Oh hai der! ^_^

I forgot to mention that I'm one of the few people interested in FR that can't draw. I do have a DeviantArt, however, where I stalk ALL the artz. lunacolumba.deviantart.com/ I did take an intro to drawing class my sophomore year of college, but I'm really only good with charcoal and very under-practiced. I'm also very interested in art history and have taken multiple college courses in the subject. So, while not the best critic, I feel like I can provide useful feedback. ^_^

Thanks, Ms Jen. ^_^ (Sorry, Southern girl habit. We do this a lot with first-names. I already often refer to The Opal Lady as Miss Opal. )

Haha, I'm actually very extroverted - but all of my best friends are introverts, including my fiance. And I'll have to say that yall adorable little loners are doing a great job at making people feel welcome.

Oh yes, especially being from the South (he's from Alabama and I'm from North Carolina), we caused quite the stir. We were only 16 at the time, too. I can't count how many adults told me that I should be ready for our relationship to fall apart at any moment. But with the right attitude, communication, commitment, and lots of love, we've made it work and had a blast all the while. It helps that he's still my very best friend. ^_^ I went to school in AL for four years to hang out with him, but we'd be apart every summer and winter break. We're currently long-distance again while I finish up at NC State and he's still plunking away at his degree at UAHuntsville. I won't say it's easy, but I will say it's worth it.

Hhhmmm... anything particular? That's a hard one! Well, our friendship was strengthened a lot when we started writing stories together. I still have the long list of gmail replies that we used to spin our tales. It was like... one-on-one RP (the innocent kind). We knew that our characters would fall in love... it just so happens that it occurred around the same time we did. ...We were each other's first kiss, and he proposed on our 6 year anniversary at the spot by the pond where we had that kiss. We spend a lot of our time playing video games together or reading books. Uummm... lots of stuff, really. lol! (I kept typing stuff and then deleting it because I didn't want to ramble, so I hope you like what's left lol. )

Thanks. I didn't know what it was until I was already three years into college, and when I did speak to someone about it, they said that I had developed very impressive coping skills (I scored the highest possibility on the reading section of the SAT). The public school system missed the diagnoses when I was younger (and even misdiagnosed my ADD), so I've never been officially tested (as seeing a psych will cost me quite the chunk of cash). But, I display symptoms of all types of dysgraphia ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysgraphia#Classification ). The only time the pain really gets to me is when I have a written test or whatnot. My whole hand seizes up and I experience pain all the way to my elbow. People always spoke about having sore hands after a long essay exam, so I thought it was normal. I notice that the symptoms are worse when I'm stressed - on my math final last semester I had a really hard time writing at all; I would start forming a 3, but my hand would only make the first curve over and over till I used my other hand to help. As for reading comprehension, I usually only have trouble with re-creating and pronouncing a new word. I still struggle to pronounce/spell "wyvern" and "basillisk" (which my fiance teases me incessantly for). Spelling... again, thank powers above for spellcheck. I struggle with the same words over and over again, and have to work very hard to find a way to remember to spell them correctly ("opinion" is "open onion"). (I have a great story about why you should worry about me if I ever spell "which" incorrectly.) I especially have trouble with "el" vs "le"... "e"s in general, really. I think the reason I developed such strong coping skills is due to sheer determination to do the thing that I love - I've been an avid/rabid reader for as long as I can remember, and I think I was just too stubborn to let this get in the way! Overall, the computer solves most of my writing problems. However, being unable to spell in your native language... it's really hard to spell in a new one! So Spanish, with all its irregular verbs and accent-marks is giving me a run for my money right now...

Ugh. Dyscalculia is rough. It bites me every now and again, though I'd say it's the mildest of my mental basket of fun. I'm bad enough at math as it is, so I don't think I could handle it on the same scale as my dysgraphia lol. I'm very interested in your experiences with it and your dyslexia, if you're willing to share. Did your dyslexia discourage your reading habits as a child? Were you diagnosed at an early age?

Lol! Let us become "ALL the things" allies! I bet we'll need them, lol! And I *love* your rule about the "if I can't cuddle it, it's just not as cool".

Thanks for the welcome!

Pfff. Oh, not a problem, honey ~ I'm a Floridian. Even if we are something of a breed apart, we're still southern! I've known people from NC too, so the dialect (so to speak) is perfectly comfortable with me.


Ah yes, I do understand you're both from ultra traditionalist states. Particularly NC - you're the genteel south. I really think it's wonderful that you maintained this relationship all the way through school and will be getting married. Commitment and Communication are key to any relationship, but it's doubly important for long-distance. I'm dating someone long-distance and we're coming up on your second year... so it's really reassuring to know it CAN be done! I assume while you are apart you are still in touch online and over the phone? Do you enjoy skyping with him - I ask because I feel sometimes you just really need to see their smile to keep going. Let's see, getting married in 2015 you said? Big wedding or private? Also, can I just tell you that it is utterly cute and romantic that he proposed where you had your first kiss? I'm trying not to embarrass you, but I appreciate that your love grew slowly from friendship and that you (innocently) acted out a romance while realizing you had fallen for each other. Gosh, that just makes me smile so much.


They're fast to slap on that ADD label, aren't they? I think you should be very proud of yourself, Feydragon. You came into it late and could have become very disheartened, pain is especially hard to overcome, but you you've kept going. And your SAT score is DEFINITELY something to be proud of! Wow, not just anyone can brag about getting a perfect score I'm going to agree that your saving grace was probably that innate love for reading. It gave you motivation, constant practice, and kept your mind/skills as sharp as possible. Also, it gave you a wider vocabulary at an early age when you mind is more elastic and able to commit the words to memory. I hesitate to say it but as we both get older, learning new words will get harder but repetition really will help. (Excuse my giggle but trouble with those particular words for a dragon enthusiast is funny.)


I don't mind talking about it if someone is genuinely interested. My mom knew it ran in my father's family, so she noticed I had it very early on. She felt that taking me to a "professional" would discourage me and make me feel as though I had an insurmountable issue. I do agree with her, "labeling" children can be very harmful to their self esteem. Instead, she worked with me extensively on reading and spelling so that I was well ahead of my classmates when I joined Kindergarten. I was very lucky it was dealt with before I could understand or become discouraged and it's all completely subconscious by now, but I/she trained my memory to be photographic and to also write a word as I was told it should look instead of as I saw it. There are still a few words I consistently have to correct and if I rush, letters tend to get mixed around. It's also a poor idea to ask me to spell out loud or understand you if you spell out loud. I really can't do that at all. Still, I feel like it made me a better reader? The photographic memory is very useful and has had the side effect of making me view words differently. "Tree" isn't t-r-e-e, a collection of letters, it's a single picture, and like any picture you recognize even if you hold it upside down or backwards: meaning I can read upside down and mirror reversed just as easily as I can the usual way. It's all just bunches of symbols to me so I can even commit other alphabets ( foreign and fantasy) to short-term memory very quickly - but it fades fast too unless I keep in constant practice. I might suggest that with the Spanish alphabet that you stop thinking of it an another language and instead as regular letters of the alphabet that you just didn't know yet. Sometimes that helps, just from a perspective standpoint: an add on instead of something new (and overwhelming).


I think that reading was what made me learn to cope too, basically. I wanted to read. I loved to read. If I had to learn to look at the words differently, then I'd read that way! And look how well we've both done XD I scored higher on my English Comprehension than anyone in my high school's history and that earned my college credit for English 1101 and 1102 as a HS senior. I also read every book in my Elementary School and Middle School's libraries and then begged mom to buy more! What was the first book series you remember being wild about? I'm afraid mine was Little House on the Prairie XD


OK. You've won me over. Let's be ALL THE THINGS allies <3 It's always more fun to play together, anyway. DCute? Did I mention my clan will be Valentine's themed and pastel? If I ever get my tundra plush pile, maybe you can jump in too ~

Text wall? what text wall?

My sympathies Tourists are a real pain, especially once the tourist trade gets entrenched and you're left with a town that is geared more towards pleasing tourists than residents. I live 40 min from Panama City Beach (home of the infamous Girls Gone Wild and multiple nasty little scandals) and I NEVER go near it in any season but winter. That's when the Snowbirds come ( elderly Canadians who find our winters pleasantly warm) and I don't mind sharing the beach with them - they're the sweetest and quaintest sort of folks. The rest of the year I content myself that, while no beach is left, I still live on a lovely little isolated bayou. Raleigh, hm? That's a beautiful area I'm told! When you do go off to the beach, what do you enjoy doing? I'm mostly in love with just walking the shore, wading, and daydreaming. There's something magical about the ocean <3


Thank you! Hehe, I don't talk about it much because (as you know) people act like it's lunacy or a phase, so it's nice to get some positive feedback. I've never ever heard of Google Hangouts before, but I must check this out!


Yeeah, that counts as small and intimate But your THEME, oh my gosh... oh my gosh that's PERFECT. I love hydrangeas ( I grow them and roses in my yard) and it's charming that you're finding a way to add in your love of reading! White hydrangeas will really pop against the royal purple and the glass mason jars/books/cake made by a friend and not a corporation works back to a really pleasant "home" feel. It's got personality rather than being strictly formal, too. Or at least that's how I see it Is that dress white too or did you somehow find purple?


Also, totally understand that he likes his privacy. My girlfriend likes hers too, so I have to try not embarrassed her. If we keep text-walling your thread, I THINK my might HAVE to move this to PMs XD


Over focused? No, I'm curious - please elaborate? Given what you're saying, I can see why they thought there wasn't any sort of reading/language impairment. Like I said, I think a real reader just finds a way! And definitely your parents (and my mom) helped us enormously by reading to us and encouraging literacy. The Magic Schoolbus, Straga Nona, Stella Luna, Narnia... help, I'm swamped in nostalgia! All my old books And how did I forget the Boxcar Children? I was on the little reading club thing that mailed me those monthly! I never saw Mandie books, but the description looks like something I'd have enjoyed. By Middle School I was reading Brian Jaques' Redwall series, Tamara Pierce's Tortall series, Harry Potter, Tolkien, and any dragon book I could get. For me the spark that got me into fantasy was probably James Gurney's Dinotopia and Ella Enchanted. Any of those sound familiar? I'm still a MASSIVE Dinotopia fan.
Current reads? I haven't gotten my hands on a new book in a while, but I've heard good things about Terry Prachett in general. Would you recommend it? Right now I'm doing a reread of the Tortall books just for old times sake, but before that I tried Sorcery & Celecia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot. It was pretty droll and it might appeal to you as historical Victorian fantasy I'm not sure if you like Mercedes Lackey, she tends to get denigrated as escapist fantasy, but it's an old guilty pleasure of mine. Her new series has an interesting premise: a world that is ruled by an omnipotent force called The Tradition that twists people's lives to conform to traditional fairytales (to usually tragic results). The books focus on Godmothers and other people who understand The Tradition and try to subvert it for the better. The first is The Fairy Godmother, but it contains a few bits of mild sexuality. While we're on it, what do you feel about sexuality in your literature?
"The basilisks and wyvern fight at the citadel" badly mispronounced in a North Carolinian accent. Oh dear XD; I'm so sorry ...*giggles.* And YES, those fantasy writers just have to get creative don't they? I genuinely admire their language creation ...while glaring at the page as I struggle to pronounce it. Especially when it comes to Tolkien, I don't even try to say it. You get credit just for the attempt >_>;; Except now I'm trying to say "Aule" - darn it, why does Elvish it have to look so pretty...
I mostly recognize a word as a symbol that means something else (like a pictogram) but I can understand t-r-e-e means "tree" without imagining the actual tree too. This is a long shot, but did you ever watch the VHS Clifford's Fun With Letters (Clifford the Big Red Dog) ? In it, there's a part where Clifford learns to recognize words just by their silhouette, which is very similar to how I'm reading. I know the "shape." That's where I'M the one who hits trouble. Let's use an example: Salmastryon is a member on reddit. I saw their post on the Fae Encyclopedia Entry. While my eyes noted that it wasn't a word I know, in my mind I said Salamandastron ( a mountain in the Redwall books). It's "shaped" similarly and even sounds similar, so my mind filled in the gap with the closest word I'm familiar with. I could learn it but I'd have to read and verbalize it several times to stop myself from "auto correcting." When I read upside down or mirrored I can read full sentences just as if I were reading it normally, with full comprehension, unless it's a font I'm unfamiliar with. Then I may have to read the words as individuals and then try to make sense of what I read. This does give me eye strain though. In dyslexia, as I understand it, my eyes see normally but there is a point between the physical act of seeing and my brain receiving the information that the image becomes reversed. By memorizing words as whole units it made it simpler, but my brain is still doing a lot of subconscious correcting - so reading upside down or mirror reversed DOES give me eye strain after a while. I have no form of Synethesia, but what i have is "sequencing" issues in general. I reverse number order. I used to reverse letter order. Remembering left from right and reading clocks can become difficult if I don't constantly keep in practice. I'm also very vague on the passage of time. So once again, a lot of how I function is based on memory. I know most words well enough that I don't have to think about the picture to spell it, but if it's an unfamiliar or difficult word, or you make me nervous by asking me to spell a word, I have to picture the word and "read" the letters from it. Anxiety and exhaustion are factors that directly and strongly influence how well I can correctly sequence things. Let me tell you, yelling "TURN LEFT!" while I'm driving is a terrible idea XD If you need me to go a certain direction abruptly, you need to point.


Don't apologize I'm taking a break from college for family reasons, but my major will be Psychology. I think the mind is fascinating and I have a particular interest in how people learn! The "One teaching method fits all" is extremely flawed and also limits people to thinking inside the box. I'm also very curious about how other people see the world, there's such a variety out there!


I love pink, it's a joyfully atrocious color <3 I used to avoid it but one day I looked at pink and felt "You're awful and ridiculous... and that makes me feel happy. I need more pink." and YES. TUNDRA PLUSH PILE. I will learn to make my own if I have to, but it MUST HAPPEN. Also, that video will be me. <3 <3 <3

Tee hee! ^_^' Sorry about that. If you need to take it down, we could copy/past it into a pm or something for us to reference later.

Thanks for the welcome! I'm really excited to be here, as everyone seems to be really awesome.

@ eliskan - I might give it a try. I had the day off today so I had a little more time than usual to chat, but I'm taking 3 summer classes right now so my workload is pretty crazy until the last week of June, so I don't know if my availability is constant enough to be an acceptable/polite rp'er at this time. Summer classes are a lot busier than fall/spring ones!

@ Inventrix - That's so exciting! Congrats on a successful trip through the oddity that is internet/long distance relationship land. Haha, I *always* specify "but not on one of those dating sites" when speaking with non-interweb people; they look at you like you're insane until you do, so you learn pretty quickly lol!

I'm 99.9% sure that I'll be starting with a royal purple fae dragon. And I'll probably name her Nova or Zalshira. What about you?

Haha! I have a lot of friends who do NaNoWrioMo - I refuse to do it until I've graduated. Afterwards... It's very likely that I'll give it a go! Currently, I've only written short fiction, as that's what I'm required to write for my classes. Last semester I wrote a two-part series that could be shoved together and called a novella (total of 29 pages), but that's the most I've written. I *do* have quite a few ideas for a novel buzzing around in my head, and aspire to be a novelist, but I'm just jotting down those bits and pieces while I hone my writing style right now. It *is* very difficult - another reason I'm waiting to try my hand at it. Practice makes perfect, but I need a lot more time and concentration than is currently available to me, lol.

I made a google docs folder and posted it in the Literary Lagoon - I'll have to upload some stuff there soon.