Friday 14th July 2017

I’ve felt very unfocused today.  I suspect that it’s pre-tournament nerves starting.  This weekend I’m swordfighting all weekend and then next weekend is the Astolat tournament.
I can feel myself getting jittery over the fact that I’m fighting all weekend.  It’s almost as if I’m annoyed that I don’t have time to train… because I’m too busy training.  I know.  Ludicrous.
So instead I’ve not tried to do anything productive and just relax.  But when even World of Warcraft doesn’t hold more than a brief interest for me today, I find myself very restless.
So I’ve not done any editing today and suspect that for the next 10 days I probably won’t do a lot.  I’m trying to tell myself that it’s OK.  I’m now in tournament mode and I knew this time would be coming.   For a couple of weeks I prioritise the swordfighting over the writing and I’m telling myself that I’m not going to panic over how long editing takes (I’m totally panicking now I’ve written that).
Things were not helped by the day job.  My boss has gone away and I am delegation of authority.  He told one manager that we could not attend a meeting because we didn’t have the resource (due to him being off and it being a last minute request).  But this manager waited until the moment my boss left to include me on the invite sent by the customer.  It’s sneaky and underhand and caused me a bit of stress this morning.  In the end I replied to the customer and basically said that due too short notice and lack of spare resource, we’d not be attending.  I have no doubt this will cause some politics next week.
I also have a couple of work training days next week and I suspect that I’m going to be irritable as I try to mentally prepare for tournament whilst simultaneously letting everything bother me.
The little I’ve done in World of Warcraft has been productive though.  I finished my final invasion needed for an achievement that I’m sure is needed for something or other and then started tanking dungeons.
I like tanking.  I hate tanking in PUGs  (Pick Up Groups, i.e. random people).  I always feel anxious doing it because when you screw up it’s really, really obvious.  I’m not a bad tank.  In fact, I think I’m better than average but sometimes find I don’t know some mechanics of certain boss fights and then screw up, or worry I’m going to screw up.
I’ve been watching a few Youtube videos on tanking and it’s really helped.  I think it’s helped me look at tanking in a new way.  I enjoy soloing old content and love the challenge of going into an old raid or dungeon and single-handedly surviving.  The videos I watched made me look at dungeons the same way, where instead of it being me against a group of mobs, the challenge has been for me to successfully tank against the mobs and the crazy things my party is doing.
I tried a couple of dungeons tonight to try this approach out and I found it quite fun and a bit less stressful.  I tried to remind myself that I’ve done most of the dungeons anyway so there’s nothing really new (except maybe some of the Suramar dungeons).
So I started with Eye of Ashzara and was quite pleased how I tanked it (even though I did it on normal) only to then find that the quest I had for it was to do it on mythic difficulty.  Oh well, at least it gave me an in to pugging dungeons as a tank.
I then did Court of Stars in a later session.  I made a point of viewing a video on this first and whilst it wasn’t exactly like the video I think I did OK.
Next up is arcway, which I don’t remember ever having done.  I need to do it so I can complete the Suramar quest line and work towards unlocking flying.
I’ve also been playing around with Alexa a bit today.  I’ve been trying to find some interesting skills to load up but – possibly due to my restless nature – I’ve yet to find much.  I like that you can set a sleep timer and play thunderstorm white noise… which unsurprisingly I find very soothing.  I might go up to bed early and read for a bit.  I usually don’t as I usually feel sleepy by the time I finish reading and then wake myself up by getting up to turn off the lights.  At least with this I can tell Alexa to turn off the lights and set the soundscape to turn off in 45 minutes.
I could possibly do with a decent night’s sleep as it’s going to be a busy weekend.  Hopefully tomorrow I won’t feel as jittery.
If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels.  Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.

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