Friday, November 30, 2012

Why Blizzard?

So, I have not heard from my grandmother, but I have confirmation she read the e-mail. Apparently, she doesn't want to reply because she is afraid it will "affect my exams" which makes me curious about what she has to say to me. Christmas this year will be interesting if she doesn't end up going to Hawaii.

Now, WTH Blizzard? Nerfing spawn rates is fine, but if it is really only by 50% then I am a gnome in truth and not just in game. (i'm short, but not that short) Spend 15 minutes flying around the Briny Much, and saw maybe 5 nodes, and only me gathering. COmpared to 5 stacks before in that time, I think that's more than 50%.
And Blingtron. The rewards are so awesome it is now per account, not per character? I do lie the dressed to kill buff. Looks cool. BUt I haven't even been able to get the quest, on any toon, this week.

Stuck in Miami. Back to looking for eggs for the cloud serpent rep.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Venting

So today will have little mentions of the lighter side of life, and a lot of talk about something that made me very angry.
I am am affable person. I get along with just about anyone. The number of people I have really hated can be counted on one hand with plenty of room left over.
An old roommate who was bad enough to make me move out after about a week of putting up with her BS.
My brother's ex-wife, for trying to half-assed abort her twins, taking being a jerk to an 11 year old to new heights, and pulling all sorts of crap after the separation with him and the kids.

My grandmother is on the verge of joining the list. I learned a bit about her today. Some I already knew- my older brother is bipolar, and she told my mom to give him to the courts when he was a child because he was really hard to deal with, and had to be hospitalized a few times. A few other things that showed me my brother has a good reason to dislike her.
And what pissed me off today, he attitude towards prescription drugs. My grandfather had a ton of scripts, and my Mom and I put them all in a bag so we could dispose of them. The pharmacy we called first doesn't take them, and we went out without calling anywhere else, so we left them at home. She had made comments about giving some of them to her friends, who might be on the same thing, to save money. I don't think that's a good idea. He was an 83 year old diabetic with heart failure, high blood pressure, parkinson's and dementia. Some things, like his glucose test strips, I'm ok with her giving away. His dementia meds? Not so much.
So I tried to take the bag of meds home with me, to dispose of them, and she blew up. Threw a fit, called me manipulative told stories of giving me meds as a child (cause tylenol is the same as this stuff) and basically really pissed me off. I don't do confrontations well, and I usually try to avoid them.  But today I just didn't care. What was my mistake was doing this while my Mom had driven me up and was there. She turned on my Mom about not getting the drugs from her car, and not controlling me. Eventually, because I didn't want Mom to get reamed for this, I gave the bag back. She kept going, so I shut the door in her face and left her house.
Now, tonight she called my Mom and raked her over the coals. I have never wanted to call someone up and bitch them out as much as I do right now. So instead, I am writing her an e-mail, because I can edit out the phrase "manipulative bitch" easier than I can stop myself saying it. To vent some anger, I thought I would share here.
I did double check the laws here, and it is illegal to give away prescriptions like she wants to.
I may be a cold bitch for saying if her friends can't afford the medicine they need to suck it up and deal with it, or come up with the money. I feel it is worse to give someone a few week's worth when they can't afford it and have them start and stop, than for them to have none.
Especially without a doctor' consultation. If she called up her doctor and he said it was fine, then I will apologize and take her to wherever she wants to go to give them out.
Right now, I am trying to figure out how to tell her she is being a manipulative bitch without using that word, or getting my mother into more trouble with her. I am going back to Grenada in a week, and I won't have to deal with her. My mom lives half an hour away, and can't not answer the phone when she calls.

Well, hopefully we can come to some agreement. Goodnight all.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Thanksgiving

A day late, but still. Yesterday was American Thanksgiving, and I was home. After 6 hours on planes and 8 hours in Miami, I made it home.
As an aside, I fin it ridiculous that I had to pay for wireless in Miami, but in Grenada's teeny tiny airport there was free internet. Thank you, Lime.
I am glad I am here with my family, today and tomorrow are going to be tough.
I am thankful my boyfriend enjoys playing WoW with me. I am glad we have something to do together even when i am in school.

And onto WoW, I started my hunter, Renessa. So far so good, but with a horrible jerk of a tank in the Wailing Caverns run. I'll admit, it was annoying when the healer rolled need on the leather DPS gear that dropped, but we're all still leveling, so whatever. But the tank called him out on it, then demanded he give it to the monk. So I pointed out that the monk, me or my boyfriend's hunter all could have used it. Stupid tank thought we were supposed to wear mail at level 20. Which even if we were, we were level 17 at the time. We had 3 leather DPS drops in that run, and I did get 1. But that little interaction with the tank really bugged me.
I have fond memories of Wailing Caverns. My first hunter wore the leather boots that dropped there up past level 40, when I should have found mail boots. I thought the stats were better. That is one of my noob moments.

So to everyone, a happy belated thanksgiving and good luck anyone tackling black Friday sales.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

He passed away, very shortly after I wrote that post. I don't know if I will be able to make it home, but I will try. I guess i spend the rest of today studying physic and histo, and see what the funeral arrangements will be. Physio test is on Tuesday, and histo is the following Monday. I might be able to prepare for both well enough. Maybe Dr. G will let me take the histo test early if he has it ready, or late. I don't know what the school does for students in this situation.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

I don't even know

Shortly after I started school, my grandfather had a stroke. His health has been steadily declining since. I really hope he can hang in there until December 16th, when I can make it home to see him. But just in case, I have looked up ticket prices back home to make sure I can afford one on short notice. I need to study for my next 2 tests, physio and histo, and then animal nutrition, radiology and clinical orientation, then physic, anatomy, and histo again. I figure if I group them like that, and study for all of them together in advance, instead of my usual one at a time before each test, I should hopefully be prepared a week in advance. My professors are kind enough, I hope, to let me take a test early or late if I need to go home. I am not sure what the university has in place for situations like this, but I figure if I am prepared and talk to my professors if I have to leave they will work with me.
It was tough, seeing him on skype. He wasn't awake, he's in hospice care and pretty much comatose now. Doctor said it's a miracle he's lasted as long as he has.
I don't even know how I feel, and when I think about it too long, I cry.
I will just have to continue as if I were a much better student than I am and be prepared at least a week in advance.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Bad Thing to Tell Vet Students

Did you know: you can buy a giraffe? There are website listing exotic animals. Zoos sell the extras from litters they don't need. All you need to do is get a license from the government, and buy the animal. That, is a Bad Thing to tell vet students. Not even an hour later there was a link online to the website. If I had the space and money to care for it, I'd totally be looking for a giraffe. But the idea anyone could get a large carnivore is a little scary to me.

I don't like people in general a whole lot. They're nice, sure, but when it comes to animals they are not very smart and animals are extremely important to me. Thus the four years of torture I am undertaking to become a veterinarian. People do stupid things just with dogs and cats. Do you know some people feed their pets a vegan diet? Cats are carnivores, and have specific dietary needs different from humans or dogs. A vegan cat is not a healthy cat, as far as I know. Maybe someone has figured out the prefect vegan cat diet, but I haven't seen it. So the thought of what people can do to dangerous animal worries me, because even a tame house cat or dog can do some serious injury under the worn circumstances, much less something that is supposed to kill and eat large mammals. Of course, those thoughts don't make me want to stay away from those animals. Just not own one.

On the WoW front, LFR is useful, but another example of people being awful. It's the tanks fault, it's the healers fault, everyone is undergeared, whatever excuse they could grab. We had today: a person who was part of the raid, answered ready checks, and hadn't left the Vale because they didn't want to to the first boss. 3 wipes later, I and one other person were apparently the only people to notice. I did whisper this person before initiating a kick, cause I don't like to kick people unless there is a good reason, like not zoning in for 20 minutes. He just didn't want to do that boss. So annoying.

And once again, our class schedule is wrong. We've had two now. Between the two, we've missed some classes because they weren't on our schedule so students didn't show up. We trust the schedule we're given and don't make another one based on the syllabus, which don't provide lecture times for some classes anyway. If we even get a syllabus. I suppose this is another case of TIG (this is Grenada) the phrase we use to explain anything that goes wrong down here.

So, we've missed classes because:
-the class coordinator was not on the island and didn't follow up with the lecturers to make sure things were happening as scheduled (for a Professionalism class. Great start there.) Missed 2 or 3 classes.
-One professor thinks all his classes are at 3:30, and if they are earlier doesn't come until 3:30 (missed 2 because of this)
-The schedule we were given did not list a class. Missed 2 from this now.

Lovely. Well, on to studying for the test tomorrow/clearing out the guild bank.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Ah, Vet School

As an undergrad, I never would have though professional school would be this regularly entertaining. I don't know why the thought never occurred to me, i worked in a research lab with a bunch of crazy fun people. And most of the fun comes from our anatomy professor. Today's lecture was fun. He gave the cat castration talk, and we discussed the male reproductive system. While discussing the cremaster muscle, and the other muscle in the scrotum and their purpose we were asked if we had ever really looked at a scrotum. I don't believe anyone spoke up, we were all laughing, especially when he continued on in his talk telling us we really should, and about swimming in cold mountain lakes. Ah, Dr. P's class is endlessly entertaining. If I wanted any kind of structured lecturing or explanations about what we were about to do, rather than all over the board skipping around as needed with no real clue what is in some of the power points, I would probably hate it. As it is, this test had repro questions on it "so we would've learned it all before [he] teaches it" to  us.

A lot of jumping about, but a lot of fun. One of the few classes i can stay awake in without the aid of my computer. Sorry, histo and physic, I know you're important but you're so dull sometimes.

The test went well, I think. One major mistake on my drawing, but not too shabby. I am also finally able to gain August Celestial rep on my tailor, so bag recipe here I come! ...in about a month. 89 on the monk, soon my boyfriend and I can start them on heroics. I want to gear Renala up to raid. I'd love if he could come with me, but with a job with fluctuating hours I am not sure he could promise raid times every week. But I look forward to monk healing, and finishing the Dread Wastes. I hate bugs, so very much, even if I think the Klaxxi lore is cool.

One more test to go this wee, then 2 more weeks until finals! I will be home in a month! Woohoo! I am so excited! I bet all the exclamation points cleverly hid that.

Good night, and good luck to everyone with an equine nutrition test on Friday!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Time Off

It's that time of the week, folks. That's right, realm maintenance time! So since I am offline for a few more hours (and longer if I actually study for that anatomy test) I figured I would reflect on what I am up to. And some good news on the anatomy front- spur of the moment, our professor decided to give us the option to cancel the lab portion of our test tomorrow since we are behind on dissection, and instead is giving us 7 points. A nice surprise.

So, for WoW: my main is exalted with GL and Tillers, and I don't really care about the other factions for here. Herbalist and scribe, no recipes she needs to get, so I do the other quests when I feel like it. My main alt, my mage and tailor, is working on getting revered with GL so she can get going on the other factions to buy that bag recipe and expand her farm. Every 85 alt has a farm, at least. My next 2, my monk and rogue, are working it up to 90. I am excited at trying to heal on my monk, there appear to be many more options that my druid has. I love being a tree, but being a panda is an acceptable compromise.

On a side note, I just feel like a druid should never really see armor. In WotLK, logging in sometimes would surprise me because the login screen showed my gear, with these huge swirly shoulder pads. As a tree, kitty, or bird, I never saw them. Seeing druids in "normal" form surprises and disappoints me. Boomkins hold a special place in my heart, although I have never played one. My mantra when I started to raid was "follow the boom kin" because our guild's boomkin stood out and knew where to stand to avoid the bad stuff. That thought almost got me in trouble in a few PUGs, when our boomkin wasn't there. Then I learned myself, and everything was better. Still, I love boomkins for that reason.

I want to make a hunter, I think, for my next alt. My boyfriend and I still have a few weeks of refer a friend left, so I will ask him what he wants to make so we can take advantage of all that xp. I prefer being ranged, for all that of most of my DPS specs are melee. I just like to see what is going on, not just the back of the boss's knees. Plus, my first toon ever, still sitting at 40-something on a PvP server, was a horde hunter. I made the switch to alliance on an RP server because of some friends, and later again for my brother.

Ok, that got off track. So, get rep up to buy bag recipe. Get rogue to 90 to unlock all those lockboxes I have picked up (entire reason I rolled a rogue) and get monk to 90 to heal and get my boyfriend started on heroics and all the dailies. Roll new toon. Hardest thing to do in all of that will be to pick a name. And I can figure out which professions I don't have yet! THe real reason I have so many alts, because I hate paying for everything.

On another side note, I got a funny whisper the other day, someone asking me how I picked my name. They saw it in general chat, and it is one letter off from their bank alt. So if I receive any weird mail, I will know where it comes from and can return it.

Well, time to study folks. 2 hours of one of the most boring professors I have had to date (or possibly his wife, but I will explain that another time) is the perfect time to draw pictures of dog reproductive tracts.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Goals

As far as my stated goals went:

 I am feeling much calmer about the test after the review session today. I still need to learn the names of the flexors and extensors of the tarsus and digits well enough that I can bring them to mind in a few seconds, but I feel prepared for the test Wednesday.

I did not get a DPS trinket for my kitty, but I did get the caster one at 11:30 last night, so i can give it to my boyfriend when his mage hits 90.

I ran a few more heroics. I kinda wish I could take it slow enough to know what is happening, but I have read guides and they appear simple enough to blow through knowing "don't stand in the fire." A little different than I am used to, I like a bit more knowledge to be necessary. Oh well, easy enough.
Did the LFR content this morning, that was also very easy. Once again, blowing through with only a moderate idea of what the mechanics were. Only one wipe that wasn't caused by someone stupidly pulling the boss, and a nice trinket! I love how the first thing I got was a cloak right after I bought the VP one...

I want to get into raiding. I enjoy trying out content while it is still relevant and working my way through week by week. There is a guild raid meeting this week, since out of the 3 weeks my guild has scheduled a raid, only once have they actually got a group together. I wasn't on when they started tonight to offer myself for the other healer spot, but there still would've been 5 people missing. Once again, I am glad I didn't raid when you needed to wait for 40 people. I fished all the coins out of the fountain in Dalaran waiting for people to show up for Ulduar and Naxx. Hopefully I can wrangle a spot on a team, but we have a lot of druids. It was kinda funny, the LFR had 5/6 healers as druids. Completly unrelated to our guild. But there are a lot of druids around.

My monk made it to 88, go Renala! My rogue made it into Kunlai from Halfhill, where she will probably sit and again maybe a quarter level a week. Just not motivated to play her, no matter how much I want to fly and mine. Plus the third time through the quests are starting to get a bit boring, fourth time through will probably not get better.

And after leveling from 1-85 with my boyfriend, I think my brain is screwy. I remember all sorts of random quests and where to go (except I forgot the hilarious "day that deathwing came" chain) but I can't remember which nerve innervates the flexors without doing some thinking? At least i can reason it out after a minute to pull pelvic limb nerves up.

Well, here's to a good next week for everyone, and good luck on my tests and good health to my grandfather. One more month and I'll be home.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Niv-Mizzet!

As per the title, I opened a Niv-Mizzet in my packs today! We finally got a chance to play some magic over lunch. The nearest place that has magic is in Barbados. or maybe Trinidad is a bit closer. But either way, no magic here on Grenada. So I ordered 2 boxes, and found some friends to play and we did a sealed over lunch. A lot of fun.

I was going to write something about me, so you'd know where I was coming from. I am a 23 year old first term vet student at St. George's University in Grenada. When I started this, it was going to be about my school experiences. But, I am a boring person and school is usually boring. And I tend to have more to rant about in WoW, so that has taken over. I am also a healer, so I figure the title is still good. :)

On that note, I finally got my Relic of Chi Ji! I did have to give in and buy a few cards, but I was getting very tired of fighting 5 other people for fool's cap in the same small circle. I might try tomorrow to get the trinket for my feral DPS spec, if I don't convince myself to stud anatomy instead.

You ever have one of those people you have to work with who you like and think are nice enough, but you absolutely hate working with them? I feel like that about one of my partners. I try not to let it show, but today another lab partner commented on how frustrated I had been last class. Oops... Not as successful as I thought. I also hope I am not one of those people.

So goals for the weekend: run every heroic at least once, get DPS darkmoon trinket, learn the muscles, nerves, and vessels of the pelvic limb. Not necessarily in that order.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

A Productive Week

and it isn't even Friday! Hopefully I can keep this up and get some work on my anatomy drawings for the test next week. I have plans to do some additional dissection tomorrow. Hopefully, those pelvic limb muscles and nerves will get stuck in my brain.
So, not only have I actually studied during class, but I ran my first MoP heroic tonight! I know, it's nothing special, and I have an ilevel of 462, so I am a tad over geared... But, there are upgrades to be had still and I would like to show my guild I am making an effort at raiding. Aside from buying valor and crafted gear, I mean. And working on farming for the inscription trinkets. I am new to this guild, and I haven't raided since WotLK. Back then, I had no problem PUGing it for anything. Heroics, raids, whatever. Since I came back in Cata playing with my brother and his girlfriend, I have been shy about PUGs. Aside from the holiday bosses, I haven't done a single one. I was also a DPS since my brother healed and his girlfriend tanked, and was nervous about healing "on my own"  a bit. I'll admit, I love my kitty, but our DPS is nowhere near top notch. So I didn't like running alone, and found a boyfriend before I ever started raiding or healing which combined with a waning interest on my brother's part in the game, spelled out a break that lasted until MoP.
Anyway, my brother and his girlfriend stopped playing so I joined a guild where there were more members than just me. My new guild is full of nice people, very friendly, and they have recently started raiding. I was not included in that. My ilevel was not up to minimum, but was pretty darn close (3 points away). I had expressed interest in healing, and did what was asked of my on the website to show I was a willing to listen. And the first raid week did not happen because "lack if healer interest." I'll admit, that hurt my feelings a bit, as I was very interested and no one had contacted me or made mention in my hearing that they needed another healer. While I had not run any heroics, I had purchased valor gear and crafted my professions epics and farmed the holiday rings to get my gear up to snuff and enchanted.
I was hurt, but I realize that I am a newcomer to this guild, and I have not run any heroics with anyone (or at all) so how were they to know how interested I really was?
So I sucked it up and went on a heroic (with a friendly guildie) and healed my way through. Very easy, even with no clue about the mechanics. Don't stand in the bad stuff usually covers it, I've found. I did have to have my boyfriend look up the name for druid dispel because I couldn't find it and I was looking for the wrong picture for the last fight, but it was a success! I now feel confident enough to heal heroics. So hopefully this weekend I can upgrade my last few quest greens and wrangle a raid invite somewhere. On a side note, 4 weeks of killing Sha on 2 toons and no loot except gold. :( I wish I could see what my rolls against the system are.
Another note. A trinket dropped from the last boss that would have been an upgrade for me, and specifically said your healing spells in its text. And of course I rolled need. And so did our caster. Apparently the game takes even rolls (we both rolled a 78) and gave it to our caster. I was mildly upset, since he hadn't asked me about needing the trinket. I don't roll on anything with hit when I am a healer unless I ask first. I don't roll on for the spec I am not in. I think it is just courtesy to ask first, and if I hadn't been in such a good mood from not letting anyone die (it had been really close with one idiot who stood in some bad stuff and got health into the single digits... but only the one!) I would have been more than mildly upset. So please people, don't be rude and just ask. he worse that can happen is someone says no, you do whatever you wanted anyway, and they are still upset (unless you don't win it, in which case they shouldn't care).

Ok, so: study anatomy, animal nutrition, lose my last few greens and try to get into a raid. If not with my guild I will try a PUG sometime in the next few weeks. So many tests...
I still get a kick that my new skinner is a "master of anatomy."

Happy studying/raiding/farming/Friday!

Monday, November 5, 2012

Sleepless

Another night of sleeplessness. I think I started a bad pattern this week. Histo test was not the best, but this was a bad day for it. Got some bad news about my grandfather's health, followed by a shift at the clinic til midnight. No sleep and emotional stress do not make for a very productive day. Kinda surprised I never passed out, really.

Anyway, just thought I would share the two things I learned that stuck with me this week.
First, the nuchal ligament in the dog makes for a very bad yoyo.
You can never ask a question too stupid.

And I will give a brief intro to my main WoW girls.

Elayldá, 90 night elf druid. Resto at heart, but running around as a kitty sometimes is fun too. It's nice to take a break from healing and only worry about not standing in the bad stuff. Of course, if I am going to do that, I prefer:

Elessa, 90 gnome mage. All the jokes about punting gnomes aside, and the bad images the phrase "running of the gnomes" first put into my mind, I enjoy my gnome. (Note: running of the gnomes was a lot of fun, and I will tell you of it later.)  When I am shorter than some of the wildlife, I do occasionally reconsider her stature.

Marabelynn, my human rogue. We're working up to 90 slowly, mostly to unlock lockboxes and fly while I mine. I like to be self-sufficient. I should probably keep up with the JC a bit more, but enh. Haven't been feeling the rogue lately.

Renala, my brand new Panda monk. Leveling mostly windwalker, I did try mistweaver for a while. Made me really hard to kill, but not so good at the DPS. I think giving the melee healing a try will be fun. I have so many melee classes, and keep professing to hate melee DPS. Bit of a contradiction, but I think it started with my habit of following my old guild's boomkin around in raids so I would learn not to stand in the bad stuff, and I associate boomkins with knowing what they are doing. So naturally, I feel like I should stay way from that spec and viola, kitty DPS. Renala and I are enjoying leveling, recruit a friend xp is wonderful. Doing the same panda quests for the third time are a little more fun with a friend along too. We're moving slowly through Pandaria, just hit 86 the other night. Finally decided to make a LW, but I am stalled at getting savage leather. I am probably just going to have to buy the 300 I need from the AH and eat the cost.

I'm hoping to get Reniella up to 85 at least, my dranei shammy, so I can learn BS and enchanting. My current enchanter is my deathknight, and for some reason I just can't stand playing her. I gave up at 75 in Cata. Maybe, once I finish everyone I care about more, and knock dailies out of the way for at least Elay, Elessa, and Renela, I will give her another shot before going through the trouble of leveling another enchanter all the way up.

On a brighter note, but tomorrow, maybe Wednesday at the latest if I get unlucky with the quests, I should be exalted with GL on Elay. She's really the only one I care about gearing up through valor, I just need the recipes for everyone else. So a /cheer for nearly being done with one set of dailies.

Yeah, this is very incoherent and rambling, and if I can ever stand to read through it again I will probably wince. Especially at this comment, but it is late so I will try to excuse myself.

Goodnight, time to attempt sleep. But first, a picture of some druid fun in Dragon Soul. Note the pretty clouds.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Weekend Procrastination

It's been a while since I started this exercise in procrastination. A lot has happened.
Shortly after I started classes, my grandfather had a stroke. Since then, his health has been declining. He has become violent with my grandmother, and has rarely left the hospital. I believe he was home for a few hours, before going right back. A few days ago, I was told he had been having more strokes, that they had missed. My grandmother signed a DNR for him, should anything happen. 6 weeks to go until classes are done, and I have no idea if he can make it that long. I am trying to transfer to a college closer to home, but I am afraid it may be too late.

Additionally, I have started up one of my old addicting habits- I am playing World of Warcraft again.  A 90 druid and mage, and a monk and rogue sitting at 85 and 87. Soon, I will be able to be mostly self-sufficient, once I get my shammy to 85 and train blacksmithing. Except enchanting, I hate playing my death knight, it just doesn't click for me like my druid does.
The dailies have started to become routine, especially since I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with the Golden Lotus. 3 more days til exalted, then I am done with them.

Histology test on Monday. As you can tell, procrastination in full force, especially with my transfer application complete. Had some problems with the school losing the paperwork for one of my requests for that application. I love it down here, and I get along just fine with island time in everything but my school.  As either a celebration or consolation, I have plans for pizza and Magic: the Gathering on Monday night. The Return to Ravnica boxes I ordered finally came in! After only a month, not too shabby.

On to a weekend of histology, hopefully a few heroics so I can get into the swing of healing again and raise my gearscore to 460 for LFR. And endless hours of farming savage leather to get my leatherworker up to MoP skills. Ok, I am being dramatic. I will probably spend a bunch of gold on it and buy out the AH... again.

Alright, finally ending this. To a productive and minimally procrastinating weekend of studying! But first, dinner.