#preface

"I'm the party star. I'm popular. I've got my own car. I'm popular. I'll never get caught. I'm popular. I make football bets. I'm the teacher's pet." (Popular, Nada Surf)

Oracle of Stars is a YA fantasy Etrian Odyssey III fan comic.

“A zodiac has the ability to see into the future by using the stars. When she goes on a mission to conquer the Yggdrasil with the help of a guild, she is plagued with premonitions of their undoing.”

Updates (some) Saturdays.

Content Warnings: contains flashing lights, occasional gore, violence, mentions of abuse, and character death.

This comic and blog are run by @ragnar0c! An EO fan artist who likes her orange haired Zodiac a little too much.

NEW GAME LOAD GAME

Table of Contents

Characters

Welcome! My name is Mirjana and this portfolio is to display what I have learned and intend to learn in Early Child Education. My main focus that I intend to cultivate through this course at St. Clair College is to understand, respect, and build a connection with children to be able to provide them with a sturdy foundation to build the rest of their lives and education on. Children are able to absorb so much information within the first years of their lives so it is important that their life skills and habits are established early. When children are understood and we are able to adapt their learning to their own knowledge and abilities, they are able to thrive in education as well as life. In my practice I hope to incorporate empathy, understanding, and kindness throughout each aspect of early childhood education. In my portfolio I hope to demonstrate my capabilities and knowledge of children as well as my willingness to further my education as new information is presented.

Throughout each of my artifacts, I intend to display my knowledge of what it takes to be a mentor in a child’s life. I understand both the value of structured lessons as well as providing a safe and comfortable space for children to express themselves. Combining each of these attributes in a child’s everyday life can provide a safe environment for a child to learn and grow. 

I am aiming to learn more about different approaches to learning styles such as montessori, high-scope and the Reggio-Emilia approach. I see the benefits in creating Childcare environments that expand on children’s capabilities and interests. I look to approach childcare in a way that stimulates learning through play and creating independence. Giving children the freedom to foster their own path provides confidence through trial and error. 

I also plan to incorporate all aspects of different learning styles for different children to provide each child with tools that they will need in the future. This would include emotional regulation tools as well as adjusting different lessons with different difficulty levels. It is imperative that each child is considered when creating lesson plans since every child learns differently. Each child has a different skillset and develops at different rates. Being aware of these differences and finding ways to adapt and change gives every child a fair chance.

My final objective, which weighs with equal importance, is to establish a firm relationship with the families of each of the children. This would provide benefits for the child since it helps close a connection between the parent and ECE. When both the parent(s) and the educator have a relationship, it creates a healthy understanding of the child’s needs. This would also be essential to discuss any concerns about the child’s behaviour and development without causing any tension with the parent or guardian.

I'd like to start by saying, we all have been seeing that life is not what we expected it to be. Consider this just a voice of someone who is willing to try to live a better life.

Despite all the the madness happening around us, I believe there is a way to do a few things differently from what people around us in society might be doing, in order to live life a little better.

I am not saying that I have all the answers but I can say that I can see that there are ways to aim up, and maybe make a better life for ourselves than we had a day, a week, a month, or it can be years ago.

In this blog I will try to explore all the ideas that might to make life better. I hope by writing this and communicating with the community, that we can all find a better way to do things in life leading to making a difference from what it is now to what it can be.

Feel free to ask me

In 2023, 4 years after the passing of my dad (one in a series of 4 deaths that came in quick succession in my immediate family) I came up for breath in what felt like years.

In what can only be described as a full-system reboot (triggered by finally getting my green card after being in the U.S. for 14 years—!), I took this newfound safety and… quit my job, went on a 5-ish month sabbatical, decided to live alone for the first time, actually nested in my home (a.k.a bought real furniture), and started a freelance business to take on new clients for the work I do.

I moved through each of these Big Life Changes with a sludgy mix of eagerness and terror which is to be expected when you're getting used to life working out for once. Even at the time, I knew these decisions would pay off eventually but a part of me knew they weren't addressing the hollowness inside me that kept threatening to eat me whole.

Losing my dad felt like being gut-punched straight through. Like maybe he’d taken a chunk of me with him in a to-go doggy bag. No matter what I did, I couldn’t fill that void—or move past the capital-G Grief that comes with losing the one person who had, for better or worse, been my go-to human since (literally) day one.

I had learned by this point that grief is not an emotion that ever gives you the satisfaction of completion. It demands that you set up a comfy room with nice snacks, soft surfaces and plenty of tissues for it to set up shop in. (P.S. I have a whole rant incoming about how our hyper-capitalist culture has completely mangled this process—stay tuned.)

I accepted that and even tried to build a relationship with it and still. Still it ate away at me in ways that felt untenable.

Would I have to dedicate all my waking hours to holding your hand? How does my body have this many tears, can someone ever run out of liquid to cry? Will my identity be forever shaped by this one thing that happened to me? What does it look like to build a life around grief?

Despite more frequent air-bubbles to the surface, I was still sinking.

So—like every previously-atheist-desperately-seeking-meaning millennial—I booked a session with an astrologer, hoping he might finally give me an ETA on the million-dollar question: “When does life actually get better?”

A perfectly witchy combination of things (delivered by a fabulously flamboyant French man who hates France—obviously) revealed themselves in my chart. Apparently, the antidote to my endless grief was this:

Apparently I am destined to be a writer or speaker. Thats the medium How did we figure this out? Astrology math, duh (see below) (Neptune + Sun) - Mercury = Kronos conjunct/ Apollo and Apollo square/Vulcanus. In simple english, that signals an amplification of talent in the house (?) of communication. or even simpler "you have to be a writer!" my new woo woo french friend exclaimed.

A very strong presence of Hades followed me around almost all the time = I need to write about sickness, occult, the past because thats the only way to transmute this energy and get Hades off your back. Thats the theme/topic.

Last, 8th house in my sun meaning I would lose a father figure= the guiding force for my book

That's almost too easy, no?

But who am I to defy the stars, planets and my guy Hades. So here we are.

My intention is to use this space as a repository for all the research, drafts, scratch for the book I am writing. My next entry will tell you more about that, I just figured I'd start with the backstory because I found it an entertaining start point as someone who pretends like all my decisions are purely based in logic, reason and hard evidence.

Also, as a recovering perfectionist, part of this exercise is showing up in draft—to challenge my compulsion for polish and practice letting things be messy.