The woes of not blogging…
So I meant to blog about a gazillion of topics for the longest time. I took loads of fantastic screenshots in WoW and pictures of yummy food, I made notes in my head and still… I never got around to actually really write about any of those topics I came up with! And this since October and it’s the 31st December today! Woah… Ok, so here’s a mumble-jumble list of random thoughts:
In Cooking and Food News:
I made some awesome Pumpkin Soup; I even took pictures and wrote up the recipe. I only have to bring the two together and post them! Will definitely do so, Pumpkin Soup is just too good not to share.
I totally have to FINALLY share the recipe for mustard chicken. It quickly became a standard meal in our house because it’s pretty easy and quick to prepare and tastes fantastic!
I also wanted to introduce you to a traditional festive meal in Switzerland called Fondue Chinoise. We’ll have it for New Year’s Eve and I will totally try and take some pictures!
Tea. Tea is awesome. I love Tea. And we’ve indulged in a Special-T Tea machine from Nestlé. It’s pure luxury and probably a bit decadent – but OMG we love it!
In WoW News:
I’m raiding regularily and hey, we’re pretty good at it! I do hate the Heart of Fear with a passion, though. I really do. I even had some crying and swearing fits because of those pixels. Silly bugs in there…
I just recently got my fifth character to level 90 and also got the Double Agent achievement. That’s Tanyankâ (Huntress), Seely (Shadow Priestess), Blackmorgana (Rogue) and Credendo (Druid) on Horde Side and Kytara (Mage) on Alliance side.
I love Blizzards’ Story Telling. It’s so beautiful. I even came to like Anduin. He ain’t dead, right? He will come back and help us kick Garrosh’s behind?
I started to play a little Panda Monk named Shuilong. That means Water Dragon. I got the name from a list of possible Baby Panda names at the San Diego Zoo. 🙂
I love looking for treasures in Pandaria. It helps with the levelling, too!
There are incredible fun items in Pandaria to be found. For example mermaid shells.
Catching every single pet available in all of Azeroth will be a real challenge and I’m sure I’ll need a LOT of patience for it. It helps though to have both Horde and Alliance characters at my fingertips – makes taming some of the pets so much easier. 🙂
The guys at the Ogrimmar Fight Club pack a real punch. Ouch!
And just to give you a pretty picture as well:
Loh-Ki tells you the story of Alani
This is Loh-Ki. He may be found a bit hidden up in the walls that surround the Valley of the Eternal Blossom. He tells you the story of Alani, the Dragon that flies around the Valley, where you need the sky shards to attack in order to get Alani as a mount. I love those loving details, those hidden treasures in the game.
Everyone – Happy New Year 2013. Let there be more interesting Blog entries more regularily. 🙂
Would you?
I’ve been thinking about the impact a simple computer game can have on a life, in particular my life.
I’ve recently started a new job (well… it’s been over three months now, so not as recently anymore…) and during the job hunt beforehand and the various interviews, whenever I was asked about my hobbies I never ever mentioned that I was a gamer. I said that I liked to read and watching movies, that I had two cats that get a lot of my attention and that I love to cook and bake. In short – stuff that is socially legitimate. These hobbies are all true, too, but my biggest hobby – computer and sometimes console gaming – was totally off the record.
Why?
Because to an HR person, playing computer games doesn’t look good and it might threaten your getting the job.
The Tale of Anka and Aidan or How WoW has changed my life
As seen on Razers Facebook Site
Once upon a time there was a girl, let’s call her Anka. She was a dreamer, reading fantastic books and watching movies that told stories about fantastic worlds, heroes and adventures. But she often felt lonely and yearned for love. Her mother urged her she needed to go out more often, be more outgoing and be more active and participate in social events. Her dreaming would never get her a prince and grant her a presentable life. She would have to change everything she was in order to fit in. Anka hated to be in crowds. She hated most of the music in discos, she hated the excessive drinking. Yet she made herself go there again and again because that’s what was expected. She lived in a world where looks were everything and one needed to be slim and pretty to be accepted. She was very unhappy because she would never fit into such a world or be happy there, no matter how hard she tried. Continue reading →
20 Days of WoW – Day 14: This upsets you
Well – there’s a T-shirt out there. It says: “I survived Barrens Chat”. Nowadays, it should probably say: “I survived Trade Chat.”
What upsets me is rudeness and trolling in chat. I’m very fast with the ignore button. I detest wannabe-elitists with a passion. We have one of those in the guild. Very often when said person is making exceptionally stupid remarks in guild chat and I start to fume and there’s steam coming out of my ears, it’s only Arbors’ quiet voice saying “Honey, don’t. He’s not worth it.” preventing me from starting a discussion with that person. Don’t feed the troll. He’s the only guildie that made it to my ignore-list…
Non-WoW related, I get upset easily by books, TV-shows and movies. As in – I start bawling very fast. If there’s anything remotely heartbreaking, I need the Kleenex box.
(and pssst… even some WoW-Quests manage to make me cry sometimes…)
Random Ramblings
I’ve been quiet for a while now – which has to do with my new job. I’m in total learning mode and thus don’t have a lot of time and drive to blog. But I’m doing fine! The job is awesome, I already love it!
I’ve been playing WoW mostly on the weekends and I’ve also been playing a lot with my boyfriends druid, farming quest achievements for him and making gold. See – he was always broke. Always. One day he asked me to look over all his characters inventories and sell whatever I see fit to put up in the Auction House. (I became his WoW-Banker… *grin*) We designated one character to be bank and AH alt and off I went on my quest to tidy his bank slots and turn stuff into gold.
A small update
After my melt down yesterday I’m a lot calmer today. Also thanks to some very good conversations. I had time to think and reflect.
Of course I don’t want the other person to stop playing and stop farming achievements. She has every right to do so and to play as she pleases.
I think I located the reason why I was so upset. She could have asked me to trudge along. She knows exactly how much I love achievements. She could have written a short private message on the forums for example and asked me to come along for the ride. If she’d have more points than me then, I think it wouldn’t have bothered me.
I tried to organize regular achievement runs a while ago and it didn’t work out. I created a poll for which day suited people best, I created sign-ups… it worked for a week or two and then people wouldn’t show or not sign up etc. It didn’t work out.
It’s frustrating the hell out of me – I’m one measly achievement short of my Ulduar dragon. I’m only two achievements short of the ICC one. I’m missing just Nefarian for Blackwing Descent. I’m missing only the Conclave of the four winds for the Vortex raid (the name escapes me just now…). You see where I’m going.
What I do not want is cause guild drama. I’m always one who wants to prevent it and mediate if need be – but right now I feel like I’m a potential reason for drama and this shall not happen.
I’m not yet calm enough to confront or face her. I need an additional day or two to gather myself. But at least I’m not going to eat anyones face off or spit venom anymore. 😉
Something interesting Seph said: The game is designed to bring out the worst in people. I’ve never looked at it that way. I guess up until now I tended to see it through my pink glasses, maybe I only wanted to see the good. After all, it’s an escape in a way, isn’t it? Yes, I’m naive. Where there’s light, there is shadow as well.
Jealousy in WoW
I was contemplating for a while wether I should blog about this. But it’s something that is really bothering me and caused a minor break-down this morning. This will be a quite personal post.
Jealousy is one of my flaws. I know it and I admit it. My ambitions are rather on the unhealthy side which has a lot to do with my upbringing (as in “if you are The Best, The Smartest, The Slimmest, The Prettiest – whatever, you name it – you are loved more”). I’m mentioning this to show how deeply these feelings are rooted and that – eventhough I got a lot better about it – could never quite shake them off.
What does this have to do with WoW you ask?
Well.
I’ve been playing WoW for a couple of years now. Due to my natural curiosity I discovered a lot and could usually help my guildies out with my knowledge or tell a story or anecdote or show them some hidden gems around the game. However, one day another girl joined our guild who quickly became the person to ask for anything you wanted to know about the game. It was ok at the time, she spent way more time in the game than I was able to and naturally knew more.
I was still the achievement hunter, I was really good at that. I knew all about achievements, I loved to farm them – especially the trickier ones. I was achievement-girl, that was my place, that’s what I was good at. During raids I was no longer way up there with the Top-DPS like I used to; because you know, I had to step down from raiding due to RL. But it was ok. I did ok, not extraordinary so, but I was fine.
I was still achievement-girl. But it slowed down, because there were less and less achievements I could go about by myself. Everything I missed were Raiding or PVP achievements. About the raiding or even the dungeon ones there wasn’t much I could do about – I needed a group for that or even a full raid, but RL prevented that for me. I even took up PVP – I hate PVP, but I did it in small doses and would stop when it started to make me agressive. But hey, I got one or the other Achievement that way.
Today I saw that said girl overtook me by far with the achievements.
Yes, I cried bitterly – because it felt as if my place, my right to be and who I am in the guild was taken away from me. Who am I now? I’m nothing special, I don’t know as much, I don’t play as good as she does. I feel so devastated that I begin to be and think unfair and mean. In one corner of my mind I know that I’m being ridiculous. After all, it’s just a game, a hobby. She’s well loved in the guild and I’m so incredibly jealous, because now she is everything that I once used to be.
Where does this leave me? The bitter, old Hunter sitting in the corner of the pub, drinking too much Dwarven Beer and talking about better days?
I’m really quite devastated and this is why I write this – because it helps me soothe my mind. For a moment I even thought that now I can give the game up completely. I’m no use at it anyways. And the guild doesn’t need me either, they have her. (Yes, I know, ridiculous thoughts… )
I’m not quite sure how to proceed. I even don’t know how to face her. Because right now, I can’t do it gracefully. I’m the worst loser there is.
All the cool kids have a WordPress Blog…
Well, hello there Blogging world! Here I am, yet another World of Warcraft girl gamer deciding she needs to have her space on the internet to babble about stuff. So let me introduce myself to you – Hi, I’m Tanyanka, also know as Anka, the Huntress. I got the name Anka thanks to my guildmates. Everyone has a nickname and so they decided mine was Anka. I liked it and here I am, Anka.
I began playing WoW at the end of 2006, shortly before the launch of The Burning Crusade. At first I didn’t have a clue about anything and was simply hopping around Azeroth happily and picking flowers. My favourite memory is when I was questing for the first time in Darkshore. I had a quest where I had to dive in the sea – and it just wouldn’t work! I was so desperate I opened a ticket asking a GM for help. Who then patiently helped me and explained how to dive. Note – I downloaded the whole game from the website and created a Nightelf Warrior on an Oceanic server. I didn’t have a clue at the time what that meant and thought it sounded pretty…
Eventually my cousin, who was playing an Orc Warrior took me by the hand and led me through Azeroth. So I actually bought the game and created a Troll Huntress with pink hair named Tanyanka. I was only level two and in the starting area, when some Alliance player was riding through it. I was on a PVP server at the time and again – had no clue. All I saw was a player with a red bar and he was so not supposed to be there! So I hit him. With my staff. And was introduced to the Ghosthealer… But hey, what did the alliance dude think he was doing there, riding through troll territory! I had to defend it, right?
Eventually, my cousin and his friends taught me with lots and lots of patience how to play a hunter. They introduced me to guides on the web and where I could look up stuff. They also ran dungeons with me and explained what raiding was. What can I say – they were really great in teaching an enthusiastic newbie with no clue at all. Well – I brought it to level 70 before someone explained to me that I can’t pull a mob into a trap with serpent sting… because, well, you know – serpent sting is a dot and gets the bad guy out again…
My first attempts at raiding were in Karazhan. And it was amazing. I came a long way since then – learned a lot, met many awesome people, made friends and lost them again but WoW was always a great experience for me. Hey, I even met the love of my life through it!
Eventually my Tanyanka went through a race change and is now a Nightelf Huntress. But she still got some Troll Blood in her and is a Vol’Jin fangirl deep in her heart… I found a faboulous home at the guild Enthusiasm on Darkmoon Faire – EU. Unfortunately, raiding is on a backburner for me at the moment due to RL. But hey, I can still write about my favourite hobby and my thoughts about it and tell you about my memories.
Also, since I love to cook and bake, I will post about that, too. Most of my recipes are fit to be eaten while raiding. Or are prepared quickly while still being tasty and healthy.
Tanyanka posing in Stormwind, something she seldom does.
Anka Huntress 