School

Dread…

Daily Life, Family, School, Uncategorized Leave a comment

So lately I have been extremely emotionally drained. Tired. Exhausted. I have a lot of things on my mind, and none of them can be shared in a public forum, which sucks. Some of the things don’t even affect me directly, but I am so very worried about them. My wife has been supportive, and my friends have been too, and we have been trying to be supportive of the others affected.

My D&D group and my Christian Men’s Group that I meet on a weekly basis have been great, but even there I have this impending feeling of dread. Like a lot of things are going to collapse around me soon, and it is terrifying.

I have not felt this way ever, even when I was demoted and replaced at my old school by W. At that time, I felt insulted, abandoned, and extremely disrespected. But I knew that the programs that I built would be there for a long time. And I was right, they are still running at that school.

This feels different. Darker, and more foreboding. I like it less, if possible.

I am free to discuss the issues privately (or some of them), but not here, not now. I just don’t know what to say here to keep you updated.

Keep checking for my D&D content though, ok?
working on that helps relieve stress some.

Diary of Julius Valarian – Nuwmont 1000 AC

Campaign Update, D&D (Mystara), Games, Original, School, , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Numont 1st 1,000 AC
The new year’s celebration was very tense, as a few days ago, Burr Silecz lost a large number of animals. Nobody moves around at night near the end of the month anymore. Too many animals are disappearing. Mikail told me that the children saw some strange people visiting the Wizard’s tower the night before the animals went missing. One had the flag of the Black Eagle Barony on him.

Emblem of The Black Eagle Barony.

Numont 3rd 1,000 AC
Last night our purple star returned. There was also some strange lights coming from the Tower.

Numont 25th 1,000 AC
Yesterday the sky went dark again, it was only for a moment. But combine that with the fact that last night the Kruschneh farm was raided. It doesn’t seem to matter how we lock the animals in, or what precautions each of us take. Dire wolves have also been seen in the area, which frightens the farmers. I took a stroll, being a retired soldier, I figured I would be safe. The locals would never ask me for help, but I still want to help. And I found the wolves, they only seem to wander near the Tower, almost like they are guarding it.

Today I heard from Vlademar, the Vlem boy, that our Wizard neighbor keeps a female vampire as a slave, and that it is she who is killing the livestick. She comes on a New moon, when it is darkest and takes enough animals for a month’s worth of blood.

I don’t believe this anymore than I believe Dentiata is a werewolf, but just in case I have been escorting Amber home to Runa’s Hovel after each tutoring session.

BIBA

Daily Life, School Leave a comment

It has been a log time since I have posted….

The family and I are in a much better place now physically and emotionally. Now we still miss a lot of things from the ChaoYang urban cityscape, but the rural feel of ShunYi is very calming. For most of you, these places are unknown. ChaoYang is a large section taking up the Eastern half of Beijing, where we lived for the most part of 14 years. ShunYi is a region in northeastern Beijing that is close to the airport, and we moved here 1 year ago.

Our new school is called BIBA (Beijing International Bilingual Academy) and we are all flourishing here. My youngest daughter started ECC (Preschool) this year and has mostly loved it. She has two best friends that she plays with constantly. I have become friends with the father of one of them. The other I have not met the parents of, and she mostly plays with in school.

My middle daughter has met several friends in similar situations to us. Her BFF is a Hungarian girl. They both love art (Sammy is a graphic artist, her friend is musical). They joined the girls soccer team together and have since made many more friends as well. Sammy’s team (our school’s team) won the championship against the international school league in Beijing this year.

My eldest, Joshua has been heavily involved in the drama club and performing arts. Last year they put together Mulan, but were unable to perform it when the city locked down. This year he was in 15-Minute Hamlet, and they performed last night with 2 other short plays. He was amazing.

My wife has found a group of mothers that she hangs out with, and they do activities together. They go out shopping, have a weekly Bible study, go to local coffee shops and malls to relax. She loves it and I can easily see her opening up again. For the last 3 weeks we have been at birthday celebrations for someone from this group each weekend.

As for myself, I have found a very welcoming work environment, and good friends. I won’t lie, the work was difficult last year as I had to learn new methods and retrain myself in a few things as I went. But the school did have a support system with mentors and professional development seminars for us to use. It was awesome. I am a bit nervous this year because they as that experienced teachers develop and run some of these seminars. I’ll keep you posted.

Socially, I am doing well. I have a Bible study every Monday with a group of guys from work. I also just stated a school D&D club on Tuesdays for some of the teachers. This did mean I had to learn 5e, but it’s not a bad system and I am not having trouble converting things from Basic D&D (that I used to play in the 90s)