Guess Who’s Back: Life In Retrospect

Oh, I love how I keep saying “I’ll blog more,” but then never get around to it. I’ll get better about it eventually. Life, overall, has had quite a few ups and downs. And very little time for gaming.

Life 

Feel free to skip this. I don’t normally bemoan or mention real life much online, as I feel they should be as separate as they can be. However, life has been such a rollercoaster since November, that I felt it was best to get it all out and be done with brooding in my head. Please, feel free to skip this section.

In November I lost an okay job in what I thought I wanted to be my career. It wasn’t the best, they weren’t that great with having work for me to do, but it was still income that I was helping to support the Elephant and myself with. I picked up a job in childcare a few weeks later, and it was, again, an okay place. Long story short, the environment amongst the teachers was horrid—nobody wanted to be there, and it was extremely catty.

It’s okay, though, because they laid me off in January after being out two days with a bilateral ear infection (which is terribly painful, I might add) with a doctor’s note. Then I found a great home at a childcare facility that made me question what I wanted to do with my life as a career. When I started college as an undergrad, I wanted to teach Elementary school. Then after a not-so-great experience, I questioned it, decided to just finish out my degree because I was so close, skip my student teaching and teaching certification and fly right to graduate school. In graduate school I wanted to work in the Training and Development world. So I searched for jobs in that field while still working at the childcare center. I found on the end of April that I thought was going to be a great fit. Three weeks later, it turned out not to be so when they let me go with the only reason being, that I “wasn’t a good fit”. So now, I am back to the job hunt. All I need is to find a job in childcare again and I am okay. The problem is that everyone is off from school so numbers are down and they have part-time summer staffers that will go back to school in the fall.

Despite all this, some positive has happened and come of it. In February the Elephant and I were engaged!

We plan to be married in July of 2013, but we are currently holding on planning any more due to our current situation. I’ve also finally realized what I want to do with my career at this point in time. It may have taken quite a bit of time after graduating, but I have finally figured it out. I do want to be in Elementary school, teaching. I am currently looking into a program in my state that will allow me to work for a year while being paid as a specific type of teacher where I essentially finish my student teaching and other courses I may need in that time. Employment isn’t guaranteed, as most school systems that partner with the program will hire certified teachers over those trying to become certified, but I know something good will come of it. It’s one of those rare moments of clarity one has in their life.

See? Positive note.

The Blog 

It’s obviously been somewhat dead. “Somewhat” being an understatement. I am hoping to get back into the swing of things, but I am not going to hold my breath.

I do want to update the layout but I am without a copy of Photoshop, and am desperately searching for even an old copy, if someone has one they are getting rid of, or what have you.

The pages definitely need an update considering my gaming as of late. The blogroll still needs to be created, let alone “updated”. So it’s on the to-do list.

The Computer 

Last time I wrote, my computer was having issues playing the SW:TOR beta. Now, it’s just having an overheating problem in general. But I can’t get it fixed, so I cut gaming short after about four hours or my computer will go kablooey for another few hours. Just let it cool down for a half hour and then back to it. We can’t figure out what fan it is with the problem, but we know it’s a heating issue.

Gaming 

Console and Computer
The Elephant and I have said “goodbye” to WoW. It was a bittersweet departure, but it was necessary with life. After we moved in October and I started a job in January, our time was too caught up in other things. We weren’t prepared for raids like we should have been according to our own guild’s rules, and we felt like a detriment to the raid in general. Besides, who needs a Bear and a Tree when you can have a Death Knight and a Priest?

So we kind of ghosted off WoW. We miss our guild a lot, and we keep in touch with a few members. But most don’t use the site, and after we shut vent down because we couldn’t afford it, we haven’t really had a way to keep in touch aside from activating our accounts again. It works out, however, because we aren’t particularly interested in Mists of Pandaria. Our new game of focus is EVE, and we even just created alt-accounts. We are in a new corporation that focuses on mining, with some mission running and some incursions coming in June. We’re having a blast, and it’s a good distraction from life. The people are a riot, and we have fun. Like when we started playing WoW together.

We want to play some SW:TOR but neither of our computers can handle it, so we haven’t even really been keeping up with it. I am interested in eventually playing some STO, but it again, hasn’t been high on the priority list. We’re still working our way through Skyrim, but we’ve also been enjoying some LEGO: Star Wars. It’s a fairly difficult game despite its “kid” feel and marketing. I’ve kind of raged over it a few times, too. Yeah… go me! We really want Diablo III, but again, his graphics card can’t handle it, and my computer will crash with the overheating issue just starting it up. It also doesn’t help not being able to afford it. So we pine away as we watch everybody else play it. The Elephant did get a key from his best friend’s husband for Torchlight, and he is enjoying the shit out of it. I have been playing the Torchlight II beta for the past day, and can’t wait to purchase it when it comes out.

Tabletop
The Elephant recently decided to DM a 3.5E game, and we had our first game. Only one person could make it, sadly, so we’re holding another this weekend to get everyone up to par for the next full game. The world is pretty neat—sort of a clean slate thing going on after an “apocalypse” (The Wounding) which was essentially a World War kind of deal between Elves and Humans. Now they’re at it again and we’re in the middle of it. In the meantime we’re trying to find out why kids have been captured from a town and ran into some Undead. I’m pumped to play some more of my Gnome Bard—Pofty Xyratris Dragonflinger. Oh yeah. It’s going down.

Books 

I’ve not been reading very much due to a hectic life schedule, and I severely want to get back into it! I’m currently trying to finish up The Amber Spyglass so I can start on the humongous pile of books on my bedside table.

You didn't believe me, did you?

Wrap it Up 

I am sure that I will again disappear for a while. Once I am finally accepted into the practicum program, I will be working a second job so that the Elephant can finish up his degree sooner, and we can pay for our wedding. In the meantime, look for lots of posts on things I’m doing, both gaming and not. And expect some wedding-splosion at some point or another. Just sayin’.