Minecraft

I've been playing Minecraft for a year now, and I just had the opportunity to buy FRAPS for myself. So I've been making some tutorials for redstone contraptions. I recorded them without sound, so I have to get around to actually recording some sound for them or just writing some captions in for them. I'm too lazy, though.

I'd never been on a multiplayer server before, so I decided finally to apply to join one. I played for a few hours. I am never going to play on that server again. It's not that the server was bad; I liked the people, I liked the environment, I loved the plugins.

I got murdered by another player. I had six diamonds, two diamond pickaxes, three iron pickaxes, 20 gold ore (used for money), 16 iron ore, three stacks of coal, three stacks of redstone, five iron swords, a bow, two arrows...gone. Is it understandable that I feel sick right now? I tried to go back because there's a plugin where if you're carrying a chest, your stuff gets dropped in the chest and it has protection for three minutes...The guy was camping my chest, I got blown up by a creeper. Getting there took just less than three minutes, the first time. On the way back the second time, "Your tombstone is no longer protected." Got back, two chests full of his old junk just staring me in the face as if to mock me. Five stone pickaxes, a wooden pickaxe, and just random junk...

I understand that it is a PvP-legal server. I wouldn't have felt so sick if things had gone differently. I was not wearing any armor. I was not on the surface. I was not being bothersome. I was not being obvious. I was in a tunnel, miles from the start of it, mining.

This guy in diamond armor snuck up behind me, from who knows where. He shot me with a poison arrow. And he sat and waited for my death chest to become unprotected.

That guy's an ass.

Oh, by the way.

So my boyfriend and I actually got married last October. Now he'll be referred to as my husband. It was a lovely ceremony held at the Medieval Times Castle here in Florida. We were married by a king. I was dressed in a lovely renaissance-style dress, white with black trim and silver Celtic knots along the black trim. He was dressed in commoner's garb; a padded shirt and some plain brown pants.

It was a lovely night, and I cheered my voice raw. I got the signatures of two knights, and the flag that they signed hangs above my closet now.

Motivation, motivation, wherefor art thou, my motivation...

Y'know, this whole apathy thing really sucks for motivation. It's been so long that I don't even remember what the heck I was doing with this thing. Pah...

I'm going to school finally. This is my first semester, so I'm just taking general requirements, but eventually I'm going to get into graphic design. Maybe I'll post weekly assignments here or something. Not that a lot of people have seen the blog, or anything. But those who do look might give me some advice and pointers, so it's worth a try I suppose.

School is going alright so far, but it's only week four. I'm taking four classes, three of which are online. My on-campus class is Intermediate Algebra, just to brush up on before I get into stuff that I haven't actually been taught before.

My online classes are Comm 1, Humanities, and Speech. I'm pretty sure I'm going to ace Comm 1, no sweat. Humanities, I could ace if I applied myself, but...y'know, that whole motivation thing. And Speech?...Yeah, no. I'm going to tank. Hard...

I'm terribly stage-shy. Being the center of attention makes me anxious, and it makes me want to hide away and not come out for an hour. The thought that I'll eventually have to make a speech at all makes my heart sink. It wouldn't be so bad if I could just sit against a wall and record myself, but this teacher requires that you stand and have a live audience of at least 5 people...

So once I'm done with this semester, I will be so very happy. I'll start to get into the meat of the classes that I want to take, and those will hopefully all be on-campus classes, because this online stuff is hard to motivate myself to do.

You know what I want to do? I want to write a rant.

So, I know I haven't posted in a while, but it's not like that matters much. What does matter is that today, I decided that my family isn't stupid.
They're straight up retarded.
I know that word is offensive and I never mean to be offensive, but right now I can't think of anything else to use to describe how I feel right now. Basically, the story is this: My brother has depression bad. He's sure he's going to die a virgin, alone and unloved, and he also is afraid to go outside because he feels that everyone is judging him. My brother and our mom were watching Dog Whisperer and there was a lady with severe anxiety who needed help training a service dog, so my mom told my brother that he might get a puppy to help him with his issues. He wants to train it as a service dog as well...except he has absolutely no handicaps. So I suggested a therapy dog instead, which still is a bit overkill for him, and he just said 'idk. I just want to train a dog so that I have something productive to do'...Ok, what?
My brother has been to a doctor about his depression. He has a prescription for it. He refuses to take the medicine, because it doesn't sit well in his stomach and he feels nausiated. My parents let him not take the prescription. They think it's perfectly ok. And apparently, they think that getting him a puppy is a perfect substitute.
Ok, first off, I would kill to be able to see a doctor about my constant low mood, but I don't even have enough money to buy powdered drink mix to mask the muddy, rusty taste of tap water. Second off, my dad hates dogs, but apparently he just loves this idea of getting one for my brother. Er, excuse me, but I do seem to remember that exact father threatening to divorce mom if she didn't get rid of a puppy we surprised him with.
Also, I have a hard time believing my brother would be able to train that dog to do anything other than sit and lie down. That's all we've been able to do in the past. My whole family, including me, is too lazy to go through that sort of thing, and none of them have experience in training animals anyway.
So when my brother told me that I should be excited for him, sure, I told him I was, but my brain was off on its own tangent. "I'm pretty sure I know how I should feel right now, and excited really isn't very high on the list of things I maybe should feel. I feel angry, jealous, and there's straight up disbelief coursing through me right now."
They have 5 people in that house right now, and barely enough income to feed them, and on top of that is the care for the 10 cats and 1 chihuahua that they already have. They're unable to pay for regular check-ups at the Vet for any of those animals.
I just feel very frustrated right now. But I believe that's about all I have to say on the matter.

Not having a computer sucks.

My computer threw itself out of my hands and every time I think about it I get so angry. Rargh. I don't have much else to say. Just that I'm so terribly bored now. I was just updating so that it doesn't seem like I fell off the face of the Earth.

In the Past Year.

So. I was in Florida, further away from home than I'd ever been before. It had been a bit nerve-wracking; the first flight had been delayed and I thought for sure that I was going to miss the second. I was in a daze, and kind of lost, as I wandered through the Orlando airport, trying to find where I could get my bag. Also, the airport just plain smelled weird. I took a shuttle from the terminal to the main building, where the signs assured me that I was headed in the right direction. I headed down in an elevator, and as I stepped out, I was greeted with the sight of my boyfriend, the man I'd been talking to for two years.

He had his back to the elevators. He didn't know where I'd be coming from. So, I strode right up behind him, leaned over (I was wearing heels and we're already almost the same height), and whispered in his ear, "Orlando smells weird."...It's not the greatest thing to say to the man you've never met face-to-face before, but it breaks the ice.

He whipped around, his eyes went wide, and he just looked me up and down. Ok, I'm not that stunning, really, but...he was astounded. He'd seen me before, plenty of times. A 3-hour walk to a nearby Best Buy (to get a webcam) and back had made sure of that.

The look on his face was flattering, really. And, me being shy, I just stood there grinning like an idiot. Then we both kind of silently decided that we should go, because his mom was waiting to pick us up. We headed to baggage claim, claimed my one bag, and headed out of the airport. We wasted no time in starting conversation. We were talking all the way through the airport. Then we got to the truck, and as is habit for me when I get into a vehicle, I shut up and took in the scenery. He stared at me the whole time.

Backing up a little in this story, to two years earlier. Sixteen years old, browsing the internet in my loads of spare time, and I spy an ad on Facebook detailing exactly the game I'd been wishing for since a few years back. Dungeons and Dragons...Online! And it was free to play now! I signed up for that baby right then and there. I played for about a week, but I'd never had any experience with roleplaying before.

I was wandering through the virtual world, looking for more quests, when I got a private message from someone telling me that my character's biography was pretty good, and he was wondering if I'd be interested in joining his guild. They were all about roleplaying. I was hesitant at first, but I did join them. And I was introduced to the magical world of roleplay. I made tons of friends, and there was one guy in a public chat channel who was particularly cheeky, trading veiled innuendo with me whenever he was on.

One night, I was roleplaying, as had become my usual, when my friend Issy decided to embarrass my character...which was all to easy, with that character. So Issy called over a friend of hers. Surprise surprise, it was that same guy who I'd been joking with for about a week already. All of our previous contact had been strictly out of character, meaning our characters had never met before. My character was in for a treat that night. And so was I.

The character who sat down across from mine was a charming man, polite and roguish all at the same time. And then he changed his voice. He had been speaking with a local accent, but he switched to one that would be akin to an Irish accent, and my character was turned into a beet-red puddle of mush. Oh dear. Two relationships blossomed, one between the characters and one between the players.

Two years later, I was standing in an airport clear across the country from where I'd lived all my life, talking with that same guy...and holding his hand.

We got to the house and I went straight to the bedroom, put my bags down (I'd had carry-on, too), and sat and looked. Then I went back out to the living room and sat on the couch. I wanted so bad to just go into hiding and not come out for a week, but I knew that would be rather rude, so I sat on that couch. Of course, at that point, I'd been awake for near twenty-four hours. So I was getting tired. I eventually shuffled back to the room, crawled into my new bed, and passed out. I think I was out for about seventeen hours that day.

Everything since then has been about the same, day in and day out. I wake up, I pick up my computer, I check various accounts for messages, and then I wander through the internet. When I get tired, I put the computer back down, I curl up on the bed, and I go back to sleep.

It's gotten pretty dull, after nearly a year. To the point of frustration. I wake up, check my messages, and then stare at the screen for a few minutes before I put the computer back down and stare at a wall. Beige. I think the color can be described as beige. Very light tan-ish yellow. Blegh.

I try, for at least twelve hours, to keep myself entertained, but more often than not, I'm groaning and complaining about having nothing to do. I would be going to school, but since I haven't been here for exactly a year yet, the school would be charging me four times as much as it charges him. I would try to get a job, but it's an hour's walk to the nearest place, which happens to be a gas station. It's probably another hour to the next nearest place. I can't drive. He can't drive. We only have one truck to depend on, now, and his father uses it to get to work every day.

After somehow staying alive for another twelve hours, I flop back on the bed, and roll around for another two hours. Somehow, I finally end up slipping into a light sleep, where I stay...for about twelve hours. When I wake up again, I don't feel rested. I don't feel invigorated. I only feel bored...and frustrated. And my neck and shoulders, without fail, are tight.

Maybe I'm depressed. I probably am. He refuses to believe it. Or he does believe it but refuses to let me believe that he believes. I tell him sometimes that I think about talking to a doctor about it, but then he reminds me that we have no source of income to pay for that sort of thing. So I stare at the wall some more.

Beige.

And then I go back to sleep.