Wow, it's been over a year! A lot of stuff has happened. But I'll spare you the 10 page rant. TO make the long story short, college was intense, I had to do some soul searching as to where I was going with art, and I went through several trials by fire that showed me that I needed to do things for myself first, and not listen to people who know what I should do in art.

So now I'm back... sort of. Life's still busy, and I'm also on DA, IG, tumblr and Behance... trying to set in roots and make a name for myself so when I graduate I'm not a nobody on these sites. But needless to say, updating so many sites is hard. And not everything I do is anthro, so I won't always have content for here. But I'll post when I can.

Last time I left, there was some big exodus to Weasyl... how'd that pan out? Is everyone gone? Did everyone come back?

Well, it's been nice posting a bit over the Christmas break, but it's time for me to start the next college semester. You won't hear or see much of me until May or so. I will be posting one or two works in the following months (hopefully more), but be patient, I'll probably only be seeing an hour of potentially free art time a week.

Wish me luck guys!

In case anyone is out there and reading this, I'm curious as to whether you'd like to see my non-anthro art in this gallery or not. I've already submitted a few pieces that aren't anthro, but I'm curious as to whether you'd like to see more of it, none at all, or just a bit.

If no one replies, I'll just continue posting things as I see fit. I don't feel that any of my watchers hate the non-anthro stuff I post.

Hello FA, it's been a couple months, hasn't it? Shortly after the flood life sort of went back to normal for a little bit. I was more focused on getting into the routine of having a job than making art. And just when I was settling down into a routine and getting back to my work, my family got a call... my great grandmother was in the ER, they weren't sure how long she had. We rushed up there to see her of course, and the next day and the next day. She's still hanging on, but now she's in palliative care. She has times where she does really well, and other times when it seems like she might go... my great gran and I have always been close. She babysat me when I was just a baby. I guess you could say she was to me what grandparents are for others...

But at the start of September I started college again. Thankfully my load is lighter than last year, but it's still hard to find time to see my great gran more than once a week. She's in a hospital a town away, and I don't drive, so I'm at the mercy of homework and my dad's availability...

And to top it off, my mom had day surgery recently, but thankfully she's back to normal and doing well.

I guess you could say I've had a lot on my plate. I've kind of done a lot of growing up. My parents usually go visit my great gran 2-5 days out of the week, and then spend the rest of the day at my grandparents farm, which is close by, helping with chores and keeping family bonds tight in this hard time. I've had to spend a lot of time alone, fending for myself emotionally and physically. It hasn't been easy. But now arrangements are being made so I can actually take my cumbersome art homework along to the farm. It's hard to be stuck indoors with old people as everyone else rides ATV's and has other fun, but such is life. Right now my great gran is more important.

Anyways. I'm going to try and be semi-active, but I just don't have time to do finished works.

Hope things are going better for all of you.

I've been sending out emails and posts and texts to everyone saying the same thing over and over about 23 times now. I'm safe, my family is safe and our house is safe. We almost became a river though, almost became homeless, but thanks to foresight, manpower and engineering, my community was an island in the river... and island 8 feet below the raging waters that swallowed up ALL other river side communities AND downtown.

I encourage all of you to look up images of the Calgary 2013 flood if you haven't. Here's a few pictures to give you an idea:

http://nationalpostnews.files.wordp.....gary.jpg?w=620 This is entering downtown, it's not supposed to be under water. I usually take the bus down that road....
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/cm.....?size=620x400s This could have been us. I am not joking. The river wraps around us, the Elbow and Bow MERGE right by us and it's a 1 minute walk to the river bank from my house.
http://beta.images.theglobeandmail......looding+20.jpg Here's the beloved Saddledome
http://2.cdn.nhle.com/flames/images.....G_7583_std.jpg .... and what she now looks like inside 10 rows of seats plus the ice and changing rooms are 100% underwater

The nest week or so will see me being busy helping neighbours and others in the city. I may or may not have a job once this is all over because they may have been flooded too...

I'm rushing to type this, my fam is being evaced from out place. It's voluntary now but may be manditory. Being evaced because of a possible flood from the river.

We have a farm outside of Calgary we're going to stay at. I'm scared by this because we've lived in this house since 69 (not me, my family) never have we been evacuated. I just hope I have a home to return too, all my old sketchbooks and notebooks and other memory stuff is all here, and I can't take it all with me.

I'll have my tech stuff with me but where I'm going there's no net and you barely get a phone signal.

Gotta go now.

We all know that the pictures of the hamburgers at any big fast food chain aren't going to look like the thing you actually find in your bag. But I have to say, I didn't expect the same semi-deception from my new job.

The position I applied for was referred to as a "kitchen job". The actual job is everything BUT cooking. I'll be taking orders (on a very confusing system, but high tech for a ma and pa business), cleaning dishes, cleaning the place, prepping and refilling cheese meat and veggie containers and handling salads and the pasta and sauce half of pasta dishes, and manning the counter of course. It turns out that the actual cooking is a job left to others. By the way things went, I think the cooking jobs go to senior staff, who are also expected to make sure the people not cooking don't slack off.

Now that I think back, there were only two positions open, a delivery job and a "kitchen" job. What the owner probably meant by "kitchen" was "everything that isn't to do with driving pizza around in a car." I guess that sort of makes sense, but how is someone on the outside supposed to know "kitchen cook" actually means "person who takes calls and mans the till"?

To be honest, I'm bummed out by this. I had visions of me making up a pizza storm in the kitchen, learning their secrets and the trade. Now it seems like all I'll learn is the funky system they use for taking orders. The LAST thing I wanted to do was take orders. I was terrified of maybe having to write each order down... this system they have makes me more scared. I don't want to screw up an order.... but I'm of course going to stick with it.

Having a job will be good for me, I need the experience, and I need something on my resume. Plus, I'm a super duper hard worker, I hope my effort will show. Plus, I might be able to do a bit of graphic design work for them. They've got one sign done in sharpie and another done up in a 1970's "groovy" font in Word by someone that only knows how to center align and make words bigger in Word.

I'm not good with these blog things. I meant to post this news waaaaay back when I first got it, but oh well!

I got a job! :D I didn't think I would this summer, since out of all my (many, many, maaaany) resumes, I only got called for one interview at a local pizza place just a 15 minute walk from where I live. The interview went pretty badly in my opinion. The owner cut me off a few times and didn't seem to like me or the situation. Maybe he was just having a bad day. Basically the interview beelined into why I've never had a job before at my age, and I had to reveal my surgery, and then try to convince him I was fully healed and able to work. I don't feel like I convinced him...

... but I must have, because I got the job! I was told I'd be contacted by the following Monday after the interview, but it wasn't until the Saturday after that I was called up. Today is my first shift, and I'm nervous as all hell. I don't know what to expect, and since it's a "ma and pa" place, no one can really give me any advice because everywhere is different. Since I start on a Friday evening, I'm a bit worried that my "training" might be a trial by fire, where I'm thrown into the kitchen without much direction because of the Friday bustle. But I guess we'll see.

I'm really happy to have this job, my family has been ordering pizza from this place since I was 12 or younger. I've always wanted to know how they made their pizzas! Everyone in my family is also super stoked. My dad in particular is looking forward to discounted/free pizza, and my folks have already made me make some pizza's at home for supper once, and my dad was bugging me to do it again a day later (even though we had lots leftover).

I'm hoping that the owner will like me. I might be able to get a summer job there every year while I'm in school, and maybe pick up a shift or two while in college. But we'll see.

Yesterday was my birthday, it went really well. On the 4th my family had a party, and I got some great gifts. Nothing too expensive, but all of it was something fun and usable. Yesterday we had a rare feast of crab legs and lobster tail and I went shopping with a friend.

But now things may be turning for the worst. As I mentioned a bit ago, one of my dogs, Jo Jo, isn't doing so well. We have a vet visit today at 4pm. Our vet lives in a town outside of the city, so it's a bit of a drive, and this will likely be an all day ordeal. Jo got over his fever, but he's drinking more, needs to be let out more, and he's leaving pee spots wherever he lies down. We'd phoned the vet and she had mentioned that it might either be cancer or Cushing's Disease.

I'm pretty sure we're not going to be leaving the vet without Jo, but I don't know if we'll have him for long...

We spoil our dogs like kids, we love them to death. We've had Jo Jo for 10 years now... it's not going to be easy if we have to put him down soon...

Birthday's and me... we don't get along always. I'm sort of a deep thoughted person, and weird things matter to me, birthdays being one of them. I've always wondered if it's common that people who celebrate someone's birthday are actually consciously thinking "I'm glad this person was born, that's why I'm celebrating". I've always assumed very few people ever think that unless the person has been in a life threatening situation.

Anyways. I usually hide my birthday because I figure no one ever really cares... but since I'm trying to open up more to people, I thought I'd share the fact that my birthday will be June 5th, which is just a few days off.

I've been having a really rough week, so I'm not really as chipper as I would be about my birthday... I'm not looking for any gifts or such, but I thought I'd let you all know that it'd make me smile a bit to get some Happy Birthday's. It'd be nice to know some people in the world aren't annoyed with me, or despise me, or the like. I'd like to have as nice a birthday as possible this year.

Although I'm starting to think no one reads my journals.

I kind of hate journals that have two completely different topics, but I also hate it when someone sends two or more journals in the same day unless something sudden and major happened to them. I also hate making journals where I ask people what kind of art they want to see because it just seems weird, dumb and a bit awkward, but here I am doing it anyways. :P

The Art
As I may have said in my last journal (or not, I can't remember...) I'm an art college student. I'm hoping to get a Design degree. School is pretty intense and I usually only have time to do school art when it's college season. So I don't have much new personal art to show. However, I've got lots of graphic design and fine arts art from school. I've been photographing it all slowly and uploading it to DA. I don't plan on showing more than a few pieces of it here because I figure no one n FA is overly interested in colour charts or abstract graphical designs. If you're curious, you can see a few examples here, here, and here. If you guys want me to post work like that here, I'll do so, but I won't be offended if no one's interested, this is a place for furry/anthro art after all.

Thing is, as I'm photographing all my school art and putting it up on DA, that means I'm not doing as much digital work, or much work in general that's really presentable. It might be a week before I start scanning my sketchbook and piecing together some sketch dumps you guys might enjoy, that's the best I can promise.

The News
My family has 3 dogs, and I love them all to death. But one of them, Jo Jo our Akita cross breed, is now 10 years old. Both his hind legs are pretty wrecked, one from a bad break/strain about 6 years back and the other has a blown cruciate that happened last year. When he blew his cruciate we thought we'd have to put him down, but he seemed to recover. However, he's recently taken a turn for the worst, and he's been throwing up. He's also become feverish. No one in my house has really said anything, but we're all worried that this might be the start of the end.

I debated about mentioning this news at all, since it's only been a day... but I also feel the need to mention it, if only to explain a sudden absence on my part, or a sudden dark mood...

I'm sorry to end this on a sad note...

It's been a long time... 2 years? 3? I don't remember. You probably don't remember either. In fact, you probably don't remember who I am. If you do remember me, it's probably not for anything good... I'm sorry about that.

I encourage you all to unwatch me. 169 of you have been watching me for all these years, so here's your chance to have less spam in your inbox. Or you can wait until you see my art and decide for there, your choice, but I won't be offended. I know what it's like to not notice someone vanish, only to have them return with art you don't like, or art you no longer like...

Anyways... I guess an explanation is in order... maybe one or two of you remember my leaving and are curious as to what happened...

In a nutshell, the furry fandom went sour for me. All I was getting and seeing was drama and the furfag side of it all. I was getting links to journals about people who "accidentally" spent their paycheck on a 360 and now they needed money for their dog, or them. I got linked to overreactions about art theft and character theft. I was shown porn day after day after day, and it wore me down. I forgot the good things of the fandom. All I saw was smut and the drama. All my interactions with furries were drama fests, until I was just as bad for it myself. Honestly? I think I was too young and immature for it all. Eventually I'd had enough, and I cut it all off. I gave the fandom the finger and any contact I had with it after that was never good. I'd verbally destroy it and curse it. It even affected what I drew... furry had come to mean nothing but porn, nothing but "she stole my bland fox girl!" and "I'm about to be evicted, I don't have food, but I got a puppy for $500!" and "SOMEONE LOOKED AT ME WEIRD TODAY! FURSECUTION!" when I thought furry art all I thought was porn, porn and more porn. When I thought of furries I imagined socially inept men who were either gay or turned gay out of desperation to be yiffed, and to do so 24/7 without having to work, while living in their parents basement and cursing sunlight. What had once been like a shining bright temple of safety had turned into the condom littered, graffiti'd back alley of downtown with drug dealers dealing as hobos and questionable types had sex out in the open and others defected in cardboard box homes of others as part of some disgusting turf war...

I don't regret leaving.

I needed the time away from it. I needed to be with people that didn't know the fandom. Slowly the anger went away. Slowly, I realized there was something missing. I started really enjoying anthro characters and anthro art, and I realized that none of my friends (not even my art friends) liked it like I did. They fell into that category of people that didn't seem a reason to have anthro characters when it didn't add much, when it wasn't the point of the story. They saw it is a novelty, where for me it was my bread and butter. As strange as it might sound, it was Humanities classes in college that made me realize how open furries were. Gay, straight, bi, pan... transgender of any kind... monogamous or polyamorous... a lot of furries won't judge you for it or gasp in shock. Furries are fine with all that and so much more. I wouldn't be surprised if some people are furry JUST to be with people that won't judge them for questioning and fighting the social norm.

And through this all, I refound a friend, who became my best friend. She's a furry among other things. She helped me keep contact with the fandom in a sense, and being a practical girl, that meant I saw mainly the sane and practical side to the fandom... the GOOD art, the GOOD journals, the heart warming stories... My best friend has been someone I could open up to about a lot of strange things... and I realized that I didn't hate furries anymore... maybe I never did. What I hated, and admittedly, what I still get flaming, raging mad over, is the stuff outside of the core of the fandom. The fandom is about animal anthros... the drama and the porn is a section of it, but it's not the core, it's not why we're ALL here. There's nothing wrong with being a furry, or part of the fandom.

So here I am. I'm back I guess. I'm here to try and find that temple I once loved. But I'm also here to make friends, and to be part of a community... although if my track record is anything to go by, FA will probably be another place where I hang art that no one likes, no one sees, and no one enjoys. Although I hope this doesn't become another place where I'm greeted only be silence... I won't lie, that's all I really expect to happen. Silence and solitude seem to be the two I socialize with the most...

I'm done with FA. Maybe one day I'll return if I'm given a good enough reason. Until then, you can find me on DA, where I'm still posting art/shit: http://jetyra-luck.deviantart.com/

I'm going to delete everything here when I get the chance.