Sakura of DOOM

Haha! I am now a level 9 white mage.

I have also discovered the game is much more fun when one is playing with a group of people, as opposed to playing alone. I have also discovered that leveling is horribly addictive.

Being a white mage is good (all I do is stand around and cure people) because I very much hate running around and killing things. Too panicky for me, and then I spaz up and can't remember any of the keyboard commands again.

For other things, am confused about job issues again... the people at the bookstore really want me to stay and are offering to support me in starting a used bookstore in Taiwan, should I so want. Not that I really want to -- wrong environment, language difficulties, etc. But it is nice to be appreciated. They are also wondering if I can stay till June/July, because one of the buyers (we only have two left now) will be on vacation for a good three weeks. If I say yes, I will be trained as a buyer, which will be much more interesting than what I'm doing now. Unfortunately, I do not like the idea of committing to anything -- I have no idea about the timeline for the job search, because the market is just so unpredictable. Plus I feel bad because I have the career counselor person helping me out, and ... I don't know. I just feel bad making whiplash plan changes all of a sudden, either way. Argh. Truly, I am Vaughn the fence-sitter. This is quite horrid.

It's just very confusing, and I'm starting to like the people more (or feel more comfortable), and the thought of starting afresh yet again is scary, of course. But I also know this is not long-term for me now. It would be so handy if some fairy came down and told me: "This is the right choice. Go forth and follow the flowchart I have given you, and all will be well." That would be quite reassuring (not to mention slightly freaky and probably indicative of my losing my mind).

*rubs eyes*

Just caught up with LJ again -- the boy got Final Fantasy XI from his job and installed it. And I went and made a character and have spent all of yesterday playing. I even dreamt about it, embarrassingly. I don't even play video games. I can't run in a straight line or keep anything straight in my head, and when things attack me, I panic and chuck the controller.

But it's also kind of addictive trying to get my character to level and get more spells and make money, etc.

It's quite strange, too! Complete new culture, a bit like anime culture in that everyone seems to want to learn Japanese and they use the Japanese/anime style smilies (^_^ or ^_~ or -_-;; etc. that I habitually use). It's a strange break from LJ and... western fandom (?!). Of course, this is probably because the only people I've found there are my sister's friends, and I'm guessing that the Japanese video game thing is a pretty straight link to anime for some of them.

Hee, one of my sister's friends really wants to learn Japanese now. Reminds me of me back when I first discovered anime.

And apparently there's this entire ettiquette that I don't know, like not examining people, and I'm not sure how to talk! Half the people "talk" in netspeak, I think because it's faster to type. And despite generally deploring netspeak, I get it in this context. Chat is faster, and it's probably more important to talk faster when one is killing monsters in teams/parties. Plus, it's nice to have to type less stuff when one is also trying to run to different areas at the same time.

There's all this different vocab as well -- levelling and aggro (when a npc attacks spontaneously), npcs (not sure... but the non-people characters. Maybe that's it?), etc. And some I'm a little familiar with because the boy plays so much, but most of the time it's like having to learn a new language, plus a new way to move. I can't keep straight how to attack and how many times I need to press the enter key, or getting out of a menu to target a character, and stuff like that. It's all pretty instinctive to the boy -- he doesn't have to learn the concept of targeting, he just figures out the control. I have to remember that I have to do that target thing.

Really weird.