Not much going on with me! I've been going through my gallery and scraps and clearing out stuff, trying to decided what stays and what goes. Also I've been doing a little drawing and writing. I've put up some new stuff already and hope to have some more stuff soon. I just thought I should share links to my journals and such online. So here they are!

My blog, Cair Paravel - [link]

My Livejournal account - [link]

My Flickr account - [link]

My Polyvore account - [link]

It's been like a year and a half since I was really involved here. I'm sorry! I feel so irresponsible ;~;

On my absence: The situation all began back in June of 2007 when my computer stopped working. (I think you all remember this.) This situation went on for over six months, despite continuous visits from Comp USA repair men. They would visit, seemingly fix the problem, I'd get all happy, and within two days the computer would be back to it's old tricks. I even took it to a repair shop in town, but the result was the same. No one had any real idea what was wrong with it. I had arranged to start online medical coding classes in January 2008, but computer problems meant I had to cancel and start in Spring quarter instead. I realized that there was no way I'd be able to complete a full college course with a computer I couldn't trust farther than I could throw it, so I broke down and bought a new one.

Then came college. The first semester went pretty smoothly, but I spent all spring stuck in my bedroom doing school instead of enjoying the gorgeous weather. By summer term I was bordering on miserable, and my life had been consumed by college and work. Also, once again, I spent pretty much the whole summer in my room. I was stressed enough that when I did get free time I barely had the energy for anything more than falling down in front of the TV with a can of liquid caffeine. Looking back it's not surprising that with this mental exhaustion, unhappiness, and complete lack of "scope for the imagination", my inspiration pretty much died. I kept sporadic track of my DA account. Over the last few months I had gotten two LiveJournal accounts, a Youtube account, and a Flickr account as well as my account here on DA, and the only one of them that was getting any real attention from me was my lj, simply because I could access it easily while doing school (unlike a real journal), and it gave me a place to vent and organize my thoughts. But asides from my journal entries, I wasn't writing anything. No stories, no poetry, no articles. I wasn't drawing or sculpting or sewing or embroidering either. I had neither the energy or the inspiration to do anything artistic or creative. Hence, nothing to post.

Then in early summer my new computer got a virus. It didn't really affect using the computer, but it made school really hard (I would fill out a page of answers, click submit, and then instead of taking me to the results page it would go "You don't have virus protection! Would you like to buy some?" and would lose me everything I'd just done.) as well as submitting anything on DA. It also made it nearly impossible to look through people's galleries or just navigate around, since everytime I got more than two or three pages in it would give me the advertisement page and kick me all the way back to the first page. Since it wasn't like I had anything to submit to DA anyway due to my multi-medium artistic block, I pretty much decided to give up on DA until after I finished school and could go take care of the virus.

School ended last December and I have spent the time since then trying to recover my inspiration, and creative ability. I have sewed a lot of things, decorated pretty much anything I can get my hands on, and worked a little on my embroidery. My stories are going slowly and frustratingly hard, but I'm trying to perservere and get back into the swing of them again. Last month, after more than two years, I finally wrote some poetry, and just in the last few weeks I've picked up on a doll I started sculpting more than a year ago.

Major events of the last year: Bought a digital camera at last and have really enjoyed being able take pictures and film. I got high-speed internet in order to do my school, and so finally accessed Youtube. It's broadened my musical horizons so much. I was finally able to listen to a lot of artists I'd wanted to hear for ages but hadn't been able to, as well as watch a lot of movies I'd been interested in. My aunt found out she was pregnant again in November, and the baby (it's supposed to be a girl) is due next month! I graduated in December and have been attempting to get a job in my chosen field but with no luck. Went to Ohayocon in January, and that was way too fun. Bought a PS3 in January as well, and rediscovered one of my favorite video game series, Metal Gear. I worked at a pizza place in town during all of this time, until last month I was let go. I am currently unemployed, but I've managed to get a job at a waterpark in Columbus (Zoombezi Bay), and start there soon. I've been working on my livejournal account, as well as my flickr account and my polyvore account. I also just started my own blog, Cair Paravel! [link]

And also, regarding this entry [link] I did finally settle on a name for him! Alter. It means "old" in Yiddish and "the other" in Latin. And since he is pretty much just a doppleganger, as well as being incredibly ancient, I thought it suited him rather nicely.

Hello! I need some help choosing a name for a D+D character, and was hoping you all might like to assist me. The character in question began life as an iedolon (a representation of a god that is granted sentience and some godly powers.) but after being imprisoned and used as a giant magical battery for the last several centuries, most of his powers are gone. He is so weak in fact that when Tier Blue-Eye and the rest of her party find and free him, he reverts to an ordinary human form and has to be cared for by Tier and the others.
Here is a list of names I've found so far that interest me the most:

ALLON/ELON
Means "oak" in Hebrew.
ELISHA
From the Hebrew name Elisha, a contracted form of Elishu'a meaning "my God is salvation".
ENOS
Means "human being" in Hebrew.
ITHIEL
Means "God is with me" in Hebrew.
LAEL
Means "of God" in Hebrew.
RAM
Means "exalted" in Hebrew.
REMIEL
Means "mercy of God" in Hebrew.

I think my favorites right now are Elisha and Remiel, but I'd be happy to hear any ideas you might have. I'm particulary looking for names meaning "god" or "god like", and ones that while somewhat unusual, are not overly flamboyant. (I'm also trying to avoid too many names ending with "or" or "el", like Denethor or Azariel, since these types of names seem to be a dime a dozen in fantasy nowadays.) Thank you in advance for the help!
-Amritsar

I am back, and hopefully will be so for a good long while! Huzzah! I missed you guys way too much! Now bear with me if some of this doesn't make sense because it very late, and I am extremely tired but am still fighting the need to go to sleep, but need to get some of these rants off my chest and inform you of what I've been up to while I've been away. First off, at the anime club at my local library today, we watched the first two episodes of the Death Note anime, which the teen librarian (Mandy, who is awesomeness incarnate!) found on the Cartoon Network website. And it was just so beautiful!!! Those of you who are fans of the manga, the show is as good as the manga and better! Oh, I was so exstatic after we finished watching it I could barely contain myself!

On a related note, I've been watching a lot of movies, reading a lot of books and listening to a lot of different music recently.

Movies: Because of Wynne-Dixie, Bride and Prejudice, Ocean's 13, The Count of Monte Cristo, Pan's Labyrinth (which I only watched part of because it was very late at night and quite a bit too brutal for my taste despite it's creepilly beautiful visual style.) Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix, Live Free and Die Hard, Tristan + Isolde, Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (oh my gosh, Prince Caspian is coming out in May, and I'm insanely excited!) and The Mummy, to name a few.

Books: Treasure Island, The Grand Tour, Fairies: Real Encounter with Little People, Privelege and Scandal (biography of Lady Harriet Spencer.), all of the Dark is Rising series, Kidnapped, The Mystery of King Arthur, The Mislaid Magician and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the three-zilllionth time because it's plot-twisting-thriller storyline has always secured it's station as my favorite of the HP books and because of, of course, my dear Sirius Black. *purr*

Music: Altan, Beyonce, Marie Antoinette, Bach, Handel, Josh Groban, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and currently Bjork's new CD, Volta. (Earth Intruders gives me mental images of guerrila fighter elves in camo with guns appearing and dissapearing into the forest.)

Also, while I'm (sort of) on the subject of movies, here are some stories that really, really, REALLY need to be made into movies.

1. Sherlock Holmes: The Copper Beeches
With the Sherlock Holmes element dropped, the Copper Beeches is really a gothic novel about a young woman hired as a governess. Her situation, which began disturbingly to begin with, grows stranger and more frightening, and she begins to suspect that someone is secretly being held prisoner in an abandoned section of her employer's house. I'd love it if someone would take the story, strip it away from Sherlock Holmes, and present it as the gothic novel it really is.


2. The story of Joseph from the Bible.
Although the story has been told many times, I have yet to run across a version that handles it as a novel, and portrays it seriously. It has everything, hate, betrayal, kidnapping, redemption, slavery, forgiveness, imprisonment, natural disasters and plot twist after plot twist! And with all the epic movies out lately (Gladiator, Troy, Lord of the Rings, 300, Alexander...) it's the perfect time to make it, too.

And as a finaly note, my little sister Lenore got into the anime magazine Anime Insider's cosplay corner (november issue), dressed as Alvis Hamilton in the costume I made her which she wore to Otakon (and took 1st prize in the youth division for.) Here's what the magazine says about her:
"Some people were born to dress up as Spike Spiegel or Sailor Mercury, but adorable seven-year-old Lenore Varney of Marysville, Ohio was clearly meant to play young Alvis Hamilton in some yet-to-be-made live action version of Last Exile. With the help of her sister Olivia and the rest of her cosplay-minded family, Lenore took top honors in her age division at Otakon 2007's costume competition. Special props go out to whoever made Lenore's Alvis-accurate hair clips." Now, is that not the most awesome of the awesome! (I will sooo be scanning and submitting the article when I get a printer/scanner.) Go out and get a copy of november Anime Insider, right now!!!

Great to back, and good night,
-Amritsar