10 Feb 2006
Life is interesting. Every single day of it. The good ones, and even the bad ones.
I know, that unlike a lot of people, I can find the silver lining in almost any cloud. I can also definitely spot the bad apple in a barrel as well. My mood is the determining factor in which of those things I then present to everyone else.
Lately I haven’t been sleeping much. I just can’t seem to find time for it. The side effect of this, is that my body is starting to make time for it. I consistently fall asleep in the bath or shower these days. If I flop on the couch to watch a few sports highlights, I generally wake up hours later.
Last weekend I was getting ready to do laundry, I had the bag full and ready to go. I was sitting on the edge of my bed when I leaned back for just a second to think and make sure that I had everything. I woke up three hours later, and the laundry didn’t get done that day.
I even find myself struggling to stay awake when I’m riding the subway. It’s hot down there. The subway constantly vibrates. The white noise sound of moving through the tunnels is very relaxing.
I guess this is the onset of narcolepsy.
So what’s the cause you might ask? No one knows. It’s just something that happens. It has happened all my life in spurts here and there. My last year of high school, I swear, I barely ever slept. I’ve spent months on end at a time plagued by nightmares. I’ve spent the larger portion of my life living on 4-6 hours of sleep.
I’m convinced that the crux of the problem is that I’m supposed to sleep my eight hours a night from 4am until noon. Society won’t let me do that though, and keep the job that I have. Working from noon until 8pm or 9pm sounds just fine to me.
Even after it all though, I find myself smiling. I was taking a cab to work today, driving through the same streets as always. I was looking at the same buildings that I always see. Something though was wonderful. I re-realized that I live in Montreal and this is a wonderful city! I still can’t believe I’m here sometimes. I come from such small town roots.
It helped to lift away the tired feeling that has wrapped itself so tightly around me.
Hopefully I won’t fall asleep in Blackwing Lair tonight. There’s a Broodlord in there, and he needs to do some dying.
10 Feb 2006
I play World of Warcraft. I play it a lot. More than is healthy I’m sure.
I’ve been playing it for over a year. Yet I still love it. I still enjoy it. Mostly I enjoy the people and spending time with them. Sometimes though, things happen in it that just drive me right up the wall.
I’m a tank. That’s what I do. That’s who I am. I can’t seem to enjoy playing any other facet of the game. I like to believe that I’m good at it. I had started to believe that the raid group I’m in had taken notice of that.
For a while there, whenever the usual MT was away, I got to hop in and MT the dungeons. Now, this is what I live for. There is nothing I enjoy more in the game than tanking a huge mob while I have 39 other people depending on me and I’m depending on them.
It’s all about trust. I have infinite trust in people, as unfounded as it may be, until they prove me wrong. So I trust all of them to do their job. I never worry about my health, I know they have my back. I hope that they don’t worry about themselves either, because they know I’m doing everything I can to be number one on the hate list so that they don’t get attacked.
I seem to have wandered off topic there. That’s how much I like it.
Well, last night the usual MT wasn’t there and we were going up against Onyxia. I have always wanted to tank Onyxia. She’s a giant black dragon, and I love slaying dragons. I didn’t get nod from the coach. No tap on the shoulder. I got passed over for the rookie (who happens to be one of the raid leaders).
I was pretty bothered by the whole thing. At moments like that the impulsive part of me thinks “I should just quit this raid and go find another one where I’m useful. One where I’m valued.” Then after a few minutes goes by the practical side of me kicks in and starts to think “Well, it wouldn’t be the same without some of these people around. It wouldn’t be as much fun.” So I suck it up, and I keep going.
I know that I’ve been referred to as one of the best tanks on the server. I get called in by groups to tank bosses and do the ends of instances when they can’t get through (not for a while though, since I’m so busy with raiding these days). Still, when things like that happen, I don’t feel like I’m any good at all.
Back to Blackwing tonight. At least I can be useful there. If enough people don’t show up for a solid 5-10 attempts on Broodlord tonight, I don’t know what I’ll do.
10 Feb 2006
I have finally crawled out of my LiveJournal shell into the great wide world.
It’s interesting to think that I started this blog, just to read someone else’s. Now it has grown into a full fledged public diary of sorts.
I am going to keep my old blog entries where they are. I had thought about moving them over, one at a time, but it just seemed wrong on some level. Those thoughts, those times, they took place over there. Old entries can be found at hiddenpugmarks.livejournal.com
Welcome to the new world.
07 Feb 2006
Today it arrived! At long last, after trying to get it since Christmas, it finally arrived. I have my nice shiny new copy of Paper Wings by Cauterize. No longer will I have to undergo the torturne of the 128kbs encoding of the version I bought from iTunes.
Tonight when I get home it will be ripped in all of it's lossless audio glory and the songs will find their way back into heavy rotation on my playlists.
I had tried to get it at the music stores around Montreal. I had tried to buy it from eBay. I had tried to buy it from the sites their website said it was available from. I got very close a little over a month ago when it was available on a website, but by the time I got the cart checkout it was sold out. Then on a lark I was checking the same site from work a week ago and it was listed. So I hurried the hell up and ordered it.
I've been doing this whole thing recently where I take risks. Like recently when I tried an El Salvadorian restaurant and found that I really enjoyed Papusas and Plaintains aren't bad either.
Today I tried a Guayanese(sp?) restaurant. I ended up with a “chicken pumpkin pocket”. There was also a “goat pumpkin pocket” available, but hey, one risk at a time :p Overall it was pretty good. Inoffensive. It was exceptionally filling. I swear that there was a whole chicken and half a pumpkin stuffed in that pocket along with some other vegetables.
When a friend suggested the restaurant I was imagining a much smaller “pocket” in my mind. This thing was about 8 inches by 10 inches and 1.5-2 inches thick. I didn't manage to eat it all before it was time to get back to work.
Will I go back? It's uncertain at this point. I think knowing what to expect going into it I would consider it to be a really good meal. I had had my heart set on two eggs over easy, three strips of bacon, two slices of toast with strawberry jam, some pan fries, a coffe and an orange juice for lunch though. So my taste buds didn't exactly get what they had been anticipating.
Now, I just want to go home and smite me some trolls!
02 Feb 2006
I've been feeling and behaving somewhat despondently lately. It's actually very reminiscent of how I was before I left my last job.
I always used to say that the most important thing was how you felt about your life outside of work, and I still agree with this. I also used to say that what you did for work, whether or not you were hapy there, didn't matter. I said this because it is a lesser part of your life.
I've come to believe differently. Work is the reason you get up out of bed five days a week, sometimes more. It has to be at the very least tolerable, and really, it should be better. You need to be able to convince yourself to get out of bed on those days. I, am not always able to do so.
I do believe that having a family would impact this. I may be wrong. However, I believe that with someone special or a few special people in your life that depended on you to get up and do your job and bring money home, that it would be easier.
Again, I could be completely wrong.
I was late for work this morning. I took a long lunch. I'll probably leave early.
Why was I late? It wasn't because I couldn't wake up or because I couldn't get out of bed. I was up before 8:00am. I showed up for work around 10:15am. It only takes 45 minutes to get to work. I just couldn't convince myself that it would be worth my time to go. So, I sat at my computer for a while, put together a new resume, updated my portfolio, and applied for a new job.
It's really kind of strange. I've had four different job offers since starting at work here. I've turned them all down. They were all in different places. I really like Montreal. I am looking forward to the summer filled with all of the festivals and live music and fireworks and well, just flat out fun. It's a really good place to be at this point in my life.
Unfortunately, there are not a lot of opportunities for an english speaking programmer in Montreal. As such, I may end up heading west. Either way, I think things are going to change. I need changes.
When I couldn't sleep last night and I was just sitting in my living room in the dark staring off into space and thinking realized that I'm not the same person who moved to Montreal. I need to find that person again. That guy that was willing to take a risk. That guy that was willing to throw everything to the wind and see what change could bring him.
Overall moving has been a positive experience. I've met some cool and interesting people. I've found some flashes of love and relationship. Not the long lasting, life changing, relationship I've been looking for; but one step at a time.
Thanks for the constant cheeriness Meghan :)