Cover Fire

(from Stuff No One Told Me)

As I mentioned before, I started playing SC2 again with Teekay (and occasionally Olek). Teekay usually plays Zerg, but tonight he decided to play Terran for a bit. Most of my Terran/Protoss games have been play with Julian (some with Charles, but all he ever wants to do is proxy rax/gateway, so it doesn't count as a proper game), and tonight it made me realise how much I'm used to playing with him. By mid game he usually has plenty of tanks with siege mode out, and is probably teching for battlecruiser, so when I remember, I try to go phoenix to back him up. In my last game with Teekay, we were able to engage in middle, and they were setting up tanks, so I was waiting for Teekay to bring his along, too, so we could set up and fight. And waiting. And waiting. And they never came.

Despite the fact that they both have the Kerrigan portrait, Teekay isn't Julian, and his play-style is almost completely different. I know I should have looked to see what stuff he was building, but I guess I was too used to relying on a Terran partner to build certain stuff.

"Amazing discovery Anna, but how does it relate to us?" you might ask. Well, I think it says a lot about relationships, too. When you're in a relationship, after a while, you'll find that you tend to rely on the other person for certain things. You tend to expect certain things from the other person without even having to ask anymore. Whenever I have a jar or a bottle of water, I usually end up giving it to MrMan5.5 to open, and almost all of the time, he's waiting for me to finish my failed attempts at opening it so that he can give it a try.

Just as I find it so much easier to play with people I'm accustomed to playing with, I wonder how much of people's relationships are based on the fact that they are just used to being with whoever they are with? I admit, one of the reasons I was reluctant to give up AG was because he was a known entity. If I tried someone else, they could be better, but they could also be worse. I didn't want to have to go through all of the getting-to-know-you stuff again.

That's probably one of the reasons I'm not all that interested in meeting new people. You never know what kind of things might offend them, and even though they might be a friend of a friend, they doesn't mean they like all of the same things that you do. I went DVD hunting with QC at Highpoint a couple of months ago, and she invited her friend Social Anxiety David. I call him that because that's how she described him to me. After she said that, I wondered if I had to be extra careful around him, because I didn't want him to have a full-blown anxiety attack in front of me (I know, I'm a terrible person, I'm probably scared of epileptics, and I know someone else who also has social anxiety, and I didn't even find out she had it until a few years after I met her. She didn't seem any different to me at all).

At one point during our DVD hunt, I wanted to see if JB had an Arnie movie collection, but I didn't want anyone to steal the Arnie DVDs that I had already found, but hadn't paid for. QC had disappeared somewhere, so I had no choice but to ask David to hold them for me. I spent quite a while debating with myself whether he'd be OK with me asking him, and in the end, I just did it, and he seemed to have no problem with it. In fact, he was a really funny guy, and didn't seem any different at all. Plus, he found Pumping Iron for me and he likes Arnie, too.

I just realised that Social Anxiety David abbreviates to SAD. Oops. Anyway, he didn't turn out to be a crazy serial killer, so maybe getting out of your comfort zone isn't so bad - you might find some new people to laugh with.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

So much of my blog is about doom and gloom and the fact that I wish I were more X because it would make me life easier. Today I've decided to just stop and smell the roses. I've been a lot more calm since I quit my job at the casino - probably because I don't have the guilt of taking people's money, as well as having to deal with incredibly stupid/drunk people who can't seem to listen to reason. It has been a pretty relaxing break, I like how I can just do things whenever I want rather than trying to plan things around my shifts and having to shift sleeping patterns constantly (although I am finding that I have trouble reverting to "normal hours" now that I'm on break).

I baked a cake for my dad on Friday, and I honestly forgot how much fun it is to bake. I decorated it with pink icing (because we only had pink food dye) and tried piping cream, and overall, I think it turned out pretty nice. I also got to try out my shiny new silicone baking tin(? Is it still a tin if it's made of silicone?). Reading through the blog where I got the recipe from, I've decided I want to try more things, like chicken pot pie, chicken kiev, savoury crepes, beer batter fish, rogan josh, shepard's pie. Most of them will probably have to wait until I move out and have the dinner parties that I've been planning (as mum and dad already cook more than enough food for us to eat that I think anything I make will end up going to waste).

Although in more food news, my silicone rolling pin should be arriving in the mail (hopefully tomorrow), so I can get started on my gingerbread cookies and truffles for Christmas! Going to see how vegetarian-friendly I can make my Christmas presents, as I believe Gale and Olek don't eat eggs or gelatin. Also will get around to buying ramekins at some point during my present hunt for family members so that I can try making crème brûlée.

MrMan5.5 has finished his exams for what will hopefully be the last time ever! I'm really happy for him, as this semester has been pretty stressful for him and he has spent most of it cramped up at home studying. We will be leaving for Japan in less than two months' time, and I can't wait to play all the gashapon machines! ^________^ I don't plan to buy all that much though (other than a kimono as a souvenir), so if anyone is after anything in particular from Japan, let me know and I'll try to find it.

I took Amanda out shopping today, and it seems she would like more clothes, but I think every time she goes out shopping with mum and Anjelica, she ends up getting dragged around and doesn't really get a chance to find anything for herself. As it seems that all hope of grooming her into the next pro-DotA player have disappeared (I still haven't managed to convince her to install War3 on her laptop), I guess I should be a good sister and take her out. I did say that I would buy her something if she got a good grade on her piano exam, and the thing we went to buy today she ended up paying for with her own money, so I'm planning to take her to the DFO or something so she can buy some new clothes for the holidays. The holidays where she'll hopefully spend time with her friends rather than staying at home watching Gossip Girl and Avatar: the Last Airbender. The last thing this family needs is another me.

I'm quite surprised at the response rate to my poll (although still not as many people as I had for my guessing exercise). Now that I have more than 10 results, I feel comfortable opening the spreadsheet, because it's pretty much impossible for me now to guess who made which response. I don't really care about any individual answer, because someone's private life is their own business and not mine. I'm still going to wait a bit before I publish any actual results, because I don't want someone to say something to someone who hasn't filled it in yet and bias the results. There are quite a few things that I find interesting though, and a few questions that I now have that I hadn't thought of before, but I will explain all of this in a few days! The psych student in me is actually quite excited to do some analysis - even if it is statistics.

After some prodding from Teekay, I've started playing a bit more SC2 lately. I'm finding that I'm a lot more relaxed while playing now. I think when I was playing with Julian and Charles, the focus was so much on winning the game, and now with Teekay and Olek, I feel like it's more about playing the game. If I misclick and click a zealot instead of a stalker, then I just shrug it off, maybe berating myself for it later if we lost. I don't feel like such a dead-weight for the team. That being said, I am currently playing much worse than when I was playing with Julian regularly, so maybe I know my skill is worse and it doesn't bother me when what happens in a game matches my expectations of my skill. In addition, when I do manage to play well, it's a pleasant surprise.

I just realised that I'm not entirely sure how to handle all of my data, so I just sent an email to my stats lecturer asking him some questions. It made me realise that I should study up a bit more on stats before I start the analysis. Yes, I know that I said this post was supposed to be something with me saying, "I need to be more X", but what can I say, I'm a chronic self-improver!