InsaneJournal

name: Mina Lee
age: 29
history: Mina's parents were both born in Korea, although her mother (Jin Ae) immigrated to the United States when she was a a child, while Mina's father (Shin) came to the United States when he was older, and he came as a college student. He was staying with cousins of his in the United States, and they were friends with Jin Ae’s family, and introduced the two, and well the rest was history.

Butte was not exactly the place that either of the Lee’s thought that they would end up living -- but life can be strange sometimes. Butte Montana was where the Lee’s ended up, thanks to Jin Ae’s job at St. James Hospital. At first their time in Butte was meant to be short, but despite the fact that there was a gaping pit there in Butte, Butte Montana was where the Lee’s decided to stay and raise their family. After all Jin Ae’s job was good, and Shin had gotten a job working at a hotel and well ... they settled. And when Shin got pregnant they decided that they would settle there, and this would be the state they raised their family in.

So that was how Mina Lee came to be born in Butte, Montana.

The story is that the first word that Mina said was "no". And that that word would become her favorite word as she grew up. Mina will say it wasn't her favorite word, but she will admit that "no" was a word that she used a lot. No, she didn't want to go to bed, no she didn't want to have a bath, no she didn't want to brush her hair, and no she didn't want to wear the clothes that her mother had picked out for her.

Mina has no idea why she was she contrary as a child, and teenager. She has no idea why when people told her to go left, she felt the need to go right. No matter what her parents did to try and curb her behavior (punished her, ignored her behavior, explained it all away as a “phase” she was going through) she just kept doing exactly the opposite of what people wanted her to do. It is just the way she was. She embraced anything flashy, and bright, and anything that seemed “American”, and had little to no interest in her Korean roots. She didn’t rebel against any cause in particular -- she wasn’t an activist of any sort, she just wanted to be contrary.

And Mina’s need to be obstinate and rebel against anything and everything just got worse as she got older. Talking back to her parents became talking back to her teachers, and eventually became Mina skipping classes. Despite her mother asking her not to (and then telling her she could not) Mina dyed her hair blue. She drew “tattoos” on her skin with markers, shop lifted, and was the kid that other parents didn’t want their kids to be friends with.

By the time she was in high school the elder Lee’s were just about at their wits end when it came to Mina, they had no idea what they were going to do with her. Mina for her part was dead set on being a real wild child -- but she had no idea just how “wild” her life was going to get. It all started in the summer between her sophomore and junior years of school, “it” being the “turning into a wolf on nights of the full moon.” Mina has no idea what kicked off the change in her life -- she was fine one month, and the next she had the most epic case of PMS she had ever had, and spent the night howling at the moon because she had turned into a wolf.

After the first change Mina thought she was going crazy. After the second change, she realized that she was certifiable. The third change made her realize that something was going on in her life. Mina became very fond of the library in the aftermath of the first change, although at that time she was researching mental disorders that would make someone think they were a wolf. By the third change she had moved on to researching werewolves, and reading everything she could about them.

While she found no answers in the books as to what was going on with her, Mina did discover that she liked research, and trying to organize information. That wasn’t the only thing that Mina discovered, she also realized what with all these changes going on in her life that she didn’t have much interest in going out of her way to antagonize her parents anymore. For her parents part, they had no idea what had brought about this change in their daughter, but they were thankful for it. Her sister knew what was going on -- because while she couldn’t explain to her parents what was going on, she had to tell someone, and well that someone in this case was her younger sister.

Mina calmed right down, becoming quieter in school, and settling down and getting decent grades. She burned a few bridges in this time, because just flat out stopped hanging out with a lot of her old crowd, and started spending a lot more time at the library, reading and searching for an answer to what was going on with her. She didn’t find any answers, but she did make friends with the local librarians.

After high school, Mina was accepted into the University of Montana to do her bachelor of arts. Missoula wasn’t as far away as Mina wanted to go for school (it was still in the same state as her parents after all) but she went there for school. She managed to get through her four years there without any kind of wolf incident. Sure she changed each full moon, but but she managed to keep that hidden from her college roommates, and keep that from everyone else. She kept a low profile during her time in Missoula, and after four years found herself graduating with a bachelor of arts. And no idea what she was going to do next.

She went into library sciences because honestly -- she had no idea what she was going to do with her undergrad. It was not a love of the library that drove her to go into her field, it was that a friend of hers from The University of Montana was going into Library Sciences so Mina copied her. Plus she got accepted to the library science program offered at Florida State, and she was friends with the librarians at home ... She was also thinking that once she had her degree she could move to some place that was not Butte, and shake off her past as a less then responsible citizen. And she was also hoping that the whole werewolf thing would go away, just as mysteriously as it had started.

Mina was a good student at Florida State, and she also kept the partying to a minimum, and didn’t engage in any behavior that was too wild. Except for the fling that she had with a math major -- and really she didn’t consider that wild behavior, they just had an agreement that they were friends with benefits. And then her friend got her pregnant. Because accidents can happen, even when precautions are being taken.

Mina and her pal were both at a loss as to what they were going to do -- Mina decided early on that she was going to have the baby, and she let the math major know that he could be as involved in the kids life as he wanted to be. But in the meantime, Mina had six months left of school, and had to balance out that with morning slickness, and buying maternity clothes.

In the end Mina and the math major decided that he would help out financially, and be there for their child, but he didn’t want to be with Mina. Mina was fine with that, but she flat out refused to move to Seattle with him after school was done. She was going back to Butte -- and she was going to get a job, and she was going to raise her kid. Of course this meant that she had to tell her parents . . . .

Which she didn’t do until they arrived for her graduation and found Mina, with a very noticeable baby bump. There was drama. There were tears. But in the end Mina graduated Florida State, and moved back to Butte where she delivered her baby girl -- who she named Hana Lee.

Mina got a job work in the library in Butte -- and she’s been working there ever sense. Once a month she snaps at people, slams her desk drawer, but the general consensus is that she’s just got a bad case of PMS. And hey -- it only happens once a month!

appearance: Mina makes a point to dress for the occasion at hand. When she is at work, she wears suit jackets and dress pants (or skits and blouses) and gives off a very “Business casual” kind of vibe. When she’s a home, she dresses down, wearing jeans, and T-shirts. Honestly she’s most comfortable in her sneakers and her T-shirts, and her posture when she’s not at work is more relaxed and open.

Standing at 5”7, Mina tries to wear minimal make up, and leaves her hair stylist in charge of her hair. She use to pay a lot more attention to her hair (using it as a canvas for various colours, all in the name of standing) but now that she is a mom? Well she’s finding that she has less time to spend on herself and how she looks. Honestly if she can get out of the house without food on her, and in socks that match? She feels awesome. (Honestly things were so much easier before Hana was mobile ... and could move Mina’s things on her).

occupation: Mina is a librarian at the local library. She's gone from working the circulation desk to now working the reference desk, and doing some random filling in in the children's programing department (read: she sometimes helps out with the puppet shows). She plans on working her way up to head librarian someday -- and then moving the hell out of Montana.

[[Please note: I'm basing my knowledge on inner library workings based on the way libraries work in my (Canadian) city. I'm guessing it is kind of a universal thing, but I apologize if I'm doing something wrong.]

skills:

• Mina is a graduate of Florida State, having obtained her Master's in Library and Information Studies from that school. She did her undergrad at The University of Montana. So this means ..she knows the dewy decimal system. And that she can navigate the local library database like no ones business.
  
• She is good with computers -- not some sort of super hacking fiend mind you, but she's good with them. She's also getting better at very basic computer repair -- like getting jammed CD-Rom drives open, and doing basic trouble shooting (this comes from working at the library, and dealing with people using the public computer terminals. She's use to responding to people going; "oh my god my start bar vanished -- help!")
  
• Knows the lyrics to quite a few (read: most) Pearl Jam songs. The fact that she's pretty much tone deaf, and can't carry a tune in a bucket means nothing to her. Get a few drinks in her and she thinks she is the karaoke queen.
  
• Can break down in detail the lives, and loves of the cast of the original Beverly Hills 90201.

personality: Mina is a rebel without a cause (and often a clue) who has grown up a bit, and calmed down. There are still some signs of the girl that she use to be in her personality -- but she likes to think that she's grown and matured from teenage Mina. She no longer simply turns right when someone asks her to go left just because, and she doesn’t flip people the finger half as often as she use to.

Mina does not have problems with authority -- anymore. She did when he as younger, and was a bit of a rebel without a clue or a cause. Nowadays she respects the chain of command, and won't go left, simply because the person in charge told her to go right.

Persistent and stubborn, Mina is not the type to take no for an answer. She tends to be of the “go big or go home” school of thought, and doesn't think that you should embark on a project unless your going to give it your all. She doesn't quit, and once she starts on a project she sticks it out to the very end. Even if it turns out that the project s ill advised . . . she’s going to stick it out to the end.

She has a temper problem, and she is aware of it. It takes some poking and prodding at her to get her mad, but than when she loses control she explodes. And it's often something tiny that will set her off, but it's just like the straw that broke the camels back. She'll have so many things annoying her that she's bottled up, that someone cutting her off in traffic results in her cursing swearing laying on the horn, and so on.

Mina works well with others, and is very much a team player. She tends to have bouts of insecurity, so he likes working with a team because he believes that when your working with others, they balance out your weakness while you help balance out theirs.

One of those weaknesses that Hana needs balanced out is the fact that she’s not always the most responsible and organized person ever. She tends to misplace things, and her desk at work is legendary, and the joke is that it doubles as a black hole. In fact the only thing that matches her desk for “black hole status” is her purse. Her purse is worse then her desk as a matter of fact.

Hana is pretty much Mina’s major weakness -- she has a hard time saying no to her little girl (and she knows she spoils her). She’d also do anything for her daughter, and lives in a kind of fear that somehow her daughter is going to end up a werewolf as well. This is one of Mina’s biggest fears -- after all she doesn’t know what caused her own change from regular human to werewolf, so there’s no way for her to tell her daughter to avoid certain activities.

She also realizes that in some sense she is becoming her parents as she has found herself resulting to saying; "because mommy said so." to her daughter, when she gets fed up with trying to come up with answers the endless stream of "whys"?

She suffers from some pretty epic werewolf PMS, and is just ... well a beast to be around the day of the full moon.

likes: Pearl Jam songs, singing karaoke (she might be terrible at it, but she enjoys it), reading, gardening, not having her baths interrupted by a [age of Hana] asking 'what are you doing?', her family.
dislikes: People who don't treat books with respect, her family (she loves them, but they also drive her nuts -- but that's what family does right?), the full moon, dogs.

type: Lunar Werewolf
ability: N/A