Paladinhood ^_^ York University Strike - Week 6! -_-" - ACB, MapleStory, Paladin, University, White Knight

Forgive the tardiness on this entry, but I was simply exhausted. Nexon's three-day 12 hour 2x Exp Thanksgiving event marked my first true grind session in a *long* while (-reminiscent of my 12 hour Diablo II: LoD sessions WAY back! lol). I logged in well over 20 hours over three days (-it would have been more but I worked on one of the days! lol). Evidently, I could never have done this if classes were still in session - the strike has unfortunately gone on to week six (-and still no definite end in sight)! -_-" So, there's definitely a silver lining there! lol

In all, the event was very taxing - especially considering the lack of sleep I got. However, despite the length, the grind session was very rewarding and definitely worth it. I zoomed through three "hell levels" and then two more! Additionally, it sparked fond memories of the last time I grinded in such a fashion - October of 2007, when there was a rollback after a faulty patch and we had two days of 12 hour 2x Exp events. I was a young WK just out of FoG and training at Kappas then... and now, a year later (including +22 levels at Red Wyverns!!!), I'm a young Paladin! (And much like that event, a big "thank you" goes to my girlfriend, who despite her objections, kept me well nourished during those three days!) At last, after two and a half years, EvilCowKing has reached fourth job! I'm very proud, excited and satisfied - I've been looking forward to this moment for a while now!

It has not always been easy balancing work, maintaining high grades in my university courses, and in general, "life" - hence, my extended length of training. (Pirates were recently released, and my former guild leader, along with a friend, leeched it all the way up to 120 in less than 14 days! However, were I given the option to grind or just leech to my current level, without hesitation, I would grind it all again.) The journey was long, and I've had some incredibly joyous moments, finding excellent guilds and making friends along the way, as well as sad moments. Reaching Paladinhood has been a grounding
event in this otherwise chaotic, guild-hopping lifestyle I've unfortunately been leading since the demise of Grind in April 2008. Fortunately, I've recently joined a small guild that seems very promising. ^_^ Hopefully an end to my "wanderlust."

After taking week-long break from Maple, I've returned, leveled up some more - maxed ACB and hitting +26k of fire weak monsters (-haven't tried Lightning yet), and definitely 30k once I have Divine Charge pumped to 20 (-I got the skillbook through the help of 15X Bishop friend whom I trained with LONG ago @ Duals almost a year ago. Again, connections got a long way ^_^ I'll definitely be focusing on this for my thesis). It's clear that I'll be hunting down skillbooks for the next while or so, but I'm definitely looking forward to my new skill set - Rush is TOTALLY awesome and Heaven's Hammer really tempts me! lol

I think that down the road I should do something special, which unfortunately I wasn't able to do earlier since I reached 120 smack-dab in the middle of the 2x events. I had the benefit of 4x Exp in Leafre for a lot of my 10x and 11x levels and I simply paid my way through 4th job advancement since I didn't have time to hunt down Griffey nor Manon. In short, looking back at that first generation of WKs that I admire, I had it too easy. I'm thinking I should grind a level @ Grims to humble myself and connect with the struggles of that 1st generation of WKs who really had it tough - I really admire the ones who fought it through. For now though, I definitely want to take advantage of this opening and grind as much as I can. 126-128 by January sounds ideal. ^_^