Level 53 isn't anything special to most World of Warcraft players. About now, if they're leveling an alt, their aim is to get to 58 as quickly as possible so they can go to Outlands for lots of quests and better gear. I'm just enjoying being what really feels like high-level. 3o felt high-level, because I got my mount. 40 felt high-level too, because I got my mount upgrade. But now 50 really feels like I'm getting somewhere.

I'm wearing a bunch of blue gear, and I have three hats that I've been switching between - one that has Defense Rating on it, for when I'm a bear, one that has Attack Power, for when I'm a cat, and one that has lower stats but is nifty-looking and purple and thus I will never get rid of it, for when I'm questing about and killing stuff so quickly that I don't need the cat one, which is a wolf head and a bit too creepy looking for casual un-form-shifted wear.

I'm hoping to start doing instances a little more. I tanked Blackrock Depths the other night, and I think it went ok. I don't tank very often, so every time I do I feel like I have to relearn all my abilities. I had also just gotten Mangle, and hadn't used it as a bear yet (loved it already in kitty form though), so I also had to rearrange my spell bars. But once I got into the rhythm of it, it got more fun than nerve-wracking.

Also: Grr, freaking paladins! That is all.

As level 80 is actually almost visible in the hazy distance, I'm thinking about what my expectations are, and what I want to get out of the game at that point. The Explorer title, of course - I've known I wanted that since I got Explore Durotar with Zert back in the day, and I'm well on my way. The only zones in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms Vasu hasn't explored yet are the ones that are still too high-level, and the ones that have Alliance capitals in them.

But what else? I don't expect to raid, except perhaps way down the line, one of the easier ones, if I can find a group merciful enough to take me. But I think there's plenty to do. All kinds of other achievements - the Cook title would be kind of nifty. And there's reputations too - Guardian of Cenarius would be fitting.

I don't know that I could get Ambassador with Vasu because he's not so sure about the blood elves - one of the first he met was the one in Stonetalon Mountains, and she says "You cannot imagine the hatred I possess for this wretched land. The ilk of Cenarius and the kaldorei druids at the peak employ their pathetic powers to stifle the flow of magic, even so far south of their pathetic holdings... their beloved forests." So as I've been wandering around the zone, thinking how neat it is and killing those awful Venture Co. employees, this didn't sit right with me, and ever since, Vasu has not been particularly friendly toward blood elves.

Undercity creeps him out a little too.

So I think there will be plenty to do once I reach level 80. It'll probably still take me a while to get there, but that's okay, you only see the game for the first time once. And with an expansion looming that will change everything, I want to see as much as possible before that happens.

I get to make a death knight soon. A freaking death knight! I honestly wasn't sure that'd ever happen. I think I'm going to recycle my undead mage who was one of my first characters, leveled through recruit-a-friend to level 23, spamming fireball all the way (AoE? What's that?) and then abandoned. I think she continued to adventure on her own, and then got pressed into service under the Lich King. Yes, this will do nicely. I knew I probably wouldn't play her as a mage, because I've got Zert, and leveling mages solo is hard. But I couldn't bring myself to just delete her.

So there's my post about World of Warcraft. It's long and rambly, and I really do think blood elves are ok, it's Vasu that doesn't like them, honestly. I'm feeling the need to make this paragraph longer, and then write a very short one after it, because that's the pattern of this post so far, and I'm a little obsessive like that. Now of course all this writing has made me want to go play, but there is work to be done, so the druid will have to wait.

Here's that last paragraph. For the Horde!

I first listened to The Rookie at work while I was doing a big photography project. I wasn't quite sure if I would be interested in a story about football, even if it did have aliens in it, but I liked Scott Sigler's work (I'd just finished listening to Ancestor), and I thought I'd give The Rookie a try. And I loved it.

Then Sigler decided to publish The Rookie himself, even though he has a publishing deal with Crown Publishing, a division of Random House. His publisher wasn't interested because it didn't fit the horror/thriller genre that Sigler's other books are in. I listened to him talk about his decision on an episode of Mur Lafferty's I Should Be Writing and I was inspired by his positive view of the future of publishing. The same night that I listened to that podcast, I bought a copy of the book. I received it last week and read it in a couple of days, and I liked it just as much in print as I did in audio.

The Rookie is set in the future, after aliens have become known to Earth, and in fact after one race of aliens conquered much of the galaxy. Football is still around, and it's a very popular sport across the galaxy. In the Galactic Football League, different races hold different positions on the team, based on their physiological traits. It's rough and deadly serious--deaths on the field are a normal part of the game.

The protagonist is Quentin Barnes. He's a young and hugely talented football player from the Purist Nation. These religious humans decry the other races, calling them "sub-races" and believing them to be Satan's associates. They don't allow aliens into their space (except for the members of the ruling race, since they have no choice), and they teach their children to hate and fear the other races. These children grow up learning how to kill the other races, and Quentin Barnes is no different in his hatred of these aliens.

When his contract is sold to a GFL team, he has the chance to realize his dream, but he's faced with the reality of having to live and work with these aliens, and even with other humans who don't fit the Purist Nation standard of humanity. In the beginning of the book, Quentin is an asshole. I don't know how else to put it--I didn't like him at all. He thinks he's so wonderful that he doesn't have to listen to anyone --his coach, the starting quarterback for his new team, his other teammates. He can't recognize honest help when he sees it, and thinks that everyone is out to embarrass and humiliate him. As Quentin begins to grow into a likable, respectable person, he's faced with more challenges and has to learn to lead the rest of his football team by seeing them first as his teammates instead of as the aliens he learned to hate and fear. His character growth drives the book, and Sigler does a great job of creating a realistic character who learns from his environment and the people around him.

And it's not just Quentin--even the alien characters are very well realized. They feel real, but still alien. They're beings just as much as any of the humans in the book, and there are things that bring everyone together while not losing each of the races' unique characteristics. This is why I can love a book about football.

That said, I guess I've got to talk about the football. I don't know anything about it, or at least I knew very little when I first listened to the podcast version of this book. I'm glad that I listened to it before reading it, because while I was reading I found myself reading a little faster through the football scenes, because I don't know the difference between a lineman and a linebacker or a fullback and tailback. The great thing is that it didn't matter--the energy of the game, excitement, danger, joy, pain, tragedy, it all came through clearly in these scenes, especially in Sigler's reading, but also in the print version. I felt for these characters, I wanted them to succeed, as individuals and as a team.

The coming-of-age story, of someone learning to deal with their preconceptions and realize that the world is a lot bigger and a lot more complicated than they believed, is a timeless one. I've read this story in fantasy settings, in the modern day, and in science fiction, and it will always have a place. Sigler did an excellent job telling this story in a sci-fi setting to satisfy any sci-fi fan. I can only imagine how great this book must be for anyone who's a fan of both science fiction and football.

I think I recall hearing Sigler say that he had more to write in this universe, and I know that I will listen to or read all of it, whether it's about football or about anything else, because he's created an engaging, real universe with beings worth rooting for.

Work is a tricky thing. It's such an easy thing to complain about: "I've got so much work to do" or "I wish I didn't have to go to work today." Work is that thing you do to earn money so that you can have a place to live and food to eat. But if those needs were just taken care of for us, we'd still work. We would find something to do because as pleasant as it is to watch TV all day sometimes, we need to do things that engage us mentally and physically and encourage us to learn new things and expand our personal world. So on that basic level, work is a good and necessary thing.

I've been thinking about work a lot lately, both in the "I don't want to go to work today" sense and in the "things I love to work on" sense. As I've said, it's going to be a busy semester. I have always shied away from being busy. I get overwhelmed pretty easily and it's hard for me to be busy all the time. I start feeling pretty bad if I don't have enough downtime. At the same time, I see people who are doing a lot and I know they've got the same number of hours in their day as I do (unless they don't sleep... that's it! Everyone else is a robot!), but they've somehow figured out how to accomplish things. What are they doing that I'm not?

I think I'm finally starting to figure out the mysterious thing called productivity. Would have been nice to do this years ago, when I first started college, but I'll take what I can get. For me, productivity might just be about not having to do things. I shall explain. I've never had a problem getting things done for school. Yes, I procrastinate and worry but I've always gotten projects done and turned in on time. So for a while I thought that deadlines are what it took to motivate me. Now I don't think it's necessarily the case.

I know that there are some things I'm pretty good at. I'm a decent writer and a decent photographer. I've done sewing and knitting and crocheting. I've learned a little guitar, and I can build websites. I'm not humble enough to deny that I'm a fairly talented person, at least in the sense that I can learn how to do a lot of things, and I'll probably be decently good at them.

But more often than not, I don't do them. I watch TV or read or do whatever else it is that I do that isn't Productive. And since I know that I'm capable of doing so much, I feel guilty for not doing any of it. The guilt makes me feel like there must be something wrong with me because I'm not doing any of those things. Then I just start feeling depressed, and it's very difficult to get anything done when I'm depressed, and there we are again.

So I'm making a change. I'm deciding that I am not obligated to anyone to do anything. Of course this isn't true--I have to go to my job and I have to attend class and do my schoolwork. But as far as everything else is concerned, I don't have to do it. No one is making me write or design my website. So if I don't want to, I don't have to. Certainly if it makes me unhappy because it makes me feel too busy, I have no reason to feel guilty about just not doing it. No energy to do anything except play World of Warcraft after getting my schoolwork done? Then all I'm doing that evening is playing World of Warcraft. And that's okay.

Sounds simple, but it's a new way of thinking for me. I haven't mastered it yet, and I still kind of feel bad that I was technically up early enough to do some writing this morning, but I was really sleepy and ended up just sitting and drinking tea and reading. But I'll tell myself that it was okay.

Now the problem with this way of thinking is that I might just end up not doing anything. I don't think that'll happen, though. Perhaps I will spend all my free time relaxing sometimes, but as I said earlier, work is necessary and satisfying. I think that as long as I continue being honest with myself, I'll be able to do things because I truly want to do them, instead of because I think I should.

Let's see how I do.

Norton's Ghost, by R. Canepa, is a first person narrative about Kyle, a young college student who finds out his father died, leaving him without any family and leading him to question his current life. After his father's funeral, he doesn't return to that life, a business major with no real purpose or goal. Instead, he just starts walking.

As Kyle walks, the reader is introduced to the harshness of the road. Rain and hunger stand out among the road's trials. Throughout Part One, Kyle meets several people who make an impression, both on him and on the reader. The tone of the book changes in Part Two. Kyle reaches San Fransisco and ends up staying for a while. The city as Kyle experiences it feels real. It's dirty and dark. The homeless do what they can to survive, and some of them don't. Death is a pervading theme in this book, and Kyle's emotions affected me as I read.

There is a part of our being that recognizes death not on the pure physical level but at a layer much deeper than we can be aware of consciously. I think that awareness was what I was feeling as I sat on the curb and wept while strangers walked a wide path around me. It made me feel small, temporary, insignificant.

Kyle's time in the city is not all dark. He meets people who form a family of sorts, and these connections bring light and hope to his story. I think he learned something from everyone he met, and these people stay with him even after he leaves San Fransisco to continue his journey.

Part Three brings Kyle more heartache and more self-discovery. Back on the road, he seeks answers to questions that he was carrying with him since the beginning of the book. He finds a reason to reconnect with the world and become part of it again. With a renewed sense of self and a purpose, Kyle ends his narrative on a positive note that satisfied me as a reader and as someone who had become emotionally involved with his journey.

As a person who predominantly reads genre fiction, Norton's Ghost was a departure for me. I also am not a huge fan of first person narrative. I still thoroughly enjoyed this book. I read an advance copy with a pencil in hand as a proofreader, and I'm sure that I missed things because I was too caught up in the story.

When I first started reading, I was a bit distracted by the writing. It seemed wordy and rambling, but as I continued to read, I was able to accept this as Kyle's voice. One of first person's qualities is that it is meant to immerse the reader in a character. If the character is very different from the reader, this is a hard thing for a writer to achieve. As someone who has tried to write, I noticed how different the narrative was from anything I would write in first person, and so it took me a little while to settle into feeling like Kyle. But Kyle is a very real character, and I think he's relatable. Everyone has experienced loss, everyone has wondered why they're here, what they're supposed to be doing. His emotions and thoughts felt genuine and immediate--something first person is well-suited to portray.

My forays into writing fiction have always been sci-fi or fantasy, and so I've never used real-world settings in a work of fiction. It's something I've always been nervous about, never quite knowing how to portray a place as fiction while still being true to the location. Canepa does an excellent job of this in Norton's Ghost. This is important in a story about traveling--if the places don't feel real, the whole story will seem off. I never doubted the realism in any of the places that Kyle visited.

Norton's Ghost is about discovery. It's about really experiencing life. Any story about life on the road will talk about the pleasure of eating a meal or taking a shower when such basics are difficult to come by. This is something that Kyle describes, but it isn't glorified or elaborated on at length. It simply is there as a fact of such a life. This book left me not with the desire to hitchhike around California, but with the desire to really live life, not to just float through it with my mind always elsewhere. Kyle's journey is one that anyone can understand and relate to.

Norton's Ghost will be available in late September 2009. Visit http://nortonsghost.com/ and follow @roncanepa on Twitter for more information.

It's been around for a while, but I'm feeling newly inspired to start posting again. I think it might just be beginning-of-semester excitement, because I like my classes and am feeling better about the whole program. Could also be that I've been doing other writing a bit more often as well.

Whatever it is, I'm here. I'm not making any commitments, but I've got some stuff that I've wanted to write about, so I'll give it a go.

If anyone's interested, this blog is running on Blosxom, a simple perl-based blogging system. I chose it because it was simple, but it took a bit of tweaking to get to work. I decided against Wordpress because (besides using it at work and getting sick of it) I don't need all those features that I'm never going to use. I like writing my posts in Ulysses (which holy crap is on Version 2 now and I need to see if I can upgrade!) because it's also simple. I hate using the rich text editor in Wordpress, but I also don't want to have to wrap stuff in html. Markdown takes care of formatting problems, and Ulysses lets me write in nice simple plain text, with all kinds of spiffy features.

But I was talking about Blosxom. It's really basic before adding plugins, but now that I've done that, it does what I need. I don't have comments set up, because I don't know that anyone will want to read my rambling and comment anyway.

We'll see how it goes.

Ok, here we are again. It's my first day of a new semester, and it's going to be a busy one. I've been wanting to start blogging again, and I can't let my perennial "I don't know what to write" problem keep me from it. So here we go.

I'm taking three classes this semester. I might be crazy. But I think it was the right choice. I've reduced my hours at work so that I have Fridays off, and that will give me a day to help stay caught up with schoolwork, as well as with chores and errands that I won't have time for because I have to spend two of my evenings in class. Also, next semester I'll only have to take two classes and I'll be able to graduate. If I stuck with two classes this time, I'd have to either take three next semester or one next summer. The summer course offering is limited, so I don't want to roll the dice, and this semester there were actually three classes I am interested in, so I think it'll be a good semester.

Digital Libraries and Virtual Reference Environments are the two classes I'm most looking forward to. They're both areas I'm interested in working in once I graduate, especially virtual reference. My other class is a research methods class, which is less exciting, but I think it'll still be interesting and useful, especially if I get into a Ph.D program one day.

I still need to get everything for the semester into Things. The more organized I can be, the more I'll be able to relax, because I'll know that I'm keeping up with my work. I want to still have time for playing World of Warcraft, reading, or just doing nothing much at all.

Lately I've been getting up early most mornings to write. This has been really nice. I'm only writing between 3-400 words a day, but it's a lot more than none. My focus is on my gaming setting. I had been writing mostly background info about the world. I've also started writing a short story about an NPC, but that's at a standstill because I can't figure out who the antagonist is, or whether the conflict I came up with makes sense. My main focus right now is on an adventure, and that's been really fun to work on.

I also submitted a query to a magazine for an article I want to write. I've got my fingers crossed about that.

I don't want to ramble, and I don't want to use up everything in my head. I'm not going to try to post every day, but I've got a few things that I've been wanting to write about, and I've also started writing about the books I've read recently.

So we'll see how it goes.

Today was fun. I played World of Warcraft.

I could end this post here, really. Because that does sum up my day. But there was some other good stuff too. Ron and I had yummy bagels for a late breakfast. I played my Draenei hunter from level 5 to level 11 today, and got my pet. We had quinoa-stuffed zucchini and red peppers for dinner. Now the kettle is on for some mint tea before bed.

And I could end this post here, too, but I feel like putting my "resolutions" on "paper" before my life gets hectic again tomorrow.

In previous years, I didn't make resolutions because I am not very good at keeping up with things, and then I just feel silly or guilty for breaking them. But this year, I feel differently. First of all, a lot of things are changing this year. I'm moving in with my boyfriend, and I know that for a year I'll be living in the same place, and I'll have my own kitchen and my own living room and that will help me be more peaceful.

Also, I've been through a whole semester of working 40 hours a week and taking two classes, and not only did I get through it just fine, I got really good grades in both my classes: I think I only missed about 3 points total between the two. And while I didn't like my management class, I learned a lot in my indexing class and really felt like a student. So I'm actually really looking forward to this semester, because I know now that I can handle two classes and a full-time job, and they're going to be cool classes too. I think I'll finally be learning libraryish stuff. And see the previous paragraph: I won't have to choose between being with Ron but without my stuff, or having my stuff but no Ron around. Even though a lot of the time (like all day today), I'm sitting in his living room doing my thing while he's in his room doing his, it's awfully nice to know that he's just right over there.

So now I get to both eat and have my cake. Mmm, cake.

But I haven't resolved to change anything so far, have I? Okay, I'll be standard and write a list.

I will always be reading two books, one nonfiction and one fiction. It doesn't matter how long it takes me to finish them, but as soon as I do I will start another. I will use bookpedia to keep track of my reading, and hopefully I'll eventually have a reading list on my website as well.

I will start exercising again. This is of course the typical new years resolution. I am being typical.

Here's the big one: a GTD Weekly Review. I successfully used Things to keep track of all my schoolwork last semester, but by the end of the semester my inbox was full and my other projects were neglected. I spent some time reorganizing my system, so hopefully it'll be easier to keep up with and I'll be able to actually Get Things Done. This is probably another typical resolution. Oh well.

There's some other stuff, but it's all more along the lines of "I will continue doing what I have been doing, only more so."

And now my tea is ready for me to drink and I am ready to turn the computer off for the evening.