#it is literally 3 am i am half functional and still have school assignments to do 🥴

[celestial-fucking-weeb]

WINTER WARMTH

__________________

Hi, everyone!! This is a part of the Citrus Dome Snowed In collab! I’m so thankful to be a part of this round and super grateful for @lemonlordleah-shinzawa-kitten and @tomurasprincess for letting me be on the masterlist! I’m so excited, but I’m not super proud of this one, so please feel free to give feedback.

Masterlist Here!

Go see everyone’s super awesome fics and art pieces they worked so hard on!!

ART BY @brttpaige on Twitter🖤 Go check out her artwork, she’s fantastic!

Warnings: 18+ minors do not interact, AGED UP (mid twenties), fluff, insecurities, smut, body worship, chubby kink, marking (hickies), Papi kink

Pairing: Sero Hanta x reader

The local news station hailed it as “the storm of the century,” and they weren’t wrong. You’ve watched the snow pile up beyond the window, building from a light dusting on the grass to literal knee-high drifts. And it shows no sign of stopping.

The place you’re stranded is stocked up on groceries, you’d charged every electronic device to your name, and you’d cranked the thermostat as high as it would go until the inevitable happens —

The power goes out.

So now you’re stuck indoors, with only a certain someone for company. The same someone you’ve been pining after for ages. Snow stacks up higher and higher outside. As the cold seeps in, and you both drift closer, you realize this was somehow the one thing you hadn’t thought to prepare for…

The snow outside was pretty at first, but now with the doors and windows to your small cottage-type home half covered, it seemed almost oppressive. With the power outage, there was no television to drown out the quiet, only deafening silence and the movement of your new roommate, Sero Hanta.

It didn’t start this way, you hadn’t always obsessively paid attention to his mannerisms. At one point in time, he was just a hero working for the same agency you provided medical care for. You were just support staff, until a dumb villain thought you were “important” and kidnapped you, leaving the heroes you saw as coworkers to rescue you. After that, the agency wanted you to live in the adjacent apartments, but you refused. Magically, two days later, Sero Hanta approached you asking about your spare room under the guise of his lease running out. You thought it seemed a bit suspicious, particularly that this gorgeous man had “nowhere else to go”, meaning no significant other to take him in. Of course, you agreed, being a nice person and maybe bit naïve. He moved his stuff in, didn’t make much of a fuss, and mostly left you to your own devices. That is, until you noticed some... abnormalities. The lingering glances, the newly installed security cameras, the not-so-subtle ideas to spend time with you of having meals together or watching movies, making sure you’d eaten or slept... He cared too much. He was so perfect- gorgeous, tall, easygoing, had similar goals as a rescue hero, funny, and he cared. He cared for you, which made living with him so much harder. You found yourself enjoying nights with him, wanting to sit a little closer, wanting to impress him with new dishes to make for dinner, ditching your ex’s sweatpants for cute sleep shorts, relishing in fantasies of his protective nature and dominating stature with your hand between your thighs... You thought you were going to choke when he started walking around in only gray sweats or a towel after his shower. You tried your best to keep eye contact, not stick around too long, not encroach upon his comfort in his own house. You failed to notice the smirk on his face when you quickly excused yourself or when you turned away too fast after being caught staring.

Sero had originally taken this as an assignment, although he did have a bit of a crush on you from the times you’d patched him up after rough shifts. He thought of himself as your own personal hero, but that mindset soon turned into more than just an assignment. He was protective over you, and he found himself getting defensive if you even mentioned another guy. He had tried flirting within reason, just making dinners and watching movies, but he got cocky when he had walked past your door one night and heard your little whimpers. He decided to test his theory, wearing his sweats lower than he normally would and walking back to his room in a towel, and delighting in strolling past your room to hear your muffled moans and the vibrations of the toy you never used to use. You were getting desperate, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t boost his ego to hear his name through the walls. This, however, was NOT something he’d planned on.

Everything was fine, being stuck in the house together was nice, until the power went out. The heat somewhat remained in the house until night, when you curled up on the couch under every blanket you had and he layered on an extra hoodie and lounged next to you. He looked cold...

“H-Hey... Sero? Um... You look cold. Do you want a blanket?”

“Hmmm, but then wouldn’t you be cold too?” He chuckled and scratched the back of his neck.

“Well... Maybe... But that’s okay! You need to be warm too!!” God, you’re so sweet.

“I mean... You could always come over here, we can be warm together!” He stretches out his arm and beckons you over, inviting you to curl up next to him. You shift over, spreading the blankets over your roommate and hiding your blushing face under the pile of softness, keeping at least 3 inches of space between you before he rests his arm behind your head.

“Thanks, y/n, this is uh... nice!” He hides his disappointment at your perceived rejection, going back to look at his phone.

After 20 minutes of scrolling, you can’t take it anymore. He smells so good, and you can feel the warmth radiating from his body.

“I’M GONNA GO TO BED NOW. Uh, goodnight!” You basically shouted, too loud to be natural. You abruptly stood up before slightly shrinking from the frigid air. When did it get so cold in here?

“Hey, it’s really cold... We don’t really have a ton of blankets, and I’m worried you’re going to freeze, so maybe we could sleep in my room tonight? Just for, ya know... body heat?” He sounds nervous, like he expects you to freak out and reject him completely.

“Well... I-I guess that’s smart... You’re right. So... Let’s go?” Holy fuck, you are so nervous. You were originally escaping to your room like you normally do, too horny to continue hanging out with Sero and retain your sanity, but now you’re sleeping with him?! What the fuck are you thinking?!

He gathered the blankets and lead you into his room, holding the door for you before plopping down your nest of fabric. You stand awkwardly in the center of the room, waiting for something you have no idea what. Sero unceremoniously strips himself of his hoodies and sweats and climbs into bed, seemingly out of habit, before turning his attention to you and holding the blankets open.

“Are you coming?” He smirks, putting on a confused voice that doesn’t quite match the mischief in his eyes.

“I-...” FUCK, he’s beautiful. Lean muscles flexing with every movement, shaggy hair falling over his face, and holy... The tight black boxers are NOT helping the whole “too turned on to function” situation.

“Oh... Sorry, I read somewhere that skin-to-skin contact is better for warmth. You’d probably know better than me, I guess.” He grins, as though this entire thing is nonchalant and completely normal. “I can help you if you’d like~”

“Uh nope, yeah, you’re right!! I’ll uh just... Can you close your eyes?” You are panicking. Every insecurity you’ve ever had is coming to bite you in the ass. You’re suddenly hyper aware of how much space your body takes up, remembering everything those stupid bitches in high school said about you.

“Y/n, you’ve seen me in that skin tight hero suit and you’ve patched up most of my body. It’s totally fine! PLUS, you’re sleeping in my bed, am I gonna have to close my eyes the whole night??” He jokes, not knowing that your shyness isn’t rooted in principle, but fear. Upon seeing your face, his smile falters and he autocorrects, “You know, I think you’re beautiful, but if you want me to turn around, I promise I will.”

“No, it’s-it’s fine. It’s okay. Wait- did you just call me beautiful?” You try to cover your shocked expression as you take off your sweater and slide off your fuzzy pajama pants. Sero is thankful your head is stuck in your sweater as his jaw practically drops. Oh fuck, he’s screwed. His eyes follow your curves from your chest, down your sides, to the pouch of your tummy and the plump fullness of your thighs... If he thought he was having trouble focusing before, there’s no way there’s gonna be enough blood in his brain when you’re half naked next to him... Speaking of... Shit, he’s hard... Okay, it’s fine, just tuck it in your waistband like you did back in school...

You climb into bed as quickly as you can, still keeping a few inches between you and Sero until he wraps his arms around you and pulls you into his chest. You squeak in surprise and he chuckles, “You can’t be warm unless you’re over here! C’mere.” He nestles his face into your hair and splays a hand across the curve of your lower back. Feeling very naked and very nervous, you shift in his hold and snuggle closer to the heat he gives off, but halt your motions when you feel him twitch against your thigh. Neither of you are breathing, praying the other didn’t notice the rock hard length pressed between your bodies. Somehow, in the time you spent essentially playing dead, you both fell asleep cuddled together.

Over the course of the night, you had shifted to straddle your leg over his torso and he had turned on his back with his hand resting on the space between your thigh and your butt. Sero was the first to stir from his slumber when he felt you move against him, a small whine escaping your parted lips as your hips rolled against his. Oh... OH... Is y/n-? oh fuck y/n is dreaming... and grinding on me... fuck, this shouldn’t feel so good... He tries his hardest to go back to sleep, but the feeling of your sleeping body brushing up against his cock keeps him wide awake. He was trying to stay perfectly still until he heard your tiny whisper “Hanta~”... His hips involuntarily thrust, drawing out the most sinful moan from your throat as the head of his dick added friction on your clit that woke you up. You start to move away, embarrassed and hoping to check that he’s still asleep, but Sero’s grip tightens around your thigh and presses you harder onto him.

“Good morning to you, too~... If you needed my help getting off, you could’ve just asked, babygirl~” The lust and sleep clouding his voiced, combined with the steady roll of his hips makes you whimper and tuck your face into his neck.

“Awww so shy~ You were moaning my name earlier. Why don’t we see how loud I can make you, princess?” He speaks lowly as he flips you onto your back, hovering over you.

“I- I... Please.” You breathe wrapping your legs around his waist and stare up at him, wiggling your hips and sliding your hands up his biceps.

“Can I- Can I kiss you? Are you sure you want this? I’ve had feelings for you since before I moved in and I just... I never want to hurt you.” Cupping your cheek and searching your face for any hesitation, Sero starts succumbing to his own insecurities. He never wants to hurt you, and he knows he isn’t the flashy hero some of his friends seem to be... He needs to hear you say it.

“Sero... Yes~. I want you, please kiss me... I feel the same way. Please~...” Upon hearing your confession, Sero slotted his lips against yours. The kiss was sweet, gentle. Breathing each other in felt so right, so natural, and you followed his lead when he slid his hold to the back of your neck to deepen the kiss. His hand drifted down, following the curve of your breasts, tracing your sides and resting on the pouch of your tummy. Just as you were starting to feel self conscious, Sero groans and moves to kiss your neck, mumbling “You’re so beautiful, y/n. Fuck, so perfect. You feel so soft, I need you so bad~” The whimper he draws from you when he sucks a deep mark into the column of your throat is absolutely lewd, you can barely believe it came from you. He kisses his way down your body, leaving hickies along your skin and squeezing every inch he can get his hands on. You look down at him, his eyes dark with lust and admiration as he leaves opened mouthed kisses along your inner thighs, making you more needy than you thought possible. He strokes his thumb along your clothed slit and moans at your wetness.

“Fuck- you’re so wet for me, angel. I want to taste you, you’re so cute like this. Let’s take these off, yeah?” He looks to you and hooks his fingers under the waistband of your panties, asking for permission and grinning like an idiot when you lift your hips to help him. Before you can say anything, he’s prying your legs open and diving in, moaning as he laps your slit and sucks your clit into his mouth. You run your fingers through his hair and grip him, pulling him into you and grinding against his face. His groans send vibrations straight to your core, pinning your hips with one arm and sliding two fingers into your dripping cunt.

“M-more!! Oh god, please Sero, just like that- I want more!” You moan so prettily for him, but he wants something more. He releases your clit with a pop and leans up, stilling his fingers inside you and wrapping his free hand around your neck. The pressure and dominance has you clenching around his fingers, and he takes notice.

“You either call me Hanta or Papi, nothing else. You understand? I want you to say my name when you cum.” He commands, and sends a shiver down your spine. “Oh you like that, huh?~ I can feel you squeezing my fingers. Why don’t you tell me what you want, baby?~”

Your brain goes hazy when he leans in and places little love bites on your neck and collarbones. “PAPI~! Yes, I love it! Please fuck me, I want to feel you, I need moreee~” You pant as he pulls his fingers out of you, leaving you unbearably empty.

“Oh baby, I’ll fill you up, don’t worry. But first, why don’t you suck my cock?~” He strips himself of his boxers and flips the two of you, pulling you on top of him. He’s so long, just thick enough to stretch you and reach every amazing spot inside of you. The sight of his hard length has you drooling, anticipating feeling the weight of him on your tongue. You give the head a few kitten licks, relishing in the way he groans and twitches in your hand. He laces his fingers at the base of your head and lets you set your own pace, wrapping your plush lips around him. Bobbing your head up and down, running your tongue along the vein on the underside of his dick and swirling it around the head- you love seeing his reactions. The way his breathing increases and his hips buck when you hollow your cheeks. He looks so pretty like this, you can’t help but rub your thighs together for some kind of friction. Luckily, he notices how desperate you’ve gotten and pulls you up to straddle him with one hand still on your hair and the other gripping your hip, calloused fingers digging in and massaging the fat there.

“As much as I want to cum in that perfect little mouth, I think my baby needs to be filled, yeah?” He fists his cock and strokes the head through your wetness, gathering your slick and making you involuntarily grind against him. “Beg for my cock, babygirl~, tell Papi what you want.” The smirk on his face is utterly sinful, teasing you and enjoying the fucked out expression on your beautiful face.

“PLEASE I want your cock, I wanna be full, just fuck me already!!! Please stop teasing me Hantaaa~” Just as you grind your hips down onto him, he thrusts into you, cutting off your pleading with a needy moan. “Ah~ fuck- so full, so full, oh my god! Yes Papi~!”

“Oh shit angel, fuck- you feel so good.” Hanta grabs your hips and helps you slowly fuck yourself on him, “Just like that, baby, just like that. Ride my fucking cock. Fuck- you’re so tight...”

The dirty talk pouring out of Hanta’s mouth, combined with the stretch of his hot length stirring up your insides, you find yourself embarrassingly close to climax already. Your first orgasm hits you like a train, completely knocking the air out of your lungs and causing you to collapse onto Hanta’s chest. He seizes the opportunity to flip the two of you, holding you underneath him and fucking you into the mattress.

“Ah ah ahhhhh~ Hantaaa~ I can’t! I can’t, I just came, it’s too much!!! oh FUCK Papi!!!” You feel the tears welling up in your eyes from the overstimulation and pleasure.

“Yes you can, babygirl. You’re taking me so well, you’re such a good girl. I know you love it, I can feel your pussy flutter around me. So honest, angel. You’re so perfect like this- fuck.” Hanta grips the back of your thighs and pushes your knees to the bed, hitting even deeper within you. The head of his cock kisses your cervix with every thrust and makes you scream out, nails digging into his back, and egging him on.

“Come on, mi amor, cum with me. I know you can, I can tell you’re so fucking close... Cum on my cock, that’s right. Cum for me.” His long fingers reach down and rub quick circles on your clit. He leans in to sink his teeth into the junction of your neck and your shoulder, sending you over the edge into your climax. Your vision goes white and you clamp down around him, cunt spasming as you squirt all over his thighs and abs.

“F-fuck!!! That’s so fucking hot~ I’m gonna- Ah~” He fills you to the brim with his sticky release, the warmth spreading through your core and coating your walls. Hanta releases your legs and lays on top of you, sweaty bodies pressed together until he comes down from his high.

“That was so amazing, angel. You were so good for me. Such a pretty baby, all mine...” He pulls back to kiss your temple and rolls over, petting your hair and lightly scratching your back.

“You have no idea how happy that makes me... I always want to be yours.” You giggle, bubbly at his claim on you and still buzzing from your high. You curl up into his chest, wrapping your arms around his waist and holding him close. “Mine.”

“Mmhmm, all yours.” He breathes a chuckle and places a kiss to your hairline. “I’m glad I can warm you up, lovebug.” He smiles as your breathing evens out, falling asleep with you in his arms.

#sero hanta #sero hanta x reader #bnha x reader #sero hanta fanfic #fanfiction #mha sero #mha smut

[lord-of-christmas-lights]

Sex Ed s3 spoilers ahead

Alright I'm functioning on an hour and a half of sleep, a tension migraine, and I need to do 2 math quizzes and a physics assignment today so I hope this all comes out in the way I want to say it.

Last night, I took a brief break from my Narnia stuff to watch all of season 3 of Sex Education at once because that's kinda my thing with this show. I am exhausted, every episode is merged in my head because I literally took no breaks between them, and my inner voice is now speaking in a British accent. I love this show. And I'm here to talk about Cal.

Cal, my beloved. Where do I start? The fact that we had a nonbinary character who's entire character arc wasn't struggling with their identity? Which like, is an absolutely valid storyline but when it's every. single. one. it's really awesome to have a character who knows exactly who they are already. That scene when they fall onto the stage and crawl out of the vents and are just like, "Hey Hope 🖕🏿🖕🏿"? Absolutely iconic. Their entire relationship storyline with Jackson? Literally one of the best things I've ever seen on television. I need to talk about it more.

The fact that they had a romance storyline between a straight guy and an afab nonbinary and DIDN'T fuck it up is so fucking amazing. I mean, I would have loved it if they had gotten together in the end and I definitely have some ideas on queer Jackson in future seasons, but they handled Cal and Jackson so well in s3. Dating irl can be so hard sometimes when you're nonbinary because unless your partner is explicitly out as not straight/gay or not cis themselves, it can feel like they're just seeing you as your agab. I dated two people in my town over the course of high school, neither relationship lasted long, and I had this issue in both of them. One of them had a sexuality crisis and realized he was bisexual and the other just kind of didn't listen to me when I said there were terms, and words, and action I wasn't comfortable with. Luckily that one only lasted a week or so and it didn't end in catastrophe. And even with the guy who realized he was bisexual, I was still worried that he still didn't see me that way. Even if I were to date a girl, who was bi/pan/whatever, I'd still be worried about only being seen as afab. My current relationship is an online one with another nonbinary person. It can be so fucking hard dating as a nonbinary person and I am so glad they addressed in season 3. I kept watching their storyline build like, "Oh my god are they actually going to do it? Are they going to discuss dating and being nonbinary? Holy fuck they're doing it."

And I get that not every nonbinary person is going to relate to this. I'm sure there are some of us out there who are more comfortable dating outside the small circle of people they know 100% will see them as nonbinary. But like guys, I saw myself in Cal. I saw they felt, I know what they felt. And the fact that I can have that, that this show not only had canon nonbinary characters but explored some of problems I can personally relate to. It just feels so special, you know?

Anyways, I need to go do my schoolwork now because unfortunately college does not pay for itself. I have so much more to say on Cal and Layla and the nonbinary representation in s3 but I think this post is all I have in me at the moment.

#like guys i hc so many characters as nonbinary because i just want a story i can relate to #i want characters that feel like i do #so i write my own with the characters i love but to like #not have to write it? to have someone else do that and do it in a way that i feel so connected to? #i cried. i fucking cried. i'm crying now. #it feels so nice to see your story on tv #sex ed #sex ed spoilers #sex ed s3 #sex education spoilers #cal bowman #jackson marchetti #sex education 3

[scotch-and-roses]

I wish I could just throw myself into my work to deal with my grief. Unfortunately ADHD and trouble focusing has not been helped by dealing with grief. I’ll start to hyperfocus, then have an intrusive thought about “why hasn’t the Princess come over to yell at me for not having gone to bed yet?” or I’ll look over at the bed expecting to see her curled up asleep to give myself a boost of warmth/comfort, and instead be confronted by an empty bed. Logically I knew that this would happen eventually. She had kidney disease and it wasn’t ever going to get better. I just really hoped that it wouldn’t happen while I was in grad school. I knew that coping with the loss of her while undergoing the stress of grad school would be amazingly difficult, and the idea terrified me. Just thinking of the day that I would lose her was enough to send me into tears. And the reality is that some days feel impossible to get through. And I haven’t figured out a way to keep myself together and productive when I hit those walls. Instead I just kinda fall apart. And I’m still so behind on my work from the migraines at the beginning of the quarter. I am literally down to the wire now. And I just keep alternating between feeling numb and feeling shattered. I have been pulling out of it more, feeling more functional again. There’s just so much all at once. I need to completely rebuild myself in some ways, and I just haven’t had the time or space to do that. And everything is suffering as a result. She was my emotional support/touchstone and this being that loved me and that I loved and cared for and having that routine gave me more purpose and I built my routines around her needs. Not having that framework has left me feeling extremely untethered. And I’m sorry y’all for having to deal with the constant stream of me talking about this, I appreciate the support and love you’ve all shown. This is just part of me processing really. Writing things out helps get it out of my head/helps me to work through the emotions. I just keep hoping that it won’t be real. It doesn’t feel like it should be real. I miss her so damn much. And there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it. The last time I was apart from her for so long was when I was at Reed and lived in the dorms and she stayed with papa. But papa and I talked nearly every day so I’d get daily kitty updates and pictures sometimes. And she was always waiting for me when I got home from school. But this isn’t like that. She isn’t just somewhere else, waiting for me to come home. She’s gone. And now matter how badly I want that to not be the case, that’s how it is. She’s just gone. And I hate it. I wish so badly that I could hold her again and feel her warmth and softness and hear her purr. And it’s never going to happen. Sure, there will be other cats in my life again at some point. But they’ll never be her. I think my earliest memory is from about the age of 3. I’m 28 now, which means I have approximately 25 years of memories. I had Princess for 13 years. That means that over half of my life that I remember she was a part of. She was part of my family and one of the beings that I cared the most about in this world. Most of my friends have not been in my life for as long as she was at this point. She was this huge, important part of my life. And now that’s gone. I have the memories, and I cherish them. But it’s not the same. When I come home from a bad day I don’t have her to come sit on me and purr or take a nap with her curled up against my chest. And it’s just all these compounding things. Going through stress with school, or relationship drama, or worrying about financial stuff, and then not having my fuzzy creature that gave me comfort just takes that stress or whatever and then piles grief on top of it. Until I feel like I can’t breathe, like I’m drowning. Part of me wants to just give in. Give in to the depression, to just curl up and give up on trying to be productive and functional. To just blow off my work, my classes, everything. Because it is so hard. And I feel like my professors are being patient, but are also annoyed with me. And I don’t know how to explain to them how much I’m struggling. That I’m trying, but it’s all just so much and I am barely staying functional. Just doing the daily things that I need to do like eating and showering, keeping the apartment relatively orderly so that I’m not being a horrible roommate, they take so much energy right now. Going to class, grading, doing assignments on top of that is incredibly difficult. And I keep emailing them apologizing for the migraines, for missing class again and again because of them, and because some days the grief is too overwhelming. And I’m just terrified that they’re going to respond with “no, you’ve missed too much, you haven’t done enough, that’s not a valid reason, do better” and that I’m going to fail. I don’t want to. As tempting as it is to give up sometimes, I don’t want to. For one thing, Princess would be pissed. She hated when I was depressed. And this goddamn paper is now three hours overdue and I am torn between trying to pull myself out of this spiral and finishing it tonight like I planned or emailing the professor and once again begging for understanding and more time. It was a month two days ago since I lost her. And the pain is still tearing me apart. But I feel like emailing the professor and asking for more time again, that she’ll dismiss me. That because it’s been a month I shouldn’t be having these breakdowns anymore. That I should be better. And I think I’m slowly getting better. But I’m not better. I’m still a mess of tears and snot and emotions and I’m still trying to figure out how to piece my life back together. And I’m so tired. God I’m so tired. This is exhausting. I’ve always been a very emotional person, I joke that on a dial of 1-10, my emotions are turned up to 11. I feel a lot of things and I feel them very strongly. I love fiercely and strongly, and likewise I feel grief in the same way. And it is so draining. And Princess was my battery pack, she helped me recharge. And learning how to function without that, figuring out how to compensate for that loss, is overwhelming. And I can’t help wishing I could go back. Take her to the vet sooner. Spend more time with her. Something. Anything. And I can’t. And it sucks. So much. I just keep blaming myself. If I’d done more or something different. If I hadn’t spent so much time hanging out with friends away from home. If I’d been more diligent in her diet. If I’d seen about getting her some kind of medication. Anything to give myself more time with her. And I could have, at the end. She could have been hospitalized, had her kidneys completely flushed, been placed on fluids and things for multiple days. But her levels were so high that it would have been temporary. A way to get her feeling a little better for who knows how long just so that I could have more time. And that felt wrong. It felt wrong to put her through that just so that I didn’t have to say goodbye so soon. And I hate that I wish I had. Because I miss her so goddamn much and would give anything right now to have more time. Even though it would have meant her possibly suffering and me going into thousands of dollars of debt. And I know I made the right choice. But god it was so hard. And I wish I never had to make it. And for the last 13 years she’s been here to help me through hard times like this. When I’m crying in the middle of the night and don’t have anyone to talk to, don’t want to bother anyone, I had her. And it feels like I’m just stuck in this horrible loop where I miss her and it hurts, and I want to cuddle her because that’s how I’ve dealt with similar pain in the past, but she’s gone so I can’t, and it hurts more, and it just keeps going until I’m curled up on the bed, sobbing, with my arms wrapped around me because it feels like if I don’t physically hold myself together I’ll shatter into a million pieces. And I sob until I’m gasping for breath and I can’t see a way through the pain. I don’t know how to make it stop. Papa keeps telling me to “compartmentalize” and “just cherish the memories”. And I want to scream because that’s not how I work. If I could just flip a switch like that or tuck things into neat boxes, don’t you think I would? I don’t want to feel like I’m drowning. But I can’t just turn off my emotions or decide to feel something different. And he criticizes me for being so open, so giving of myself, for investing so much. And maybe it is a flaw, maybe I do need to work on closing myself off more. Perhaps I need to find ways to temper myself. But I feel like that’s work to be done when I’m not in the middle of emotional upheaval. I can only do so much at one time. And right now I’m at capacity, I’m over capacity really. So tired. Both physically and mentally/emotionally right now. I don’t want to email my professor, but I think I have to. Dammit. 

#my life #personal nonsense #grief processing #because who doesn't want to have an emotional breakdown in the middle of the night when trying to write a final paper

[prorevenge]

Teases a sleeping lion, lands in jail.

This is my story and it is damn long. I am a geek and punk hybrid, sort of. In my country, India, there are 12 grades in school, along with 2 or 3 pre primary grades. My parents had transferrable jobs, so I ended up changing schools a lot. And since private schools won't take new admissions during mid term, I ended up qualifying entrance for central school. I studied there upto grade 8, then decided to go for a boarding school. This school was supposed to be in top 5 schools of India at that time.

Now the story begins after I cleared the written test of the school in morning and was supposed to give interview in evening. There my family acquainted with another from same home town. Their daughter, let's call her Lora, the main antagonist, was behaving like the know it all brat. And since my family had the bad habit of comparing me with other kids, coupled with the pressure of interview, made me go bananas in head.

Well Lora went to give interview first and came out upset, stating she answered only 9 of 10 questions correctly. Well I answered 5 of them and still got selected (it was more of personality test, knowledge was tested in written part). But I had to endure all my family commentary about how "it was just luck" or "you won't survive, the school is full of girls like Lora" till school term started and I started living in hostel.

Now being the ex student of bad government schools, I started suffering mainly because the school was strictly English speaking and my spoken English skill were disaster. I remember, when my teacher asked me why I haven't done my homework, I answered "ma'am I was absent tomorrow". Also this was my first time away from home, so I got homesick too often. Add to it the stress of weekly tests and disgusting (compared to home) hostel food, well I was experiencing hell. So within 3 months, people's perception for me was that was was dumb, shy and that I lacked common sense. Only my hostel mates knew my true nature.

So I was already stressed and this girl Lora thinks it's funny to gang up on me and bully me! Surprising, but it actually happened. Everytime I was alone, she would mock me, told me I was ugly, fat and dumb. I, knowing what would happen if my temper goes off, kept mum. She then raised her bars higher and started using f-words and much more indecent words, all in English. I wasn't bothered by it at all in the beginning, I had heard worse from my last school friends. I was just curious why is she targeting me. Turns out she was mad at me for not helping her cheat in written exam, thereby jeopardizing her chances. Now that she was finally in and I was an established dumb she could have her way with me.

For the whole grade 9 I endured her stuff than I began to crack. But fate was against me: she became the girlfriend of my bestfriend and roommate, let's call him Ed. Honouring bro code, I had to abort the mission and honouring bro code he told me the bottom of iceberg. She spread amongst other girls that I was terminated from my previous school for failing ( I scored 93% in previous grade), my father bribed the school to get me admitted (he had to take loan to pay my term fees), that I smoked ( never smoked in my life, not even now), and that I used to beat up the kids who messed up with me (only right answer). These claims made her a Joan of arc like figure, a lady challenging a demon like me.

Well I endured her insults (covering every part of my body and everyone in my family) for another year. In grade 10 we had our board exams, the first most important exam of an Indian student. There she broke up with Ed, stating he wasn't giving her enough time (he ended up scoring 98.4% with perfect 100 in 3 out of 5 subjects). Well that's one ally for me (as if he wasn't earlier).

Next she hooked up with Rob, my classmate in grade 11. In that time I started using Facebook, new trend at that time. This Rob guy was member of thug like group of the school, hence Lora was intoxicated with power. She commented insults on my every photo on facebook and Rob would like it. I wanted to get back at her, so I commented a passive aggressive thing on her picture (Never knew that I could've blocked her). She, along with Rob came to threaten me when I was having a snack. But since I was surrounded by my hostel mates, they went away. They later ended up stealing my assignment (childish, yeah) but since I never did them earlier, it wasn't a bother.

God, now that I am writing it, it really feels amazing how long I held back. But no more, atleast not after THAT incident.

You see, I was pretty unpopular with existing girls, but I befriended this new girl, let's call her Love. I kinda liked her, I admit. But that Lora somehow sensed that and started bad mouthing me infront of Love. I literally snapped. I wanted some high level revenge.

First I gathered intelligence, Ed being first and after recent breakup, Rob. Summery being: she had new boyfriend every year since grade 7 (basically since her puberty began) and lost virginity in grade 11 to some other punk from school (cause of breakup with Rob?). Well it wasn't something that would give me pleasure after exposing her. I had to take the other way.

I already mentioned my school was too good. In the annual day function of school the guests were generally some VIPs. In my grade 12, the chief guest was the governor of the state! And that was the time Lora celebrated her 18th birthday.

My preparations: I bought a mosquito coil, saved a huge firecracker from Diwali and for almost ₹2000, I obtained 50g pack of marijuana, called raw mango in my area. I spied Lora till I came to know she was gonna do something in girl's room with her new bae on annual day, since everyone would be busy with functions. I then experimented with mosquito coil's burn times and I can proudly say that 3 inches of coil burns for half an hour.

Finalizing: On the annual day, I handed marijuana pack to Ed and setup 12 inches of coil, coupled with the firecracker inside the girl's room, two hours before their meeting. Ed put the marijuana pack in her school bag just when she left the class for auditorium.

And then, while our governor was giving speech, there was a blast heard, prefects ran to the source, found Lora smooching her new bae. She tried to dismiss her hands in blast, so prefects insisted on checking her schoolbag. She agreed, confidently, too confidently. By now, even the guards of the governor came to investigate. Principal and teacher came too, maybe trying to show themselves active. And infront of everyone, a 12 grade schoolgirl was caught with the illegal "raw mango" in her possession!

This wasn't a case school could've hidden, so she was arrested. To hell with her 92.4% in board exams! To hell with here expected all india rank of 15 in mock engineering entrance tests!

It was 9 years ago. I went on to a good engineering college and landed a great job. Never heard of her again. Maybe she is released, I don't know. All I know, that the face she made when the prefects took out marijuana from her bag was priceless!

(source) (story by friendlydovahbear)

#prorevenge #by friendlydovahbear #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #revenge story #last10

[millennium-thejiaqiverse]

Chapter 3: One Unusual Paper

Summary: What does the birth of revolutionary technology bring along with it? It certainly has a big impact on the world and the the ones whom brought this technology to everyone. Let’s introduce the center stage technology in this chapter—the chips. Find out how they changed Miles’s home world. Hey, I don’t only cover the magic topic, behold as civilizations develop technology-wise.

“This is the first time I take my exam at another school, ever! So exciting!” Phillip is ultra-excited. “Calm down dude, haven’t you been at our school already on Orientation Day? I mean, we checked out the exam hall together.” Adele pets Phillip’s back, “besides, you’re from Dawn City Academy, probably the coolest school ever.” “Meh, pretty sure that’s just our schools reputation,” Philip snickers, “I don’t see what the fuss is about.”

Miles is sitting next to the windows of the shuttle, looking out to the cityscape. Sitting right next to him is Nick, who’s focused on his tablet.

“Remember that one past paper in which life literally gives you lemons?” Rose starts the topic. “Yes, that’s a good one. What do you do with a crate of 30 lemons in one and a half hours?” Elly asks with a laugh. “Start small businesses like everybody did in that one particular group we studied—every one of them was an inner entrepreneur, they used the weather, what’s trending, blah blah blah; plus each of them could really think out of the box. Hey do you think our exam group would also coincidentally take the same approach like they did? We all have the same paper and we prepared as a group, it’s possible.” “That’d still be too much of a coincidence, as we’ll be separated into individual cubicles.” Ryan shakes her head.

“Hatch Station 50,” an announcement sounds as the shuttle makes its stop, “welcome to our SCI (Suspended & Concealed Islands, the “sky” above the ground-level city parts), you may switch to the Gate’s shuttles at this station.”

Looking at the Gate’s giant ever changing spherical hologram logo, Miles sighs a light sigh.

Ever since the great idea of the tech company Quartz took off (tiny chips connected with the brain, which serve a main function of allowing users to quickly and effectively research and access information with their minds), society changed drastically; and now, there is the Gate—Dr. Mary Millward, Miles’s mom, one of the most prominent Inventors ever, founded this company with her team. She brought forth a tech revolution, largely increasing the reliability and security of the chips and the internet system. Through this competition, Quartz is now obsolete, the Gate takes over and keeps on growing, building the SCI and who knows what next.

“Yo Philip, the animator guy’s from your school right?” Tinaye asks. “The animator guy?” Philip repeats while thinking. “You know, the guy who made a short animation to express how mankind’s coexistence and co-development with Mother Nature is important, in 1 hour 30 minutes?” “Oh you meant Ian!” Philip snaps his fingers, “that guy’s legendary. He’s not from our branch though, our branch is the one with the infamous ‘party kids’.” He winks. “Sounds like fun!” Rose says. “Hey I think we’re here.” Elly tells everyone. “Station Sky Secondary School. Dear passengers, may I have your attention please,” an announcement comes up, “we are now on school ground; midterm exams are in progress, please do not disturb. Station Sky Secondary School.”

Philip, Adele, Miles, Nick, Rose, Elly, Ryan and Tinaye all get off the shuttle after it makes its stop, Tyler is already there, waiting at the front entrance of the school.

School is open for students to do their assignments from 0:00 to 23:50 every day of the week, except Orientation Days. With the chips being long implanted in everyone by now, teaching students time management, how to utilize knowledge and work as a team becomes the main focus of all schools. Before their midterms, each student must complete all 9 personal assignments and 3 group assignments they have relating to the subjects they pick, with help from their class tutors. Students are allowed to do their assignments at anytime they wish to. Some finish their assignments lightning fast, days or even weeks before midterms, like Lisa, the girl who arrives last with a shuttle going a different route.

Rose happily greets her, “Lisa, you made it!” “Of course,” Lisa smiles charmingly, “we are one of the 11:00 groups, shall we head inside?” “Great idea,” Rose agrees.

“Welcome to the 11:00 midterm exams. Please go to your corresponding cubicles. Note that you may no longer enter the exam hall after the start of an exam, or leave the exam less than half-an-hour before the end; you must not have any unauthorized material or equipment with you; any attempt of tempering with the examination programs will result in immediate disqualification...”

There are two 11:00 papers (paper A and B) assigned to the students. The 10-student-study-groups will be mixed together when assigning their cubicles so the students next to every student would be working on a different paper. Everyone is suited up in their gear and logged in to the VR system to do the 5 minutes pre-exam warmup. After making sure everything’s fine, the invigilators start the exam. “Good luck!” Nick says last minute before their individual cubicles are sealed off. “Good luck guys!” Rose follows suit.

For this exam, Miles enters a small brightly lit room, which appears to have only a desk in the middle. The door vanishes after he shuts it. A piece of blank A3 paper lies on this desk, with a pen on top of it. Miles waits for a few minutes, only to realize the usual bell followed by an announcement of what he needs to do to complete this exam never came. This is new. Miles turns over the paper only to confirm both sides of it are indeed completely blank, holding the paper to the light reveals no hidden messages. He looks around the room to find nothing, then inspects the lone desk and finds no details that deserve attention; he then looks at the pen, and notices a small dial with numbers 1 to 9 at the end of it, the little red pin currently pointing at the word “off”. Miles doesn’t want to rush to work on the blank paper or do anything else in the room, a girl failed her exam and had to repeat a year in the past, just because she didn’t pay much attention to what was required by the exam that had been announced to her, resulting in her misusing her provided materials big times.

After waiting for another few minutes and still no bell or announcement, Miles starts to be worried. He decides to just turn the dial on the pen, as soon as the pin points to “1”, a screen in front of him that he previously thought was a wall turns on. Miles is very surprised to find himself looking at Nick, flying a swarm of drones, looks like he’s fixing some pretty broken light panels under one piece of the SCI. It looks like some aircraft has bumped into the panels. Nick seems to be getting on pretty well with his exam. Miles smiles a little, thinking about how Nick always says he wanted to be a SCI engineer or beyond after he graduates from school, this exam must be easy for him; but what about the others in their group when faced with the same problem? Miles knows for sure not all of them enjoys this line of work. Wait... This study group is supposed to be working on the same exam, judging by what Miles’s doing now, at least he doesn’t have the same exam as Nick. Does everyone have different exams now? This hypothesis is (kind of) proven as Miles turns the dial to “2”, he sees Rose on screen, trying to cheer up this old man who looks worried and angry with something.

After turning the dial and seeing all others in his study group doing completely different things, and still no bell or announcement to tell him about his exam, Miles is needless to say stressing out. What does he have to do? Is he supposed to observe his group and note things down? Is he even supposed to be working with that piece of paper? Reviewing the past papers Miles finds not one is quite like this one! So many aspects are different and new. Miles considers hard. Another thought comes up, perhaps his hypothesis is wrong, perhaps everyone in the group does have the same exam taking place in identical small rooms, they would just think the others don’t when they see what’s on screen. If that’s so, this exam is an unexpected mindf*ck situation. More importantly, should he write these guesses down when he still doesn’t know what the exam’s about? Miles is astonished to find out he’d actually be more certain of what to do when faced with magic stuff, i.e. time travel, etc. than now, when faced with this unusual midterm exam.

“Well I’m definitely not expecting this from school!” Miles can’t help but murmurs. “What was that?” Adele, currently on screen, stops her work with the blue palo verde beans and says, “could you please repeat? I didn’t catch that.” “Adele?” Miles asks, “is that really you? Can you hear me?” “Yes I can, is this Miles?” Adele says back, “how are you making the announcements?” “I am?” Miles gasps. “Yeah, the announcement bell rings every time you talk... kinda annoying.” Adele explains. “Hold on a sec,” Miles requests and dials to “1”, “Nick, can you hear me?” Nick jumps a little, turns his head and has this weirded out look on his face. Miles bursts out laughing at this, “wow, I don’t know if I’m supposed to be doing this...” “D... did you hack the program?” Nick stammers then calms down, “but you don’t seem to be disqualified, that means you probably didn’t. What’s up?”

Poking around, Miles learns that he can not only observe but also talk to everyone in his group through announcement (but he can only talk them one at a time when they’re brought on screen); the others cannot hear or talk to each other though. As he asks on, he learns that same as him, no one has heard an actual announcement about this exam, they’re just doing what their “friends, coworkers or bosses” from the VR asked them to do and assuming that’s how they’ll be given the exam tasks now. Then he also learns about some specifics on what everyone’s doing.

It is quite clear now that no announcement would indicate to Miles what tasks he’ll have. It is around this time Miles notices the dates and time in the lower right corner of the screen, he checks with everyone and now knows in this simulation everyone is working on different tasks on 9 different days, spanning 2 weeks. Miles goes through all nine work environments one by one and inspects everything closely.

Tyler has the earliest date of all, he is in a great mood, happily setting up a drip irrigation system for this huge garden and getting ready to have some planting drones plant flowers when he’s done. “I see you’re doing very well with the garden,” Miles watches the drones place the plants down one by one orderly, “who’s garden is this?” “It’s the Wales family’s,” finishing with the irrigation system, Tyler starts to check the little garden maintenance drones’ condition, “they have an awesome house. I still find it strange they have no surveillance drones flying.” Temporarily, Miles forgets about his blank A3 paper as he starts thinking about this clue. He remembers hearing Rose say she’s helping with a Mr. Wales with his charity, and she noticed the guy’s father was unhappy.

“Well, keep up the good work.” Miles says to Tyler then connects with Rose, “Rose, how’s the charity going?” “So-so,” Rose shrugs, “I’ve came up with some fresh ideas though. How’s your assignment.” “I can’t say because I’m not sure what it is.” Miles says, “say, did Mr. Wales or his dad tell you why they were upset?” “Not really, guess it’s too personal,” Rose shakes her head, “but the dad was super ticked off about their home surveillance system, he says someone shut it off? Wouldn’t say who.” “That could be why there are no surveillance drones!” Miles exclaims, “I just have a feeling Tyler worked for the same Wales family as yours, if so he worked on their garden on March 3rd.” “Could be,” Rose nods. Miles keeps on connecting the dots, Ryan and Tinaye work at the same hospital, and they had this guy who swallowed a large diamond pendant with a ‘W’ engraved on it, and his last name is Kirkland, definitely not W-something. Did this guy steal the pendant? Rose continues with her job in the background. “I’ll leave you alone,” Miles hops onto someone else, “I wonder... does this ‘W’ stand for yet again the same Wales...”

“Did you say ‘Wales’?” Philip is now on screen, currently letting the tour group he takes care of roam around and shop, “this lady from our tour is telling everyone that she knew all about how some burglar stole a diamond family heirloom from a Wales family—her friends; she gossips that because old Mr. Wales weren’t happy to go public or see his son go to the authorities with this, only very few people’s heard of the incident.” “Ohhh shouldn’t have trusted information with that lady,” Miles teases. “Yea some people thrive on gossip. By the way, have you noticed this nice process bar that tells you the percentage you’ve completed on your exam? It’s a new feature.” Philip comments. “Well, I don’t see one,” Miles denies, “my interface is pretty bare.”

Miles next has a question for Adele, “Adele, where are these beans you’ve been testing found?” “The back of this dude’s pickup truck,” Adele quickly spits out her words as she hands in the DNA analysis and comparison reports she’s completed, “I heard this Pete Watt allowed a search of his home and truck without thinking when the police got him. Probably being arrogant because he’s one of the criminals we’ve learnt of who thinks as long as they don’t have a chip in their head the police will have nothing on them. Guess what, I’ve just proved he was near the Wales family’s house with some old-fashioned plant DNA testing. Totally inspiring.”

Nick has the latest date of all. Miles chats him up and learns from him that the broken panels he fixed was caused by police chasing the burglar Kirkland when he knocked into them with a helicopter; not causing a major damage to the SCI. At this point, Miles has a pretty good image of the sub-storyline of the 9 days simulated for this exam. Amongst it all, it seems irrelevant at first sight but Lisa’s been working on Kirkland’s older son’s braces, he does appear to be a little disrespectful; Elly’s watched Kirkland’s angel of a younger son at a daycare. Returning to what he has to do for his exam, although still not sure if what he’s seeing on screen is what everyone’s really doing, he feels that maybe that’s not the point here—maybe the purpose of his exam is to find out the connection that links everyone’s work, and appreciate how by simply doing their parts, they are pushing this simulated society forward. Some past papers had indicated ambiguous themes like this for students to find, Miles thinks this might be it. If that’s the case then this exam is quite easy but still fascinating in some ways.

Just as he decides on taking that approach, the screen Miles has been looking at divides into nine portions that shows everyone along with their progress bars. Miles finally hears the announcement bell ring, followed by a “students, you have 10 minutes left” announcement. A previously not so obvious pandemonium has now really broken out. “What the heck, how come the progress meter says I’ve only got 43% for all the work I’ve done?” Adele breaks down, “what have I been missing?” “Miles, are you there?” Nick only has a 48% up till now, “how’s it going with your part? I hope your doing alright.” Miles quickly checks everyone’s progress bars: everyone is stuck with 40-something-percents, no one has a score above 50%. It’s like everyone’s missing half their scores.

Watching everyone trying to boost their scores (a minimum of 60% is needed to pass the midterms), Miles falls silent, but not for long. “Can you all still hear me?” Miles clears his throat and reaches out. Everyone confirms. “I can see thus tell from your scores that it seems you’re missing parts of your exams, but don’t worry, I have an idea,” he proposes, “the reason I have a blank paper and a pen—as you all know—could be suggesting that I can come up with something to help you all. Maybe that is it!” Is this actually what he needs to do? Observe and help, instead of playing detective? Confusing! “What do we do?” Adele asks desperately. Miles proceeds to command the group, “Please work on the tasks given by the simulation, then clap your hands 3 times.” “What? Clap our hands 3 times?” Adele repeats. “I made my announcement, that could count as an exam task.” Miles hints. “Hey this might work!” Elly says then claps 3 times.

Everyone does what Miles asked and waits for their scores to go up, and of course, nothing happens. Miles face palms, ok, maybe that is a bit too far fetched... and too easy. “What now?!!” Everyone resumes panicking. This sucks, Miles thinks to himself, my plan failed, that means I’m still not getting what my exam is, in that case what if the approach of finding what connects everyone’s work is also false? There isn’t even a process/percentage bar for me to check on.

“5 minutes remaining.” Time flies when you’re trying to work things out. Not wanting his friends to keep losing their minds, Miles starts talking, trying out the theories he has is better than just waiting, “here goes nothing... All your parts have something to do with a stolen diamond pendant, a crime orchestrated by at least 3 people, that comes from what I’ve learnt from you. It started with someone in the Wales house disabling their surveillance system, and from the looks of it, Rose’s boss’s father, old mr. Wales had an idea of who it was or there’s family drama involved, hence he doesn’t want to get others involved; the family member probably handed the pendant to someone who’s driven Pete Watt’s vehicle to the Wales house then with the pendant in hand away from the Wales house. Watt himself, or Willy Kirkland could both be the driver. Kirkland was captured attempting to go somewhere with the pendant. He swallows it in an attempt to get away, only to be rushed into the ICU and have the pendant removed from his body. Taking on your tasks as you see them and completing them kept the story moving.”

Seeing no difference in the grades, and now everyone’s silent, Miles decides to calm his group more and go on trying different approaches, “to be honest with you all, I have no idea what to do with my part yet, I doubt my ever approach—this whole time I kept getting different ideas only to doubt and end up scratching them. Everything is so new on this exam, we are all doing different things, it’s just that I didn’t really take part in the big story you’re in, I have no process bar. All I can do is observe...” Miles pauses to think, then starts again, “Guys, I’ve seen how hard you’ve worked on your parts, there’s no way you can squeeze in any more tasks in this amount of time. We prepared well; if this is all real, seeing your excellent work today, these percentages seem fishy to me, they are likely fake or tempered with—not your real scores, maybe it’s just there to see if we’ll panic over them, we are in a simulation after all all this could be a trick; the point is, this whole exam could be messing with us. With all the new and different stuff, it’s trying to blast us with what we’ve never seen before, we have to take control by ourselves along with working on the more specific exam tasks. I think the key here is certainty, something I didn’t have up until now, something we have to decide to let into our minds. We’re encouraged to work on problems in our own ways on all the past papers we’ve done before this one, maybe this paper demands us to explore a new concept on top of that, a state of mind—believing that what we’ve done for this exam is sufficient, not doubting how you play your part. We have to beat the exam in a sense.” The group appears pretty convinced by him.

Guess this is the true stressful part of an unstandardized exam—anything can be accepted or not accepted as answers, you don’t know for sure if your efforts are enough. Miles clears his doubts and places the pen back onto the desk, on top of the blank A3 paper. The exam ends.

Leaving the exam hall, the group quickly meets up. “You guys ok?” Nick asks the group. “I never thought the percentages could be a hoax.” Lisa says. Miles doesn’t need to ask if the group was working on different papers anymore, what Nick and Lisa said and the rest’s silence were enough of an answer. “What percentages?” Bob approaches their group. “Your group had the easier paper Bob. So how did you guys do? I think I did fantastic this time.” Pete jumps into the conversation. “Our paper’s unique...” Miles looks at the two newcomers, realizing it. “Hey Pete... wouldn’t you know, this villain guy we had has the same first name as you, right guys?” Nick tries to lighten the mood for their group, “guys?”

Well, at least he tried.

“Dr. Mary,” a grader calls, “I have to inform you that Miles did not write a thing on that A3 paper...” he pauses, “well, this is unexpected, you tailored this exam just for him and it appears...” “He failed? No.” Mary rewatches the recorded exam for the third time, “no, his performance exceeded my expectations.”

Miles’s phone is blowing up with texts of excitement and congratulations from the group chat. “Turns out our scores were halved, Miles, you know you are a genius for noticing the percentages were fake right?” Nick calls him. “Well I did not feel like one during the exam...” Miles laughs. “Can’t wait to go to your late bday party and bowl!” Nick says. “Of course,” Miles says back, “and I appreciate how you tried to cheer everyone up enough to remind them of my bowling party back at school.” “More proof that you’re a genius,” Nick puts his thumbs up. “Not really, that’s just because we’ve know each other for more than 10 years.” Miles puts his thumbs up too.

@cadewrites

#original #original story #original character #thejiaqiverse #scifi #sci fi #scififantasy #mystery #education

[xviistudy]

Things to remember in Senior High

Well, it’s summer now and 11th grade is over. Next year I’ll be graduating High School, then I’ll be off to college. That being said, here’s everything I have learned from my first year in Senior High in a nutshell: 

#1: Don’t take sleep for granted 

When you hear your older sister/brother or your friends from the 11th and 12th grade telling you to sleep while you can, we actually mean it. The first quarter of the year is alright. There’s not much to do but when y’all really start to work, sleep is literally non-existent. Approximately, in a week, a student who strives for academic excellence will get at least 15-20 hours of sleep (since our school days range from Monday to Thursday and Friday is a free day, psyche it isn’t bc you still have to go back to school to finish whatever PTs and projects you have’t finished yet HAHAHAHHA). When the exams hit, it is what you literally call hell week since in the three days of the exam, I had approximately only had 8-10 hours of sleep. Imagine that? In three days. That’s why when we tell you to sleep, YOU SLEEP. It’s not fun being a coffee zombie all day, everyday. 

#2: Don’t take your mental health lightly 

I cannot tell you guys how many mental breakdowns I have had in this year. There was so much going on and it was so much. I went as far as telling myself that it was okay for me to faint/collapse, as long as I pass my exams. I would breakdown randomly in class for some apparent reason, I don’t remember it anymore. I would get so anxious and tired whenever I would think about all I had to do for that specific week and then proceed to have that breakdown. Please, my darlings, when it all gets too much, don’t push yourself if you can’t do it anymore. It will take a toll on your mental, physical and emotional health so much. You will regret it when the year is done, trust me. During the year, I repressed all my feelings bc I had to get all my work done in order to get a good grade. Now that it’s summer, I am an depressed, emotionally unstable and anxious mess bc all those repressed feelings are finally coming out. 

#3: Don’t forget to eat and stay hydrated

Coffee can only do so much. Don’t drink that like water just so that you can stay awake to do your homework. During the school year, I lost so much weight and that is not good. The weight I lost was due to stress and lack of food intake. The lack of food intake was caused by being too busy to even eat my lunch and we obviously couldn’t eat in class. So please, bring at least sandwiches and a huge waterjub so that you can eat and drink the water you need.

#4: Don’t put off your homework

This is a mistake I made frequently which caused me to stay up late since the deadline was already the next day. When the homework is given to you, do it on the day because the next day you will be given new assignments. This sounds standard but we still tend to do this because we rely on the fact that the deadline is still next week or next month. Don’t do that because the month will go by and the next thing you know, the deadline is already tomorrow. If you don’t understand, please ask for help from your classmates. That will help you finish faster rather than spending hours going over material that you don’t understand at all. On the other hand, if you’ve spent just 10-30 minutes reading and rereading the material, take a break and go back later. There’s a huge chance that your brain is too tired and you need to rest before it can function. After that rest, maybe to your surprise, you might understand the material. 

#5: Listen to your teacher

This is standard but you know when you get those days when you’re just out of it and you don’t listen nor copy the notes? Yeah, those days. No matter how out of it you are, you need to listen or else you will regret it. I suggest you listen rather than taking down notes because if you’re busy taking down notes, you might miss half of the lesson even if you did write it down because you might not even remember why you wrote it down or short cuts. If you can do both, then that would be great! If you’re the type to take down notes because you can understand it more, then go ahead! You do you, boo. If you’re being out of it is caused by your mental or emotional state, then please go to your guidance center. No matter how hard you try to listen nothing will happen because you’re not okay. 

#6: Surround yourself with people who make you happy

No joke, this is a big factor since when you’re surrounded with people who make you happy, then you will be somewhat happy if not completely happy. When you’re happy, you have the motivation to do your work because being happy gives you more energy. They will also make going to school easier since you’re looking forward to seeing these people. These people will also act as your support group. They will push you to do your best and push you to grab the opportunities that you’re to scared to do on your own. I swear, if you find the right people, no matter how stressful Senior High is, you will have the time of your life. 

#7: Get rid of the toxic people in your life

This is also a huge factor. If you still have toxic people in your life, get rid of them. All they’ll do is stress you out even more when there’s actually nothing to be stressed about. I started the year with a toxic person and it was hell. I felt like I was trapped and suffocated. I did not want to go to school and I did not feel wanted in school at all. All I was to this person was a personal slave. So when I decided to leave, this person got even more mad and gave my friends and I a harder time. You don’t need these kinds of people in your life at this point because you already have too much to worry about, you don’t need to add another one.This is why while it’s still early, get rid of them. To identify a toxic friend or relationship, click here. Click here to know how to deal with manipulative people. Click here to know the 10 differences between a toxic friend and a good friend. 

#8: Enjoy your time while it lasts

Enjoy all this while it lasts. You may not know it now but you will miss everything about whatever you have experienced in all your years in school. Next year, I will be graduating and I regret not spending enough time appreciating everything that I had when I was in the years prior. Appreciate your teachers, your friends,  your classmates, the lunch ladies/ janitors, the security guards you see and greet every morning and just anyone you see in your High School everyday because you will never find anyone like them in your new school for college. Appreciate how your school looks - the trees, the pathway, the parking lot, the classrooms, the canteen, the chapel - because you will miss the familiarity, how at home you felt in it, when you reach college. 

That’s all I have to say for what I’ve learned this year. I hope you guys enjoyed the read and took my advice into consideration! To all the graduates this year, congratulations! I am proud. Good luck on your next chapter in life. To the people who are still far off, enjoy it while it lasts. Graduation will be here quicker than you know it. To my batch, one more year and we will be off. I hate to admit it but I’ll miss you all. Curious and curiouser, it feels as if yesterday was the start of 7th grade. 

#studyblr #studyblr blog #study #student #student tips #studyblr community #studyblr confession #studyblr ph #original post #studyblr original #senior high #senior high ph #student advice #advice for school #school advice #takeaways from 11th grade #xvistudy #advice #studyblr post #studyblr vibes #studyblr life #studyblr help #studyblr gets real #studyblr tips #studyblr reality

[schizophelia]

September 10th, 2018: Journal

Today has been a busy day.

This morning at 9:30am I had an appointment with my SAS advisor regarding my accommodations for University. We talked about my experiences and what supports I’d require throughout my time at University. She said she was glad that I had went to Student Health Services last week and that I am in therapy. However, she did say it was imperative that I see a psychiatrist as soon as possible because she wanted me to get the help I need before things progressively get worse. She said she would call Student Health Services to see where I am on the list to see a psychiatrist at the University. She said, like Dr. N (that I met with last week), she will try to get me to see a psychiatrist sooner. She had me sign a consent form to give SAS permission to communicate with Student Health and to my therapist. My SAS advisor thinks I should drop a class this semester because 5 classes is a lot “for someone to handle when things aren’t going so well.” She said that there is a form that if I decide to drop down to 4 courses this semester, the University won’t charge me for 5 (because she said that if someone is only taking 4 courses, the University generally charges them for 5). However, she said that because of my accommodations and the nature of my disability, the University would only charge me for 4 courses because I signed a specific form. We talked about my accommodations for classes. She said that if I need, I can receive notes from a VNT (volunteer note-taker) for my classes because she knows that I have a hard time focusing and concentrating in lectures. She said she will also give me time and a half on my exams. So if my exams were two hours, I could get 3 hours. We also talked about writing in the exam center instead of in the giant lecture halls. She said that if I needed, I could write in a smaller room of 20 people writing exams instead of a room of 600 people. We didn’t get a chance to talk about everything because we only had an hour, but we have an appointment next Wednesday at 10am.

Today I also met with my therapist for our 2nd session. Today we talked about my family and if they were supportive. I told her, they weren’t really. I also talked about the government and my lack of trust revolving most people. I mentioned the prophecy and The Collision in more detail. She asked me if I felt lonely because I don’t have many friends or anything. I told her, I’m lonely because I’m different and powerful. She wondered if it would be helpful for me to meet other people like me. She thought it might be helpful to meet people that go through similar things. It made it sound like she wanted me to go to a support group or something. I’ve never really been to a support group before. I know there are support groups on campus. However, most of these groups are for depression, ADHD, social anxiety (social phobia), disordered eating, etc. I’m not going to a depression support group because I’m not depressed anymore. She asked me if things got worse whenever I was stressed or depressed. I said I wasn’t stressed or depressed. She said that was fair. Just like my SAS advisor, I signed a consent form allowing my therapist to communicate with SAS (Student Accessibility Services) and Student Health Services. I meet with my therapist next Monday at 11am.

In addition to SAS and Counselling Services, I am also participating in the START program. Basically this program is where you meet with an upper-year student and they can help you adjust to University life. My START facilitator is a 3rd year History student, I think. Her name is Gillian. I meet with her next Monday at 12:45pm in the UC. She actually called me on my way to my ENGL*1200 class. She had emailed me a couple days ago, but I didn’t have time to reply to her so she called me to make sure I had gotten her email. I don’t exactly know what I’m going to talk to her about, but maybe she can provide some insight on how to survive my first year of University.

Today I had 3 classes: ENGL*1200, PSYC*1500, and SOC*1100. I’m going to be really busy over the next little while with all my classes an appointments. My SOC*1100 Prof is amazing. She swore a lot during our class today and said some really inspiring things. She said that we are all in University because we deserve to be there. She said that there are many people that apply to this school and didn’t get accepted, but we did, and we should all be proud of ourselves for that. It made me feel better. She said she didn’t start University until she was older (I think she said about the age of 28). She was just really great. I think I will enjoy her class. Also, the class isn’t supposed to end until 9:50pm on Monday nights, but she said she will try to end our lectures around 9pm-9:15pm. Today’s class ended just after 8pm I think. 

I have ANTH*1150 course readings and one of my housemates has friends over and I can’t concentrate on the readings or take notes on the readings. Hopefully tomorrow morning is better so I can get some work done. I still have to finish my PSYC*1000 readings for my lecture tomorrow. I also have my ANTH*1150 lecture tomorrow and because I missed last week’s class (due to switching classes at a different date), I have to read 60 pages or so by tomorrow’s class so I know what the Prof is talking about. Ugh. Kill me now. -_- 

Fortunately for me, I have no seminar for my PSYC*1500 class this Wednesday so I can work on other stuff that needs focusing on (mostly my readings!). However, I do have my ENGL*1200 class on Wednesday at 4:30pm. But the class is literally 50 minutes long so then I am free for the night. I will be spending most of this weekend catching up the stuff I missed and trying to get some of my assignments done early as well. I don’t think I am going home this weekend so it’ll give me plenty of time to study and get things done. :)

The voices have been getting worse. They are nearly constant and are impacting my sleep.It’s really hard to fall asleep. My focus is so bad during lectures because I’ll hear people talking to me and whispering about me. Sometimes I’ll see things running around in the room, or see persons that may or may not be a member of the class. It gets really distracting. My memory is quite bad as well. Things have to be written down in order for me to remember. Sometimes I question whether or not I’ve taken my medication, but then realize I must have because there’s a weird taste in my mouth. Also because the pill bottles have been moved from their original position. I really hope I see a psychiatrist soon. I have SHS (student health services), SAS (student accessibility services), and SCS (student counselling services) trying to get me to see a psychiatrist sooner rather than later. Each of these groups of people think I would benefit from more medication. Hopefully I hear back from a psychiatrist soon. It seems like these people working for the University really want me to get seen, and soon. My SAS advisor was concerned about my current level of functioning. As I said before, she thought I should drop down to 4 courses, instead of taking the full-course load of 5. But if I do that, I might have to take an extra year to complete my Bachelor’s degree. I want to graduate with my peers, not take an extra year for my studies. But if I can’t handle 5 courses, I might consider dropping one of them. I’ll have to see. My SAS advisor said my health is more important than taking that 5th class.

Anyway, that’s mostly it for my journal. I’m sorry it was kind of long, I just had a lot to talk about.

Appointments/Meetings:

Therapist: Monday, September 17th at 11am

START Facilitator: Monday, September 17th at 12:45pm

SAS Advisor: Wednesday, September 19th at 10am

Meds:

Fetzima 120mg

Seroquel XR 200mg

#personal #journal #university #therapy #classes #school #post-secondary #medication #Fetzima #Seroquel XR #busy bee #appointment #appointments #voices

[morethannotenough]

...there we were.

Well, I ruined it! Within about 7 months of meeting my goal I have gained every. single. ounce. back. 

Frustrated, disgusted, disappointed, angry... these don’t even begin to explain what I’m feeling. The back pain, the shortness of breath, the fatigue, it’s all back too. What’s killing me is my mind is still obsessed with that goal, but I can’t motivate my body to do anything about it. That’s not to say I’m not trying. Things are just going to be a little more complicated this time, because clearly the whole “well I’ll just not eat for 6 months” approach to weight loss ISN’T WORKING, and I understand why now, which helps, but also means I have to address some gigantic, well-established thought processes. That ish is hard. 

That being said, I do think I’m making a little bit of progress, and I’d like to kind of track it here if I have the willpower to keep writing. I use to write in a journal every day, but I felt like it kept me stewing in my negative emotions too much (because what else would a 16-year-old girl write about except her emotional turmoil?!), so I stopped and have been hesitant to pick up the habit again. Also... I’m an adult with responsibilities now, so spending hours a day pouring my soul out to the internet isn’t really an option anymore. I’ve thought about doing some sort of daily or weekly blog/journal/whatever during this whole process, but like everything else in my life, I put it off. What a great self-deprecating segue!

So the first thing I think I’ve figured out is that I have **undiagnosed** (that’s important, I’m not trying to claim anything here, it just all makes too much sense to not be at least a possibility) ADHD. I remember wondering this in high school. I even remember telling my mom once that I thought I had it. She immediately offered to get me tested, and I refused, thinking there wasn’t really anything they could do to help me. I kinda want to go back and shake that girl now. What I didn’t realize then, and wouldn’t realize until just a few months ago, is that ADHD is SO MUCH MORE than just an inability to pay attention to things and being easily distracted. It messes with your entire life. Your productivity, your executive function (the part of your brain that tells you to start the thing you want to do), your relationships, your time-management skills, your hyperfixations that take over your entire life but only last for a finite period of time, your dopamine reception, all of it. That last one is especially important. If I’m correct, and I do have ADHD, it means that my brain doesn’t produce enough dopamine, so I am constantly looking for more. You know what gives an awesome, instant dopamine boost? Eating carbs and sugar. 

I think I’ve had this for a long time and I subconsciously learned from a young age, both from the midwestern food culture (celebrating? food! grieving? food! stressed? let’s get some food! bored? food!) telling me that any kind of emotion can be improved with food, and my sneaky little ADHD friend compounding the comfort/reward aspects of those food solutions, that food will make me feel good, no matter what else is going on. Throw in the fact that I’ve been slightly overweight my whole life, and while I was not actively bullied persay, I was passively bullied (by myself and others) enough that I was already insecure (it was called “shy” at that time) by the age of about 7. We’ll go into all of that later because it played more of a part than I originally gave it credit for. Anyway, ADHD has a lot of what are called co-morbid disorders, which are basically conditions that are likely to occur with an ADHD diagnosis. These can include depression, anxiety, OCD, oppositional defiant disorder, learning disabilities, executive function disabilities, aaaaand eating disorders, especially binge eating disorder. Binge eating disorder (BED) with anorexic and bulimic tendencies is what my current diagnosis is, I think. At least the BED part. What a coincidence.

Now, I’m not trying to say that my current weight is all due to my potentially existing ADHD. I clearly made some choices along the way to get here, but I have spent so many hours and sleepless nights wondering WHY I can’t just ‘eat healthier’ or stick to a diet and lose the weight. Why do I struggle so much with these things that other people are totally capable of? Having an explanation is such a comfort. Knowing that there’s a reason why this process is so hard for me, when it seems so easy for others keeps me from falling into depression and helplessness. Prior to talking with my therapist and my dietitian, I would sit and think about what it would take for me to be a healthier, fitter version of myself. I would picture myself years from now eating salads and veggies while my family ate pizza, like my mom use to do while she was on weight watchers. I would picture just wanting to take a lazy day but I needed to get my 4 mile run in first, and that future looked miserable. But the only way I had ever been successful at losing weight was by literally starving myself and pushing my body to the extreme with exercise, so clearly that was the only way to do it. I’m learning that this all or nothing thinking is deeply flawed, and honestly a big part of the reason I’ve been so unsuccessful in the past. Restriction (especially extreme restriction) is not sustainable, and studies have shown that it actually causes people to gain more weight back than they originally lost. Because diet culture is a huge money maker and they need a way to have repeat customers. Once you fall into the binge/restrict cycle, it is very difficult to get back out. That’s where I am now. 

Even though I want this thing so bad, and I have a path that’s going to be easier this time, I’m having trouble actually making the small changes I need to start with, because my body literally does not trust me anymore. Every time I eat a food I like, I have to eat as much as I possibly can, just in case this is the last time I’ll let myself have it for months. If I make a small change, eat a healthy snack, do a quick workout before work in the morning--the little voice in my head says, good, we’ve started, now don’t eat anything else the rest of the day so we can keep up our progress, and more often than not I listen. Moderation is not always easy when you’ve lived in these extremes your entire life. 

I don’t think I’m alone in this. I think there are a lot of people who can identify with these same struggles, even if they haven’t recognized these issues in themselves yet. So I’ve decided to try to chronical this journey to healthier thought patterns, and see where that takes me physically. You always hear the stories of the successful people after they’ve been successful. Let’s get through the gritty part together. I’ve been in therapy about weight loss for almost 2 years now, and I’ve made some major shifts in my thought processes already, I still have a lot to do. If I can help even one other person escape this cycle, it will be worth it. 

I’m going to end today with an assignment my dietitian gave me, which is finding other reasons to fix my relationship with food other than weight loss. Some of these still have to do with losing weight, but don’t focus on a number on the scale. Hopefully I can check these off and more over the coming years!

1. I miss riding horses, but I don’t feel like I can fairly do it right now at the weight I am. 

2. On that same thread, there are a lot of activities I’d like to try that look like a lot of fun, but my weight holds me back both physically (weight limits) and mentally (fear of judging, looking stupid, failing and deciding it’s because of my size, associating a severely negative emotion with the activity and giving up interest in it before giving it a fair shot, etc.) Some of those things include, aerial silks, pole dancing (not stripping, but like, the exercise classes), kayaking, rock wall climbing, dancing, and a bunch more that I’ll think of later. I love doing outdoor activities, but I don’t because my weight makes me so uncomfortable. 

3. Losing the stress of going to an unfamiliar restaurant, and the judgement around ordering the same, bland thing every time. I have been chastised for being a picky eater my entire life, so I have a lot of stress around choosing foods in front of other people. This is also something that formed, unknowingly to me, at a young age. It results in an almost panic-like state of mind if the trip is sprung on me and I don’t have time to prepare (like the time I started my new job and another employee was assigned to take me to lunch, and almost chose a sushi restaurant before we realized we wouldn’t have time to get there and back. I don’t do sushi, I had no idea what to order, and I barely paid attention to the rest of my orientation that morning because I was panicking about lunch.), or, if I know it’s coming, I will binge on something I do like and that I know will keep me full before I go. Then I can order a small side salad or something, tell the person I’m with that I’m “just not that hungry today” and not have to worry about my stomach growls giving me away. This also spills over into places that I really like to go to. If I know we’re going to Old Chicago, for example, and I can easily put away one of their individual pizzas in one sitting, but I’m scared the people I’m with will judge me for that, I’ll binge before I go there too, so I can eat half of it, ask for a box, and finish the rest on the way home or later that night. It’s not healthy, and I didn’t even consciously realize I was doing it until a few months ago. 

4. Having a truly open mind about trying new things. I hate being so picky. Hate it. But textures and certain flavors activate my gag reflex and I cannot eat them. There are some foods that are ‘okay’, or “I’ll eat it, but I probably wouldn’t make it for myself.” but for the most part it’s I LOVE THIS SO MUCH (read: anything made of bread and cheese), or I HATE THIS SO MUCH I CANT EVEN SWALLOW IT. Because of those extremes, I don’t try a lot of new foods, because history shows I don’t like most things. When I do, I try to have an open mind, or try to look and sound like I have an open mind, but I’m already prepared to spit it out before I even take the fist bite. I want to more more foods into my “its okay” range, and maybe eventually form a “hey, this is pretty good” range. I want to be able to go to my boyfriend’s parents’ house and eat what his dad cooks (he’s always trying new recipes with a lot of different foods and spices. He takes great pride in his cooking, which he should, and I feel like I constantly offend him with my 6-year-old tastebuds. I avoid going over there if I know there’s going to be food because I’m so stressed about not hurting his feelings. 

5. I want to be able to have options about where to buy my clothes. Right now I’m limited to a few things at Walmart (which are sometimes super cute, but are usually very not cute), and Torrid which is always cute but sooooo expensive. I’d love to see a cute shirt in a store window or even online and think, hey, I should try that on! Instead of, “well that will never fit me.” 

6. I want to want vegetables. I want to be able to choose foods based on how they make my body feel instead of the taste. I want to crave a lunch that gives me energy to get through the rest of my day, instead of something that tastes delicious (hello giant bowl of ravioli), but leaves me in a carb crash and not wanting to do anything the rest of the day. I want to see my food as fuel.

7. I want to not feel so guilty about eating the things I do like! It isn’t so bad when I’m by myself (hence my continued secret eating), but even if I’ve been good (or put up a facade of being good) all week, if I’m the one who asks to order pizza or make pasta for dinner, I feel heavily judged. I do it to myself a bit as well, but especially if there are others, and especially if they know I’m trying to lose weight. 

8. I want to have kids one day (part 1). My doctor told me at my last appointment that she wants to see me get to around 200 lbs to give me the best shot at a healthy pregnancy. That’s not unreasonable, and I think she’s right. I’m in my 30s and my window to have kids will close sooner rather than later, so I want to get my body to a place where I can confidently make that choice when I’m ready.

9. I Want to have kids one day (part 2). I want to teach my kids to enjoy healthy foods so they don’t have to go through this same struggle. How am I suppose to expect them to try vegetables and healthier foods if I wont?

10. I want my life to stop being about food and weight all the time. It literally never leaves my mind. I want to be able to stop obsessing about it and just live and know that I can trust my body to make the right choices and maintain my optimum lifestyle without stressing and obsessing over food every single day.

I think that’s a start. I want to start diving into this more and doing more frequent entries so these aren’t all 10 pages long. I don’t have a great track record with that, but I want to try. I want to be able to look back on the work I put in while I celebrate reaching those 10 goals I just listed. I want to help other people reach their goals too without having to go through the mental anguish I’ve been experiencing for the last 20-something years. 

One day at a time, one meal at a time. I’ve got help, I’ve got goals, I’ve got time and ability. I’ve just got to do it.

[perdizzion]

I just happen to stumbled upon ur account and saw that you'll be quitting med school. I have a dilemma that I want to share with someone. Im a newly enrolled first yr med student and classes just started a week before. But I'm starting to form some doubts whether I really want to be a doctor or not. Its not that I cant handle the academics its just that do i really see myself being a doctor in the future and actually feel happy about it.

I dont even know if being a doctor is my dream anymore or just my parent’s.

Hiya! Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, anon! I don’t know if my answer will help you or not, but I will try to do my ABSOLUTE BEST to reply!!

Ok so. Med school. Tricky stuff. I’ll tell you a little bit about my background and what I’m up to right now to give you a Good Feel about how things are going after the decision I’ve taken and whatnot.

I got into med school about 4 and a half years ago, and like any student who worked their asses off for their desired universities’ entrance exams, I was beyond ecstatic when I found out that I had gotten in. I started attending lectures, group discussions, student projects, and for the first few years, I felt like hey, I think I can actually do this! The exams were pretty tough, I can’t say I liked pharmacology and neurology, but I passed just fine and so I thought that things were going to be fine.

[Narrator voice] things were, in fact, not fine.

I started having doubts around..3rd year, I think? Everything just started to become so dull no matter how much free time I was using to do my hobbies (drawing and doing art in general) and I think that was when my depression started to really rear its ugly head. I started to miss classes, isolate myself from my friends, stay in bed all day, and the only people that had kept me sane were my family and a few close friends of mine telling me to take care of myself when I was too depressed to do so. I tried thinking about whether I’ll be happy being a doctor in the future, and then I noticed that I couldn’t even imagine myself in a white coat, working in a clinic and talking to a patient.

This is when I finally realized that all this time, my wanting to go to med school wasn’t even because it was my dream. It was my parents’.

I struggled a lot to get through some of the days, but I managed to keep up the facade in front of my uni friends until I finished 4th year and received a “degree”. (In Indonesia, finishing 4th year of med school grants you a “bachelor of medicine” though you can’t really use it for anything yet until you’ve finished 2 more years of clerkship and get a “dr” in front of your name).

Clerkship happened after 4th year. If I had to use one word to describe clerkship, it would be hellish. I don’t know if this is how it works in every country, but in Indonesia, clerkship demands med students to attend hospital shifts with inhuman amount of working hours. We had to do 36 hour shifts every twice a week, and 9 hour shifts every other day. This might sound pretty light to some people, but it was super tough for me what with the amount of additional assignments and exams that we still had to do during our rotations. 

After 2 months of clerkship, my depression grew so much worse to the point where my best friend (bless her heart) had to call me almost everyday to help me sleep at night because the thoughts in my head wouldn’t leave me alone. Finally, I called my sister who lives in a different city to fly to where I was living in to take me to see a psychiatrist. It didn’t help because my doctor was super shitty about my condition (“all med students experience depression at one point because med school is just that hard, don’t worry, I’ve been there”) but I did take the meds. And I was planning to carry on with clerkship, until one day the meds gave me orthostatic hypotension (it was one of the side effects of the drug that I was taking) and I fainted in the middle of a surgery. When my mom (who lives in another city) found out about this, she was livid. She flew to my place right on that exact same day to take care of me, though she hadn’t known about my depression yet at the time.

The next day, I told her everything. Like, everything. About how med school had truly been stressing me out, about how I didn’t feel like med school was the right place for me anymore, about how clerkship had been making me feel like I was a worthless piece of shit because the doctors kept yelling at me, about how clerkship had also been making me realize that I wasn’t good with patients and that their lives are literally in my hands and that a single mistake could lead to their death and how I could never live with that much guilt in my life, about how I was so tired of being too sleep-deprived to properly function everyday, let alone to stitch a patient’s cut-up hand back together.

I told her that I wanted to quit. And so I did.

And you know what? It feels amazing.

I’ve been sleeping regularly for the past few months. I get to draw everyday now, and still make money out of doing commissions. I interact with my family a lot more and I don’t check up on them only when I need them to transfer me some money to buy food. I eat three meals a day like a normal human being and it feels so, so good. I applied for a scholarship so I could earn a Master’s degree in biomedicine abroad (it’s not art school, which is where I actually want to go to, but it’s not med school either so I’ll take it), I passed the first stage and now I’m just trying to do my best to pass the next two stages so I could get a full-ride. 

Things are okay. Things are good.

Things haven’t always been good, of course. People tell me that I was “so close to reaching my dreams!”, that my parents “must be so shattered to hear that you wanted to quit!”, that I am just “wasting away my potential.” My grandparents called me a disappointment a few weeks ago while telling me that I should just give up on my scholarship application and go back to med school. My dad told me that he wished I could “go back to the way I was and be happy again.” My mom cried multiple times. It hasn’t been easy on my mental health, but honestly? Fuck it. Fuck every single guilt-trip that my parents have had to put me through. Fuck everyone at uni who’s been spreading false rumors about how I quit med school because “I got cancer” or “I got knocked up.”

I absolutely hated how the doctors did anything back in the hospital. The rich patients got immediate treatment, and the poor got dismissed. The mentally ill were mocked behind closed doors, and med students were treated like trash. Rooted seniority where the senior doctors hazed junior doctors were still a thing (in Indonesia, at least). Literally everyone in the hospital had a superiority complex and I fucking hated it. Neither my parents nor my grandparents will have to be the ones to experience this on a daily basis for years though, so fuck outta here with your negative comments about my decision.

I quit med school because I did it for me, and only me.

This is by no means supposed to scare you away from med school just so you could jump into my bandwagon, heck no. I’m telling you this because nobody told me that this could be a possibility. Everybody I knew kept telling me that the only thing you’ll need to succeed med school is firm determination and hard work, and while that may be true for some people, I required a lot more than that, like a stable mental health, a good support system, etc. I failed to meet these requirements, and so everything turned into a shipwreck for me. My other friends, however, who were well-prepared with all of these, are managing to continue med school just fine.

That being said, this answer is definitely supposed to make you think about your decision more thoroughly. One of the most often things that people tell me post-med school is that “you should’ve quit earlier if you hadn’t liked it; it would’ve saved you a lot of time.” I hate the fact that I agree with this. If I had quit years ago, I would’ve still had time to search for a school that was more relevant to my interests and start over from a blank slate. If I had quit years ago, I would’ve been able to graduate from a new school and earn an actual proper job by now so I could help my parents out with our finance. Of course, my parents would’ve been way more harsh on me if I had told them that I wanted to quit so early on, but if you own the privilege of having parents that would genuinely and willingly listen to you, please talk about it with them. I had a friend who quit med school around a few months before 1st year ended; he’s in business school now and from what I’ve heard, he’s pretty happy with where he is right now.

Whew, that was long. I swear I didn’t mean for it to be this long!! Let me know if any of that helped or if you just want to talk off anon with me in general! I know firsthand how this kind of dilemma can eat you up whole, and it’s not a fun experience, so just hmu if you want to chat

Have a nice day!!

#THIS GOT SO LONG OMG LKSDJFSD IM SO SORRY #I GOT CARRIED AWAY #i just....really wanted to explain everything as descriptive as possible #so i could help at least a little bit #aAAA #anonymous #answers

[ambitiouslyamanda-blog]

HOW I GOT (NEARLY) STRAIGHT A’S LAST SEMESTER — 05.10.17

Let me start off my post by saying this — grades are not everything, especially not in university if you’re just looking for a bachelor’s degree. However, I’ve always been someone who liked getting high grades in school because it personally made me feel really nice! School is something I work especially hard at, so getting high marks to show my diligence and determination is something completely rewarding to me. Whether you’re someone who needs to raise their marks for their future master’s degree or a student just looking for some tips to raise their GPA, these are my tips and tricks that lead me to garnering a 3.7 GPA last semester, or nearly, straight A’s.

1. I made a schedule and a to do list to ensure I was getting stuff done at a reasonable time.

I am someone who used to be absolutely awful at managing my time. I would leave every assignment or study session to the very last minute, setting me up for poor marks and disappointment in myself. I decided after a very average 3.3 GPA first semester of “winging it” that I should probably get my act together and manage my time better. Getting an impromptu bullet journal this year was a tremendous help in visually showing me what I needed to complete, making it easier to tackle each assignment one at a time. Having a to do list of projects and studying made for a rewarding experience when I could sit down and cross it off the list, diminishing my stress about the assignment because I had finished it! I also put my school related activities into a schedule on my phone to allocate proper time for studying. If you’re someone who says, “I’ll do this tonight”, you’re probably going to end up doing it in the middle of the night rather than the time you had originally sought out due to procrastination. It’s important to set an exact time to do things so that you can work your other priorities like your social life around studying. If a specific time of each day to study is too daunting for you, allocate an entire day to doing readings, assignments, and studying. When I first started scheduling school projects, I always did the bulk of them on my day off, which was Sunday.

2. I studied away from my room.

Something I found would hinder my work rate was sitting in my room. This tip depends on the person, but for me, trying to get anything done in my room always ended in disaster. I would get distracted by a lot of different things and would always end up making an excuse so I can relax or take a nap. Speaking of, do not do your work in your bed! You are likely to fall asleep or procrastinate when you’re comfortable in your bed as compared to a desk or seating area. I decided to do big assignments like essays or presentations and exam studying at my school’s Student Learning Centre, the library, or local coffee shops where I wouldn’t be as distracted. I also like to think that the atmosphere of these places influences students to actually do their work, since they made the effort to get there to begin with.

3. I typed up my notes and wrote them.

A big part of studying has to do with how well you’re retaining the material. Everybody studies differently, but I found that an excellent way for me to retain and remember information was to type out my class lecture notes and then write them out on paper afterwards near exam time. Writing out your notes is equivalent to reading them seven times — so get writing!

4. I did my readings and the notes for them, but only for the classes that count.

One of my high school teachers told me that it is literally impossible for a university student to do every single one of their readings for that week. Well I wouldn’t say it’s impossible — it is highly unlikely that a student has the time to do all of their readings each week. I decided to cut down and only read for two out of my five classes this semester — both classes having quizzes on each reading every week — to save time and energy that was put towards bettering essays and presentations. Because these classes were quiz heavy, I put it upon myself every week to post my notes on the readings to my program’s Facebook group as a way of keeping on top of doing each reading when the fact that there was a quiz the next day wasn’t motivation enough for me. Having others depend on me, in a way, made me much more willing to sit down and do the readings because I didn’t want to let anyone down! 

On the flip side, if you want me to be honest, had I had read the chapter readings for the business class I had (the only class I got a B in!), it absolutely would have helped me understand the subject material more and get a better grade. However, if your prof goes over each reading every class and clarifies what you need to know from said reading, I wouldn’t personally read for that class.

I would also like to quickly state that I’m in a program that is more lecture based than others, so if you’re in science or engineering, for example, you should probably just do your readings to prep for labs!

5. I took breaks.

I am someone who cannot sit still for a long time, so taking breaks and moving around is necessary for me. I would break every hour and a half or so, and go do something that would give me energy, like eating, going for a walk, or a quick power nap. After my break was done (I would usually take half hour breaks), I would feel more energized and ready to get back to work.

6. I made study guides and shared them with my program.

If you haven’t read my article entitled “How I Use Google Drive as a University Student”, you should because I talk more about how I utilize the sharing features to maximum success. A quick run down of what I stated in that post is that basically, I would accumulate all of my notes over the semester and compile it into a study guide that also had practice questions and course themes in it. I would allow other students editing access so that they could add anything I missed or edited something I got wrong to maximize understanding not only for me, but for everyone else who contributed as well.

7. I went to class and paid attention.

This seems like a “no shit, Sherlock” type of tip, but I wanted to include it because a lot of people, including myself, have a penchant for skipping classes. I skipped a lot of classes first semester because I thought I understood everything from the readings, and therefore, got a pass from attending — but when my exams came, I realized I was kind of screwed. It’s important to go to classes and pay attention, and if you don’t understand something, to ask questions. It’s probably the most important tip on my list!

8. Ask your professors and teaching assistants for help.

Leading into my next point, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be asking for assistance or guidance from your teachers. The advice and direction I gained from asking questions, going to office hours, and writing workshops was enormously important for maintaining my average and improving my writing. Even just, “can you read over this and critique it?” will have a massive difference in your mark if you take their advice seriously.

9. I got enough sleep.

This is going to sound crazy, but one of the main reasons my GPA wasn’t super high first semester was because instead of doing my assignments, I would take a nap. I was exhausted first semester and often took 4 hour long naps to make up for the lack of sleep I would get at night due to stress or social gallivanting. It is important to be well rested and caught up on sleep so that your brain can actually function and not doze off, like mine would. Having good sleep patterns also helps with focusing during class, which in turn, helps with learning and retention. Second semester, I took less naps and went to bed earlier, which was a definite help in getting things done the next day without needing to sneak a nap during a lecture!

10. I was creative with my assignments.

Well, as creative as I could’ve been. Each project, whether it’s an essay or photoshopped design has a set of guidelines that you need to follow, but once you’ve met all those guidelines, its time to let your creativity shine. Letting artistic notion flow through my work made it much more enjoyable to do, preventing the dread I would often have towards essays and presentations. I am however, in an arts based program, so take this tip with a grain of salt if you’re in something that requires exact calculations and very specific precision.

I am incredibly proud of myself for getting my GPA this year, but it wasn’t easy to figure out all of these tips. Finding studying ways that work for you takes a lot of time, but once you’ve located the best way for you to retain, study, and get assignments done, stick with it for less stress and more success.

What tip are you going to use next semester? Let me know in the comments!

Ambitiously,

Amanda

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#university

[shenanigumi]

20 Questions Tag Meme

I was tagged by @lanaya-lavellan​! Putting it up here first, since this blog was the one that got tagged.

1. How tall are you? 5 feet 4.5 inches at last count.

2. What color and style is your hair? Brown, except it’s the kind of brown that can’t really make up its mind—streaks of lighter and darker, sometimes bits of gold, mostly almost copper. It’s wavy and kinda bushy and falls past my waist at this point, so I should really have my mom trim the ends. It gets in the way all the time, but literally the only thing I know how to “do” with my hair is put it up in a ponytail. A low ponytail. I can’t even do the high ones like Chizuru’s got.

3. What color are your eyes? Boring brown. But I like to think it’s kind of a nice brown. A clear, chocolate brown. Not the dull brown I’ve seen in other people.

4. Do you wear glasses? Yeah, have for the past 15 years. When I was six, my mom took me to the San Jose Opera production of Die Zauberflöte and we found out I couldn’t see the subtitles without binoculars, so we hooked me up with glasses as soon as possible after that. My eyesight has been getting steadily worse ever since. Literally everything farther than 3-4 inches from my eyes is blurry without my glasses.

5. Do you wear braces? *shudders* Please don’t ask about my teeth. I had braces for a year and a half, from sixth to eighth grade. Apart from that, I’ve technically had retainers since second grade, but it’s been literal years since I’ve worn them and now my teeth are subtly starting to shift again so all my suffering may have been for naught ughhhh

6. What is your fashion sense? You say “fashion sense” like I have any kind of sense for fashion. Alas, I do not. Most often it’s a.) 1 of about 5 pairs of almost identical skinny jeans, each of which I wear repeatedly until obviously dirty; b.) whatever t-shirts are clean; c.) an extra layer of some sort if the weather calls for it, typically a zipper hoodie; and d.) boots or sandals. I have exactly one functional belt, and though I own multiple pairs of shoes, I wear exactly one pair of boots and two or three identical pairs of sandals to death. I do adore dresses and skirts, but they’re so much effort I hardly ever get/take the opportunity to wear them.

7. Do you have any siblings? No, thank gods.

8. What kind of student were/are you? The kind that was above average when she was a kid, so she developed expectations of natural aptitude—the kind that panics whenever she gets a C or lower on any given assignment due to a phobia of disappointing her parents—the kind that started struggling to do her assignments because of the weight of her own unrealistically high standards—and the kind that learned to really, genuinely hate school because of it, yet still feels obligated to participate. Don’t even talk to me about school, seriously. I'm strung out so tight I’ll snap if you touch me.

9. What is your favorite subject? I really do hate school. I don’t even like my past Creative Writing classes, for gods’ sakes (blame the teachers I’ve had). I’m okay with my small press editing class because my classmates are chill and one of them legit runs the class, but like, I literally don’t have a favorite subject. Unless you count my independent study on Bakumatsu Japan, because that’s fucking awesome.

10. Favorite TV shows? I don’t watch TV alone, but I’ll watch some things my family puts on, like certain dumb game shows or Project Runway whenever it’s in season. I also sometimes get hooked on Law & Order (especially Criminal Intent), even if I usually can’t watch the first several minutes due to general squeamishness. Oh, and if RWBY counts, I guess I like that too, although my enthusiasm has waned somewhat as the series progresses.

11. Favorite books? Sorry, but for all my love of writing, college has totally ruined my appetite for reading, as well as my ability to read for pleasure. I can’t even remember the last book I read all the way through, let alone ones I actually like. I suppose the longtime favorites that have stood the test of time include The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I also seem to remember liking the Pippi Longstocking series by Astrid Lindgren.

12. Favorite pastime? Writing, first and foremost (and, more prominently, bouncing ideas around!!); dancing, at least whenever I remember I like it; and playing video games, more for the plot than the experience. Seriously, I am such a casual gamer. I’ll be on the easiest of modes and I’ll still probably have a hard time. That’s a big part of why I like otome… no actual gameplay required…

13. Any regrets? This is depressing enough already, come on! But I don’t really have any long-term crushing regrets, so moving right along…

14. What is your dream job? I'm technically already a writer, since I write constantly, but getting paid for my passions would be awesome. My ultimate goal is to be able to sustain myself just by writing fiction, whether novels or short stories… but in the meantime, I’d love getting a day job as an editor. Frustrating as it usually is, it brings me a strange sort of enjoyment, and I like to think I’m good at it.

15. Do you want to get married? Being only demisexual and grayromantic, I’m not entirely sure marriage and I agree with one another. Besides, marriage is more a side effect than a life goal, wouldn’t you say? Lots of prerequisites, don’t you think? I’ve only checked one box, so… I mean… we’ll see. But if anyone gets me any diamonds, fuck that, I’m saying no till I get a better ring. Amethyst is where it’s at. Nobody gets enslaved and worked to death over amethyst.

16. Do you want kids? How many? In my current state, I absolutely could not handle kids, and it’s difficult for me to think of not being in my current state, so I can’t give a solid answer. See, I feel like in order to truly be said to “want kids”, you have to be okay with all the possibilities. If it were possible for me to have a single blood-related daughter without having sex, artificially inseminating, or being pregnant at all, I might consider it. Maybe. Until then, nahhhhhhhh.

17. How many countries have you visited? Just the one I’m from. Might consider exploring more now that a certain “mangled apricot hellbeast” (to quote someone on Twitter) has been elected president, though. Think some of my family members can hook me up with an Italian citizenship if I ever need to make an escape…

18. What’s the scariest dream you’ve ever had? There was a super-symbolic dream that really upset me (fear, anger, sadness, you name it, I felt it) back in eighth grade, all about how so much sexism and racism in America has been swept under the rug instead of getting fixed, and how the same people have ultimately been in power for centuries. It was really deep and unsettling, and I was only like 13-14 so I didn’t know how to process it. I’m still not totally sure.

19. Do you have any enemies? Nah. There used to be people I hated, and I’m fairly certain people hated me too, but I haven’t had anyone I’d call an enemy since roughly high school. The last person I hated was one of my Creative Writing teachers. I refer to him only as “Professor Jackass”.

20. Do you have a datemate? …Hey, ain’t that a planner? Or are you referring to a significant other? (And if that’s the case, if you marry your datemate, do they have the potential to become a housespouse?! I might even consider getting married now!!) Anyway, I do have a planner, but never learned to use it. I also happen to have a boyfriend of just over two months, and I don’t really know how that happened, or what I should be doing with him, but he somehow manages to make my life brighter—so I hope I can do the same for him, in my own inimitably clumsy way.

Tagging: @doodlethewhiteraven​, @sabinasanfanfic​, @impracticaldemon​, @shell-senji​, @kazama-hime​, and @queen-mizera​ if you haven’t gotten this already! But please feel free to NOT do it.

#personal #tag meme

[nhimann-blog]

The Sign of Five

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog. Now this week, quite honestly, has not been overly eventful. There wasn’t much going on in terms of trips and sometimes, it is just nice to do nothing. But that being said, there were a couple things I did this week. The first was going go-karting with the UL Racing & Motorsports Society. My god, was that a cool experience. Just outside the University of Limerick lies one of the longest go-kart tracks in the world. The thing is around 1.6km long, and by paying 10€, you drive for a half hour with no interruptions. It was amazing! The track had one of the most interesting layouts I’ve seen and one half of it is used for drifting so it is a great course to drive on. There were a couple times where I came of a corner too quickly and grinded into the wall… yeah, my ribs are not thanking me for that. But all in all, it was a great experience (Sidenote; the image below is only about 1/3-1/2 of the track).

           Secondly, I finally planned an excursion to another country! Even though that country may be Scotland, it still counts!... right? Anyhow, I am going to visit my aunt in Calderbank, which is roughly an hour outside of Glasgow for a few days. I literally have not seen her since I was 16 or 17 (it’s been a while, let’s just say that), so it will be great to catch up with her. Also, if I remember correctly, she is coming to Canada in July so if I went this entire exchange without visiting her, there would be some consequences, and rightfully so.

           Now, onto the topic of this week: Classes. I will be discussing what classes I am taking here and what’s different when compared to the Laurier classes. Let me start by saying this: I am not taking any criminology classes because I’m fully done that part of my degree, and, if I pass everything while I am over here, I will be graduating with honours (Yay! I’m done! Woot!). As well, good thing I finished all my criminology classes because they don’t have any criminology-specific courses. People still find me a bit weird because when I tell them I study criminology, of course the topic of murder comes up and I know a lot about that topic (arguably too much, even for a criminologist), so that makes my nights at bars both interesting and uneventful. So, what classes am I exactly taking?

Laws of Evidence

           Laws of Evidence is a class that demands my attention more than most. It is all about how evidence works in court, how it can be presented, and what qualifies it to be admissible. Now, most of this I have learned throughout my criminology classes (i.e. Burden of Proof, competence in court, etc.) and that is not an issue. The issue is that during my 100% exam for this class, I need to be able to recall key cases that I have barely ever heard of. Don’t get me wrong, the cases are interesting in their own right, but I will need to be a quick study in this class.

Inequality and Social Exclusion

           This class is much different then what I was expecting going into the class. With a title like “Inequality and Social Exclusion”, I was expecting a discussion of the ways the world is unequal and social exclusion occurs. Instead, I was met with not how things are unequal, but why things are unequal and how inequality functions in society (I am not a huge fan of functionalism, but it brings up an interesting argument). This class also consists of an 100% exam, but I am much less concerned with this as criminology is rooted in sociology, which is where a lot of the theories for this class come from.

Politics and Government in Ireland

           Of course I took a politics class. And I am finding it to be one of the most enjoyable, and a bit infuriating, classes I have taken. I find it completely infuriating how their system works. It’s a ranked ballot system which, mathematically (don’t worry, I’m not throwing any formulas or algebra at you for those of you who don’t like math), the system does not represent Ireland’s election well. But I also love this class for two reasons. First, I’ve been here a month and there’s already a political scandal that might defeat this current government, which is really interesting to watch on the sidelines, especially considering there’s like 10 different parties wanting to form government.

           Secondly, oddly enough, that class has a poster project. And, I know you might be thinking “Why are you excited to do any school work? You’re in Ireland, go hunt for… I don’t know… Leprechauns or fairies or something.” To that I say, the project is really interesting because it discusses what reforms Ireland needs in its constitution. And my group is discussing enshrining the Economic and Social Rights Bill into the constitution. And I’m really excited because it makes me feel like Pierre Trudeau with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Is that a little cocky?....). But I can’t wait to do it because it is going to be so much fun.

**Also, fun fact: Ireland’s Republican Party, Fianna Fail, has the world record for being the longest governing party, being in power for 61 out of the 79 years Ireland has been a Republic. Oddly enough, however, Fine Gael is the current governing party.

Peer-Tutoring in Academic Writing

           This class seems a little unfair for me to be in, because, attending it for four week at this point, it is exactly what I used to do back at home. Straight down to the exact training I did. The only difference is that this has a lot more assignments than my training did. One thing I find odd is that with one-on-one consultations here, they all do it in the same room. Not each Peer Tutor has an office to work out of.

Spring Practicum

           This has been one of the most interesting experiences I have done here so far. The best part: I wasn’t even planning on doing it. But, when the opportunity presented itself, I figured it was a good idea. So, what I am doing is helping Tourist Ambassadors better engage tourists in Adare. It’s a lovely little village and I get to go there once a week to explore and problem solve! My true colours are really starting to show how much of a nerd I am, aren’t they? Even better though is that the school is reimbursing us for transportation costs (I can feel the rage from my concurrent education friends as I right this, and to those feeling I say “Good, good, let the hate flow through you”). So, it’s a free experience and I get to help people. All I hear is a win-win.

Laurier Classes

           To be honest, most of the lecturing style and discussion is very similar to how they do things at Laurier. You go into a lecture, you listen for a bit, and you go home. Same thing with the tutorials here: you go to tutorial, you do what they ask, and you go home. They are very similar in that regard.

           Now, what I find completely different is the weighting of grades. The most weight I have ever had on an exam is 50% (and not to brag, but I did amazingly on it). An 100% exam freaks me out so much. It’s the issue of having one shot to do it that worries me a bit. That being said, I keep telling myself that out of 12 weeks, there is only so much they can put on the exam.

As always, thank you for reading this. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to let me know.

-Nicholas

[karoga89-blog]

student

Henslin, Doing Sociological research.

Part II pg. 29-32

Being a sociologist takes part in everyday life. They do their work on different types of researchers and in are different methods, sociologist use to gather information. We are going to concentrate on these 2: Conducting empirical research and constructing a theoretical base. I recently learned how a sociologist do their magic, and it is pretty interesting. When a sociologist is working on something they cannot point out their conclusion on superstitions, common sense, or how the world would like to be. They do their research on observing the habitat of what they are working on it. This is empirical research, observing the human socialʼs behavior, and write it as it is with every detailed expressed by their natural self. As they are working, sometimes they are basing their work into theories, putting peopleʼs experiences into a plan and connect into our experiences, how they are related to the real world. Although, Sociologist use their theories into measurements, 

                      observations, and researchers' results meticulously. The 3 dominant theories, the first one,                       Symbolic interactionism, this is something you have an attachment to, could be a kid to his mom, a writer to his favorite tool to write or inspiration, a little kid to a teddy bear, a pet, a couple in a first date, etcetera. Thatʼll be to objects, people, or events. 

This first theory has 3 major subjects, Human beings have a self, we can make our selves into an object by to think, express our own actions. The second subject, People construct meanings and act on the basis of those meanings, when we give an action some meaning. for example, we are walking and then we see someone that smiled at you! You think what is the meaning of this? why did he/she do it? we want to give anything a meaning. The third one, People take int account the possible reactions of others, this is about how we change our actions because of how the people would think. An example of this might be the behavior of a kid when he is with his/her mother he acts differently while when they are at school. This is a personal experience, I have a son who is extrovertive, but the bad thing that he doesn’t listen to every word we say ( parents), does not clean and etcetera. However, when he started kinder, I was worried about how is behaving at school, and the teacher told me - he is a very obedient kid, does their shores and everything, I literally told the teacher, are you talking about my kid?- … maybe my kid changes his attitude because he wants to be rewarded by the teacher, that’s still a mystery.

                   The second Theory, functionalism, functionalism implies that society has many parts that make the society work together in a system, to be clearer if one part of the system does not work the other parts would not work. For example, if the motor of a car does not work, the car would not move. It is the same with the society, The families breaking apart because something does not work in their habitat.

The Third theory, conflict, humans won’t be human if they don’t have drama in their lives, competition between them on seeing who is best of the best, and that entails the conflict. They pursue the power, and wealthy.

The results of this conflict are the social problems we know already, the racism, sexism, social class, and etcetera. 

                                         would you hire an ex-convict?

Devah Pager

pg.63-72

(H)

The social researchers while are concentrating on other social institutions there is another one who has increased and taken their curiosity. The Criminal justice system ( prison), when everyone who has offended de law is getting in and out and, there is an important topic that comes into the sociologist mind.

This is a study that took place in Milwaukee, the consequences of incarceration for the employment outcomes of black and white men.

This research is about the criminal record of Afro-American and white Americans affects the possibility to get a job. There is an experiment they gather information from two groups: one white- American with a criminal record in the other Afroamerican with criminal record.

while the experiment was going on there was information that half of those who applied received calls from the employer, the reason why is the employer said “ the ones who are just being released from prison tend to work harder”. 

The comparison of whites and African Americans, there was a difference that despite having a criminal record, the call was returned more times to whites than to Afro-Americans despite having the same background. There was information that some of the Afro-Americans applicants were asked before submitted the aplication if they had criminal records, and for the whites didn’t ask them. The race plays a big card in getting a job opportunity. 

These research results are that incarceration comes with fewer job opportunities.

Coffee shop ethnography

JBC

Pg. 105

I was deciding on where to start on what place should I go to do my sociology assignment. Watching the behavior of the human being in a coffee shop.

I decided to go to Starbucks ( the only one in my town, there is another in the entrance of the Target but nope!)

I arrived, the first thing I saw was the blackboard the big one, then I saw the cashier with a pretended smile (I think she was tired it was already 7 pm), asking what i am going to get. I got a hot chai tea ( my favorite). I waited for my tea to be ready to go and start my objective “research”.

How the people behave in a coffee shop at this hour I think it is different from the morning.

The personal was friendly but with a face that they wanted to go home while I was staring at people ( that’s how I felt) and a teenage group noticed that I was writing something. They didn’t do much like it didn't bother them that I was writing, they kept doing what they were doing, watching their cellphones, chatting with each other, and taking pictures. They stayed for about an hour because one of them received a call and said,- I gotta go-.

There was a  teenage couple, they looked like they were boyfriend and girlfriend, how do I know? married couples don't act like they did. Ther were hugging, and kissing in front of everybody. the face expression of the girl looked in love. The boy was hugging too, but it was more like “ I'm hugging you because I don't want you to get mad if I don't”. Maybe I’m wrong, I hope, i am. Normally, I’m kind of good at knowing how people feel, maybe, I’m not wrong. The boyfriend was looking at his cellphone every 5 min. They stayed for 20 min.

There was another person sitting by herself. She was at her cellphone, drinking a cup of coffee, I believe she is in her 30’s. She is drinking her coffee, watching her cellphone, and watching outside the window. Her face is thoughtful, with a little smile while watching her cellphone, maybe she saw something that made her laugh.

She was there for about 30 minutes,  probably trying to get a relax time. There weren't a lot o people to get annoyed with, it was late. I assumed that. I was doing the same. Experience.

I stayed for 1 hour and a half. The workers were tired so that’s why I decided to leave, to let them start the closing time.

[theboardwalkbody]

OK 

I made a two-paged TO DO list that covers the next two months (and half of December because I included ‘buy xmas tree decorations’ and ‘start xmas gift shopping’ but not ‘actually decorate’ or ‘buy tree’ or ‘wrap gifts’). I’m pretty hellbent on enjoying this xmas season because:

1. I work two days a week - that’s plenty of time off during the week for relaxing, doing xmas-y things (wrapping presents and baking cookies etc.) even with school work.

2. School work is all online and legit should NEVER take more than 45-60mins per day. And that’s being generous. My public speaking class I can knock out the entire weeks worth of assignments in 60mins if I stopped being a dysfunctional asshole. I know my two other courses (that start next week) are going to be a little more demanding but I’ve taken similar before and the biggest assignments are going to be ‘write a paper on X’ and maybe that’ll take 1-2 hours but still - in one day I should theoretically be able to finish course work for all three courses leaving me with four entire days to do the things I want to do. 

3. If I B E H A V E this bolus should help me through the holidays.

4. If my life is a puzzle that puzzle was smashed on the floor over the summer and I spent August/September and now October picking up the pieces and I would like to SAY that this two-page to-do list is me having found the lid with the picture on it and now I just gotta put it together. 

5. I would also like to find a psychiatrist (it is on my to-do list as kinda a non-obligatory point) locally but the last time I tried to do that I almost killed myself because they all told me to fuck off except for the one that DID take me but then she called me lazy and said I didn’t really want help since I refused to take medication that made me feel like I was having a heart attack and thusly made me super fucking scared that I actually was since half my fucking family died of that shit in their 60s/70s so it’s not like there isn’t significant family history on top of all my fucking risk factors. BUT ANYWAY. If I can get a diagnosis before xmas that might be nice. 

6. My November and first week of December work schedule should be posted this week or at least by Halloween. Then I’ll really have a better picture of my November since I’ll know which days I do and don’t work. I’m scared shitless that I’ll have to work 12.5 hours on Xmas Day because I’m a newbie and lets be real the entire universe hates me but I’m trying to remember that there’s really nothing I can do about it short of literally just quit my job if I am and that’s obviously not a route I can go. Also - not something I’m going to know until the end of November anyway. So I am TRYING not to worry about it NOW (but we all know how that works).

7. First and foremost the biggest to-do is taking care of school. It’s not even a time-consuming thing, it’s like a phone call and three forms, but I just need the damn cash. But it’s a large cloud looming over me and it’ll be nice to get rid of it.

8. I have 6 days off coming up. I really REALLY need to spend Tuesday CLEANING MY FUCKING OFFICE. Half my problem is my work space is so fucking DIRTY AND MESSY that it’s making me feel claustrophobic and tense. I can’t work or FUNCTION in this space and it’s making me feel overwhelmed. So this REALLY needs to be taken care of. ASAP. Because I know that once it is I’ll feel calmer, breathe easier, and my anxiety level will go down because I’ll be able to think straight again. It will literally take ALL DAY at the least (because the closet needs to be cleaned out in order for me to put things away proper) but it really is NOT GOOD on my mental wellbeing. 

[adventuresofarilamadperson]

Growth and rest

It’s been almost 9 months since we left Singapore, and we are about due for a return soon. I’ve been reflecting on what God has done in my life so far – the changes look slow and small and are barely noticeable from moment to moment, but looking back I can see some changes. 

Two themes: Growth and Rest. 

Growth: 

For some reasons I realised that I’ve always been uncomfortable around people who are more than a few years older than me. Growing up in the Singapore school system and even in church, you tend to hang out with people who are in the same school year as you religiously. Especially when one was younger, a year apart meant seniority and some form of superiority. 

I realised I hadn’t had a very good impression of older people generally. Being a critical little girl, I grew up realising how certain unhappiness or things I felt were unjust in my life were a consequence of how my parents brought me up – too strict, not encouraging enough, emotionally absent etc. While my parents must have had good intentions in having me and bringing me up, and while many things they did were admirable, at the same time I can’t deny that I received certain things in a hurtful way. I had a very bad impression of teachers as well, thinking that they were there to assess and grade me and assign homework, instead of being someone whom I could relate to and ask for help from. It was only in junior college that I started asking teachers questions earnestly (I remember getting my poor friend to help me ask questions in secondary school), and my Knowledge & Inquiry teacher was the first one I knew who actually invited us over to his house and inspired me to learn more. 

So I always kept my distance from people older than me, thinking that they were usually there to manipulate or to be critical of me. And having grown up hating teachers, I never wanted to be a teacher in any way, even though in the period between junior college and university, giving tuition or being a relief teacher was a lot more lucrative than administrative work.  I suppose the only older adults I became close with to any measure were those who actively took the initiative to treat me as a peer and who were able to relate with me in a casual, natural manner.

Well, when we joined a church here, I was hopeful of being put in the graduate students ministry (Impact) or the international students ministry (Global Access), having aspirations to be a graduate student the next academic year as well as being comfortable associating with international students from my time on exchange. But S and I were put in Covenant, the married couples ministry. 

I was pretty horrified actually. Other than the older adult barrier, I’ve never had a particular chemistry with kids. Growing up as an older part of the generation with respect to my extended family, I remember writing poems about babies being gross and putting “babies keep out” stickers on my door when my extended family came over for family events, primarily because my room and in particular my bed would be taken over as a diaper changing area. In my own life, I’ve also observed how for many Christians, family was an idol that stumbled them in ministry – it was “my family first, the rest of the world can take care of itself”, and I frequently got the sense that the spiritual family we have in God was subordinate to the actual biological family (c.f. many Christian families who reconcile themselves to adoption after not being able to have their first choice of biological kid). 

I’m really glad to have met families who have taught me that having a family doesn’t mean not having space for others, and being older doesn’t mean you don’t treasure relating to the young in a spirit of family instead of critical judgment. 

In particular, L&V were generous in checking in on us, offering to send us to and from Ikea so we could get household goods, even passing to us a microwave they didn’t use anymore. 

P&J meanwhile, committed to giving us lifts to Life Group at their house every week, and were happy to include us in their lives, whether it be going to the library with their kids or even learning how to carry their kids. 

J&R, while having their second child though R was at a late age and it was a difficult pregnancy, continued to send a member of their family as a representative every week, and remembered all the birthdays in the Life Group so that the person who brought refreshments every week would bring a cake for special occasions. 

T, who while her husband was attending a different church and she’s probably the second oldest member in our young student-focused church, would share realistically about her struggles and need for prayer, and joke with us. 

At the same time, I was glad for other newly-wed couples joining the Life Group, so that we could all establish our new married lives together. 

While S is still the quintessential baby whisperer and he likes to tease me about how kids like him and not me (trying to incite envy, tsk), it makes me glad to now be able to functionally play with kids (lol) and look out for them when they are falling over learning to walk. And even housesit, in cases where there are sleeping kids, so that the parents can have some time to spend relating to each other without juggling and fighting fires! 

Meanwhile, our church here has this thing called LCG (Life Change Group) which is someone you’re paired with to spiritually journey with in particular. I was blessed to get matched with my friend J (different from the J above, although she is similarly awesome hee), who was amazing in being open about her own struggles and caring and prayerful about even things like our relationship. While I’ve been involved in marketplace prayer groups and through that, God has brought me to various sisters in Singapore whom I can pray with, I’m so glad that He established this constant, spiritual relationship even in this foreign land to allow me to reflect and share my life. 

So that’s one way I feel I have grown. Learning to realise that everything can be reclaimed by God for His kingdom of shalom, and also realising that no one is perfect, yet we all can relate to each other as sinners in need of grace. 

Another way I’ve grown is being more open to new ideas and learning more about people who are different from me. Having the chance to explore what I can learn next, I have learnt that there is so much more out there than I know exists. For example, that social work isn’t merely an interpersonal or policy discipline. And that there are at least 15 types of engineering courses, all of them different (the North Campus at the University of Michigan has a ton of different buildings for each one). I still have this button in my head that kinda turns off when people talk about engineering or finance or healthcare, for example, but I try to catch it a bit more nowadays. :P 

Rest: 

Before I came here, I felt like it was ages since I had rested properly. I had transited 3 jobs over 3.5 years, of which one of those jobs was actually 2 jobs each taking half the normal workload. I had had a multitude of bosses (small and big bosses both), probably like 10 or more in those various jobs, and have had to deal with different working styles and unexpected transitions. Each of my jobs required fundamentally different skills and exposed me to new areas. In the midst of that, I continued to be involved in various activities that I pursued out of work, such as church and para-church activities (e.g. coordinating the logistics of an overseas 3D2N camp, including being a huge part of setting direction and organising the various sessions, while transiting into a new policy job!). I hardly went home for dinner at all. 

Most recently before coming here, S and I had had to plan our wedding in 2 months (including navigating parents and friend politics! Cause they will all have their own idea of what should be done and how they want to be involved), and had to wrap up our jobs in 3 months or so while juggling this, and packing up our whole lives (literally, my mom decided that my brother would take over my  room that I’d stayed in since I was 7 years old, and nothing was to be left behind; and S cleared all his things too) and preparing to move over (visa, securing a place to stay and flights, packing things to bring over for the wintry weather, announcing big changes and saying goodbye to each friend, etc!).

Even back in law school, partly because I thought most “normal” law subjects were boring and liked working for common causes with friends, I was involved in a myriad of extracurricular activities and pursuing different courses in new and diverse areas (e.g. Korean, Public Administration, Competition Law, UN Law, Mediation, Family Law). If you saw my resume you might think I was doing all these random things for credit, instead of doing them just because I enjoyed doing them and wanted to learn more. 

Part of me genuinely is interested in all these different things and enjoys doing them. At the same time though, my dad liked to say I was burning the candle on both ends, and I definitely needed time to rest and explore ideas more deeply. And my identity was inevitably becoming very linked with what I was doing, instead of in the fact that I don’t need to please or impress anyone or even do anything constructive with my life, to be accepted by God and others. 

Coming here was putting a stop to all of that. There were opportunities to do more at work, and I felt that if I accepted them I would be going down a spiral of achievement after achievement, with no room to think what I really wanted or was uniquely able to do, that no one else would do. Of course it’s a privilege to even have the ability to rest or pursue things outside of work, with many being systemically deprived of such things by threats to survival. And I am thankful to God for that privilege, that I hope to use well. 

This rest has enabled me to reflect, and to offer more to others, and to question more deeply. I still learn again and again the lesson of the need to rest in God, because worry, while based in things you may actually logically believe you need to do, can be consuming and counter-productive and very self-idolatrous (in the sense that you think you can control more than you actually can). Rest is not a bad word, and leisure is not a bad word, and joy in just being can be a deep mark of grace.

So that is one view of my 9 months here, which while sometimes new and crazy and cold and awkward for me, I acknowledge as a time from God indeed.

#growth #rest #sabbath #developing diaries

[isppalumni]

INTERVIEW WITH MUGABI

INTRODUCTION

Mugabi Byenkya is an ISPP alumnus who studied at ISPP from 2001 until 2005, starting in Grade 4 and finishing in Grade 7. He completed his schooling at Rainbow International School in Kampala, Uganda and currently resides in Toronto, Canada.

“I loved my time at ISPP and will forever cherish the lifelong lessons I learnt on perseverance, resilience and the celebration of diversity”.

What did you do from when you left ISPP until now?

When I left ISPP my family went to Thailand for a few months, where my father passed away, so we moved back to Uganda. This was interesting because it was my first time living in Uganda. It’s home and where my parents are from, but I hadn’t lived there before. I had only ever visited during the summers. I was born in Nigeria and moved to a different country every 3 to 4 years after that. My family moved around so much due to my father’s work with the UNDP as the Deputy Resident Representative. He was an economist by trade, working on the Millennium Development Goals.

I stayed in Uganda for 5 years, graduated and moved to start my undergraduate degree at University of Kansas, majoring in Environmental Science and International Studies, and graduated in 2014.

After that, I went to the University of Michigan to do a Masters degree, but at the end of first semester, I unfortunately suffered from 2 strokes. I moved to Washington DC while my sister Tina took care of me while I recovered. I was largely bedridden, dependent on a cane to walk and in recovery for a year. It took a year, but in 2016 I got the necessary therapy. At the Mayo Clinic I learned how to walk independently again, learned how to eat, clean and became independently functional.

                        Mugabi’s siblings

After I was managing things better, I started several little part-time gigs and worked many different positions. One of these was teaching English to new immigrants to the United States, ranging in age from 16 – 65, in Washington. I also tutored elementary school children on reading and writing because a lot of kids were behind, so this involved catching them up to the level they should be at. I worked as a stylist of sorts at an NGO called ‘Suited for Change’ that offers professional clothes for low income women attending job interviews. The clothes came from donations. I worked with the women who were my clients and helped pick outfits that fit them well, looked good and that they liked. My colleagues and clients were great and we got on well. They really liked me as I was the only man working there!

I also interned with an editor of a poetry anthology. I was mostly helping her out with the legalities behind the anthologies, which involved getting permission from poets to use their work as well as maintaining contact and outreach with the poets and the publisher. I also helped with formatting and the actual editing of the anthology and writing the book.

Lastly, I started writing my debut novel! Since I was 4 years old, it was my dream to be an author. My family are very avid readers and I remember when I was younger I went up to my siblings and asked them to play with me, but they were busy reading. I was shocked because playing was the best thing ever, and playing with ME especially was the best thing ever! I was like what is this reading thing that is better than playing with me? So I asked my mom to teach me how to read. It took a couple months but I got the hang of it.

I was just mind blown because I was like this is amazing, there’s a whole world out there and nothing can get better than this. But then I discovered writing and it’s the only thing better than reading, in my opinion. Ever since then I’ve been writing stories and I always wanted to be a writer…but I was pushed out if it because it’s not the most lucrative career and pushed into sciences because I was good at it.

After my recent strokes, I was basically on my death bed and my family, friends, doctors and myself thought I was going to die, so I decided life was too short and I was going to pick up writing again and decided I would write a book. After I left DC, I moved to Toronto where my older brother Victor graciously provided me with a place to live and free food so I could finish off my book. I’m still interning for the poetry editor and I am also a careers consultant for the organisation where I used to teach English. I counsel clients on career choices, edit resumes and cover letters and help them find jobs. Most of the clients are older than me and come in with education and years of work experience, but the US doesn’t recognise it. So I tell them it’s okay to feel frustrated because they’re very experienced but struggle to get a job. Additionally, I also provide consulting for a start-up using my English and editing background. The start-up is an online English writing centre for students in non-English speaking countries. Interning and counselling are part time, so I spend most time focused on the book.

The publishing industry is very difficult to get into, so I published my book independently. This is more difficult because you’re the one in control to every step of the process from the cover, sales, promotion and everything else. I found a publisher called Discovering Diversity Publishing, who is willing to help me self publish and offered me a production and distribution deal. So the publisher handles all the production and some of the distribution of the book. I take care of the writing and the rest of the distribution and the promotion. My book is came out Sunday the 26th of February. I’d already sold over 100 copies before the release date and raised over $4000 to cover publication costs with my kick starter campaign. If people are interested in buying or finding out more, go to www.mugabi.net

               Dear Philomena, book cover

What is the best thing about life now?

I’d say the best thing about life now is family and friends! I have a lot of really good people in my life who have held space for me through thick and thin. The Kickstarter funding campaign is doing well and the book is out. I literally couldn’t have got here without their support.  

Did you ever envisage doing what you are doing while you were at ISPP?

Yes, because I’ve always wanted to write and I’m writing now. I remember in the 7th grade, in Mr Kerrigan’s English class, we were assigned to make a comic book and I was like, this is what I want to do with my life, it’s amazing!

Compared to your other classmates in university, what were you more or less prepared for?

I was more prepared for the amount of studying that I’d have to do. I was less prepared for speaking up in discussions for the sake of speaking up. I was very much raised to speak up when and if you have a point. I noticed I wouldn’t get as good a mark at university for not talking as much, but I would only talk if I had a point.

Has your international school experience shaped your worldview? If so, how?

Attending an international school definitely shaped my worldview. It’s allowed me to be more empathetic and contextual. I find it easier to build connections and make friendships with people of various different backgrounds.

What are your favourite memories of ISPP and Cambodia?

The spicy pepper eating challenge that a bunch of 7th grade boys had on a school trip; music classes with Mr. Edson where I fell in love with the blues; the water festival; hiking in Kirirom; family trips to Kompong Som where I got stung by a jellyfish for the first time ever; the barge trip down the Chao Praya river; buying sugarcane juice through the school gate; Lucky Burger; Beef Lok Lak; $1 Squid. Special shout-out to my best friends at the time: Stephen Bleakley, Sovisal Meach and Bairy Diakite!

                           Mugabi’s ISPP friends

Did you have a favourite subject/subjects? If so, what did you like about them?

My favourite subjects were English, Science and History. I loved the large-scale re-enactments of Great Zimbabwe in History, highlighting the ingenuity of my marginalised African people. I loved the dissections in science and seeing the inner workings of the heart. I loved the fact that Mr. Preece (English teacher) took students opinions as seriously as his own.

If you could send an appreciation message to someone from ISPP, who would it be and why?

I would send immense gratitude and thanks to Mr. Bailey for telling me:

“You don’t have much in the way of athleticism or talent, but you have perseverance. That is going to take you farther than the rest of these kids who don’t have half the uphill battle you face to just participate.”  

What advice would you give to our 11th and 12th grade students?

Vulnerability is strength.

In your opinion, what makes ISPP stand out?

The integration and respect of Cambodian traditions and culture into the classroom was unlike some of the other schools I went to where the expat ‘bubble’ was more opaque.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

Hopefully having published two more books, having a masters degree, an enjoyable work/life balance, warm friendships with friends and family new and old and having visited Cambodia!

Are there any other updates that you would like to share with our community?

You can purchase my debut novel Dear Philomena via www.mugabi.net on either ebook or paperback. Dear Philomena, is the story of two strokes, one boy, one girl and a whole lot of magical realism. See synopsis below:

“July 1991, Leocardia Byenkya underwent an ultrasound that informed her to expect a baby girl. She chose the name Philomena. January 16 1992, her baby was born as a boy. Filled with shock and surprise, Leocardia named her baby boy Mugabi. December 2014, Mugabi suffered from two strokes within a week of each other. Mugabi was 22 years old.   'Dear Philomena,' is a series of thoughts and conversations between Mugabi and Philomena (the girl he was supposed to be) about the year he was supposed to die but somehow lived through. “

Please support this young author’s dreams by reviewing and recommending the book to your social networks as well!

#ISPPalumni MugabiByenkya DearPhilomena