2017 - Farewell to a terrible year

It's Saturday. I'm sitting here at work, my day full of broken bones needing to be fixed and cut tendons that need repairing - all these unfortunate Christmas accidents that need attending to urgently before the end of the year.

I really didn't want to work today, but there was nobody else to do this shift. We tried for 10 days to get this shift covered today because there are political things with hospital waitlists deadlines and key performance indicators that need to be met for this year, and now that I am running the show, I needed to get this shift covered or administration will be down on my head. But, how can you force people to do this shift when given short notice and it's the middle of the holiday period?

Substitute school with "working Saturdays"

Technically, I am still around the area and not interstate or overseas, so I thought what the hell, I'll do it. People were surprised, saying "You know, as head of department, you can just tell someone they have to do the shift, and make them do it." I COULD do that. But, in reality, I myself have never done one of these urgent Saturday waitlists, so how can I force someone else to do them? But NOW, since I am doing this one, I have way more leverage to be able to force someone to do it, by saying that even I had to do one on New Year's Eve weekend!

Besides, it's not all terrible. I can sit here and blog, play WoW, and get paid. During the long cases, of course!

So whilst I was sitting here contemplating this rubbishy end of 2017, I thought over the whole year in general, which was a pretty rubbishy year in parts.

I'll forever remember 2017 as the year that two of my dear friends in WoW died, tragic early deaths. 

Image from The Faily Frostwolf - Kyjenn the Tank

Kxyyn died just before Australia day, early this year. What a bloody shitty start to the year that was. People have found it weird because I sometimes talk about both of them in the present tense. For example, I'd say that "Xyn really doesn't like XXX" when people say I should be saying "Xyn really didn't like XXX". The reason I say that is because if I said "didn't" then it also could imply that he used to not like it, but since then he changed his mind. But, had he been alive, he still wouldn't like XXX. I still talk to Xyn sometimes, mostly just a one way conversation to him up in the afterlife, rather than making up a conversation of him talking back to me in my head. Just things about the guild, and what so and so is doing, and guess who came back. I told his wife that I still had one sided conversations with him and she said to me that she does too. The crushing grief of him being gone has long gone, and the guild has moved on, and there are many now who don't know who he was, compared to those who knew him well. Our long late night conversations have since been replaced with me PvPing and chatting to Crooked, or doing late night M+.

At the time, I thought oh my god, how am I going to run the guild without him to help me. Who is going to understand my goals for the guild and help me enforce them? But the guild is such a great place that people don't really need to be kept in line and the new ones are subject to strict selection criteria that it's made my job so easy. Over the year, promoting Ram and Splatz up to officer has also helped, though it did take me ages to make that decision as I didn't want people to feel like they were Xyn's replacement, but I think it was timed well such that nobody felt like that was the case.

Me, Luxy, Voros and Kyxyn out farming Warbringers

Luxy died a few months after that. Knowing the end was coming did not make it any easier, and Luxy having been out of the game for a lot longer due to her illness meant less people knew who she was or remembered her. And this was a totally different thing. Where Xyn helped me with the guild administrative stuff as well us both being sounding boards for various whinges, Luxy represented the more fun stuff in game. Mounts. Achievements. Pet battles. She loved to give and I loved to receive, she was so generous with everything! Fortunately she was always gracious and liked to receive things too! Crooked was Luxy's closest friend - I don't know anyone who could listen to Crooked's complaining as patiently as she did. Hanging out with him helps me remember Luxy, and though I am no substitute for her as a friend, I'm just a DIFFERENT friend. Besides, he is the only one with whom I can talk about Luxy freely without worrying about people thinking I'm weird or about to have some kind of weeping meltdown.

Her family have recently immortalised her with tattoos, which I thought were amazing memorials.

Xyn and Luxy both loved their cats. I wanted to think of some way in game to remember them and I didn't want to do dorky 1 minute silences or a "remember when" day because people might feel weird about it. And for those who didn't know them, they might feel excluded. So, I thought the best way to do it is something to do with cats. So, I will use International Cat Day as the day to remember my missing friends. 

I need a catchy name for it - Frostwolves cat day sounds lame. Any suggestions? I'll ask if people can bring out a cat pet (be that a non combat pet or a hunter pet) in game as part of the special day. I think both Xyn and Luxy would like that!

Guildies also had their share of bad times. Blood and Guns lost family members, Ram and Gen had ill parents. Tri was frequently unwell.

But the year was not TOTALLY miserable. There were heaps of great things in the year as well as the bad.

People welcomed new family members IRL. Nok had a kid, and so did Tye. Amazing how fast these young'uns grow up!

We had former Frostwolves return to the guild (Nok, Dil, Nerd, Hwired) after being away or not playing. We had new members (Fin, Plebspal, Triarchi, Spankyhunter, Coffeehunter, Mesa) join the mix and hang around and becoming part of the pack. Our family has gotten bigger and yet I still feel happy that it's not so overwhelmingly large that people are lost and isolated.

We finished every heroic tier so far, with the most recent tier being rather memorable in that we got the Ahead of the Curve just before the end of the year. We did our first proper Rated BGs in guild! We even now have a solid mix of people turning up for PvP night, that we have a proper group going!

In terms of personal achievements, I'm very pleased to get my archaeology grind out of the way! That was my best achievement this year, I think!

My favourite mount this year was the Lucid Nightmare. I really wanted a black unicorn and now I have one! And not to mention, the way to get it was a doozy, but so worth it.

Oh, how could I forget a little romance in the guild... good ol' Sev and Eurie. Could see that a mile away though, when Sev admonished me ages ago in officer for making fun of his eating habits in front of Eurie. He was embarrassed when I told the truth about his eating habits. Fortunately, Eurie has accepted his terrible eating habits and even made him try some Sashimi on their recent trip to Japan. I am very proud. She even has him taking DRIVING lessons. Amazing what changes a relationship can bring!

The new year is coming, and my New Year's Resolution is to cuss less. Crooked has been telling me for ages, but everyone else has recently pointed out to me that I swear a lot in raid. It came to a head when we did a random Tuesday raid earlier this week starting at 7pm and my kids were sitting near me and every time I swore, my son would say "MUM! YOU SAID A BAD WORD! WHY are you saying so many bad words?"  I honestly thought I didn't swear that  much. Now, the s word for faces is being replaced with sugar and the f word for copulation is replaced with a different f word for copulation (frigging). And I got teased for saying ning-nong in raid. LOL. Well, it's only for raid. There is no way I will be able to hold back during PvP.

I look forward to the new year. Here's to a new year of wonderful things, happier times and more frequent blogging! And I'll end with this very appropriate quote!