State of my Winter

On New Years Eve, my guild leader and one of my best friends, Thomas, bought WoW:Cataclysm for me. You know, the game with the commercials where the dragon flies around and scorches everything. So I've been playing, and really enjoying it. Meanwhile, my life and my habits have needed a thorough overhaul, a process which is still underway. There are some lessons I've learned, and this post is an attempt to share them.

1) Studying counts

How it applies to life:

I've never really had to study for a test before college, at least not for more than a few minutes. Now I'm learning how much proper preparation can really make everything you do, big and small, go much more smoothly.

The story here is that I've picked up raiding (collaborating with 9 other people to kill bosses) again, but this time with a new character that I've had to learn. Now, before, I've come from playing what I would call "wishy-washy" characters; not that they're bad, but that there's really no consensus on a "best way" to play them; most tanks and healers are like this, but I've played some damagers that are the same way, where every possible stat helps you out in some way, and a conglomeration of all, or possibly specialization, would be best; no one really knows, but everyone has an opinion.

Playing my mage is a completely different experience. The research is profitable. There really is a lot to learn about how to play a video game better that comes from math and computer science. The community over at Elitist Jerks really works hard at crunching numbers in interesting ways to figure out which gear and which move rotations are best for us, and I've learned a lot about optimization from them

2) Practice, practice, then practice some more

How it applies to life:

Studying and homework are really hard for me to get motivated to do, but putting in that effort day in and day out really does make a difference.

Where the real work comes in is the same as in most disciplines: reading about how to climb rocks doesn't make you a great rock-climber. In this same way, reading about how to play my mage has helped me, but it would be useless had I not spent hours practicing the rotation (by enjoying the game) so that it's second nature to me.

The trick here is that most fights are not "tank-and-spank" in this expansion. There is constantly something different to do, from "don't stand in the fire" to "run around constantly" which changes things up for me considerably. Having the rotations down to a point where I can focus on these new, extra things really helps in terms of my output. Damagers, or DPS (damage per second), can easily be evaluated or compared by the numerical output alone, where tanks and healers are much harder to compare.

3) Teamwork is more important than your work

How it applies to life:

I've always been a loner, especially when it came to group work. Through experience with helping manage a guild and a team, I've learned a lot about proper delegation and teamwork.

I've been noticing this in different games for a while now, but it still hasn't really "stuck" in my mind yet. We raid with 10 people, and if one of us screws up, we all lose. The ways to screw up, however, are sometimes subtler than you'd think.

When I put up big numbers it helps us win, but not at the cost of my helping everyone else. Just like a basketball team; if one player scores 30 points but can't pass or assist team mates, the other 4 people's performance won't be good enough to win.

There are times when I need to sacrifice my "numbers" for the betterment of the team; for instance, even though I can stand in fire for a second to finish my current spell cast, it helps the healers if I don't. Then they have more time and energy to heal someone who really needs it, instead of just wants it. Little things will snowball into big success. Which brings us to...

4) Little upgrades make for big improvements

How it applies to life:

It doesn't seem like a lot to save $0.20 a day, but it adds up. So does a similar daily addition of some good habits; you don't form them overnight, but they're worth the time and work.

This is an easy story to figure out. Let's talk about loot, or items. These days in WoW, items have a shown value called item level, or ilvl. This gives you insight to how powerful an item the designers think it is; ilvl goes from 1 up to infinity, theoretically, although the current hard-mode gear is 372, regular raids give 359, and heroic dungeons give 346.

Now, obviously, if I make the upgrade from an ilvl 200 to an ilvl 372, 99.9% of the time I should be much better off. However, it's not so obvious moving between two adjacent tiers, even less so considering side-grades in the same tier.

The point here is that although your stats don't jump up as sharply when going from 346 to 359 as they do from 200 to 372, the bonuses help every little thing you do, from how long you'll be alive in a fight to how hard or how often you hit with each move. Fights are often 6 minutes long, and several classes have moves that they use every 1.5 or even 1.0 seconds. When you have such a huge amount of action over a course of time, even a 1% upgrade in stats can be huge for you.

Conclusion

I went a little longer than I was hoping to, but hopefully that was a semi-interesting read. The real takeaway here is the last point; it encompasses everything else. It's not realistic to think I'll start studying 4 hours a day tomorrow when I don't normally do this; it's something you have to work towards, a little each day.

Jealousy

There exists a myriad of different emotions that we all experience, for better or for worse. For most of my life, I've felt sort of numb to the world, not through lack of experience or emotion; I suspect this comes from suppression for one reason or another. Lately I've thought a great deal about my past, and this is one story I've never really explored.

A bit of back story before I begin. I went to a small school in a small city, where our of high school's graduating class of ~250 students, well over 100 of us had been together since kindergarten. Everyone knew everyone, again for better or for worse.

Now, Jimmy and I were immediately friends in kindergarten. I really don't recall how this happened, or what brought us together. Heck, even growing up we had largely different upbringings and interests. I won't go in to details, especially considering how little I know, but suffice it to say that when we did see each other, we didn't always see eye to eye, though we remained friends.

The story gets interesting, as stories often do, when you added a third component to the mix: Randall. Randall lived across the street from Jimmy, where as I lived on the other side of our small town. Randall and I both had, from what I could tell, the same kind of friendship with Jimmy, but Randall possessed a depth of friendship with Jimmy, someone I valued and looked up to, that I simply could not possess. I didn't know how to, and to this day I'm still unsure of whether that could be changed.

Of course, now such a thought seems dreadfully trivial. I find that valuable friendships don't form through constant impression and work but through acceptance and respect. Still, though, I'm haunted by that feeling, the most intense instance of jealousy I can recall. Other tinges exist, such as seeing someone with a nicer X while I'm stuck with my piddly Q, but that bond, that friendship I could not have, that really struck me. I disliked Randall for no other reason than his closeness to one of my own friends; hardly a healthy reaction, but a reaction that transpired nonetheless.

I must apologize, as my conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from my story. You see, the beauty of life and a positive attitude change has led me to become good friends with both Jimmy and Randall. Still today, they're some of the few friends from growing up that I keep in regular contact with, that I look forward to seeing or hearing from. The conclusion is that I was not happy with who I was, and that sometime between being jealous of my friend Randall and now, something has changed in my life. Looking back, there are a lot of moments that I'm not proud of, and this is one of them. Randall and Jimmy are both fantastic people, and what on earth was I thinking holding such a grudge against either or even both of them for not liking me as well as they liked each other.

The freshman experience repeated

Everyone remembers their freshman year, be it fondly or otherwise. My freshman year of college was certainly something else; I studied the hardest I ever have, I met a ton of new people, and I really started to belong to a community of students. My social group was at an all-time high as I kept in touch with friends from back home and made plenty of new ones in school.

Then life fell apart. The at-the-time love of my life and I split; I worked my ass off and got C's and D's in fairly core classes to my major. Looking back, I can't tell how anyone liked me then or before then. I was a two-faced dick. Half of my life was incredibly happy, half of it was angry and spiteful, with no real cause for either. This two-facedness did not begin in college. I'd been this way all through high school, maybe even before that. I was finally realizing how I was, how I acted, who I had become.

Depression set in. Now, my parents have said that I've been depressed for a long time, and I would believe that. Until the last year or so, I've never been really happy before. My days would range from terrible to just ok, never good or great. That's just how I lived my life, I thought everyone was like that. But the second-half of my freshmen year and all through my sophomore year brought me to me knees. Not in one fell swoop, but life gradually beat me into submission. I lost nearly all of my friends, entirely by my own methods. I wouldn't return calls, wouldn't even pick up my phone. There were many days I wouldn't even get out of bed, much less my room. When I did get up, all I did was play video games to escape from reality.

Theresa helped me through this, she was there to hold me when I needed it, which was always. Now she lives in Houston and has a life of her own. Thankfully, now I don't need it as much. I'm well medicated, I'm actually living happily and socializing again. I've gotten off my knees only to find a mountainous climb ahead of me. Only the best of my friends have kept with me through all of this, but now I realize the need for an extended social group. For the past 6 years or so I've been substituting virtual friends for real ones, and that time must come to an end. I just don't feel motivated to play games for any other reason any more, I just want friends again. I want to feel popular again, to feel loved by the masses again.

More than that, I want my freshman year back. I want to work my ass off and get A's this time, I want to meet people and do things. I've been given a third and final shot at college, and I'm going to make the best of this semester. I'm going to get out and meet people, to go to class, and to reconnect with my friends I've neglected. Life isn't all about me or what I do, but about the people we all meet and love.

Knowing your limits

Last night, my friend Mark and I played 50+ World of Warcraft arena matches in the period of about 2.5 hours. We did very well for the first 30 or so, winning most of our matches. However, toward the end of the night, we were getting tired and hungry, and we ended on something of a 5+ losing streak. Not only was this disheartening for the night's morale, but it also detracted our attention from the overall night. We gained nearly 250 rating (on ideally bell-curved scale where 1500 mean) throughout the night, but we lost nearly 50 of that in the last 30 minutes.

Now, it could be that we were starting to hit a wall, as it were, and the teams we were playing were simply better than us. More likely that that, though, we started making stupid mistakes. Mark would run one direction around a corner and I'd head the other direction. We'd both be playing offensively when at least one of us needed to play some defense. WoW's arena, especially as you start climbing the ranks (we're sitting at about 1230 now, nowhere near the top teams that are 2800+), is a game that can often be decided by a few key events; one simple mistake can cause a loss.

The lesson, at least that I'm taking from this, is to know when to rest. As much fun as winning a lot in a row can be, it's equally frustrating to lose a ton in a row, so know your limits and try to nip bad performance in the bud by getting up and taking a walk, or getting something to eat. Hopefully when we play next, we can break 1300 =)

Experience your food

I've been watching HIMYM lately. I'm in season three, and episode 2, "We're Not From Here", really jumped out at me. Gael repeats the phrase "experience your food" throughout the episode.

That's just it: too often we take for granted the little pleasures in life. Of course I mean to say that I often take things for granted, but hope a larger audience can agree.

I eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches almost every day for lunch. Today, "experiencing my food", slowing down to savor each bite of this mundane dish I taste new subtleties and experience a joy in something so simple as eating my lunch.

As my family and friends know, I love food. Food is something essential in my life that I do my best not to take for granted, and yet I still do. When eating even fine cuisine, such as sushi, far too often I find myself ordering to fill myself instead of ordering what sounds the my thrilling. How much better can your life be if you love every moment of your day? To get to a point like that, I like most people need to take baby steps. My baby step today, and for at least the next week, is to consciously savor each bite of food and each drop of drink.

Why my family is incontrovertably more awesome than yours

My sister, Nicci, was recently married to one of the greatest guys I can imagine. This got me thinking about how much my family means to me. My family is awesome. "How awesome?" you might ask. "More awesome than zombie raptor Jesus's flying saucer style of martial arts" I would kindly and quickly reply.

I think most people dislike their parents to some extent. I do not. My parents have been there for me in every disaster I've encountered, and they've helped me through it to boot. I flip my Altima; my dad picks me up on his way to work, buys me a new car and warns me that I only get 1 free screw-up like that. I almost commit suicide, my parents open their arms and their home to me in support, then lovingly make me get back into the real world so not to stunt my growth and over nurture me. These last few months when my finances hit dire straits, my parents bailed me out.

My sister and brother-in-law are two more fine examples of how amazing my family is. They are simultaneously two of the goofiest, coolest, and for lack of less academic word exemplary. I've been following more or less in my sister's footsteps for as long as I can remember. We've been through the same schools (so far), the same gifted education, the same sarcastically loving upbringing. In a way, we're like battle-hardened comrades, only she has 7 years prior experience in life than I do. Despite the "foot-on-chest" incident, I know she's always cared for me and she has helped me become the person I am today.

Eddie, my brother-in-law, is something else. He's personable, intelligent, and generally passionate throughout his daily life. I don't feel I know him well enough to say much more, but in the small amount of time we've spent together he's already become a welcome addition to our family.

These examples befuddle the true nature of our bond, however. My parents are two of my best friends. They're both approachable, and react to me as an adult as I feel they have most of my life. When one of us has a moment of triumph, we can all relish in it; when something depressing happens, we can all laugh about it. We don't talk every day, but we still manage to remain close, to remain a family. In everything I do, I find myself trying to live up to my amazing family, to be more like they are.


My extended family? They're far more eccentric than I can begin to describe, and worthy of at least a post of their own.

icbat - Its meaning and why I am who I am

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Once upon a time, I was a Christ Follower. This is, of course, distinct from Christian in that the sect I belonged to held itself higher. We weren't like those preachy Christians with their trying to convert people and large, flashy shows of faith; we were a people that wanted nothing more than to be as happy as we could be, and we believed the path to that destination was the Bible. Yes, we did try to bolster our numbers, so in retrospect it really wasn't too dissimilar from the standard Assembly of MethoBaptists (the First, Second, and Third Churchs thereof).

I've since left that community, and I wish them the very best. There were two lasting effects of my time spent learning from my friend Chris and the rest of the community, however.

The first was an experience of a higher power, what some would call God. In a moment of peer-driven euphoria and rapture, I felt, and suddenly, I believed. In an auditorium, I suddenly felt moved. I realize there are many explanations to this, but I'm quite content with the one I have now, as it lends to a much better story to tell.

The second idea that I took, quite greedily I might add, from the community of Christ Followers, is icbat. While my belief in a higher power varies from day to day, icbat is something that I believe in whole-heartedly, and icbat is my guiding force behind answering life's tough questions.

You may have noticed the Bible verses I quoted at the top of the page, and perhaps you've been curious as to what relevance they hold to this conversation. The concept of icbat is explained in those verses in a very subtle manner. Simply put, icbat means to live as love; those verses serve as a guide as to how one would go about being love. Above all else, your heart an conscience can nearly always tell you which action is the most loving, if you give it some thought.

The word "icbat" comes from the transmogrification of the verses' identifiers. 1 becomes and i, C drops case to be a c, 13 looks very similar to a capital b, and 47 looks somewhat akin to capital AT. Originally, I wrote the word only in all capitals to emphasize its meaning and the value of such a philosophy. Now, hindsight being what it is, I write it only in all lower-case (with the first letter capitalized if and only if icbat appears at the beginning of a sentence) to convey the idea that I am icbat (I am love), and that by being love, I am putting others first, i.e. their names are still capitalized, but mine is not.

These days, in all seriousness, I call myself a Jedi. After wearing the title of Atheist and Agnostic for some time, I realized that neither of these titles really fit. What does fit, however, is the title of Jedi. While I make no claims as to my knighthood, or even my knowledge of the Force or the Order, I do believe this syncs up rather nicely (as well as allowing me to show my geekier side) in the following ways:

1. Unlike and Atheist or an Agnostic, I believe there is a higher good/purpose/being.
2. Similar to a Jedi, I believe that no person deserves an execution or torture, as the act of torturing or executing simply does not line up with "living love."
3. I do believe there is good in each and every person, even if they've been conditioned to only rarely show it.
4. While I don't have a replacement for an afterlife, I really don't think it's anything that anyone other than the most wise/in-tune can remotely imagine; I don't think it'll be anything comparable to this life in any way.

I'm sure there's more, and I might feel inclined to revise this further when I have more time to think. For now, though, I hope this post sheds some light on to how I live my life, and why I call myself icbat.