Introduction

365 Toy Project
Originally uploaded by esmereldes

Hi there! My name is Atsuko, and I decided to start keeping an online
journal. I'm kinda used to watching everything that is going on, and I
think maybe someday I'd like to be a journalist or a novelist or something, so I thought maybe writing a blog would be good practice for me. This is gonna sound a bit weird, I guess, but I got into the habit of being really observant and trying to find stories when I was locked in this tower room.
Apparently, my original parents made some sort of stupid deal with a witch. In exchange for some food my father was caught trying to steal from the witch's garden, my parents agreed to give up their soon-to-be born child, who was me. I'm not honestly sure why they thought this was a good deal. I'm sure they had their reasons... Or at least I hope they did. See, I didn't find out about this whole thing until recently, so I'm just not sure what I think about it. I actually don't know my parents very well, they gave me up to their sister's family, who lived far away. She told me, finally, that they were hoping they could hide me from the witch, altho I didn't know why a witch was after me until much later. This plan to hide me with another family member was so clearly stupid, I feel despair. I hate to think that all these unclever people are related to me. I mean - she's a WITCH for god's sake! Do they think hiding me with a SISTER is really going to fool anyone? Oh well, my mom's sister was always good to me, and I had a good childhood, so I won't complain too much. But, of course, after this revelation about the witch, I got really worried and making plans to go off nto hiding on my own, but I didn't manage to do it fast enough - it's hard to try to figure out how to hide and live on your own when you are only 12! - and that very same week the witch came for me.
She took me away and locked me in a room with no doors and no stairs at the very top of a very tall tower. The only way in or out of the room was a small window. The witch put an enchantment on my hair so that it would grow exceedingly long, and when she wanted to come into the tower she would have me let it down out of the window and she would climb up. Now, I hope I don't need to go into the fact that this pretty well sucked. The witch wasn't terribly heavy, and I could wrap the hair around this iron post near the window so she wasn't pulling directly on my head, but it still wasn't comfortable. And, can you imagine what a pain in the butt it is to have so much hair? I was always tripping over it. UGH!
Aside from the hair and the locking in the tower, the witch wasn't so bad. She apparently wanted an apprentice and she *really* hates men, so she thought she'd lock me in the tower so that she could train me and I wouldn't get any ideas about running off with a boyfriend or something and deserting her. Not that she came right out and said this, but that's what I decided was going on based on random things she'd tell me here and there. I think she had a bad experience with a previous apprentice, which makes me feel a bit bad, in a way, because I was a failure as an apprentice too. I ran away the first
chance I got!! It's not that I mean to be ungrateful for the chance to
learn a trade, but come on! That tower was BORING and I don't really like chemistry. Oh sure, you may think witchcraft is all glamorous and stuff if you don't know much about it, but trust me - at the end of the day, it's a lot of math and a lot of chemistry. I wasn't very good at it. I sometimes wonder if the witch was glad I ran away. I kind of hope she found another apprentice, but if she's going to keep locking them in towers, I think she's going to keep having problems....
Anyway, while I was stuck in the tower, I spent a lot of time staring out that window and watching the lives of the birds and the squirrels and even sometimes - very far away - the people that I could see and making up stories about what they were thinking and doing. I was, of course, supposed to be doing my witchcraft homework, but like I said, that stuff was boring. I also spent a lot of time making a knife. I thought about cutting my hair off pretty much constantly, so the whole making a knife plan didn't take long to occur to me. But it wasn't easy to accomplish! First of all, the witch didn't leave me any tools in the tower when she wasn't there. I had to do this caveman style, chipping the rock with another rock into a knife shape. It took a long time to figure out the right technique, and it was tiring!! I'm not caveman-strong, to be honest. The other problem was in making one sharp enough to actually cut my magically enchanted hair. In the end, I did actually have have to pay some attention to my homework after all, in order to solve the problem. Once I had my knife tho, escape was a simple matter. I hacked off my hair, looped it around the post, climbed down and took off! I didn't realize tho that my stupid hair would just start growing back. And it grows FAST! That turned out to be a pain.
Luckily I was able to get a pair of magic scissors that help me keep my
hair under control. I think I am safe from the witch now too, thanks to some other precautions I took. She's probably given up on me anyway, hopefully found that other apprentice... But those are stories for another time.
Wow, I've really gone on and on about myself! Starting tomorrow I'll tell you about my friends and current housemates.