Alvena Johnson was the type of girl many would most likely refer to as 'the quiet type' or 'the busy body' and in many ways it was true.
She had mostly been a loner growing up since she was too shy to talk to people much more preferring to instead follow her passion.
She had always had an interest in fashion ever since her grandmother sewed her a dress for Christmas at the age of five but it wasn't just sewing that interested her for in all truth she was not the best when it came to avoiding stabbing herself with a needle, rather it was designing the clothes that had always held her interest.
She was always being told that she was a great artist by her classmates but she didn't care much for art itself just sketching outfits and patterns.
In her junior year of high school, her grandmother passed away suddenly from a stroke but as she passed in the hospital she told Alvena to follow her dreams.
"Alvee pumpkin! Don't make this old woman's mistake… go on and have a career! Make your beautiful dresses!"
And that is just what she did, in fact, she in several was let the 'fun' of adolescents slip away even pushed it out of the way.
She worked day and night to graduate early from high school and left her family and their little dairy farm in the Midwest to take her prestigious scholarship in Los Angeles.
Life was difficult for her there, she was yelled at and overworked while ridiculed and she felt out of place.
Soon she even lost her enthusiasm for fashion instead opting to keep her designs as what other people saw to be fashionable… forgetting her own ideas and dreams to pay her rent but it all changed a little when she was picked up freshly 19 years old and an early graduate to work for one of the biggest magazines in the world.
De'Mode calling to say that they wanted to meet her nearly gave her a heart attack but one of their most prestigious couture's agreeing to hire her on the spot actually made her faint but her new boss Madame Clara while a little self-occupied was generous and supportive.
Under Madame Clara, Alvena felt a lot of the pressure melt off of her shoulders yet those years spent under the heels of others' boots had taken it's toll on her and her imagination so when another branch of her company had started a system to study fashion abroad to help the company reach out better Alvena was ecstatic at the prospect of going to live and study in France.
But for her life from this point on was about to go horribly wrong when her company mixed up her application to send her to France instead… sending her to Japan.
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I don't think I've ever gone this long without sleeping I mean I've pulled allnighters but not for more than three days in a row.
I'm just so… conflicted about what to do right now!
On the one hand, I could turn in all this neverending paperwork and hope that I can get my transfer switched since I need this money and there's no way all the spots to France aren't full.
But on the other hand, Crystal called me today, she was my only friend in high school and even college but we somehow drifted apart.
But when she heard I was going to Japan with her she called me on the office phone and she broke down in tears overjoyed to hear from me again.
So did I!
Not a day went by when I didn't find myself missing my family and all my friends
Crystal most of all!
I've been looking through all of our old photos of us together with a stupid smile on my dumb face even one of us in our 8th-grade play where I was cast to play the sunflower!
But I quickly shove them all away so that I can try to separate my emotions from all this and think about all the pros and cons like how I don't know Japanese or really anything about Japan so there is no way that I could get any work done unless I just make generic kimono impaired jackets forever but this would be my only chance to have a career with my friends… just like we thought we would when we were kids!