Shared Topic: How WoW Has Changed My Life

This week’s Blog Azeroth Shared Topic is by Effy from Effraeti’s RP: How has WoW changed your life?

Such a simple question, but there’s so, so much to it. I think during the six years I’ve played, the game’s done a lot of growing up and changing…and so have I! And of course, WoW has played a very large part in how I think and feel about many different things.

More than anything, WoW has definitely changed my perspective and attitude towards people and life as a whole. In last month’s Battlechicken Monthly Challenge, I posted about entering the field of teaching. When looking at what I’ve learned from WoW, all of my experiences from the game and interacting with the community have really built on important characteristics that I think I’ll need and highly value as an upcoming school teacher. From my WoW experiences, my views and perceptions of many things have adapted and changed…which I think are good, as I start working more with students! So here are some of the key qualities that WoW has made me value highly and aspire to get better at myself:

“You’ll never believe what crazies I ran into in that last dungeon, Cubby! They were all cursing like sailors!”

Believe it or not, I think WoW was a great avenue for me to be more outgoing (which I didn’t use to be), even if it was with strangers online. In doing so, I definitely learned to have thicker skin — whether it was through dealing with asshats in the dungeon finder, or being able to take constructive criticism as a part of a core raid member. Through watching the in-game community change dynamically through expansions, I’ve noticed how easily derogatory slurs and insults are thrown everywhere. It’s commonplace!But also because I can always expect to see that kind of behavior everywhere I go (sad reality that may be), I’ve learned to stop taking things too personally, and to keep in mind that it is just a game in the end. Even if it’s become a very consistent form of stress-relief for the past few years and what some may call a lifestyle! ;) And hey, sometimes you just can’t help but bite back a little, too.

What is this, I don’t even…

Being able to step up and take the lead is something that after having played WoW, I’m a lot less scared and tentative about doing. This has to do with my feeling comfortable and familiar enough with the game now, as I sure wouldn’t have the guts to even suggest ideas to people if this were back in TBC! In the above picture, I’d zoned into an LFR on my warlock alt and saw the entire platform covered in purple flames. I’d died even before I finished the loading screen! Then Ultraxion landed and snuffed out the handful of people still alive. Everyone jumped right in and started pointing fingers and calling names — but what good is that? I didn’t want to wait in another 30 minute DPS queue again. I went ahead and asked the two tanks if they knew what they were doing, and they had never even been there. After a few other group members chimed in to explain the fight, the boss was down in the next try. And all it took was someone to push the group towards the correct strategy and working together!

Children from the Stormwind Orphanage

We run into so many interesting (and sometimes just downright terrible) people in the game, but I think WoW has taught me to be so much more tolerant and patient. Maybe these people have a hard life outside of the game and use the pixels as a vehicle to steam off their stress. Maybe they in fact really just are immature, rude, or arrogant as a person, and it’s hard to completely change an individual’s personality. While these definitely aren’t excuses for offensive behavior, I’m more understanding that there might be some outlying issue making that person the way they are. That’s the way they will be. They’ll crave for attention, be annoying, whine a lot, and point fingers everywhere, but in the end, they’re just children. And sometimes you have to point them in the right direction and give them a talking to, and sometimes you just have to let them be themselves and leave them alone…

One, two, three, eleventy wooly mammoths!

Finally, I think the biggest changes and things I’ve learned from WoW have to do with time management. Nobody teaches you how to manage a schedule or keep up with tasks or prioritize in life. Hardly do you ever see anyone learn that from a class. Having played WoW from both semi-hardcore raider as well as very casual perspectives, I’ve noticed my priorities (both in-game and IRL) changing more and more with each expansion. In TBC/WotLK, I regularly raided as a holy paladin and was extremely active as an officer of my guild. Now in Cata (and I expect the same for Mists), I’m incredibly casual but have an embarrassingly large army of alts. Back then, my paladin was my “main” and I did absolutely everything on her — achievements, pets, mounts, you name it! Now, I’m incredibly attached to all of my alts, and don’t really have a main. And even though I don’t raid anymore, I still make sure to gear up all of my characters as best I can through non-“raiding” means (LFR/Valor).

I think much of the time management portion goes hand in hand with “growing up” and just taking on so many more responsibilities, especially now that I’m going into teaching. Instead of the long-houred sessions of play time I had during college, I sometimes even have nights where I hardly log in but to check mail/AH…and even nights where I won’t log in at all. (/gasp!) And while I do sometimes terribly miss what I consider “real” raiding and being on a core raid group, I’ve learned to really enjoy the small and fun stuff that I can enjoy without devoting all of my time to a guild and raid team. I’m always still on the lookout for silly things like giant mammoth parades in Dalaran… :)

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July Challenge: Something About Me – Becoming a Teacher & More

Ambermist’s July Challenge prompts us to write something personal about us, the people behind the blogs and the real faces to the characters we talk about so often. It’s funny, actually — if you’d asked me to write on this prompt a month ago, my answers would be very different. While brainstorming, I swayed between writing something heavy-hearted that I’ve opened up to accept recently, or just listing several small personal things about me. While Ninevi has been going through some changes lately (she’s Worgen now!) some parts of my real-life have been going through a shift, too. Here is my story!

The Academy (My residence for student teaching this upcoming semester)

Now, as somewhat of a warning, I get harped on a lot from friends and family about always talking about my jobs/school and being a workaholic. But to me, that’s my life and what feels like I put all of my passion into and thus defines a lot of who I am.

Early this July, I left my position as a research associate at a biotech lab because I was accepted to both grad school and a teacher residency program that I had interviewed for earlier this year. Don’t get me wrong — I love research in science, and I’ve enjoyed learning so, so much during the 5-6 years I’ve been exposed to the field. But I realized a couple of years ago that my heart isn’t completely there. Maybe it wasn’t so much that I loved research, but that I love science and innovation as a whole. I wanted to do something that reached out to more people and not just in academia and mingling among “distinguished” scientists. There was something missing from the picture, and it was being able to really contribute much to the community around me. There were no feelings of making significant differences or real satisfaction. Granted, I was but a small pawn out in the field and there wasn’t much for me to grow on unless I pursued a doctorate, but I finally came to realize that research was not something I could call a career and dedicate the rest of my life to.

After having worked with many local educational outreach programs in the major city nearby and also with undergraduates in my lab, I discovered a niche — teaching. I found myself feeling happiest and excited to engage with students and getting them likewise excited about science and math. Teaching and leading them opened an opportunity for me to shed my usual introverted, ISTJ-type personality and instead be engaging and less of the held-back, reserved, and overall shy person I’ve been for twenty some years of my life. And so I readily jumped on the residency & grad school program opportunities as soon as they came.

I’ve gone through a lot of (re)-discovering my personal identity as a teacher. The two classes I’ve had so far have examined social injustice and equity in education.  Some of the topics such as racism and classism touched too close to home. It was almost bizarre to me (an Asian-American woman who grew up in the Bible Belt portion of Southeastern USA) to hear fellow members of my program describe that they’ve never had experiences of interacting with people from different ethnicities/cultures. It made me realize I always see things in a different lens: in a room of 30 intelligent future teachers of various subjects, 29 were Caucasian, and 1 was…well, me! Having grown up being constantly racially profiled and stereotyped, it was glaringly obvious to me upon entering the classroom. But I wondered if my classmates and friends noticed?

Through discussion, we established that race is a socially constructed notion. Well, I agree. If only someone could explain that to classmates I met throughout grade school who unquestionably saw me as different. Even in online and gaming communities, there are stereotypes. These boxes of labels and over-generalized classifications — they’re everywhere. But how do I relate my experiences to my future students (likely in an urban, inner-city setting)? More importantly, how do I explain (or break down) the walls of social constructs to my future students? These are just some of the things that I’ve been brainstorming since starting my education program. The depth of the topics in social injustice is both disturbing and captivating — it’s something I never really touched on in my core studies in the hard sciences. Social science is so eye-opening, and I hope I can learn even more by getting to know my students and learning from their backgrounds and experiences.

There are a lot of things that drive me as a future teacher. One huge motivation is that I hope to inspire lesser-represented groups of youths (minorities and girls, especially) to be interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). And not just them, but I want to spark more interest in those subjects for all of my students and to show them what kinds of applications there are in everyday life as well as in future studies or careers if they so choose. In two weeks, I’ll begin my student-teaching hours in the classroom at a science and math academy. It’s a lottery-based, urban and public magnet school that pulls from the entire county. I’m incredibly excited and even more nervous and hope I don’t completely make a fool of myself. After all, I’ll have to come up with some way to capture their attention, and I’m hardly as verbose or rambly IRL than I am online and in writing! But perhaps that’s a good thing… :P

All in all, I’m excited and psyched for new beginnings and for changes to come. I know it’ll be a hard and oftentimes underappreciated job, and I know there are frustrating and hair-pulling times to come. But more than anything, I look forward to these challenges. If I can overcome that and make a difference by pushing my students towards being successful in school as well as becoming thriving citizens of society, I would be most pleased.

And just so this post isn’t completely dry work/study related and kind of super-serious, here are some photos of things that are dear to me… :)

Starstruck: a bit of fangirling and a lot of realm pride

<Kumpania>’s 6th year anniversary few months back — enjoying fireworks w/ friends in the guild!

Seems like I’m a bit late in joining the popular topic! It is a fantastic one, and I’ve wanted to dabble into the subject since I saw it posted on Blog Azeroth. In this week’s Shared Topic was suggested by Dragonray, who asked:

Are you starstruck by anyone? Does someone in the community respond to a post or a tweet and get you all speechless because they actually responded? Is there anyone you are waiting to have respond directly to you? Is there someone that you would like to chat to, but are too chicken? Am I the only one who puts other bloggers on a pedestal?

I’m still a newbie to the WoW blogosphere and have only just begun to engage more with the community outside of the game, so I’m definitely starstruck by everyone I meet and get to talk to! It’s a pervasive feeling for me, since I feel incredibly humbled (in a good way!) by all the interesting and neat people I find, whether it’s here on my journal, on other people’s journals, in forums, through Twitter, and more. I jump up and down whenever I get a tweet or a follow, and I smile myself giddy like a fool whenever I get a comment or like or an RT or discover I’m on someone’s blogroll. From other newbie bloggers and veterans alike! To have people actually reading my ramblings? Whoa…! To get to talk directly to some of the people I really admire and am constantly amazed by? Awesome!!

When I joined in the MMONBI in May, I’d set out decidedly that the main purpose of this blog would be mostly self-reflection and a place to jot down memories of my adventures. I’ve mentioned before about having moments of introversion and skepticism, especially when it comes to gaming communities. Starting out this blog, I wasn’t sure how much I’d actually throw myself out there and be able to engage with other people. Well…it’s now July, and my standpoint couldn’t possibly be any more different! The WoW community outside of the game is incredibly contrasting from within the game — the people I’ve been lucky to meet and talk to have been so thoughtful, funny, clever, insightful, and all around friendly and approachable. Sure, I’m still tentative about commenting at times, but I think that’s inevitable considering all the amazing people I’m surrounded by in the community. There’s too many people to link and mention, so I’ve (finally!!!11eleven) gotten around to making a proper blogroll of just a few of the blogs I try to keep up with the most as of now. Yay! :)

I think it’s important for me to mention that I’m often starstruck when I’m on my server, too. Having been on Turalyon for the past four years, there’s been a fair share of neat things happening and moments where I’ve said, “Whoa!! That was on Turalyon!” or “Hey, he or she is from my server! That’s awesome!” It’s little stuff like these that make me feel at home here and reluctant to roll alts on other realms (despite having a full page of characters — ack!!) And while they may not be super “internet famous” or anything, I sure do feel a bit starstruck knowing that they’re from my home realm and are players among all of us. So I’d like to introduce a few of my hometown idols to you all! (While trying not to feel too stalker-ish, of course…! And um, on the unlikelihood that any of these people would ever stumble upon my blog…I’d might die of embarrassment and hope they wouldn’t find this creepy and fangirlish! *shuffles away*)

Kripparrian, World 1st WoW Ironman!

One such Turalyonite is Kripparrian, a troll hunter who was the first to reach level 85 on the WoW Ironman Challenge! When I first heard about the challenge, I didn’t give it much thought besides thinking to myself that it would be incredibly hard and patience draining. I’d forgotten about it soon afterwards, until I saw on my Twitter feed some time much later with a tweet from The Daily Blink asking if anyone knew how to get in touch with the world first WoW Ironman so they could make a poster featuring him. And lo and behold, Kripp had rolled on our realm to grind out the challenge! It was pretty cool to discover that he’d been doing the challenge right there on Turalyon while I’d been playing and I didn’t even know it. It also spurred my own interest in going after the challenge too. Although, I’ve had to reroll once already and haven’t had much progress since…*cough* Moving on……..

Scarab Lord Grayson!

Next is Grayson, from <Fusion>! I think Fusion had quite a reputation back in TBC/WotLK when they hit several World Top 10/20’s and realm firsts. They and their Alliance rivals from were known by everybody on the server and with many other hardcore realms/guilds worldwide! To me (since I don’t raid anymore), they were like hometown teams we all rooted for, you know? :P In Cata, many from the previous two top guilds retired and some remaining people transferred over to Ally to form , which still kept in the US Top 10. But I mention Grayson specifically because I actually got to talk to him a couple times! He is the Scarab Lord of Turalyon, showing that he’s been on the realm since back in the day of opening the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj. So cool! I got the off-chance of talking to him when he had advertised on the realm forums for specific class/race combinations to flesh out his Stay Classy achievement on his level 25 bank guild to get the last bank slot. It just so happened that undead warlock was one of the last few combos he needed and I had a lv 80 one I wanted to level cap, so it went from there! Well, I didn’t really get a lot of time to talk with him since he wasn’t often on and I was just there to leech guild perks while doing the job…but it was still pretty cool and to know that he’s just a regular player too! (Albeit insanely wealthy and has a level-capped guild bank full of mysterious stuff and rides a Black Qiraji Battle Tank to boot! Ha!)

Nadina’s Diablo 3 Monk Cosplay, Picture by FiveRings Photography

And finally is also another old member of Fusion, Nadina! :D Not only was she kind of a hero in my eyes because she played a hardcore, competitively raiding holy paladin (my main spec/class back then), but she was also the winner of the 2010 Blizzcon Costume Contest for her Diablo 3 Female Monk cosplay (and multiple times as runner-up in previous years)! There was a ton of celebration on the realm forums when she was announced a winner. Everyone was so proud!! Since then, she’s continued cosplay and even has a cosplay facebook page. There are lots of neat costumes that she’s been working on, some most recent ones being Vanessa Vancleef and Riven from League of Legends! One of the pictures in her “Future cosplay ideas…” album is Nausicaä from the Miyazaki film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Boy, if she were to cosplay Nausicaä, I might die of happiness! (It was my favorite film as a child and even now!) I believe she is now a team member of Cryptozoic (the company behind the WoW TCG). Her in-game paladin was also made into an actual card for the TCG named Nadina the Red — pretty awesome, huh? Now if I could only stop buying TCG packs for collecting and actually start playing…

But there you have it — all my fangirling for now and quite a bit of realm pride. :P I really do recommend checking out Nadina’s cosplay page though, Zerina Cosplay, because not only are her costumes extremely gorgeous and detailed, but you can see how dedicated she is to the games and gaming community as well! She sometimes does little raffles for WoW TCG loot codes on her fan page, so that may be something to look out for if you like those kinds of things! :)