May goes by quickly
Everything is wedding, wedding, wedding now... and nationsimming... and more wedding. We're almost ready now, having gotten flowers ordered last weekend when we went up to New Brunswick, most of the decorations made, and now just shopping for last minute things. We lazed about today though, and took a break. We had Chinese food from Jean's for supper and mostly kept indoors, even though the weather was nice and summery warm. I'm tempted to take an evening walk later, just to get out of the house.
My biggest distraction, otherwise, has been nationsimming. Everyday I swear I'll spend less time but it moves quite quickly. You spend a lot of time negotiating treaties and writing them up in UN-speak for signatures. My latest is an academic and cultural exchange, setting up univesity endowments for North African countries in seventeen countries (I play Libya), who all must agree to and sign the document (waiting on the Netherlands and Syria, now.) The moderators (called avatars there) are pretty swamped though and action freezes have slowed a lot of the activity down. It's a poorly kept secret that we're going to invade Chad, on account of a situation with the refugees from Darfur in that country, but with action quotas being filled up and the queue unprocessed, it'll have to wait. I've submitted orders of battle and mission orders for other operations, but I still have that treaty to ratify.
It's a bit of a trick to play on your mind though. We roleplay based on the goals and habits of our chosen nations so there's a great degree of realism to the game. So much that it often emulates real life, but with just a subtle shift that then confuses me when I read the real news. It's hard to keep the two timelines straight. Nonetheless, it neat to see things develop independantly but similarly. One good example is a recent spat I had with Djibouti over a United Nations Security Council seat. Each year, half of the non-permanent seats come up for vote and one must go to an Arab nation. That seat also switches between Africa and the Middle East. In 2008, it's in Africa so I noticed all the Western powers voting as a block for Djibouti (and Kenya for Africa's regular seat.) As an anti-western/anti-colonialist striving to be a more active African power, I, as Muammar Gaddhafi, roleplayed quite the feud with Djibouti over this. Now I see in the news that it's actually happening, with Mauritania taking the place of Djibouti in real life.
I have to say, I've learned alot about Libya because of this and about Gaddhafi also. I really want to visit there someday. In the meantime, I'll just sit back and read the Green Book and plot the overthrough of the regime in N'Djamena.
