My husband, Paul, is a serial gamer. More than I ever could be, in fact. At any one time he’s playing 4-6 games in rotation. That’s just on the computer – it’s much more if consoles are thrown into the mix. Now, when it comes to me, I consider myself close as close to a “hardcore” gamer as I’m willing to step – I don’t particularly want to become the raging, hermit stereotype, thanks. However, I cannot keep up with my husband when it comes to gaming, much as I try. Maximum I can handle is 3 games staying in my focus. Don’t get me wrong, I have just as many games as him but if I try to devote my brain to more than 3 at a time, I overload and run away from them all. Mostly I have my ONE GAME of the moment and 2 peripheral games I go to at any time.

Right now Paul’s list includes: TF2, UO, various Nintendo DS emulator games, Left 4 Dead 2, UT2004, Bioshock, Battlefield: BC2. My list of games: TF2, UO, and Pokemon: Platinum on the DS emu. I should also mention that this doesn’t include the many random Facebook games which he has whittled down to playing 1 or 2, while I play about 6. They do not receive the same love, attention, and care as our other games though.

UO came into our lives about 5 days ago because of a discussion that sprung up on Reddit. Now we’re in the Reddit guild and I am learning all the ins-and-outs of the game (Paul is a veteran). It is a really fun game and I look forward to getting into it more with Paul and our friends – old and new. I suppose this is our replacement for WoW, since we’ve been on a “break” since December ’09. We’re waiting for the expansion, Cataclysm, to come out before we renew our subscriptions. Sadly, Cataclysm will be our testing ground to see if we’ve “grown out of” WoW. Lost interest in the game coupled with the very complicated situation we were in at the time caused us to go on hiatus and we never really felt that pull to come back. We had been excited for the expansion, but like all new things, last minute changes have occurred that made us less enthusiastic. So returning will be a test of the waters for us to see how committed we are to the game by that point. The biggest thing that we’ll miss is all our friends we’ve made but luckily those can transfer outside of the game – as most have and do for us!

So when it comes to gaming, 90% of the time I can blame my latest addictions and bad habits on my husband. It’s a good thing he’s currently getting his degree in Game Design, so at least all of our complaints about other games will be rectified in any he will create! Not to mention all the payback money from all the money we’ve spent since we were little kids on video games. Mwahaha! Gamer vengeance of the best kind, I say!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. I want to get back to blogging and frankly, until now, life was too hectic to wrap my head around anything online – save for trivial things or reading. I’ve opted to start fresh here and have moved all posts prior into an archive. They’re still accessible, just not what I’m looking to focus on here anymore. Sometimes, everything in life needs a spring cleaning. Okay. So I’m a little late seeing as it’s summer…

Along with a fresh start here, I have decided to take a leave of absence from school. I have up to 90 days to use and I’m using it for my own mental health. I absolutely love my schooling and the things I’m learning but I’ve hit a breaking point. I need to take some time and let my brain settle down again. I don’t want to lose any of the footing I’ve gained and seeing as I’m halfway through my degree at this point, now seems like a good time. I got overwhelmed this month with a week of school being taken out for vacation, which caused all of our other work to seem shoved together. This month’s class was an entire “Web Standards Project”, meaning I would be doing everything I learned the past year to create a well designed and laid-out website. No problem, right? Well, when I saw that in one week I’d have 2 design comps and 1 XHTML/CSS prototype site due all at once, I basically realized I was beginning to drown a little. Once you start drowning, it’s not like you can stop. That was my cue to make the decision to take a break before I gave up altogether.

Perhaps the most frustrating part was knowing how much I had learned and all the skills I had gained but when it came time to actually do these things for this project, I felt like I was reverting to old habits. What was actually happening was I was taking the opinions and grading detractions from my teachers too hard and was beginning to feel defeated. Boxed in. Oppressed. Who the hell can design ANYTHING with that kind of pressure on your heart and mind? Not this lady. Not unless I’m going to design a fake news portal called “Kiss My Ass – All the Celebrity Gossip I Can’t Give You!” and include a giant middle finger inside the header image. I bet THAT would go over swimmingly.

Now that I’ve put in my LOA request, I feel like I can breathe. I can take this time to remind myself of all the techniques I’ve learned. Practice them. Prepare myself mentally. Heck, while I’m at it, I’m going to do some relaxation techniques, too: a little thing I like to call TF2. Nothing more therapeutic than joking around with friends and blowing people/things up!