The hugest grinding session ever completed

Finally I'm done! I've finished the biggest grinding task ever since Larísa was born in the beginning of 2007. This includes killing harpies for brilliant feathers at level 30, and the primal farming for my spellstrike set. (Which makes me shiver just thinking about it.)

The achievement is that I've translated every single blog post from the start the 2 February from Swedish into English (for all of you who have English as your native language I suggest you imagine translating 100 of your own posts to French... quite a lot of work, heh?). It hasn't only taken me a lot of work - it's been a bit embarrassing and painful too, to actually re-read all the things I've written - everything isn't brilliant when you have another look at it. Still I felt it was a waste of work to just leave them as they were, unavailable for 99 percent of my readers. That's the reason why I finally forced myself go through with it.

The blog still lacks a lot when it comes to categorizing, functions and layout, not to mention the name. I see it in front of me, how things should be. I would like to call it The Pink Pig Tail Inn (A lovely suggestion from a guildie of mine). And there would be a wonderful heading where you could se a couple of pigtails in front of a cosy fire... maybe a sidebar with a wood pattern, making you think about the armchairs I want my readers to sink into. And the blog should have a real net address instead of this obscure Swedish address. But for now those visions remain on the idea stadium. After all, Content is King, according to me, and I've finally filled this blog with all the content I've got available so far.


A really stupid thing about the Swedish blog provider I randomly chose when I began to blog, is that they seem to be unable to make the months in the archive to show up in English. I hope you can all figure out what it means though. It's quite evident. If not: here's a lesson in Swedish:
Februari = February, Mars = March, April = April, Maj = May, Juni = June



Another thing: if you'll look up one of the months you won't see all of the posts among the headlines in the right column, just a few of them. There are several more which you only see if you scroll down the month.


So, what have this blog been about so far? Here's a brief orientation, a few examples of the subjects I've been covering during the four months the blog has been running, posts that I enjoyed especially writing In February I had qute a few nostalgic posts: one about quests I loved particularly much and a love declaration to The trinket. I also made a trip into a lost world, AQ20. One post that I put my soul int writing was about our guild split, which was sort of heartbreaking at the time when it happened, but seen in a distance, four months later, isn't much to fuzz about. Time is such a good healer isn't it?

Right from the beginning I started to write quite a lot about guild life, management and motivation. Like in this post, where I wrote about group composition out of a perspective which I think is slightly different to the ordinary one. In this post about secrets, I discuss how we keep the worlds apart, why we don't want to tell our colleagues at work about our WoW playing, and why we rarely tell other players much about our RL, not even our names. This is something I still think about from time to time. I clearly lead two parallel lives currently, and it seems pretty impossible to let them connect.

In March another thing happened which turned my world upside down - I quit not only my guild, but my server, which I wrote about here. After a long time of hesitation I finally managed to write down thoughts about being woman in a game dominated by men. Do I think we're discriminated? Find out by reading this post! I wrote about how music gives me inspiration in the game and looking at it I realize that I nowadays spend almost entire my online time on vent, meaning I'm missing that dimension, which is a bit sad.


In April I wrote a post about how much I enjoy being a fire mage, which looks a bit fun now, since I just a little more than a month later is a dedicated arcane/frost mage... Things change fast sometimes. I really enjoyed writing the wow-kus, even though the idea wasn't mine from the beginning. From time to time I've shared the shortcomings of Larísa. I've never feared telling the world about how much I suck. One example of that was my post about getting stuck, actually a subject I've never seen covered in any other blog (Maybe other bloggers are too ashamed to admit they get stuck tooo...) I still like the post The night is my very own, since it really catches how I experience the game.In May I've been writing quite a lot about raiding and about self development and motivation in posts like Onion thoughts, Heading for the WoW gym and To Press under pressure. I also did a summary of what I've learned in the game and what I still need to practice until I'll learn.


We're approaching the end of this post - the very 100th post - I thought it would be an appropriate way to celebrate it by completing the translation project.Four months isn't a long time if you compare it to those blogs that have been around for years. Such as Blessing of Kings, a blog that I highly respect, which has been on internet ince 2005!. From another perspective four months it's a very long time. When I read my first posts I smile at the memories, it all feels so distant. How much haven't I been through during those months?- I've progressed through Karazhan and later Zul' Aman and in 25 man instances, currently running T5 content.- I've been through a painful but necessary guild split. I've changed server, jumping headless out into the unknown.- I've become happier in the game than I've ever been before. - I've reached another layer in my knowledge about the game, though I still lack A LOT to be honest.- I've respecced.
But above all: I've become more connected to and fond of my readers than I ever could have imagined. Changing into English was the best thing I ever did about this blog. Not only that more people can understand it - it also makes it easier to connect to the WoW Blogging community. I love getting comments generally, but the ones I love most of alls are the ones written by other bloggers, attaching a link to there own blogs. I never grow tired of checking them out.


Will there be a 200 post anniversary in the future? Honestly I can't tell right now. Larísa's Corner is still a project run on a day-by-day basis. It's not written out of duty - it's written out of lust, just because I just can't shut up.


Maybe I'll run out of words and ideas one day, who knows? But right now I fell quite easygoing and inspired about blogging. I'm finally off translation duty, free to write new stuff whenever I get the inspiration. The writing process entertains me and if it entertains a few more - the better.


Larísas Corner will be live and kicking for a while.