The Travian game is going well. I have another village now, for a total of 2. The other one I named Gergovia, after the city that Vercingetorix took control of in those Gallic wars against Caesar. My total population as of this writing is over 600. I'm quite proud of myself, needless to say! I've managed not to get attacked myself, but this is not to say I haven't lost troops in helping allies battle their own enemies. It was good to lose those troops; I never thought I'd say that, but I learnt a valuable lesson in waging a successful war: always have enough troops.
Otherwise I'm looking at another birthday around the corner. I'll be 35. I'm excited - the older I get, and more specifically the closer I get to 40, the more I like myself. One notable difference between me now and me, oh, 5 years ago is that now I'm allowing myself to do things that before, my perception was I had to "wait" until I reached some arbitrary milestone or acheivement. Take guitar-playing for instance: I've always wanted to learn to play guitar but I've always been distracted by other things I wanted to do first, like piano and drums. I was also always too intimidated by veteran guitar players and figured I'd never be as good as them so why bother?
Whereas now I don't care if people think I'm "good" or not. Now I want to play guitar simply because I want to! I have an 'itch' so to speak, and I must scratch it, hee hee. Critics be damned. There is a chanteuse inside of me that's been locked up for years, and now it's time for her to come out once and for all. (I also think I needed to grow up ALOT before being ready to take on the commitment that learning to play guitar entails.) I've known I've wanted to play guitar ever since I knew what a guitar was.
I know I will be a great guitar player, because the few times I ever played guitar - other people's guitars, that is - I caught on how to play immediately, and I made beautiful music. Also I just love guitar; there's something about that instrument that speaks to my heart. I must play it - it's compulsive, it's not a choice I have, I simply must play guitar.
I've been pushing to get one for my birthday. In particular an Epiphone Les Paul Special II that comes as part of a "value package". It's an electric guitar which I never thought would be my intro to guitar-playing. I've always fancied myself an acoustic guitar player, but after consulting a musician I work with whose taste and judgment I completely trust he convinced me to start on an electric guitar because it's easier on the beginner's fingers than an acoustic is. I no longer care what kind of guitar it is, what name brand it is: as long as I can afford it and as long as it will hold up for a year or longer, then that's the guitar I want. I don't even care what color it is. I just want to play, more than anything I want to play. I've been writing songs for the guitar, songs that my guitar and I will sing together ... now it's time to make it happen.