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fanfictionaries · 4 years

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Love and Academia Ch.9 - Cold Beer and Crossed Lines

Pairing: AU Professor!Bucky x OFC

Warnings: Swearing, smut, NSFW/18+ only, mentions of death/violence/suicide, Angst

Author’s note: A little attraction. A little flirting. A little Clint. A whole lot of Bucky and Emily!

Also: Holy cow! 5.5k words?? Longest Bucky chapter and longest chapter I’ve ever written on anything to be honest.

And as always, I do not currently have a beta reader so please excuse any larger issues. It’s just little ol’ me!

***

It should be illegal for cookies to taste this delicious. It should be even more illegal for the person who baked them to look so delicious. Bucky watched Emily as she took that Friday afternoon to tidy the lab. A group of visiting middle schoolers had spent the better part of the afternoon with them, learning about science, plants, and ecology and now the room was in shambles. Not that it was very clean to begin with. He had no idea why, but a universal truth existed about ecology labs – they were always a mess. Perhaps it was the lack aseptic technique required for their experiments. It might also have to do with the exorbitant amount of time they spent in the field, their camping materials, hiking boots, and lab equipment almost always coming back caked in mud. Nevertheless, you’d never find yourself in a spic and span ecology lab. The concept was practically an oxymoron.

Still, the mess the middle schoolers left was quite impressive and as his diligent graduate student, Emily had volunteered to clean up and put everything back into place. He watched her through the office window that looked out into the rest of the lab. Her hair was down today the long golden strands cascading down her back in thick waves. If he focused hard enough, he could just remember the silky, soft feel of it threaded through his fingers. She wore the same pair of baggy, paint-covered jeans as the day he walked into his office to find her dancing amongst the piles of Dr. Erskine’s book. They were high-waisted, synched tight at her small waste by a belt, but hanging loose everywhere else. It wasn’t until she bent over to pick something up that he could see the outline of her perky ass and full thighs. Currently, she was on her tiptoes attempting to place a large fluorescent light on top of a cabinet causing the bottom of her shirt to ride up and reveal the creamy skin of her ribcage. God, did she have to wear such little shirts? Not that he thought it would make much of a difference. The girl could probably come to school in a parka and he’d still get an erection watching her.

He didn’t know when the line of propriety in his mind had been crossed, but he was currently miles past it with no intention of turning back. The best he could do at this point, would be to come to a screeching halt and take five where he was. However, that was a little hard to do when everywhere he went, there she was. When he taught his classes, she was there. Sitting in the front row, idly doodling in her notebook, pen flipping in her delicate fingers, long legs crossing and uncrossing over each other. Often times, he found himself losing his concentration mid-sentence, too focused on the way Emily’s lips wrapped around the end of her pen. Even in the seemingly sweet solitude of his lab she was ever present. It didn’t matter what day or what time, she was there. Headphones on, working diligently at her desk. Dr. Erskine hadn’t been kidding when he said she was a hard worker. The amount of time she spent grinding away at her work bordered on unhealthy – bordered on his work ethic.

He had an excuse of course. He was using his work as a distraction. He always had. When Jenny Haver broke up with him his first year of graduate school, he locked himself in his room and didn’t come out until two weeks later, a full PhD proposal written to perfection. Is that what Emily was doing too? Avoiding something? Using her work as a distraction? He couldn’t imagine what it would be. She always seemed so happy and bright. Every morning, she swept into the lab like an early spring breeze, fresh and invigorating. Often times the day didn’t feel like it began until he saw her smile. Not that he would ever admit that to anyone. Even himself. She was his student. What he was experiencing was simply a basic case of carnal attraction. It was biological. Unavoidable.

“Hey, Dr. Barnes.” His wandering mind was brought back by the woman in question, standing in the doorway of his office. Despite their more relaxed relationship, she still kept her distance whenever she could, and she still insisted on calling him by his professional title. Probably for the best.

“Emily, what can I do for you?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light and friendly and free of any hint that he had been ogling her moments before.

“I’m taking off early today. I wanted to let you know, I’ll have the rough draft for my introduction to you by Monday,” she said, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear.

“Yea sounds good. Any fun plans for the weekend?” He wished he could pretend that he’d only asked to be polite, but truthfully, he wanted to know more about her. He needed to.

Emily rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, “Oh yea. Major fun. That is, if working all weekend is considered fun. I’ll be swimming in it.”

“Whoa there, someone better real you in before you get too out of hand,” Bucky said dryly, joining in on the joke.

“I know, an absolute menace to society.”

“The worst.”

They smiled at each other, finding a soft comfort in their banter. It was not the kind of joke that brought you to audible laughter. Instead, it filled you with a warmth and fondness that stuck with you. The thought of it possessing the ability to make you smile for days, months, even years.

“What, um, what about you?” Emily asked, shifting her weight and leaning against the doorframe.

“Oh, well I’ve got midterm grading to do. I might meet up with Steve for a few beers.” Bucky didn’t actually have plans with Steve, but he found himself making up the detail on the spot. The need for his life to seem less boring taking over momentarily.

“Oh fun…so it looks like you liked them.” Emily pointed towards the plate of almost finished cookies on his desk.

“Yea, they’re delicious,” he complimented, watching as Emily chewed her bottom lip as her gaze focused on the plate of snickerdoodles. She appeared to be deep in thought, the contents of it becoming clear when a dusky blush began to spread across her cheeks.

Clearing her throat, she snapped out of her trance and pulled her eyes away from the plate of delicious treats, making an effort to look anywhere but him. Realization flooded through Bucky, his mind wandering back to their texts from the previous night. Apparently, the exchange hadn’t been as one sided as he thought. He hadn’t meant for the text to sound so sexual when he sent it. Truthfully, it was a case of mistype, having forgotten to tack on the ‘s’ at the end of the word cookies. It wasn’t until the text was sent that he realized his mistake and how it might be construed. He thought about sending a follow up text immediately to correct it, but something had stopped him. Some sick, depraved part of himself wanted to know how she’d react. Emily in a whole was an enigma. Ever since their truce, he’d tried to spot any hint of the confident, sexy, bold woman he’d met that night at the bar. Something to prove to himself that it was her raw sexual prowess and the memory of it that weakened his resolve. However, that version of her had since been seen again. Instead, in its place was a sweet, intelligent, and sarcastic woman. A little shy. A little quiet. Funny. He didn’t know how to justify that in his mind. How to justify his attraction to that version of her in his mind.

“Well, have a good weekend,” Emily said softly, disappearing from his doorway before Bucky even had the opportunity to respond.

He sighed, burying his head in his hands and taking a deep breath before raking his palms over the rough stubble on his cheeks. He needed a distraction. Something entirely graduate student free. His thoughts wandered to his lie about hanging out with Steve. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.

Picking up his phone, he opened his recent call list. Mom. Mom. Mom. Sister. Steve. Clicking on Steve’s number, the phone rang.

“Hey Buck, what’s up?” Steve’s voice asked from the other end, the screams and shouts of little kids sounding from the background.

“Hey Stevie, I’m not bugging you at work, am I?”

“No, no. We’re on our second recess of the day. I’m monitoring. What’s up?” he asked again.

“Just wanted to see if you were free to grab dinner and a few beers tonight. There’s this place near my house I’ve been wanting to try,” Bucky said, leaning back in his chair.

“Yea—” Steve’s answer was cut short by a loud screech somewhere on his end “—Jackson, stop. Put that down!” Bucky heard Steve scold; his voice more distant as he spoke to the children around him. “Yea. That sounds good. Just text me the place and time and I’ll meet you ther—Martha, that’s not how we talk to our friends.”

Bucky laughed, accustomed to half conversations with Steve when he was at work.

“Alright punk. I’ll see you tonight.” He hung up, not bothering to wait for a response. He knew he wouldn’t get one. When Steve was around his kids, they dominated all of his attention. He lived for those kids, every one of them. Just looking at the impressive cut of Steven Grant Rogers, you’d never think that his life’s calling was wiping snotty noses and teaching the ABCs. But one conversation with the human embodiment of a basket of yarn, you very quickly realized that he wasn’t fit for much else. Allegedly, and while Bucky had seen the pictures he still wasn’t fully convinced, Steve used to be just a sprig of a thing. Barely over five feet tall and a buck twenty soaking wet. He had told Bucky years ago in college that he’d hit a growth spurt halfway through high school and taken up weightlifting to stop getting his ass handed to him every day. But secretly, he believed the real reason behind his impressive growth in mass was to be able to one day lift his entire kindergarten class with one arm. He’d personally seen his best friend hold up ten giggling five year old’s dangling from a single arm like little monkeys.

No, tonight would be good. An extra-large pizza split between them both and one too many beers was just what the doctor ordered. Maybe a game or two of pool if they had a table. If not, he would be perfectly content with bullshitting and talking about the old days. This was just what he needed to clear his mind of Emily.

Four hours later Bucky was walking through the side entrance to Goody’s still reeling from the conversation he’d had with his mother. She wanted him to come home for thanksgiving. He did not. Let the argument commence. He loved his mother. He really did. And he knew she meant well. He really did. But he also hated her inability to respect his boundaries. He really did.

As he entered the small pizza joint and bar, he was pleased to see a few decent and empty pool tables in the far corner. Spotting Steve already sitting down at a table, two beers and giant steaming pizza before him, Bucky headed towards him.

“Got here early so I ordered for you,” said Steve, standing up to pull Bucky into a brief hug. Bucky slapped a hand on his friends back before pulling back and looking down at the pizza. Extra-large meat lovers. Extra cheese.

“Aww darling, my favorite. You remembered,” Bucky teased, sitting down and taking a large sip of the lager. Setting his pint glass down, he reached forward and grabbed a piece of pizza, the cheese stretching with a perfectly melted consistency.

“Well you know, I wanted to try the alfredo pizza they had, but someone refuses to eat anything but the most testosterone filled, artery clogging pizza.”

Bucky shrugged, taking a large bite of his slice and speaking through the pizza as he chewed, “Hey man, why bother with anything but perfection?”

“Well I can’t argue with that logic,” laughed Steve, grabbing a slice himself.

“Oh, my mom wanted me to tell you that she got your card,” Bucky remarked, remembering his mother’s parting request right before he ended their call. Every year Steve sent out a card with a picture of him and his new group of kids to all his family, that list seemed to include his parents.

“Oh great! How is Winni?”

Bucky sighed, “She wants me to come home for thanksgiving. I told her I was spending thanksgiving with your family. By the way, can I come to thanksgiving?”

“Yea, you’re more than welcome Buck,” Steve laughed before taking on a more serious tone, “Are they all still on your case for moving?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He rolled his eyes, taking another swig of his beer. “Mom figures I should have stayed after everything with Diane. But, fuck, the last thing I wanted to do was be closer to her and all those memories. Plus, her and my sister still baby me over the whole thing. I’m a grown man. I don’t need their coddling. It’s been almost a year and a half.”

“I get that. Took nearly two years for Mary and my mom to stop trying to take care of me after Peggy left me. Nearly lost my mind, but they finally got the memo that I was okay. Are you…okay that is?” Steve asked, leaning forward on the table, eyebrows raised in concern.

Bucky had to think for a moment. Was he okay? For months he had felt consumed by the emptiness Diane’s departure from his life had left. The world had felt so bleak. He held so much anger towards her. For leaving. For giving up the way that she did. But now, things felt different. He didn’t know when it had happened but waking up in the morning no longer felt like a chore.

“Yea, I think I am,” he answered truthfully, finding realization and catharsis in the statement.

“Good. Good, man. I’m really happy to hear that Buck.”

They shared a brief smile before Steve’s morphed into a mischievous glint, “So does that mean you’re ready to get back out there?”

Bucky snorted, shaking his head, “Let’s just take this one step at a time, alright pal? But speaking of dating, how are things going with you and Natasha?”

Bucky watched as the smile on Steve’s face widened, the tips of his ears turning bright red.

“You dog. That good?”

“Better. I uh…yea. Definitely better.”

Bucky laughed, taking another bite of pizza. Well, at least one of them was getting laid. He was happy for Steve. Even during his entire relationship with Peggy he’d never seen him so smitten.

“There she is!” A chorus of cheers and greetings flowed through the air from the bar behind him. Bucky didn’t think much of it until he heard the sound of a familiar voice.

“I know. I know. Maria had me in the basement doing inventory.”

Turning in his chair, Bucky was surprised to see Emily, standing behind the bar, chit-chatting with a group of older men and women. So much for a night free of his graduate student.

“Where have you been girl? We haven’t seen you in forever!” asked the patron near the end – an older woman with greying hair and kind eyes.

“I know. I’m sorry! My day job has been kicking my butt lately. But, it will all be worth it once I graduate,” Emily laughed, leaning against the bar top.

Bucky watched her as she interacted with the group. She seemed comfortable. At ease. The group must be regulars.

A throat clearing pulled him away from Emily and back to Steve, who looked at him smugly, “I could use another beer. Why don’t you run up to the bar and grab me one Buck?”

Bucky nodded, downing the rest of his and standing, “I’ll be back in a sec.”

“Uh huh, sure. Take your time man.”

Walking up to the bar, Bucky watched as Emily’s gaze passed over him and then doubled back, a smile spreading across her face.

“I guess you weren’t lying when you told me you were a bartender,” he said, setting his and Steve’s empty glasses down on the bar top. Emily raised an eyebrow, leaning forward on her elbows.

“Half-truth Dr. Barnes. Graduate student most of the time. Bartender sometimes.”

“I don’t suppose the sometimes you’re a bartender, you could call me Bucky?”

Emily breathed deeply, scrutinizing him through squinted eyes, “No, I don’t think I can.”

“Oh, come on. I don’t have any leverage as your advisor for you to change your mind?” Bucky asked mischievously.

“That sounds an awful lot like abuse of power Dr. Barnes—" Emily replied, a similar mischievous glint in her eye “—Now, what can I get you?”

“What do you recommend?”

“Can’t go wrong with a Caribou Slabber,” Emily stated resolutely, grabbing two pint glasses from the shelves behind her.

“Alright, I’ll take your word for it. Two of those and uh, two waters.” Bucky pulled his wallet from his pocket and leaned against the bar, rubbing at the rough stubble on his cheeks as Emily poured his beers. Emily laughed, a small light thing.

“What?” asked Bucky.

“Watta,” Emily repeated, imitating his accent crudely.

“It’s not that thick,” Bucky defended himself good naturedly.

“Whatever you say Brooklyn.”

Bucky laughed, the sound of the nickname rolling off her tongue made something tug in his chest. Shaking it off, he pulled out some cash and placed thirty dollars on the bar top in exchange for their drinks.

“Keep the change.”

“Thanks,” said Emily, “Say hi to Steve for me. Let me know if I can get anything else for you.”

A few hours later Bucky found himself in an aggressive game of one-pocket. Many hours spent in their dorm hall rec room had resulted in their shared skill at pool and they had a bad habit of getting a little competitive.

“Is that the best you can do?” Steve taunted when Bucky made his second scratch of the night.

Bucky sighed, standing up straight and taking a large gulp of Caribou Slabber. She really did have good taste in beer. “Shut up punk. I taught you how to play. Remember?”

“And now, the student has surpassed the teacher—” Steve shrugged, watching as Bucky eyes diverted towards the bar for the hundredth time that night “—okay. What’s going on?”

“What?” Bucky asked, feigning innocence and stupidity.

“Oh please. You can’t stop looking over at her. Is there something going on?”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not. She’s not even over there right now!” Bucky scoffed.

Steve rolled his eyes, letting out a curt mhmm. Bucky knew he didn’t believe him. He was no stranger to Steve’s ‘I know best and you know nothing’ look. But he was telling the truth. Nothing was going on between him and Emily.

“Whatever. Believe me. Don’t believe me. I’m going to take a piss—” he propped his pool stick against the side of the table “—and if I come back and you’ve moved any of those balls, I’m coming for you punk. Don’t even try it! I’ve got that table memorized!” Bucky called out behind him and he headed towards the back of the bar where the restrooms were located.

Rounding the corner, he was stopped abruptly by the sight of Emily with some guy. Crowding her space, the man stood only a few inches above her looking frustrated. Emily’s posture was closed off, her arms crossed in front of her looking away from him and at the doors to the restrooms. He should have turned away. It was none of his business. But something kept him planted in the stop, moving forward a few inches to listen in.

“See, this is what I’m talking about Em! You won’t open up to me. You never would! I mean, I mess up once and now you won’t even talk to me.” Interesting.

“Mess up? Mess up? Clint, you did the one thing, the one thing, I explicitly told you not to do!”

“I know. I know. But I promise it will never happen again. Just give me a chance! Couples get past this sort of thing all the time,” Clint pleaded, placing a hand on her arm that Emily promptly shrugged off.

“I can’t Clint. I told you how important faithfulness and honesty were to me. I made that explicitly clear at the beginning of our relationship and you agreed. You agreed and you still slept with Sharon! I mean, how long has it been going on?”

The man was quiet. Bucky’s stomach dropped. He should walk away. He should really walk away.

“How long Clint?” Emily asked again, this time her voice a little weaker.

“A year and a half.” Bucky might not have been sure he had heard the answer correctly if it wasn’t for Emily’s boisterous reaction.

“A year and a half?! Are you kidding me Clint? Almost our entire relationship? God. I can’t even look at you.” Emily turned to walk away, but Clint caught her by her forearm, yanking her back and against the wall. “Ow!”

“Em don’t walk away. Listen to me! I can explain!”

“Let go of me Clint,” Emily said through gritted teeth.

“No, not until you listen to what I have to say,” Clint responded, desperation and anger evident in his voice.

Bucky, no longer able to watch the exchange, stepped forward, “Hey, back the fuck off man. She told you to let go.”

The coupled looked towards him as he stalked down the hallway, anger seething through him. Who the hell did this guy think he was?

“Listen buddy, this isn’t any of your business,” said Clint in annoyance.

“Like hell it is—” Bucky grabbed Clint by the shoulder and pulled him away from Emily, before turning to her “—are you okay Emily?”

“You really don’t have to do this,” Emily said to Bucky. But the way her posture relaxed, and her arms opened from around her body said differently. She was relieved he had stepped in.

“Do you know this guy Em?” Clint asked, stepping forward.

Bucky swept around, placing himself between Emily and Clint. He towered over the man, using both his height and size to intimidate. Though, he reckoned the flaming, red-hot rage in his eyes would be enough to send him running. He was seething. Every ounce of his self-control kept him from absolutely clobbering the douchebag.

“Just go Clint!” Emily called over Bucky’s shoulder.

Clint laughed, no humor found in his expression or tone, “Are you fucking this guy Em? Is that why you won’t talk to me? Already slutting around?”

Bucky wanted to punch him. Bucky almost punched him. But the soft touch of Emily’s hand on his bicep kept him in check. Turning his head, he caught the desperate plea in her eyes and knew that beating this guy to a pile of mush would be the wrong thing to do. So instead, he took slow and calculated steps towards him until Clint was pressed against the wall opposite them. Bucky watched as the cockiness quickly melted from his face and in its place, fear resided. Jabbing a large finger into his chest, Bucky spoke low and menacingly.

“If I ever see you lay another hand on her, I will personally make sure you regret it. I will not hesitate to kick the ever loving shit out of you. Do I make myself clear?”

Clint nodded frantically, eyes shifting from Bucky and the exit.

“Now, I never want to see you around her or this place ever again. Got it?”

“Yea man, I get it! Just let me go,” Clint pleaded.

“Everything alright here?” Steve’s voice sounded from the hallway entrance.

“Yea. Clint here was just leaving. Mind walking him to the door?”

Steve took a moment to assess the situation behind speaking in a casual tone, “Not at all. Come on Clint.”

Clint’s eyes seemed to go wide when he took in the even more massive man. Steve clasped a hand on Clint’s shoulder and guided him out of sight. Letting out a long breath, Bucky closed his eyes and counted to ten, calming himself before turning back to Emily.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asked, taking a moment to scan his eyes over her.

Emily nodded, biting her lower lip and leaning against the wall behind her.

“No, you’re not. Do you need me to wait for you to get off and walk you home?” Bucky asked, lifting her right arm up to look at it more closely. No bruises. Yet.

“I’m, uh, I’m actually already off. I was headed out of the bathroom when he cornered me,” Emily said, rubbing at her face.

“Okay, let’s get you home then. Come on.”

Bucky and Emily left Goody’s after he explained everything to Steve. His best friend didn’t seem upset about cutting their night short at all. Instead, he told them to make it home safely and that he also made sure Clint would not be coming around any time soon. They walked in silence, the only thing keeping the darkened street alight, the soft yellow lights of streetlamps and porchlights. The walk was very reminiscent of the last time they had found themselves walking the streets of Pocatello late in the evening. The only thing different this time was the lack of Trixie by their side and Bucky’s arm slung over her shoulders protectively. She needed someone to take care of her in that moment. He knew solely from the fact that instead of shying away from his touch, she leaned into it all the way to her apartment.

She hadn’t been lying when she’d said she lived close to him. Her complex was only about a half mile from his house. The manufactured building held no personality, the white siding and grey trim creating uniform replications of the same apartments. However, Emily knew exactly where she was going, leading him towards her apartment with a practiced ease. When she unlocked her front door, she walked right in, leaving the door open. Bucky took this as an invitation to follow her. When he stepped into her place, he found it to be surprisingly lacking in any sentimentality. In fact, it looked half empty. No pictures hung on the walls. No nick-knacks or keep sakes. Just furniture and the odd piece of decoration. It was messy, but not too messy. The small dining room table was clear, but the coffee table held notebooks, pens, and her laptop. A pile of blankets and pillows sat on the single couch in the living room.

As if sensing where his gaze was focused, Emily spoke over her shoulder as she disappeared into a back hall, “You can have a seat on the couch. Just shove the blankets out of the way. I’ll be right back.”

Bucky made his way to the couch, picking up the patchwork quilt. The fabric was soft in his hand, the cotton material aged in just the right way. The individual squares were neat and colorful and held a warmth that Bucky only felt as a child when he visited his grandparents’ house. The intimacy of the quilt overwhelmed him. It was too personal. The situation felt too personal. He shouldn’t be there.

Just as he made to drop the quilt and walk towards the door, Emily reemerged donning a pair of sweats and fuzzy socks.

“Hi,” Bucky said, his mouth dry. Something about seeing her like this, looking so small and vulnerable, felt both wrong and horribly right.

“Hi,” Emily responded, walking towards him and giving a quizzical look at the quilt and then him.

“Oh, I was just admiring it. It’s really beautiful, the quilt I mean.”

Emily pulled it from his hands, hugging it to her chest as she sat down on the couch, “Thanks. It was my grandma’s.”

There was a long pause, a heavy weight filling the space between them.

“Do you wanna’ talk about it?” he asked.

There was a long pause as Emily tried to decide whether she wanted to discuss the events that had occurred that night. Bucky waited with bated breath. Then, with a deep sigh, Emily began to talk.

“We met the summer before the second year of my PhD. Mutual acquaintances. Department barbeque. He seemed nice. We moved in together after a year. And then a year later, a month and half ago to be exact, I found him in our bed with his lab mate, Sharon.” Emily picked at the quilt in her lap and brought her feet up onto the couch, turning towards him. “I kicked him out the same day. Haven’t spoken to him till tonight.”

Bucky was quiet, opting to simply allow her to tuck her feet below his thigh and listen.

“At first, I was upset, but as time’s gone on, I’m realizing that I probably wasn’t upset for the right reason. I felt hurt. But not because I loved him. I should have loved him. I think. We were together for so long. We lived together. But…” She laughed. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. I don’t usually…Nat says I like to bottle things up and make bad jokes at my own expense. I don’t—I don’t usually…”

Bucky found himself reaching out and placing a hand over hers. He had no idea why she felt comfortable enough to open up to him, but he was touched that she did.

“What a dick. Doesn’t matter if you loved him or not. Or if he loved you or not. You made an agreement and he broke that. It’s no one’s fault but his own. You deserve a lot better than that guy, trust me.” The words he spoke were true. She did deserve a lot better.

Emily turned her hand over, her fingertips brushing against the palm of his hands. The touch sent his pulse racing. A burning fire igniting beneath the surface of his skin everywhere her fingers brushed.

“Thank you, Dr. Barnes,” breathed Emily. Her eyes focused on the movement of her hand and Bucky’s in turn as he moved his hand in sync with hers. Fingertips to fingertips. A ghostly touch.

Bucky chuckled lightly, “Are you ever going to call me Bucky?”

“No,” Emily responded, a small smirk on her face.

“So just Dr. Barnes forever?”

She was quiet, a pensive look on her face as she ceased the dance of their hands and threaded her fingers through his.

“How about James?” she asked.

Bucky’s heart clenched. A hand wrapped around it tightly, squeezing and squeezing. The sound of his name, his given name, slipping past her lips and rolling off the tip of her tongue caused a visceral reaction within him. The front of his jeans tightened, and arousal shuddered through his body.

“Say it again,” he commanded, voice gravely with need.

He heard the sound of Emily’s breath catching in her throat before a soft “James” passed her lips. Hand still gripping hers tightly, he used it to pull her forward and onto his lap. Eyes wide with surprise, her chest heaved, and body trembled as she braced her hands on his shoulders.

“Again.”

“James.”

They leaned towards each other, noses touching and lips a whisper apart. The hot, heavy mix of their breaths shared between them. He should stop. He was no longer crossing a line of propriety in mind. He was crossing a real line. Everything told him to stop. The voice in the back of his head was a distant scream that shouted: ‘She’s your student’, ‘You’re her advisor’, ‘It’s inappropriate’, ‘It’s a liability to your position’, ‘What about Diane?’. But with the feel of her hips in his hands and her hair tickling his face as she leaned over him the voice moved farther and farther into the recesses of him mind.

“Again.”

“Ja—”

Emily was cut off by the shrill ring of a phone in the kitchen. They both jumped, pulling away from each other as if the phone itself caught them in the middle of a nefarious act. Bucky released her waist, his hands falling to his sides as Emily stood and ran to the kitchen.

“Hello? Nat, hey. What’s up?” Emily’s voice lilted from the kitchen, breathy with a small hint of panic. “Yea, I’m fine. I just got home a few minutes ago.”

Bucky stood, removing the quilt that had made its way onto his lap and folded it, before gently placing it back on the couch.

“Oh, Steve told you what happened?”

He sighed, looking around the living room and then back towards the kitchen before making his way towards the front door. Quietly, he exited the apartment, closing the door behind him. The chilly bite of the late night air sank through to his bones as he walked home, trying to make sense of what just happened. By the time he made it to his front door he still didn’t know if he should thank Natasha or advise Steve to break up with her. But one thing was definitely clear, he had crossed a line and there was no going back.

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ptony2009-blog · 4 years

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H2holbro22's Xanga Blog 1.1 7431748 H2holbro22's Xanga Site h2holbro22 [email protected] H2holbro22 H2holbro22 [email protected] H2holbro22 Thu, 29 Sep 2005 23:06:56 -04:00 Hey everyone! How is it goin? My day started off really bad because my favorite necklace fell off this morning and I didn't realize it... until I got on the bus of course. Luckily, I stepped on it when I got off the bus and now I'm wearing it lol. I can't just get another necklace like that becuz I got it as a gift from my friend when he went to another country. Today in ecology, we went outside and collected grasshoppers for a lab and we found 2 grasshoppers on top of each other lmao. Anyways, I'm just throwing my hackysack up in the air cuz I'm bored as hell and it's a school night. Btw, I think I'm getting some kind of "signs" becuz everytime i look at the clock, it's either 3:33, 5:55, or 12:34. It's really freaking me out. But regardless, at 12:00 tonight, it will be Monday, September 13th, 2005 and the new Trapt cd will come out!!! Yeah I'm definitly gonna get that tomorrow. I'm also gonna go over to Sarah's house and get sick with her lol! She's feeling sick so chances are, I will get sick too, but I don't care. I actually like being sick in a way... you get more attention, you get lots of soup, you can stay home from school, parents do whatever you say! Ugh but then there is that damn cough syrup Robitussin stuff that tastes like kerosene mixed with antifreeze . Oh yeah, I saw the worst thing when I was driving with my dad a few days ago. A squirrel got ran over by a car, but it was squirming around before it died and blood was going everywhere. It was pretty sad. So does anyone have the newest Good Charlotte cd? I've been listening to that lately and it's pretty good. I like a bunch of the songs and I even put "Predictable" in my stereo thing. Yeah enough of the randomness....

So on Friday, Sarah came over to my house and we went out to eat at O'Charley's and then we went to Pet Supplies Plus. The parrot was saying "hello" to us... at one point, I tried to make the parrot say "bitch" but it didnt work lol. After that, we hung out at my house and kinda watched Freddy Got Fingered.. wow thats a hilarious movie. Then on Saturday, I went to see The Exorcism of Emily Rose with Sarah and a few of the parts made me jump lol. Even though I knew something was gonna jump out. It wasn't that bad of a movie.. it was based on a true story too! After that, I went to visit my uncle in the hospital... he got ran over by a truck and now he is in a coma... I couldn't even look at him, it was pretty bad... but eventually we left the hospital and got home. Then I went over to Sarah's and we watched the OSU vs. Texas game. On Sunday, me and Joe played hackysack and Kart for a while. After that, me and Sarah saw The Cave and it wasn't really that great, so I wouldn't recommend seein it. It was boring at a lot of parts... it reminded me of one of the many repeated movies that they show on the Sci-Fi channel. But it was still fun because I got to be with Sarah! I can always have fun around Sarah, even if were just sitting on a concrete sidewalk doing nothing.

This part right here is for you Sarah, since it might seem like I never really take the time to say stuff... but even though I don't usually express my feelings through Xanga, yeah lol. SARAH YOU'RE AN AMAZING GIRLFRIEND AND I LOVE YOU!!! I don't know why it feels like I've known you for years, but I think its cuz I can talk to you about anything and everything... so you've become really close to me in such a short period of time.. 1 month and 8 days to be exact. You mean soo much to me, and I don't wanna lose you. I know I won't though because I totally trust you. You always know how to cheer me up, whether its in person, on the phone, through a text, or whatever else. Don't ever worry about losing me because the only way that would happen is if I died, or if you were to cheat on me or something like that (which you wouldn't lol). So I'm more likely to die than anything. But above anything, I love you soo much baby and don't EVER forget that!!!

Now for some pictures... I got a picture of my AWESOME drawings of a shoe and sunglasses and a picture of me attempting to BLIND my cat lol. Enjoy

Cya later everyone and please leave me some comments!

]]> 2005-09-12 22:17:49 2005-09-13 02:17:49 open Publish post 346791751 1 2005-09-12 22:22:00 2005-09-13 02:22:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 681123026 kinda watched the movie lol. ok well im going to get in the bed now. i love u so much baby! im gonna call u. XOXOXOXOXOXOOXOXOOXOXOXOOXOXOOXOXOXOXO]]> 1 2005-09-12 22:24:00 2005-09-13 02:24:00 sarahdollie15 [email protected] http://sarahdollie15.xanga.com/ 0 18600396 0 681128468 yay for shoes and crosseyed cats. i told you it would go crosseyed and it did. muahah. lol.

nice sandals today : )

]]> 1 2005-09-12 22:26:00 2005-09-13 02:26:00 mylastgaspingbreath [email protected] http://mylastgaspingbreath.xanga.com/ 0 6269671 0 681136291 chris!!! I never comment you anymore.. whats up with tha? lol. ill see ya around. lylab

muahz <3

]]> 1 2005-09-15 20:56:00 2005-09-16 00:56:00 m2mizzle182 [email protected] http://m2mizzle182.xanga.com/ 0 6903196 0 686096226 ur drawings are sweet, wheres the shaver?]]> 1 2005-09-23 17:03:00 2005-09-23 21:03:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 699587982 1 2005-09-28 21:21:00 2005-09-29 01:21:00 lil_HunnyBunny [email protected] http://lil-hunnybunny.xanga.com/ 0 19957830 0 709456753 hey this hope. you dont know me but im heather's bestest best friend. i just wanted to say that you draw so fricken awsome!!!!!comment me back. cya

Hope

]]> 1 2005-10-21 20:37:00 2005-10-22 00:37:00 lil_HunnyBunny [email protected] http://lil-hunnybunny.xanga.com/ 0 19957830 0 751231697 Hey wats up random props

Peace <33Ashley

]]> 1 2006-07-30 21:46:00 2006-07-31 01:46:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 1154666342 Peace <33Ashley]]> 1 2006-08-10 12:42:00 2006-08-10 16:42:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 1165135698 H2holbro22 Thu, 08 Sep 2005 22:33:57 -04:00 Picture break!! Basically, Monica straightened my hair because we wanted to see what it would look like and it turned out looking pretty awesome. So heres just a few pics.. oh yea and my cat lol...

Not half bad. Yea leave some comments!

]]> 2005-09-08 22:33:57 2005-09-09 02:33:57 open Publish post 344126208 1 2005-09-09 15:13:00 2005-09-09 19:13:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 674699405 1 2005-09-09 20:36:00 2005-09-10 00:36:00 n1ckd33s [email protected] http://n1ckd33s.xanga.com/ 0 11164525 0 675254761 ok, enough of my "gay hairstylist specialist" attitudeIt rocks though, wear it like that more often, 'chicks 'ill dig it']]> 1 2005-09-09 23:08:00 2005-09-10 03:08:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 675505483 1 2005-09-10 10:02:00 2005-09-10 14:02:00 Junsei_tsuraien [email protected] http://junsei-tsuraien.xanga.com/ 0 19118483 0 675994007 hey! thanks for the comment. actually i dont go to central anymore. im at north for career center for the semester. its kinda good though, i get to get away from everyone. but yeah, ill be back at central next semester which is pretty good <3 im so fucking happy we won last night! omg, it was just AWESOME you missed out on a PERFECT game, i dont know. we deserved to win so im happy about that, but illl talk to you later babe! IM me sometime -RUK ME HARDx3-]]> 1 2005-09-10 13:32:00 2005-09-10 17:32:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 676344488 1 2005-09-10 16:56:00 2005-09-10 20:56:00 sarahdollie15 [email protected] http://sarahdollie15.xanga.com/ 0 18600396 0 676696691 I see you like Soccer and Chipotle me to..]]> 1 2005-10-25 22:37:00 2005-10-26 02:37:00 PyRoKiTtY14 [email protected] http://pyrokitty14.xanga.com/ 0 3592951 0 759118122 H2holbro22 Wed, 07 Sep 2005 23:35:28 -04:00 Hey peeps! Here i decided to fill out a survey that i got from my my baby, so just check it out. There are a few interesting answers here lol:

( ) Smoked a joint.( ) Crashed a car.( ) Stolen a car.(x) Been in love.( ) Had a threesome.(x) Been dumped.( ) Shoplifted.( ) Been fired.(x) Been in a fist fight.(x) Snuck out of the house.(x) Had feelings for someone who didn't have them back.( ) Been arrested.( ) Made out with a stranger.(x) Gone on a blind date.(x) Lied to a friend.( ) Had a crush on a teacher.( ) Been to Europe.(x) Skipped school.( ) Seen someone die.( ) Been to Canada.( ) Been to Mexico.(x) Been on a plane.( ) Seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show.( ) Thrown up in a bar.( ) Purposely set a part of yourself on fire.(x) Eaten Sushi.(X) Been snowboarding(x) Met someone from the internet in person( ) Been moshing at a concert.( ) Been in an abusive relationship.(x) Taken painkillers.(x) Love someone or miss someone right now.(x) Laid and watched cloud shapes go by.(x) Made a snow angel.( ) Had a tea party.(x) Flown a kite.(x) Built a sand castle.(x) Gone puddle jumping.(x) Played dress up.(x) Jumped into a pile of leaves.(x) Gone sledding.(x) Cheated while playing a game.(x) Been lonely.(x) Fallen asleep at work/school( ) Used a fake ID.(x) Watched the sun set.( ) Felt an earthquake.(x) Touched a snake.( ) Slept beneath the stars.(x) Been tickled.( ) Been robbed.(x) Been misunderstood.(x) Pet a reindeer/goat.(x) Won a contest.( ) Run a red light.( ) Been suspended from school.(x) Been in a car accident.(x) Had braces.(x) Felt like an outcast.( ) Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night.(x) Had deja vu.( ) Danced in the moonlight.( ) Hated the way you look.(x) Witnessed a crime.( ) Pole danced.( ) Been obsessed with post-it notes.(x) Walked barefoot through the mud.(x) Been lost.( ) Been to the opposite side of the world.( ) Swam in the ocean.( ) Felt like dying.( )Cried yourself to sleep

(x) Played cops and robbers.(x)Recently colored with crayons/colored pencils/markers.(x)Sung karaoke(x) Paid for a meal with only coins.(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't.(x) Made prank phone calls.(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose.(x) Caught a snowflake on your tongue.( ) Danced in the rain.(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus.(x) Been kissed under the mistletoe.( ) Watched the sun rise with someone you care about.(x) Blown bubbles.( ) Had a bonfire on the beach.( ) Crashed a party.(x) Gone rollerskating.(x) Had a wish come true.(x) Worn pearls.( ) Jumped off a bridge.( ) Screamed the word penis in public.( ) Ate dog/cat food.( ) Told a complete stranger you loved them.( ) Kissed a mirror.(x) Sang in the shower.( ) Owned a little black dress.(x) Had a dream that you married someone.(x) Glued your hand to something.( ) Got your tongue stuck to a flag pole.( ) Kissed a fish.(x) Worn the opposite sex's clothes.( ) Been a cheerleader.(x) Sat on a roof top.(x) Screamed at the top of your lungs.( ) Done a one-handed cartwheel.(x) Talked on the phone for more than 6 hours.(x) Stayed up all night.(x) Didn't take a shower for a week( ) Picked and ate an apple right off the tree.(x) Climbed a tree.(x) Had a tree house.( ) Are scared to watch scary movies.( ) Believe in ghost.( ) Have more than 30 pairs of shoes.( ) Worn a really ugly outfit to school just to see what others say.( ) Gone streaking.(x) Played ding-dong-ditch.(x) Played chicken.(x) Been pushed into a pool/lake with all your clothes on.(x) Been told you're hot by a complete stranger.( ) Broken a bone.(x) Been easily amused.(x) Caught a fish then ate it.(x) Caught a butterfly.(x) Laughed so hard you cried.( ) Cried so hard you laughed.(x) Mooned/flashed someone.(x) Had someone moon/flash you.(x) Cheated on a test(x) Forgotten someone's name.(x) Slept naked.( ) French braided someone's hair.( ) Grown a beard.( ) Belong to the KKK.( ) In love with an older person(x) Tired of this survey

Well leave some comments, cuz I know there are kool people that always do . Cya later guys!

]]> 2005-09-07 23:35:28 2005-09-08 03:35:28 open Publish post 343536649 hey honey.....when did u wittness a crime??

I LOVE YOU!!!!

]]> 1 2005-09-08 16:56:00 2005-09-08 20:56:00 sarahdollie15 [email protected] http://sarahdollie15.xanga.com/ 0 18600396 0 673159705 H2holbro22 Tue, 06 Sep 2005 20:02:59 -04:00 Hi. How's it going? I'm gonna write in this while I'm waiting for dinner lol... I had to survive the day by eating a banana, a granola bar, and a Twix. So when i got home, i ate like everything (an entire bag of goldfish crackers, a sandwich, and a hot pocket). I just didnt feel too great today so i hardly ate. I'm getting really sick of hearing Yellowcard lol... that damn violin is getting annoying.

Alright well me and Sarah's 1 month was 2 days ago, how kool is that? We went to Mi Mexico II and hung out. Then yesterday we saw the Dukes of Hazzard and then went back to my house and watched Blue Streak (i love that movie) and then we walked over to Joe's house lol. After me and Sarah hung out, i went to Mejiers with Joe to buy his bro a b-day present. We chose a card out that said "a happy birthday to my favorite granddaughter" or sumthin lol. And we got him Reese Sticks cuz he used to be obsessed with those lol. Btw i got a dvd called Freddy Got Fingered lol. That movie is hilarious cuz Tom Green is in it haha.

Well its time for me to eat dinner! Damn I'm freakin hungry. I have a few more things to say before i go...

I get my drivers license in 4 days!!

Watch out for camels when you're driving around in the dark!

Leave me a lot of comments, thx guys! Cya later!!

]]> 2005-09-06 20:05:19 2005-09-07 00:05:19 open Publish post 342704024 1 2005-09-06 20:09:00 2005-09-07 00:09:00 Junsei_tsuraien [email protected] http://junsei-tsuraien.xanga.com/ 0 19118483 0 670027136 1 2005-09-06 20:36:00 2005-09-07 00:36:00 Junsei_tsuraien [email protected] http://junsei-tsuraien.xanga.com/ 0 19118483 0 670105393 <3

random comment

hows school?

]]> 1 2005-09-06 21:03:00 2005-09-07 01:03:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 670184335 you know when you get your liscense you're so driving me home sometimes. mhmm. because you love me that much. yes, admit that you do! haha. mmk. that's all i got. <3]]> 1 2005-09-06 21:45:00 2005-09-07 01:45:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 670318186 umm....HELL NO HE AINT DRIVIN U HOME!!!! My fucking boyfriend thank u very much!!! He will be driving ME home.....

im sorry to break it to u baby, but that movie SUX BALLZ!!

but i still fucking love you so much more than u will ever know!!!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

tell humphry i said wuts up!! lol

]]> 1 2005-09-07 20:20:00 2005-09-08 00:20:00 sarahdollie15 [email protected] http://sarahdollie15.xanga.com/ 0 18600396 0 671902716 H2holbro22 Wed, 31 Aug 2005 22:25:14 -04:00 Hey everyone! First of all, I'm trying to figure out why i have all of these options at the top of this page... i can like change the colors and highlight my writing and stuff lol. Anyways, school has finally started and it's actually going pretty good. Most of my classes are pretty great. The only class that I don't like is algebra 2. It's pretty boring and were doing a lot of graphing calculator stuff. And my spanish name is based off of a very tasty food... NACHO! Yeah lol, lets see here.. I have a government project due on Friday too, and it's gay foreign policies. I dont really know what that is either. Wow this is gonna be a long year lol. Especially with my drawing class... I'm either gonna slack off the whole semester and complain about how my drawings are worse than everyone else's OR ill start to be really good at drawing and impress people with my pictures. It should all be fun tho!

Ok enough school lol! I've been listening to The Used a little and I also got the new Fall Out Boy cd a few days ago. I listen to the old Fall Out Boy cd as much as the new one... in fact, I think the old one is better than the new one! Cuz it has Grand Theft Autumn and Dead On Arrival and a whole bunch of other kickass songs. You should get the cd if you don't already have it.

I had my last in-car today and the damn instructor was 30 minutes late! She picked me up from school and she blamed me for being on the student pick-up side of the school. What a fuckin retard... she wanted to pick me up on the bus side of the school. Oh well, I'm tired so I'll stop here. Leave me some comments, cya!

]]> 2005-08-31 22:25:14 2005-09-01 02:25:14 open Publish post 338808565 i talked to you today while you were waiting for your in-car. but yeah, it was cool finally getting to talk to you for once since i only see you a couple times during the day. mhmm. i liked your shirt. just thought i would let you know. haha. i'm really random. it's like 12:30am. i should be sleeping, but i can't because i fell asleep when i came home from school. plus, i've still got some spanish homework to finish up.

haha your spanish name is nacho?! some kid in our class chose that & our teacher was like, if he picks that name, you have to promise not to laugh every time i say it. lol. it's dumb but yeah. my spanish name is catalina. how, hot? lol. but yeah.

i love you cristoffer! yes, that's how i want to spell your name so DEAL!

mmk. byee! <3

]]> 1 2005-09-01 00:33:00 2005-09-01 04:33:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 659836765 1 2005-09-01 14:46:00 2005-09-01 18:46:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 660412506 ]]> 1 2005-09-03 13:06:00 2005-09-03 17:06:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 663746757 1 2005-09-04 17:18:00 2005-09-04 21:18:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 665878093 I know I few people at Central. Who do you know at North?]]> 1 2005-09-05 11:23:00 2005-09-05 15:23:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 667148961 I know all of them... except the Amanda girl. From central I know Sara Frye, Jenny Yan, I knew Luke, and some others that went to my Middle School and stuff.]]> 1 2005-09-05 12:10:00 2005-09-05 16:10:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 667241044 1 2005-09-05 12:42:00 2005-09-05 16:42:00 m2mizzle182 [email protected] http://m2mizzle182.xanga.com/ 0 6903196 0 667306392 1 2005-09-05 17:47:00 2005-09-05 21:47:00 Junsei_tsuraien [email protected] http://junsei-tsuraien.xanga.com/ 0 19118483 0 667892819 uhh.. lauren stopped taking spanish. heh.

Donde esta mi pantalones?

Dos gatos in sus zapatos.

]]> 1 2005-09-06 19:18:00 2005-09-06 23:18:00 mylastgaspingbreath [email protected] http://mylastgaspingbreath.xanga.com/ 0 6269671 0 669885645 H2holbro22 Tue, 23 Aug 2005 23:11:33 -04:00 Hey everyone. Here's just a quick update to tell all of you my schedule becuz I'm getting tired of typing it out to everyone lol. So check it out and comment me if you have a class with me or something. Alright!SEMESTER 1

1- Spanish 3

2-US Government 2

3- Contemporary Lit.

4- Lunch

5-Algebra 2

6- Drawing 1

7- Ecology

8- Study Hall

SEMESTER 2

1- Spanish 3

2- Contemporary Lit.

3-Contemporary Lit. (again?)

4- Lunch

5- Algebra 2

6- Health

7- Ecology

8- US Government 1

Yeah my schedule is pretty screwed up. But anyways, comment me if you have a class with me... or better yet, lunch! Becuz most of my friends are in a different lunch period than me and it SUCKS! Cya later!

]]> 2005-08-23 22:39:06 2005-08-24 02:39:06 open Publish post 333393266 1 2005-08-23 23:05:00 2005-08-24 03:05:00 CrazzyRaz2007 [email protected] http://crazzyraz2007.xanga.com/ 0 18657764 0 644916663 nope.. lauren has 5th period lunch..

and easy classes.

]]> 1 2005-08-23 23:15:00 2005-08-24 03:15:00 mylastgaspingbreath [email protected] http://mylastgaspingbreath.xanga.com/ 0 6269671 0 644940129 ah! ill be at north for the first semester. and the second semester we have ONE thing together -FIRST PERIOD!-

and the class we do got together, we cant speak ENGLISH!! lmao.

]]> 1 2005-08-24 02:06:00 2005-08-24 06:06:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 645171399 Hey... random props, random comment. I was going thru the central blogring and came across your page. ((I'll be a freshman next year)).

Ha, love your taste in music, btw.

<333 Sydney

]]> 1 2005-08-24 13:19:00 2005-08-24 17:19:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 645614832 Even though things have been said and done w/e.Here for anyone out there who thinks I like chris just so you all know I dont.I DID think of him as my best friend and that was all.you can have feelings and love someone as nothing but a 100% awesome friend without it meaning anything but that...a friendship.Now that its no longer there those of you that wanted it like that can be happy.As for you chris thanks for standing by me in the times when you did.You were a great friend!]]> 1 2005-08-29 13:34:00 2005-08-29 17:34:00 Simplyclueless08 [email protected] http://simplyclueless08.xanga.com/ 0 12554444 0 654705009 1 2005-08-29 16:42:00 2005-08-29 20:42:00 Junsei_tsuraien [email protected] http://junsei-tsuraien.xanga.com/ 0 19118483 0 654964300 H2holbro22 Tue, 16 Aug 2005 00:36:41 -04:00 Hola everyone. It's update time! Well I'll give a summary of my past few days. Sarah came back from New York on Sunday so we went to the fair for a while. It felt so good to see her again! We didn't go on any rides becuz they were kinda lame lol, but we walked around inside this building that had like everything in it. It was pretty neat becuz they had lots of random "products" on display. This one lady even offered to make rub Sarah's feet lol . And I got myself a pimped out plastic sheriff badge! Oh yeah!! Yeah the fair was fun tho. Then today was pretty boring during the day, but later on during the night, I went to Sarah's house for like 2 hours then we went to BW3's for a while. There were like 10 people there that I didn't know, but I still had fun. One kid even ate 12 hot wings in less than 5 minutes and he won a T-shirt lol. I ordered 8 boneless wings and I ate 1 really hot wing.. my lips still burn after 2 hours lol. And best of all, NBC 4 was there and supposedly were gonna be on TV later. I think they were there becuz of the smoking bans in restaurants. I was only TV one time before that lol... I did a commercial for the Bowling Palace when I was in 3rd grade and they gave me a damn mini chocolate bowling pin for all of that! I hope their business goes into bankruptcy! After BW3's we went to Kroger so all of the Kroger people could check their schedules and mess around in the finger condom/KY jelly/laxitive isle lol. Yeahh..

Anyways, I guess school is right around the corner and I gotta get school supplies! I even convinced my mom that I'm gonna need an iPod b4 school starts lol, so I might get one tomorrow with this $160 voucher I have. I will have to find a way to cram all of my songs onto that thing lol. Ok well I'm to sleep or something right now cuz I'm really bored. Leave some comments! Cya later!

]]> 2005-08-16 00:36:41 2005-08-16 04:36:41 open Publish post 327918781 oh wow its chris!

golly gee its getting late...

wow im so bored.. umm. hi!

]]> 1 2005-08-16 04:04:00 2005-08-16 08:04:00 mylastgaspingbreath [email protected] http://mylastgaspingbreath.xanga.com/ 0 6269671 0 629800976 1 2005-08-16 16:22:00 2005-08-16 20:22:00 n1ckd33s [email protected] http://n1ckd33s.xanga.com/ 0 11164525 0 630590370 1 2005-08-17 15:46:00 2005-08-17 19:46:00 sarahdollie15 [email protected] http://sarahdollie15.xanga.com/ 0 18600396 0 632558383 1 2005-08-18 17:43:00 2005-08-18 21:43:00 TraiIsMyName [email protected] http://traiismyname.xanga.com/ 0 15300814 0 634768991 1 2005-08-19 22:35:00 2005-08-20 02:35:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 637191636 1 2005-08-23 02:53:00 2005-08-23 06:53:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 643253581 H2holbro22 Thu, 11 Aug 2005 15:52:31 -04:00 Hey everyone! So it's been about 6 days since I last updated.. i think. Right now I'm just eating bagel bites, listening to music, and writing in this lol. This week is going so damn slow. Sarah has been in New York for a week already... and she gets back on Sunday. It sucks to wait for so long...I CANT WAIT ANY LONGER! I wanna see her so badly... but were gonna go to the fair on Sunday, which is the last day. It will be awesome, but I hope it doesn't rain or something. I could've swore the fair was open until around the 20th.

Alright so basically I gotta get my temps renewed and then I can get my driver's license next month! After I take my tests of course. And I'm filling out an application for Pet Supplies Plus, yeahhh! I think it would be fun to work there.. i don't know why, but I really need a job. In fact, I went bowling yesterday and I didn't have enough cash so I had to count out a bunch of quarters to pay lol. It was pretty funny. Oh yeah, and I'm back in my workout routine so I'm not as bored anymore!

Ok.. STORY TIME!! Once upon a time, there were 3 kids... their names were Chris, Joe, and David. They got bored one day and decided to ride their bikes to Academy Park. They rode around on the dirt ramps for a while and then David had to go becuz he had work. Chris and Joe found a path shortly after that and followed it. While they were on the path, they spotted some hillybilly people swimming in the river . Their dog was with them and once the dog saw Chris and Joe, it got out of the water and jumped all over Chris with its muddy paws. Luckily, Chris and Joe escaped and continued on the path. Eventually, they ended up in a neighborhood and kept on going farther and farther until they reached Stygler Rd. They kept going until they saw a building that said "Huntington Banks". Then they realized that they were at the Huntington building in Easton! It took 2 hours for them to get that far so they decided to ride back home in amazement. On their ride home, they saw a girl who looked like Chubakah, so they really hurried home. They reached their own neighborhood in about 2 hours, but they were exhausted as hell so they went home. THE END!!

Ok well I made my xanga look a little kooler and I added about 5 songs to the stereo thing so CHECK THEM OUT!!! And I gotta go now so be sure to leave me some comments lol! Thx guys, cya later!

]]> 2005-08-11 15:52:31 2005-08-11 19:52:31 open Publish post 324806342 1 2005-08-12 11:56:00 2005-08-12 15:56:00 sarahdollie15 [email protected] http://sarahdollie15.xanga.com/ 0 18600396 0 622476004 1 2005-08-12 11:58:00 2005-08-12 15:58:00 sarahdollie15 [email protected] http://sarahdollie15.xanga.com/ 0 18600396 0 622479418 1 2005-08-13 19:31:00 2005-08-13 23:31:00 sarahdollie15 [email protected] http://sarahdollie15.xanga.com/ 0 18600396 0 625068237 1 2005-08-13 21:06:00 2005-08-14 01:06:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 625210246 wow bout 3 of those entrys r from ur gf.. nice..lol hey man.. that story was off da chain lol well man im out.. call sumtime so we can fuckin hang out.. wanna play sum halo? yeah lets play sum halo.. WELL CMON .. OMG GGGGRRRR ARRGGG..lol my phone.. that was hillarious.. JASON HURRY THE FUCK UP WIT THAT SHIT..lmao good times bro.. aight after makin a huge fool of my self.. im gonna go.. later bro

David

]]> 1 2005-08-14 01:32:00 2005-08-14 05:32:00 WNHSgangsta22 [email protected] http://wnhsgangsta22.xanga.com/ 0 8985485 0 625709980 1 2005-08-15 03:08:00 2005-08-15 07:08:00 mylastgaspingbreath [email protected] http://mylastgaspingbreath.xanga.com/ 0 6269671 0 627652557 H2holbro22 Sat, 13 Aug 2005 15:14:47 -04:00 Hey guys! I'm updating this again, wow go me! Alright so basically the past two days have been pretty great. It all started yesterday night when I went to BW3's with David, Christina, and her friend Sarah. We just chilled there and had food... obviously lol. Then we rented Freddy Got Fingered and The Exorcist and went to Christina's house. Well, I liked Sarah ever since I first saw her and everything...she is really nice too! So then we all watched the movie lol. Freddy Got Fingered is one of the funniest movies ever omg, you guys gotta see it! Well we got half way thru the movie before we had to leave So then we all gave our goodbyes, then David drove me back to my house. After that, we all joined a chat room cuz Sarah was sleeping over at Christina's house and we all wanted to talk. At 3:00, David snuck out and we were planning on riding my sister's electric scooter around the block just for fun lol. But it wouldnt start so we went pegging around the block a few times.

Ok well anyways, we planned to go to the pool around noon the next day, so I had to wake up at 10:00... I don't know how I pulled it off lol. Well since I havent been swimming in forever, I forgot about how small my swimming trunks would be... wow, they went up about half a foot above my kneecap lol. So I gotta buy new swimming trunks lmao... and we didnt go to the pool so we all went over to Christina's house again, ordered pizza and I got to see Sarah! And this time, I knew Sarah liked me back so I felt so much more comfortable around her. Ok we watched the rest of Freddy Got Fingered, then some of The Exorcist (omg that movie sucked), we watched like 1/10 of The Notebook, then some of Mean Girls. Stupid chick flicks lol! But it wasnt that bad at all. After Christina's house, I went to Hometown Buffet with David's family and ate lots of food. Then me, David, Sarah, Christina, Brice, Hilary, and Kris went to BW3's after that. I couldn't eat anything there tho lol cuz i was already full. Here I'll just list the random events that happened here becuz it would take me forever to explain all of them lol.... Brice stuck celery up his nose, sneezed it out, and ate it! We were bothered by a drunk nurse in the parking lot! We drove around the plaza while Kris hung on the back of the van while riding on a skateboard! Those are the main weird things that happened lol. Then after that, David dropped Hilary off and then he was gonna drop me off after that. By that time, I liked Sarah so much that I asked her out before I went inside. And now we are going out... and I'm really really happy! She is going on a trip to New York 2morrow at 4:00 so were trying to go see a movie before she leaves... wow a whole week without seeing her will be hard to deal with lol. Ok well I'm gonna go cuz I wanna be able to wake up early 2morrow. Ill cya around ppl and please leave some comments guys!

]]> 2005-08-05 03:10:27 2005-08-05 07:10:27 open Publish post 320217501 im happy for you.

rawr.

]]> 1 2005-08-05 09:12:00 2005-08-05 13:12:00 mylastgaspingbreath [email protected] http://mylastgaspingbreath.xanga.com/ 0 6269671 0 608008544 <3]]> 1 2005-08-05 09:15:00 2005-08-05 13:15:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 608011249 1 2005-08-05 21:52:00 2005-08-06 01:52:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 609300599 1 2005-08-06 03:13:00 2005-08-06 07:13:00 m2mizzle182 [email protected] http://m2mizzle182.xanga.com/ 0 6903196 0 609835131 well ttyl,~Trai "The MasterPiece" Brown~]]> 1 2005-08-06 03:51:00 2005-08-06 07:51:00 TraiIsMyName [email protected] http://traiismyname.xanga.com/ 0 15300814 0 609858648 1 2005-08-07 22:54:00 2005-08-08 02:54:00 Simplyclueless08 [email protected] http://simplyclueless08.xanga.com/ 0 12554444 0 612900203 1 2005-08-12 12:01:00 2005-08-12 16:01:00 sarahdollie15 [email protected] http://sarahdollie15.xanga.com/ 0 18600396 0 622484831 H2holbro22 Mon, 01 Aug 2005 01:23:25 -04:00 Hey guys! I know it takes me forever to update this thing, but you gotta understand that sometimes its boring to update lol. Well not much has changed here... yesterday was fun as hell tho. First of all, David's family was out of town so me and Joe stayed overnight there. Without parents... you can do ANYTHING! So thats what we did. We got some TP and tried to get one of our friends, but are plans got spoiled thanks to the fuckin dogs lol. Ok but David was driving us down Sunbury Rd and he is barely going over the speed limit when he passes a cop car lol... then we look in the rearview mirror and we see the cops lights start flashing! Luckily the left and right lanes were separated by concrete things. So we turned into a street and parked and then everything was fine. Basically we just messed around outside all night. In the morning around 10, we went to Krogers and got some waffles and whipped cream... has anyone had blueberry waffles w/ whipped cream? It's pretty good.

Friday sucked ass lol cuz my dad was moving and I had to help him move everything into a U-Haul truck and then take it to the new apartment. It wasn't hard at all, but I did it from 10:00 to 3:00 without eating anything. AND it was so damn boring. It was kinda funny though cuz my dad told me to watch my step while I was putting the coach in the truck and he hit his head on the top of the truck like 5 seconds later lol. And today, I fell asleep during the day!! And right when I fell asleep... my dad came over and woke me up and said "I need you to help me move some more things" blahh blah blah.. thats the worst way to wake up lol.

Yeah I made another mix cd with lots of kool songs including this techno remix to Yeah which is SO AWESOME!!! It has so much bass that you gotta hold on to the handles on the car just to sit still. If I ever find out how to upload music, then I'll put it on my xanga but I dont know how. PLEASE tell me if you know how. Speaking of music, I've been listening to the old Fall Out Boy cd and it's really awesome so everyone should listen to it! I'm gonna get the new one soon.. yeah. Ok that should be enough for now! LeAvE sOmE cOmMeNtS plzzzz!!

]]> 2005-08-01 01:23:25 2005-08-01 05:23:25 open Publish post 317185331 You didn't do it you dork!! I'm sad now! oh well ill be over it in like a sec....well im getting ready to go to practice so ill have to talk to you later

rachael mae

]]> 1 2005-08-01 09:24:00 2005-08-01 13:24:00 bananas_r_yummy [email protected] http://bananas-r-yummy.xanga.com/ 0 14989642 0 599453618 1 2005-08-02 03:03:00 2005-08-02 07:03:00 Simplyclueless08 [email protected] http://simplyclueless08.xanga.com/ 0 12554444 0 601413433 HEY CHRiS! i HAVEN'T TALKED TO YOU iN FOREVER!!!!! WE NEED TO HANG OUT AGAiN! WELL COMMENT BACK iF YOU WANT!!!

<33 KATiE

]]> 1 2005-08-02 20:57:00 2005-08-03 00:57:00 kAtE0143 [email protected] http://kate0143.xanga.com/ 0 6045670 0 602853986 1 2005-08-04 21:33:00 2005-08-05 01:33:00 BestSisters22 [email protected] http://bestsisters22.xanga.com/ 0 15489530 0 607218648 1 2005-08-06 23:26:00 2005-08-07 03:26:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 611171248 H2holbro22 Fri, 22 Jul 2005 04:09:43 -04:00 YEAHHHH!! I fixed the damn comment thing so you can all send me comments again. I found out that the poll thing was causing the problem... I'll get it back eventually but not right now. Wow me and David just snuck out of the house and right when I walked out the door, we saw and heard the sirens of a cop car from behind 2 houses! It's bad enough that wre not allowed outside, but the cop car was speeding thru our neighborhood for some reason lol. Let's see... I'll talk a little about how things are goin now... well I started driving school 2 weeks ago and it's really boring. I have to go 2 days per week, 4 hours each day. Next week is my last week! Driver's ed isnt really that bad cuz I met some new peeps that I can talk to whenever. I went to Cedar Point again for 1 day too, this time it was for my dad's company picnic. Remember how Cedar Point was awesome for me last time? This time it was living hell lol. Hold on, lemme get my list of all the bad things... ok

1) I had 2 hours of sleep... thats my own fault i guess lol.

2) I had a headache that lasted from the night before thru the whole day.

3) It decided to rain nonstop the WHOLE time we were there.

4) The lines were packed to the edges so we didnt get to go on any rides at all.

5) The free food was disgusting.

6) We spent more time driving there and back than we spent in the park itself, so its basically a waste of time.

Lol thats mainly all. Wow I'm really lazy lol. That's why I wanna drive SOOO bad. And to kill some time and earn some money, I'm actually trying to get a job at Pet Supplies Plus!!!!!! Yes now doesnt that sound like a great place to work?? You get to move dog food and other things all day and its the only place hiring that is half decent lol. Well it's definitly 4 in the morning right now so I'm gonna get to bed. Me and Josh stayed up last night chilling so I'm really tired. Btw before I go, I have something for everyone who likes Trapt... theyre coming out with a new cd in September and they released 1 main song... its awesome and its called Stand Up. I tryed to find it EVERYWHERE, but the only place I can find it is http://www.trapt.com/ . You can listen to the song over and over if you stay on there. Yeah well with that, I'm out! I'm gonna take a new pic once I get my dad's camera too so that will be kool. Cya later everyone!!!

]]> 2005-07-22 04:09:43 2005-07-22 08:09:43 open Publish post 310298168 1 2005-07-23 20:25:00 2005-07-24 00:25:00 m2mizzle182 [email protected] http://m2mizzle182.xanga.com/ 0 6903196 0 583261575 1 2005-07-24 00:13:00 2005-07-24 04:13:00 Simplyclueless08 [email protected] http://simplyclueless08.xanga.com/ 0 12554444 0 583635164 haha. ill c ya around. bye chris i heart u like a brother!!!!]]> 1 2005-07-24 00:45:00 2005-07-24 04:45:00 m2mizzle182 [email protected] http://m2mizzle182.xanga.com/ 0 6903196 0 583692433 hi chris.

sounds like a drag.

woo!

]]> 1 2005-07-25 10:18:00 2005-07-25 14:18:00 mylastgaspingbreath [email protected] http://mylastgaspingbreath.xanga.com/ 0 6269671 0 585795457 dude if you want a new awesome song check out WALKING DEAD by DJ Z TRIP and CHESTER BENNINGTON

Its my favorite song right now

and yeah my internet did fuck up for awhile, that sucked a ton of balls

]]> 1 2005-07-26 14:56:00 2005-07-26 18:56:00 Anonymous [email protected] 0 -1 0 588376996 1 2005-07-28 19:05:00 2005-07-28 23:05:00 Simplyclueless08 [email protected] http://simplyclueless08.xanga.com/ 0 12554444 0 593053176 hey chirs whats up nuttin here well just thought id leave you one ttyl

love you like friend

rachael mae

]]> 1 2005-08-01 00:49:00 2005-08-01 04:49:00 bananas_r_yummy [email protected] http://bananas-r-yummy.xanga.com/ 0 14989642 0 599124121 H2holbro22 Tue, 19 Jul 2005 14:52:50 -04:00 2005-07-19 14:52:50 2005-07-19 18:52:50 open Publish post 308366547 hey man heres a comment]]> 1 2005-07-22 03:23:00 2005-07-22 07:23:00 WNHSgangsta22 [email protected] http://wnhsgangsta22.xanga.com/ 0 8985485 0 580548276 H2holbro22 Mon, 11 Jul 2005 15:10:06 -04:00 Hey people! It's 2:22 right now and just woke up lol. Yeah I have a reason for going to bed so late last night. Ok listen up... I have a story to tell everyone lol. But remember... all of this is not to be told to anyone cuz it might cycle back to the victim. Ok well last night I'm just sitting on the computer listening to music and talking on AIM. Then David IMs me and tells me to meet him outside because Brian just got TPed. So I set everything up in the house to look like I'm asleep, grab the Cheezits, and then I sneak out. I walked down to Brian's house to see Brian and Joe in Joe's car. They told us that they found out who TPed him because they saw them drive away and yell something that obviously gave themselves away. Even though you need to be 18 to drive outside at 2:00, we got in Joe's car and decided to help Brian get revenge. We drove towards Kroger (I can't forget to mention the Rumpke truck that almost backed up into us. So we drove by him... Joe waved to him while I flicked him off lol). Once we were at Kroger, David and Brian ran inside and bought 48 rolls of TP. Ha you dont wanna know the excuse we had for buying all of that TP. Anyways, Joe drove to one of the kids houses (a kid that helped TP Brian) and we started throwing TP all over the trees and bushes. Me and David TPed the backyard while Joe and Brian TPed the front yard. Eventually, they came into the backyard and Brian was like, "Dude this isn't the right house... there isn't a basketball hoop in the front!" So were like damn...so we grabbed as much TP as possible from house and moved to the RIGHT house. That's where we seriously trashed the house up lol. We had a lot of spare TP so I even put some in their weeds. When we were done, it was like 3:15 and we weren't satisfied... so we got back in the car and drove to Meijer, and bought 48 more rolls of TP! By the way, the same kid who we TPed, called Brian's cell and asked him who the hell TPed his house. The kid got home right after we TPed him luckily lol... but Brian denied it anyways. Then we went to another kid's house and got ready to TP him. But thats when we noticed that the gas tank was empty...so we drove away and barely made it to a gas station. Since no1 else was on the road at that time, Joe turns the wrong way and starts driving on the complete wrong side of the road... it was hilarious. But then we go back to the kids house with a 1/4 tank of gas. This kid's house had so many trees so it was perfect to TP. So we TPed his house pretty bad and left. It was about 4 by this time so we decided to go back home before it got any later. Joe dropped everyone off at their houses, but I went to Joe's house for a sec so I could help him get out of trouble if his parent's were awake. Yeah and we also woke Ryan up so we could say Hi to him. After that, I left and ran home to my house and snuck back inside... my damn cat was meowing up a storm while I was opening the door tho. Basically, we got revenge x2 on them lol. But we also made some more targets that we are going after soon lol... so WATCH OUT!! nah j/k we usually only get people who go after us first. Well guys, I gotta go to an orthodontist appointment... I think I get to stop wearing my retainer! lol hopefully, but then after that I am starting my driving courses. So leave me some comments or something guys! Cya around!]]> 2005-07-11 15:10:06 2005-07-11 19:10:06 open Publish post 302630331 1 2005-07-11 20:09:00 2005-07-12 00:09:00 X_Her_LipXgloss_Poison_X [email protected] http://x-her-lipxgloss-poison-x.xanga.com/ 0 17113205 0 560685777 H2holbro22 Sun, 10 Jul 2005 00:19:53 -04:00 Hola! I know I never write in my xanga... sorry about that. And btw, there's no way in hell that I'm gonna write an entry as long as that last one ever again lol. Unless I go somewhere else and have a lot to say... but anyways, how is everyone doing? I haven't been doing much lately. I wish I could drive but I gotta wait until October to get my license. Fortunatly, I am starting my driving courses on Monday, so I can get that out of the way. I want to get a Tiburon too... its about $25k though so I may as well give it up lol. I also want to get a job and I cant get one because I can't drive there Oh well I guess I have a few more months to be lazy and do whatever else I want lol. I might even get to go to Cedar Point again on Friday because of my dad's company picnic.Usually they go to Wyandot Lake or King's Island, but Cedar Point is much better.

I really don't feel like writing, but I'll end this off with a fact... if you think you aren't afraid of anything, then try driving in the car with Joe! He made some awesome illegal turns and used a turning lane to pass up a car! Me and Joe can both be wreckless once I get my driver's license lol... I seem to forget about the speed limit from time to time. It's funny tho. Ok well I'm gonna go drink some more limeade lol. That stuff is really good and its better than lemonade. Cya later guys and girls!

BTW... THE GUYS CANT BE THE BEST PART ABOUT SUMMER!!! I cant believe the poll is getting taken over like that. Oh well, keep on voting and we will see what happens...

]]> 2005-07-10 00:20:26 2005-07-10 04:20:26 open Publish post 301539685 1 2005-07-10 00:29:00 2005-07-10 04:29:00 X_Her_LipXgloss_Poison_X [email protected] http://x-her-lipxgloss-poison-x.xanga.com/ 0 17113205 0 557453187 1 2005-07-10 18:03:00 2005-07-10 22:03:00 X_Her_LipXgloss_Poison_X [email protected] http://x-her-lipxgloss-poison-x.xanga.com/ 0 17113205 0 558446010

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katieblooming · 5 years

Text

super chilled out birthday today! it started off with me getting my ecology final exam mark - not what I’d hoped, but I also didn’t study enough for the mark I wanted. academic burnout, got complacent after the midterm, yada yada. however, it should be good enough to get me an A-, which seemed like an impossibility with my lab grades earlier in the semester, so I’ll take it.

we all went to the farmer’s market this morning, got there a bit late, but mom got her eggs and a few things, and dad went and talked to his beekeeping buddies. I bought a peppermint plant which I am very excited about!

after the market, we wandered around town and popped into my fave store. they had succulents right at the front, and I found a gorgeous pot of three and had to really resist the tiny, overpriced cacti. also found the cutest earrings! they’re little scallops, in keeping with the ‘I’m obsessed with the ocean’ aesthetic I have going on. also, you know, on brand for a Nova Scotian. I’m allergic to sterling silver and have had the hardest time finding little studs that don’t break the bank and are hypoallergenic. I’ve been on the hunt for earrings ever since I lost one of my only pair of studs last month. bonus points for them being gold-plated, because I really don’t love silver on myself!

my cousins popped by after dinner to say happy birthday, so all in all it’s been a good day. grateful for all the wonderful people in my life, and thanks for all the support during my second quarter-life crisis yesterday! here’s to the next quarter century! 🎉

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as-studypeach · 6 years

Text

Baddeley (1966)

Today I did a lot of revision and one of the subjects I covered was cognitive psychology. Since I am a science student, I’m eager to drop psychology and concentrate on what I love, but to do this I must first pass my exam. I’ve been producing fact sheets for many psychology experiments so maybe this one will help you!

The Influence of Acoustic and Semantic Similarity on Long-Term Memory for Word Sequences – Baddeley (1966)

Aim

To find out if LTM encodes acoustically (based on sound) or semantically (based on meaning).

Done by giving participants word lists that are similar in their sound or meaning – struggle to recall word order is then due to confusion in the similarity (and the variable which causes the confusion is how LTM encodes).

Procedure

A lab experiment with several independent variables:

- Acoustically similar or acoustically dissimilar words

- Semantically similar or semantically dissimilar

- Performance before 15 minutes of “forgetting” and performance after

Independent groups are in italics; the final one is repeated measures.

Dependent variable was the score of a recall test on 10 words (their order, not the words themselves).

The sample was made up of 72 participants, men and women from Cambridge University Subject Panel (mostly students).

15 participants in the acoustically similar condition; 20 in the acoustically dissimilar.

16 participants in the semantically similar; 21 in the semantically dissimilar.

Method

Participants were split into the four groups described above. The experiment consisted of a presentation of the 10 word list, followed by a task involving STM for 6 sequences of 8 digits.

Words were shown on a slide projector – visible for 3 sec – with a changeover time of 2 seconds. The intervening digit sequences were read out at a 1 second rate and subject were allowed 8 seconds to write out each sequence. After this they had 1 minute to write out the 10 word sequence.

In the acoustically similar condition, participants had words with a similar sound (man, cab, can etc). The control group had one syllable words that didn’t sound the same (pit, few, cow, pen etc).

In the semantically similar condition, the words had similar meaning (great, large, big, huge etc) but the control group had unconnected words (good, huge, hot, safe etc).

After four trials, the participant’s scores got better since the words are the same each time. The words are displayed on signs around the room so that only the order was the main focus. They then had a 15 minute break and had to perform an unrelated interference task (self-paced digit copying) before being asked to recall the word sequence again.

Results

The acoustic similarity list is harder during early learning but the participants soon caught up. LTM is not confused by acoustic similarities because the scores on the last test are similar to the 4th trial, suggesting no forgetting has taken place.

The semantic similarity list was confusing to learn and lags behind the dissimilar list. Little forgetting takes place but the scores are lower overall.

Conclusion

LTM must code semantically – earlier experiments show that STM must code acoustically. The evidence for this is how the LTM gets confused when it has to retrieve the order of words which sound the same. It concentrates on how they mean the same and muddles them up – it has no problem retrieving acoustically similar words because LTM pays no attention to how words sound.

In the acoustically similar condition, there is a slow start due to the fact that the interference task doesn’t 100% block STM so some words linger in the rehearsal loop. In most conditions, the LTM is getting help from the STM. However, in the acoustically similar condition, STM gets confused by the similar sounds in the same way that LTM gets confused by similar meanings. This group then lags behind the controls until the words are encoded in LTM (shown by the scores levelling out).

Evaluation

Generalisability

A strength of the study is that Baddeley uses a large sample of 72 participants. This means that anomalies can be averaged out, e.g. extremely high or low scores. The participants were also British volunteers, which could be a problem (e.g. differences down to culture) but LTM is a universal cognitive function so the sample could still represent a wider population.

However, a weakness of the study is that each group only had a small amount of people in each group (roughly 15-20) so anomalies could still affect the averages. The volunteer sample may also have more people who enjoy memory tests so may not be representative of all kinds of people of all abilities.

Reliability

A strength of the study is that it is reliable. This is because we know details about standard procedures Baddeley used such as the duration words were shown (3 seconds), which words were used (mad, cab, max, mat etc) and how many participants were used (72 participants from Cambridge, a mix of genders). He also increased the reliability by using a slideshow so the results weren’t affected by people with hearing difficulties. This is useful because it can be easily repeated (without any specialist equipment) to find the same results.

Application

Baddeley’s study has primarily been used to develop the Working Memory model and within school environments e.g. revision with semantic links will be more effective than learning acoustically.

Validity

A strength of the experiment was the internal validity because of the amount of controls used, such as using word order (so participants wouldn’t forget the actual words and therefore the risk of words being harder or easier to recall due to familiarity or unfamiliarity was reduced). Baddeley also used a slideshow to help those with hearing difficulties. This controls led to a good procedure which means behaviour is likely true to life.

A weakness of the experiment is that there is reduced ecological validity. Recalling lists of words would’ve been more realistic since you do it sometimes (such as recalling a shopping list or a group of people on an invite list) but recalling word order is very artificial and therefore behaviour shown may be specific to this one scenario.

Ethics

Ethics are not evaluated in the cognitive approach.

Happy studying!

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markscherz · 7 years

Note

Any tips for anyone who wants to be a herpetologist?

Okay so it turns out I get rather a lot of asks on this particular question, and rather than answer them all individually, I thought it would be sensible to compile numerous ones I have received in the last year or so into a single long post on the basics:

What you need to know if you want to be a herpetologist

Before I get into it, let me explain my credentials for those who are interested. @amandaderrick92 asked specifically where I did my degree: I did my Bachelor’s degree in Zoology (Hons.) at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and then my Master’s degree in Ecology, Evolution and Systematics at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich (LMU), Germany. I am now studying for a PhD at the LMU, in partnership with the Zoologische Staatssammlung München and Technische Universität Braunschweig. So I guess I am more or less qualified to talk about this, though I would point out at this early phase in my career that I am by no means the expert standard example person—I encourage you to ask other herpetologists about their background as well. Twitter is fucking full of them, and most will be only too eager to share how they got into it and how you can, too.

Herpetologist is an umbrella term

First off, I want to make it clear that to be a herpetologist, per se, says little of the professional day-to-day career of a person. Herpetologists may be involved in a wide variety of fields, from pure academia (Herpetology sensu stricto), to applied research, to bioengineering, to veterinary work, to zoo-keeping, to animal breeding, to ranger work, to pest control, to conservation work… the list goes on. In this post I will refer mostly to herpetology sensu stricto, that is, the study of reptiles and amphibians, which is largely an academic pursuit. One of the anonymous askers above mentioned a desire to avoid veterinary work—this is almost a guarantee unless you decide to undergo the arduous training to become a vet. Yet, I want to make it clear also that it is possible to be a herpetologist and not necessarily be an academic, as I know that the prospect of academia can be frightening to downright off-putting to some.

How necessary is an MSc or PhD?

This brings us nicely to the issue of whether graduate level education is necessary to be a herpetologist. The answer is mixed, because, as I have just explained, herpetology, in the broad sense, is so varied and diverse. You can consider yourself a herpetologist even if you just do it in your spare time (I know a policeman who describes new species of snakes for fun). But for Herpetology sensu stricto as given above, generally I would say that at the very least an MSc will be required. The reason for this you will find below, but to summarise it, it is because your education by the end of your BSc is unlikely to have had much to do with herpetology, but rather will be general zoology. Focus on herpetological studies will have to come later.

It is important at this point already to note that the term herpetologist is in fact an umbrella term even in the strict sense. Many herpetologists study epidemiology, conservation science, invasive species biology, behavioural ecology, taxonomy, evolutionary biology and speciation, biomechanics, histology, etc. It is a science without an explicit angle of study, similar to ornithology and other organismal -ologies. So if there is a specific thing you are interested in about reptiles and amphibians, you are really most likely going to wind up pursuing that, and not herpetology per se, in your academic pursuits. But more on that below.

I’m in highschool and think I want to be a herpetologist when I’m older… what can I do to make that happen?

I think about this kind of question remarkably often. Well, actually, I think of things that I could have done better in my own childhood that would have made my life easier today. Here are a few pearls of wisdom I have gleaned from this introspection:

• Buy and read a textbook on the topic of herpetology. This is something I never did (I have never owned a herpetology textbook, let alone tried to read one), and I regret it at least once a week. There are huge chunks of knowledge missing from what a herpetologist is expected to know simply because I never took the time when I was younger to sit down and read the book. Sure, I skimmed herpetological books all the time, but I never really internalised them. I cannot identify larval stages of tadpoles. I don’t know the first thing about the actual metabolism of reptiles. I only learned this year how a frog’s vocal apparatus actually makes sounds. Learning all this stuff too late in your career is possible, but a pain in the ass, so try to get it out of the way as soon as possible.

• If you like frogs, buy Duellman & Trueb 1986 Biology of Amphibians. It is unmatched.

• Learn to identify your local herpetofauna. Chances are, some exist. Go find them. And do so with a buddy. Herping is always best done with companionship, especially if you live in an area where dangerous snakes are common (read: most of the world except Europe, New Zealand, and Madagascar).

• Join your local herpetological society. In the United States, the umbrella society are the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR), the Herpetologists League, and the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. In the UK it is various branches of the Amphibian and Reptile Group (ARGs). In Germany and Switzerland it is the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Herpetologie und Terrarienkunde (DGHT). These societies are always full of enthusiastic people, many of whom are fully fledged herpetologists, and showing your own interest will most likely be greeted with encouragement.

• Get into the right area of study. Choosing what to study in college is intimidating, especially when you don’t quite know if you want to choose between something about which you are passionate, versus something that will keep bread on the table. It’s romantic to think that everyone can eventually find a way to make money doing the thing they love, but unfortunately, it is not always true. Choose your undergraduate education in a way that you find will suit you and keep you happy in the long run. But now I’ve said my part on that, let me get into the nitty-gritty of what you actually need to study to become a herpetologist:

Where and what to study to become a herpetologist

Globally, there are numerous institutes where you can study to become a herpetologist, even if they do not explicitly say so on their curriculum websites. To accommodate the relatively broad global readership of this tumblr, I will try to keep this as general as possible:

The most important thing to think about is the ‘subject’ of study. To make headway into herpetology, you should direct your studies toward organismal or evolutionary biology. Possible ‘subjects’ as advertised by universities might be ‘Biology,’ ‘Evolutionary Biology,’ ‘Zoology,’ ‘Environmental Sciences,’ and very very rarely ‘Herpetology’. Most programmes will not allow you to specialise explicitly on herpetology until your Master’s degree, and even then not really explicitly. However, you should know that you can and should tailor your Bachelor’s experience to your own interests, regardless of its official title. Though my degree in Edinburgh was in ‘Zoology,’ I was able to focus mostly on reptiles and amphibians and evolutionary biology!

Despite the broad readership cited above, I wanted to draw your attention in particular to just a few universities worldwide that are renowned for their zoological undergraduate programmes, or herpetological research (note that this list only includes institutes that offer tuition in English, hence the rather narrow geographical sampling):

• The University of Edinburgh—I have to list my alma mater here for pride reasons, but I do so also because I think that my zoological education was incredibly rounded as a result of doing my Bachelor’s degree in Edinburgh. They have two appropriate courses, in Zoology and in Evolutionary Biology, and you can choose between them at the end of your second year.

• Kansas University, Lawrence, Kansas USA—Kansas has a famed herpetological history, and currently is home to some great minds in herpetology, including John Wiens and Linda Trueb.

• Villanova University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA—I highlight this university solely because of Aaron Bauer’s lab, which focusses on geckos. They do some really great research. This group is particularly good for Master’s work.

• Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts USA—Home of the Losos lab, probably the most famous group working on evolutionary questions with herpetological systems in the world.

• Bangor University, Bangor, Wales—This is one of the only institutes in the world that offers a bachelor’s degree in Herpetology (or ‘Zoology with Herpetology’). I have heard good things about the programme, and know a few graduates of it, but would not consider this a guarantee that it is better than other universities that only offer Zoology courses.

• University of Syndey, Sydney, New South Wales Australia—Home to the Shine lab, Syndey is apparently quite a good place to start off as a herpetologist. Plus, the reptiles in particular of Australia are really incredibly diverse and a great system for evolutionary and ecological studies.

• University of Manchester, Manchester, England—In terms of research and education, Manchester is a great university, ranked among the top in the UK. For herpetological interest, there is connection to The Manchester Museum, where a group works on frogs, focussed mostly on conservation biology.

(Für Deutschsprachige Studenten/-innen, würde ich Humboldt Universität Berlin, Ludwig-Maximilian Universität München, Technische Universität Braunschweig und Universität Trier empfehlen, obwohl viele anderen bestimmt auch super sind!)

So what do I need to get into a relevant course at a university/college?

To quash the questions before they come: prerequisites for the study of the above-mentioned courses in these institutes will almost certainly be advanced high-school level qualifications in biology and chemistry, and I can imagine that many would demand a tolerable mathematics grade as well. English language courses in high-school will not hurt in the least, especially as most work in academia is centred around writing and reading extensively in English.

Tips for non-speaking and non-vet work

As I have mentioned above, avoiding veterinary work is easy as long as you opt not to do it, but avoiding public speaking is actually fairly difficult. You see, although 99.9% of herpetological research is conducted in labs or in the field or whatever, occasionally it will be expected that you attend conferences, and there you will eventually be asked to give a talk, even if you do not volunteer yourself. Far more concerning I imagine is the fact that most academic careers require some degree of teaching. This is indeed something that is difficult to avoid if you do wish to stay in academia, but can be easily avoided with other herpetological career paths.

Also, it should be noted by the American readers that the teaching obligation of graduate students outside the US is considerably lower than in the US, so it becomes practically optional until you are looking for a position as a post-doc or even professor somewhere! Case in point: I am trying my hardest to find an opportunity to teach, but so far it looks like it will still be months before such an opportunity presents itself.

General tips for someone who wants to be a herpetologist

• Networking is your friend. If you can, meet local people who have similar interests. Go to conferences and meet people from across the world who are interested in similar questions or animals to you, and start big conversations with them. Nowadays, it is possible to work on the most incredible collaborative projects, and it is smart to take advantage of those opportunities!

• Shocking though it may seem, there is no minimum age limit on conference attendance! If you find that there is a herpetological conference happening near you, sign up to go! I have been at conferences where there were 14 year-old students present, and they asked some great questions of the speakers! But beware at that age that there may be a lot of topics that the education system is not designed to teach you until college, so a lot may be difficult to comprehend!

• Read as much literature as you can handle. Textbooks are great for basic knowledge, but when you get to a problem or animal you want to understand better, turn to the primary literature! Reading papers is not especially hard once you grasp the jargon, but getting hold of them can be. Join ResearchGate to get access to a lot of literature, and what you cannot get access to, you may find other ways to access…

• Learn to handle reptiles and amphibians. Do so with non-dangerous things, and with care and respect for the animals, ideally with the supervision of a more experienced person. This is really crucial for later work, and I always am exasperated by young students who clearly have never held a snake before but can identify dozens of them.

• Try to keep abreast of at least the major changes in taxonomy and understanding of the origins of reptiles and amphibians.

• Wrap your mind around the fact that birds are reptiles, crocodiles are more closely related to them than they are to squamates, and tuataras are not lizards, but snakes are.

• Learn the word squamate, and try to use it and other technical terms in favour of more layman, less accurate terms.

• Try to get a general impression for the families or at least orders of reptiles and amphibians. Don’t get into the embarrassing situation that you have never heard of gymnophiones or various obscure lizard groups. While depth of knowledge on one or two groups is almost inevitable, do not forget to try to glean holistic insights.

• Realise how often some evolutionary transitions happen, and what that might mean. Frogs repeatedly converging on the same niches. Lizards losing their limbs literally hundreds of times, from cordylids to geckos to anguids to skinks. Geckos re-evolving their adhesive toe pads repeatedly.

• Try to read primary literature as it comes out, but know that at the early stages of your education, an understanding of what has come before is arguably more important than an understanding of what is going on now. Hence, read your textbooks!

And that is all of my advice for now. I am sure there are things I have forgotten, and I would be happy to expand this in the future—please let me know if there are any specific areas in which I can offer further help in urging you toward your herpetological career. And good luck!

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faces-in-unexpected-places · 6 years

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This was only supposed to be a one-lined post (Life, College, Projects, etc.)

Earlier today, while I was deep in thought and studying for an exam next week, I just casually “biology is so fuckin cool”.

I’d just like to point out that I’ll be getting ready to graduate this time next year, so I’m pretty far into my degree, and I haven't come across a single class for my major that I didn’t find interesting. Even the ones that had really shitty professors. Even the ones that were extremely difficult (like o-chem OTL)

I’ve enjoyed the ride all the way up until this point, and I’m excited at the prospect of grad school. I’m just very happy with this and think that I’ve made a really good choice with this.

-----

Also, can I just say holy shit at how much time has passed? I’ve been on this meme-loving website since my senior year of high school. So much has changed since then. I feel like my perceptions of things and views of myself and others and the world have changed so much.

It’s just so much to reflect on and take in and understand. I never would have guessed I would be in the place that I am if you asked me back in high school. Of course, if you did ask me, I probably would have been like “did future me tell you to come back and ask me? So he’s still a debilitating nerd for time travel? Good.”.

Anyway, heh

Basically, I know that I don’t post a whole lot on here much anymore, huh? It’s really just because I’ve been dedicating a lot of my time to things outside of here, as I’m sure I’ve said before. Either way, for those who may still check in and might be wondering what’s going on, I’ll fill you in!

1.) I’ve just recently gotten past a very long writer’s block for music, and came up with a really awesome melody for a song that I’ve been working on for over a year!

2.) I work in biology lab on campus that studies oocyte maturation. I’m receiving credit for my degree right now, but I’ll be getting paid for it during this summer! And then I’ll be switching to a new lab in the fall studying ecological effects that some of the bacteria in our lake have on our environment.

3.) I’ve started drafting the main plot points for Do You Have the Time Episode 4.

4.) Abbey and I just had our 2 year anniversary a few weeks ago! She got me a humongous box of cookies that will literally knock you and your blood-sugar on your ass if you dare to eat more than one at a time. I got her a small box of macaroons and a card with a pop-up vase of flowers (she showed it to me once, and I remembered!). We’re probably going to see each other in May/June.

5.) I’m moving into an apartment with my old band-mates in the Fall. They both went to the same college as me, so we’re talking a bit more again, which is fun!

6.) I managed to face a person and situation from my past that has given me a lot of trouble for a lot of years. Our talk went very well, and she helped me understand a lot of things that I was confused about. It’s helped me feel better in myself and my future!

7.) One of the people that I work with in the lab is an INFP, and his views on the world are so Ne and positive it’s like looking into a fuckin mirror.

8.) I’ve found a Masters program that interests me a lot, and is also much closer to Abbey. There is a decent possibility that we’ll get to be together in a little over a year. (Nothing is ever guaranteed in life, but fingers crossed, you know?)

9.) My mom will be getting health insurance back once she graduates college and gets a new job with her degree (she’ll be an RN) and asked if I wanted to get braces. (??? I guess that’s cool?)

10.) My acoustic guitar is currently decommissioned because it’s too dry to replace the strings, so it’s basically unplayable right now. I got a humidifier for it, and I’m hoping that it’ll be well enough to play again because I miss it a lot. However, I’ve been giving my ukulele a lot more attention as of late.

11.) I recently had my mom drop off my old microphone because I’ve been considering getting back into making gaming commentary videos. My old friend who recorded with me also sent me a message the other day, while I was thinking about it, so that made me more interested in starting up the machine.

12.) I still tutor math on campus! Calculus 1 and below (so, algebra and trigonometry, basically). One of my students called me a genius the other day (unfortunately, that statement is a bit inaccurate, heh. But the gesture was very sweet) Another one has told me repeatedly “you teach me everything that I need to know in one hour, and my professor can’t even do it for an entire week that I go to class!”. Kind of an unfortunate compliment for me to receive from the perspective of the professor, but still, also a sweet gesture.

13.) Abbey and I watched that anime movie called Your Name for our anniversary, and it was really good! The music is great!

14.) Abbey also wanted us to get snapchats so we could send each other fun pictures throughout the day. We do, and it’s really fun! But now I also send pictures of the experiments that I run in the lab to my friends and family, and all of them are very confused. They just know that I’m doing science.

15.) Oh man, wouldn’t it have been cool if I could think of a 15th thing so this list seemed more planned and cohesive?

Heh, well, there you go!

I just thought I would say that I hope that everyone who still comes around and looks at my blog is doing well, and still find happiness from the things that I might do! I know that I’m not very active and content that I put out is probably few and far between. But either way, if there has ever been anything that I’ve shared that has made you happy or smile, then good! I’m so happy for that!

Regardless, I hope that life has been treating you all well. And I know that maybe it hasn't been for everyone. In which case, that’s not so great, I’m sorry for that, friend. But remember that for the bad that might be in your life right now, there is always good to counter it! Maybe it’s not there right now, maybe it will take a while, but it’s not gone. The good is never completely gone. Please don’t ever forget that.

Also, a quick thank you and shout-out to those who have read my little short story series Do You Have the Time! I know that I’m a slow writer/poster. And also that I can probably count the number of people who read it on one hand. But that doesn’t matter. I never expected for anyone to read it at all because I don’t put a whole lot of word out, heh. I just post once on tumblr and I’m done. I know that there are a lot of other ways to try to get my stuff noticed, but I’m not really concerned with that. I just like writing it. And even if only one person reads it and likes it, that is enough. That’s awesome! I can’t believe that those people exist and are so cool (looking at you @stormphoenix)!

Just, thank you for sticking around, despite my slow and infrequent process. I notice who takes the time to acknowledge it. And I appreciate it every single time!

Anyway, I just mean to say that I hope that everyone that I’ve ever come across on here is happy in one way or another. I love you all, have a good night!

#isaac speaks!

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liliannorman · 4 years

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How an encounter with this odd-looking bird inspired a career

For Kevin Burgio, the journey to becoming a successful scientist wasn’t easy. When he was young, life was hard. Burgio’s father left before he was born. His mother had dropped out of high school, and she never had a lot of money. Burgio knew he was different from other kids, and deep down, he knew he was bisexual when he was only 11 or 12. He didn’t tell anyone then, and was still bullied during his school years. But he managed to graduate and joined the Air Force. After several years in the military, Burgio left and went to college, eventually receiving his PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Connecticut in 2017.

Kevin Burgio uses camouflage paint to disguise himself as he looks for nesting field sparrows, indigo buntings and prairie warblers in Southbury, Conn. Christopher Field

Now Burgio is an ecologist working at both the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., and the University of Connecticut in Storrs. He has become an expert on extinct species such as the Carolina parakeet. Burgio has pieced together where the bright green parrot once lived in the eastern half of the United States. Now he’s trying to figure out why it went extinct

Burgio also tries to help other people in and out of the sciences. He manages programs that help students learn how to become scientists. It still isn’t easy. He is an advocate for people like himself: single parents, sexual minorities and those living with physical disabilities or mental health issues. In this interview, Burgio shares his experiences and advice with Science News for Students. (This interview has been edited for content and readability. Please note that this story contains references to abuse.)

What inspired you to pursue your career?

I started college later in life, when I was 28, and had planned to go to dental school. When I started school, my hands kept shaking. I went to a neurologist and they told me I had “essential tremor.” (The incurable nervous system disorder can cause a person’s hands to shake). I had no idea what I was going to do. One day, I saw this woodcock outside my apartment window, and I had never seen anything like it. They’re weird. They look like a bowling ball with a beak on it. So I read about the bird online and found it really interesting.

The next semester, I took an ornithology class. (Ornithology is the study of birds.) The professor asked me if I was doing research. I had no idea that undergraduates could even do anything like that. That professor became my undergraduate advisor, and I started working in her lab. She was also my PhD advisor and my postdoc boss. I stayed in her lab for 11 years.

How did you get where you are today?

Some of it is luck. I think my decision to leave home helped. I didn’t want to go to the military, but it was worth it to get away. I didn’t like it, but I did well. I rose to the rank of Air Force staff sergeant before I got out. When it came to grad school, it was difficult to take care of my daughter (Hannah, who is now nine) and the household and a marriage and take classes, and do research and teach. But I just did it.

I guess it’s just this mentality that in the end, it will be worth it. I want to have a job that means something. All of the jobs that I’ve had have all been in service to something bigger than myself. I’ve just never been happy not doing more.

How do you get your best ideas?

Talking to friends, really, and you start riffing about ideas. I kind of liken it to a band sitting together, writing songs. “What about this riff? What about this drum line here?” You just kind of riff with your friends or people you do research with, based on, “I read this cool paper and check this out. It had this cool thing.” And, “Oh, I wonder if we had this kind of data, could we do something similar?” Or, “What about this study was missing that we think would add a really cool dimension to it?”

For me, it’s just surrounding myself with other people who are also very curious and also like to talk about ideas. And that’s really where a lot of my good ideas come from. It’s really a group experience, which is part of why I like it so much.

What’s one of your biggest successes?

Seeing my name in print for the first time was just an indescribable feeling. I think that made it real for me, like, wow, I’m actually a scientist.

Now I have a paper coming out soon that looks at the global diversity of parrots. One figure in it is, I think, the best thing I’ve ever done. It shows the family tree of parrots, over a picture of Gondwana breaking up. Gondwana is the supercontinent that South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand all used to be part of. As that broke up into the continents that we know better now, some families of parrots drifted away with the continents.

I put all these really cool 1800s pictures of different types of parrots on the map of Gondwana to illustrate how the birds’ diversity is explained by the breakup of the continent. Here are the macaws, for instance, they’re in South America. And the lovebirds, they’re over in Africa. The things I really love all came together to illustrate this really complicated set of ideas. You can learn a lot about parrots just through looking at that one map.

What’s one of your biggest failures, and how did you get past that?

This 19th-century painting by John James Audubon shows a flock of very colorful Carolina parakeets. The bird species, once common in the eastern half of the United States, went extinct about 80 years ago.John James Audubon

My biggest failure in science thus far is my inability to explain how the Carolina parakeet went extinct (the bird went extinct about 80 years ago, for still unknown reasons). I’ve been working on this for seven years. I’ve read lots of historical accounts, including travel diaries from Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (the famous explorers traveled through and mapped the western United States in the early 1800s). And I never figured it out.

That’s the thing about science, a lot of the time, you start out with a really clear idea of what you think is going to happen. And it almost never happens that way. I’ve gotten a lot out of this research. I’ve learned a lot about the species. But there’s just some things that maybe we’ll never know. Ultimately, I had to accept that maybe I’ll figure it out one day, maybe I won’t. But that’s OK.

And I’ve used all the tools that I developed in many other ways. I developed those skills for the Carolina parakeet, but I’ve also used them on other species, such as the Tasmanian tiger. The last of these animals died in Tasmania in Australia some 90 years ago. I’ve also used those skills to look into why birds went extinct from the world’s most remote inhabited islands, Tristan da Cuhna, in the south Atlantic, in the 1800s.

What do you do in your spare time?

I spend my weekends with my daughter. I really love spending time with her because, like me, she’s very curious about the world. I got her a telescope and we go stargazing. She’s really into rockhounding too. I like to explore the world with her because it’s different from how I was brought up, where I was isolated and I didn’t really interact with anyone. I want to share the world as I see it because it’s just so beautiful and amazing. We also play video games a lot, and I take her to hockey games.

Kevin Burgio and his daughter, Hannah, share a moment in Casco, Maine. The pair spend time together stargazing, rockhounding and watching hockey.Lauren Gillespie

In my other spare time, I really like to restore vintage things like cast iron pans, chairs and old knives. I had to read a lot about America in the 1800s to find data about the Carolina parakeet. I learned a lot about the iron industry and how cast iron pans were made. Now I can look at a cast iron pan and probably tell you in what year it was made.

What piece of advice do you wish you had been given when you were younger?

When I was five, I had a sister who died. She was four at the time. That was really the catalyst for a lot of the physical and sexual abuse that I dealt with. I do wish that I asked for more help when I needed it when I was younger. All it would have taken me was to go to a teacher and say something like, “I’m hurting. I’m struggling. I don’t know what to do. I’m in pain.” And I just never did it.

I wish I could’ve told myself, “when you need help, ask for it.” It might be embarrassing. It might be painful. It might be hard to do. But I feel like I would have benefited so much from someone knowing and caring and doing something to help me get out of that situation instead of waiting until I could just leave on my own.

That’s part of the reason why I’m so open about these things publicly. At the end of the day, if I haven’t done anything to improve the lives of people who have gone through the same stuff that I have gone through, I don’t think I could live with myself.

This Q&A is part of a series exploring the many paths to a career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). It has been made possible with generous support from Arconic Foundation.

How an encounter with this odd-looking bird inspired a career published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

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serendipitous-smithie · 7 years

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Class Registration!

Today all the first years registered for classes, and I’m super happy with all of mine! I got all of my top choices and have what I hope will be a good schedule for myself. I am taking 19 credits this semester which will be a lot, but I only have 4 classes, plus a theatre production “class” that more of an extracurricular. Another plus is that my earliest class starts at 10am, which fits my sleep schedule much better than high school.

FYS 122 (4 credits)- Eden and Other Gardens- This is my first year seminar which fulfills the only general requirement at Smith, a writing intensive (WI). This class is about how gardens are portrayed in literature, and what meaning they hold.

BIO 130/131 (5 credits)- Biodiversity, Ecology and Conservation- I’m very excited for this class because ecology is my favorite part of biology, and this is the track I’m planning on taking in my biology major. I’m also taking the lab concurrently. The subject matter is about general earth processes, and the importance of biodiversity.

FRN 120 (4 credits)- In high school I took 3 years of French, but there was no fourth year class offered so I tested into 120, which will help me improve my speaking and writing skills. I’m hoping to study abroad my junior year in Paris or Geneva, so I have to take French every semester.

CHM 111 (5 credits)- This is a basic general chemistry class that I’m taking to fulfill the requirements for the biology major. I don’t love chemistry, but I’ve heard good things about the class.

T200 (1 credit)- This isn’t really a class, it’s just giving me credit for backstage work that I’ll be doing in the theatre!

#classes #smith college #my classes

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beautifulramblingbrains · 7 years

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Crush - Chapter 1. Daydreaming.

Pairing: Eric/OC *Abbey* Fandom: Divergent Rating: M

A memory from Eric's past plays tricks on him. And it's all about the girl, Abbey Ainsworth.

A/N: So, as I’m in a state of limbo, I’ve taken it upon myself to slowly edit my way through my old work. This is my first fanfiction I ever did and I think it’s about time I began uploading it on here.

Abbey Ainsworth.

Fuck. He hadn't thought of that name in over three years. If it wasn't for the number boy he probably wouldn't have thought of it for another ten.

But today is different. Today he has the time to sit in remembrance. He has time to reminisce about what was - even if the memories give him a heated inner core and a bad case of the Monday's.

Stretching his legs leisurely under the table and sitting further back in his recliner chair, he has no further duties that require his personal attention for a good hour. He was enclosed and cocooned by the safety of his dimly-lit office with the blinds half-mast. He was safe here to empty the trashy thoughts that seemed to have crept up on him out of the hazy mist of his youthful brain.

Abbey Ainsworth.

Eric lazily flops his arm down to the drawer on the side of the desk, pulling the secret cigarettes that he always kept there. In fact, they weren't really a secret, he would smoke if he wanted and wouldn't care for who's say so. But he liked to think for his health that it was his dirty little secret, and right now, there didn't seem any better time than to pull one, bite the filter and light the damn thing. It was a need, a must, and he's already blazing it habitually as the name seems to simper back into his brain again.

Abbey Ainsworth.

He couldn't really remember when they became friends back at Erudite. It just, sort of, happened…

She used to be in his class. Brown bob, skinny, and her teeth too big for her head. They hadn't even spoken in between the years, he didn't even really know she existed and treated her to that same effect.

Eric regarded her as any other little annoying girl and that boys didn't hang around with girls, they were disgusting, vile, whiners.

That's until they got put together randomly in biology.

He'd just turned thirteen and honestly, couldn't think of anything worse than having to discuss with her the ecology and evolution of life through frog dissection. Having a girl as his lab partner… he all but groaned as he imagined her freaking out or possibly hurling like Sandy Morrison. But she didn't.

In fact, she'd taken the knife out of his gloved hands, smiled up at him through her vented safety goggles and sliced the stomach open before the teacher even gave them the go-ahead.

It was in that moment, the little annoying girl with the brown bob and teeth too big for her head, professionally and enthrallingly slicing and pulling apart the frog's skin like she was a complete psychopath - It was in that moment he knew they would be the best of friends.

It only seemed to get better as the year passed.

She helped him cheat in his Math's test at fourteen. They had devised a unique tap of the foot in the silenced room, to which she swirled numbers on her back with a finger once he'd alerted her to his entrapment, sometimes throwing a coy smile over her shoulder when authority wasn't looking. Afterward, they ditched all further lessons and took to the biggest oak tree they could find.

It was her idea.

She climbed first, swinging her bright blue bag over her shoulder and tying her woolen knitted jumper to her waist, calling him "Chicken shit," when he didn't attempt to climb in the first instance. But to be fair, he was just trying not to look up her dress as she uncaringly climbed from branch to branch.

There, they sat for hours until their asses felt raw, talking nothing but utter nonsense and mocking over the nerdy freaks in their class. Soon, it seemed to become a regular thing, so much so, that one day they both carved their names at the top - No hearts or any other drivel, just their names. But she drew a smiley face…

At one point when they were fifteen Abbey never turned up for school one day. It wasn't like her, she always turned up and he couldn't understand why.

It wasn't like he could message her - he got his phone confiscated by his parents when it got reported they had prank-called Desmond Drip too many times in one night.

But in the one day, he'd never felt so lost. Not even his other friends shared the same sense of indulgent humor as they did, and it was a plain fact he'd clock watched the entire day until he could go looking for her.

He'd found her, eventually. She was at home, and she'd answered the door barely able to look at him.

"What happened to your face?" he asked, and she diverted her eyes to the floor. There was one specific eye blackened and shining as a massive indicator of injustice, and the mere thought and sight made his blood boil to an inhuman temperature.

He knew by the way she was looking indirectly to the floor, that nothing was alright in the life of Abbey Ainsworth. He knew this look, it was a look he did himself, one of loss of pride, but also something she'd been trying to hide.

"Sarah Mackey." The words fall from her quivered but rosy lips.

"Why?" He watches as her eyes well up, but she won't cry, won't allow herself to, not in front of him.

"Because she says I'm a whore for hanging around with boys."

He'd left her that evening having found the new knowledge of deep personal interest. He'd found Sarah Mackey's older brother by the bench of the south entrance the next morning and, quite frankly, beat the living shit out of him.

"That's for Abbey!" he let bellow from the pit of his stomach once he'd dropped him. But it also earned him a matching black eye amid the chaos - that he wasn't too pleased with. It didn't matter though, as when he went to see Abbey later on that day, they matched…

Her smile beamed from ear to ear and strangely she threw her arms around his neck for thanks. It was their first ever hug… but it wasn't their last.

At sixteen, Abbey's hair was long. She'd filled out perfectly and she sported breasts, whereas he sported half-decent facial hair for once. But they still acted as if they were thirteen, name-calling, jinxing, free-hits.

They had their aptitude tests at the beginning of the year, and Eric was unsurprised to find that he wasn't Erudite after swiping the knife in the fear simulation and easily obliterating the dog. They weren't allowed to say what they got, but it didn't mean he hadn't the insatiable urge to ask Abbey. They settled for: "Not Erudite" instead, and that's the way it stayed.

Eric's father passed halfway through that year from a sudden heart attack.

The news was delivered to him after being escorted from their English class by their main professor and he was sent home accordingly. She turned up later that night, she didn't say anything, didn't have to. He saw she was already aware of the news. Instead of offering her condolences, Abbey pulled him into her arms, his face in her peppermint hair, her nose against his neck. He couldn't figure out how long they stood like that, but it was a long time. But it was enough, being with her at that moment was enough…

Then one day everything changed.

Abbey found him after class and jingled a cigarette in his face, well, what he thought was a cigarette. It was not until they were back at their tree within the ruined cities wilderness that he actually found out it was a joint.

They smoked that shit till their lungs burned and eyes bled.

They practiced blowbacks and he'd burnt his lip. She tried to teach him to blow rings but he Just. Simply. Couldn't. However, that didn't matter, they laughed highly for what seemed like hours at practically nothing. And it was the best time of his life.

Laying softly on the small pit of earth beneath the tree, watching the branches sway in the light breeze as the moon decided to make an appearance. He remembers it being a full moon, the dewy blue haze settling upon them softly and deliciously cool - that eventually he felt cold fingers slide over the back of his hand, placing themselves entwined with his.

The breath practically hitched in his throat and he'd froze, but it didn't stop him from turning his head and noticing the way she was looking at him. When their eyes met she'd smiled softly and chastely said:

"You're my moon."

Before slowly turning her gaze back up towards the tree and the sky and whatever else she was looking at. However, he didn't, he allowed him a few extra minutes to take in her never-noticed-before features. The gradual slope of her nose, the puckered lips, her long lazily blinking eyelashes as she was pooled by a pillow of her own chestnut hair framed around her head. It was in that moment, he realized how beautiful she was and wondered why he'd never seen it before.

They held hands in silence until midnight.

Eric's life came to a blazing, sharp, gut-wrenching, panicky ball of nerves when Abbey's parents invited him to dinner. He'd spent the whole day of the Friday panicking. He'd gone home and changed between four shades of blue before finalizing on something parent-worthy but utterly, boringly, blue... But what got to him the most was how he couldn't really figure out why this bothered him so much…

Of course, he'd met her parents, but briefly. And usually, it was because they were in trouble or he was coming to see if she was home. It was never formal, however.

All night he put on his best behavior and told them stories about himself, how he was doing in his classes, things he liked and didn't like. But in his side-view, Abbey just smiled at him from across the table as he spoke. He would almost say it was as if they were the only people in the room and his gray eyes would hold hers for moments far too long.

Till she slid her foot up his leg…

And continued to do so through dessert, earning him a temporary cough and marks in between his fingers from his own nails.

At seventeen, they had one year left to the choosing ceremony. And this seemed to pain Eric more than he would like.

He hadn't told her about which faction he was planning on joining after Erudite. He was far too broad and significantly provoked in the Erudite navy uniform with his great height and strong jawline. He wasn't in the slightest muscular, just athletic, but better built than the average men he'd seen milling around. But it wasn't just that…

Eric wanted more. He wanted freedom. He wanted power. He wanted to be Dauntless… But all those things he wanted with Abbey. However, the unknown faction of her choice was simpering on the fine edge of earth shattering heartache.

However, he could never find the right words to tell Abbey appropriately, even when every inch of him screamed him to out it. And when he felt that perhaps he had stumbled upon them and was about to let them slip, she turns and smiles at him, holds his hand, plays with his hair. It's like she knew what he was thinking.

At break, with his head in her lap and under the familiar oak tree. She lazily picks the petals from a flower. Nipping the petals softly, letting them flutter past his head, while he stares between her face and the puny white monstrosities of flower spawn. Then unexpectedly, she meets his eye.

"I want to show you something…" Abbey's cheeks ignite, and a million things run through his head. Had he missed something? Nothing usually gets by him.

She pushes him to sit and he drawls "Okkkay," unsurely.

Abbey blushes as she looks to the floor again and Eric hides his embarrassment for her.

She shrugs off her cardigan and slowly, her dainty fingers work at the buttons of her white shirt, painstakingly leisurely. All he can seem to do is stare with his Adam's apple bobbing repeatedly as he tries to swallow the saliva that's decided to form quicker.

She throws off her shirt and sits in a white lacy bra in front of him with her milky skin exposed. He tries his hardest to keep her gaze but he can't help the momentary acts of defiance his eyes seem to make.

"Wh-" Eric tries to talk with his jaw slack, but she hushes him quickly.

"Shh." She shuffles closer on her knees. "Don't ruin it." Slowly, she moves forwards, her eyes searching each of his and he stares back with the same passionate glint that he sees beginning to form in hers.

She kisses him.

His first kiss.

Her lips were hot and lusciously soft against his own, and he let his eyes close along with hers.

She bites at his bottom lip while pulling away slowly. He was surprised at first, but smiles when she tilts her head back to roam over his face briefly, maybe checking if he was possibly still breathing.

"Chicken shit," she says. "You're supposed to kiss me first."

"You're not exactly conventional." And she kisses his smile. This time he opens his mouth a little and she responds instantly, sliding her sweet tongue to search out his, hands sliding round to the back of his head and through his hair. He grips at her waist and pulls her forward, sliding a hand up her back and finding the lacy material of her bra, mentally trying to figure out just exactly how he's found himself in this scenario and whether he's the most luckiest son of a bitch on this planet.

"Take it off," she practically purrs, moving back a little to catch his reaction.

"What if someone sees us?"

"What if…" She shrugs. And like a classical school-boy, he fumbles for about five minutes trying to figure out the stupid clasp and can't fathom why it won't naturally move the way he wants it to. She merely giggles, and with a special superhuman ability – unclasps it with one hand.

Eric doesn't want to look out of courtesy but just can't help it. Perfectly pert, untouched skin sits before him, the nipple hardened and tempestuously pink.

"I want you to touch me, Eric." And he didn't need telling twice. The soft skin sits pleasantly against his palm as he lightly squeezes. Abbey leans in and kisses him again, pushing him further and further backward until he's almost lying flat and she hovers over him.

That day she tells him.

"I think – I think I love you…"

But he doesn't say it back, and she doesn't appear to be disheartened. She knows him too well to be put off by his uniquely restrictive mind. To be honest, he didn't even really know what love was, so how could he say it? Was this love?

Abbey had always been more openly emotional in front of him to some extent, she was a blunt girl when it came to him. Apart from physically showing emotional attachment, they'd never really talked about it…

But not only that, she didn't know that he was planning on choosing Dauntless next year. That's where his mind took him and it would be unfair to whisper the sweet nothings to her if he had no plan on staying.

Being with Abbey here was ultimately pleasing too, but he was so sure she would pick Dauntless. She had all the strengths and cunning, and if he was going, she would be going too. He could feel it, he knew it, no doubts.

Things became serious the day before the choosing ceremony.

Abbey shows up at his parent's place and is shown to his room by his mom throwing the door open unexpectedly. "Thank you, Mrs Coulter," Abbey says sweetly and smiles while stepping into his room.

Eric throws the book he was reading to one side and takes a minute to take in her appearance. She's sodden, walked there in the rain.

"I wanted to see you… before tomorrow, in case…" She shivers.

He signals for her to sit on the bed and throws her his towel. Her damp, flattened locks lay limp by her face. She looks pale, almost frightened.

"Don't, we shouldn't say…"

"That's not the only reason why I'm here. Lock the door," she talks very seriously and he complies - with a little sense of hesitation. She holds her hand out as the lock clicks and sighing lightly under the unknown, he walks over and holds it. "Lie down with me." Her eyes appear watery, hazy and he wonders what exactly is going through her mind right now. He moves, but she stops him. "Without your clothes."

"Are you sure?" He wasn't going to detest.

"I've never been so sure."

He would like to say that it was the most perfect sex anyone could have for their first time, but he would be lying. They were a giggling set of fools, clumsily roaming parts of their bodies that he'd never thought he would have the delight of seeing… or feeling. He'd made her squirm uncomfortably on their first try and he pulled out apologizing only to be dragged back with Abbey's natural stubbornness.

What was more thrilling was the fact that they could've been caught. However, they were lucky on this night, his mother had left them to their own devices. He did think that perhaps she maybe knew why Abbey was here and that was the reason she had let them be. Eric guessed he would never know and for in that moment – didn't care either…

Abbey gets called to choose before him, throwing him a long look before fixing a sturdy gaze towards the bowls of factions.

Eric can't help the nervous shifts and racing heart as he waits somewhat patiently, his mother's hand lightly laying on his knee for small comfort.

"She's a smart girl," his mother tells him. "And I know how close you two are but you have to do what's right for you, not for others…" At the time he didn't think too much of it, but his mother had openly predicted their fate.

…Abbey chooses Amity.

Every inch of skin on him is ablaze as he watches her make her way to sickening pink and yellow. looney nut-jobs. She looks utterly lost and tries to look back for him but is pulled into one of the open seats with the Amity faction. Abbey smiles to other members, but it's not her usual, he should know, he knew her better than anyone else. However, he didn't expect this, never knew which way her heart was taking her.

If he'd thought about it hard enough, the signs were there: Their oak tree, the outdoors and love of flowers, hate of violence with Sarah Mackey, the relaxing smoke they took together under the moonlight and hugging him obsessively for the last three years.

He'd always classed it is a warped sense of Dauntless, never Amity.

His blood burned with a sense of betrayal. It felt like she had lied all this time, but he knew she hadn't and that he couldn't truly be mad of her choice in all respect. The anger was more at himself for feeling how he did towards her, and for the main element – he'd have to let her go.

The last time they saw each other, he shared an expressionless look towards her watery eyes as they parted ways on their journey to their new factions.

Dauntless was his new home.

Sighing as he pulls himself from his lost thoughts, he once again curses Four for his untimely reminder of Abbey Ainsworth and wiggles the mouse of the computer to check the time.

11.50AM

Eric clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth in annoyed anticipation that he would have to deal with this onslaught of deliverance. Amity would be arriving soon. Their trucks dirtied and thick tiered tires crunching the broken concrete of Dauntless instead of their plush fields, laden with the hippies of Amity and batches of produce for the glutinous warrior faction.

Just fucking dandy.

Every vertebra clicks as he stands, his room washed with the smell of a chain-smoker and an awful temper for inconveniences. He doesn't bother to pick up his phone, but he attaches his gun to his right thigh and an A4 page of the checklist he will no doubt develop a headache over.

The walk from his office to the warehouses isn't long, and he's never bothered by anyone. No one now would dare talk to him when he was in this mood, nor even make eye contact, and that was the way he liked it these days, a far cry to how he was in Erudite.

He supposed the behavior was always there in a way. He spat at the youngsters and she would laugh. He would fetch the ball from the moat and she would stay by the shore and dry. He would physically beat anyone that touched his Abbey and was always rewarded by her smile.

Eric shakes his head vigorously; he's not going back down that road again. That was a hell of enough for one day.

"So glad you could join us, Eric." Max stares out to the trucks rolling up in front of them. "I had a feeling you might not even turn up."

"Is that a sense of sarcasm I'm hearing?" Eric places his hands behind his back and imitates the strong look towards the truck, unbothered by the small questioning glance to his rather unusual passive state. "Let's just get this done."

The few subordinate Dauntless soldiers run a-mock as they divert the trucks to their certain bays. The heavy beeping and shouting drowning out even the deepest of thoughts as the gassy smoke from the exhausts back-fire and smolder the burning oil towards his nostrils.

Eric has stood here and overlooked this arrangement fifty times over, and as far as he was aware everything was working out the way it should before him and he didn't feel the need to intervene.

…Until one of the trucks stall and the backdoor unhinges, sending bags of produce tumbling out the back and smashing onto the floor, spilling ungracefully across the lot.

"Fuck," Eric mutters and Max sends him an incredulous look, unmoving from his position. "Fine. I'll go then."

Eric closes the gap brutally with his swift stride and arms himself for the onslaught of abuse that he's going to send the clumsy Amity packing-with. The Amity and Dauntless alike in the nearest vicinity move hastily in retreat and he doesn't bless them with even a small act of acknowledgment.

Instead, he grips the door handle of the red rust-bucket truck and yanks on it with limited grace. "You want to tell me what the fuck-"

He stops mid-sentence.

Eric must've have smoked too much tobacco and daydreamed far too much to be imagining her blushing down at him from the wrecked material seats of the truck.

Abbey.

It was her, he was sure of it, albeit a little more mature and magnificently filled out to the svelte of her curves. It was her.

Abbey's hair was still chestnut, her eyes still green and flecked with hazel, her adorable pout, and perfect nose. But she had bangs, side-swept bangs that were the only difference.

"I'm really sorry…" She begins and he wished he could have said anything other than:

"Abbey?" The word was so out of character and soft that he didn't believe he'd even said it. He naturally pulls his features into his usual frown, but the eyes are less intense, it was all about the eyes.

He physically hadn't said her name in years, it was all mainly in his thoughts from earlier. Fuck, he hadn't even thought of her since - until today…

Abbey's face is a maze of assumptions as she mulls over exactly who's standing in front of her. Slowly, but surely, disbelief arises. "…No way…" She whispers under her breath and his skin prickles at the sound. "Eric?"

He takes a small look around him to make sure no one's really paying attention before shifting closer. "What are you- why are you here?"

And as casually as ever, she laughs, smiling that familiar smile he remembered so well. "What does it look like?" He could bite his own tongue off for his stupid questions and stupid face so pitifully brimming on a long-lost hope.

Abbey slides down the seats and roams over his attire, curling her nose up a little and probably taking in the thick tattoos swamping his neck along with the piercings above his brow and multiple ear pieces. "Wow, Eric, you look…huge…like…really big…" Her eyes light up as she talks and expresses each word specifically. "Buff."

She looks pretty, too fucking pretty at this moment in time and every inch of him is trying to suppress the urge to grab her by the arm and take her all the way back to his apartment and bite at her skin and relish all the ways that he missed that knotted feeling at the pit of his stomach.

"You know me, full of surprises…"

"I heard you got ranked really highly… a Leader… Wow, look at you…" She rubs his arm and he thinks perhaps she doesn't know how offensive that would be if it were anyone else, but he lets her anyway.

Eric breaks the intense study he's performing over her appearance and directs a sharp look to the Amity standing around. "Well, don't just stand there, clean it up!" he snaps and Abbey shifts beside him, turning fractionally to do as he says. "Not you." He should say something else, something casual. However, he's somewhat out of practice. "You haven't changed a bit��" Good one.

"You certainly have. I mean, I barely recognized you. It's been-" She peers off in thought, her lips pouting slightly.

"Three years."

"Somebody has been counting…" She devours him with her eyes and he's actually nervous… nervous… he is never nervous. But he supposes every monster has their weaknesses.

"I, er, have been thinking about you…" Eric practically whispers, breaking any personal contact with her. "-because of the deliveries and Amity, and I knew you were-"

"I've been thinking about you, too." She stops his murmuring and lightly touches his arm again. "I hoped I'd get the chance to see you again."

His expression must ask the question 'why' as she answers anyway.

"I want you…" She hesitates for a split second. "I want you to come to my wedding…"

What. The. Fuck.

"No!" Eric spits the word venomously, a heat running from the base of his spine and blanching onto his neck. "Don't be stupid, you're not getting married."

"Erm, yes I am… In two weeks."

Eric knew she couldn't possibly love her fiancé; he wouldn't be enough for her, no one ever would be. Only Eric was meant for the girl. - This girl of all his firsts. This girl that spent far too much time clogging his mind today and sculpting his childhood.

The possessiveness was beginning to peak under the new assault of jealousy and lust. He would rip any person that would touch his Abbey, from limb to limb and enjoy himself while doing it.

"No," he says gruffly. "No I will not come to your wedding and you're an idiot for thinking so…" He leaves the words to linger in the air and it physically hurts when her face unravels in absolute surprise at his outburst and brutal honesty.

"Have I… done something to offend you?" She shrugs with her palms towards him in great apology, but it's not enough.

Eric beats down the eloping misery and turns away from her, feeling her eyes burn into the back of his head and the ripping sensation in his chest.

Loudly he snarls, "I hope you have a very happy life together."

This was not what he planned, not what he wanted to say, but the monster that was him couldn't bare her anywhere near him anymore. Not with those hideously exposed revelations.

Abbey will not marry another man… not while he still breathed.

He just needed time to figure out how. Marking his own words, he'll fucking stop her from devoting herself to someone else. He had the power swaying heavily in his favor and contacts heavily primed in Amity to help him do so.

Mark my words, Abbey Ainsworth will be mine.

#crush #chapter 1 #edited #about time #eric coulter #eric #divergent #eric divergent fanfiction #insurgent #oc #jai courtney

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gillian-ybabez · 7 years

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The New Interview with a Vampire Part 3

<<Previous

“We are back talking to Monica the commander of the space mission to Kepler 186. Why don’t you tell us a little about Kepler 186,” the host prompted me.

“Kepler 186 is a star system about five hundred light years from Earth. We’re heading to the fifth planet out. It is slightly bigger than Earth so higher gravity but we think has a chance at being human habitable.”

“How habitable are we talking? Sunny tropical beaches?”

I chuckled. “Not that sunny. At noon, Kepler 186 is barely brighter than our sun is at sunset.”

“Sounds like a perfect place for vampires.”

“That’s something we’re going to find out. We honestly don’t know if it’s just our sun that will burn vampires or any sun.”

“The scientist at the space agency haven’t run tests? Have they tried using sun lamps?” The audience laughed.

“Ha, no most of the testing with sun lamps was done a couple of hundred years ago.”

“Was that when vampires became public knowledge?” she asked.

“Not exactly. There have calls to go public since before I became a vampire. I saw several during my first century but they always got shot down by older vampires afraid humans would try to exterminate all of us. It was a valid concern so no one went beyond suggesting we go public.”

“What changed?”

“IDs.”

“IDs?” the host asked.

“Yep. In 2234, the Global Identification System changed its encryption schema and made it virtually impossible to create new fake IDs. It was common at the time for vampires to change identities every forty to fifty years. Suddenly it looked like we were going to be locked out of human society and forced back into haunting abandoned buildings. Without the appearance of legal identification, we couldn’t own property, we couldn’t have jobs, we couldn’t receive mail, we couldn’t travel. It was the end of the world for us. Then someone suggested we go public. This time the idea wasn’t shot down right out of the gate. There was a year long debate weighing every possible pro and con. And in the end, enough of us said yes.

“I wish I could read those comments.”

“Actually you can. Someone compiled the discussion into a book after we were recognized as full citizens in 2262. It’s titled Road From Out the Coffin. Horrible title but the content is good.

“How did that lead to scientists running tests on vampires?”

“Right got sidetracked for a second. Basically, some of us revealed ourselves to doctors around the world and let them run whatever test they wanted on us to prove we weren’t vampires. Of course, they got odd to weird results back but couldn’t prove we weren’t vampires. With this wide range of doctors saying “I don’t know what these people are but they aren’t normal human,” we went to specialized labs and continued the cycle. We wanted scientific proof that we, vampires, existed. After several years, everyone was stumped on how our bodies worked but we had detailed reports that they did. Then began step two: petitioning the World Government to recognize vampires as legal citizens with all the rights and protections that entailed. We wanted to be people, not monsters anymore.”

“Is that how people saw you? As monsters?”

“It was ingrained in society. Except for some novels written during the early twenty-first century, vampires have been portrayed as blood sucking murderers. We were that at one time but over time we stopped killing and even stopped having to forcibly take blood from people. That was probably what helped our case the most.”

“You had blood donors?”

“Actually yes. In the 2100’s, some vampires established a worldwide blood bank.”

The host’s eyes widened. “Wait, the World’s Blood Bank is run by vampires?”

“Well, not anymore. It started as a small front to get people to donate blood that was then sold to local vampires on the side. It worked so well that they got vampires around the world to invest and opened a network of vampire controlled blood banks under the name World’s Blood Bank. Then a couple of years after they had started a series of hurricanes and tsunamis and an earthquake devastated local blood supplies around the world. Someone in a hospital somewhere remembered hearing about The World’s Blood Bank and called up to request some blood.

“There was mild panic online that our blood supply was going to be exposed. The vampires running the blood bank decided they couldn’t not help. They had been collecting world wide and felt like they had plenty to spare. Then more requests came and then more. It seemed like the whole operation was going to collapse but then people started donating in mass. Their false image as a blood bank for the world became reality. The vampires set up a corporation to control the blood bank’s finances and set up a board of doctors to monitor day to day operations. They set up small private clinics around the world that could request blood and distribute it to local vampires. Our detractors tried to use this against us, calling us leeches on the world’s blood supply but all the vampires in the world use less than one hundredth of a percent of the blood used in hospitals around the world.”

“Wow. I just donated blood last week.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Well, we’re almost out of time so do you have anything else you’d like to say about the Kepler 186 mission? What do you hope to learn or see?”

“I hope it is habitable. Earth is going to be here for a long time but humans might not. In the last five hundred years I’ve been alive, I’ve seen several man-made ecological disasters. Humans are getting better at cleaning up their messes but it just takes one mess too big to clean up to wipe us out. Too many eggs in one basket. So we’re heading out to find new homes for humanity. This is just the first of several vampire led missions to distant stars. We’re the first wave because we can sleep must of the hundreds of years it will take to get there. The hope is that by the time we get there and can send a message back new forms of transport will have been developed. My greatest hope is we arrive at an already populated planet.”

“You’re giving up your life for humans?”

“A few decades ago a conversation started about what would happen if all the humans died and only vampires survived. The discussion ranged from creating human farms to cloning blood to creating synthetic blood. There are many ways we could keep living if you wiped yourselves out but none of us want that world. Several of us were already in the space program and we suggested finding more worlds for humanity and us to live on. It seems very selfless but really we don’t want to be alone with only each for company.”

“Thank you, Commander Monica, for your time and service.

“Thank you for having me on.”

“That’s all the time we have today. Thank you for watching and don’t forget to donate blood.”

The show’s theme music blared one last time as the audience clapped.

<<Previous

"The New Interview with a Vampire Part 3" was also posted on my website, Gillian's Notebook, home of my writing. Help support my writing by becoming a patron. Reblogs help to spread my writing to new readers.

#fantasy #horror #scifi #stories #trans characters #trans woman #vampires

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humanlatte · 5 years

Photo

hi here are some choice photos of me from today on the way to class and in my new grayscale shirt i ordered :) but i decided i’m using my revived blog as a diary bc i have so many things to say but i have no one to say them to so here i am its probs not the most interesting but if you wanna read about college and feelings :)

today was so fucking loooonnnnggg holy shit i have 4 back to back classes all 1 hour and 15 minutes long and i’m so fucking overwhelmed with things. this semester is going to annihilate me and i’m not here for it

my first class was public health and apparently this professor makes this class harder than it needs to be so that is just so fun its literally so bullshit bc i will absolutely never use any of this information in my career but i have to take it :))) i already have a reading to do before thursday :))) why :))) also she made us ( class of 200) talk to 3 new people and become friends like tell me why

then i had my genetics class and i’m just hoping its not the worst fucking thing in the world bc i feel like it could be easy but idk

i’m kinda hype about my education class this semester bc they pair you up with a “community” around the city and i have 20 hours of practicum work outside of class i have to do but the instructor seems dope and i’m always excited to be doing education stuff bc i fucking love it idk man but i really really really don’t wanna write any more papers!!!

and then my fuckin ecology and evolution class was the most BORING SHIT i’ve ever sat through in my life this man could ramble on about who he knows for DAYS and never stop but i heard his exams are all online and its an easy A which is something i NEED this semester bc i just got so much SHIT going on already and i’m drained like real fuckin drained from last semester and like i’m really getting over going to college bc i’m just exhausted and tired of useless (self-imposed) bullshit (like fuckin labs)

so now i’m back at my regular constant stress level and i feel at home

but also i’m still sad over the dumb boy that doesn’t like me like that bc things were going so WELL and things could have been so fuckin GOOD and it will never stop bothering me

also i’ve been listening to a lot of dance gavin dance recently Fuck this idk man

#welcome to my fucking diary #i am sad #and stressed #i hate college #and all men #i wanna go home #shit show #me

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rimofwell · 7 years

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this is probably not going to sound like a big deal to anyone else, but it’s actually a huge deal for me

so, i have an 8am exam on thursday rip so i’ve been practicing getting up early in preparation lol. last night i took my sleep meds at 10:30 and feel asleep around 11:45. so i woke up at like 5:00, and then at 6:00 and then at 6:45 I finally got up and i got ready and went into the lab where i’ve been studying for the past several days. saturday, sunday and monday i stayed at the lab until like 10:00 at night, like basically spent the whole day there studying.

anyway, today i got to the lab earlier than i normally do because i woke up early and i’ve been feeling really drained and tired, and for some reason literally almost burst into tears while i was studying, so i made the decision to leave the lab at around 5 instead of staying there until like 10 at night again bc i knew i needed to be in a different environment and take it easy for the night

part of me is like! no! u slacker! u have 2 exams tomorrow one thursday and 2 friday u don’t get to take a break!!!!!!! but i think i do need to and that it will ultimately be better for me, and so here i am at home casually studying for my psych exam and just being calm-ish. in reality, this isn’t much different than my normal studying lol. like for psych i usually start a day or two before the exam, eco is like maybe 3 days before and i don’t study for spanish lol ever. i think the class where i give the *most* amount of time to study is for my cell bio class, where i’ll usually start about a week before, sometimes a little less than a week in advance. so it’s not like i’m doing anything soooo crazy when u consider my general study habits lol. but for some reason i feel like since it’s finals i should probably have given myself more than like 4 days to study for 5 exams lmao but here we are!! I just keep hearing ppl being like, “oh yeah finals like 1.5 weeks away i should start studying!!” and that makes me lol nervous but what’s done is done so no point in stressing more about it now

also, our ecology prof emailed us about final grades (like so far) and she calculated my grade wrong and forgot to add up some points (she gives us our assignments back so i know lol). like, she sent an email saying i have a 95.1 or 95.2 or something, but i really have like a 97 in the class and like i don’t want to be annoying and make a thing of it because an A is an A lol but also a part of me is like !!!!!!!!!! what if i do badly on our term paper and our final exam and it brings my grade down 3 points and then those extra 2 points would MATTER!!!!!! so right now i’m just pondering this.. haven’t said anything yet

#personal

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solarpunks · 7 years

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#003 “Use biological solutions before technological” — Interview with Jesse Grimes — Pt2

Part 2 of our interview with Jesse Grimes, who’s one of our favourite Youtubers. He is currently running a gofundme to take him to the The Ecological Landscaper Immersion program (details below).

In Part 1 we talked Permaculture, Ant Village at Wheaton Labs and Standing Rock.

In Part 2 we talk Technology, bikes and the future!

This post is mirrored on our medium here if you prefer. (it looks nicer)

Bikes

SPS! From your videos it seems that bikes and BMX played a big role in your life growing up. When did you start riding and how has it influenced you as a person?

I’ve been riding BMX since I was 5 years old. I lived right next to the first ABA race track in the country in Chandler, Arizona, and my dad started bringing me there. My bike was stolen, so I stopped riding for a while, but I got back into it in a big way when I was 12 and moved to Southern California. All through high school I rode BMX, and pretty much all my friends came from riding. I really think it kept me away from drugs and alcohol during my teen years. I had a social group that was organized around doing something active and positive, instead of around partying, we got our thrills through learning new tricks and discovering new spots to ride. To this day, riding BMX has given me a community that I can connect right into no matter where I go. I can just roll up to the skatepark or a set of jumps and instantly make friends with other riders.

BMX Road Trip, the #IdahoSkateparkTour, and Building a Better Bike Park

SPS! I’m not into BMX / trials biking myself, but I have a bunch of friends who are. They’re the sort of people that love spending their spare time digging up dirt in the woods not minding the rain is there a little bit of that in you?

Most definitely, I have been doing that since I was a kid. Creating dirt jumps is one of my favorite art forms. It’s like large scale, interactive, ceramic sculpture. Of course, the main motivation is the experience of doing the jumps once they are finished, but anyone who has a passion for creating jumps or trails will put their own artistic touch into the way the lips are shaped, or how the line twists through the woods. There’s also a community aspect to it, getting together with a group of friends and working long hours to create something that you all can enjoy.

SPS! You’ve talked passionately about the idea of combining permaculture with bike parks and really want to make it happen. Could you tell us a bit more about your vision for the Permaculture Bike Park?

Once I started learning more about water harvesting earthworks through permaculture, it changed the way I looked at building dirt jumps. Anyone who is an experienced trail builder thinks about drainage, but through permaculture eyes I started thinking about how all that water could be directed towards growing plants, to help mitigate the environmental damage that is caused by all that digging. Having trees around the jumps also happens to make the riding more enjoyable. Public bike parks are becoming more and more common, and I think that is a very good thing, given all the positive impacts that riding BMX can have a on a child’s life.

The sport of BMX is a gateway to a lifelong love of cycling. Talk to anyone who is riding a road or mountain bike in their 30s, and most of the time you find out that they started on a BMX bike as a kid. So, I think building more bike parks and providing the youth with a welcoming invitation to the sport of BMX is a great way to ensure that more people will be riding bikes in the future. I’ve been to a lot of public bike parks in my travels, and unfortunately, most of them are quite poorly built, and nearly all of them just look like bare dirt lots. Knowing what I do about building jumps, along with my knowledge in permaculture, I see a huge opportunity to create a much better bike park. To start with, permaculture design can be used to organize the cycling community around getting the parks built, to help make those connections and create those positive relationships that are necessary when working with public agencies to even get the idea of a bike park off the ground. When it finally gets to the point of designing and building the park, permaculture design can be utilized to take a more holistic view of how the visitors will interact with the park, and how the park itself will interact with the community around it. Another very important aspect, is making connections in the local cycling community and providing resources to trusted individuals to ensure that the jumps and riding surfaces continue to be well maintained. I’ve seen too many bike parks that are damaged to the point of being unsafe, because there was never any maintenance program set in place. By using permaculture design, we can better ensure that the park will actually be useful, fun, and safe for the riders, as well as a benefit for the neighborhoods around it. Instead of some forgotten mounds in a dirt lot, we could build a beautiful forest garden that is a draw for both cyclists and the general public. On top of the parks being a great place for children to gain a love of cycling, it would also be an incredible opportunity to educate the public about how permaculture can be used to create abundance out of damaged landscapes. I think that well beyond the possibilities of the permaculture bike park, there is a huge potential to improve the design and operation of public parks and public space as a whole.

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The Future

SPS! Permaculture is a big part of Solarpunk and is certainly a real world origin point for it’s aesthetic. In your experience, what do people in the permaculture community think about new technologies?

I think there is quite a wide range of opinions on the subject. There is certainly an element that is trying to move away from technology as much as possible, but there are also those who fully embrace it, and everything in between. One of the principles of permaculture is to use biological solutions before technological. So for example, you would use a constructed wetland to treat and clean your grey water instead of some mechanical means of filtration. The biological solutions are almost always easier, cheaper, and more effective, plus by adding another biological element into a system, you are increasing the diversity, and therefore the resiliency of that system. However, that doesn’t mean technology is out of the question. There is a tremendous amount of work to be done to reverse the damage that our technological society has caused, and ironically some of that same technology is the best and quickest way to start doing that work. An excavator can be used to mine the tar sands, but it can also be used to create water harvesting earthworks that will improve the hydrology of a site for thousands of years. So, I think it is important when considering a new technology to look at the problem it is trying to solve, and strongly consider whether nature has already come up with a solution to that problem. Also, what are the inputs required to create that technology, and what are the outputs of using it? Can we partner with biology to find a solution to that same problem that requires a much lower input of energy and materials, while providing a number of beneficial outputs that might not be produced by a purely technological solution? There are certainly situations in which the best solution in technological, but I also feel that on a planet with finite resources, there is a real danger to the idea that all of our problems will eventually be solved through technological innovation. Technological systems almost always require outside inputs to continue functioning, and inevitably have a finite life span, while biological systems become more resilient with time, utilize the inexhaustible resource of sunlight as their primary input, and have existed on this planet for billions of years.

SPS! In his essay ‘Political Dimensions of Solarpunk’ Andrew Dana Hudson proposed the slogan “Move quietly and plant things” as a counterpoint to silicon valley’s “move fast and break things”. What do you think technology’s role will be in the abundant future we are all hoping for and what does it need to do differently from today?

An early vision of the solarpunk aesthetic, by Imperial Boy. Via MissOlivaLouise

I think technology has a huge role to play in helping us understand the problems we are faced with, as well as in helping us do the work necessary to transform our world in preparation for that abundant future. However, once we have built a world where all the necessities of life are provided by an abundant biological system right outside our front door, I think that many of the technologies we see as indispensable today will simply fade into obscurity. Why would everyone want their own electric car when they don’t have a need to drive every day? Would we need complicated medical equipment when everybody’s food is so nutritious and of such high quality that hardly anyone gets sick anymore? Technology is incredible when it comes to helping us communicate and gather information, and because of this I think it will continue to play a huge role in our social and intellectual lives. The problems come about when we try to use technology to deal with the biological problems of being an animal living within an ecological system. Nature has long ago perfected ways in which to feed us, clothe us, shelter us, and give us clean water and clean air. Somewhere along the line we decided that it was better to use technology to do these things, and so we started ignoring the importance of the ecological systems that were supporting us. We can’t continue to do this and hope to have a positive future.

SPS! Our Tumblr’s tagline is “At once a vision of the future, a thoughtful provocation, and an achievable lifestyle. In progress…” Do you think if everything humanity need to do, gets done, is there reason to be optimistic about the future?

Optimism is the only option in my opinion. It is certainly important to take a critical look at our situation and identify challenges, but only so much that we are aware and understand them clearly. If we focus on the challenges we will be more reluctant to act, and action is desperately needed in our world right now. A phrase that has been repeating in my mind for quite some time now is, “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” To me, it means that we could sit around all day and find flaws in our designs, or in our plans for improving our situation, but we can’t let that stop us from doing the work necessary to at least move us a little bit closer to our goals. Even if we do a lot of work for very little improvement, we are still better off than if we did nothing, and we are in a better position to start from the next time. The problems facing us are so numerous and so massive, that it is easy to get discouraged and start thinking that the abundant, equitable, and peaceful society we would like to live in is so far away that it becomes impossible to reach. We have to remain optimistic that we have the power to improve our society as a whole by making small improvements in our own lives. We all have to find some way in which we can contribute and just get to work, even if we make mistakes along the way. All of these small hopeful acts will build on top of one another until one day we look around and see that although the world is not perfect, it is much, much better off than it once was.

Send Jesse to the ELI

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The first time I ever heard the word permaculture was back in 2011, during a short introductory workshop. That day, a whole new world of ideas opened up to me, an entirely different way of looking at the people and environments around me. I saw that permaculture held the tools to create a better future, the possibility to teach us how to live on this Earth in a way that benefits not only ourselves and our communities, but all the rest of the natural world as well, all of our relatives here on this planet that is our home. My life was changed forever by this moment, and since then I have dedicated my life to learning more about permaculture and sharing this knowledge with others, in the hopes that they might have a similar life changing moment and join in the work of creating a positive future for humanity and the planet.

In the time since then, I have taken two permaculture design courses and various other workshops, gained experience and skills through many hours of volunteer work at permaculture farms and natural building projects, and dove head first into the world of permaculture homesteading by joining the Ant Village community at Wheaton Labs in Montana. Throughout all of this I have pursued my mission of sharing permaculture with the world by talking with people and hosting small workshops, but primarily by creating videos about my experiences and sharing them on the One Heart Fire Youtube channel. I have also started to build a right livelihood by doing permaculture design projects and installations for friends and family, turning my knowledge and energy into real soil, water, and permanent food sources for my clients.

The Ecological Landscaper Immersion Course: http://www.permacultureskillscenter.org/copy-of-ecological-landscaper-immer

Jesse’s GoFundMe Campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/sendjessetotheeli

Jesse’s Youtube Channel: Search “Oneheartfire” or https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpTOy6AFv_Qqr9J8n50f71Q

Jesse’s Patreon, which supports the youtube channel: https://www.patreon.com/jessegrimes

In Part 1 we talked Permaculture, Ant Village at Wheaton Labs and Standing Rock.

#solarpunk #zine #permaculture #jesse grimes #jesse #grimes #bikes #bmx #jumps #permaculture bike park #eli #technnology #scifi #future #webzine #interview #solarpunks #oneheartfire

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