Despite being busy in real life at the moment, I have had decided to take a few pet projects in FFXI to make things interesting and to give myself me time instead of always trying to think of what to do for other people.

My first pet project I have decided to undertake is Gardening. Now a long time ago, I had gardened but what always stopped me after awhile? Forgetting and letting my plants die. I mean, its so damn hard to do so especially when you get caught up in other things. But since I have decided to undertake other things, I have decided to try it again to boost up the ways I make money in the game. Plus I am hoping to become better at it so that I can grow some materials I am going to want for when I take up some crafting again. The later may or may not happen, but I’m leaving myself open to do so since I’ve started to get into doing certain things again.

My second pet project is taking up Fishing. Now, I had fished before but I often ended up stopping because skilling up was a pain. Well… it is still a pain but I have decided to just do it for fun irregardless of whether I get skill ups. Its kind of a nice thing to do between tasks since I just have to do is go /fish, wait, and then look back when the music plays and then hit the keys on the number pad. I’m aiming for Lu Shangs slowly (my current count is 130 Moat Carp lol), but I figure a little fishing here and there goes a long way. I am using several guides on wiki to help me fish, and once in awhile I just change scenery so that I don’t lose my mind staying in one place the whole time. Honestly, I wish I could turn off city music and just have the “fishing” music on so that I don’t have to stab my ears listening to bag pipes for several levels…

As I write this I am currently in Port San d’Oria with my old Fishermen’s set, synthesis materials for Insect Ball Paste, and a Hume Rod with a fishing skill of 15. Kind of makes me nostalgic for when I had leveled Cooking and Fishing way when I started Calaera and would watch boats sail in and out of Mhaura while fishing or wondering why the heck the shark in Buburimu (Am I the only one that keeps thinking its Bubumuri? I think that is a much more fun name than Buburimu) wouldn’t come out of the water and eat the other fisher that was so close to him when he was fishing…

Third pet project that had Orophen flabbergasted (and I think maybe Hiroshiko) is me leveling BLM. Now, here is a bit of a little weird fact about me: I used to really hate BLM. I didn’t want to level it. When I first started this game, the idea of leveling it gave me anxiety attacks. I had just came from Ragnarok Online and had played primarily as Assassin (<3 Katars) and then Full Support Priestess in my later days of playing iRO. I thought BLM was very intimidating and then of course I got nuke happy so… things never went well for me. Plus, I got more compliments as WHM and then BRD so I figured that I would always stay support forever. Which makes sense as to why I leveled WHM first and then BRD. I still like support classes, but after getting very disgruntled with BRD, LOVING BLU, getting giddy trying to tank and steal hate from Orophen’s SAM as DRK, seeing Shantotto in real action, and then watching the BLMs in Dynamis? I couldn’t help but want to try it out!

So far I have tried soloing as BLM and it was a lot of fun! I thought it would be boring, but I feel like I am forced to be more engaged since I am soloing and I dying could be really costly to my exp. Heck, even trying to escape from a bad pull can be quite exciting when you have angry pets and its master chasing you down and trying to gnaw on your head. It sure as hell beats just standing around nuking things nilly willy. Orophen has even decided to take up BLM with me which has made me even happier since I can share the job with someone and two is better than one! Right now I am working on leveling RDM first so that I don’t have to worry about it later. Which means he lets me leech while I just go afk and do my homework or chat once in awhile and he gets to work on SAM for his RNG.

Anyway, that is pretty much it. I want to do more things but most of what I have decided to pick up allows me to do put in a little time here and there and still walk away feeling satisfied I had done something rather than nothing. Kind of like WoW, but with more of my friends present and less spamming of Duel requests!