Hello, again~

[Lucky Cat 83]

• How long have you been RPing? 10-11 years
• What are your favorite RP genres? Animaga fandom, though some originals are good stuff.
• How do you like to RP (Forum, chat, email)? Forum (Jcink or PB usually)
• What country are you from? US
• What is your favorite book, movie or type of music (or all three)? This is so hard, it'll probably change by the day Wuthering Heights, Wolf Children & Greatest Showman (atm), anything that sounds goood
• What other interest/Hobbies do you have? Drawing, origami, learning languages, (video) gaming, teasing, lounging, nomming
• What's your favorite color? The rainbow? Though I gravitate toward blue, I think.
• What's your favorite drink? Sparkling apple cider. *0*

 

Hi, I'm iota! I'm a lucky cat.

I'm an art student (It's taken me six years to finish a two year degree and I'm not even done yet... /shakes fist at the expenses), I'm responsible to pay for my own education but my parent helps me out significantly by letting me stay with her while I cover my education expenses which I greatly appreciate, and my longterm dream (since I was a wee thing) has been to work for SE. I recently finished NieR: Automata and boy... that crushed my soul.  How's that for a long-winded introductory sentence? Heh heh.

 

I'm already tired from introductions. orz It's nap time. -Snoozes-

Tell me about yourselves?

[Rune 1,099]

I've been watching a friend play that and while I have no idea what the plot was since I watched in like hour spurts over several weeks so he was all over it was a crazy pretty game.

 

Welcome to the fun! I'm the resident saltmeister. You can usually find me being moderately angry about everything.

[Lucky Cat 83]

If you want a game to wreck your brain and heart simultaneously, I suggest you take it up yourself. \ o /

 

Also, why be angry/salty over everything? It sounds so exhausting. Here, here, I'll take a nap for you to replenish your energy levels. Huhuhu. -Ultimate listlessness-

 

(Also, there is this blooping sound on Initiate and it spooked the Hello out of me. I'm thinking it is the alert system for when posts are...well... posted to one's topics? XD)

Edited March 29, 2018 by iota

[Morrigan 1,826]

Welcome to the Initiative @iota we're glad to have you. Sparkling Apple Cider is awesome. It tickles the fuck out of my nose though.

[Lucky Cat 83]

It does? XDD That's funny. Do all sudsy drinks do that to you? And thanks for the welcome.

[Morrigan 1,826]

Nope, just Sparkling Apple Cider.

[Lucky Cat 83]

Huh. xD Peculiar. I wonder what does it. Kind of a cute quirk, I gotta say! Thanks for sharing that with me. XD

[Elena 546]

Welcome aboard! I love foreign languages too. What foreign languages do you speak?

 

I speak English, French, Spanish and Greek. (My mother tongue is Romanian).

[Lucky Cat 83]

Whoa, you're something else, Elena! I'm not fluent in any including my native, English, lol, but I'm currently learning French and just starting Japanese because I found out I needed to know Japanese for my "dream job" (working in a particular company as a 2D artist). I dabbled in Italian, too, but have since stopped in my Freshman year in college. What motivated you to learn English, French, Spanish, and Greek?

[Elena 546]

On 30.03.2018 at 12:06 AM, Lucky Cat said:

. What motivated you to learn English, French, Spanish, and Greek?

 

I just had to study the first three of them.  And I found out that I have a talent for foreign languages. 

 

First I want to explain that in my country, students don't have an option what foreign language they study at school. Parents might have only the option to which school they send their children (if the closest neighbouring school, or the school closest to the parents' workplace, or "a good school in the centre of the city"). And each choice comes with studying the two foreign languages studied in that school. The first foreign language starts being studied in second grade, the second foreign language, in the fifth grade. Both till the end of highschool. (There had been school years when the first foreign language started in the fifth grade and the second in the sixth grade, but it didn't last long until they returned to second and fifth grade). 

 

I attended first grade at a school which taught French and German, 2-4 at a school which taught English and Russian, 5-8 at a school which taught English and Spanish. In highschool, that's different. If there are at least 10 students having studied a certain language in the "general school" (1-8), there is a group for that language. If not, they are assigned to other languages. 

 

I studied English as my first foreign language at school, from second grade until the end of highschool (and the first two years of Uni, but then it was specialised language and it wasn't studied seriously, it was a seminar which sometimes was done, sometimes not exactly...). The year of kindergarten studying it didn't count, because in kindergarten we learnt a few nursery rhymes poetry and songs, to count to 10, the names of things around the classroom, to answer to "What's your name? How old are you?" and these things, not much.

 

 I loved German and I was angry that at 5 I was taken from the private German kindergarten I was at, and put into a regular public kindergarten with full program (8-17). I used to speak German conversationally at 5, as children of young age immersed in another language learn it quickly, in a different way than they learn after 9-10 years old,  but afterwards I forgot it because nobody around me spoke German. And I was already feeling I started forgetting it and this was why I was angry on English. In my mind, it was English's fault that it substituted German in my studies. So at first, when I started learning English, I didn't like it, but I loved the teacher and I learnt for her sake (and for getting good grades to not disappoint my mother). Later during the middle school I started to love English and to see it as a communication means, as the support of interesting songs, etc.

 

My mother knew that I wasn't to continue school, from fifth grade, at the same school I was on for my primary. So she sent me to private classes of French in parallel with the English at school, because what if the school I'd get to had studied French as first foreign language? I liked French more than English then.  But the school I ultimately attended middle school, to her surprise, had English and Spanish. My mother didn't like that I learnt Spanish, she would have wanted German or Russian as my second foreign language, but it wasn't this criteria why she chose that middle school, so she had to accept it. However, I loved Spanish. And my mother kept sending me to French lessons. I attended French lessons until eigth grade.

 

In highschool, I kept studying Spanish and English for the first two years. Yes, I said Spanish and English, because Spanish being a rarer language, there was only one group, with 13 students, among whom I was one. And I found myself the only "beginner" one, the other 12 having studied it from second grade. But I was good at Spanish, and I succeeded to be among the first 3 from the beginning. I loved my teacher. He helped me, later, for the interpreter certificate too, and I kept in contact with him until he died, a few years ago. I was at his funeral, I am friends on FB with his daughter, grand-daughter and son, and I meet sometimes his daughter, as friends. 

 

My principal teacher (I think this is how it is called, every class has a principal teacher assigned, I don't mean the headmistress, which is the director of the whole school) was the English teacher, and she saw that I was the only advanced one in her class, so she used to give me additional compositions every week and to send me at Olympiad at English language every year.

 

We had an eliminatory exam between 10-th and 11-th grade (which didn't exist anymore  since 7-8 years after I graduated highschool, but then it was) and the results broke our Spanish group. There were 8 or 9 remained, so we were sent at French, and I talked to my principal teacher to let me with the advanced ones, because I can manage, even if I ceased studying it in eighth grade. She had my example with the Spanish, so she believed in me and yes, with application, I managed to be among the first 3-5 in class. I remained in contact for many years with that teacher of French too, and she helped me for the interpreter exam.

 

So... this is about me in school. But what about Greek... and German? (Because yes, that story about my passion for German has a point even beyond my initial German vs English).  I kept wanting to learn German in parallel. I got my hands, in seventh grade I think, on a handbook of German without teacher... and I got through the first 10 lessons or so, until I got to the plural of substantives. More irregular plurals than in English, and I decided I didn't understand anything and I couldn't learn it. Therefore, since then I hated German with the same passion I had loved it before. It was the fox's passion for the grapes, turned hatred when they were sour...

 

Then I discovered Nana Mouskouri's songs. And I was curious what she was saying. During the summer between the classes 7-th and 8-th, in Braila, a town by the Danube, with my little cousins, I discovered that my old aunt can speak Greek (that branch was of Greek origin) and translated some of the song chorus for me. That summer I decided I wanted to learn Greek, and I returned home knowing a few nursery rhymes, the usual conversation expressions and the names of things in the house. I was listening more to Greek songs, and my mother complained at work about my new Greek madness. One of her colleagues told her that she could teach me Greek if I really wanted to, because she had attended Greek school, and she had also a method to make me give up soon if it was just a teen's caprice. So, she started by teaching me the alphabet, thinking I'd give up. And I didn't. For a while, we had nothing to learn on. Then, impressed by my efforts, I got, in time, a couple of Greek magazines for women, then a pair of dictionaries, then a Grammar book for the Greek children of fourth grade. And she kept teaching me, impressed by my efforts. I got some children's books afterwards. And in 1992, after I graduated Uni, I went to school to the Greek community in Bucharest. I expected to be sent to the second year, because I passed the alphabet stage. But after the first class, they sent me to the third, being too advanced for them  

 

I forgot with years of lack of practice, that's something else.

 

[Guest TheHales]

Welcome, Lucky Cat! I already like you because you have a maneki neko in your avatar image. XD

 

I also find myself jealous of your origami abilities since I have tried and tried with little success. I did once have a success from an origami Yoda thanks to The Strange Case of the Origami Yoda but that was really it. I don't suppose you have any pictures of your origami? I'd be interested to see them since it's so fascinating.

[Lucky Cat 83]

5 hours ago, TheHales said:

Welcome, Lucky Cat! I already like you because you have a maneki neko in your avatar image. XD

 

I also find myself jealous of your origami abilities since I have tried and tried with little success. I did once have a success from an origami Yoda thanks to The Strange Case of the Origami Yoda but that was really it. I don't suppose you have any pictures of your origami? I'd be interested to see them since it's so fascinating.

Thank you! XD I was having a really bad time for a while, so I decided I needed a bit of luck. : | XDD Do you have a picture of your yoda? XD

 

I actually don't have any pictures. So far, I'm not too great at making different types of origami, I tend to make simple ones in bulk to "wow" (or try to wow, lol). I've made about 600 cranes so far, and 200-300 butterflies for my college art sculptures. The school stole my crane sculpture (only had 300-400 cranes, I believe) and I never got a picture of it but I probably could when I go back to school. My butterfly sculpture was of butterflies pinned to the gallery wall around a wooden frame. I didn't have a phone at the time so I had to dismantle and throw out my butterfly sculpture without getting a picture.  I can see if I have any of my remaining cranes lying around, though. They don't form a sculpture yet  but should do.

 

I'll have to read and reply to your message later, Elena! Thanks for such a thoughtful response. ♪

Edited March 31, 2018 by Lucky Cat

[eleholly 118]

@Lucky Cat 

Hello Iota! Welcome to the Initiative! I hope you find everything that you're looking for here - We're a pretty awesome bunch. ❤️ My favorite origami piece is an elephant one of my students made for me once....it's a really pretty art! I should learn. Anyway, if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to myself or any of the other staff members. We're here to help! Hope to see you around the forums!