Jupiter Star and the shiny new computer!

[JupiterStar]

Well, I'm back! Mid-January my laptop decided to die and because I was preparing to travel from Osaka to Glasgow for a wedding AND saving for my own, it's taken me til about two weeks ago to get back here! So I may as well start from scratch, right? Shiny new start for the shiny new computer! 

 

So, I'm Sabrina, I'm a 33 year old freelancer (performing, writing, and tour guiding) and part-time university English teacher originally from Colorado who has been living in Japan for six years now, and also lived in Scotland to get my masters degree for two years. I met my fiancee there and we're getting married on our 9th anniversary in March! Meanwhile, I'm also bulking up my performance skills to try and get full-time employment at Universal Studios Japan, Tokyo Disney, or one of the resident opera or musical companies here. My interests broadly include aaaall music (seriously, I did my masters thesis on what makes so-called bad popular music good, I can ramble at length about ANY genre and make it sound good), comics, animation, video games, cosplay and J-fashion, anime, manga, and J-dramas of course especially with magical girls, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, silent and classic movies, dance, acrobatics, martial arts, theater, TV especially Canadian and British sci-fi shows no one has heard of sadly, travel (I've been tm 27 countries now), languages (fluent in Spanish and Japanese, conversational in Farsi and beginner in a whole slew of others), and generally just geek culture as a whole! 

 

Some reasons I'm here? I nearly died four years ago and was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, ITP, where my immune system thinks my platelets are a sickness and destroys them to the point where I could easily bleed to death internally without warning. There is no cure and no good treatment except prolonged steroid use if you're bleeding to death, which I was...so I was on a high dose of prednisone for nine months, then went through horrific withdrawal for almost a year, and I still suffer symptoms as if I were anemic and hemophillic. Basically, I went from 130lbs and able to dance two days of outdoor parade routes easily to losing all my muscle tone and strength, struggling to have energy for full-time work and daily tasks like showering or cooking, and putting on 40lbs that I couldn't  get off because I was too exhausted, weak, and in pain to even stand in class and the prednisone significantly screwed up my body chemistry. 

 

So naturally, I want that weight OFF and I want my strength back! My goals are to lose at least 20 lbs before the wedding (ideally all 40 but with the ITP issues and also having been diagnosed with hypothyrodism and PCOS as a high school student, 1 lb a week is a HUGE amount for me,  I'd rather set a more manageable goal then get discouraged), and also get toned enough that I look good in the dress AND can be taken seriously at Harry Potter World auditions next winter. I also want to get my chemical levels healthier, boost my immune system, and be as strong and as healthy as I can be for myself and my future wife! I'm not much on weight training but I do contemporary dance and aerial lyra classes as often as possible and I love hiking, biking, anything involving water, and things like martial arts and tumbling, so I want to work on building muscles through actual use. Nice to meet people (again) and if anyone needs support or has any to offer, don't be a stranger!

[Defining]

[WhiteGhost]

OHAI!  I was wondering where you had disappeared off to.  Nice to see you back on the boards