Sunday, July 31, 2005
Waldorff Office Workplace
Thought it might be interesting to post a few reflections for once, instead of the usual moaning and bitching that goes around on this page. I am not excluding moaning and bitching, of course – I’m just saying that this time round I have something more substantive to add to that.
Playing a game on an American server can truly be likened to being part of a cultural melting pot. Over the past months, I have formed opinions and perspectives of the American culture as I see it, and as I experience it. For back history, I believe that my guild (organization of friends within the game) are mostly from western and central America. They are mostly from different states and regions, but they’ve met up on occasions in the past and most of them know each other fairly well at a personal level. There are at least five to six married couples within the guild, and more dating couples, and well, relationships that are, at best, curious. Regardless, I believe that in my past months of interaction, I have truly surpassed most of my peers in getting to interact and understand with the culture as a whole (of course, excluding those who are actually studying over there now). My friends whom I play with and talk to (literally, over voice chat protocols) and text-based chat come from every race and background imaginable. They have slurs, accents, funny catchphrases, lingo, and all the perks that is to be expected of an entirely foreign culture. Naturally, they are curious about Asians, and typically, they think of us as the developing sort of country with backward facilities, lower standards of education, etc. The perspectives I have learnt are two fold – one of their culture, and one of how they view our culture.
These perspectives are skewed, of course – they reflect only the digital personality of a person. Yet I find the general attitudes Americans have very peculiar – in a good way – they seem more charitable than our locals, for sure. For example, if you ask for a favour from someone here, they’ll ask you, ‘what favour?!’ then eye you suspiciously, or even threateningly. If you ask the people in my guild, they’ll say something like, ‘sure, bud, what do you need?’ A simple example to be sure, but they really do seem more polite. They are brash and often do outwardly machismo things – curse and swear and stuff, yell brashly at each other – yet they always retain a sense of good humour about it. They don’t hold major grudges against each other, they don’t try to be who they’re not either. They believe in enjoying their lives no matter what they’re doing – yesterday during a guild event, they played a sideline drinking game, and made various rules stipulating when they had to take a shot of an alcoholic beverage. I imagine that no local guild will ever have that sort of spontaneity or open-mindedness, or sheer nonchalance that they do. If we ever had such a thing, I’d imagine that we’d try to cheat each other by saying that we’ve taken a shot, while we really haven’t, so that we’d be most sober by the end. But after an hour, they were all so drunk that they were laughing loudly into their mics, bellowing sheer nonsense, gibberish, and all sorts of profanities, singing songs with each other, and going into a full-havoc mode over voice chat. It was hilarious, and I spent the better part of my morning trying hard not to laugh, given the stitches in my mouth (more on that later).
Learning on my guild’s history has been a most interesting experience. Learning what sort of jobs they do and stuff. One of the women in my guild is actually a lieutenant commander in the navy; some of them work at supermarkets; some are oddjobs, some are doctors, one is a coast guard, some of them are overseas students. Some have interesting histories – this couple who got married recently met while playing Everquest sometime ago. The guy was from Texas, the girl from Detroit, and they met up in California and settled down together. That’s just too cool. This guy I met, who was apparently a previous title holder in Everquest, has now become my absolute best friend in-game, and we talk all sorts of nonsense about anything under the sun. And there seems to be this new-fad where a lot of them are trying to pick up mandarin and other Chinese dialects, and it’s really funny, since they’re cursing and swearing at each other with absolutely no idea of what they’re saying, simply because they asked us to teach them a few profanities. There’s a level of mutual understanding here, I think.
Spend the better part of my evening talking to one guy about how dedicated he was to the game – he has accomplished more in-game than almost anyone in the server – and it developed into a massive conversation about how much he felt like his life has been in shambles, and we spent a few hours comforting him. He’s always been a funny guy, but a massive cynic, a world-against-him sort of person, and he’s been going through mega depression recently. I noticed that and spoke to him, tried to encourage him and tell him how he shouldn’t fret so much about his problems (which are, by the way, pretty major problems), and the group of us just tried to offer him advice and encouragement. It was all worth it in the end, when in the most generous of gestures, he thanked us for our concern, and really appreciated our advice. That really, really made my day, because he’s a person who’s truly never seemed to care about anything, who’s always been a loner (albeit an incredibly amusing one), who’s always been so pessimistic about anything, and even getting thanks out of him was worth it in itself. The point is, I’ve made some friends here whom I truly care about and feel for, despite being half a world away and having never seen them. There is a sense of family and belonging here that I cannot quite define.
Most importantly, however, they’ve made me appreciate my life so much more. I know I bitch and moan all the time (like I’ve said), and I’m not going to stop by any means, but the fact is that I recognize how lucky I am to be me. Most of these people have up to their high school educations, or GED, as it’s called over there (General Education Diploma, I think?), and then they go out to work without further studies. As such there’s a huge diversity of oddjobs here and there. A lot of them often complain about their jobs, tell me about their lack of higher education to do the things they want – and I just feel incredibly guilty when they ask me what sort of education I’ve been receiving, and how I’ve been performing. Here I am, complaining about not being able to get into the top universities in the world, complaining about my jaw dysfunctions, my insecurities, about my mandatory service term. These people have real problems, real difficulties they can’t break out of, yet they’re so irrationally optimistic about their lives, and their mentality is that when they come online, they’re not going to bring any of their real life baggage with them, and they’re just going to enjoy themselves in each others’ company. There’s a very powerful emotional force at work here, and I can’t quite pinpoint what it is. I should be thankful for all that I have, and they’ve made me realize that more than anything else. Strange huh, that of all things, a game would be able to evoke that sort of revelation?
I’m done with my rant. I would just like to say that the past five days after the operation has been really tough. I have not taken any solids, or semi-solid food, for that matter, in the past 5 days. I’m simply not capable yet. There’s a perpetual gnawing hunger that exists when you subsist on a liquid diet – and it doesn’t help that the tension from the stitches in my mouse are incredibly annoying, uncomfortable, and obviously painful. No way will I be able to go back to work under these conditions next week. I don’t see how it’s feasible. Looks like I will have to extend my MC – and for good reason too. This is incredibly, incredibly unpleasant. Of course, not more unpleasant than work. Oh, and Crystal Jade's porridge is the best in the world, no two ways about it.
Paranoia out.
Playing a game on an American server can truly be likened to being part of a cultural melting pot. Over the past months, I have formed opinions and perspectives of the American culture as I see it, and as I experience it. For back history, I believe that my guild (organization of friends within the game) are mostly from western and central America. They are mostly from different states and regions, but they’ve met up on occasions in the past and most of them know each other fairly well at a personal level. There are at least five to six married couples within the guild, and more dating couples, and well, relationships that are, at best, curious. Regardless, I believe that in my past months of interaction, I have truly surpassed most of my peers in getting to interact and understand with the culture as a whole (of course, excluding those who are actually studying over there now). My friends whom I play with and talk to (literally, over voice chat protocols) and text-based chat come from every race and background imaginable. They have slurs, accents, funny catchphrases, lingo, and all the perks that is to be expected of an entirely foreign culture. Naturally, they are curious about Asians, and typically, they think of us as the developing sort of country with backward facilities, lower standards of education, etc. The perspectives I have learnt are two fold – one of their culture, and one of how they view our culture.
These perspectives are skewed, of course – they reflect only the digital personality of a person. Yet I find the general attitudes Americans have very peculiar – in a good way – they seem more charitable than our locals, for sure. For example, if you ask for a favour from someone here, they’ll ask you, ‘what favour?!’ then eye you suspiciously, or even threateningly. If you ask the people in my guild, they’ll say something like, ‘sure, bud, what do you need?’ A simple example to be sure, but they really do seem more polite. They are brash and often do outwardly machismo things – curse and swear and stuff, yell brashly at each other – yet they always retain a sense of good humour about it. They don’t hold major grudges against each other, they don’t try to be who they’re not either. They believe in enjoying their lives no matter what they’re doing – yesterday during a guild event, they played a sideline drinking game, and made various rules stipulating when they had to take a shot of an alcoholic beverage. I imagine that no local guild will ever have that sort of spontaneity or open-mindedness, or sheer nonchalance that they do. If we ever had such a thing, I’d imagine that we’d try to cheat each other by saying that we’ve taken a shot, while we really haven’t, so that we’d be most sober by the end. But after an hour, they were all so drunk that they were laughing loudly into their mics, bellowing sheer nonsense, gibberish, and all sorts of profanities, singing songs with each other, and going into a full-havoc mode over voice chat. It was hilarious, and I spent the better part of my morning trying hard not to laugh, given the stitches in my mouth (more on that later).
Learning on my guild’s history has been a most interesting experience. Learning what sort of jobs they do and stuff. One of the women in my guild is actually a lieutenant commander in the navy; some of them work at supermarkets; some are oddjobs, some are doctors, one is a coast guard, some of them are overseas students. Some have interesting histories – this couple who got married recently met while playing Everquest sometime ago. The guy was from Texas, the girl from Detroit, and they met up in California and settled down together. That’s just too cool. This guy I met, who was apparently a previous title holder in Everquest, has now become my absolute best friend in-game, and we talk all sorts of nonsense about anything under the sun. And there seems to be this new-fad where a lot of them are trying to pick up mandarin and other Chinese dialects, and it’s really funny, since they’re cursing and swearing at each other with absolutely no idea of what they’re saying, simply because they asked us to teach them a few profanities. There’s a level of mutual understanding here, I think.
Spend the better part of my evening talking to one guy about how dedicated he was to the game – he has accomplished more in-game than almost anyone in the server – and it developed into a massive conversation about how much he felt like his life has been in shambles, and we spent a few hours comforting him. He’s always been a funny guy, but a massive cynic, a world-against-him sort of person, and he’s been going through mega depression recently. I noticed that and spoke to him, tried to encourage him and tell him how he shouldn’t fret so much about his problems (which are, by the way, pretty major problems), and the group of us just tried to offer him advice and encouragement. It was all worth it in the end, when in the most generous of gestures, he thanked us for our concern, and really appreciated our advice. That really, really made my day, because he’s a person who’s truly never seemed to care about anything, who’s always been a loner (albeit an incredibly amusing one), who’s always been so pessimistic about anything, and even getting thanks out of him was worth it in itself. The point is, I’ve made some friends here whom I truly care about and feel for, despite being half a world away and having never seen them. There is a sense of family and belonging here that I cannot quite define.
Most importantly, however, they’ve made me appreciate my life so much more. I know I bitch and moan all the time (like I’ve said), and I’m not going to stop by any means, but the fact is that I recognize how lucky I am to be me. Most of these people have up to their high school educations, or GED, as it’s called over there (General Education Diploma, I think?), and then they go out to work without further studies. As such there’s a huge diversity of oddjobs here and there. A lot of them often complain about their jobs, tell me about their lack of higher education to do the things they want – and I just feel incredibly guilty when they ask me what sort of education I’ve been receiving, and how I’ve been performing. Here I am, complaining about not being able to get into the top universities in the world, complaining about my jaw dysfunctions, my insecurities, about my mandatory service term. These people have real problems, real difficulties they can’t break out of, yet they’re so irrationally optimistic about their lives, and their mentality is that when they come online, they’re not going to bring any of their real life baggage with them, and they’re just going to enjoy themselves in each others’ company. There’s a very powerful emotional force at work here, and I can’t quite pinpoint what it is. I should be thankful for all that I have, and they’ve made me realize that more than anything else. Strange huh, that of all things, a game would be able to evoke that sort of revelation?
I’m done with my rant. I would just like to say that the past five days after the operation has been really tough. I have not taken any solids, or semi-solid food, for that matter, in the past 5 days. I’m simply not capable yet. There’s a perpetual gnawing hunger that exists when you subsist on a liquid diet – and it doesn’t help that the tension from the stitches in my mouse are incredibly annoying, uncomfortable, and obviously painful. No way will I be able to go back to work under these conditions next week. I don’t see how it’s feasible. Looks like I will have to extend my MC – and for good reason too. This is incredibly, incredibly unpleasant. Of course, not more unpleasant than work. Oh, and Crystal Jade's porridge is the best in the world, no two ways about it.
Paranoia out.
# posted by Paranoia Incarnate @ 7:28 AM 
