User:T'Mar
At a Glance
Name: Melanie (aka Mel)
Location: Huntsville, Alabama, USA
Age: 26
Occupation: Staffing Professional
Hobbies: Retro Gaming, Volunteering, TableTop hangouts, Vegan Cooking, Yoga, Pilates, Reading
Joined UFOP: August 2012
About Me
Generic Information
Here's where I guess I get to tell you all more about me. In case you were curious or something. I was born and raised in the Metro DC area. My dad brought me up with Star Trek so I have been watching since I can remember. I also enjoy writing. My first college degree was in Liberal Arts; I studied Poetry and Music before switching over to Business. (For a video of me in high school band at VBODA Click Here and to see my band be the very first band to ever perform at the Walt Disney World Disney Honors Click Here GO MIGHTY VIKING BAND!) I have a BSBA in Management with a concentration in Human Resource Management and I recently was accepted into grad school where I'll be working on getting an MBA in HR. Currently I work in Human Resources, specifically specializing in Staffing and Employee relations. Basically I'm the person who does the hiring, the firing, and the babysitting between those two points, although in my current position I mostly focus on interviewing, hiring, and placing people on job orders. I have been veg for 1 1/2 years, which has resulted in much joking from my friends on the Apollo. Because I work in a stressful industry, I am big on maintaining a healthy lifestyle. I enjoy practicing Hot Yoga throughout the week to get a great workout while relieving stress. When I am not working at my full time job or working out, I am also in the process of opening up a business with my best friend. I also do quite a bit of volunteer work whenever possible because I believe in giving back. I mentor college students in my field as well as volunteer to teach people how to eat healthier (obesity and diabetes are rampant in the South!!) Those who know me, whether in RL or in OOC chats, know that I have a strange (to put it nicely) sense of humor, which is a genetic trait apparently because everyone on the one side of my family has the very same sense of humor. Those who know me in RL also know that I have a strange addiction to dying my hair. Most of my friends have never seen my natural hair color. That is an extremely sad fact. I usually end up back to my red hair, though.
CURRENT HAIR COLOR: BROWN FADED INTO BLONDE (check back as it's always changing!)
Sometimes I enjoy making people uncomfortable. I have no idea where this comes from, but I find it highly amusing. I typically do this by saying slightly inappropriate things and seeing how people react. While I tend to read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy or business books, currently I am reading "Little House: The First Five Novels" (I am on the second of the five, which is "Farmer Boy"). I do wish I had more time to read, but as of late, most of my reading has been limited to reading posts. I am also attempting to write a story for my own leisure (Fun fact- part of my inspiration to join the fleet was to increase my typing speeds again. The last time I posted on a ship I was typing well over 100 wpm and I had been down to 40 wpm. I'm now about 60 wpm, so I am on my way!)
My History with Gaming
I have been big on gaming since I was a kid. Growing up, my friends and I created the equivalent of what is now known as LARPing. We each had our own characters and we would make up quests that we would play out. From there I got into video games. I am a Nintendo-girl myself, so I played a lot of Zelda, DK, Mario, etc. and I never really moved on from there. I still play the old school games instead of the newer ones, although I love COD. I dabble with computer games, but I typically would play on my friends computers and not my own (system requirement issues, ftl). I also have a Table Top gaming group now as well.
Back in the 90s, on of my Trekker friends told me about this thing called a "PBeM" for Star Trek. Soon after I was an addict. I was on three different ships at one point (fun fact: one of the characters was named T'Mar and had striking similarities to my current character, although she was not Betazoid). I was a Captain on one of the ships, however, the ships soon reached the common fate for many of those ships: one by one the members started leaving and soon there was not enough to keep the ships going. In the early 2000s, one of the ships (the USS Cavalry- formerly part of the BravoFleet) attempted a comeback and it gave me a taste for the simming world once more, but about a year later it had reached the same fate again. Despite my desire to play with that group that had become like family, I knew a third attempt would never happen. Around that point I was in high school anyways and switched over to gaming and shenanigans with my friends. The PBeM world quickly faded away as I began growing up and thinking about my future.
Fast forward to the summer of 2012. I was working at two different internships, both of which had a lot of down time, due to being unpaid work. While I was working I realized that my typing was much slower than the days where I was posting on three ships for fun (I averaged well over 100wpm back then). It started as an idea to help me increase typing speed, but I quickly realized I missed the action and even more, the friends that came with PBeMs. A quick google search brought me to UFOP and without taking any time to talk myself out of it, I signed up. There would be no going back from there...
My Characters
Current Playing Characters
- Lt.Cmdr. T'Mar - USS Gemini
Current NPCs
- PNPC Lt. (JG) Loleh Rejock
- PNPC Lt. Katelynn Meyer
Former Characters
- MSNPC Aida Midasti- Town Healer on Planet Eridea
OOC Contributions
- Podcast Team Contributing member/Co-host; 9/28/2012 to present
- UFOP History Team Contributing member & Co-facilitator; 4/4/2013 to present
- USS Apollo Mentor; 7/30/2013 to 2/2014
- USS Gemini Mentor; 2/2014- Present
- Top Sims Contest Judge USS Apollo representative; 9/1/2013 to 2/2014
- Publicity Team Committee member; 7/28/2014- present
- Training Operations Team member; 10/9/2013- present
- My Character: Jaina Webb
- Newsies Team Interviewee
- Lower Decks interview: Found Here
IC Goals
It is my goal to have T'Mar continue rising up the ranks. I have made Lieutenant Commander which was my main goal. I would also like to make XO, however I'd like to end up at Commander and settle there for awhile before eventually taking on the role of Captain. When I started simming with this group, I had much more time to invest due to my job at the time having tons of times I could write. For a short while there, I was in a position that would not even allow me to check my email at lunch, and I was working about 50+ hours a week. This put me behind on my path to promotion, but I am now in a position where I can write during the day on my break and I am back on the right track to meet my goals.
I also want to delve more into T'Mar's internal conflict with the battle over logic or empathy. Vulcan or Betazoid. I have yet to decide if she will choose to accept her emotions, but that is the fun of writing for her.
If my work/life schedule will allow it, I would love to have Loleh become a secondary character and develop her more, although I have not put much thought into her inner workings like I have with T'Mar. It would be fun to play a character that I could wing it with and not have the constraints of suppressing emotions. Interestingly enough, I know more about Loleh's childhood than T'Mar's. I am currently working on developing more of a backstory for T'Mar so I can give her more depth, but also to include in the wiki so others can grasp her at least OOC.