Mushan’s New Journal: Back on Azeroth

Back home on the farm

Hello.

My name is Mushan. In order to protect my online privacy, I will not be disclosing my surname.

This is my second entry in this online journal. The first was over a year and a half ago. I had not intended to leave such a long gap between entries; however, as life is unpredictable, I confess that I did not foresee the circumstances that led to such a hiatus. Let it be sufficient when I say that I was over-worked during my time on Draenor, and uninspired to write.

There really wasn’t much to write about, at any rate. Being in Draenor was a lot of repetitive work. It was not even like past “adventures,” though.

For instance, I remember being in Pandaria – where I am currently getting some post-Draenor R&R, actually – and tending my garden almost daily before work, and then going out to repel various threats to The Golden Lotus, August Celestials, etc. Work is work, and many things in life are repetitive. This was an entirely different level of tedium, however.

Let me illuminate you, in case you aren’t familiar.

Imagine you work in your favorite place to shop – it could be the The Legerdemain Lounge or A Hero’s Welcome in Dalaran, or The Golden Keg in Stormwind, or- well, those are some of my favorite places to “shop” lately for better or for worse. I’ve said enough, and probably too much, about that.

Anyway, to my point: imagine you’re working full-time in your favorite place to shop, but you spend a significant portion of your day – every day – making the schedule. Except it’s like the heptathlon, because you’re making the schedule, and giving orders, and placing orders… and sifting through salvage, and going down into the mine to pry some ore out of several veins, and picking flowers, and holding your employees’ hands while they try to get better at being not-terrible, and sending ships that were designed by a master shipbuilder, but are apparently under-matched against virtually everything else out there, on apparent suicide missions… every day. That was my time on Draenor. It was… not a pleasant diversion. It was not heroic. The “adventure” was muted, to put it politely.

Being a commander was/is frustrating, because you’ve recruited all of these people to assist you, to make things happen, but you have to make those things happen along with them, rather than delegating to them and then handling the most urgent activities on your own. By the middle of my time there, I was “General” of the Alliance forces in Draenor, but I felt like less of a hero/leader than ever. Who ever heard of a commander joining his imported-from-Stormwind miners for a bit o’ ‘swing-the-pickaxe’ every day, before this trip?

. . .

My apologies… I’ve been hanging with a lot of dwarves lately at some of the previously mentioned establishments, and I find that their vernacular infiltrates my own from time to time.

At any rate, I will get down off my proverbial salvage carton and refrain from further ill manners for the time being. I simply wanted to relate these points to my lack of follow-up posts after my initial journal entry so long ago. There will, Elune-willing, be more such entries in the future. 

 

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