Pretty Happy, but BUSY!

I’m excited to play WoW in a way I haven’t been for a while. I’ve had some really annoying things happening in game. My annoyance with raiding lately, some of our CM difficulties. But my monk has her set, my priest in an unusual show of luck received both drops from SoO LFR 3 I wanted (plus another trinket from Thok, just to taunt my other healers) and my mage got her shoulders. My horde shaman is not so lucky. I’ve got 3 LFRs left to try for a handful of pieces, plus some flex, if I feel up to it, but I am still missing a lot. 

Update: an AWESOME lock in our guild gave me the tier shoulders for my priest after they won the roll, since they had already won the helm. I am glad I was able to return the favor in a small way by passing on the tier legs that dropped, allowing them to win those as well. AWESOME lock. I was incredibly happy. Just like I’d had some more of the free coffee my professor brought in.

This week, we’re trying to fit in CMs where we can. I’m hopeful, this is an awesome group. I need to learn to mage better, fix some keybinds to better take advantage of shatter, but I think I am doing pretty well. I do need to go try to get a battle horn on her for SSB, but I’ll work on that. 

We did heroics again last night. Our last attempt was so disheartening, but tonight went great! We two-healed everything too. With me healing even! Which meant I had to figure out pacman, but I think I did ok. We got the first 3 down (my first Protectors heroic kill) and got Sha to 12%, but I was getting random really bad lag spikes and constantly kicked out of vent.

We made an attempt at SSB CM for one of our group. My monk was healing 2 groups, so she got it, our other friend took his rogue through with some other people so he can bring toons better able to help us. Unfortunately, we were going backwards. I’m not sure if I should ask our tank if she’s willing to go DPS just so we can get through, or not. 

I ended up asking our tank to DPS. I feel a bit bad, but she had been talking with someone who told her pallys are some of the worst for CMs. She was willing to swap, and we managed to knock them out fairly easily. I am glad it’s done.

Now I have a handful of friends who want CMs, so I am trying to get 2 groups going this weekend to start working on those. The group with my mage and my friend’s druid has been going well, with only a few nights and minimal hours, we have 3 left. Plus 1 for the tank who has missed every night, grr. If he misses thursday he’s on his own.

I think realm best times may be falling by the way side, but I will remind everyone and see if we can at least get together 1 night and give them a try. If for no other reason than I think it’d be a blast, and my mage and priest are both as well geared for it as they can get while maintaining my sanity.

I swear, when I am done with these I am throwing a “no more LFR’s” party.

My First Surgery

So, I had a post about raid leading and my leadership skills self evaluation written up, but I wanted to share something exciting to me. I did my first surgery! A castration, simple enough. I was primary surgeon, but thanks to my awesome surgery team who kept me straight and laughing so I didn’t overworry. 

We had a cute little dog, ~ 6 year old small mix breed. Small enough that we had to use a non-rebreathing system, so we had to figure that out. I am not looking forward to being the anesthetist for our group, they had probably the toughest job. Certainly the most paperwork. My job was easy- do the cutting and suturing, then stay with the patient until he woke up. My awesome team did all the cleaning and repacking of the surgery pack and packed my gown for me too. We ended up being first in and first out. I certainly wasn’t aiming to move fast, and really since we got our dog on the table at 9:30 and finished probably 45 minutes later, fast would certainly not be a descriptor many people would use. I was checking with my instructors- cut here, tear that, does my closure look good?

But Alvin came through, he’s awake and walking around and looking normal. Just have to check on him tomorrow morning, then he goes home. I’ll call the owner over the weekend to check his progress. He was a good dog to start with, small, no issues, and well behaved for us.

Here’s hoping the rest of our surgeries go as well this term.

I was a tad surprised when I went to the bathroom to learn my name tag on my cap was upside down and no one told me. Made me giggle though. I’m just glad it’s done. Once I got back to my room to lay down I discovered I was sore- I think I was just so tense and worried at first. But I was fine, I didn’t feel faint or lightheaded at all, which I was really worried about.

Things you learn in vet school: “There’s a nice little company called Skulls Unlimited, which is just what it sounds like.” To practice dental radiographs.

Ramblings

I’ve been busy, with classes and WoW. I have my first test on Monday and my first surgery on Tuesday. Eek!! I’m nervous and excited and turning all of that into doing nothing. I am working on changing that habit and making an effort to stop, think about what will help me and do it. This means I am trying not to turn to WoW as a way to kill time, even though I keep coming up with more and more ways to do so. 

I tanked again the other night, heroic Imm then to Shamans on normal. I also talked with one of the druid healers briefly about her glyphs and a few of the weakauras I use. Hopefully she’ll give something to track things a shot, and I’ll go through logs later and see how it looks. I still have to practice brewmaster and get better at using keg smash on CD, and using CDs more defensively.

I have come to the conclusion that I want to heal on my druid next expansion, rather than my monk. I’d be happy to tank on the monk, but if I am going to be healing I feel the druid or shaman will be better. Of course, this is based off of my love for druid and a few comments about the beta. We’ll see what ends up happening in November.

As far as CMs go, the original group my monk was in is still 7/9 after 2 different nights, each time spending an hour in SSB. Very irritating, since I had a discussion with the tank about the trouble I’ve been having with her. It’s gotten to the point that we’re almost backsliding and I can’t leave her alone for a second to do anything else. Everyone else in the group who knows things about pally tanking has started to ask “are you doing this or using that on CD” and trying to help. I feel like this should have been discussed earlier. But anyway, since the healer for the second group has been unable to make CMs, I ended up healing those on my monk and putting my mage to the side. That group is 8/9, so hopefully by Sunday my monk will have her set. Ideally I’d get it Friday or Saturday when we try with the first group again, but I’m not holding my breath.

Speaking of the mage, she got her shoulders this morning. I did the “I got my shoulders” song, which doesn’t come out as well in guild chat. So now all I am missing from BiS CM is the chest and ring from Ra Den and bracers from Megara that don’t have expertise. I actually tried to get a guild group together using my heroic ToT lockout. We wiped on Lei Shen so much I am turned off from trying again. Poor little mage, she’s unlikely to see Ra Den ever. So it’s just the bracers, which I will work on.

My horde shaman has not had much luck. A usable staff, I suppose. We’ll see if I can finish the rest of the LFRs for her, hopefully have some good luck. If I really feel like procrastinating or somehow feel super confident about Monday and Tuesday, I might try to pug a flex 1. Lots of stuff drops there. It’ll be nice to get a few things so I can knock LFRs off my list.

My priest has been poorly neglected, as far as CMs go. I’ll get her together a bit next week, if I can, so if I end up healing this next group I can do it on a new toon rather than my monk again. Not that I don’t love my monk, but I kinda like the priest transmog. She’s missing the Lei Shen neck, I might have to go for the 463 neck that drops somewhere so she has something. I think I am also missing Thok gloves and Spoils chest.  Ideally I’d get BiS stuff for her, but I might just go with what I have.

Still having internet issues in class. All week, either no internet or intermittent internet. Thank goodness it is working on my dorm. We’re “paperless” so all the notes are online. And some professor post them the day of class.

Today's advice from our therio professor: “Never truest an intact male. Most people get it. Oh, of any species…”

On pigs: “They have a pecking order. Not quite as bad as vet student pecking order.”