[Asha's Scrapbook] Between the Treetops

[Asha]

Between the Treetops Hello again Mizahar, it's been a while. Asha kept calling and calling to me and now I've decided it's time to give her a voice again. So I'm going to work on dusting her off, and getting her ready to start Summer, 514 in Lhavit. This lady ape needs to travel! Asha is tightly knit into her Spires Jamoura family, and I think by ripping her away from the familiar and forcing her to confront the unknown is the only way to truly explore her mind and learn not who she is but what she is capable of becoming. Asha has always held a lot of potential for me, and I hope to do a much better job exploiting that potential. Hmm, I really should have planned something more interesting to say then just some little babbling about Asha's return. But then again, I don't claim to be an interesting person. I'm just me. I will have to plan a new frame for this scrapbook too, but I'll have to wait until my inspiration can gather itself and turn on the lightbulb for me. It'll happen eventually. Well, that's all I've got to say for the moment, friends. If anyone is planning on being in Lhavit for Summer, 514 and would like their character to meet a curious Jamoura, send me a PM and we can plan something! Time to go clean up that CS!

[Tinnok]

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Welcome back Asha!

If Tinnok was outside of Falyndar I would totally take you up on your roleplaying offer...perhaps in the seasons to come, Lhavit is a hard city to resist. Until then I figured I'd just stop by to say that Asha's avatar is simply adorable,

Jamoura rule!

*dashes away*
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[Asha]

Hi Tinnok! Thanks for stopping by, I think you've got a great character model as well. Well if the future brings it to pass I would love to write with you! I've always been curious how my jamoura would respond to someone raised in Myrian culture, I've not been able to explore that yet. Its so completely opposite to how Asha was raised that I'm not sure if the two characters would be greatly intrigued by each other or completely repulsed. I'm always interested in how differing cultures interact with each other. Sometimes I get a little too involved in Asha observing and analyzing things that I forget to drive the story forward (always my biggest weakness!). The jamoura's natural urge to collect knowledge and rely on wisdom can make me lapse into writing a passive character who is more observer than participant and that's a writer's flaw I really hope to work on. Balance is key! Okay, I meant to just say howdy and ended up on a tangent to something completely different, so yay jamouras and dhanis! Also: My apologies for taking so long to respond, I forgot to subscribe to this thread and didn't notice your post!

[Asha]

I typically try to stay a pretty private person and not get too personal, but I’m going to go against that for this post. Just saying. Today is a very strange feeling day for me. It’s my last day at my current job. I wrote out thank you notes to those who I worked most closely with, printed out the handbook I created for the person coming after me, and finished up all the reporting that needed to be sent out this week. Now I sit here letting the time pass until I must wipe my laptop, return that and my other company property, and attend a little farewell celebration my supervisor was kind enough to put together this afternoon. It all just feels….. strange. That’s the only word I can think of. I’m an Americorps VISTA, so I’m not being fired or quitting or the regular things that cause people to leave. I finished two terms of service and now I’m just done. I came here and did what I was contracted to do and now it’s over. My replacement will be here Monday. This was my first job out of college so it means a lot to me, and honestly it’s kind of scary looking ahead at what comes next. Probably mostly scary because I don’t really know what is next. I was hoping to have something lined up right away but that hasn’t been the case. Nonprofits are always a bit of a rough market to move around in, it’s usually the case of knowing the right person to put in a good word for you. And I absolutely hate asking people to call over here or drop a word there, so things have been going slowly. I’m lucky enough to have a husband whose doing well at work and the foresight to live frugally so we could pad our savings account for just this event so I won’t linger on the thought of unemployment. We’ll be fine for a while. Long enough for something to turn up (I hope, lol). At least this will give me some time to complete projects around our home that have been pushed off for a while. I see a big, deep clean in the near future. I don’t really know where I’m going with this post. I’m feeling very reflective today, thinking back on the last two years. I loved this job, but it’s had its hard moments like any other person’s job. I remember almost hyperventilating the first time I had to fill out a report of witnessing signs of child sexual abuse. Or the time I had to intervene on a woman slapping her child. I’m not a therapist or a social worker so I usually don’t have to deal with the fallout of those events, just witness them make my reports and hope that the family is alright. There have been some rough moments. The nonprofit I’ve worked at is located in a challenged neighborhood, a lot of violence and poverty going on. I’ve seen some people’s dark moments. But I’ve also seen people’s bright moments. I remember sitting down with a family and telling them they had been approved for a scholarship to send their three small children to the highest quality preschool of their choosing (which can be absurdly expensive). I remember the mom breaking down and crying and her husband just hugging her. Those are the moments that make the job worthwhile and offset the difficult times. These kinds of stories can make it sound glamorous or special, but it’s just the highlight reel. There have been times where I’ve spent days trying to get a project off the ground and just waiting, waiting, waiting at my laptop for the right people to respond to move things forward. Bureaucracy can be a real bitch. I never knew how stressful waiting and doing nothing could be. Overall, I’m really happy with the experiences I’ve had. Some of them have made me a better person, others have made me a more cynical person. We all change and grow based on what we are being exposed to and how we deal with those things. I can definitely say I’ve changed. Hopefully mostly for the better. Or perhaps I just know myself better. I do feel like this has been a learning experience where I’ve gotten a chance to really see how I can shine and where I stumble. For that I’m certainly grateful, I think it’s always good to have an opportunity for self-discovery, or maybe its just the age and stage of life I’m at. I don’t know. Regardless, it’s been good and its going to be strange to not come here everyday but that’s how it goes. We come, do our part, and then we leave. Sometimes we like it, sometimes we hate it but it all just keeps going on.

[Asha]

Recently, a really great comic series came to an end. A few days ago I read the final issue and wanted to write about it a bit and share it with you all. FATALE has been an absolutely amazing story from issue 1. Generally, I don’t read much noir/mystery/horror, not that I have anything against those genres I just don’t find myself typically drawn to them. But FATALE really changed that for me, the wonderful blending of surreal Lovecraftian horror with noir was masterfully done by writer, Ed Brubaker. Cover Art : My husband was the one who initially picked up FATALE and after every issue he would urge me to read it. I always meant to get around to reading it but pushed it off in favor of other material. When the last issue was coming up I realized I really needed to sit down and get through the series. So I did. And I read all of the issues we had at the time in about two days then went out and picked up the final issues we did not have and read those. And it was freaking fantastic! The protagonist is a woman named Josephine, who has a strange power over men that even she does not fully understand. She is the ultimate femme fatale, and as is shown time and again in the series, men are more than willing to die or worse for her love. A mysterious cult is hot on Josephine’s trail and their intent for her is grim indeed. Throughout the series we learn just how grim that intent is and how some horrors go beyond death. This is an amazing series, and I would definitely urge anyone with the time and resources (why are comics so expensive?) to spare to pick up a few issues to try out. There are tender moments as Josephine reflects on guilt she feels from ruining so many men’s lives to save herself. There is the tantalizing mystery of the cult and Josephine’s power that is slowly unfolded throughout the series though you shouldn’t expect the series to ever lay out a complete explanation. And there are plenty of tentacles to sate any Lovecraft nut out there (seriously, what a freaky monster concept). If I say any more I might start giving away juicy plot twists, so I will end my review here! Bonus cake pic! Yesterday was my spouse’s birthday and here is the hummingbird cake he requested I make. I forgot to take a picture of it before we started nomming so it’s more like half a cake: CAKE! : edit: Okay, since pictures seem to be huge for me today and I don't feel like resizing them.... spoilers for everything!

[Asha]

Goldie So, I have a pet male bearded dragon named Goldie. This morning I got a great picture of one of the many odd positions he likes to sleep in and I wanted to share it with you guys. I don't know how he managed to keep himself propped like this all night. Here is my goofy Goldie: My husband and I got Goldie in May of 2013 as an early birthday gift for him. He had wanted a reptile for a long time, I had always been hesitant because I’ve never had one before and snakes are a bit of a phobia for me so scaled critters never appealed to me. But Goldie really grew on me and now I love him just as much as I love my little rats ( I have two boys!). Goldie’s breeder said he hatched on 3/30/13, so he is about a year and a half old now. He was so, so little when we got him it’s amazing how quickly he grew, especially in those first few months. The shedding cycles are an interesting process. When Goldie was younger it seemed like he was in a constant shed to keep up with his rate of growth but now it’s much less frequent which is pleasant as cleaning up all those little dry scales is a pain. He mostly eats crickets and dubia roaches though I have a container of mealworms in the fridge for occasions when I run out of the former insects and don’t have time to hit up the pet store. He also eats collard greens, when he feels like it. Goldie can be a bit of a grump and a picky eater. The thing that was hardest to get used to about him though was probably that he only poops once or twice a week. After only having mammals as pets throughout life working with a reptile’s digestive system has been an interesting experience. Here some more pictures of Goldie if you are interested: Goldie, age 7 weeks : Goldie, age 12 weeks : Goldie mid-shed, probably age 5 or 6 months :