Who am I?
Philosophical considerations aside about who I am and why I am here, I guess I would say that I am Kristine. I play games, I research and I slack with style.
I am 26 years old, living in Trondheim with my fiance Sam. Originally from Bergen, I moved to Trondheim when I started university. The plan was never really to stay, but I never
The Wonderous Mr. Kitty
seemed to find a reason to leave again. I have put up more details about my work here, but basically I am doing a PhD about online games and game culture. As most other scholars, I find that researching is as much a state of mind as it is sitting in an office, and boundary that doesn’t get any clearer by the fact that I am studying something I love doing in my free time.
Me, myself and my games
Gaming is a big part of my life. The interest for computer games were always present, though it didn’t fully develop until I was around 20. When writing a bachelor paper about ICT and cultural change, I decided to explore the MMO World of Warcraft. At the time it had just been released, there was a huge buzz about it and most of my friends had started playing. Inspired by an article written by Torill Mortensen, I decided to try out the game for myself so I could use it as a part of my paper. At the time I could never have imagined what a journey it would start me on. The bachelorpaper lead to a masterthesis, and now a PhD in progress. With some luck (and much hard work my councillors would add) I can keep spending my working hours reading, thinking and writing about what gamers are and do in the unforseeable future.
Currently I am spend most of my gaming time in World of Warcraft (WoW). Since I started with MMOs I have tried out several games (and I am blogging about it in my “Trying MMOs” series), but seem to return to WoW on a regular basis. Of respect to the people I play with I am keeping my character and guild anonymous, so no armory links here to wang around. Its a bit strange not to link it, as I am after all quite proud of my toon, but I promised my guildies anonymity in return for using our experiences together in research – and they are providing great data and keeping their end of the bargain, so its only fair that I should too.
My purplez bring all teh boyz to da yard
My main since WOTLK has been a holy/disc dwarven priest, and I am an officer in a casual raidingguild. We are currently fighting summer holidays as much as anything in raids, but with onlyYogg left I am sure he will go down as people get back. I am a known altoholic, and will always have all characterslots filled on any server I play on for any period of time.
Lately I have gotten involved in Twinking again, and after making a twink priest (priests are very close to my heart) myself and my fiance have been ripping through the 10-19 BGs. Its been so much fun that we are thinking about transferring to another server and joining a more serious twink guild, after all 3.2 is going to change twinking for good.
A picture from my trip to New York - October 2009
When I am not gaming
When I am not playing MMOs or working I am passionately inovlved with TV shows, movies, books and role playing. Not really a outdoors kinda person, I am perfecting my skills of making time indoors even more enjoyable. This includes cooking good food (indian currys, sushi or mexican beeing favourites), a glass (or several in some cases) of red wine combined with good company. I am very picky about what movies and tv series I watch, though perhaps not by artistic standards. Spaceships, zombies, explotions, supernatural events, superpowers or absurd humour is a must have for anything I approve of.
