 |
| Merry Christmas/ Happy New Year S+S unfinished fanart! |
I don't how to get started, and this is not really the first blog post that I have started in the past couple months. This might have been the longest period that I have gone off the radar in recent years. As the end of the year approached, I was overwhelmed in general with work and life. Nothing terribly bad but just had to prioritize things to get done because as I grow older, I realize that my energy and time is unfortunately finite. Once I missed one self-imposed deadline, I think the pressure grew stronger on me not to come back to the community until I had a substantial new update. And yet I don't have an update ready for today, but I just wanted to drop a note because of the situation of the world, combating a global pandemic perhaps in a crisis a lot of us haven't seen in our lifetimes. Because of my line of work, that's all my attention has been focused on over the past month and a half on the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, has only been named a global pandemic last week. (Initially I had been aiming for a February return to the New Trials Community because it's an important month for us, but that is mainly the reason for the delay). I know all of you are coming from across the world, some more affected by others, but I hope you are all take care of yourselves and your loved ones. My country was one that was affected by the virus earlier than some other places, and so we have been dealing with this for more than a month now. It's important to maintain a sense of balance, practicing caution and exercising good judgement in terms of hygiene and social distancing, but also, not to panic or go into a state of hysteria. After all, most of us aren't really scared for ourselves and more for our loved ones, maybe grandparents or parents who can be more affected by the virus. Because of my line of work, I need to keep going to work and am busier than ever, but the perks of social distancing is general social life has been minimized/cut off giving more time to reflect on other things, I suppose. But after more than a month of living on the edge, I slowly realized that all the joy in life was being sapped away from me. (It doesn't help that I've always been an extreme germaphobe, though I am pretty good at hiding that in everyday life.) Then, I wondered what is something that gives me join and happiness, and of course, that is writing and you guys, the New Trials of Card Captor Sakura community. And it hit me how much I missed being a part of it.
On a brighter note, I would like to properly mark the 20th anniversary of "The New Trials of Card Captor Sakura" here in the official blog and thank you all for your undying support. This whole experience, interacting with other Card Captor Sakura fans and just finding kindred spirits out in the world globally has been a life-changer for me, and an inseparable part of my formative years and the path to becoming who I am today. There are really no words to express the gratitude I have for everyone for sticking by all these years, and of course the best way to show my thanks is through action, which in my head is updates, which I have been bad about. The amount of my gratitude is always paired with my apology for how long it takes me to write and for those times I go missing.
In terms of productivity in writing, 2019 has sort of been a failure, in every aspect, but if readers will see it in a kinder light, it's been an important year architecturally to set the foundation of the end of New Trials. Amethyst Beloved (who in my head I call my chief editor who has been a major force in driving me all these years), in 2018 told me that I can finish New Trials to mark its 20th anniversary, and somewhere in my head, I've been pressuring myself into thinking I have to finish New Trials by 2019. I think somewhere in late autumn, I realized that it's just not happening. I missed posting on a lot of important occasions over the past several months because as long-time readers know, I oftentimes go on self-imposed exile when I am really trying to crunch down on finishing a chapter, or in this case, the whole series. This time around though, I think it's had a negative effect. I enjoy all the positive energy, and I really missed being a part of the NT/CCS community real-time (which I was so good about in 2018). I apologize for this, and it's not because I put New Trials any lower on my priorities or wasn't thinking about it, but consider it as my self-imposed punishment for not meeting my own deadlines and also what I think readers expect from me. I spent last year realizing and accepting my own limitations but hope 2020 can be more about trying to overcome this.
 |
| Happy Halloween 2019! |
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Valentine's Day, Happy White Day! All these special occasions I missed while I was away. But my heart was still with New Trials nonetheless. Just sharing a few doodles I drew to mark the special occasions and ended up not posting.
Please take care, everybody!
 |
| Happy Birthday Kaitou Magician aka Criminal No. 603! (His birthday is March 6) |
Music Spotlight: "For Good" from the musical Wicked.
Wish-chan, it's always so good to read a blog post from you and this time around it was more of a relief than anything to know that you're still out there. I'm so sorry that a casual observation ended up causing a tremendous amount of pressure. Now we're in a new era where anything goes. And we're all so happy to see the story continue whether it takes twenty more years! We love you and New Trials! We're always here for you.
ReplyDeleteHahaha no, I'm the kind of person that works better under pressure! And that pressure's completely in my head as well. For me, you are a great source of inspiration and motivation.^^
DeleteSo happy to hear that you're doing well in this chaotic time! Here in Canada things are just picking up and I hope we can practice the right amount of self isolation to limit some of the impacts.
ReplyDeletePlease don't feel pressured to the point of feeling bad :) we are all patiently waiting for the conclusion of this epic adventure, and will happily wait as long as it takes for you to feel good about it all :)
And I am very happy to have contributed in some way to helping preserve some of the Yahoo groups history. Who'd have thought all those years ago that Yahoo Groups and Geocities would be no more???
Stay safe and healthy!!
I've always thought of Canada as a safezone so I hope self isolation and good policies can limit the impact there!
DeleteActually, I've always actually been surprised that Yahoo Groups has survived as long as it did ever since the initial Geocities shock. Trying to keep up with technology as I wrote New Trials has taught me some life lessons--nothing is permanent and that we can collectively adapt and evolve nonetheless and at the same time, nothing much changes.^^ Thanks for pitching in with the Yahoo Groups V.2 appreciate it a lot!
There you are, Wish-chan! It's so good to see your messages again and have you back with us after 6 months, 18 days!! Lol... I hate your self-imposed exiles. But I'm really happy you're doing okay. I've said it many times before, but we'd rather interact with you on a regular basis than just crave for updates. You need to understand this. We don't *really* want to read the final chapters to NT and have it all end once and for all. We like this drawing out scenario.. :) To think it took a global pandemic to strike to have you come talk to us. And to think you missed out all the action of the Yahoo Group. Groups IO has been wilting without you, none of us had the heart to continue any discussion without you dropping by regularly. Don't you get it? We don't care about an update as much as you think. ;-; So you've got to stop putting unnecessary pressure on yourself.
ReplyDeleteThe coronavirus is just now starting to spread here in my country. Let's pray it doesn't really spread like it has in Italy or Iran... otherwise, we're doomed. There's just no infrastructure to handle it. Oh well. What'll happen will happen, no use fretting over it. Just take good precautions. Only today we've been told to work from home, the last week of the school year got cancelled, exams cancelled. We'll get the report cards and next year's planning done all online.
Keep staying safe! Take care of yourself and your family's health. And don't disappear on us again. Life's busy but it doesn't mean we punish ourselves for it. :)
It's been so long, hasn't it? Missed chatting with you--I actually thought about you because I knew you were in education and classes are being canceled around the world. The new school year starts in springtime in my country, hence students are just in this vacation limbo. I guess we are lucky that we are in the day and age some education can be done online, but I always think half of education is about interaction in the classroom.
DeleteHehe reality check for me that updates aren't as important and you'd rather just have me hang out. That made me smile.^^ Everybody's too kind to even scold me for real for going MIA. I think the Hermione in me somewhere is rather hard on myself. I was finding this out at work in the past year too which may be why I was burning myself out. Coming out of CCS-isolation has been some consolation to me though this week in otherwise bleak times. I was telling a friend in the States just beginning to panic over the virus that it feels like I've been living in a post-apocalyptic dystopian society for the past month. You are right, life goes on though and its is important to find normalcy in the midst of a global pandemic.
The virus is highly transmissible but you are right that taking precautions help--I think good collective public awareness also is very important. The global number of cases are being under-reported because testing is not happening at the rate it should be though it looks like warmer countries are not being as impacted with current data. I wonder if your students aren't a tad bit happy about exams getting cancelled however.
Thanks for your kind words and I will (try not to) disappear (though I probably will self-punish myself again). Take care of yourself and your loved ones as well!
It's always good to hear from you Wish-chan. It's perfectly understandable that things have gotten away from you. Finishing a story that's taken decades to build is a lot to swallow. It will continue to maintain that the fix ending is an apprehension we share as well because as readers who have been here with you for twenty years, NT ending is a small hope, but more, a fear. We don't want an update because that means we're closer to saying goodbye to your beautiful work. You drawing this out is a gift to us. So please don't beat yourself up over not updating, and please don't disappear because you're worried about us being upset. ♥️
ReplyDeleteIn regards to Covid-19, please continue to take care of yourself and take it easy. The US has all but shut down, as I'm sure you've heard. I've been working for home and sleeping. I hope things are under control (so to speak) in your country. Sending peaceful thoughts and love.
Great. I like it. chuyen phat nhanh DHL . Very good
ReplyDelete