Pomegranates!

Well, raid Thursday night was promising. Still no Garrosh kill, but some really strong feeling attempts. I got to DPS, which was fun. I was occasionally one of the top 3, which was odd. I mean, since the only other leather wearer is our bear tank, I get a lot of off-spec gear, but I think the people 10 ilevels above me should do more DPS than me. Which makes me wonder if I was ignoring something I should have been doing. I expect a few low ones, the person who has to deal with the engineer since our disc priest is on his druid and can’t do it anymore. So hopefully when we start fresh next week we can complete some tier sets and see a DPS boost. We ended up losing a hunter to computer issues and picking up a very sweet elemental shaman. Only raided with her for a bit, but she sounds really nice. It was enjoyable to have her along.

My druid is coming along nicely. She hit level 30 last night. I decided to go around and do all the pet battle quests on another toon for her to turn in. Now I need to decide if it is worthwhile for me to beg one of my higher level horde friends to drag me around a bit to turn them in or not. If I catch one of them admitting to being bored in the next few days, I’ll ask. I might subtly enquire to their state of boredom, I have some friends who just AFK in the Shrine a lot.

So that was most of my day- leveling the druid, doing pet battles, occasionally camping a rare, and raiding. I meant to get some arenas in. It turns out the guild is 1 win away from an achievement.

Oh, and the best part of my day- my awesome friends gave me a ride to the grocery store! I could recount the whole thing as an epic tale- my original planning based on the knowledge of their stocking schedule, the surprise offer, the quest for pomegranate that looked to be a failure, the surprise find and success! I could go into more detail- and clearly narrated a great deal of it in my head already. So yeah, I cleared them out of pomegranate. They only had 6, but it’s a good start to breakfast for this week :)

Something I am wondering- I was using zen meditation last night during whirling corruption. I am not sure if it reduced the damage the raid takes, but it sure helps me. I am just curious if it does work. Suppose the healers would have been the ones to ask. I’ll remember for next time, assuming I DPS instead of heal. I am happy I managed to bring my DPS up- made a few macros for Storm, Earth, and Fire to smooth that out a bit.

Plans for this weekend: study for my pathology test on Monday, cap conquest, level my horde druid a little more, quit rethinking my decisions on professions for my horde druid, quit craving steak since every time I log on someone says something about steak or A1 sauce. Hopefully makes some nice progress on Garrosh. And SLEEP.

An aside- I love A1 sauce. Some of my odder eating habits as a child involved eating spoonfuls of the stuff, along with Molly McButter. My family eventually stopped buying Molly McButter because of that. And I may have named our puppy Molly after that. 

We have a fish lecturer now. The topic is not interesting, but he is a good lecturer. And he opens the window between classes to let sunlight in, which is really nice. I don’t always see a lot of daylight.

Knocking Things Out

Alright, I have my PvP staff, got the lockout for Garrosh on Flex, and got the name I wanted for my potential horde druid released. Saw the response to that ticket in the middle of raid and was twitchy til break time when I could go make her.

While I was queued up for flex, I got a whisper from someone asking for advice on druid healing. So I chatted with that person for a while, went over all the glyphs, talents, abilities, whatever he asked that I could think of. I hope it helped him. I was feeling particularly nice, and he was very polite about the whole thing.

I finished my legendary for Ulduar, yay! And promised to help the 2 people who ran that with me weekly finish their legendary in ICC. I promised them that weeks ago, we just stalled out on the vampire part, due to lack of people.

Whoops, I messed up. I do combat logs, and I forgot I logged out (to make my horde druid) and didn’t restart. Then I “stopped” logging. Or so I thought. So now we have logs for my Ulduar run from last night. Yeah… And last week we have logs for the first few bosses of Firelands. I’m on top of things there, whoo! I finally got logs for my shaman friend who has experimented with some healing helping things, so she can see that on Thok.

Our raid last night went pretty well. We took down 4 bosses fairly easily. We had a few wipes, Blackfuse gave us a little trouble, but we got em pretty easily. The plan is to work on Garrosh in flex, where ideally we will be able to see the whole fight instead of wiping in part 1 or the beginning of part 2. I’m hopeful we’ll down it, and a bit sad that I have to wonder about that when I’ve been in PuGs that have done flex Garrosh so easily.

I’m sure we’ll get it eventually. It’s just a matter of time and practice, and hoping everyone stays sane and no one stresses out too much. We need to have a discussion with our guild leader, make an official policy for alts in the raid. We only have a small handful of people who would want to switch, but an official policy will be nice. Had lots of discussion for potential answers to some of the questions that are really worrying our raid leader. Hopefully we can implement at least 1, and then the only other big issue will bug me more than anyone else. And I’ve just gotten used to sighing and ploughing forward. And reminding people to dispel. 

I’ve pretty much decided to prepare to raid horde next expansion, hopefully with a resto druid. I need to talk someone and find out what his plans are. Right now, he raids on his lock, but he has healed on his druid in the past. I have enjoyed healing on my shaman and monk, and if he wants to heal on a druid I can figure something else out. But now I have Nala, a tauren druid, to level to 60 before I boost her. I have 4 of those experience boost elixirs to use, and I don’t want to level professions from scratch. I decided herbalism/alchemy, and I will get some gold over to horde-side. I’ll have to be poor for a while, and just buy things of the AH. I will miss my supporting group of alts.

A Bit of a Ramble

This one is a bit long and rambling.

Alright, so yesterday started pretty good. I did a brief write-up on the last few CM we have on our second set of toons, and decided to quit slacking and make potions. Don’t really think about DPS potions as a healer. Killed a celestial on my druid for my weekly gold, and ran a random BG so that when I run one today I can get my PvP weapon :)

I ran my druid through what I can comfortable solo in Ulduar, leaving 4 bosses and 1 fragment left. I feel bad asking the same few people to run it with me, so I may try to see if anyone else is willing to help me. Got a FL run for Saturday, though I am itching to try to solo some of those bosses. Think I’ll just wait til next week, and take it easy this week.

One of my teachers brought her dog to class, so our visiting professor could do a brief neuro exam. We’ve seen and done them before, but it’s nice to get a refresher. Plus that was the professor I have a weekly Tuesday group meeting with, so I was happy to get a little bit of dog time. I could really use my dog some days.

In Hearthstone, finally unlocked the last hero so I can try arena. Limited has always been my favorite format for Magic, and hopefully once I remember my basic limited rules: rarely more than 8 non-creature spells in a 40 card deck where 15-17 are land (depending on my mana curve) and remember to LOOK at my curve, I think I’ll do a bit better. It does take me a while to learn things, and I am used to having LSV’s set reviews with limited and constructed comments to look over. I don’t always agree with him, but it is always useful. I haven’t kept up with Magic here, no place sells cards. Haven’t even looked at spoiler since the last Elspeth was spoiled. A side note- Elspeth, Knight-Errant is one of my favorite cards, and I wish I’d had the money to play her when she was in standard. I started in Zendikar, and I wish I’d started earlier. Though at least I have a bunch of Zendikar full-art lands to play with. But anyway, Hearthstone is very aggro-y, and I always did best with aggro decks. Though I do remember the first time playing Red Deck Wins, which was designed to be able to deal 20 damage by turn 4, in an ideal hand, against White Weenie, a cheap white aggro deck, and we nearly went to turns. I rarely won by turn 4, but often by 6. 

I miss Magic sometimes. Made some nice friends there, met my boyfriend through Magic. I used to, in Blacksburg, play FNM then draft afterwards til 2 AM, then draft on Wednesdays. And drafter 2-3 times a week in Yorktown. I played a lot. Never did Magic Online, they didn’t have it for macs and I’m a cheapskate.

And the raid. We had 2 or 3 pulls, lost 1 person, and fell apart. We were missing 3 or 4 at the start, and took a while to get going. I just felt awful at the end of the day. I don’t know why, but I was near tears and frustrated and just wanted to DO SOMETHING but I didn’t want to really do anything. I blame most of that attitude on lack of sleep making me more prone to emotional outbursts combined with stress. That feeling kept me up til 3 AM doing pretty much nothing but reading random things and watching youtube videos. 

I did try to study. Went over Pasquini’s “Localize the Lesion” dog as practice for neuro. Couldn’t get through notes at all, was just so frustrated. 

I need to remember to get a lockout for Garrosh later on flex with Elay. Maybe I’ll look at trying that over lunch. The alternative is napping. I think I will stay up and hopefully crash after raid, instead of being sleepless til 3 AM again. 

Oh, I also sent in transmog for MoMar’s March competition. I sent one in for February, since I happened to have a red transmog already put together on my monk. But it didn’t get in, probably the e-mail issues I’ve been having. Not the happiest with orange, it was put together rather quickly. 

Oooh, did I mention I finally got the staff for Elay? Dreambinder dropped, from Freya this time, yay! <happy dance> just in time for me to be almost done with Ulduar for the legendary.

And now the real life stuff: the move. I live with my parents when I am not in school, and they are moving. It’s going to add 15 minutes to my drive to work and my boyfriends, which I imagine I’ll adjust to eventually. Mom decided to start moving in in May, ideally being done before I get home on the 18th. Well my brother’s guidance counselor heard, and told him he would have to pay tuition since it’s a different county. For one month. He graduates in June. How silly, especially since my Dad owns the townhouse so he’d still have a parent with an address in the right county. So my Mom is debating putting off the move, because Jake is going to stay at the townhouse with one of the dogs just to avoid issues with the school, and I don’t think she wants to leave him alone. Oh brief background here: my parent are divorced, Mom and Dad bought a townhouse at the time of the split, Mom moved in with us kids, a fight occurred, Dad moved in and Mom moved out, Mom remarried, Dad remarried and moved to Germany, Mom rents the town home from my Dad since it is in his name alone now. Now Mom is moving to a house again, with a fenced in yard, since we have 3 large dogs and only one is well trained and won’t pull my step dad over if they see a squirrel. 

That’s a big reason for the move- Mom is worried about my step dad and the dogs after my brother leaves, and he won’t have anyone to help with them while she is at work. He is very stubborn, and not in the best health. He’s over 6 foot when he’s not hunched and he weighs less than 160 lbs, and they can’t find any reason for the weight loss. He was a large man when I first met him. Lots of other things going on related to a car accident he was in a few years ago to, and a knee that needed replaced even before that accident. 

So Mom is worried about the move, and my older brother is doing his usual “I promise I’ll do it” then never finding the time, to help with some things for the move. And I don’t fly home til May 18th, so I can’t help much. I mean, there is plenty of time left, and I reminded my mom that 1 carload a week and the house will be empty before I get home. My parents have a large truck, can fit quite a bit. I just wish I could help more.

Nice to laugh at little things: golf tee sign, in myleography, and my teacher turning her head to see it. Someone was tired when they named that I bet, or wishing that’s where they were.

“We can also diagnose brain death with this, thought it’s typically quite apparent when [they’re brain dead]”

The BRAIN

So I deleted what I had written last week, some complaints about feeling like I never have enough time to do all the things I want to do. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. My usual pattern is to write during class, but since Wednesday I have skipped classes. I feel a little bad about that. Yes, I had intended to skip the first 3 classes Wednesday and Thursday, but I meant to come for my Thursday afternoon and Friday stuff. And I did something stupid, and stayed up to 6AM reading a story I have read 2 or 3 times before and overslept and decided to just not go to my last class. Hopefully I’ve taken the weekend to get my head on straight, get outside in the sunlight a bit, and get back to being responsible.

Raiding went well enough this week, tried some new stuff on Garrosh that make me go  “hmph, I need to heal better” cause we tried solo healing and that guy rocked it out on his druid. We didn’t get very far, but I don’t think I could’ve healed as well. i always forget the mushrooms bloom. We’re trying a 25M next week, we’ll see how it goes. I just want to kill him and get the achievement. Just one kill, then we can go back to wiping weekly.

My other raid might try some flex Garrosh, to get the strategy down, and ease in to normal. Not to sure if that’s the official plan yet. I need to go over some stuff for that raid. I need to learn to deal with people better.

Did a Firelands run for achievements, only missed Only the Pentient. And some people missed Do a Barrel Roll cause I can’t avoid bad stuff in the air. Bad kitty. I am well on my way to that legendary, yay! And I have another group next week to go back for the missing achievements, I hope. Then after that I will have to see about soloing some of those guys. I feel guilty asking the same people to help me all the time. 

I’m a little worried about a friend of mine. He’s seemed stressed for a while, and mentioned he’s not really enjoying the game as much.  I don’t think there’s anything I can do except tell him if he’s not enjoying stuff, don’t do it, especially if he’s doing it because I whine about being left alone in Flex. I’d be sad to see him go. 

And the vet school quote from the few classes I attended last week:

“Go mug a few old ladies and it less serious than using the wrong drug.”

Also, our Neuro professor gave us an overview of the brain, as explained by John Cleese.

I sit behind our regular professor when we have guest lecturers, and her reaction was as funny as the video. She was trying so hard to be quiet and nearly on the floor laughing

And then we watched the ministry of silly walks video. She couldn’t keep it in, she was cackling like a witch. It was amusing to watch.

Weekend Report

I took a break this weekend. I did some light studying, but the fact that I have an exam on Wednesday almost completely slipped my mind. I’ll work on that this week. It’s in surgical skills, so practicing my suture patterns and making sure I know all the surgical instrument names.

In WoW, I managed to cap conquest. I think I can get my weapon next week. If I’m lucky, the Celestials will give my poor druid some prideful gear. I’m enjoying PvP more than I thought I would. I do wish I could get involved in some rated battlegrounds. 

Managed to clear out my mailboxes and a few banks. Organized 2 tabs in my bank alt’s guild. Ok, one of those is cause I purchased a new tab, so it didn’t have time to get messy. Once I sold off all the extra enchanting mats I had a lot more room than I expected. I kept enough to help someone level enchanting. I am missing some of the harder to get enchanting mats- hypnotic dust, a few others. But since my enchanters are maxed, and my BF’s is, I’m only hanging on to it to help a hypothetical person in the future, so I don’t mind too much.

Yesterday I found 5 other people to help with Firelands! But we missed the achievement I need. But 2 of them said they’d go back again, either for achieves and transmog or to work on their legendary. I finished the first part of the legendary, and I might try to get the next part done solo without killing bosses so I can put a date on the calendar to get achievements. I’ll give soloing bosses there a try later. I feel bad asking people to help me run old stuff as often as I have been.  Though I’m 2 weeks, 1 if I get lucky, away from my legendary in Ulduar, yay! Many thanks to the people who have been running that with me regularly. It’ll be nice to get that done, since I’m going to be asking people to run Firelands with me it’ll be nice to keep it to 1 thing I need help with a week.

Looks like Monday flexes are cancelled for good, thank goodness. 6 days in SoO was getting to be a lot. I do miss my chances for the pet, but I suppose I can PuG it with my shaman, she’ll need gear if we ever get that alt run off the ground. 

Today we started fish med. With an Irish lecturer on Saint Patricks Day. And I forgot to wear green. Upon reflection, I’m not sure I have much green here. Turquoise, if you want to be generous.  Maybe 2 shirts with actual green on them. 

Done with Midterms, whoo!

I seem to have gotten into the habit of putting my thoughts to paper before each test, why change it now?  A brief recount of midterm week seems in order. Mostly this is a review of my complaints. 

Monday got off to a bad start. We were split into 2 groups, and I was stuck in the sucky room. Silly last name at the back of the alphabet. That test started with a phone alarm going off- twice. I felt really prepared for that test, and did not do as well as I would like. Which threw me off the rest of the week, and really just made my motivation to do anything besides sleep and goof off vanish. I keep going back and going “man, if I’d logically thought through that one question a little better, I’d have a B.”

Tuesday and Wednesday are a blur. Still deciding if I need to be ticked off about Wednesday’s test and start arguing questions. I need confirmation that the right answer of a question was something that we were told in class you don’t do before I make up my mind. 

Thursday was the test that took 45 minutes to start. I knew we weren’t going to start on time when they let the 200 people in 10 minutes before we were supposed to start, but I wasn’t expecting that much of a delay. At least the proctors stopped patrolling at least 20 minutes after the start time so we could talk and go on the internet.

And today. I didn’t start looking over material until 6 PM yesterday. I stayed up too late doing other stuff, trying to find a nice place for dinner because the only price I could find for our original plans was $40 US, which was more than I wanted to spend. I mentioned that to my friend, who insists it isn’t the price. She may be right, I’ve never been there before and have no confirmation besides that flyer from a few months ago. Maybe I’ll call later and confirm.

True to my goal, the only WoW I did was a few world boss kills and some camping of rares. I did start Hearthstone, which is a fun diversion. Still learning the classes and cards. Right now, I hate playing against hunters and want to see what a druid looks like. Tonight, the plan is to go out for a nice evening, and raid later. Have fun, maybe get a few talks we need to have out of the way. 

I think I need to put flex on the calendar for Saturday still, should probably check that. And come up with some raid quotes/names. I have random word documents for a bunch of things, one of which is potential and used raid quotes. No theme next week I think, just whatever I have already.

And we got our pre-test joke. How many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

2, but don’t ask me how they get in there.

And that test went really well. An A, yay! Nice to end this week on a high note, especially after some of the earlier tests and my motivation to study last night.

Turned out, it was $40 US for a three course dinner, but you could show up and have drinks and s’mores without paying that. They had really good pumpkin ginger soup, I should learn how to make it.

A Typical SGU Test

Well, this exam is getting off to a great start. Half the class can’t log in to download, and it’s already 7 minutes after start time. Exam services is “working on” the problem. The longer it takes, the more I feel I should be studying instead of reading this story. Which, in a show of “not the greatest decision making” I stayed up til 3 to read.

My guild ended up not raiding last night. I was blamed, even though I only told 3 people I wouldn’t be there, and those 3 showed up. (Turns out there was a power outage that took 3 people out.) We were missing a tank and a healer, as well as 2 others. They decided to call it, which means I can bring my monk for the early bosses worry-free and use up some of those bonus rolls. I’ll figure out what to do with the Garrosh lockout after I see how far my Tues/Thurs raid gets. 

My RL is really worries about Garrosh. I tend to worry a little less, but I can see his point. I think some flex practice, so we can see more of the mechanics, would be a good deal. But we’re a few weeks out on that, I think, unless we have a fantastic night on Friday. And start on time. I wonder what that would be like….

I got my hearthsteed yesterday, so I’m happy. It was pretty easy (and free- big thing for me free) and took from starting the download of Hearthstone to logging on to WoW to collect my mount, about an hour. And now I have a new, quick game to play. I used to play M:tG, and would still play if I was in an area that had cards. I also tended to be best with aggro decks. I did decently well with RDW and after a while people hated to see me draft RG aggro. Though they apparently forgot I started that because someone else did and I was NOT going to let him get them again. And it seems hearthstone, from the little I’ve seen, is very much an aggro game.

20 minutes past exam start time, and counting.

Last test tomorrow. Well, until the one on Wednesday, a practical for intro to surgical skills. But that’s a whole 6 days away, which is an eternity when there’s another test before that.

The test ended up starting between half an hour and forty-five minutes late. I am very happy with my grade, since I felt like I was just guessing on almost every poultry question. Clearly had this class on my mind though. Took a nap afterwards, had a dream I was on an emu farm/swamp bird watching/snake finding trip in the Outer Banks with my professor. Interesting.

Procrastinating is Going Well

Since I caught up on all my TV shows Monday night, I had very few distractions to studying yesterday. We’ll see how I do on the exam then.

Only a little WoW- since I wasn’t raiding, I didn’t want to log in during raid time. So I checked up on the armory instead to see who got what and judge how far they got. Looks like it was a fresh run, which means I need to remember to check with the RL about the lockout I have to Garrosh on the druid, and do that before I bring her to raid on Friday.

And tonight is my guild’s raid. I might pop in to check on them and wish them luck. 

I would like to talk to some people a little more about potential horde side raiding. I’ve made a level 1 druid, simply as a place holder. Now to decide which is quicker- level to 60 so I don’t have to level professions, or spending time gathering to level alchemy once I hit 90. I think the gathering time is quicker. So while nothing is decided, clearly I am preparing for that option.

I also decided I’d go alchemist, cause I can trade flasks for goods and services. Who doesn’t need flasks? I know, people like me with alchemists. But even I would accept flasks in trade. Since we’re not doing part 2 in flex, and since my raids have been extending for weeks to kill Garrosh, I haven’t been getting those few extra flasks each week. I raid at least- wow, I just did the math.11 hours normal, and 6 flex. Though that flex time will be cut down by 3 hours. Still, 17 flasks a week- I do not bring that many golden lotus in anymore, since I don’t keep up with farming and I’m not killing things to gather motes and turn them in. I decimated my mote supply to get Elay the pants/waist from LW and get to the 13163 haste breakpoint.  I think I’ll start using that crystal of insanity a bit more, especially for flex and farm content.

And I am sad that that number is in my head, when it could be anesthesiology knowledge instead.

Well, after today I’ll have 2 more tests left. Avian and Exotics, and Intro to Clin Med. Both are tough, either because it’s a topic I have little background in or because there’s just so much STUFF.

And have you seen the hearthstone mount? Looks neat. And looks like a horse, and I’m really missing horses today. I’m pretty sure my pony is long gone, even though I haven’t talked to the woman who took him in since I gave him away. But that was….the summer of 2010. Wow, it felt so much longer. Maybe he is still alive. If I end up back in Blacksburg, I will have to check. I try not to think about it a lot, it makes me sad. I did an internship in northern Virginia for a few months, and there was no way I could afford horse boarding there, plus I was still paying off the expensive vet bills for treating a few things earlier in the year. I found a woman with 17 acres and a few other horses who was willing to take him in. Sinbad, let me see if I can find a picture. And yes, I should be studying now and I’ve been putting it off with little things all day. 

He was a good pony to learn with. I started riding when I was 10 or 11, and working at the barn on weekends when I was 13. My mom got him for me that winter, he was the horse I rode in lessons all the time. Working at the barn paid his board and my lessons. He was stubborn and smart and dang it but I never fell off of him when he was moving. His preferred method was to come to a dead stop and drop his head, usually after a jump when I was already leaning forward a bit and was way more likely to just tumble off. Have no idea his real age, but according to his teeth after we got him, we were told over 20. 

He was very stubborn. We went on a trail ride once, just me and him. I wasn’t too familiar with the area, but wasn’t worried. I didn’t go far, and worse came to worse we just back tracked instead of finding the way forward that also went home. Well after wandering around for a little while, and checking a few paths to see if they went home, Sinbad just turned and started tromping through the woods. I let him, and in a few moments we were back where we started, by the gate. I have an awful sense of direction, and I trusted his more than mine. That sense of direction applies to local roads, traveling, and WoW dungeons. Also have to take a second to do left and right, sometimes holding my hands in front of me. Not as bad as my mother, who you have to tell “driver’s side” or “passenger’s side” when directing her while she’s driving. I have been known to point right and say left.

In hindsight, perhaps I should be careful exploring unknown areas with a poor sense of direction. But I have a pretty good memory and can back track pretty well. Besides, that's what cell phones with GPS are for. 

Midterms, continued

So Monday was a bust, mentally. I was so shaken by that test, I did very little studying. I read maybe 35 pages of notes all day. But anyway, today is a new day, new exam, and new tests! This one was vet public health, and should be pretty easy.

We ended up canceling flex on Monday. The 3 officers on did not feel like having flex, and we didn’t have that meeting with our raiding officer after all. We’ll see how it goes, once we get that meeting together. We’ll still do Sat flexes, though I suppose we’ll swap up the wings a bit more.

Did some challenge mode work instead. I had planned on not getting on WoW, but I pretty much said “F it all, why does it matter” and made some bad decisions. In addition to playing WoW til 11, I learned the Once Upon a Times were back, and decided I wanted to watch them. So then it was close to 2 (because I didn’t make the decision to start til after midnight) and yeah, not the smartest panda.

And I was given something else to think about. The preorders have started, and the 90 boost is available now. I’ve been debating who to raise. I’ve thought about a pally, since that’s the once class I don’t have a toon started at all, just a level 1 holding a name. Not including warriors- I don’t want one right now. But every other class I have at least to 40, and feel I can level from there, or I don’t really care about leveling. Then someone mentioned an opportunity to raid in WoD, as part of a mythic team, horde-side.

I have 1 lone level 62 horde monk, and that one is earmarked for a Herald of the Titans run. So I could boost a horde, maybe a druid. I’m most comfortable on my druid, throwing HoTs out and setting my tree on fire. Though if I have to DPS, I will have to do a lot of practice. I’m a feral druid for DPS. Always am. (You know, for someone who claims to dislike melee, I play an awful lot of them over ranged.) But I’m not the best kitty I could be. I’m pretty sure I’m on the lower end of mediocre there.

But do I want to? I don’t know. If my friends go, I would probably go along with them. I would not go do that by myself. I’ve never been a serious raider, pushing realm firsts. This is the first time since Wrath I’ve been on an end boss while it was the current tier, and look how long it’s taken me to get there. Haven’t even killed him yet. Plus, I won’t have my army of alts with their support professions. And I would either have to level to, what, 60? or start professions from scratch. I was thinking JC, since that can get pretty expensive. 

I’m already seriously considering it. I don’t even know what I’ll be doing when WoD comes out. Raiding horde and alliance with my guild would mean I’d have to split my time. I like my alliance friends. Though some of them would be horde too. And I doubt there will be another legendary like this one for me to be pursuing on both sides. 

I’m not sure. I need to think about it, talk it over. I know, already, that I want to got my monk and druid to max level first, then it’s usually my mage and rogue, in part to level alchemy and JC. Then the enchanter. Then having to do a horde toon too, probably as one of my first 2 or 3? I’ve become so used to having the JC to make me gems, the alchemist to transmute what I need and give me flasks, the enchanter and scribe, the tailor and leatherworker, so I am pretty self-sufficient. The only profession I don’t have it engineering. And I’ve considered using the boost for that, on my hunter in the mid-60’s. I suppose I could coordinate with my friends, if I choose to go that way. Share professions. Plus, I’m sure there are helpful people horde side, if I could get mats.

So that’s been floating around in my head. Clearly a decent bit. I wish I had a solid release date, and I wish it was the last week of July or the first week of August. December 20th would be nice too, but anytime between mid-August til then, I have classes. And it took me a leisurely few months to get my current group up and leveled.

Well, I have plenty of time to ponder this. I’ll work it out eventually.

First Midterm Down

Ok, first midterm down. Absolutely awful. Not failing, but awful for me. A 78. I can still get a B in the class, but an A is out of reach. I’m just so upset, I studied a lot for this test. 

Oh, actually a friend pointed out an A is still possible, but I can only miss one question the rest of the semester. Unlikely, but it makes me feel a bit better. Walking out of the test I was incredibly upset. I actually left my bag in the room and had to go back and get it. I’ll never know for sure what I missed- I have a good idea about some of them, but the regulations are so screwed up, students have no idea what’s really allowed. Other students who talked to these professors told me we only get to go over concepts, not questions. Other teachers have gone over test questions- though I was told “this isn’t happening” so I guess it wasn’t really allowed.

The test situation really bugs me. That test showed us a raw score. Past test have showed us nothing, let us review the whole thing, showed us only the wrong answers, been password protected review, etc. I wish there was one procedure, for all tests, so I didn’t wonder each time what was going to happen. With paper tests, they gave out answers as soon as the test was done. I don’t see why they can’t do that again, if they are concerned about cheating have us wait til everyone is done and give us password review. Though the wait til everyone is done to leave tests are a pain. That password idea would give us the option- if I get my raw score back as 100 or 95, I don’t need to see the answers.  And all the cheating concerns could be taken care of if they had a proper testing facility instead of shoving us into any old room. But that’s another issue, and it certainly won’t be solved while I’m here.

I can complain about SGU until the cows come home, it won’t change anything. Probably not a good idea, then I will dwell on the bad rather than the good- the beautiful beaches, the… beaches. I’m sure there’s more. Oh, the weather! Always sunny and in the 80s. What’s done is done. Now I’m in this horrible funk, where I don’t want to do anything but sit and mope. I really want my dog. It would have been really nice to curl up with her and take a nap. She’s great about taking naps. The only time I have touched a living animal this term was the chicken lab last week.

In WoW news, got another challenge mode down. Since I have 5 to go on that toon, and another toon waiting as well, I really should put together a cheat-sheet for these. We were having issues with Scarlet Monastery. Without a DK to control one of those spirits, we were 48 seconds too slow. I’m going to have to look up some stuff for elemental shamans too, I feel like I am not doing well on bosses. Trash, sure, all the chain lightning spamming is easy. 

Not going to be much from me this week. With midterms, I’m taking the week off raiding and evening WoW activities. I’ll still log on during the day, to chat and give my mind something else to do. But I feel raiding is a bad idea, and sleep is a fantastic idea.

A Fun Weekend

Lots of news. My other raid group’s guild finally downed Garrosh, yay! A mixed group of folks I think, they run 4 raids and just pulled several people together.

My Wed/Fri raid made it to Garrosh. Lots of work still, but it was nice to get there. Still no Kovok, but someday.

Just remembered, I am giving someone a Sapphire Cub, but I can’t remember why… Something about the guild anniversary party. It’s the second year, and like last year there was a party at the Darkmoon Faire.  Super sad bunny news this week- I took a nap, logged on to a corpse. Then during the party it spawned! And horde tag got it. Seconds after I got there. So sad, I conveniently had a raid group with tank and healers and 8 or 9 DPS handy and available, and no fight.

Aside from that bit o’ sadness (since I’d just spent the last two days camping that thing and studying) the party was a blast. Naked dueling! Mistweaver vs. awesome warlock- not a good match-up. I used Xuen 3 times, and I din’t think I was that great about using it on CD, and it started with a CD from a previous fight- just to give you some idea how long it took. But it was fun. I ended up winning by default- after several minutes, it was declared first below 50%. Well, that didn’t happen, so whoever had higher health at a specific time. I made it- 100 to 91%. I offered a rematch cause I felt that was a little unfair, with me in DPS spec, but it was declined. He seemed to think I could kill him, and I think he’d get me. Now we’ll never know.

The now-infamous potato song came back. I stepped out of vent to keep it from being stuck in my head. For any interested, this is the song. 

After that, did some 2s and 3s to cap valor for the week. It was fun, played with a hunter for a while, who’s only recently expressed interest in PvP. Had a lot of fun, and it’s nice to have more guildies involved in PvP. Brings the number I’m aware of up to 5. Happy to have that knocked out. Now to get my weekly Ulduar and Firelands runs in… Enh, if it takes me 3 or 4 more weeks to finish that, instead of 2 or 3, that’s OK. Midterms are WAY more important. 

Which is why I have made the decision to not raid. Someone told me they’d feel bad if I did poorly because I wanted to raid, and I stopped and realized I’d feel awful too. If I raided, and stayed up late, and missed something silly I’d feel like crap for the rest of the day. And since I’ve made the raid invite quote this week something from Belladonna so I remember to be positive, that would be a stupid decision to make. So no raiding this week. Ah, here’s that quote: “Let your heart travel lightly. Because what you bring with you becomes part of the landscape.” 

Yeah, only 1 person gave me suggestions for a raid name. And while I loved “It’s not easy raiding in greens” and a few others, I’ve decided to go with quotes from some of my favorite authors or TV shows until someone else takes over. This week was Anne Bishop and Terry Pratchett.

And there is talk- and a scheduled talk with the raiding officer about this- about dropping down to 1 day of flex for the guild. I’ve been feeling a bit burnt out, having things (all SoO too) scheduled in WoW 6 days a week between 2 raids and flex. I hope it happens. And not just because I found someone starting RBG on Monday nights…. Lol, aside from that, I want to not be scheduled to do something in WoW every day of the week. In addition to the raids, there’s challenge modes. And hopefully finishing heroic older raids, and I’d like to go back on normal and just get the achievements. 

Plus Monday is half-price pizza at Prickly, and I’d like to do another pizza/game night again. Play some more of those card games Ashley has, or maybe some Settlers. Unsurprisingly, card games are easier to play at restaurants than boardgames with large boards. Who’da thunk it, right?

So far, studying has gone great. Ok, so there were 30 40 more pages I could have read today, but I read all my notes for 2 classes, and 75% of another class. That’s pretty darn good. Public Health should be a breeze, and I’m starting to feel comfortable with Pathology. Clin Med is Friday, I’m not thinking past Tuesday yet. Heck, I’m trying not to think of Tuesday yet. One day at a time, and try not to just go to the store and buy all the awful junk food and get sick. I had a coke and starbursts today and felt my attention span just decay to nothing. I did not buy cookie dough at IGA last week. I am still debating if I need to go this week. I’m almost out of bread, but have enough juice and fruit for smoothies for a while. I guess it depends on how often I eat out. I might see about going to the coffee shop for waffles after one of our tests, that’s one meal planned.

So, tomorrow: study more path! All the path, and anesthesia, and something else. Probably Avian/Exotics or Clin Med. I made a very nice study schedule, very open-ended too. Simply 2 to 3 classes a day until midterms are over, and read the notes. If I can stick to it, I’ll get through the week. And possibly a celebration on Friday! With daylight’s savings, I’ll have to see if I raid on Friday or need to recover from tests. I am missing the next Friday for Fish Friday, no help for that. I want to go to one while I am here, and though it would be cool to go with my boyfriend when he visits, the smell of seafood often puts him off eating, so…. I’ll go with Ashley and her boyfriend and some other folks!

Details will be finalized about this Friday later, and I’ll inform the appropriate people about my raid attendance. For now, it’s all the studying.

Rambling

Well, we’re making progress on Garrosh. We fluctuated between 2 and 3 tanks a lot, and ended up having everyone swap to ranged, leaving my fistweaver mink the only melee DPS. So I had to do some only mistweaving or a bit, and i really need to practice that. I know it should take less mana than fistweaving, not more. I think I need to get out of the mindset that I have to heal them RIGHT NOW because I can spam some stuff and go OOM quickly. Then I swapped to the druid to typhoon adds back and promptly forgot to do it. 

Because we had 2 people swap to alts, there was talk of starting fresh next week to get them some gear. Since 3 separate people mentioned that and I told my RL I’m still deciding if I can attend next week with midterms coming up, I’m hoping that’s the route we take. I know the RL- heck, all of us- really want to down Garrosh, but a bit of a break would be nice.

My poor professor just told us where we’d be for the exam- split into 2 rooms, in 2 different buildings about 3 minutes apart. A pain, but ok. Except the second room is very poorly designed for class use. Our class started there, and with a hundred of us at the time it sucked. Seats are too small and close, rows are too close, there was no board to write on for a while, and we had a few other issues. And we’re scheduled to be back in there next term, as far as I know. We’ll see how that works out. Anyway, once the professor announced that, he asked if there were any problems and half the class had a comment. That room sucks, but he didn’t pick it and can’t change it. I don’t get why we are split up, when there is a room right across the hall from us. Would make more sense to put us all in 1 building, and if another class is using that room, have them use the one in Taylor instead. So classes don’t get split. But TIG- this is Grenada, you learn to just deal with the odd stuff.

So I ended up not talking to my RL yesterday about my issues, and when I checked the calendar later noticed (almost) all of the alts were gone. Not the one person who is on the list but hardly online, but the GL mentioned he was taking a break from WoW for a while and we might want to remove him, so I might do that later.

Getting By

Not making the best decisions lately, from a study standpoint. From a mental health stand point, I think it’s debatable. I skipped my early classes this morning to sleep in. Path and Public Health are an easy decision. I love this current path lecturer, he’s really nice, his notes are complete and well organized and he takes the Pasquini approach to highlighting what 85% of our test will cover. But he reads straight from the slide, doesn’t say much extra, so paying attention is not necessary. So I feel well rested and relaxed. I am going to try not to nap- a long nap really takes a lot out of my day, especially if I want to keep up with raiding.

And on that note- raiding! Our raid last night didn’t go that well. People just seemed to be making silly mistakes (myself included, though I’d like to think mine were few in number) and  we only got one boss down. So sadly we’ll have to start at Paragons on Friday, not Garrosh. I really wanted to get them down. Not much else to say there. I can rattle off a long list of complaints about what I should’ve done different or how much can I nag people to not be stupid. Really, not equipping a cloak that’s almost 20 ilevels better because it has hit and you’re hit capped already, when hit is the second minor stat and your current cloak has 1- and it’s not what you need, while this other cloak does have the crit you want? There’s my whine of the day. Can’t tell other people how to play, can only find people who play like me so I whine less.

Not sure what we’ll do on Garrosh tonight. I still feel we made good progress on Tuesday. Hopefully we’ll go back to 2 heals, 2 tanks, and it’d be nice if I could bring my monk. My druid doesn’t have an interrupt that will work on empowered MC, while the monk does. Plus I’d like to DPS. I think our RL is hesitant to bring more melee, but with the way my CD’s line up nicely with the whirls (at least in flex) and I am pretty decent monk DPS. Not a hot shot, by any means, but still nice I think.

One more thing- I may have mentioned it before, but I forgot last night. Once again, I was told to pick something. We had all 3 of our subs available last night, though only 2 were online at this point, and I said in chat to both of them “hey, you’re both here, want to duke it out for the spot” to see what they would say. They said nothing, our raiding officer told me to just pick rather than leaving it up to them. Well I dithered, and ended up tossing it in the RL’s lap when he showed up. One of them offered to step back to him, and it ended up being the person I would’ve picked, since he had sat out the week before for personal issues yeah, but still missed. 

So from now on, I am going to remember that I told myself if such a situation arises again, I am going to pick, guilt-free. And people can suck it up and learn to answer me clearly when I say “what do you want to do” instead of saying, oh, whatever you want me to. 

Just a side note- maybe we should address this extra raider thing. We have, almost every night, 1 or 2 extra people coming a night. I can say this secure in not being a RL- if I were in charge, if people routinely did not respond to their calendar invite, I would start leaving those people out. Tell them “you didn’t respond, I assumed it was a no and replaced you.” Doesn’t always work since our RL doesn’t always respond. Though he will decline if he can’t make it. But anyway, that’s just something that bugs me. As is one person inviting all his alts so he can check the calendar no matter who he is on. All those extra names bug me-  I want 10 names, 10 accepts. Yeah, emergencies happen and we might have to scramble around for that one extra person if it’s last minute. But if you know in advance- we have 3 standbys. They’re good raider who just can’t commit to a schedule, but for the last 2 months 2 of them have been there almost every night, and have to decide who will drop. We don’t rotate people in and out, we tried it one night and I think it worked well but I think it also upset at least 1 person, so we haven’t tried again.

Wow, I had a bit more to say on that subject than I thought.  The thing there is- I am not in charge. I help the RL, I start things when he’s late, I mark things and help call things out, put up the calendar invites. (By the way, how many times do I have to tell people “click the damn body for a buff” before someone (8 potential people, at that point- it was the first one, for crying out loud) before it gets picked up?) I am not sure I should discuss this with him or not. Again, not in charge, but a helper. I’ll debate it. If he’s on later today, I will broach the topic of the one raider who is on the list and hasn’t come in weeks and see if he’s been talked to, or if I can just remove him.

So, yeah... Not the BEST Use of Time, per se

I managed to get very little done yesterday. I swapped my monk from brewmaster back to DPS, at the request of my RL-only to bring my druid to heal. Made me giggle a little, but probably a good thing- I’m way more likely to need to do decent DPS than I am to tank. We have yet another capable tank in a returning player, who I am very happy to see. And now he’s talking in vent- completely threw me off. But anyway, yay for returning guildies!

So Garrosh- I feel we’re making progress, now we’re getting to the point that what is killing us isn’t so much the adds, as it is the empowered mind controls. We were back up to 3 tanks again last night. Enh, it worked ok- but I told my RL my thoughts: it worked ok tonight, but I think we’re handicapping ourselves in phase 1 and 2 to carry an extra tank for phase 3- which we’ve never even gotten to yet! For some reason, that raid is enamored with jumping up to 3 tanks at a moments notice, for bosses that 2-tank just fine. Like General Nazgrim. Possibly because we have 3 melee DPS, 2 of which have a tank off-spec. All that aside, I still felt like last night we made more progress than we have in weeks. I can say some stuff I think needs to improve, I can be catty and say one of the ideas implemented last night I told him would help us weeks ago (and hey, it did!), but I just want him to die.

And I think it might be really fun if our group for Wed/Fri managed to kill Garrosh this week. I have no doubt we’ll get there this week, just a matter of who much time will we have to work on it. 

And a quick recap of our Monday flex- same as normal, kill first two, wipe on Garrosh for half an hour. Part of the issue is explanations, I think. We have the same core group of 10-13, and occasionally 1 or 2 new people, and I can’t keep straight who needs what explained. I’m very minimalist on explanations- took about 30 sec to explain Paragons, and that was mostly “don’t stand in anything, except the one thing, and I’ll call out other stuff as we go” with one or two other points. But half an hour video and a page of notes condensed quite nicely. Thank goodness the tanks know what they’re doing.

And the reason I managed to be so productive yesterday- Anne Bishop’s new book came out, and I spent the morning reading it and the afternoon napping. Yeah, that sleep schedule thing lasted 2 days and I am back to embracing the nap. I am hopeful that next week I can catch up on my sleep load a bit- midterms, (yikes) but that means no classes- so I can sleep in a bit. 

That’s another reason I want to kill Garrosh, so I can take a week off without feeling bad (or missing the kill). Though I also feel like I should be able to give up a few hours a day from studying. We’ll see what happens- if our Wed/Fri raid doesn’t kill Garrosh, and doesn’t extend, I might skip that and the Monday flex, and if our Tues/Thurs raid doesn’t kill Garrosh this week, I will think about what I want to do.

Oh noes! Just learned all my exams are actually at 8:30 AM- stupid schedule and its inaccurate timetables.

Weekend Recap

This weekend got off to a decent start. Did flex on Sat, and flex 1 went super quick, one shot, no swapping around, took about 45 min. Really quick for us. Flex 3 was slower, our 10 min break turned into double sicne we lacked a timer and were doing a lot of swapping. Malkorok took a while, as did Spoils. Had a lot of alts, so DPS was low and we were right on the timer every time. Ended up hitting quitting time before Thok.

After that we managed to knock out 2 more CM golds. And I’ve realized my shammy has done maybe 1 heroic by herself, so I should make an effort to run through the ones I haven’t done so we don’t have to run through them on heroic for me first. 

I also capped Conquest on my druid, and bought my shoulders. The celestials are hoarding all the PvP gear from her. I don’t do RBGs, so I think I will be just a tad short of my helm next week. But I am excited to be doing arenas again! My partner is always way too complimentary of me, and gets too mad at himself. I do tell him occasionally he’s overestimating me- all I have to do is live, and keep him alive. That’s really my goal.  Occasionally I get caught up in CCing all the things, and that does not end well. I really what to hibernate a shaman, just for the giggles I’d get. Maybe today we’ll see if our third still needs to cap, and do some arenas with her.

Or maybe not, midterms are next week- 5 tests in 5 days, and we start and end with the hardest ones. My goal for the week is to exercise daily and study for at least 2 classes. Today I want to hit my 2 hardest classes, with the most material- path and clin med. So even though I have no labs today, I have a lot to do this afternoon. 

Plus it’s a friends birthday, and there was talk of going out for lunch. Yum, hope that works! Or dinner maybe, it’s half price pizza night.

Anyway, with all that stuff, I better go get started on that studying.

But I just keep going back to reading about Dr. Koshi. It really hurts my heart that people can put so much effort into being mean, and somehow think they are doing the right thing. And to think this all started over a cat.

Thoughts

I started my morning with my usual breakfast then checking the blogs I follow regularly. Aside from the veterinary one (I’ll come back to this) Heliocentric’s review of mana regen got me thinking of flasks again, especially since it linked back to Hamlet’s post about spirit vs. int  flasks. Also his healing theory articles, which I will have to go back to when I am not in class and have more time. But reading that, and reading through the comments, makes me wonder. I am firmly in the Int flask camp, and every now and then when I want to put things in the guild bank and see the 3 stacks of spirit flasks I sigh and shake my head. We have 1 healer who uses them (that I know of- maybe more do in flex and don’t tell me) and I wonder often if I should ask him why. Why, when you are healing normal SoO, do you feel you need more spirit? I haven’t used a spirit flask in ages, and I know when I run out of mana it is either entirely my fault for healing too freely, or still partly my fault cause I’m solo healing after our other healer died. And in general, unless someone died because they stood in the Big Red Circle of Death or whatever the fight’s equivalent is, I consider it my fault. Unless you’re the stupid hunter chasing after Thok. That’s all on you buddy. 

But it’s been making me wonder, should I discuss that? I wish we had a guild website that was truly functional- I’m not sure what the heck this interim stop-gap thing is, but “widely used by guildies” it is not. Speaking of, need to ask the GM if I should advertise that a bit. I have a lot of resources (read: other blogs by people who do the math) to share. And that tree-slap DPS thing, which makes me giggle. And the comment on healing priority that is kinda true.

Anyway, back to other things- I’ll leave the flasks alone unless something comes up. On to a brief recap of raiding- Thursday night Garrosh got us many more times. Many. Based on a few things said, I think our RL there feel like he is failing us, and I need to let him know there are 10 people in that raid, and we all have to improve on that fight. That kinda goes back to him trying to find ways to deal with the mechanics that let the DPS ignore them. Now there was talk of gearing up some alts, cause that raid has 2 ranged DPS and the rest are melee which makes some things a little tougher.

Friday’s raid went smoothly enough. We were moving slowly, but still got 4 bosses down easily, leaving us to start on Seigecrafter on Wednesday. I am hoping we can get to Garrosh early on Wednesday and have some decent time to work on him. 

On to the vet things. One of the vet blogs I read is Vets Behaving Badly. And something that comes up there from time to time is how vets appear in the public eye. One of the posts recently mentioned a suicide. Vets have a pretty high suicide rate, and there are lots of things people link to contributing to that. Compassion fatigue is a big one. I’m not sure some people realize how attached your vet clinic might be to their pets. If your pet visits regularly for some reason or another- regular lab work, boarding, needs to be hospitalized for a few days- it doesn’t take a lot of time to like an animal. Heck, I named my anatomy dog after a boarder at a clinic I used to work at. She was deceased, and she’d been a pleasant dog who I really enjoyed coming in. It was a good name, and my anatomy dog was going to teach me a lot too and I thought it fair she have a name as well. Also named a pet in WoW after her so I’d remember.

But back to vets. For all the good clients who listen and love their pets and would go to the moon and back for them, it only takes one jerk to ruin a day or even month. And those are usually the ones people remember. I tend to be rather disconnected from other people’s emotions, so I don’t worry too much about it personally. (Unless I am tired, then I cry easily, but that’s another post) I do worry a bit about my friends. I worry about my family not understanding what I do. I hear repeatedly “you can’t care more about someone’s pet than the owner does.” And I see letters to the clinic, thanking vets and staff for their care, and hear the stories about the genuinely good people. I know they’re out there, it’s just that the bad people are so much more vocal.

And they are. With social media now, people can get really loud on the internet, and gather attention from people who would otherwise not be aware. The whole story, both sides, never gets across on the internet. I haven’t followed the story too much, but it makes me sad, and I dislike portions of humanity a lot more after hearing stories like that. I just want people to know- most vets aren’t in it for the money. Yes, we want to live a comfortable life, but who doesn’t? There probably are money-grubbing vets out there, just like every other profession. I want to be a vet because I love animals, and want to do my best to take care of them. I kinda dread the day when all I can offer someone is euthanasia for a fixable problem because it cost > $2000 to fix. I don’t want to have to turn people away because they can’t afford care.

But I’m going to leave vet school more than $250,000 in debt, and by the time I pay it all back, I will have paid a lot more than that. I’ve kinda resigned myself to being eternally in debt. I won’t be able to take on much more by treating things for free. Pets are wonderful, and do a lot of good for people. But they are a privilege, not a right. I’ve worked at clinics since I was 16, and in that time I’ve had exactly 2 people call up and talk to be about the cost of care for a pet, on an annual basis, before getting one. I told both of them that I thought it was a really cool thing to do. Now that I’m learning more, I realize there are things I didn’t tell them about the importance of emergency funds, but they have the annual cost of a dog or cat.

Anyway, that rambled a bit: my point is your vet can care a lot more about your pets than you think. Your reactions can affect them more than you anticipate. Most vets will have, if not the houseload of debt I will have for going out of state, at least a boatload of debt. We’re not here to get rich and play with puppies.  I know the particular case I mentioned wasn’t about money, but that is the most common complaint I hear from clients. 

So my second point is this: bullying is a big deal, and it doesn’t end when high school is over. It just takes different paths, uses different outlets. I’ve never been bullied. I’ve never noticed a lot of bullying around me, but I think that has to do with my personality. It happens, and the fact that people can be so horrible to others, for usually such stupid, stupid reasons leaves me speechless. Why in the world would you put so much effort into being nasty? Makes no sense to me.