Work Wasteland
There are things I will simply never get. I mean, last night, there was me - virtuously eschewing coffee after 9pm in favour of fruit juice, heading to bed at half-past midnight ... and then tossed and turned and could not get to sleep at all except in snippets. I sleep better when I'm hopped up on caffeine, seriously. Insomnia blows dead rats. Then again, I figure at least some of it was stress over having to go back to work. Which is actually fair enough because with Mr I-Don't-Want-To-Do-My-Job who was giving me so much shit on Friday away for the day, I'm having to sit in the actual department office with MsMoo. The actual department office is a nightmare, make no mistake. There are no windows, as the consultants' offices get the windows and we get their office doors (so if their office doors aren't open, we're screwed for little things like fresh air and natural light). My current chair is more or less right in front of one of the consultant's office doors, which is fun when people heading into and out of said office have to slalom around me. The room is tiny, so between the two desks, the piles of notes that everyone refuses to send back to medical records, and various bits of unnecessary furniture ... well, there is no such thing as 'personal space' in this office. I hate it in here. At least I won't have to be in here for the rest of the week because Mr I-Don't-Want-To-Do-My-Job will be back. And then there's MsMoo, the other admin in this department. I haven't seen her in awhile (thank the gods for small mercies), but I am not a fan of this one, any more than the other one. She, too, ducks her duties on a regular basis but is also unpleasant to people on the phone the few times she doesn't ignore it ringing, cannot follow simple instructions and essentially is the kind of admin who ... well, isn't. Apparently she was in radiology but could not hack the workload so, rather than sacking her, they shopped her off to another department to make their lives a misery. I don't even know. All I do know is that on top of all that, she's one of those people who will pat your arm while talking to you, heedless of whether you might not like invasions of your personal space by people you don't know in an overly familiar way. Getting bumped into on the Tube or scrunched past on the train? That's one thing. That's unavoidable. However, I do not appreciate people patting my arm when I don't know them well, I have not invited contact and I don't actually like them all that much.
Still, despite being weary and more or less fed up, I do have some bright shining light at the end of the tunnel that this week has begun to resemble. Not only is Monday a bank holiday, but I have the rest of the week off as well! Woo! I booked it a little last-minute, and was careful to tell my office manager that I could rearrange if it was inconvenient, but as it turns out, it's really not - in fact, is better than convenient given the bank holiday being there anyway. So I can have an entire week off that doesn't involve me being flat on my back with gastric flu ... which is good because that week is supposed to involve a roleplay date with someone who absolutely cannot manage getting online before 2am my time. Usually I get around this by early evening naps instead of good nights' sleep but this is a much better way of going about it.
Meanwhile, out in Azeroth, the gamut of test characters continues. Yeah, I'm not getting heavily invested in any of these until I've decided exactly what I want to have as main and alts and everything. Which is at least part of why I'm naming them all after medical terminology of some sort or other, thinking about it - at least I won't run out of those for awhile. The list is as follows:
Porphyria: You've heard about her - my Forsaken Warlock. Currently on level 6, I think. Like the class, not sure about the race. And I hate the starting zones. It's grey and rainy and emo as unholy fuck. I think I'm going to ditch her soon and roll up some other Warlock.
SisterQ: Mage Gnome. Named in honour of my Cultist of Ecstasy on Chicago. Level 5 at last look. This one I intend to stick with as there has to be a Mage Gnome.
Ellowyne: Human Hunter. You've heard about her too. Level 10 and climbing. I like her ... though I might possibly ditch her and make a Hunter of another race. I like the class way better than the race.
Glioma: Blood Elf Rogue. I think I stopped at level 5 with her. Like the race, not sure about the class. Maybe if I ditch Ellowyne, I can roll up a Blood Elf Hunter or something. That might work.
Keppra: Tauren Shaman. Another surprise there: I did not remotely expect to enjoy playing a moocow. Or a Shaman. And yet I'm currently really enjoying this character and the area in general.
I think it helps that I'm working out how to do stuff with little in the way of ... y'know, investment. Look, when I started Satomi, I had paid for one character. If I screwed things up in the starter levels, I was living with that mistake. Here, I can have multiple characters without having to pay extra, which means that I can noodle around with it all until I settle on a few I actually like, and in the meantime learn how to do the little things like ... professions, for example. I am currently having a serious problem with fishing. I found a fishing rod. I settled near a fishing trainer. I followed the instructions on WoWwiki. And ... I keep getting that I need a target. THERE'S A FUCKING LAKE RIGHT THERE! HOW ARE YOU NOT FINDING A TARGET?!? I need serious help. It was fairly simple on FFXI; I just typed /fish. Or selected the bit on the menu bar that said 'Fish'. Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over again. (I could be very patient about my fishing.) What I did get the hang of is skinning. At least, once I finally found a NPC that could sell me a skinning knife. Thunder Bluff is pretty but a bitch to navigate, kthnx. Now if I could just get hold of some flour so I could contemplate levelling cooking? That'd be awesome.
It sounds like I spend way more time on this game than I do, doesn't it? Really, I don't spend that much time on the game, or at least not dedicated time. It doesn't take a lot to power through the early levels even for a total noob like me. And there are things I still want to try. I figure on at least trying out every race and class in game before I make up my mind on which I want to stick with. And ... y'know, various permutations and combinations. That's another thing where WoW has it over FFXI; you may not get to change your character's class at will, but there's a lot of variety in races that's lacking in FFXI and the ability to have multiple characters means you get to try things out more easily. Anyway, my next thing is to do another DA:O playthrough to import to DA2, as sometimes the savegen mucks up some of the flag. Or maybe it's the game that does, I dunno. Egh.
And finally, a bit of amusement from the brief trip out to the shops I made yesterday: unfortunate if accurate translation issues on food packaging. Polish manufacturer. Soups and tinned goods aisle. Little packet of instant soup mix. Label bears a picture of a chicken and a bowl of broth. Label reads: 'Cock Soup'.
...Yeah, so not going there.
Still, despite being weary and more or less fed up, I do have some bright shining light at the end of the tunnel that this week has begun to resemble. Not only is Monday a bank holiday, but I have the rest of the week off as well! Woo! I booked it a little last-minute, and was careful to tell my office manager that I could rearrange if it was inconvenient, but as it turns out, it's really not - in fact, is better than convenient given the bank holiday being there anyway. So I can have an entire week off that doesn't involve me being flat on my back with gastric flu ... which is good because that week is supposed to involve a roleplay date with someone who absolutely cannot manage getting online before 2am my time. Usually I get around this by early evening naps instead of good nights' sleep but this is a much better way of going about it.
Meanwhile, out in Azeroth, the gamut of test characters continues. Yeah, I'm not getting heavily invested in any of these until I've decided exactly what I want to have as main and alts and everything. Which is at least part of why I'm naming them all after medical terminology of some sort or other, thinking about it - at least I won't run out of those for awhile. The list is as follows:
Porphyria: You've heard about her - my Forsaken Warlock. Currently on level 6, I think. Like the class, not sure about the race. And I hate the starting zones. It's grey and rainy and emo as unholy fuck. I think I'm going to ditch her soon and roll up some other Warlock.
SisterQ: Mage Gnome. Named in honour of my Cultist of Ecstasy on Chicago. Level 5 at last look. This one I intend to stick with as there has to be a Mage Gnome.
Ellowyne: Human Hunter. You've heard about her too. Level 10 and climbing. I like her ... though I might possibly ditch her and make a Hunter of another race. I like the class way better than the race.
Glioma: Blood Elf Rogue. I think I stopped at level 5 with her. Like the race, not sure about the class. Maybe if I ditch Ellowyne, I can roll up a Blood Elf Hunter or something. That might work.
Keppra: Tauren Shaman. Another surprise there: I did not remotely expect to enjoy playing a moocow. Or a Shaman. And yet I'm currently really enjoying this character and the area in general.
I think it helps that I'm working out how to do stuff with little in the way of ... y'know, investment. Look, when I started Satomi, I had paid for one character. If I screwed things up in the starter levels, I was living with that mistake. Here, I can have multiple characters without having to pay extra, which means that I can noodle around with it all until I settle on a few I actually like, and in the meantime learn how to do the little things like ... professions, for example. I am currently having a serious problem with fishing. I found a fishing rod. I settled near a fishing trainer. I followed the instructions on WoWwiki. And ... I keep getting that I need a target. THERE'S A FUCKING LAKE RIGHT THERE! HOW ARE YOU NOT FINDING A TARGET?!? I need serious help. It was fairly simple on FFXI; I just typed /fish. Or selected the bit on the menu bar that said 'Fish'. Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over again. (I could be very patient about my fishing.) What I did get the hang of is skinning. At least, once I finally found a NPC that could sell me a skinning knife. Thunder Bluff is pretty but a bitch to navigate, kthnx. Now if I could just get hold of some flour so I could contemplate levelling cooking? That'd be awesome.
It sounds like I spend way more time on this game than I do, doesn't it? Really, I don't spend that much time on the game, or at least not dedicated time. It doesn't take a lot to power through the early levels even for a total noob like me. And there are things I still want to try. I figure on at least trying out every race and class in game before I make up my mind on which I want to stick with. And ... y'know, various permutations and combinations. That's another thing where WoW has it over FFXI; you may not get to change your character's class at will, but there's a lot of variety in races that's lacking in FFXI and the ability to have multiple characters means you get to try things out more easily. Anyway, my next thing is to do another DA:O playthrough to import to DA2, as sometimes the savegen mucks up some of the flag. Or maybe it's the game that does, I dunno. Egh.
And finally, a bit of amusement from the brief trip out to the shops I made yesterday: unfortunate if accurate translation issues on food packaging. Polish manufacturer. Soups and tinned goods aisle. Little packet of instant soup mix. Label bears a picture of a chicken and a bowl of broth. Label reads: 'Cock Soup'.
...Yeah, so not going there.