Discourse Communities

     Of the many topics about which I am an expert, Air Force life is the one I have the most intimate experience with.  Those six years were the foundation of my adult life and brought me to where I am today.  I could discuss my experiences through the training pipeline, what life was like at my various duty stations, how I grew professionally, about the people I've met and how they've affected me, and my direct job experience working on aircraft.  I could also discuss the less fun side of things like disciplinary experiences and the long grueling shifts I occasionally suffered through.  As a narrative I could describe my personal growth from a wide-eyed high school graduate suffering the now-fondly-remembered shock of basic training through my separation experience and my eight month unemployment break. 

     The World... of Warcraft.  Admittedly not as important or as interesting to most as the real one, the World of Warcraft is another aspect of my life I've held dearly since before the Air Force.  Much to the chagrin of my classmates I could discuss the vibrant lore and history of the game and its strategy-based predecessors.  I could discuss historical elements more relevant to reality like the relatively infamous corrupted blood plague that I understand was studied by real-world disease control experts for how people reacted to a simulated epidemic.  I could bring up social elements such as how many people make friends for life or even get married to people they've met in the game... or discuss the other side of the community such as those who crashed and massacred an in-game funeral event a group held for a fallen member.  Moreover, I could talk about how important the game was for me to keep in touch with my middle school friends after I moved to North Carolina, and then with my high school friends as well once I joined the Air Force.  I could compare and contrast the many pre-expansion events I participated in as some were incredibly fun and notable and others were bare-bones and comparatively dull. 

https://www.pestwiki.com/shrew-facts-get-rid/

     The southwestern desert shrew and its profound effects on its environment.  Shrews are adorable, look at that snoot!  Need I say more?  Yes.  But this is a joke so moving on!

     Guitar.  While my interest has fallen off a bit since I joined the military, guitar and World of Warcraft were the two things that brought my high school best friend and I together.  I could talk about different brands of guitars and their reputations, or the different genres of music I enjoy playing and why.  Most dramatically I could discuss the struggles of needing to replace my strings but not wanting to do so because it's a pain but when I play the rust on the strings rubs off and makes everything smell weird and my laziness is at war with my otherwise clean nature and the cognitive dissonance threatens to tear my brain apart like a badly written run-on sentence.