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Showing posts with label World of Warcraft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World of Warcraft. Show all posts
Saturday, January 06, 2007
I knew it
Thursday, November 30, 2006
This one's for you Chino!
This commercial is perfect:
This video reminds me of Grief!
Peter's mage looks exactly like Saraa!
This video reminds me of Grief!
Peter's mage looks exactly like Saraa!
Monday, November 27, 2006
Friday, November 10, 2006
For the New Gang...
If you have been wondering why my blog updates have been so sparse... it is because I have been bitten by the World of Warcraft bug again. It all started because I bought a 14 day trial for $2. I just wanted to come say hi to some people, but before I knew it I was reactivating my account. It was good to chat with the old gang, and to meet the new gang. Luckily for me the new gang is just as great.
I spent a couple weeks listening to them all on Ventrillo, and I just started liking them more and more each day. 'Vent', as we call it, is a program that allows someone to speak into their microphone, then everyone else logged into the same server can hear what was said. I would only ever listen, because I was shy about my voice. I think that I sound... OK. I am not really worried when I am talking face to face because I think my appearance helps a lot, but when I am just a faceless voice I am always worried that I might be easily mistaken for a male.
Instead of worrying what people might think, I decided to just tell people what is really going on. I sent out some emails to my favorite people in the guild and quietly waited for their replies. I was pretty nervous, but I really felt like I could trust these people. As it turns out, I was not disappointed. I receive a very positive and heartwarming reaction from everyone and now I just feel closer to the bunch than I did before.
I was chatting with one of my guildies the other night, and was asked if things had been hard for me. I said that it was for a while, but now things are really good. I thought that since some new people might be reading my blog that I'd tell them a little bit about what it was all like for me.
During elementary school being transgendered was very interesting to me. I loved knowing I was a girl inside. It was a big secret, but it was MY secret, and I was actually quite proud of myself that I was lucky enough to be a girl in my head - even if I wasn't lucky enough to have the body to match. I'd go to bed every night praying that I would wake up and be a girl... but that didn't happen. I wasn't ever truly disappointed, but eventually I stopped praying. I always felt silly praying anyway, because even back then I didn't believe in god.
During highschool being a transsexual became excrutiating. Hormones I guess. They changed the other girls in such good ways, and changed me in such very bad ways. I started to feel uncomfortable in my skin. I wished I had her skin... or hers... or hers...
During university I couldn't think of anything else. I'd go to the library and study study... about transsexualism. The worst part was that out of everything I read, I thought it was all wrong. Honestly, who wrote those books? The UofS had a lot of books on the subject, but they were all written before I was born. It was almost scary what some people would right down as 'facts'. I was starting to believe that the only comfort I'd get would be from whatever sense I could make of things myself.
After failing out of university I started losing things. I lost self-confidence probably first. I lost friends. I lost hope. I am pretty sure I lost 2 or 3 emotions altogether. Then one day I lost interest. Losing interest is, in itself, very interesting. When you lose interest to the degree I was losing interest it is like an asymptote - you can plainly see that the curve of interest vs time is tending to zero, but it never quite gets there - because you are always interested in your lack of interest.
Jump ahead now 10 years or so. I was driving along and I was thinking "I wonder what I should have for supper" and then I crashed my car into another car. It wasn't a serious crash - nobody was hurt. Still, it was very loud, and very jarring - but for some reason my first thought immediately afterwards was, "I think I have some porkchops in the freezer." Later that day it struck me that even before I knew it wasn't a serious accident, I had no cares about what could have happened to me.
I realized my life was turning gray. I wasn't unhappy or sick but it was clear I was just waiting to die someday - and I was only 32 years old. I thought back to that young girl who lived in my head so many years ago. I remembered how proud I was back then and I started to wonder when it turned to shame. I was upset that the biggest part of my life was the part I kept most secret. I thought that perhaps my life was so uninteresting to me because it was just the wrong life. The life I should have led is that one I always dreamed I'd someday have. I knew right then that I wanted those old prayers to come true, but if there is no god, then the only person who can answer those prayers is me - so the day after my car accident I went to see a psychologist.
It has been 2½ years since that accident, and a lot has changed. My name, the letter on my driver's license, my hairstyle, my wardrobe, even my personality. Best of all though, my interest in life has come back, stronger than it has ever been.
I recently got a comment on this blog entry from a WoW friend of mine from the Old Gang, and it just made me realize that I don't really know if either gang, old or new, realizes how good it makes me feel to meet such friendly, caring people. Thanks!
I spent a couple weeks listening to them all on Ventrillo, and I just started liking them more and more each day. 'Vent', as we call it, is a program that allows someone to speak into their microphone, then everyone else logged into the same server can hear what was said. I would only ever listen, because I was shy about my voice. I think that I sound... OK. I am not really worried when I am talking face to face because I think my appearance helps a lot, but when I am just a faceless voice I am always worried that I might be easily mistaken for a male.
Instead of worrying what people might think, I decided to just tell people what is really going on. I sent out some emails to my favorite people in the guild and quietly waited for their replies. I was pretty nervous, but I really felt like I could trust these people. As it turns out, I was not disappointed. I receive a very positive and heartwarming reaction from everyone and now I just feel closer to the bunch than I did before.
I was chatting with one of my guildies the other night, and was asked if things had been hard for me. I said that it was for a while, but now things are really good. I thought that since some new people might be reading my blog that I'd tell them a little bit about what it was all like for me.
During elementary school being transgendered was very interesting to me. I loved knowing I was a girl inside. It was a big secret, but it was MY secret, and I was actually quite proud of myself that I was lucky enough to be a girl in my head - even if I wasn't lucky enough to have the body to match. I'd go to bed every night praying that I would wake up and be a girl... but that didn't happen. I wasn't ever truly disappointed, but eventually I stopped praying. I always felt silly praying anyway, because even back then I didn't believe in god.
During highschool being a transsexual became excrutiating. Hormones I guess. They changed the other girls in such good ways, and changed me in such very bad ways. I started to feel uncomfortable in my skin. I wished I had her skin... or hers... or hers...
During university I couldn't think of anything else. I'd go to the library and study study... about transsexualism. The worst part was that out of everything I read, I thought it was all wrong. Honestly, who wrote those books? The UofS had a lot of books on the subject, but they were all written before I was born. It was almost scary what some people would right down as 'facts'. I was starting to believe that the only comfort I'd get would be from whatever sense I could make of things myself.
After failing out of university I started losing things. I lost self-confidence probably first. I lost friends. I lost hope. I am pretty sure I lost 2 or 3 emotions altogether. Then one day I lost interest. Losing interest is, in itself, very interesting. When you lose interest to the degree I was losing interest it is like an asymptote - you can plainly see that the curve of interest vs time is tending to zero, but it never quite gets there - because you are always interested in your lack of interest.
Jump ahead now 10 years or so. I was driving along and I was thinking "I wonder what I should have for supper" and then I crashed my car into another car. It wasn't a serious crash - nobody was hurt. Still, it was very loud, and very jarring - but for some reason my first thought immediately afterwards was, "I think I have some porkchops in the freezer." Later that day it struck me that even before I knew it wasn't a serious accident, I had no cares about what could have happened to me.
I realized my life was turning gray. I wasn't unhappy or sick but it was clear I was just waiting to die someday - and I was only 32 years old. I thought back to that young girl who lived in my head so many years ago. I remembered how proud I was back then and I started to wonder when it turned to shame. I was upset that the biggest part of my life was the part I kept most secret. I thought that perhaps my life was so uninteresting to me because it was just the wrong life. The life I should have led is that one I always dreamed I'd someday have. I knew right then that I wanted those old prayers to come true, but if there is no god, then the only person who can answer those prayers is me - so the day after my car accident I went to see a psychologist.
It has been 2½ years since that accident, and a lot has changed. My name, the letter on my driver's license, my hairstyle, my wardrobe, even my personality. Best of all though, my interest in life has come back, stronger than it has ever been.
I recently got a comment on this blog entry from a WoW friend of mine from the Old Gang, and it just made me realize that I don't really know if either gang, old or new, realizes how good it makes me feel to meet such friendly, caring people. Thanks!
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Good Grief
I don't think I've mentioned it on here before, but from about December 2004 to August 2005 I played a game called World of Warcraft every day. It is an online game with millions of players. You play a character in a massive virtual world, and you go on adventures. Along the way you find people to quest with and pretty soon friendships are formed with these people you have never met physically, but spend hours with every day online.
After a month of play I ended up in a guild. A guild is like a team - a bunch of people that have all formed up together to make it easier to carry out some of the quests and to make it easier to find people to head into dungeons with. The guild was called "Grief". Well, the guild leader quit playing one day without a word and so we were left without a leader for about a month. Then we held an election and somehow I was voted in to be the guild leader. I didn't do much in that position except to make jokes, try to make sure people had fun, help people out when they were in trouble, and show up drunk occassionally. It seems that is all I needed to do to have my character 'Saraa' make lots and lots of friends. It wasn't long before I'd enter a room and people would start saying stuff like "omg, it's Saraa!" I know it is just a game, but it was a pretty big ego boost sometimes to have a character that people had 'heard of' even if they had never met me.
After a month of play I ended up in a guild. A guild is like a team - a bunch of people that have all formed up together to make it easier to carry out some of the quests and to make it easier to find people to head into dungeons with. The guild was called "Grief". Well, the guild leader quit playing one day without a word and so we were left without a leader for about a month. Then we held an election and somehow I was voted in to be the guild leader. I didn't do much in that position except to make jokes, try to make sure people had fun, help people out when they were in trouble, and show up drunk occassionally. It seems that is all I needed to do to have my character 'Saraa' make lots and lots of friends. It wasn't long before I'd enter a room and people would start saying stuff like "omg, it's Saraa!" I know it is just a game, but it was a pretty big ego boost sometimes to have a character that people had 'heard of' even if they had never met me.
A picture of Saraa made by a guildmate, August 2005
Well, last weekend I was at a computer store and I was holding a game called "Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" It is a game set in a similar world, with magic spells, swords and monsters, but this one is a single player game. A store employee came over to help me out and he told me he had the game and really enjoyed it. Well, I was already 95% sure I wanted to buy the game, but his comment pushed me up to 100. He went to look me up in the computer and I wasn't in there, so he started adding an entry for me. I said that I had been looking for a new game similar to World of Warcraft, as I had played that one for months and quite enjoyed it. I noticed that he typed my name in the computer as 'Saraa' - which was pretty weird... unless he was used to typing it that way...
"Oh? What server were you in?" he said.
"Daggerspine, you?" I said confidently.
"Were you ever in Grief?"
"Yes..." I said warily.
"Are you Saraa, the leader of Grief??"
"... Yes... that's me." I said frightenedly.
"My wife and I are in that guild!!"
Sure enough, he was someone I met online over a year ago and we were suddenly face to face. I have to say that it was a pleasant surprise to see him in person after so many months of 'seeing' and 'talking' to him online. It's funny though, he works in a computer store and I am a computer programmer, both in land-locked Saskatoon Saskatchewan, but my most outstanding memory of him is when we chased some of The Horde off a cliff into the ocean in the southwest part of Desolace.
I actually owe Grief and it's members a debt. It is strange to think a person discovering herself through a video game, but that is exactly what happened to me. When I started playing the game I was still very much the old me - shy, reserved, cautious. Soon though, as I related to everyone as a woman I discovered new parts to my personality. The old me was still in there - but now there was just a lot more! My main questing buddy was Jesse from work - or Redallion as he was known in the game - and one day he said to me that a cool part of role-playing gaming as opposed to regular online gaming is you get to see a person's personality come out in their character. I know he was talking about finally getting to know me as a person through the freedom the game lent me. I remember that statement well because I too finally got to know the real me through that game.
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