Thoughts on the Journey

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): An apple starts growing on its tree in the
spring. By early summer, it may be full size and as red as it will ever be.
To the naked eye, it appears ready to eat. But it's not. If you pluck it and
bite into it, the taste probably won't appeal to you. If you pluck it and
hope it will be more delicious in a few weeks, you'll be disappointed. So
here's the moral of the story, Gemini: For an apple to achieve its
potential, it has to stay on the tree until nature has finished ripening it.
Keep that lesson in mind as you deal with the urge to harvest something
before it has reached its prime.

Last night on the phone with my father, I started crying as all my worries and fears of feeling like I'm failing by not having a job yet and starting to think about what do I do when lease and job shift hit me. I also slept badly last night for the same reason, but today I went to a massage place that I've been walking by for three years almost and went into it to treat myself. I had head, back, neck, face and feet taken care of and I feel nicely wobbly and loose.

Then I came home to read this horoscope, which reflects how I feel that it isn't time to worry yet or fret. I can do that but that's not what I need. I need to keep putting myself out there and showing the world, this is who I am. I'm a storyteller, a writer, a librarian and an educator, in the right setting, I can do amazing things. I will find that place and will move ever forward even if that means for a time, having stuff in storage and being a little in limbo again. I've done limbo, I've lived with little, I've lived on my own and I've set out on my own. I can do whatever comes next.

In things that I have accomplished, I signed up for the Narnia fic exchange as playing Tumnus has made me realize that I want to write something larger in that world. I've written a number of drabbles for him and smaller pieces for DE fic prompts but my last Milliways' EP was full of worldbuilding and made me think, yes, I want this. I also wrote a drabble about Charles for 100wordstories called Quiet about Charles.

He's been in my head a lot and fascinating as all the OOMs with andrealyn's Erik are flaily good. I can't wait to actually have both of them in Milliways and see what happens as Charles with all the love he gives wants Erik and Iris. The two of them might not agree with that as they're rather more possessive while Charles just isn't. Soon there will be sign ups for ineedmyfics and I will keep writing and putting myself out there until the right place finds me.

Today's been a good day, my present shopping is going well and work went quickly. I've been having lots of wonderful RP threads and I'm just feeling hopeful. Here's the five word meme that appeared on kit_the_brave's journal.

Comment to this post, and I will list five things I associate with you, They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your LJ (or just add a reply back to me). Other people (including me) can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

Library school
I just finished my masters' degree at the University of Michigan School of Information and I feel like I keep coming up for breath. It was an amazing two years full of so many projects and long nights and hope. As I'm still working on campus as a librarian, I keep expecting to have a paper due and it's weird but nice not to. Now I'm trying to find a job but I know that I'm in the right profession.

Narnia
I think the Narnia books were the first series that I really went head first into as a little kid. They're still some of my favorite books and I've enjoyed the movie adaptations. I grew up with the BBC ones and liked the newer ones though I've yet to see Dawn Treader. It's not the most complex world building but Narnia feels true and I love that about it. My confession is that even though I own it, I have yet to actually read The Last Battle since I don't want the series to end. I've felt that way since I think I was about twelve when I decided that I wouldn't read it. And another odd story is that I didn't know about the Christian allegory element until I went to college and a friend told me about it. I admit I felt a bit stupid about it but they're beautiful fantasy first for me. Using the icon because it's a Narnian one I don't use a lot and the casting for Kirke just felt right for me.

Milliways
This coming February will be my fifth year at Milliways and it's one of my favorite communities to ever be a member of. I've found friends, improved my writing and seen my life and circles grow. Somehow I've gone from just playing Will Scarlett to having a roster of eight pups and then two that live over at Mixed Muses.

East Coast
I grew up in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania and I consider Philadelphia to be my city. I love the variety of the East Coast and it's one of my favorite places. In terms of what I like to eat and some of my ideas, I know my East Coastness really comes through at times. One of the weird ways it does is my religion as I was raised a Quaker. In Pennsylvania, that's fairly normal but getting farther out and people look confused.

Vorkosigans
I love this series so much. It's how to do character and plot and world building right. The friend who told me about the Christian allegories in Narnia also hooked me on the Vorkosigan books. Basically she had all of them and just kept giving them to me and I read and read. I own almost all of them and they're a series I constantly go back and reread, which I only do with the ones I really love.

This week has been utterly weird. I don't have any classes or work until Sunday night, which seems like I should be wonderfully relaxed and getting things done.

Sadly this isn't quite true, I've ended up with a bizarre sleeping pattern all this week. I'll wake up around 6:30 or so in the morning and panic thinking I've slept through the day. I get up and start turning on lights and then look at my cell phone which has am and pm as opposed to my watch and go, oh its morning. Then I go back to sleep and tend to wake up around 1 am. This has meant that I don't feel really rested and I'm just sore in lots of places, so my normal round of walking is tiring. I think a lot of this is I've been so wound up with stress that its taking me a while to truly relax, but I'm also still worried about finding an internship and getting my place ready for my parents to visit.

So tomorrow I'm going to wake up and go do lots of useful errands, Sunday I pick up a bookcase and work, Tuesday I get to join a tabletop game and then my parents arrive around Wednesday or Thursday. Also I'm working my way through all the awesome prompts and I'm still open for new ones over here.

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee.

Icons from doihearawaltz, walksbyherself and spooky_lemur are under the cut. There is a bit of repetition so if two people asked for an icon, it only gets one explanation.

( Look at the pretty pictures. )

This semester has been long and hard, I just looked over some of my grades and realized that I didn't do as well as I thought I did on a small last thing.

I just feel tired, because I've done my best but this particular semester, my best hasn't been as good as it can be.

In the meantime, I'm still applying for applications and trying to get my head around all the various maintenance things I have to do for myself and my apartment.

I've been holding off on this icon meme until I felt not as tired so I'm going to do it now, the icons were chosen from wordsthatfail.
1. Reply to this post, and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee. Whoo!

The keywords for this are Titanic silent hurt, I love this movie and Kate Winslet. This icon was made by one of my favorite icon makers emiv and I don't use it very often because I rarely feel that beaten, but its beautiful.

This is one of my favorite quotes from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Aslan says this to Peter after his first fight. I love the idea behind it that if you're going to fight someone, make sure that you take care of your tools after wards.

I found this beautiful piece of sculpture when I was looking for images of fantails. Its done by an amazing New Zealand artist and I love how it captures the grace of fantails.

This is an icon I made after seeing Up and its called end in sight, but its a bittersweet one since the end is still rather far away.

This is Kait/Sameth and the subtitle is two noble houses. I love combination icons and they needed one, the subtitle comes from the fact that they're from two noble families just rather different ones.

Okay, this was a nice little meme to do and once I finish my tea, I'm going to walk into town and get lunch. I feel like I've survived this semester and that's about it.

I woke up feeling kind of wobbly so I'm not going to my Monday class and instead trying to get some of my work done for tomorrow. If I feel up to it, I'll head into town to get some more bread and a sifter so that the cookies will finally get made.

In the meantime since I asked rymenhild to give me some more icons, I'm going to do another round of the icon meme. Also since I'm here and trying to get my brain working again, I'd love some prompts.

Comment here and I will pick six of your icons. You then copy and paste this in your LJ along with your explanations/comments/squeeage about each one.

This is Professor Kirke from the new film incarnation of Narnia and I think this is right around when he asks, "What are they teaching children these days?" I love the look on his face and the fun in it, because that's what I always loved about Kirke in the books. I could see him and Dumbledore being great friends.

I found this icon on a pretty stock site and I just love the simplicity of it. Since butterflies are so beautiful and it captures that idea of how books can take you so easily to other places.

I think Becca made this icon for me and I just like the simplicity of it with the stars. I don't use it very often but I like it.

I found this icon in a huge post of gold bases and it made me glee slightly, because its a Macedonian funeral wreath and I went there when I was studying in Greece. So its one of the ones I use whenever I'm thinking about Classics things, because my course on Alexander and Macedonia was one of the best classes that I've ever taken.

doihearawaltz made this beautiful icon of Mathieu Amalric and for me it captures the joy I have in taking pictures and how sometimes a lens helps you see the world better.

I made this icon when I decided that I needed an icon in Greek. Its an ostraca from the collection of the Athens Museum on the Agora and its ostrasizing Themistocles. I remember seeing this huge collection when I was in Athens and just being fascinated by how incredibly direct democracy can truly be.

Di's here and I'm feeling utterly happy and content.

Also I just wrote a Tumnus' OOM, so I can start moving him towards the Golden Age.

fire_and_a_rose, I hope this is a good start, I'm doing my best to establish things and also the idea has been rattling around a bit for me.