all it makes me happy to see SE put so much effort into their anniversary celebration. It’s nice that we as players get appreciation (and ingame goodies!) and I always find the whole thing charming. Ofcourse it wasn’t the same magnitude as the celebration last year, but still.

I’ll try to blog a bit more again. I’m still a very uninspired mess, but I do want to share some of my ingame adventures with you guys! Plus I still need to review my August goals, so that is a post that will definately come along.

 

Flipping The Switch

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As I went to the gym last Thursday I felt like I needed to change up my life. I visit the gym every so often, really not enough to produce a nice result and most of my weight loss from the past few months has actually come from changing my eating habits. Getting more health problems and just not being happy with myself in general I decided to get in touch with a Personal Trainer via the gym I workout at. Lo and behold he returned my email yesterday and we have made an appointment for next Thursday. I really hope he can get me on track with my weight loss goal, because I’m just really sick and tired about how I feel and look for a very long time now.
Being only 1.60m tall and weighing 72 kg is a lot. For a healthy BMI my maximum weight should be 60 kg and ideally I need to be around 55. So as you can see I’m already 12kg above what I should weigh as maximum and 17 kg above my ideal weight. So I set my goal to lose 15kg over the summer, boiling down to about 5kg a month. Seeing as I’ve been able to lose 7kg in one month the moment I started my job working for the mail I’m positive I can reach 5kg a month with daily workouts, provided I do them right. It’s a really big step for me to take. I have the motivation this time around and with someone helping me out I’m sure I can do it. I’ll keep you guys updated!

Breakdown
In other news, work has been awful. With our team coordinator gone I’ve had to step up a lot seeing as I’m the person with the most knowledge besides her in the team. Monday was a real bitch with lots of issues that needed to be solved, so I was happy when I was mostly off the hook on Tuesday and Wednesday. Yesterday however, we were already with less people than normal. An hour into our regular workday one of my coworkers started experiencing extreme chestpains. We rushed her to the resident company doctor who contacted her own GP. Although her symptoms weren’t bad enough for her to be taken to the hospital, we did have to take her home with a prescription for heavy painkillers. So off she went and suddenly I was alone and the entire planning of the day got turned upside down. I’m pretty sure we didn’t do a lot of things we should have done, but with a medical emergency I can’t really blame myself or anyone else that our day was more or less in shambles. This did result into me just collapsing into bed after dinner (I hadn’t been sleeping well at all the night before due to my room being 25 degrees) and waking up at 00.30 feeling very confused as to where I was.
It’s not really healthy to be this tired and needing this much sleep, but yesterday kind of broke me. Although I love my job and I hope to stay there for a long time and slowly work my way up in the company, I notice that I just need vacation and relax. Luckily it’s only 3 more weeks untill I have two weeks off, so really looking forward to that.

Tieing in with this work fatigue is that my desire to game has been reduced to nearly zero. I’m just really too tired to pick up anything and having to think. Thus I’ve spent most of my free time watching game streams or just resting, hoping that the permanent tiredness will go away. The fact that I have a three day weekend now might just encourage me enough to put atleast some time into a game, seeing as I have a bit more time to spend.

The Good
Now not to be a negative nancy throughout this blogpost, I do have some good news to share. Well good for me atleast.
Ever since I got my driver’s license about 6.5 years ago I’ve been driving around in my father’s car. I had one small accident where I scraped the nose of the car across the wall, damaging the paint, but other than that I’ve been accident free. Now he and his girlfriend have bought a new car for themselves, to drive in, meaning that I will more or less have our old car for myself. Of course there are restrictions, but knowing I can just take the car whenever I want without having to ask first is really nice. It shaves off a lot of time when it comes to visiting some of my friends (45 mins drive vs 1.5 hours with public transport) and it gives me some freedom to pick people up myself, instead of always waiting to be chauffeured.
So yeah, some more mobility is very welcome and I’ll definately make use of it!

All in all I hope I can use this weekend to get some desperately needed rest and relaxation and find my gaming vibe again. There’s many things I still want to do and it helps if I can get myself to just log in and go.