Thor and Hades

Yes, today I got those guinea pigs I said I was getting! And they are so cute :D. Obviously I am awesome (or crazy (depending on how you look at it)) enough to name them after gods of the mythical kind.

Below are some pictures of my brother holding them. He was a little nervous at first, but he was ok once they'd settled down. I also taught him how to pick them up so he could come and see them on his own sometimes.

We also gave them a cabbage leaf, which they seemed to like. For some reason my brother was surprised they nibbled at it so quickly.

They're only 8 weeks old, so can't be kept outside, we're keeping them in the greenhouse until they are older and it is summer.

Thor
















Hades
















Both together

Pets

Update: My bad dreams have stopped, I didn't get the reoccurring dream, my stress spots are going down! yay! :D

So, upon arriving home from Alex's today, I went to visit my budgies and found that the female's nose is turning brown, which means she's going into breeding condition! :D This means I now have the choice of whether or not to put a nest box into their cage. As yet I'm not sure, but I'll keep you posted.

In other news, Ivory has managed to catch on of his side fins on something and damage it. It's a little bloody, but not bleeding as he has clear fins, so you can see any bleeds inside. This happened last Thursday and I was a bit worried that he might suffer over the weekend and die; it turns out he's fine, almost back to normal in his usage of his fin so he should be ok. The other fighters and fish in general are doing good.

I have also recently been thinking that I want to keep guinea pigs again. I haven't had one since I was around eleven, but I did really like keeping them. The hutch that we have, however, will need work done to it before even considering purchasing them. The roof needs an adaptation to stop the rain collecting in it, the sides of the sleeping area need a little insulating and there needs to be a partition between the sleeping and living area. I will also need to get an outside pen that I can put them in for a couple of hours a day on good days, so that they can lay on the grass and such. I'm also not sure whether I want boys or girls. I had boys last time, and am pretty confident that I would like some again, but perhaps girls are the way to go instead. Research will need to be done into this obviously.

Bad Dreams

I'm starting to wonder if my mind is going slightly crazy. It's gotta be telling me something. Last night, for instance, I had a dream that someone told me I was going to heaven, but only had a year to live.
To say the least, I'm a little freaked out. I'm not scared of dying in real life, but being told that I have less than a year to live, by my subconscious no less. I suppose it could be nothing to do with what's actually going to happen. Perhaps it's just showing me the "stress" I've been under. Though I finished all my assignments a week early and gave them in a few days ago. There is nothing else I'm stressed about.
I have all my usual signs of stress too: my face has broken out in spots, I'm finding it hard to concentrate, and I'm over thinking everything. The only symptom left is the reoccurring dream, I really hope it doesn't get to that.

Lost Humour

Last night was a complete fiasco. Ok, before I start this rant let me say that it was probably a mistake to monk at all last night, with a banging headache, little patience and a possibly still steaming temper.

We were supposed to be doing the dungeon Rragars. Now, just getting to the dungeon is usually a half hour trek over charr and grawl infested lands, not to mention the earth eles. But I thought we'd be ok, and we would have been, had the other half of the team not been in a stupid mood. They were aggroing everything in sight and by the time the first ten minutes were over my emotions were hanging on a VERY thin thread (possibly my sanity too, but that's not completely confirmed).

The problem I have found with monking is that all humour at the death of a team vanishes. I'm supposed to be keeping them alive, and if I can't I feel useless. I really did hate the team yesterday because of this, I had previously explained this to Hayley (my best friend) yet she went ahead and did it anyway!

I can't blame her though, because you can't really know what it's like to see a team go down from the monk's point of view unless you are the monk, and she never has been. Let's hope that if we try again tonight, it won't be a repeat performance; if it is I doubt keeping my cool with Hayley will be an option.

Spring Rain

Perhaps I've always had a lucky streak, and I was thinking today, I've never really seen anyone around me die through health problems. Not people really close to me anyway.

I always thought it was just because I tend to become an optimist when things get bad. Even those things that screw over your entire life, I can always find something good about a situation. Your boyfriend broke up with you? Well then perhaps he was no good for you anyway. I've always been like that. I guess it's because it's how I survive in this supposedly "cruel" world.

If I tell you of walking to the station today, I could say it was raining (which it was) but I'm more likely to tell you that I could smell spring in the rain, that smell of growth, and that the rain was burdened with the kiss of life. Think of all the plants and animals that will benefit from this rain. And it wasn't cold, for the second time this year it felt warm, and deliciously refreshing on my feet.

And then if I tell you more, I've only been unhappy, as in really unhappy for a period of about a year in my life. One year of Twenty-one years isn't bad. I enjoy every second of my life at the moment. I may not look like it, but I really do love it. And this got me thinking, if this streak of luck continues then even the prophesy of being Saturday's child won't be a bad one. I always thought that if that had to come true then it would be horrible to work all the time. But I've recently realised that if I manage to become something that I enjoy being, all of the work in the world will not stop me.

Perhaps I am just an optimist.

Ivory

Ivory is my third, and favourite (still living) fighting fish, he is a breed named "orange dalmatian" I have no idea what that actually means in the fish world, however I have recently discovered that his fearlessness coupled with his agility, and possibly some anger issues, give him the ability to jump out of the water and attack my finger.

Of course, he does this because he thinks there's food on it. And, to be fair, there usually is. I feel unfair getting so much enjoyment seeing him lithely leap from the water with him not getting any in return.

I put a little pellet of food on my finger and hold it perhaps 2 or 3 centimetres, and watch him slowly swim towards it, circle it under the water, pause and then leap suddenly. It's so quick you could miss it, you'd need a high speed camera to see it properly, but it is amazing to watch, and I can't help feeling a little prouder of my Ivory, even if he is due to become a little fatter because of it.

Productive

Today has been a productive day so far (hurrah!). I got up later than yesterday, 9:30 ish, wrote another of my essays (last before Easter!) in 3 hours, cleaned out all my fish (4 tanks worth) and am now playing Guild Wars! :D

Today will be a rush to get helen's monk to level 20, finish eotn (hopefully) on her monk, and do lots of quests for skills and such. It should be fun, a challenge, and awesome :D.

At the weekend I will hopefully be going into Southampton with the male counterpart for the first time in ages! It should be fun. Only one lecture tomorrow, at 10, out by 12, lunch then to Alex's, should be there by 2. Life is a rush, but I'm enjoying every second.

Meanwhile, I have coffee and the prospect of Easter hols, as well as a clear view to next year after picking my choice of modules for it. Thought processes all over the place atm, ideas up in the air. Train journeys, writing, gaming, going out. Fun fun.

Monk Fantasmagorical

So after training hard the day before yesterday and yesterday I finally decided that a challenge was called for, a REAL challenge, one that I thought would be vastly beyond my skill: a hard mode dungeon.

To be fair we didn't choose the hardest, but perhaps one of the longest. We chose Frostmaws. And let's not kid ourselves, I wasn't the only monk, there were three of us, one smiting, one prot, and me healing. The prot played by Mark's friend Dave, who is an amazing monk, and has monked in Heroes Ascent without being called a noob all too frequently. I was in good hands, let's put it that way, with a net of awesome monkness to fall back on if I needed it.

On Dave's instruction, I completely re-runed my armour as well as swapping a few skills about. And so, we set off. Once we got going it was pretty easy, though having to shout at a pretty annoying ranger who was trying to tank the wurms, even easier. I'm not sure why he actually listened to me, perhaps it was only the threat that I'd stop healing him.

But, in any case, we did well... more than well, we did awesomely. I learnt yesterday that there are circumstances when the monks just can't do a thing to save the team, and then they must save themselves and lose agro. In Dave's words: The monks aren't allowed to die. I think he means that if you die it reflects badly on your monking skills, and he's right, who'd want a monk that can't even keep herself alive?

Despite the few near wipes we had, I came out feeling positive, so much so that we're doing Vloxen Excavations tonight. Let's just hope Dave can come too.

Visions of Silver

Yeah! Pokemon Soul Silver finally came out in the states! which means I have it. I'm really enjoying it actually, there are people who say that the remakes are rubbish, but they're really not, the same nostalgic storyline, with added colour and animation, and now also your Pokemon following you, what's not to like?

Despite the sudden appearance of the game I have actually done some work today (shock horror). I wrote my pre-rewrite evaluation for Stage Writing (this is actually a load of crap, because I have yet to write the bloody script, but still, it's not bad). It was 1500 words which wasn't all that hard to punch out of the brain: total writing time = ~3 hours. Not bad considering I also wrote a post on my lit blog in that time.

Today has also been a day of training. I've recently begun to teach myself to heal on gw. AoM needs a healer for the big missions we do. It's fine to bring hero healers if there's space, but the other day there wasn't and Tom had to face healing along with Mark. Mark was fine, almost flawless in skill, but Tom frankly could have done better. And so, I set myself this task, to be able to heal a party of eight in Hard Mode.

I'm taking it slowly though. First healing in a couple of wanderings through the desert, then through caping some skills in Factions, then the Zaishen Mission (Minister Cho's Estate) in hard mode (first with a well formed team, and then with three warriors and just me), and then today some normal mode missions in EoTN.

It turns out I'm not bad at healing, though sometimes the lag does catch up. But in general people tend not to die around me (unless they're being a Sin and Noob at the same time and agroing everything at once). I'm learning quickly, though I'm kind of dreading this evening as Mark is going to put me up against different damage types to see how well I do. I hope I'll do ok, he's a bit scary as a teacher.

Bubbles

Over the last two and a half days all I have done is sit in my room and play computer games. Wow, sad revelation. I am not naturally a "social" person - the word "social" here used in the sense of going out to specifically see people or go out - but tomorrow I am going to play the part, Uni happens to be one of those places where it's hard not to be social. Unfortunately, at that point my bubble will be popped (if I continue with this metaphor).

However, if I take the idea of being social to a different, slightly lower, level, I have been extremely social over the past two and a half days. The game that I've been playing in this time was none other than Guild Wars, spacifically working towards a title with one of my friends. This time has been social because of skype. I have had conversations (usually over an hour long) with at least five people, some at the same time (in fact, one with all five at once).

My bubble is therefore merely physical, and not at all antisocial even though my parents might think it is. The irony in this is that tomorrow, though I may speak to more people, I probably won't actually engage with them as I have with these five of my guild mates.

Oh well.