It's been a while!

If anyone is still out there reading this, thanks for sticking around!

It's been crazy for me the past week or so. I'm covering some vacations at work, so my hours have been all over the place. Still, I have some resolution to my guild problem. After trading messages back and forth with my class leader, I decided to transfer Asara. So if you're looking for her, she is now named Caelatria over on Cenarion Circle. I did make another Asara on Malfurion, just to keep the name in case I ever decide to go back. Or who knows, when Cataclysm hits, I might re-level her through the new quests. I even made her look like she used to before the barber shop came out, so it will be like completely starting over.

So far, I'm happy I made the move. The new guild is lots of fun, and very supportive. She's already been to 10-man Ulduar with them, as well as plenty of heroics. Believe it or not, they roll on loot in raids, no DKP to worry about, they just go and do what they can do. I like it. She's been busier in the past two days on Cenarion Circle than she has in the past two months on Malfurion.

The only sad note is that I got absolutely no response from my guild master about any of it. I have told him multiple times in the past that he's the main reason I stayed at all, and he had nothing to say. It's like he and my class leader have switched personalities. Over the years, my CL has been very quiet. He hardly ever spoke, even in chat, except to do MD assignments or something, unless directly addressed. My guild leader and I had a very open friendship, always joking with each other and whatnot. Now my GL is silent, and I've talked more with my CL over the past week or two than I have in the entire time I've been in the guild.

There have actually been quite a few people leaving in the past week. My CL is quitting the game entirely, that was a big shock. I had been teasing him recently about how he never named his pets, so I asked him that before he quit, he name one of them and send me a screenshot for proof. Which he did, lol!

That's about all the news for now, just life as usual at home, though Andy is getting ready for first grade! We just got a list of what he'll need in the way of school supplies last week, which was kind of a bummer. I really like the curriculum and whatnot of the school he attends, but sometimes they seem like they're a bit behind the ball, especially when it comes to communicating with us. I mean, Meijer has had school supplies out for weeks, so of course by the time we get there to pick up his stuff, a lot of the things he needs are out of stock, or there are only a few left to choose from. We didn't even know when his first day was until hubby called last Monday.

Ah well, we'll get him situated soon enough.

I might be done.

Yesterday I was involved in some drama on Asara's guild forum. It really drove home to me that this isn't the guild I joined any more. SI has evolved into a hardcore progression guild. The people who are active in it now have little time for fun, and even less time for some random casual friend of the guild leader who used to be a staunch raider.

This morning I sent a message to my guild leader and my class leader asking for their input. I'm not having fun in the guild any more, I think maybe it's time I moved on. I've agonized over this for long enough, I need to just make a decision and get it over with. I'm losing sleep now over all this, and that needs to stop. I'm guessing that at this point my guild leader is probably just tired of listening to me whine and will be glad to see me go.

I just want to play and have fun, is that so much to ask?

WoW I've got things on my mind...

I'm not sure what to talk about first! I guess I'll just start typing and hope that I get where I'm going in the end. Be prepared for a long post! :)

Yesterday when I got home, hubby was working on some Loremaster quests on his druid. So I hopped on Asara and started working on quests in the Draenei starting area, trying to get to Exalted with Exodar. While I was doing that, people were actually talking in guild chat, and I chimed in a few times. Mostly goofing around, which felt good, as I've been very out of the loop with the guild lately.

After a while, hubby asked if I would come tank a couple of heroics on Saraabi. We recently left the small family guild that we'd joined for a much larger and more active one, in hopes that we'd be able to run more instances and stuff. He'd gotten three DPS from the guild, and just needed a tank. I was a bit loath to leave Asara, because I finally felt like I was clicking with people again, plus I was (mostly) having a good time running around pwning the heck out of low-level quests.

I finally decided to go, but only for a couple of heroics. I was tired, and tanking requires quite a bit of concentration, I didn't want to let the group down too much because my attention was wandering. So we decided to run Utgarde Keep and Utgarde Pinnacle, since they're very close together, and I'm comfortable with both, having run them before. We got an achievement in Utgarde Keep for not letting the first boss cast Ice Block on anyone, and quite a few people said grats and good job. I hadn't even realized that he hadn't cast one! The rest of the instance went quickly, and the end boss dropped plate pants that I already have, and a lovely tanking ring that I didn't have, but won.

So we moved on to Utgarde Pinnacle. Had some trouble getting in (stupid instance servers), but finally made it. Things went well, we lost the rogue on Svala Sorrowgrave for some reason, but that was it. No problems on the other bosses, including the end boss, who was nice enough to drop a Red Sword of Courage for me. So as much as I protested going in the first place, in the end I was really glad that I had gone. Plus the group of DPS-ers we ran with was super friendly and nice. They were all already friends, but they tried really hard to include us. There are a lot of people in the guild like that, actually. They'll grats people for the silliest things, like catching 500 fish. But you don't get an achievement in this guild when people are on and not see a bunch of green text congratulating you for it.

After UP, I went back to Asara for a little while before actually going to bed. I was sooo close to Exalted with Exodar, I felt that a couple more quests would probably do the job. Guild chat was a lot quieter because most everyone was in Ulduar. About a half an hour later, ping! Asara has earned the Achievement "Ambassador of the Alliance"! Woo! And.. one person said grats in guild chat. One. Person. Not even one of the people I'd consider a good friend, either.

See the contrast? It really bothers me that people I've been playing with for almost my entire WoW career can't be bothered to take two seconds to type /g grats! because they're so busy with their "srs bsns" raid and people I've been playing with for less than a week do so as a matter of course, regardless of what they themselves are doing at the time. They could have a macro to do it, but the point is, they do it.

Asara's guild used to be like that. I mean, there weren't achievements or anything back then, but the environment was much more friendly than it is now. There was an effort made by the officers to include people, there were social events, everyone just seemed a lot closer. Things have changed quite a bit since those days. Maybe they don't do those things any more because the majority of the guild doesn't want them. Maybe the majority of the guild is only there for raiding now, I can't really tell. There are a lot of newer people, most of whom were recruited to raid, so I guess that might be true.

It kind of hurts, to feel like such an outsider among people I've known for such a long time. Having Saraabi in this new guild is just illuminating the differences more and more clearly. This feeling isn't new, in fact I've talked about it with Asara's guild leader once before. His solution was to wait things out until I can raid again, because then I'll be included in raid chat and people can get to know me better. So that's.. maybe in a couple of months. Maybe never.

They only raid on nights when I have to work the next day, and I don't think I'm comfortable with that any more. Plus they outgear me so much, I'd likely be waitlisted even if I did sign up for a raid anyway. Saraabi and Lumae's new guild, though, they've already invited us to 10-man Ulduar. Someone asked me about it the other day, and I said I'd have to see, because we're 3 hours ahead of server time. But she said they raid it on Friday and Saturday nights. I'm tempted. I really am. I'd have to go as DPS, so I'd have to work on Saraabi's Ret spec, but I think it would be fun to go.

We'll see.