Cheetahbird

Well hello!
(Why can't I edit those ''listening to and drinking'' -thingies? How annoying!)

It's been almost a year when I last wrote a journal. I'm still a teacher, and I'll teach sixth grade next year. Wonderful kids, every single one of them. 

I feel like I have abandoned this place. DA is full of ghosts from my past, that I'm not ready to face yet. I have been here so long, that it feels like my teenage years are written on my very first deviations. I should clean up my gallery from the very old and horrible stuff.

I might consider, feeling happy and content at the moment, taking in a few requests. I'm trying to recover from my terrible art block, and I would love to draw your characters. I warn you though: it may take a while for me complete them. Just hit me with some requests!  

How have you been?

Yours,
Cheetahbird

So.
I wrote a journal a year ago. Something called real life happened to me. I graduated from university and immediately got myself a dream job. Therapy worked, I survived the horrible burnout and I managed to fix my broken mind.

I am now a teacher, I teach a lovely class of fifth graders. My life is pretty busy at the moment. Everything is wonderful, but somehow I feel that my inspiration for art is almost gone. My burning hate for some people is just... gone. It seems my hate, pain and anger gave me the inspiration for my art, and those being gone, I... just can't draw.

I have an active social life, amazing friends and lovely community at work. I still play Dungeons and Dragons though, and it takes a lot of my free time.
Also I have had a dog, finnish lapphund Ruska, since February. She has her first birthday in just a few days. Training a dog has been quite, well, stressful. I might post a photo of Ruska some day.

Anyway. I still don't have a media tablet, and my scanner seems to be broken. So I'm not going to be active for months. I think. 

You can never know.

Yours,
Cheetahbird

As some of you might have noticed, I disappeared over a year ago. I have been submitting stuff every now and then, even commenting, but for the last six months or so... I have been very inactive. I'm not asking for understanding nor pity. 
I just want you to know what happened to me.

I had a burn out on spring 2015. I lost my inspiration. Bad things happened in a never ending loop, throwing me in a middle of shit storm. I couldn't draw, couldn't write. And through drawing and writing, I express my feelings. I was unable to express my feelings, and I eventually I lost my will to live. I wouldn't see my friends, I wouldn't leave my house. I cried for weeks, I only slept and barely ate. I finally got help on August 2015, and I have been in weekly therapy ever since. Without medication, of course, I won't eat any pills. Just talking helps me greatly.

I was still able to work as a substitute teacher, and I love every second of my job. The kids and teens are just wonderful, and almost every day with them is a blessing. My job kept me alive. But I neglected my studies due to the stress they caused me. My master's thesis was too big project, it ate my spirit and all of my creativity. 

At the moment things seem a bit brighter. I have learned that I don't have to be perfect in every possible way, and I don't need to please everybody. My studies are almost over, I have only few things to do. But they don't cause me stress anymore, not as much as they used to.
I feel like I could start drawing again. Maybe I can create something once more, and learn to use my new media tablet.

I want to start fresh, so I'm not commenting all of your works. I'm sorry, but I have to do that. It would be a never ending task. But I go through them, comment on those I like the most and add the pieces I love to my favorites. It's all I can do, and it should be enough.

Yours,
~ Cheetahbird