CHAMBERS, Michaela

[Michaela Chambers]

Went back home again this sucks gotta pack up and leave again.
Say goodbye to all my friends, can't say when I'll be there again.


character name: Michaela Genya Chambers
significance: Michaela was not named because of the meaning, but its origin is Hebrew and means “who resembles god.” Quite the shoes to fit into if you ask me. Michaela got her name because her mother found it beautiful and it sounded a bit like her own , Ishara. They coincided together, if you will. Her middle name is easy enough to figure out, Russian in origin and is the female form of her father’s name Gennadi. Genya means “maiden” which is suitable enough. Her last name is a typical, common English name that her father inherited from his American, but unremembered father.
age: 18
gender: Female
hair & face:Michaela has beautiful ebony hair that falls in natural waves down to the middle of her back. She gets it trimmed to keep it at this length and has only once cut her hair to a short bob. When she was eight she decided to donate her hair to “Locks of love” but was so devastated with the outcome that she never did it again. Her hair is sort of like her signature mark, the one thing that will never change about her. It has a natural wave but she can also curl it very easily or straighten the ends. Usually she lets it hang down and her hair is of a thick, textured consistency. Mika has many chopped layers to give it even more drama and volume, and though its one solid color now she has been known to put a few crazy colored highlights – like bright red or fushia pink. Michaela’s head and face is oval and heart-shaped with an aligned, downturned nose. She has accentuated cheekbones which she is always emphasizing with a pink blush. Her eyebrows are well groomed – they are kept light and raised so they almost always look like she is smiling or stating a question. Michaela was blessed with full and large lips and oval-shaped eyes. Michaela’s eyes provide a sharp contrast to her face with their dark olive green hue. All of her features are very soft so even in her troublesome years it was a challenge for her to look hard or untamed. She looks innocent with her doe eyes and sweet smile – almost, too innocent. There’s bound to be something up behind that pleasant face.

build: She is what many people would call an “exotic” beauty because she has multiple ethnicities. When first looking at Michaela, most would assume she was African American and leave it at that. But she has a very light skin tone and some of her facial features suggest diversity. In fact, Michaela is Haitian, Russian, and good ol’ fashion American. As they don’t know the American’s contribution as far as ethnicity goes, Mika tends to just assume he’s of European descent. Mika has a rather interesting look and you don’t see someone quite like her just any day. She also dresses very differently, and doesn’t follow a particular “style” of fashion. What I mean is that one day she could be dressed like a native Filipino, another day in a bohemian style (which is her favorite), or a teenage New Yorker. To just maintain one style of clothing is far too boring to Michaela. She is of a slim build but is rather athletic with larger arms and thighs. Mika says she’s well-endowed “in the back and in the front” and likes to flaunt it. Hey, show what your mamma gave you right? She is at a very nice height, reaching five feet and six inches with long, curvaceous legs. Michaela says weight is just a number and doesn’t like giving such information out. She is very pretty and appreciates this, but would rather be judged for her character than her looks or style of dress.

other notable physical characteristics: Michaela loves to get henna tattoos – tattoos that are temporary and wash off. She doesn’t like to physically blemish herself but she does have a secret (or not so secret) belly button ring she got on a whim, and one permanent tattoo on her wrist that she has yet to reveal to her family. Bracelets are an awesome invention. Her tattoo is a written line on her wrist that she got at the same time with her friend Luke. It reads “nosce te ipsum”, which means “know thyself.”

face claim: Katerina Graham

god/goddess: N/A
likes:

• Henna tattoos
  
• Swimming and sunbathing
  
• All music
  
• Playing the piano/writing songs
  
• Bohemian everything
  
• Scary movies
  
• Travel/cultures
  
• Hats
  
• Service
  
• Second chances
  
• Parties
  
• Quirky characters
  
• A little bit of danger
  
• Curry
  
• Languages
  
• Friendship
  
• Movie/t.v. marathons
  
• Shopping
  
• Baseball/The Yankees

dislikes:

• Judgmental people
  
• Studying
  
• Dishonesty
  
• Bad examples
  
• Eating dinner before dessert
  
• Being alone
  
• The dark
  
• Jellyfish
  
• Mind games
  
• Cheaters
  
• Golf
  
• Boston Red Socks
  
• Not getting something right/misunderstanding
  
• Divorce
  
• Dreaming
  
• Losing her cool

hobbies:

• Baseball. Michaela loves to play and go to the games. She’s a huge fan of the Yankees so if you got her a ticket to one of their games? She’d be loving you for life. She also sports baseball caps often on her head with her favorite team or music group printed on the front.
  
• Piano. She’s played the piano since she was five years old and has so much talent and potential. Mika has been neglecting it lately and she’s definitely feeling the effects of her laziness when she practices now. She loves the feel of the keys touching the tips of her fingers, and how the music sounds and that she can create new melodies.
  
• Languages. She loves to learn new languages and studies them in her spare time. It’s the only class she enjoys studying for and keeps it a top priority to keep her language skills up-to-date.
  
• She’s a crazy shopper, but rather than go to new designer stores or even stores in the mall, this girl prefers to hit sidewalk stands and vintage clothing shops to get the best deals on her favorite items.
  
• Swimming. She spends a lot of time swimming in the Philippines and when she isn’t there, she’ll hit a public swimming pool in New York. Although honestly, the best part about it is getting to bathe in the free sun on top of her towel and drink from her fruity glass.
  
• Lastly, Michaela does enjoy to party it up with her fellow students. She takes care not to get wild but likes the social aspect of school and going to things like school events. Sometimes Mika wishes she lived in a less populated place where they had footballs and tailgate parties - now that would be something to shout about.

personality:

Michaela likes the freedom to make your own decisions and choose, and like her mother she independent, but to a certain degree. She is perfectly capable of making her own decisions and suffering the consequences, but when she’s had a really rough day or week it’s nice to know that there is someone around who will stay by her and comfort her. Mika turns to her family and her friends for that. She has friends of different backgrounds and personalities, but it’s important to her to have a few close friends that she can share everything with. Having made some serious mistakes in the past few years, Mika is worried that now when she needs them most, her friends might not be there for her. After all, she hadn’t been very supportive, but she is now and she once was. Mika is generally an extremely loyal friend to have by your side. No matter your worries or who they are with, Michaela sticks up for her because she just knows that it’s right and she hates seeing people get hurt. Her “right meter” gets cloudy when there’s an opportunity to reach a goal if she just bends the rules a little bit. When Michaela wants something, she wants it badly and it makes it really hard for her to not steal or fight to get there. She has got her own interesting style and adorns herself in bright colored jewelry and clothing – which can make a very big impression. Sometimes it’s for the good and sometimes… not. Open-minded, she’s not going to judge you because you’re different. At the same time, she takes into consideration what does make you different and if you are a threat to her or her friends you better watch yourself. Michaela is a protector, always has been, and you don’t mess with the people she cares about unless you’re ready for a whole lot of hell coming your way.

She does her best to be honest and there haven’t been too many circumstances where she has felt the need to lie. If she doesn’t like something odds are she will probably tell you to spare you the embarrassment, or save herself hours of torture watching “Pride & Prejudice.” There aren’t too many things a person has a right to lie about in her opinion, and things are best kept in an honest manner. When you are honest with someone straight out, even if it’s complicated, your lies can’t ever come back to bite you. Mika takes the term “what goes around comes around” very seriously and knows karma always gets you. Now, she isn’t always honest, but who is? Most of the time a person can lie and not even notice that they are doing it. She lies if she thinks honesty is just too much for the person to handle at the time, or that telling the truth could cause more problems than it will solve. However, that doesn’t happen much. Really, Mika fesses up when she makes a big mistake. She’s come home before smelling of smoke and when her mother asked if she had a cigarette, Michaela would hang her head and answer “yes.” That way, even when she makes mistakes people know that they can trust her, and trust is probably the most important thing you can receive from another person. You can’t get very far in a relationship if you don’t have a solid foundation. She really does want to be good, she’s just had a few bumps in the road on the way there and is working hard to change the image she has created for herself. Because she spent many times alone or just accompanied with her twin (which when fighting with each other can seem lonelier), Michaela really detests being by herself. It’s a bit frightening and even if she needs quiet to study, she’ll probably stay in a room where another person is nearby. So as you can see, she’s independent in the aspect that Michaela can decide for herself and set goals, but simply being by herself and not getting a second opinion is painful.

Pretty even tempered, she doesn’t get shaken up too much. Even when upset Mika keeps herself collected and thinks it out. Michaela will often say she would do something in a situation that she never really would, sort of like a backseat driver. You know, when someone tells her about their hard day and how they were treated unfairly, Mika would say if it had been her she would have marched right up to them and refused to leave until they gave her what she wanted. She probably wouldn’t, she probably would have done the exact same thing. Still, it really does help her cool off and get over things. Michaela often laughs about it, to shrug it off. While she doesn’t throw outrageous fits, she does hold a grudge for a really long time. She’s a girl, and it’s what most girls do. Michaela lets something fester and she thinks about it so much and often doesn’t get the person being accused of the crime’s side of the story, and it could all be a misunderstanding. She has a lot of misunderstandings and when she finally does listen long enough to get the truth, she feels like a complete idiot. Mika is pretty set in her ways about things and if she believes something to be true or such-and-such happened, it’s difficult to convince the stubborn girl otherwise. She takes a lot of pride in having seen so much of the world and knowing different languages, and to amuse herself she’ll often take class notes or sing to music in a different tongue. Not shy but not overly outgoing, she finds herself in a happy medium. Mika is perfectly alright with being the first to strike up a conversation, but if she’s alone at say a party and the hottest and coolest guy she knew was surrounded by a bunch of other girls, it’s doubtful she’d throw herself in his path and flutter her eyelashes. She’s a bit more old school and she likes it when the guy makes the first move. Michaela can flirt with the best of them as long as she knows there’s something on the other side for her to keep going. She doesn’t completely know what she wants in a guy other than that he be a gentleman and her family and friends like him, but she does tend to lean toward guys who have a mysterious or a bit of a dangerous edge about them. Not someone who’s going to get them killed, but maybe has driven on the edge.

She is a true worrier in every sense of the word. If something is bothering her it will just nag and nag at her until she practically goes insane. If her friend or twin is doing something she knows they shouldn’t Michaela will hardly be able to think or do anything else until it’s over with. She isn’t really as concerned with her own personal safety as she is with people around her. After getting into trouble and being forced to come out of her selfish teenage bubble by doing community service, she has a different outlook on things. She likes to give more than she likes to receive (although you know, receiving is great too) and she attends to other people while in the same moment ends up neglecting herself. Average in her studies, it’s her piano playing talent that makes her stand out. Her father began teaching her the piano when she was five and after some years, a few teachers took it from there and helped the girl hone her skills. It’s a good thing she is gifted in the music department because her grades the last three years have been ghastly. She’s pretty good with science and her other art classes, but math and English? It was the only foreign language she is sure she cannot learn. If she sets her mind to it she can get good grades, but it comes a lot harder for her even after having a private teacher for so many years. She doesn’t focus very well at all and her mind takes her to different places even during the moments she should be paying the most attention. Michaela will sit at her desk and dance her fingers across it like she is playing music. She has headphones on a lot of the time and a variety of different genres pump out of it – hip hop, classic piano, Filipino, you name it she probably has it. Oh, except country. Country makes her ears bleed. Another thing people who know her should be aware of is that she can be a whiner. If you’re forcing her to do something she doesn’t want to do or she’s just not getting it, she’ll whine instead of fixing the problem, especially when it simply cannot be fixed. She has a very competitive edge in the things she does and can be quite a different person on a sports field, in say –baseball. In fact her team members will have to remind her not to be a bully and back off. Whoops.

Michaela is a pretty understanding chick and if you have screwed up somehow and apologize, she’ll more than likely forgive you for it. As such, she expects people to do the same for her. She has a healthy balance between being serious and being funny, and knows that everything has a time and a place. Although it’s not something she is proud of, Mika is rather superstitious and often gets feelings that she can’t seem to ignore. She is much more cautious than she used to be and won’t go somewhere if all doesn’t feel well. It probably annoys a lot of people, but Michaela has a knack for these things and can often be right about it. It’s really fun to go out and party, dance around, scream at the top of her lungs and be wild, and she’ll do it on the weekends, but she’s learned that it is just not something she can do on school nights. She won’t get any sleep, and if she does they’ll be nightmarish and she will be a walking zombie the next day at school. When she isn’t jiggling her feet and on the move, she likes to spend her down times casually shopping with friends or having a movie marathon. Seriously, movies are great and horror movies are hilarious. You can make fun of them without feeling bad, or if they actually are scary, cuddle with the cute guy you’re with. Romance is something every girl needs in her life, and Mika welcomes it. Yet, this big change in her behavior and character that she is trying to accomplish is going to leave her really busy, so any guy in her life is going to have to not be clingy and really relaxed. Michaela becomes easily frustrated when she can’t get something right and turns to her favorite sweets to help her out – pixie sticks. Not only are they comforting but they also make her hyper like nobody has ever seen. When she isn’t hanging with the wrong crowd because of her parent’s divorce or going through a rough patch, the eighteen-year—old is rather mature all things considered and has a good head on her shoulders. Now if only she could keep it there, that would be great. NYU baby, that’s the goal.


character’s parents:

Ishara Chambers – 41, mother: Ishara grew up in Haiti and New York. She is a kind, understanding mother but is extremely tough and is capable of enduring almost anything. She likes to learn about new people and cultures.

Gennadi Chambers – 43, father: Gennadi is a Russian-American international relations worker who has travelled most of his life. He was raised by women and as a result is very gentle, but also hard working. He has a problem with drinking and he and Ishara are currently separated and have been for four years. He lives in the Philippines.


siblings:

Chambers – 18, Michaela’s twin: I have left this open in case I find someone who would like to take them up as a charrie.

other family members of note: N/A

history:
Where did Michaela come from? If you know a little about her history then it’s no wonder she has identity issues. Her mother was originally from Haiti, but was adopted from a couple living in the states when she was twelve-years-old. Michaela, or “Mika”, learned fluent French from her mother, which she primarily spoke. She also speaks English because her mother was adopted by English speaking Americans and thus to communicate, she had to learn. Michaela’s father was born and raised in Moscow, Russia – hence contributing to his daughter’s already extensive vocabulary and adding Russian to her language list, although she is by no means fluent in the language. Lastly, Michaela speaks fluent Filipino because of the amount of time she spent there as a child. Michaela considers herself both Filipino and American, although she was born in and has citizenship for the United States. Michaela’s mother is also a USA citizen, but her father maintains his Russian status. Got all that? Don’t worry, it took Mika a long time to understand it completely as well. Let’s start at the beginning, all the way back to Michaela’s grandparents. There isn’t much to say when speaking about Ishara’s (Michaela’s mother) parents. Ishara’s parents and two younger brothers were killed in an attempted government overthrow bombing and left the little girl entirely on her own. They were on a busy street when things got violently out of hand. Her parents were among the first to be killed, and tear gas and police came soon following after the incident. Ishara had no other family, or at least none that could financially take care of her and she was sent to an orphanage. The conditions were far from the best and the overwhelming amount of children gave her an isolated childhood. She became an orphan at six years old, left home alone while her parents and baby twin brothers promised to “be right back.” Ishara was very used to having next-to-nothing, and it was a miracle as well as a scary experience when to foreign Americans with white skin came to the orphanage and met her. She was nine at the time and it took three years for them to be able to adopt the now blossoming girl. Her adopted father spoke some French so it was possible to communicate, but learning an entirely new language with so many exceptions was a great challenge. Not to mention beginning school and catching up to all the years she had missed. She lived in a home with five other children of various ages, all who came from broken or no homes at all. Her parents were older and could have no children of their own, and devoted their lives to taking care of impoverished children before deciding to take some in with them. Ishara learned about people from different backgrounds but she didn’t get along with most of her “siblings.” They had had difficult past experiences and it made three of them very rough and difficult to deal with.

Ishara struggled to keep up in school. While children her age were in pre-algebra and reading three-hundred page novels, she was still trying to learn to read (especially in English) and multiply. She was very disheartened at times but her adoptive mother was a strong stay-at-home support. They didn’t have much money, having spent most of their lives doing volunteer work overseas, but they made it work. Ishara learned to march to her own beat and had…interesting friends. She came to America completely terrified, but that difficult experience made it so she was very open to what most of the world had to offer. After she graduated from High School, she attended community college and went overseas for a study abroad program in Russia. There Ishara met Gennadi Chambers, a foreign relations worker born to a Russian mother and American father. No man had ever paid attention to her before like Gennadi did. She often slipped away from her college group to spend some time with him. Of course, this got her into a lot of trouble but Ishara didn’t care. Ishara was pretty but she never thought of herself as something truly special – Gennadi did. She was fascinated by Russian culture and after running into him at an open air market, it was love at first…misunderstanding. You see, Ishara didn’t speak Russian and Gennadi didn’t speak English. It was quite the interesting situation but they both will say to this day that body language should never be underestimated. Gennadi had an extremely different upbringing than Ishara’s (or lack thereof.) His mother Dina married his father Robert after posting herself as a mail bride. Without knowing this stranger she went overseas and married a man she had never once met, and only had a picture of. It worked out surprisingly well given the circumstances. He treated her with respect and she was a devoted wife in return. Robert was quite a bit older than Dina, by ten years to be exact. However things began to slowly unravel the longer Dina was away from her country. She longed to be back there with the family that had sent her away and the language. Try as she might, English didn’t fit right on her tongue and Robert had to speak her way. Matters began to complicate and both became miserable, and eventually Dina ran back home to Russia. As it turns out, she was pregnant. She raised her son whom she named Gennadi with her family but they kept the last name of his father – Chambers. It was the least she could do.

Twenty-six years later Gennadi, who had graduated from Moscow University with a degree in foreign affairs, was shopping at the market for some fresh fruit when he bumped into a woman who was extremely out of the element. First of all she looked like a tourist, and secondly , she was black. Russia was full of Caucasians and people of Asian descent, so Ishara stuck out like a sore thumb. So did her lack of communication, for when he apologized, “Ïðîøó ïðîùåíèÿ!” Ishara looked more than startled. What could she say back. “Oh I’m sorry. I don’t speak Russian.” Which of course, made no sense what-so-ever to a man who spoke Russian and Filipino. That was their first meeting, and when he locked eyes with the exotic beauty Gennadi knew he couldn’t just walk away. She was of far more worth to him than a Russian girl. Perhaps it was because he was raised by women instead of a man, but he had a strange sense of respect for ladies, something that just isn’t common in Russian culture. He signed some things at her, Ishara laughed bashfully, and she ended up introducing (or at least trying to) him to her group of college friends. As they say, the rest was history. She snuck away from the hotel at night to meet him, on occasion someone would translate for them – but mostly they relied on each other’s looks and feelings to express what they couldn’t in words. They consider that a deeper kind of relationship that’s beyond the surface of speech. Of course, they understand each other now because Gennadi learned English, but they still have that special bond from when they first met. Michaela’s parents are not officially married. They have very non-conventional ideas about what it means to be together and they don’t feel they need a piece of paper to prove they are in love. Ishara abandoned her college study abroad group, refusing to go back. The college was in an uproar but she had contacted them to allow them to know she was alright but wouldn’t be returning. That just is not something you can do and they searched for her, but Ishara was nowhere to be found and Russia is a huge country. She called and formally withdrew from school, spoke to her adoptive parents. They definitely had not expected this, but she came to them at an older age and although they loved her, they never felt she truly belonged to them. They knew they had helped her along her way and provided her shelter and love, but Ishara was more than half-way grown by the time she came to America, and was always about making her own decisions. She had learned not to be dependent on other people and didn’t like being told what to do. Thus her parents had no choice but to agree with her decision in order to keep contact. Ishara had to leave the country a few times and travel to Korea in order to get her visa renewed. She was seeing more of the world and she loved it. A year after meeting, Ishara and Gennadi had a little ceremony to officially declare their devotion to one another. He was getting very good with his English, and she knew bits and pieces of Russian here and there. Finally, they made a visit back to the states and her parents welcomed them with open arms. While she was there, they discovered that Ishara was pregnant and decided it would be best for her to have the baby in America. Gennadi had to go back to Russia for work, and it was the hardest months of her life…even worse than her years in an orphanage in Haiti.

Michaela Chambers was born at a nice and healthy eight pounds. And, surprise! She was born with a twin, which definitely had not been expected, although it made sense as to why Ishara’s stomach had been so freaking huge. Michaela was given an American name that had a similar rhyme to it as Ishara’s, and her middle name was a tribute to her father. Michaela was officially an American New Yorker, however she would be travelling much of her life. Gennadi’s international relations job gave Michaela and her mother the opportunity to see many different countries, although they only took up residence in America and the Philippines. Her and her twin’s childhood was very unconventional and exciting, although sometimes she wished she could stay in one spot. Mika had friends in both her home residence in New York and the Philippines, and she also went with her father sometimes on vacation to places like England, the Bahamas, and India. It was a life many would dream of and while Michaela really loved the lifestyle she got to experience, it could leave her feeling a bit lonely on trips – missing her friends. She had her twin and they had a tight bond, but it wasn’t the same. She didn’t attend conventional school until she was thirteen. Then Michaela’s parents decided against more homeschooling and sent her and her twin to a New York public school. Her parents continued to live in the Philippines because of Gennadi’s job situation, and she came home to visit them every summer and on the holidays. It was difficult for her to always be away from someone. No matter where she was – there was somebody to miss. She had the best of both worlds and at the same time – not at all. Mika and her sibling stayed with her adoptive grandparents while they attended middle school and High school, and made several friends along the way. She was found interesting at least, because of her worldly adventures and talent with multiple languages.

During her summers, she spent a lot of time on the beach and out in the sun. She loved the people and the beautify scenery of the Philippines, but still doesn’t enjoy the occasional political turmoil that occurs in the country. Meanwhile, New York is huge and there are plenty of opportunities and interesting lifestyles, but she often feels like another number that doesn’t really count for anything. If Michaela was really given a choice of where her heart lied, it wouldn’t be a tough decision. However, New York was the most reasonable choice for her right now because it had more job opportunities and she wasn’t getting stared at all the time because of her skin color. A really difficult time for Michaela and the family was when she was fourteen. They lost both of their grandmas within the same year. Her father took it a lot harder than her mother and began to distance himself. It caused wear on the family and eventually it was decided that a separation was for the best. They aren’t divorced obviously, since they were never married to begin with, but it’s practically the same thing. He comes to see Michaela and her twin but there’s always an uncomfortable awkwardness between her parents when they set eyes on each other. Michaela really struggled during that period of time and really messed up. She got herself into some trouble and spent a lot of time doing community service. Now at seventeen Mika is doing the best she can at straightening up and becoming the person she used to know. She burned a lot of bridges but she knows what she is capable of. Mika is going through her last year of high school and will do practically anything to redeem herself and somehow get into NYU – even if that means using a bit of her old ways to get there. A few graffiti, alcohol, drug abusing years hasn’t screwed up her future completely, has it? Michaela truly is a smart girl who deserves a whole lot more than she has given herself. She’s a musical prodigy on the piano, and instrument that kept her sane those lonely nights in a foreign country, and though she knows Julliard has got to be out the window, it doesn’t mean all her chances to go to a good college have to be given up. She’s got the talent, now it’s time to see if she has the humility and determination to see it through.


password: SPOCK!
username: michaelachambers
gender: I only have X chromosomes
age: Foreverrrrr young
other characters you play: Luke Shaw

[Freyja]

ACCEPTED!
awesome app, kay. <3