Life of a WoW Addict

Show us two things that belong together.

Fit perfectly

What is your personal motto?

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much. " Mother Teresa.

 It's not exactly a personal motto, but it's words that had a profound effect on my life outlook. I try to remember them when times are hard, like at the end of every semester when I'm stuck with tests and projects and papers, or when things aren't going well between Carolyn and I. I think I first read this quote when researching a Theology project in high school, and it's stuck with me since then.

This quote has sort of tied in with my understand of the inexorable progress of time. No matter what I do, or don't do, life's going to go on. That due date for the paper will come, and go, and life will continue past there. Whether the goal is achieved or not in the time I have, that's not the end of my existence. Something will happen, one way or the other. It's been a reassuring notion, in a neutral sort of way. It's not as if I'm thinking "Oh joy! Inexorable progressions of the universe! :3 ," It's more like "Well, even if I do screw up royally, tomorrow will still be there."

The quote also helps reinforce my own belief in God. I've had issues with my religious upbringing (Roman Catholic) for quite a while now, but haven't really pushed my luck too much in terms of expressing my disagreements. Recently, though, I've been skipping Mass when given the chance, despite the later admonition of my mother. She is genuinely disappointed whenever that happens, but I believe that she thinks I'm lazy or uncommitted, not that it's a deliberate expression of disbelief. (I don't happen to agree with the "You must go to Church every Sunday" tenet of the faith.) I don't have anything against the Mass. I wouldn't mind going every now and again, I enjoy the sense of community I get out of it, and I genuinely like our priest and deacon. I just don't believe that I have to attend every week, and the Church says it's required.

*ahem* As I was saying, the quote reinforces my own personal beliefs regarding God. I deal with God on a very personal level; I'll frequently thank him every time I almost trip, or if I find something after searching for it for a while, or even if the weather is pleasant a particular day. Very little things, simple things. By believing in God and trusting that he won't throw anything at me I can't handle, I find that I can handle a lot more. It ties together with the passage of time idea. Even if something seems unbearable, it will eventually pass and things will resume a semblence of normalcy. It's sort of a self-preserving self-preservation mechanism. I believe that God won't send anything I can't handle my way, and so I reason that nothing that happens to me can't be handled.

*shrug* It's worked so far, so....I think I'll stick with it. :P

True to my blog's title, I've been playing WoW a fair amount recently, which accounts for me not posting a "Ben's life" update. Perhaps tomorrow night after work.

This is meant to be whimsical, not a complaint. :P

Relationship

Hopefully I'll have a nice wall of text for ya'll to read later. Because I know you love them so much.

What most excites you about the way you're living your life right now?

NOTHING really excites me about the way I'm liivng my life right now. I think that's part of the problem I'm having with life right now. Everything seems so monotonous, so routine.

Work, school, stay up late.

School, work, stay up late.

Work, school, stay up late.

School, work, stay up late.

Work at some point, waste time the rest of the day.

Spend the day with Carolyn, watch movies, talk, play games, etc, stay up late.

Go to Mass, spend time with Carolyn, work, stay up late.

That's what life for me has been like every week for the past month or so, with some minor variations. I just don't have anything exciting going on in my life at the moment. Or at least, nothing that I'm getting excited about. I have a presentation, a paper, and a speech all coming up; major assignments for three classes. So far I've hardly put any effort into any of them, and they're due within the week. I guess I'm stressed, but not to the point of freaking out.

When I feel like I have too much to do all coming at me all at once, I tend to freeze. For example, I have a presentation due tomorrow, a 10-page paper due Tuesday, and a take-home final and a speech due next Wednesday. Assessing the time that I have, I don't think that I have the time to do everything. I probably would, if I actually worked on any of them, but I seem paralyzed by the thought of all the work I have to do. And I'm probably underestimating the amount of time and effort each of these things will require. I feel so screwed, and yet here I am, typing up a Vox post about how screwed I am instead of working to un-screw myself. :p

I feel like I should cut back on my hours working to give myself more time to work on school, but after next week, I won't have anything to work on, so it feels pretty pointless to ask for time off. That, and it's kind of late to ask for time off. I could do it, but it would be last minute notice and an inconvenience to my managers.

Grrraaaaaahhhhh. I just want everything to be over with. >_<

When was the last time you drove out of town?

I personally have never driven out of town. I have been driven by other people. I have only driven a car on a few rare occasions; those being the few times someone has thought to take me driving, or I thought to go driving. I'm 19 now and still no driver's license. :p

However...

I have taken and passed the visual and written tests, and I have an appointment to take my driving test on May 28th. FINALLY. I went to the DMV on Friday to take the written test, as the DMV has changed its policy and now allows walk-in testing. After I passed that, I waited for a bit and then was called up to schedule my appointment. Their earliest appointment was...today, actually, now that I look at the date! But I'm nowhere near ready to take the driving test. I've hardly driven at all! So I asked for a later date, and came up with May 28th.

I'd really like to reschedule it for May 26th, though, if I can manage it. It's only two days earlier, so it stills gives me a fair amount of time to practice driving. But, there is one distinct difference between the 26th and the 28th. The 28th is the day after Carolyn and my 2-year anniversay, and the 26th is the day before said anniversary. If I get my license the 26th, I can drive myself and Carolyn around to dinner and maybe a movie, or whatever we decide to do, without a chaperone, and without having to arrange for rides. It would be much more convenient, and much nicer on a personal level.

So I need to be thinking to myself, "Go out and drive! Go out and drive! Go out and drive!" all the time. I need to practice.

It just seems like I don't have the time to go out driving. Work and school take up most of my time during the week, and now that it's getting towards the end of the school year, I need time to work on my projects and papers, too. Bleh. I think I'll talk to my manager about cutting back my hours the next week or so, so that I have time to get everything done. But then I'll come back in full force for the summer! Full-time, all the way!

And now, time to work on the aforementioned projects and papers. Adios, amigos! :P

My girlfriend Carolyn decided to get a tattoo on Sunday. Her friend Ingrid was going out to get a piercing for her birthday, and invited her along to get something done as well. I figured I'd share a photo.

Tattoo

She'd been wanting to get an ankh tattoo for some time, but never had the money/opportunity/guts to get it done. Then the universe aligned to allow it, and so she got a longtime wish come true. :P

It's her first tattoo, and her parents don't know about it. She thinks they'd get upset over it, but I'm not so sure. Either way, she doesn't plan on showing them for quite a while.

I've been really busy with work and school lately. It seems that when I'm not working, I'm either at school or spending a few spare hours with Carolyn. Hopefully things will get less hectic soon. I miss my free time. :p

I was thinking about it tonight while on the phone with Carolyn....I'm not sure what it is I want to do with myself.

When I graduated high school, I knew that I wanted to get a college degree. Collge was just the next step in the years of school that I'd started way back in Pre-K. Just another four years, and then I'd be in the working world, living on my own with a job, getting a start on life.

The years since graduation have been kind of...well, no. Not "kind of." They've been rocky. I was put on academic probation my first semester of college, and wound up failing out of Uconn after the second semester of poor grades. I applied to transfer to Eastern Connecticut State University sometime during my second semester. Uconn was too big for me, and Carolyn would be attending ECSU in the Fall, so we could spend more time together. My horrendous GPA, however, prevented me from transferring. I transferred instead to a local community college - Three Rivers - with a new goal in mind: I'd bring my grades up, and transfer to ECSU in the Spring. I could enter their Performing Arts program and get a degree focused on acting. Things seemed like they were back on track. I got straight A's and was eligible to transfer to Eastern. Unfortunately, my parents didn't want me to transfer mid-year. Eastern is more expensive, and we weren't in the best of financial situations. So I stayed at Three Rivers.

I doubt I'll have straight A's this semester, but my grades should remain decent enough to transfer in the Fall. Only now, I can't have my transcript sent to Eastern to complete my application until I've fully paid the tuition to Three Rivers. I only just got a job about a month ago, and am making minimum wage. I owed Three Rivers ~$1400, and have since paid off about $500. Without help from my parents, I probably won't have that bill paid off until sometime this summer. By that time, I'll be behind on choosing classes, housing arrangements, or I may even miss out on my chance to attend Eastern. And the thing is, my parents still don't have much money to spare to help me pay for school.

So...I guess I have an idea of what I want to do with myself. I want to go to Eastern, and I want to get a Bachelor's Degree in Performing Arts. I want to spend more time with Carolyn while I'm up there. Right now I only get to see her twice a week. All day Saturday, and a few hours on Sunday. During the week, the only contact we have is AIM and talking on the phone. We've been going out for almost two years now, and we've never really had much time to spend together. Neither one of us has a driver's license yet, so we're reliant on our parents to drive us to and fro. During the summer, this means that Carolyn's parents are completely unavailable to drive during the week, and mine are unwilling to pick her up. During the school year, Carolyn is at Eastern, and can't come home during the week. So we've basically only been able to see each other on weekends the whole length of our relationship. We've gotten by so far...but we'd both really like to see a lot more of each other.

I feel disoriented, I guess. I pictured college as this solid four-year block of education at one school, passing with decent to good grades. Instead I flunked out my first year, transferred to a shoot-myself-in-the-head-I'm-so-bored community college, and I'll be transferring to a third school to begin God only knows what year of my college career (I don't technically know how many credits I have) and just starting my degree coursework.

I don't even really know what I'm saying. I feel like I'm babbling. Gonna go now. :p

Show us something cheerful.
Submitted by Alex.

Cheery Carolyn

Isn't she adorable? ^_^

I can't wait until vacation next week. Over the past couple of weeks I've sort of been stuck in a rut of the same schedule every week. Some people would call it stability, or else feel comfortable with the predictability, but it seems like the lack of change is boring my subconscious.

Mondays: Screw around all day until sitting bored in Math class at 6:30-9:00. (Hopefully I'll be getting a work shift on this day, soon. My boss has been making noises about doing this for a week or so.)

Tuesdays: Class from 11:00-12:20, drive to the other campus, class from 2:00-3:20, go to work for 4:00. Work until close, which usually gets me out between 9:15-10:00.

Wednesdays: Sleep in, then work on whatever reading/speech I have to give at Public Speaking that night. Public Speaking from 6:00-8:30.

Thursdays: See "Tuesdays."

Fridays: Open day. For a couple of weeks, I had work from 4:00 to close, but for some reason I haven't been scheduled to work on this day recently...So instead, I have nothing to do. I might try to reconnect with my Yu-Gi-Oh playing pals and hang out with them for a bit.

Saturdays: Carolyn comes over my house, and we hang out all day. Watching movies, playing Wii, taking walks. It's lovely. =)

Sundays: Get up and go to Mass at 8:30, get picked up by Carolyn and her parents at 9:45, go over to Carolyn's house until 3:20, go to work for 4:00 until close.

And that's the way it is, every single week. I'm really looking forward to break, just to get out of this cycle for a bit. Even moreso, I'm looking forward to the end of the semester. My classes are dull, and I want to transfer out of here.

In other news, I really need to get out and practice driving. My parents tell me on a relatively consistent basis how much easier things would be for me if I got my license. And I know it would help me greatly. I could drive myself to and from school, work, Carolyn's house...I would be given a lot more freedom in making plans for myself. With a car, I might even be able to join a local theater or school club or something. Something to keep myself occupied in my spare time. Which would be great! Except, I don't have much driving experience. But my parents never think to take me out, and I never think to go out.

Most teenagers when they hit 16 offer to drive everywhere because they want the experience and they want to get their license as soon as possible. For whatever reason, I never had that drive (har har) to get my license. In retrospect, it's probably because of how accomodating my family and friends have been in getting me where I need to go. Which is fine for me, because I generally get where I need to go. But it can be a strain, or an inconvenience, for people to work around their schedules to drive me to and from class or work or Carolyn's house.

If any of you are on AIM when I am, do me a favor and bug me to get out driving? Pretty please? Otherwise, it will likely never come to mind. -.-

Thank you all for your comments and advice on my last post, it really, really helped me work things out. Firstly, it helped me get my own thoughts in order, so I knew what it was I wanted, and secondly, once I'd worked things out in my head, I was able to talk to Carolyn about things. I called her up the next time she was at Mike's and told her that it made me uncomfortable when she slept in Mike's bed.

Now, I was nervous about doing this. In my mind, it could've gone one of two ways: 1. She'd ask why I was suddenly making such a big deal out of it, as I hadn't said anything about it the other times she'd done it, and we'd get into a long, possibly heated, discussion about how inconsistent I am and while she would've eventually agreed not to sleep there anymore, it would've been ugly. OR 2. She'd understand completely where I was coming from, and immediately figure out some alternative to sleeping in Mike's bed, or with Mike.

It was a huge relief to find that my second projected scenario was what happened. She was completely cool with not sleeping with Mike, and understood my reasons for it, and everything. I was enormously relieved and was reminded just how wonderful my girlfriend can be. =)

In other news, we (Carolyn and I) went to a fencing tournament at St. Bernard's (our old high school) on Saturday to watch some of our friends and former teammates compete. One of the newer girls on the team placed first for the girls, but sadly none of our guys placed. Still, it was great that Chelsea placed first. And it was nice to have the school host a major tournament. I think it was the first one we've ever had.

Anywho, the real reason I bring up the tournament is for two reasons:

I love Raine's Hair

Reason #1

I love my friend Raine's hair, and I thought I'd share an image of its multi-colored awesomeness.

Reason #2

My New Epee

I won the raffle for a brand new electric (meaning I can compete with it) epee! Also complete with body cord (to attach it to the scoring system) and fencing journal (an integral part to any sword-wielding athlete's competitive progress.) I spent $5 to buy three tickets, whereas others (my coach, and one of the parents of a team member) bought $10-15 worth of tickets to better their chance at the weapon.

A $75+ dollar value for $5. Can't complain about that. :P

The irony of this situation is that I haven't fenced in about a year. I've wanted to, certainly. Especially watching the tournament this past weekend, it made my blood race and stirred the desire within me to match steel against steel again.

Hopefully winning the epee will serve as an inspiration to get back into the sport. I really do love fencing, and I'd hate to have the brand new weapon go to waste.