I must say that I feel a lot less stressed out after not doing much of anything except go out for pretty much all of Spring Break. SL visited for a week, starting Friday, March 14th. It was the first time I ever drove up to the airport, much less going there by myself. It was also the very first time I’ve ever met anyone in person whom I originally met online. I wanted to turn around and go back home a bunch of times on the way there, as well as while I was waiting for him to come out to the pick up area. I don’t know about him, but I was feeling a bit awkward. Good thing that feeling didn’t stick around too long. We (in no specific order) saw Semi-Pro, walked around the underground tunnels (which I didn’t even know we had) of downtown Houston, visited the Downtown Aquarium (but we were disappointed by the size and diversity of the displays), went to the park, watched Doomsday (very gory, but a decent movie), and some other things which I don’t remember at the moment. He also ended up getting sick a few days after he got here, which ended up making me sick. But he said he had a good time, and in the end, that’s all that really matters.
I got him a rather large duck plush, which was named Quackster. I heart it!! (It’s an “it” because it’s awkward for SL to be hugging a boy-type thing, apparently. Even so, we usually end up referring to it as a male anyway.) It’s very soft, and it is currently sleeping on my bed because SL didn’t have space to take it back with him. I’ll ship Quackster to him soon enough. I’ll miss it though. Tear.
The downside to my whole week off is that I didn’t get ahead in schoolwork like I was hoping to. If anything, I feel like I’m more behind now that school’s back in again. That week of just going out completely threw off my sense of scheduling and geeky, I-need-to-do-homework-and-study attitude. I had to turn in an incomplete pre-lab for my Biochemistry lab, did poorly on some of the online Economic quizzes, and even forget to do some of them! This is NOT how to get A’s in classes, nor will it help improve my GPA. Granted, I’ve done pretty well in most of the quizzes, but slacking off is not a good sign. However, the bright side of this is that it’s good for my health to relax. I know I’ve been stressing out like crazy since school started.
In other news, I am also the owner of a private Ragnarok Online server. I didn’t plan for to happen that way, but it did. I was originally just GMing on a friend’s server to help out. Then the owners got busy, gave the server away to some players on the server, and they didn’t know what they were doing at all. I talked to some friends who knew how to deal with that type of thing, and one of them convinced me to take over. So now I’m the owner. We redid a lot of things, and I wish I had more time to customize things and create more items, but my friend really wanted to get that server opened, as did I. We were both just busy with other obligations, unfortunately. Even so, I’m usually up late trying to fix bugs or put in new things. It’s just slightly frustrating that some of the players can’t seem to understand that I’m trying to do my best. I’m already stressing out like crazy because of school, but with the added responsibility of taking care of a server, I’m killing myself. I currently pay for almost all of the server hosting costs out of my pocket. I’m not forcing anyone to donate, nor do I selfishly promote my server on the server I play as a non-GM. I do invite friends, and I take their suggestions into account and try to implement them if I can. It’s just the sheer amount of private servers out there makes it hard for a new server to get on its feet very quickly. I know of a bunch of people who have started or want/will start a private server.
On another note, I saw my middle school band teacher at school on Tuesday. He was the DJ for the “Registration Fiesta” event. I kept looking over at him, thinking, “He really looks like my old teacher!” I ended up walking over to him, saying, “So, do you come here often?” What the heck? A pick up line?! How embarassing, but that’s what I said. He recognized me also, so that was a bit surprising, considering I was NOT one of the best players in the band. Nor did I practice regularly like I should have. But I must say, I think I was a decent flautist for being so lazy. He said he usually DJs for events at my school, so hopefully I’ll see him around again.
I was just feeling a little bit awkward because I didn’t know what to say to him, and the conversation did die off as he began to pack away his equipment. In which case, I proceeded to dunk my teacher into a pool and get a free t-shirt. Yay, go me!
