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allthingskakashi · 1 year

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• Another Time, Another Chance •

[Kakashi x Reader] || 5k

Based on the Fluff prompt: "You have something in your hair... Do you want me to get it out?"

A/n: i received the request for this in 2020,started writing it in 2021 and finished it now at the end of 2022 so this fic has made a very long arduous journey before appearing on your feed today. This is needlessly long (5??? K??? Words???) bc im physically incapable of writing shorter fics. Been super out of touch so i hope this doesn't read like a drag, ending seems a bit rushed to me but i needed to be stopped from adding any more words. thanks so much for reading!!<3

********

You had been dreading this day all week.

Ever since the invitation arrived in your mail, you’d been wrecking your mind, trying to think of excuses— something, anything, to get out of the dreadful misery this day was about to present. Any possibilities of a sudden ankle fracture or an unexpected call to duty, however, were put to rest when you ran into your dear friend, the childhood bosom bud you’d recently reunited with after ten years, on your run to the grocery store this morning— who demanded—well, warned, really— that you “better fucking show up” to what was going to be one of the most important nights of her life.

So there you were now, standing in front of your closet which was filled mostly in hues of blue or black, and rolls of what people refer to as “practical clothing”, looking for that one peach-colored dress you had stuffed at the back somewhere after the last time you wore it— the one that your mother had given you many moons ago on your birthday.

If you had known that you would be coerced into attending an engagement party not five days after your return to your village, you’d have delayed your return. But fact of the matter remained that Kurenai was indeed your best friend, and if your being there mattered to her that much, then perhaps you could push your own feelings—and by that you meant your general detest towards weddings and anything involving matters of the heart (Shinobi don’t show their emotions, that’s rule one) aside. Well, that and the fact that she threatened to hunt you down if you deigned to not show up.

But it’ll be fine, you told yourself. You would go, congratulate the happy couple, smile and nod at the people who approach you, have a round of drinks and appetizers, and slip out as soon as the crowd thickens. All in all, it shouldn’t take more than one, one and a half hours tops. You could do one and a half hours. It’d be fine.

Forty minutes and heaps of wrinkled clothes scattered all over your floor later, you finally managed to find the dress you were looking for. It’d need ironing and there was a stain in the front, but it could be covered up with the silver butterfly pendant you had. A quick glance at the mirror informed you that the load of laundry you were about to do would have to wait until tomorrow. Your hair was greasy, and you needed to do something about the bags under your eyes.

And of course, a present. You needed to get a present. This truly was turning out to be a massive pain in the ass.

...................................................................................

With the towel wrapped around your hair, you laid your dress out on the ironing board. You must have been eighteen when you last wore it but thankfully, it still fit. It was a beautiful piece— the fanciest piece of clothing you owned, no doubt, with a sweetheart neckline and lace detailing at the back.

Seeing the dress after so long did open a floodgate of memories…

It had been one week since your sixteenth birthday.

You had just passed your jounin exams.

You could still recall how the air felt that day, grain to grain in your mind. You were elated, you’d worked so, so hard for months. And finally, it had paid off. Anything seemed possible that day. The sky was the colour of water, the sun had never shone brighter. Everything was possible.

Even confessing your emotions of deep adoration to the boy you’d admired all through your young years.

It’s now or never, you’d told yourself. You’d never feel as courageous as you did that day. It was the perfect time.

And so, you’d put on your best dress, picked some daisies from your backyard, and strode off to where you knew you’d find him—the boy whose name cluttered the last pages of every notebook of yours, the one who starred in each of your daydreams— Kakashi Hatake.

You’d found him climbing a tree in the forest, a piece of cloth tied over his eyes and another tying his hands to his back. Chakra control practice.

You still remembered the tremor of your voice and the gigantic gulp you’d taken before uttering the next words. “Kakashi, would you mind coming down for a minute?”

The words were set on your tongue and your little heart banged within your ribs. You’d watched as he climbed down the branches with his eyes and hands redundant with the same meticulousness of a cat.

The moments he had taken to take off the blindfold and free his hands may have been the longest moments of your life.

And then, he’d fixed his dark eye on you, the frown on his face making his annoyance at being interrupted painfully clear. “What is it?”

Now usually, this is the part where you stopped reminiscing and yanked yourself out of the memory. If only you could go back in time, grab your younger self’s wrist, and yank her out of that very situation itself. But alas, that’s not how things work.

Back when the wound was still fresh, you’d replayed the next few moments time and time again in your mind but with the years, you’d mostly succeeded in blocking that part out entirely, as if you could just ignore it out of existence.

You hated to admit it now, but it truly had broken your naive heart into pieces. After all, being met with an impudent “That’s stupid, you shouldn’t” after confessing your admiration to the guy you’d written poems about in your journal isn’t exactly every sixteen-year-old’s dream.

But these were all in the past. Now when you thought of that moment, you just felt pity for your young, foolish self.

If only you could go back in time and…

Regrets aside, you were proud of how far you’d come. There was very little that could faze you now and things like juvenile crushes and fantasies about romance were things of the distant past. You’d burnt your journal not long after that incident—the one filled with poems about how Kakashi’s hair reminded you of the moon.

Eurgh. The thoughts made you cringe now.

It’s not that you didn’t find chances at romance past that one unfortunate incident. You’d left the village at seventeen, and in your ten years of voyage around the world learning about medicine, you’d come across many a man who had shown interest in you. But none had piqued yours.

But now, finally, you were home. Truth be told, you’d missed Konoha. The village, at least. The people…were another question. Once you’d left, you were almost completely out of touch with your friends back here and it had partly been intentional.

Which was another reason why the evening’s ceremony was turning out to be a particularly dreadful affair for you. You hadn’t seen these people in a decade and now to see them all together, at one place, in an engagement ceremony of two of your old classmates…it was all a bit overwhelming. You never were much of a socializer and after that incident, your self-esteem had taken a huge blow, leading you to mostly isolate yourself from your peers. It also hadn’t helped that Kotetsu and Izumo had been sparring that hapless day not far from where Kakashi was and had watched the entire situation unfold in front of themselves, and had then taken the liberty to do a dramatic retelling of the events to each of your comrades, with embellishments and exaggerations added for flair. You had been mercilessly teased, mocked, and ridiculed for weeks.

Sigh.

Was there really no way you could get out of this?

........................................................................................

You stood in front of the big stretch of lush green grass, known as the Konoha Public Park. Yellow lights twinkled in the distance where chairs and tables had been set up in close circles. Rows of cherry blossoms stood swaying along the edges of the park, their feathery pink petals swirling about and settling on the grass under your feet.

Soft music and cackles of laughter flowed into your ears from where you stood now. Right ahead of you was a small arched bridge, hovering over a stream of water. The way the lights danced on the water made it look like little stars were floating along the currents.

The place really did look beautiful.

They must have spent thousands on this thing, you couldn’t help but think. It made sense. Asuma was the third Hokage’s son after all.

All around you, more and more people started to come in—mostly in pairs of two. You still didn’t see anybody you knew yet, and you couldn’t decide whether that was good or bad.

Far in the distance, your eye caught Kurenai, arm in arm with Asuma, throwing her head back and laughing at something he must have said.

Alright.

You took a deep breath.

Here we go.

Once inside, the sea of faces—some familiar, some unfamiliar was making your mind dizzy. Wherever you looked, it seemed like the throngs of happy couples never ended. Was everybody on some kind of love potion in this town?

Your mind was telling you make a run for it, but it had only been— you checked, twenty minutes. You had already met Asuma and Kurenai and congratulated them, and exchanged niceties with a few other old friends who had come to ask you about your journey.

You had yet to pass forty more minutes somehow and there was only one thing to do—hit the bar.

The bar was a few feet long counter on one corner of the park, stocked with all sorts of premium brands and manned by three people dressed in black and white.

If this was the engagement party, what in the hell were they gonna do for the wedding?

“Hi, can I have a vodka cranberry, please?” you said, sitting down on a stool. This spot provided almost an entire view of the venue and you could see two very familiar-looking guys making their way towards the bar, and judging by the way they were vehemently waving their hands, it looked like they—Kotetsu and Izumo recognized you too.

You had NOT prepared for this.

Thankfully at that very moment, the bartender slid a glass of crimson liquid across to you. The ice cubes bumped around on the surface as you grabbed the glass in one hand and your purse in another, took a quick sip, and made a dash for the farthest end of the park, completely cut off from all the merriness.

Clutching the glass close to you, you took quick, hasty steps–stumbling and tripping your way along the sprawling field, all the while keeping an eye behind you to make sure you weren’t being pursued. The grass was uneven in some parts, and your heels weren’t helping.

With a lurch of your heart, you felt your toe hit what must have been a rock. In seconds, your glass was flying from your hand as you attempted to steady yourself, only to feel your body crashing into someone else’s with a thump.

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, I’M SO SORRY,”, you screamed out, before looking up to glance at the unfortunate bystander whom you had no doubt doused in your drink. “Please let me-”, you started, but your words dissolved in your throat.

Your drink was fine.

The glass was intact.

And holding it was none other than Kakashi Hatake– the last man you ever wanted to see, let alone crash into.

Great.

Okay, deep breaths. Maybe he won’t even recogn–

“Hello, y/n.”

Ah, perfect.

Words, words, words. What are some words?

“Kakashi”, you heard yourself respond. Thank God.

Within the walls of your brain rang a thousand different sirens.

“I heard you were back in town, you look well”, said the man in front of you, whose figure towered several inches over your head.

You didn’t remember Kakashi being quite so tall. But then again, the last time you’d seen him, he’d only been a boy. His gangly limbs had grown into muscled arms, his once gaunt torso, now broad and firm–even beneath the dark grey suit that he was clad in right now.

You hoped you didn’t look too floored.

“Yes. You too”, you managed, looking back at him, ensuring to not look too surprised, or more accurately, awestruck with him.

In the absence of the headband, Kakashi’s silver hair– free and silken, caressed his eyebrows. His face, though covered in its majority by a mask, had sharpened along the edges, in contrast to the boyish softness it once held.

With most of his face covered, you couldn’t help but look him in the eyes.

Surely you were immune to him by now? He was handsome, yes. But so, what? You’d seen handsome men before. Been in their company, spent time with them, studied with them, lived alongside them.

Kakashi was no exception.

If he had any similar feelings of astonishment in seeing you after all this time, he didn’t let it show.

“Anyway, I better…”, you muttered, proceeding to reclaim your glass from him, and stepping aside to move past his still surprisingly tall figure. “It was good to see you”, you said, without looking back.

Barely had you taken a step when the voice behind you called out.

“Not even a thank you for saving you from public humiliation?”

And there it was. The cockiness.

Perhaps he hadn’t changed that much after all.

Sighing to yourself, you turned on your heel to face Kakashi, fixing him with a glare.

“Thank you so very much”, you drawled, flashing him your phoniest smile.

Kakashi sniggered, speaking through a smirk as he bridged the gap between you. “Now, now, y/n. That didn’t sound very sincere”.

He was clearly enjoying this. Embarrassing you once in this lifetime must not have been enough.

And could he stop saying your name?

But you were no longer an infatuated doe-eyed little girl who blushed and fawned upon him. And you wanted that fact known.

“Don’t you have something better to do rather than being a pain in the ass?”

An impish glint peeked through Kakashi’s dark eyes.

“Pardon me, I didn’t realize I was being,” he paused before adding, “a pain in your ass”.

You didn’t enjoy the way his enunciation of the last two words made you squirm. You needed to get away from him. Fast.

But fleeing would be cowardly. And more importantly, why would you? He no longer had an impact on you. No, you were going to stay right here, look him in the eye and face him.

“What are you doing here anyway, Hatake?”

“Same thing as you are, rejoicing in the union of my closest friends.”

You scoffed, repeating his words back to him, “rejoicing in the union of your closest friends?”. “I’d have thought these things are beneath you.”

The smirk was unrelenting on Kakashi’s face. “You must not know me very well then, Y/n.”

There it was, your fucking name again.

“Y/N! Kakashi! There you both are, I have been looking all over for you!” shrieked Gai, coming towards you with hurried steps. You had already exchanged pleasantries with him earlier in the evening, and unlike some others you had encountered, Gai remained exactly the same as he had been when you last met—warm, generous, and very, very spirited.

“Yes”, you retorted, “and I’d like to keep it that way. Now if you’ll excuse me”, you said, turning around to walk towards the centre of the park, where a buffet table had been stationed, with sweet and savory items laid out across its stretch.

Once again, however, your attempt for departure was interrupted.

“Is everything okay?” you asked, as Kakashi stepped up beside you.

“Yes, yes, everything is fantastic! Don’t you worry, Y/N. I was only looking for you to ask you to join us. All of us back there have been playing some very fun games, and you are missing out on all the fun!”, Gai said, pointing behind him to a gathering of people.

“Oh um, I actually…” you started, ravaging your brain for an excuse, but you knew it would be as fruitless as telling Gai that a thousand push-ups a day was way too many push-ups.

“No excuses, Y/n!”, “You too, Rival!” Gai added, cutting Kakashi off in the middle of an unoriginal excuse about requiring to use the washroom. “Come on now, over here”, Gai ushered, leading you towards the gathering as you and Kakashi followed with thwarted faces.

Taking a large plentiful sip of your drink, you kept your glass aside, hoping it would be enough to fuel you for whatever lunacy lay ahead.

If only you could go back to the moment in time when you made the decision of coming here and smack yourself in the head.

“Well, what are we playing?” Kakashi asked without fervour, standing beside you with his hands in his pocket as he soaked in the sight in front of him. Multiple pieces of paper had been cut into squares and piled up on the grass.

“I’m glad you asked, Rival! Everybody, gather around please!”, Gai called, as each pair of eyes fell upon him. “For our next game, we’ll be playing Paper Dance! Please form yourselves into groups of two, pick up a piece of paper from the ground, and position yourselves on it. Please remember that both partners must be standing on the paper at all times! When I say start, the music will begin and you will have to dance, maintaining your balance. Once the music stops, the paper will be folded into half and both partners will stand on the halved paper. The music will begin again and when it stops the next time, the paper will be folded into a quarter, and the same will keep repeating until there is only one remaining couple on the floor! As the paper keeps getting smaller, one partner is allowed to pick another up to make space, however, the minute either partner falls off the square, the team will be disqualified! Is everyone clear on the rules?”

A booming roar answered Gai as everyone around you hooted and scrambled to pick up papers for their teams.

You hesitantly picked one up yourself, but there remained one simple problem. Everyone around you had already found a partner, barring only…Kakashi.

Without sparing him a glance, you approached Gai, but before you could get a word out, Gai spoke.

“So sorry, y/n, but I will be the coordinator for this game, to make sure nobody is cheating. Kakashi there seems to be without a partner as well, so you can pair up with him, over here Kakashi!”

“Wait, but–”, you interjected, but Gai had already pushed you and Kakashi together, signaling the DJ to start the music.

“Everybody in their places…and start!”

An upbeat lyric-less melody engulfed the expanse of the park.

As if being shanghaied into attending a wedding and bumping into Kakashi in a less than graceful encounter wasn’t enough, you were now being made to DANCE with him, smack in the middle of the Konoha park, in the audience of hundreds of people.

This evening was truly shaping up to be the stuff of nightmares.

The only advantage in all of this—if you had to choose one, was the fact that in front of you, Kakashi looked quite uncomfortable himself, try as he did to shroud it.

Every pair around you had their arms linked—chiming to the tune, swaying and spinning, throwing their heads back in laughter. The contrast of your partnership as compared to every other team on the floor was like fire and ice.

Tapping your toes in reluctance, you put as much space as possible between you and Kakashi on the small scrap of paper, looking everywhere but ahead.

“Kakashi! Y/N! That’s not dancing”, Gai interjected, coming around to you. “Put some enthusiasm into those youthful bodies of yours and shake it out!” he added, belting out a serpentine body roll for demonstration.

Flashing him a thumbs up, you pretended to pick up the pace, only to revert to your designated foot taps the moment Gai turned to the pair next to you. Your eyes fell upon Kakashi in a reflexive glance, and you found your dance partner staring right at you, his face an expression of curious amusement.

“Killer moves”, he jibed, but before you could retaliate, Gai’s voice interrupted the music. “And…stop! Amazing everyone! No couples have been disqualified yet, so before we start the next round, everybody please step down from your papers, fold them in half, and retake your positions on them.”

You and Kakashi stepped down from the paper at the same time, each bending down to fold the paper. Your head bumped against his and you jumped back, going back a few steps and letting him do the task as you tucked a loose strand of hair back in place.

Having folded the paper in half, Kakashi stood with his hands clasped in front of him, waiting—almost daring, you to step over first. Looking him in the eye, you stepped onto the paper, the space on which had significantly reduced now.

You felt yourself gulp as Kakashi came forward.

“Ready everyone?”, Gai’s voice rang in the background.

Your feet were touching, your face inches from Kakashi’s chest.

“Start!” called Gai, as a different, less upbeat melody spilled from the speakers.

The scarcity of space made it impossible for you now to look past Kakashi’s figure. With your face mere inches from his chest, you could make out the distinct cliffs of Kakashi’s collarbones peeking through the open top of his shirt. A silver chain peeked through, glinting under the canopy of lights overhead.

Kakashi swayed lightly to the tune, his movement so minuscule as to be missed by anyone not standing centimeters away from him.

The song playing was familiar to you. It was the instrumental version of your favourite song from your teenage days. There had been many a night you spent writing poetry, this very song playing in the background as you scribbled away.

Droplets of sweat had begun to trickle over your back. The air felt thickened with the smell of chrysanthemums and nostalgia.

You persisted, focusing your eyes on a singular button of Kakashi’s suit, counting the seconds in your mind and waiting for the welcome interjection of Gai’s voice.

A soft warm breeze jostled through the crowd, leaving Kakashi’s hair ruffled. He reached up to pat it back into place, nimble fingers brushing past your forearm as he did.

Explosions like fireworks erupted through your pores where his fingers had trailed.

Your throat seemed to be getting narrower and narrower.

Without a thought or a moment’s realization, you felt your feet trampling away from the muddy piece of paper underneath and over the grass, sprinting, carrying you away. Away from the insufferable melody, the sickening smell of flowers, the disgusting exhibit of affection displayed by couples in each corner, the wretched black mole on Kakashi’s chest under his right collarbone where your eyes kept dragging.

Heaving as you caught your breath, you seated yourself on a wooden bench at the edge of the park. Your heart hammered in your throat as you tried to make sense of what had transpired. Somewhere in the distance, you could hear a faint voice, “Y/N! That is against the rules! Sorry, Rival, I am afraid I will have to disqualify you too.”

Multiple pairs of eyes had turned to look in your direction. You must have looked insane. Running across the field like that, matted hair sticking all over your face. You really had a penchant for embarrassing yourself, it would appear.

This was all too much, all of it. The wedding, Kakashi, your stupid fucking heels that made your soles ache.

Much to your relief and fortune, a woman’s voice replaced the maddening sound of the song blasting through the speakers at that precise moment. It was time for toasts.

Undoing the straps of your shoes, you laid your bare feet on the grass, leaning back to rest your head on the bench.

It was a clear night, the stars shining with all their might, as if in celebration of your friends.

You closed your eyes. The cool grass was soothing underneath your aching feet.

“Are you okay?”

Ugh.

You opened your eyes to see Kakashi standing over you, looking down with an expression almost resembling… was it concern?

You didn’t think he was capable.

“What now?”, you sniped.

Your patience was running thin, you needed to be away from here.

“You left this”, Kakashi said, holding out your glass of vodka cranberry that you’d kept aside earlier.

“You seem awfully attached to my drink”, you jabbed again, but Kakashi ignored it, coming around to take the vacant spot beside you.

“What happened back there?” he inquired, turning his eyes on you as you looked down at your feet.

What DID happen back there?

“Nothing, I just…felt dizzy. Didn’t get time to have lunch today”, you lied, although only partly. You had, indeed, not gotten time to have lunch that afternoon, you were too busy scouring the market for an appropriate gift, all to ultimately settle on the quaint night lamp that had caught your eye in the very first shop you had visited.

“Hm, then this may not be such a good idea”, Kakashi responded, keeping the crimson-filled glass beside him on the bench.

Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed Kakashi gesture to a server standing a few feet away, holding a tray filled with what appeared to be dumplings.

“Wait, are those dumplings?” the sight of your favourite snack provided the ideal distraction from the less-than-savory thoughts that were beginning to nestle inside your head.

Your stomach growled in agreement, as you realized how hungry you had been.

You piled six onto a small plate and watched Kakashi carefully place two into one of his own.

“God, I missed these”, you exclaimed through a mouthful as Kakashi thanked the tux-clad server, before turning to his plate.

“They do NOT make dumplings like this outside of Konoha”, you added, smacking your lips and digging into the next one. “I need to make up for all the time I lost not eating these.”

Kakashi let a smile slip, watching you in silent amusement. “Well, it looks like you need these more than I do,” he said, offering you his plate.

You couldn’t help but gape.

Was Kakashi Hatake being nice?

“Uhh…”, you hesitated, but Kakashi’s eyes looked entirely genuine, much to your shock…and despair.

He was making this rather hard.

“Is there any reason why you’re going out of your way to be nice to me and following me around like a puppy dog the entire evening?”, you blurted, expecting Kakashi to retort with a brazen remark, an insult to match the ones you had been hurling at him all evening.

Instead, he shrugged. “Got some making up to do my own”.

The words made you turn. The air between you had shifted. “What does that mean?”

But just as easily, the tide had rolled over. “Nothing”, Kakashi said airily, piling his dumplings onto your plate.

You studied his face once more to make sure this was not some juvenile prank. In his eyes, you read only kindness.

“Well um…thanks”, you said, putting your seventh dumpling in your mouth.

Kakashi gave a wave of his hand. “I owed you one.”

Still ruminating about his earlier comment about having things to make up for, you asked, “For what?”

“For freeing me from the torment of dancing for another second.”

The mole under his collarbone made a flashing appearance in your mind and you looked away, coughing on your last bite.

“Right, uh yeah, no biggie”, you said, clearing your throat. “Anyway, I uh, am gonna take a lap around the park, the toasts are over, and Gai looks like he’s about to start up another game again. I’d rather not be in the vicinity while he’s recruiting participants”, you added, slipping back into your shoes.

You wanted to get away from him, you needed to get away from him.

You had spent the last ten years of your life keeping Kakashi Hatake from your mind, and your last ten minutes had been spent studying his hands as they rested on his lap.

And recalling how his fingers had felt against your skin.

You stood up, looking back to take his leave, but something in his eyes rendered you powerless over yourself. Because the next words you uttered were, “Do you wanna come with?”

With his tone the embodiment of nonchalance, Kakashi accepted your gracious offer, yet something in his demeanor made you glad that you’d asked.

Once on your way, however, you found yourself at a loss of words. The scent of Kakashi’s perfume clouded your mind—an aquatic smell, subtle yet lingering.

In an attempt to avoid any further unwanted invitations, the two of you kept to the edge of the park, seeking concealment underneath the shadows of the cherry trees that lined the perimeter.

“Pretty night tonight”, you commented without thought. The silence had become too dense.

“Yes”, Kakashi nodded in agreement, looking up at the sky, “Lot of stars.”

“Mmhmm” you mused in response. “Very starry.”

Petals of cherry blossom had littered the ground, carving a pink, velvety path of their own.

You spent a few minutes walking in quietude again, before Kakashi broke the silence. “You know, if you look close enough, you can make out the Six Paths constellation in the sky tonight.”

“The Six Paths constellation?” you asked eagerly, grateful for his intervention.

“Yeah, up there”, Kakashi pointed at the bejewled satin sky. “The brightest star there in the middle is supposed to mark his Third Eye, the smaller, dimmer stars on each side his eyes, and the one at the bottom the tip of his beard”

You halted to look, glancing in the direction of his finger before glaring back at him.

“You just made that up.”

Kakashi looked back at you, the thinly veiled smirk on his mouth giving way to a hearty chuckle, “I did”, he admitted sheepishly.

You couldn’t help but laugh along.

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” you chided through a chortle.

When Kakashi laughed again, the stars dimmed.

“I missed it, you know?” you confessed absent-mindedly, “The village. The…people.”

“The dumplings”, Kakashi appended.

You laughed again. “Most of all the dumplings, yes.”

A long subdued, familiar sensation crept up your neck like the arms of an old friend.

A breeze passed through.

Petals from the blossom branches rained upon you in a tender, pink shower.

Kakashi’s gaze was soft on yours.

“You have something in your hair,” he said, nodding towards your right. “Do you want me to get it out?”

“Oh um…” you fumbled, reaching up for your hair, but stopping midway. “Sure.”

Kakashi stepped closer, reaching across to touch a pink petal lodged over your ear.

Inside your chest, your heart hammered. It had been for a long time, you realized—growing louder with each thrum.

Once.

His fingers whisked past your cheek.

Twice.

Kakashi smiled down, silver hair gleaming like moonlight.

Thrice.

Your eyes widened.

You had been wishing to go back in time all evening, but you failed to realize until now that you had done just that.

Kakashi held the petal out to you, the flower blushing a pristine pink in his palm.

And with the next thrum of your heart, you were sixteen again.

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354 notes · View notes

i-need-some-advice-on · 6 months

Note

How can I cut off one person from a group of friends and keep the others?

One of my friends (Abby) has been quite bitchy to me since my birthday last year. They've always been a bit abrupt, but I didn't know them very well or hang out with them very much until mid 2021. At that point, a group of five, including me and Abby, started doing a group activity once a month.

Until December 2022, Abby's abruptness wasn't too much to handle and rarely seemed vicious.

It started when I said that I was on the waiting list to see a specialist for an autism diagnosis. She said "You don't have autism" in a really dismissive way. BTW, she's not qualified to diagnose this and has not told me that she has a diagnosis of autism. Also, in my country, you don't get on the waiting list without first seeing your GP and doing a initial exam and providing testimony from longtime friends/family.

The other person there, who was a friend of Abby (not me at the time), had to defend me by explaining that not all people with autism look like Sheldon Cooper because I was too shocked to say anything.

Since then, Abby has also complained that she finds it stressful to plan stuff with me. (She wanted to watch this specific film and I couldn't find it at the library or on streaming, so I wanted to know if she wanted me to buy it and she kept saying "Can we talk about this later?" The problem is that it would take two days for the dvd to ship and it was a week between her asking me to watch this film with her and the date we picked.) I struggle with plans being changed at the last minute, like for instance if the film hadn't arrived, and we had to move the day we were watching.

She never told me that her cousin had the dvd and she was just borrowing it from her. If she'd said this, I wouldn't have sent her a few separate messages trying to get her to respond about whether I should buy the dvd.

Abby spoke about someone she knew with diagnosed autism and how they had been telling her about their plans because they like to make plans in advance. I said that I could relate to that and she said to me "it's not the same".

Despite me saying that I have problems with plans being cancelled, especially last minute, she has cancelled on me several times for individual meet ups. Once, she said she was just leaving the house and then rang back five minutes later to cancel because she had anxiety and another time we were supposed to watch a film over Zoom when I had Covid. She rang me and cancelled at the time we were supposed to start. There have also been numerous times when we were going swimming that she's cancelled within an hour of our pool booking.

Abby also has been bitchy about me going to an animal sanctuary in a foreign country and getting a picture with one of the wild animals. (I know that animals should never be used for entertainment, but the sanctuary makes a lot of money to look after the animals by charging tourists for a minute long interaction just after the animal has been fed.)

She's also been very vocal about thinking I'm a bad person for going to a murder mystery event at a bar which is (probably) named for Jack the Ripper. The bar is not themed for Jack the Ripper and is actually based around horror movies. When I told her that, she just said "I've made my point and dont wish to talk about it anymore".

She's also snapped at me quite a bit for things like tapping the best card to play in a board game after she specifically asked and the other players were trying to stick by the rules.

So does anyone have any tips about cutting Abby off and keeping the rest of my friend group?

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 20 days

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By: Melissa Koenig

Published: Apr 3, 2024

Seattle Public Schools is dismantling its gifted and talented program, which administrators argued was oversaturated with white and Asian students, in favor of a more “inclusive, equitable and culturally sensitive” program.

The district began phasing out its Highly Capable Cohort schools and classrooms for advanced students in the 2021-22 school year due to racial inequities, the school district notes.

The program will completely cease to exist by the 2027-28 school year, with a new enrichment-for-all model available in every school by the 2024-25 school year.

“The program is not going away, it’s getting better,” school officials said on the district website.

“It will be more inclusive, equitable and culturally sensitive.

“In particular, students who have been historically excluded will now have the same opportunities for services as every other student and get the support and enrichment they need to grow

The enrichment program currently only allows students who placed in the top 2 percent on standardized exams to be placed in the Highly Capable Cohort to receive enriched learning.

The students would then be sorted into one of three elementary schools, five middle schools and three high schools.

But in 2020, the Seattle school board voted to terminate the program, after a 2018 survey found that the students in the Highly Capable Cohort were 13% multiracial, 11.8% Asian, 3.7% Hispanic and just 1.6% black.

Nearly 70% of the students were white.

“Numbers would suggest that within our city … predominantly white children are more gifted than other cultures and races, and we know that is absolutely not true,” Kari Hanson, the district’s director of student support services, told Parent Map at the time.

Under the new program, dubbed the Highly Capable Neighborhood School Model, teachers will be required to come up with individualized learning programs for all 20 to 30 of their students — a task for which, they argue, they do not have the time or resources as the district faces a $104 million budget deficit, according to the Seattle Times.

The district said it is working to provide teachers with curriculum and instruction on how to make it work, but an estimate from 2020 suggested an enrichment-for-all program would cost the district $1.1 million over the first three years.

One teacher said she worries it will become more difficult under the new program to teach math to students with a range of abilities, and that the whole-classroom approach won’t properly prepare students for Advanced Placement math and science courses.

Parents also expressed their concerns that the new model could lead to children getting overlooked.

“It seems to me that kids on maybe both extremes are going to be underserved,” Erika Ruberry told the Seattle Times.

Karen Stukovsky, who has three children in the gifted program, added that each teacher “can only do so much differentiation.

“You have some kids who can barely read and some kids who are reading ‘Harry Potter’ in the first grade or kindergarten,” she said.

“How are you going to not only get those kids up to grade level, and also challenge those kids who are already easy above grade level?”

Some parents of black students in the program even argued against ending it.

“My request is that you please consider the disservice you would be doing to the minorities that are already in the HCC program,” one father said at the school board meeting to approve the new program in 2020, according to the Stranger.

“The program does more for black children, particularly black boys, than it does for their peers.”

But then-school board vice president Chandra Hampson shot back: “This is a pretty masterful job at tokenizing a really small community of color within the existing cohort.”

Over the past few years, though, more and more minority students have joined the ranks of the Highly Capable Cohort.

In the 2022-23 school year, 52% of the students were white, 16% were Asian and 3.4% were black, according to the Seattle Times.

“inclusive, equitable and culturally sensitive”

Translation: underperforming students of all races will be told they're just as good and as special as the high-performing students.

The entire concept of "inclusion" is idiotic. It originated as making sure that students had access to the education they were entitled to, such as making sure kids in wheelchairs had access to the school's facilities.

But it's morphed into the notion that there's unfairness or even bigotry if average or under-performing kids aren't included in an advanced or gifted program. That there's something wrong because everybody doesn't have the same result. But the idea that everyone is entitled to be "included" in everything is completely insane. Instead of having a separate program to uplift the mediocre students, the programs for the high-performers are scuttled and they're brought down to the lowest common denominator. This is what "equity" does.

DEI is just smug racism.

#education #corruption of education #gifted program #neoracism #racism #antiracism #antiracism as religion #woke #wokeness #cult of woke #wokeness as religion #wokeism #DEI #DEI must die #diversity equity and inclusion #diversity #equity #inclusion #religion is a mental illness

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paulinedorchester · 1 year

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We Followed Our Stars, by Ida Cook. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1950; rev. ed., Toronto: Harlequin, 1976. Reprinted, as Safe Passage: The Remarkable Story of Two Sisters Who Rescued Jews from the Nazis, with a new foreword by Anne Sebba, Toronto: Harlequin, 2008; reprinted again, as The Bravest Voices: A Memoir of Two Sisters’ Heroism During the Nazi Era, Don Mills, Ont.: Park Row Books, 2021.

Overture of Hope: Two Sisters’ Daring Plan That Saved Opera’s Jewish Stars from the Third Reich, by Isabel Vincent. Washington, D.C.: Regnery History, 2022.

As soon as I learned of Isabel Vincent’s book, I knew that it would need to be read with great caution. That feeling was reinforced when I read the “about the author” blurb on the book’s dust jacket. Then I looked at the bibliography, and wondered if I really needed to read it at all. (Here I must stop and thank the collection development, acquisitions, and cataloguing staffs of the Chicago Public Library. This is the second time in less than three years that they’ve purchased a book at my request, and in both cases they’ve managed to put it into my hands in less than a month.)

Why the unease? To begin with, Regnery Publishing’s stable of authors includes Ann Coulter, Ted Cruz, Newt Gingrich, David Horowitz, Sarah Palin, and similar types.

Second, it turns out that Isabel Vincent isn’t a historian: like Lynne Olson, she’s a journalist writing about history. Not only that: Vincent is an investigative reporter for the New York Post! One has to wonder what the phrase “investigative reporter” actually means in the context of that truly filthy tabloid, a jewel in the crown of Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp. On the other hand, I must say that Vincent seems far more comfortable using primary sources than Olson does — her research for Overture of Hope included examining 33 archival collections in seven countries. As well, the book carries an endorsement from the historian Blanche Wiesen Cook, who is not exactly a darling of the right.

Finally, the Cook sisters’ story is far from untold. I’ve known of them for at least the past several years, although I’m no longer sure how I learned: I could swear that there was an article about them in Opera News four or five years ago, but I can’t locate it. In any case, as early as 1950 Ida Cook wrote a memoir of their exploits (revising it in 1976), which is why this is a review of two books, not just one. She was the subject of a 1956 episode of This is Your Life. In 1964 Yad Vashem honored the Cook sisters as Righteous Among the Nations. They were interviewed in McCall’s in 1966 (the article was reprinted the same year in The Australian Women’s Weekly). They also inspired an essay in Granta in 2007, and I found a goodly number of other newspaper and magazine articles about them while searching for image files to use in this post.

Ida (at left; 1904-1986) and Louise (1901-1991) Cook seem to me slightly too young to be classed with the hundreds of thousands of British women for whom marriage became, if nothing else, a simple numerical impossibility in the wake of the First World War and the influenza pandemic that overlapped it. Nevertheless, that’s where Vincent situates them. The daughters of a Customs and Excise officer, they had both entered civil service themselves by the end of 1920, as typists. They were then living with their parents and younger brothers in Wandsworth, London, but the family had moved several times while they were growing up. During a stint in Alnwick, Northumberland, they attended The Duchess’ School, where music was one of their exam subjects: Louise was a pianist and Ida was a violinist.

Their passion for opera seems to have come about more or less by accident. One day in 1923 Louise, who worked for the Board of Education, wandered into a lunchtime lecture on music being given on the premises, returned home in a daze, and announced that she simply had to have a gramophone. She proceeded to buy one on an installment plan, along with ten records. (These would have been 78rpm discs, with a single track, three or four minutes long, on each side.) They were mostly of instrumental works, but also included recordings by two sopranos, Amelita Galli-Curci and Alma Gluck.

These quickly eclipsed everything else for the Cook sisters, who pooled their savings to buy the cheapest available tickets to three performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden: they saw Tosca, Rigoletto, and La Traviata, all excellent ways to get started with opera. I was startled to learn that the Covent Garden opera season was only two months long in those days; apparently, the opera house was used as a dance hall during the rest of the year.

When the Cooks learned that Galli-Curci was to give five concerts in London in late 1924 (her first appearances in the U.K.), they bought tickets to all of them. After the first one they wrote her a fan letter, enclosing a handkerchief that Ida had embroidered, and received a letter back by return post, inviting them to come back stage and say hello after the last, which they did.

Having learned in the meantime that Galli-Curci confined her operatic engagements to the Metropolitan Opera, in New York, the Cooks decided that they would travel there to see her perform — and figured out it would take them two years to save up the money that they would need in order to do so. They wrote to Galli-Curci about their plans, and she urged them to contact her when they had an itinerary. She would reserve seats for them, she said. (Galli-Curci's behavior wasn't unusual at the time, at least for singers who could pick and choose their engagements. As late as the 1970s, Dame Janet Baker was appearing in opera only in England, while continuing to tour all over the world as a concert artist.)

And that’s exactly what happened. Their arrival in New York, on January 4th, 1927, attracted the attention of The New York Times; and when they went, as instructed, to Galli-Curci’s agent’s office they found main-floor tickets to several performances waiting for them, along with Galli-Curci’s husband, Homer Samuels (a composer and pianist who was her recital accompanist), who invited them to dinner at their apartment a couple of nights later. They asked the Cook sisters to visit them in Autumn at their home in the Catskills, north of New York City — and that happened as well, though it took another two years of saving to bring it about. Ida’s account of this visit in We Followed Our Stars is not to be missed. She makes it sound like Downton Abbey on a smaller scale. (I feel compelled to add, however, that her description of Catskills social life has absolutely nothing to do with my understanding of what went on there, as recounted by my mother, who spent many summers at Catskills resorts during the 1930s and 40s. See also the films Dirty Dancing and A Walk on the Moon.)

They paid for all of this fun by scrimping and saving, skipping many lunches, and getting up before dawn to join the queue to buy cheap tickets at the Royal Opera House, where they made many like-minded friends and had the opportunity to meet world-class artists arriving for rehearsals. As we’ve seen, they were very outgoing — or at any rate Ida was outgoing and Louise was nearly always willing to follow where her sister led — and by 1934 they had befriended, and been befriended by, Galli-Curci, Ezio Pinza, Rosa Ponselle, Elisabeth Rethberg and — most crucially, in view of what was to come — Viorica Ursuleac and her husband, the conductor Clemens Krauss.

As the years went on, however, a new source of income emerged. Ida Cook was clearly a born storyteller. She had written articles for The Duchess’ School Magazine as a student; in 1928, as an old girl, she sent in an account of her and Louise’s trip to America, which was published, along with an article in the Daily Mail. After the Catskills visit, she sent an article on that experience to Mabs Fashions, a magazine that published sewing patterns, romantic fiction, and non-fiction on whatever topics seemed likely to interest their audience, including travel. This, too, was published, and the editor, a Miss Taft, invited Cook to lunch. (Vincent refers to the Mabs Fashions article, but doesn’t quote from it, as she does from the Duchess’ article, or even supply its title. From this I surmised that Mabs Fashions is poorly documented, and sure enough, WorldCat shows only scattered holdings in fewer than half a dozen libraries in the U.K. I can tell you that it was a monthly, and that it seems to have run from 1924 until some point in the mid-1930s, but much of its contents appear to have been lost to history. That’s a real pity, as it sounds very interesting.) Miss Taft asked Cook to write additional travel articles for the magazine. “Apart from the American journeys, a very short trip to Brussels was the full extent of our foreign travels,” Cook recalled. “But I said, ‘Yes, certainly,’ bought a series of guidebooks and set to work.”

A year or so later Miss Taft offered her a job at Mabs Fashions, as fiction sub-editress. This was a big leap — Cook had a responsible job in the Law Courts, with an assured pension when she turned 60, and in fact had just been promoted — but she decided to take the offer, even though she didn’t know what the position entailed. Her account of this experience is very funny, and I won’t spoil it for you, except to quote her about one part of it: “On press day I was faced with ... adding perhaps five hundred words to a story, without altering its sense, and so that no one could detect the ‘joins’. This was the only part of my work at which I became adept.”

Indeed, she became so adept that after several months the long-suffering Miss Taft asked her to write a story of her own. And then another, and so on. One of them grew into a novel, Wife to Christopher, which appeared in 1936 and was the first of Ida Cook’s more than 120 romantic novels, written over the course of 50 years, all under the name Mary Burchell.

In short order, she was earning as much as £1,000 per year. That money was going to prove very useful. (All of her novels were published by Mills & Boon, which later became an imprint of the romance giant Harlequin, thus explaining We Followed Our Stars’ reprint history.)

“I realize now that, even though we were in our late twenties, we were not entirely grown up,” Cook wrote of the plans she and her sister had been making during the first half of the 1930s. Indeed, when Englebert Dollfuss, the Austrian chancellor, was assassinated on July 25th, 1934, their main concern was that this might disrupt their planned first visit to the Salzburg Festival. (It didn’t.) They were no more politically aware when, during a visit to Amsterdam near the end of that year, Ursuleac asked them to “look after” a friend of hers: Mitia Mayer-Lismann, a German pianist and educator, who was soon to visit London to give a series of lectures. The Cooks assumed that this meant showing her the sights, which they did. When she asked whether St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey were Protestant or Catholic, they wondered if she was a Catholic and shouldn’t have been taken to see a Protestant church — so they asked.

What they learned was that Mayer-Lismann was Jewish, and it was she who explained the Nuremberg laws to them. Her other purpose in visiting the U.K. was to see if there was any way of moving there with her family. The Cook sisters offered to do what they could to help. The U.K. wasn’t making things easy for would-be refugees from the Nazis (nor was any other country), and half of the Cooks’ work as the decade went on would consist of cutting through reams of red tape. Word of their willingness to do this spread through the Jewish communities of Germany and, later, Austria, keeping the sisters active until just days before war was declared.

The other half of the task was helping those for whom they were able to secure visas to smuggle out whatever portion of their assets hadn’t been seized by the authorities, which by this time consisted mostly of furs and jewelry. This was a genuine cloak-and-dagger operation, if only because it involved making repeated visits to the countries in question at a time when the authorities there were beginning to view British visitors with suspicion. It was at this point that Clemens Krauss got involved: he kept the Cooks informed about when and where he was conducting what, so that when they were questioned at the border they could say that they were going to hear Krauss conduct this opera in that city on that date.

As a side note, Ida’s new prosperity allowed the Cooks to buy a long lease a one-bedroom apartment in Dolphin Square, which had just been built (and where their neighbors included politicians, spies, and Oswald Mosely). Ostensibly, this was so that they would have a crash pad in central London after late nights at the opera. In reality, it served as a dormitory for newly-arrived refugees. Ida recalled that at one point there were twelve people sleeping there.

While Ida seems to have been the family dynamo, Louise’s contributions shouldn’t be overlooked. One of her hobbies was teaching herself languages; she learned German at top speed in 1937 in order to facilitate the sisters’ work. She also put all of her (apparently quite generous) allowance of vacation time during that period into the rescue effort, and also seems to have been the uncredited co-author of, or at least an essential consultant on, Louise’s novels.

At this point I’m going to stop summarizing the Cooks’ story and tell you that if you’re going to read either or both of these books, you should begin with Ida Cook’s memoir, if only because it’s a primary source. It’s also a very useful insight into how an opera buff’s mind works.

Both authors provide their readers with excellent summaries of political events in Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1939 — and both do so without ever talking down to their readers or implying that they shouldn’t need to provide them with this information, which is quite an accomplishment. Cook can be vague about the dates and chronology of personal events, while Vincent simply is vague on music in general and opera in particular, subjects in which she clearly has no genuine interest. (As Fred Cohn points out in his review of Vincent’s book in Opera News — which is how I learned of it; here’s a link, but I’m not sure that it will work for non-subscribers — her subtitle is a complete howler: there were no “stars” among the Cooks’ refugees; in fact, many of the people they helped weren’t involved with music at all. In spite of this, the Library of Congress has classed Overture of Hope as ML (Literature on Music).) As well, Vincent gives short shrift to the war years. (Louise was evacuated to Wales with her office; Ida was an assistant warden in a Bermondsey air-raid shelter, while continuing to write; the Royal Opera House became a dance hall year-round.) On the other hand, she provides us with a firm chronology of the Cooks sisters’ pre-war lives, and she also reveals the hard facts of how the people whose escapes they facilitated fared, which are not happy stories in all cases.

It is also Vincent who relates that Clemens Krauss fared badly in denazification proceedings. Despite his efforts on behalf of his Jewish associates and their families (as well as many complete strangers), he was widely denounced in 1945, and it’s undeniably true that he displayed a Machiavellian streak that led him to consolidate his artistic influence by securing the directorships of both the Vienna and Munich State Operas under the Third Reich. He ended up being banned from conducting for two years, but Vincent documents that just about all of his denouncers were his professional rivals. (The same thing frequently happened in France during the search for collaborators.)

Finally, Vincent quotes extensively from a film treatment that Ida Cook wrote, based on We Followed Our Stars, that is languishing in Joshua Logan’s papers at the Library of Congress. That document needs to be plucked out of purgatory and produced. Right now!

#world war ii #the holocaust #righteous among the nations #first-hand accounts #retrospective accounts #a long post for sunday #lots of history #lots of links #and even some footnotes #oh and this is also about #opera #also #yom hashoah #begins monday evening

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xtrishacrisrn · 1 year

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Hey, it’s been a while

Life lately has been so interesting. Before I even started composing this post I had went through my previous blog posts. I admire the 2017-2018 me, I was so inspired and it was so beautiful. I was all fired up with things and testimonies in front of me. I do miss those days, it’s bittersweet but I am extremely grateful that I had gone through that phase of my life.

Looking back..

2019, I graduated with my Nursing degree and passed the board exams. Best day of my life. My smile everyday was ear to ear, seeing my folks so happy made me so happy too. I have always wanted to make them proud. I may not be the perfect daughter nor I don’t have the most perfect family, but I swear I love them unto the ends of the earth. I love my family (including friends) so much -- they have been there for me. They’ve witnessed all of my ups and downs. I thank God everyday for introducing me to such wonderful people.

Same year, I had to go back to the US after graduating college. I needed to move to a new town which is in Tucson, Arizona (desert life). Basically starting from scratch, which I don’t mind. I always look back and reflect to what my Dad has instilled in me which is facing every obstacle and waves life may give me -- it shall pass.

I’ve started working in a hardware. Can you believe it? What do I know about handyman stuff? I had my professional hard earned degree with me, but I had to swallow my pride and start somewhere. There was a love and hate relationship with that job. Whenever I encounter customers wearing scrubs, I tend to get envious and inspired thinking that someday that will be me too... as I assemble wheelbarrows and load bird food to their cars. It was a fun and cool job after all. I love the people whom I’ve worked it. I hope they’re doing good, they’re amazing creatures.

2020, this year is also an interesting one, pandemic hit the whole world. I had to quit my hardware job because of the fear of getting sick and transmitting it to my folks who are of advanced age. I didn’t mind being unemployed because at the same time I was studying for my NCLEX and not even paying rent yet. It took less pressure off of my schedule, but I was also losing money. Then I’ve decided to look for another job which was being a Rehab Nurse Tech. Like finally, a healthcare related job. Humble beginnings of my nursing life. Since it was a hospital job + pandemic, I needed to move out of my parent’s house. I’ve found this pretty one bedroom apartment unit which was 50 steps away from my mom which was awesome. The tech job was a challenge, I never worked night shift -- I did this to be able to afford rent and bills. Gladly, I survived and same year I passed my NCLEX!

2021, I landed to the my first hospital job working as a Registered Nurse. It’s such a privilege having this job. We get to meet different types of people coming in and out of the hospital. I was still working night shift, in which I got tired of eventually. I can definitely say that this profession is my calling. I am so thankful for having the gift and blessing of having so much patience, being so understanding, and always being so compassionate. It fulfills me to be able to help other people during their most vulnerable times. Nursing has a good team, I love my coworkers and the diversity that we formed.

After all of these, I know that at the end of the day I’m just not a “nurse” that some people identify me and asks me weird things. I don’t mind sharing, but I know that there is much more beyond who I am. I love who I am. I love writing -- in my other life I would be that journalist/writer who just loves to write until she’s tired and out of ideas. I love inspiring people. I love giving them hope and share that there is so much more for us to learn. We are all students for life. I am extremely grateful to the people who has been helping me and had contributed to mold me become a much more wiser person. I am so eager to inspire most of you. You are great, you have so much to do in this world. Enjoy the winding and fun journey of the so-called “life”

#personal blog #blog #inspiration #nursing #life #journey #testimony

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manicdepressivebipolar · 1 year

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Its been a while...

Good day,

I think this will be the first time using this application connected to my phone. I guess this looks decent?

Okay let's start.

Today is April 9, 2023 in Philippine time.

2023 has been a year of growing my success building my financial strength and reflecting on my personality. But before all of that why I wanted to share this story of my rise above my broke era is that I want to humble myself and be really thankful for God or any higher being that was guiding me along the way.

Year 2022 a summary.

2021 I was at job that pays as little as 8-12k a month and I was trying to make ends meet from my schooling, my rent and my daily needs. I opted to find a job that sounds futuristic - I switched to an online job. This was one of the best decision I had in my life looking back. 2022 I was having double job, I invested on tech to keep my two jobs and it was working. Since one of my job was paying high enough to cover both of my jobs I continued on even though I know it was ruining my physical and mental health. I was an HR Director and a web designer on the side. I decided to leave my job immediately when I found myself crying and dragging myself to work on a daily basis. It was literally killing me.

I did not have any back-up job or whatsoever. All along I was relying on my savings. The wrong turn was I was using it for my leisure and not looking for a new job. Anyway, I got broke and went into different loan sharks to make ends meet. This was another and one of my biggest downfall ever.

I landed a job after 6 months from a finance company in the US. It did not pay me well at first but I did not have much choice. Slowly, I was able to pay my depths and gaining back my social activities but everything seems to be a blurr moving forward 2022 from there then - I kept going out, partying, being with strangers to have fun and did illegal things on the side up until the last day of December.

It did not really affect my financial but I know I was still in depth.

from June of 2022 till November 30 - I was juggling three jobs. Just to pay everything already. I eas making my life work, I was paying what I owed people and banks.

Until I decided to let go of one job that really helped me rise up. I could not keep it due to the stress it was giving me on a daily basis. I kept my fiance job due to its flexibility in working terms as a digital nomad and one job that I got as a blessing from my friend which was a direct hire in Texas, USA.

Since December I was earning alot more than I was expecting. Slowly, I was rising from my era of being broke.

2023.

My salary increased by 10,000 pesos in finance and the other job paid as it is but I had alot of extra hours worked so, I was living comfortably by January. I was able to buy the phone that I wanted, I got a free PC from my company, I was paying my own place and bills without anyone helping and I get go help my boyfriend while he kept going in fulfilling his dreams in being a doctor here in the Philippines.

When my boyfriend passed the board exams. We promised that 2023 was a year of us fulfilling our dreams, meeting our goals and establishing our professional career while we were fixing our relationship and making our bond more stronger including our family.

2023.

Looking back at my 2022 and comparing my situation now, I am really blessed. God or any higher being that helped me out of that dark hole, humbles me every single time. I also want to take credit for never giving up on the situations I was in. I kept going. I kept myself from being humble without losing my stand on my personality at work.

I had so much day and reason to give up already in life but there is always that voice "matatapos din to", " I will have the life that I want" and " kaya ko to". Those simple motivation in my head really kept me going.

My boyfriend landed a job, I kept going and earning. Both of us is building our financial stability and strength, earning together, saving, treating ourselves on the side and finally hindi na kami magugutom.

I remember, before halos wala talaga kami makaen. We needed to tipid the things we have. We relied on the little money we have to eat on a daily basis. But now, we have abundance of money, food, other supplies and we can treat ourselves and or family. We are so lucky!

I know we are still starting but as early as now I just want to be thankful with all the blessings I am receiving, my boyfriend is receiving and I hope this continues and everything we manifested will be soon be true.

From negative balances to an abundance as of today. I can't help shed a tear or cry a river of tears on this journey. It truly is a miracle and just really leaves me in an awe on how I did everything.

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playwords · 1 year

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THE BIGGEST EXAM SENSATION IN THE COUNTRY

Board exams- a word that is often accompanied by an infusion of fear and apprehension in the mind and soul of an individual, an event in the life of every Indian student that brings with it a great amount of pressure from parental and school side, a platform to face competition for the first time and the premiere milestone in this arena of what we call life. I, having had a first hand experience of the days of the life of a tenthie, stepped into the year 2021 all set for the ICSE Class X Board Examination, ready to face whatever hurdles were thrown at me and to endure a constant insecurity about my preparation. Fresh out of my lockdown days, it took some time getting back to the regular school routine and making myself comfortable with the idea of the two semester system that the council had introduced for the board takers, owing to the extraordinary situation. The year as always began with a long lecture from our teachers about how important the following year would be, testing every bit of our patience, intellect, dedication, perseverance and all the other things required, leaving us in a bit of what felt like dilemma, that we were finally in the class everyone dreaded. All the kids, obviously to get a head start, already joined into tuition classes for all subjects but at the end of the day, it really comes down to how much you can retain and understand. The year passed by with the ever looming dread of the boards over our heads all the time, threatening and warning us. Two preboards in school made me pretty annoyed at how many times you could do the same things again and again. It turns out now when I’ve passed my class X with a whopping score of 98.4 that it was a hoax planned by our teachers. My board year was nothing like what I’d been told by people. I enjoyed it like any other and did not cut down on any of my activities or hobbies. Of course half the credit goes to my parents for not being the villains in my life and believing that I’d do well. I’m just gonna say that as long as you manage to keep a cool head and a calm aura right up to the day of the exam, trust me nothing can take those marks away from you. You need to trust the knowledge that you have, all that you’ve learnt and just give it your best shot. Coz people if you’re not the school topper or things didn’t go as planned, it’s not the end of the world please. You can plan again, try once more and you can choose your board year the way you want it to be. There are no implications on you so just work the best you can in a way that’s more convenient to you.. it does teach you a lot, somehow shapes you into a better person- someone who can handle stress when they have to. So for the people who think boards are a nightmare, guys just relax and play along because life goes on and at the end of the day, so do you.

Thanks Mom and Dad for just being there when I didn’t feel like myself at all and for not being like all the other parents, for not letting me become boring just for a board exam. By Sheryl, fresh passout from class X

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blooming-violets · 1 year

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Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

I posted 904 times in 2022

That's 904 more posts than 2021!

389 posts created (43%)

515 posts reblogged (57%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@withahappyrefrain

@liz-allyn

@mrshipsmcgee

@blooming-violets

I tagged 646 of my posts in 2022

Only 29% of my posts had no tags

#asks - 201 posts

#tasm - 168 posts

#the amazing spiderman - 145 posts

#tasm x reader - 117 posts

#peter parker - 116 posts

#fic recs - 100 posts

#peter parker x reader - 93 posts

#spiderman - 87 posts

#rambles - 86 posts

#tasm!peter parker - 79 posts

Longest Tag: 98 characters

#i was going to write a little blurb about peter falling in love with a model he's shooting pics of

My Top Posts in 2022:

(long ass posts under here)

I write for The Amazing Spider-Man. This is an 18+ blog.

Tag List:

Send a [message] if you’d like to be added to the tag list! Keep in mind that, by doing so, you’d be tagged to fics that are potentially 18+ and adult content.

Thank you! xoxo Katie

Chapter Fics:

Pinky Promise (Completed)

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Part Nine

Part Ten

Imminent (Completed)

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Smitten (Completed)

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Epilogue

Extras

Forever Isn’t Long Enough (Completed)

Part One

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633 notes - Posted January 31, 2022

I am full to the brim w tasm requests. so I will empty the contents of my brain below. Do with them what you will.

1: Peter teaches reader to skateboard with the good old hands on her hips/ holding her hands deliciousness.

2: Reader who struggles to sleep during the night when shes by herself has the best sleeps when she's napping with Peter during the day, she suggests that he stays the night so she can get a good sleep before an exam, this becomes a regular occurrence, friends to lovers plot ensues.

3: Reader discovers that Peter carrys round a photo of them together in his wallet and just MELTS

4: Some ANGST (kinda): reader is unwell and has been for a while, she is scared of her future and scared that peter will leave her so she doesn't tell him right away, he finds out anyway and is heartbroken for two reasons. 1: she is suffering and 2: she thinks he would leave her for a reason like that

5: More ANGST: Peter still talks about Gwen, alot. Reader feels like she will never live up to what Gwen was to Peter so she confronts Peter about it.

I HATE WHEN YOU PUT SO MUCH GOOD SHIT IN ONE ASK. How am I supposed to pick?!?

I'm feeling fluffy right now. I'm doing 1 and saving the others for my angsty nights.

[TASM!Peter Parker x Reader, flirty friends is what I would describe their relationship as, not quite at the dating stage but getting closer]

Peter teaches reader to skateboard with the good old hands on her hips/ holding her hands deliciousness.

You loitered around the skatepark with your camera in hand. It was golden hour and the lighting was perfect. The sun cast a warm glow over cold concrete and the clouds had turned a deep orange. You knelt down beside the half pipe and aimed your camera at Peter. You followed him with the lens until he launched off the other side, bending his legs and grabbing the board with his hand as he spun through the air. The sound of your shutter clicking away filled your ears. You immediately pulled the camera from your face once he landed to look at the results. You felt Peter jog up beside you as you flicked through the pictures.

"How did I look? Did I look cool?" He asked through breathless gasps.

You tiled the camera to show him your favorite picture so far. It was a silhouette of his lean body bent high in the air as he blocked out the sun rays. You were pleased with the clear focus you had managed to get and, with a little editing, the colors would really pop.

Peter leaned over your shoulder and studied the picture. You could smell the sweat and fresh air clinging to his black hoodie. The smell was familiar and intoxicating. It made you want to lean in closer and burry your face in his clothes.

Instead, you made a snarky comment back at him, "Nothing I could do would ever make you cool, Parker. You're a lost cause."

Your favorite of his goofy smiles spread across his face.

He nudged your shoulder with his, "Well, you really worked your magic then, because I look great. Let me try to take one of you next! Come on. We'll trade."

He tried to grab the camera out of your hand and shove his skateboard at you but you backed away.

"Are you serious?" You asked him with an incredulous look.

He laughed, "No, I'm Peter."

It took a second to process what he had said before you broke out into a groan, "Oh my god. Even your dad jokes are terrible. Remind me why I'm friends with you?"

"Because I'm the only one who'll talk to you," he said with a shrug.

You sighed and rolled your eyes, "I mean, you're right but you don't have to be so blunt about it. I have feelings, you know."

Peter threw his board on the ground and pointed to it, "Use your feelings and get on my board then."

"That doesn't even make sense," you mumbled under your breath.

You carefully placed you camera down on top of your bag and gave Peter a deadpan look before stepping onto the skateboard. Your foot immediately slipped out from under you causing him to have to leap forward to catch you before falling.

"I'm going to die," you stated mater-of-factly.

Peter chucked and nodded, his hands still wrapped around your waist to hold you up, "You're absolutely going to die. Do the half pipe next. It'll be hilarious."

"I hate you." You tried to step off but he held you firmly in place. "What are you doing?"

"I'm teaching you to skate!" He grinned at you. The sight made your heart melt. You were suddenly very aware of his hands on your waist. His pinky finger had slipped under the hem of your shirt when you moved and was brushing against your bare skin. You tried to repress the jolts of energy that were radiating through your skin. If learning to skate meant keeping Peter's hands on you then you'd be forced to entertain that idea.

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635 notes - Posted March 12, 2022

Peter sending you a video of him cumming lol

Okay this isn’t exactly what you asked for. It’s less of him sending you a video and more of you instructing him on how to cum over video like the little sub that he is in this fic. I hope that’s okay but I got inspired and had to go with it.

Spider-Man’s Favorite Cam Girl

[TASM!Peter Parker x Online Mistress, 18+, sub!Peter]

You took your night job as seriously as your day time one. On a good night, you could make enough money hosting yourself online to cover a months worth of rent. It was your dirty little secret. Maybe for some people being an online mistress was easy. You had talked to other woman who claimed their experience to be all work, no play. A job and nothing more. You found you had a different approach to it. There were certain regulars you had that you found yourself becoming attached to. They started to slip through the cracks of your professionalism. You’d think about them during the day and find yourself excited to run back home every night to your computer. There was one in particular who wormed his way into your heart. You’d never even seen his face but, from the neck down, you could pick him out a crowd. He was your most loyal costumer.

He made you call him Spidey after New York’s finest superhero.

You figured he must have been Spider-Man’s biggest fan. The guy even had a replica of the masked hero’s glove that he used on camera to jerk himself off. He was really into Spider-Man roleplay. Many nights you had played the villain while he was the captured, helpless hero. There was something about him that you found endearing. He wasn’t as off putting as some of the other people you’d entertained in the past. There was a gentle sweetness to him like he desperately wanted to please you. Your mistress personality would always falter around him and you’d take on a more caring role. He seemed to respond well to it.

On your lunch break, you pulled out your phone to check your daily messages. A small smile lingered on your lips when you saw he had messaged you. You clicked on his first before anyone else’s and gave it a read. The message was simple:

“I sent a package to your PO box. Please wear it tonight.”

It wasn’t unusual for men to send you gifts. That’s what the PO box was for. Sometimes they’d send you outfits they wanted you to wear or toys they wanted you to use. As long as they paid properly and their request wasn’t absurd, you’d gladly humor them. You couldn’t wait to see what your favorite Spidey had in mind for you tonight.

With the work day finally over, you carried the box containing his item into your apartment. You’d save opening it for after your shower. You had about an hour before his scheduled appointment. He had reserved an hour block but you knew he’d glad pay extra to steal up more of your time. He had once paid for a full five hours with you. You weren’t sure how he was able to go that long. It was one of the most amazing thing you had ever seen. The man hardly had a cool off period in between. Eventually, you had to be the one to call it quits for your own sanity. When he still didn’t want you to leave, he had continued to pay just for you to talk to him. By the end of that night, you felt like you had gone on the strangest, faceless date of your life.

You stood naked and showered in your bedroom while opening the box on your bed. There were fifteen minutes until you were expected to come online. You pulled the box open and your eyes widened. Inside was his replica of Spider-Man’s glove. The same one he had used many times to touch himself with. You carefully took it out of the box and held it tenderly in your hand. Something about the glove seemed strange. It felt heavy. Real. Nothing how you’d expect a cheap knock off glove to feel. You turned it over and studied it carefully. You were no Spider-Man expert but you’d be damned if this didn’t look exactly like his right hand glove. Your heart fluttered at the thought of wearing the same glove as your online friend. You knew you probably shouldn’t call a faceless stranger who paid you for sex a friend but that was just how you felt about him.

You slipped the glove onto your hand and held it up to the light. It was a loose fit but if you pulled it all the way down, you could make it feel a bit more snug. Nerves fluttered around your stomach as you quickly pulled on a short, red silk, night dress. It was his favorite of the lingerie that you wore and you thought it would match nicely with your new accessory. You pulled out your phone and snapped a quick picture of the teasing glove lingering along your cleavage and subtly pulling down the dress to expose the very top of your areola. You sent the picture straight to your mistress blog for everyone to see with the caption “Ready for a little web action tonight.” You knew he would see it and you hoped it would get him in the right mood for you session tonight.

You took a seat on your bed in front of your laptop, gently rested your head on your newly gloved hand, and turned on the video. His name popped up right away. He was never late. A smile grew on your face as you accepted him into the private chat.

The masked face of Spider-Man filled the screen. You had to refrain from gasping. You had only ever seen him with the glove before. This was the full outfit as far as you could tell, well, minus the glove. It looked so real. There were even tears and dirt as if he had just come straight from a fight. For a moment, you wondered if this was actually him. If Spider-Man was your favorite client. You quickly pushed that thought from your head. Of course he wasn’t. This guy was clearly just a huge fan...who happened to have a perfect replica, down to every last detail, of Spider-Man’s exact suit...

You had to pull yourself back into present. There was a job to be done. You put on your mistress voice, one that was more commanding than your everyday voice, and spoke to him.

“Someone got all dressed up for me tonight.”

His head tiled to the side as his emotionless, exaggerated eyes bore into your soul, “I didn’t have to time to change. I had to get back in time. I couldn’t miss this.”

You gave him a sly smile. Clearly he was ready to role play. Or was he serious? “Well. I hope your lack of glove didn’t throw you off your game tonight, Spidey.” Your eyes darkened and you tilted your head down with an evil smirk, falling into your character as the villain, and teasing the glove across your lips. “You forgot it here last time I had you in my lair. So irresponsible of you. You hero’s are always so terrible at cleaning up after yourself. Making messes for other’s to clean. I’m not going to clean your messes tonight, Spider-Man. You’re going to clean mine.”

You were starting to get excited as you slipped into your role. There was no hesitation. You wanted to see him touching himself. You wanted to hear his beautiful gasps and whimpers as he begged you for your approval. He wanted to be your puppet and you would grant him that wish.

“I want us both to have a really good time tonight but you need to listen to everything I say.” You pouted your lips at him. “If you listen to me and do as I say, then I’ll do everything I can to get you as hard as possible tonight. And I know you’ll love every second of it. As long as you listen to me. I know what’s best for you and I know exactly what you need to do with that cock.”

You placed the tip of your gloved index finger between your teeth and you heard his breath catch in his throat. Good. It was working. Seeing you with a part of his costume was doing the trick. You wished you had been the one to request it from him. It would have made for a good powerplay. You ran the glove down your neck and across your chest.

“Let’s get you warmed up, baby. Tilt that camera down for me. Let me see you release that beautiful cock of yours. Nice and slowly.” Your voice lowered to a sensual whisper as you instructed him.

He did exactly as you said. He moved the camera down so it placed at his crotch. His masked face was no long in frame and his ungloved hand fumbled with his tight spandex pants. You admired his hand while he worked to pull out his member. His fingers were long and skinny. Perfect for gliding right into your wet, needy pussy. You bit your bottom lip at the thought of forcing Spider-Man to take you as his own. His knuckles looked bloodied and bruised as if he really had just been in a fight. It made your fantasies falter again. Something in the back of your mind was tugging you more and more into the direction that this was really him. You forced them back to keep yourself on track. He had his cock freed. It really was a beautiful sight. Every time you saw his hand wrapped around his length it made you feel a pang of jealousy that you couldn’t be the one there doing it for him.

“That’s a good, little Spider. Listening to his mistress. Knowing that I’m the only one who could ever please you like this. Go on. Touch yourself for me. Show me how good I can make you feel. Nice and slowly. Up and down. I want you to just relax and listen to the sound my voice. Mmm.” You gave a quiet moan. You already had to squeeze your thighs together. Something about this man made you so incredibly horny. The mere sight of him on your screen could form a puddle between your legs. “Imagine all the things I’d make you do to me. Oh, I’d use you and abuse you. My little Spider. My plaything. That’s it. Stroke that cock. I want you touching it as lightly as you can. Nothing but a whisper of a touch.”

You heard him whimper in response. The sound was heavenly. If you could jump through the screen and ride him senseless, you’d do it in a heartbeat.

“Feel those warm tingles flowing through your body with each stroke. The more you tease it. The more you touch it. I want you to think about how naughty you are.” You tutted your tongue at him. “You play so rough with all those big, bad criminals in the city. You think you’re such a big man. But I know the real you, don’t I. The real Spider-Man wants nothing more than to please me, don’t you? You’d do anything I say. I’ve got you wrapped around my finger.” You held up the glove and swirled your finger around in the air for emphasis. “I want you to touch me. I want your hands all over my body. Hungry for my flesh. I’d let you do such dirty things to me, Spidey. Go on, stroke that cock. Get it nice it wet. I want you to think about how every trace of that wetness reminds you what it would feel like to be inside of me. Sliding in and out of me while you fuck me. Mm, that’s a good picture, isn’t it?”

You repositioned yourself on the bed, pushing your breast together so your cleavage was more prominent for him. “I bet you’d love to see me fuck my fingers with this glove on, wouldn’t you? Is that what you want, Spidey? To watch your fingers burry themselves deep into my needy pussy?”

He gave a shuddered breath and cleared his throat. You wished you could see the expression on his face but you’d have to use your imagination for that. You imagined his eyes roll back into his head and his mouth part in anticipation.

“Yes,” he growled. “Please. I need your wetness to coat my fingers. I want to get you so wet you soak straight through the fabric. I want to be able to smell you on my glove the next time I’m out saving the city.”

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755 notes - Posted March 13, 2022

Do you have any daddy Andrew!Peter headcannons?

Lol gonna assume you mean as a father with kids and not in the other daddy sense.

But of course I do!

Infant and Toddler Years:

Peter cried happy tears the first time he ever bottle fed his baby.

He insists on trying all of the baby food! He says it’s because if he thinks it’s gross, the baby will think it’s gross, but really he’s just curious.

Peter never let’s his kids fall. He catches them every time. To the point that his partner has to remind him it’s okay for kids to fall down sometimes because they have to learn to get back up.

When he’s too lazy to put up baby gates, he just shoots webs over the open doors instead.

Uses his webs like a baby leash whenever the kids runs too far ahead

All of his kids have him wrapped around their finger and they know it

Has the baby shark song and dance memorized. Gets stuck in his head all the time. Has 100% caught some bad guys while singing it under his breath.

Young Kiddos:

If he’s ever out late and misses bedtime, Peter will crawl into their beds and snuggle with them until he falls asleep too. So many nights his partner has been looking around the house for him only to find him passed out next to their kids

His kids ask him for Spider-Man stories for bedtime every night. He makes them child-friendly and often adds things like dragons into the mix for fun.

“Don’t tell mommy that I let you have three bowls of ice cream for dinner.” *later that night* “I swear I have no idea why they’re throwing up! Must be something going around the school.”

His daughter has a fascination with bugs. Peter takes her on bug hunts through Central Park to see what they can find every weekend. They bring nets, jars, and magnifying glasses to study them.

Always has his nails badly painted and in rainbow colors because his daughter wanted to do them.

Can braid his daughters hair better than any of the other dads

Makes all their Halloween costumes by hand. Makes the whole family have a theme each year. His favorite was their Addam’s Family one. (Baby number three was made that night.)

Dresses up as Spider-Man and fully commits to pretending to chase the monsters out from under the bed whenever the kids get scared.

The kids first sleepover ever is at Aunt May’s house. Peter calls to check in on them every hour.

He’s the first one to volunteer as a helper for any of their school field trips.

Pre-teens:

Brings them on movie dates every week and takes them out for dinner afterwards. Each kid gets their own special week night with dad to make sure that he stays a trusted person in their lives.

His kids are never afraid to tell him anything.

When they go through a period of being bullied, Peter let’s them skip school and sleep in. Then he puts on their favorite music and forces them to have a dance party with him until they’re laughing again.

His son loves the Percy Jackson book series so Peter reads them all too. That way he can have conversations with his son that speak to his interests.

Peter often brings flowers home for his partner. His daughter mentions how pretty the flowers are one day. Peter then makes sure to bring her home a bouquet every time too.

Teaches his kids how to skateboard.

Teenagers:

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994 notes - Posted March 4, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Peter’s Angel || TASM

Summary: Peter Parker decides one evening that he needs to take his friend’s virginity.

Warnings: 18+, this is just pure smut, slightly possessive and obsessive peter, biting kink, praise kink, virgin kink

A/N: tasm!peter with an unnamed woman (though has vague enough descriptions that I consider her an oc), written in 3rd person

18+ Tag List (Reminder! I’m redoing my tag list. Read about it here [x] if you would like be added or re-added): @ongreenergrasses @captaindanvxrs @liz-allyn

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2,752 notes - Posted February 10, 2022

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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tobywannabe · 2 years

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Imposter Syndrome

I was an over-achiever since gradeschool.

Charot.

Simula elementary up to hs, honor student pero never ko inacknowledge yun kasi konti lang naman kami sa batch namin. Kahit nung nagtransfer ako sa public nung elementary and pinanglaban sa quizbee, di ko din pala naacknowledge yun kasi iniisip ko, masipag lang ako magsulat at magbasa ng notes. Nung pumasa ako sa scholarship sa dost, di ko din nacelebrate yun kasi nasa isip ko di naman kahirapan yung exam kaya ako nakapasa don. Nung nakagraduate ako on time sa state university na engineering school, di ko din nacelebrate yun kasi parang yun naman yung required na tapusin on time kasi wala akong choice need ko magtrabaho kagad. Nung pumasa ako sa boards na pasado lahat ng subjects, wala di ko din nacwlebrate yun kasi mas magagaling mga kabatch ko e sisiw lang sakanila tsaka matataas nakuha nila kesa sakin na sakto lang talaga. Di ko din naman nacelebrate yung pagkapasa sa boards kasi kailangan ko kagad magwork tsaka wala kaming pera nung time na yun, sembreak tsaka walang trabaho si mama, kay papa lang kami naasa ng budget nun. Kaso ayun nga etong december 2019 tinigil kagad ni papa financial support sakin. Kailangan ko kagad magtrabaho nun kasi hindi kami magsusurvive ni mama kasi wala din sya work kasi sembreak. Pinakiusapan lang namin na hanggang december man lang makapagwork lang talaga ako. Wala na. Kahit di ko field at di ko trip yung work, nag apply ako sa lab equipment provider na company. Kahit sales exec yung position, palag na kasi kailangan ko magwork. Hanggang sa wala na talaga financial support ni papa nung nagwork na ko. Unang part ng 2020 mejo okay pa kasi may income kami parehas ni mama kaso ayun nga march 2020, naglock down, nawalan ng work si mama. I did my best naman as sales exec nung buong 2020. Nagsasakripisyo magwork kahit pandemic and magcommute kasi wala naman ako choice. I did my best talaga. But ayun ang alam ko malaki sales ng lab equipment conpany na yun pero ang barat ng bonus namin. Mas mababa ng konti sa inflation. Ang rason nila, pandemic daw. E pandemic nga madami kami sales kasi ginagamit sa covid testing. Di ko talaga maintindihan.

July—August 2021. Nalaman ko na ako lang pala yung increase e ganun lang kaliit. Yung iba e malaki increase kasi lagi sila nag oot. di ko gets kasi kailangan ba more time to spend e yun na yung basehan ng performance. Naabot ko yung quota ko for the year kahit august palang. Naabot ko din quota ko last year. Di ko maintindihan bakit pakiramdam nila under performing ako kahit lagpas na ko sa quota. Dahil ba nagagawa ko mga work ko ng on time? Ewan ko basta nagtampo talaga ako nhng nalaman ko yun. Lagi ko dati tinuturn down yung recruiter sa buong stay ko sa lab equipment company na yun kasi nga nagpeperform ako ng maayos. Politics talaag nagtrigger sakin magresign dun.

Ngayon naman, gusto ko na yung field of work ko pero parang wala ako nagagawang maganda sa work kasi di ako certified. Pero nakagawa na ko ng number of SOPs. Pero di nga ako certified kaya ayun ewan para lang akong saling pusa don.

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lokigodofaces · 2 years

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Okay, I don't talk about real world issues a lot on here, but I've felt like I have to say something.

Covid has affected everyone in so many ways, even those of us that haven't caught it or lost anyone to it. And I know that there are people who have lost friends and family and have nearly died because of Covid, I get that. And I give my condolences to anyone who has lost someone. Let me make it clear that I am not trying to diminish your suffering. But I am tired of being told that my experiences during this pandemic don't matter because I never got Covid and none of my loved ones died of it.

I had multiple friends who were trapped in abusive homes because of the lockdown.

I had to watch my brother struggle in school because his teachers almost entirely disregarded his IEP during online school.

I watched my other siblings, who were in elementary school, only have half an hour of school a day the end of the 2019-2020 school year, and when the new school year started, all of the teachers were surprised that them and their classmates were behind because they didn't have Zoom calls, they had a couple of assignments to do without help for months.

My sister was half a year old when the pandemic started. Once things started opening up, it was apparent that she had fallen behind in social development because the only people she saw were her family. She's doing fine now, but you have no idea how worried I was for her before.

I was in two AP classes when the pandemic started. Both of my teachers fricked off and didn't teach us anything, instead assigning us huge amounts of homework without giving me adequate instructions. Additionally, I stressed for months over I got college credit because the tests were one question each (for most AP tests). $90 one question test. And, I may be wrong, it's been a while, but I believe they took a type of question typically on the tests, and shortened the amount of time we had to write it as well. Also, so many of my friends were unable to submit their tests because the servers were poorly built and the College Board didn't tell us about all of their "security measures" (I had two cousins who took the same class. They were in the same home, so they had to take the test at the same time, but they were in different rooms. They weren't allowed to submit it because they were on the same Wi-Fi, and the College Board seemed to forget siblings exist and that this might be an issue for some people.). I was lucky that I passed both of my exams.

I basically had to do both my work and my brother's, because I had to help him read since his IEP was hardly accommodated for.

I didn't live in an abusive house, but my relationship with my parents was definitely more tense leading up to and during the first six months of the pandemic. It was scary, having an increasingly tense relationship with my family when I couldn't leave the house.

Honestly, it wasn't until part way through the 2020-2021 school year that teachers could kind of teach online. Most of mine didn't even have Zoom calls for a long time, and only assigned homework for things we had to teach ourselves. Only my math and physics teachers really did anything to teach us.

About half way through the 2020-2021 year, we had to start doing Covid tests in order to do extracurricular activities, and a few times to even go to school. These were performed by random faculty members, and they didn't know what they were doing. I was honestly terrified for my sinal wall, the way they shoved the swabs up my nose. And those swabs were only supposed to go a centimeter up your nose.

I know of at least two people (there were probably more) who were supposed to be in quarantine because of contact tracing, but weren't told that by the health department until after the period they were supposed to quarantine. Also, we weren't always told the results of our Covid tests to stay in school or extracurricular activities.

I was in marching band, and we were almost shut down several times despite the social distancing, masks (yes, in a marching band), etc. Yet the football team and cheer teams could do whatever. Seriously, someone on the cheer team posted a video of her and her teammates not social distancing, sitting closer to each other than is normally socially permitted, and everyone knew about it. The school did nothing about it, yet they shut down another team the week before. But cheer can get away with anything in my high school.

My high school was under construction, so there was a dust problem. If you have never experienced your mask being covered in dust and not having a spare, you should be grateful.

For the first half of the 2020-2021 year, more than half of my school was under quarantine at any given point. I am one of the rare people that was never quarantined. We were told by the administrators that we all probably were asymptomatic because we were young, which is why we would go online with like 1% confirmed Covid cases. It wasn't until January that everyone in the school got tested that we found out that it was actually only one extra person that had Covid (and she had been making out with one of the other people with Covid). Doesn't sit right with me that we were all told that we probably all have had Covid at least once without realizing it. And then to forget that was ever said and act like no one ever thought that when multiple school wide tests showed that the vast majority of students did not have Covid all at once.

We were all told we had to social distance no matter what, but they expected 21,000 students to fit in a tiny cafeteria. It was split up into three groups, but still, that's a lot of people in a small cafeteria.

After a while, my school made a requirement that teachers had to use Zoom. Including band/choir/orchestra/theater/etc. You can see why that would be hard. If I were a band director, I would have my students fill out practice charts or something, not make them play on a laggy Zoom class.

When I graduated, the plans for graduation changed every week leading up to graduation, including two days before. You can imagine the stress that put on my parents and I.

I feel sick when I think about having to have online classes now.

My mental health tanked in the first six months. I wasn't suicidal, but I was pretty close.

School sucked for me, so the fact that I almost cried when it was announced that we would have in person classes because I was so relieved to get to go and not just do horrible online classes is saying something.

My dad is an assistant manager at Lowe's (an essential business). He worked ridiculous hours because people couldn't work in the day anymore. Daycares were closed, so parents had to watch their kids. My mom is a stay at home mom, so my dad was able to go to work at any hour. In January 2021, half of the managers had Covid. There always has to be a manager in store, so my dad and the other manager had to work every day, switching off shifts, losing all of their days off (my dad had a few days off scheduled because of his birthday). I basically didn't see my dad for two weeks.

And these are just a few of the things that have happened off of the top of my head. And I have been relatively lucky to live in places with less Covid cases, so things opened up faster. I know that lives have been lost, and I am so sorry. I understand that I have suffered far less than so many people I have been lucky to not lose anyone and to not get Covid myself. But I am tired of being told that I didn't suffer, and that I am just being "whiny" and that I need to shut up. I get it, people have suffered far worse than me. But if people could acknowledged that I suffered some too, and stopped calling me whiny and recognized that I had legitimate problems, that would be nice.

#liv won't shut up #covid #felt nice to get that off my chest #i just hate how my experiences are dismissed #i mean i was borderline suicidal how can you dismiss that?#suicidal thoughts tw #still wouldnt claim to be suicidal but i was definitely getting close...

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central-philippine-university · 2 years

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Joan Cataluña Sabran Castor: A Board Passer’s story of success.

Centralian Joan Cataluña Sabran Castor: September 2021 LET Board Passer.

Due to some difficult circumstances, Joan Cataluña Sabran became a self-supporting student since her elementary up to college. She struggled and did her best to become successful. She eventually realized her dream and passed the September 2021 Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET).

The following, as told by Joan, is a true story of sacrifice, perseverance, and determination to succeed; a reality that many work students of today with the same situations and experiences may follow.

Joan came from a fragmented family and was not living with her biological parents when she was still a baby. She was adopted by her aunt and uncle that’s why her last name became Sabran. Later on, with her marriage, her family name became Castor. She grew up with her Lola (grandmother) who took care of her and helped her to study in a public elementary school.

“I worked in the farm to help Lola in harvesting rice. She recalled in Ilonggo, “Pang garab lang humay (rice stalks), amon pangitan-an ni Lola sang una, para makakaon.” (That was our only source of income so that we can eat). Joan started as a working student since grade 5. I served other people at their homes – working as a kabulig (helper) to be able to buy my needs in school projects and daily allowance.” “I graduated from the Mambiranan Elementary School in Calinog, Iloilo.”

“I pursued my secondary education, again, by being a working student at Leganes National High School. I graduated With Honors and was the Model Girl of the Year Awardee,” she recalled.

Joan is thankful to Central Philippine University for the opportunity to study in college through its Work-Study program. She was qualified and became a dedicated work student. She graduated from CPU in 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Health Fitness and Lifestyle Management degree – under the College of Medicine. She was a recipient of the God’s Grace Program since her first year in college and was awarded as an OUTSTANDING WORK STUDENT during the college honors and awards in the same year.

During her time in college, she recalls, “I was a working student assigned to the Weston Hall Ladies Dormitory and Dining Hall under the Services Laboratory Assistance Group. I was reassigned to the Janitorial Student Assistance Office so that I can balance my work and the On-the-Job Training requirement during my 4th year.”

She added that “Since there was no financial support for me at that time, I volunteered my services to the tenants at the Weston Hall dormitory. I washed their clothes, do errands for them; I served coffee, and snacks during my vacant periods. Life was difficult or so I thought, but my optimism and belief in God encouraged me to work hard even more.”

“As a challenge, I ran for a position of a Board Member in the College of Medicine as part of the Reform Party in the CPUR elections, and I won!”, she said.

Joan was hired as a Secretary of the Office of the University President on a job order basis from July 1 to December 15, 2017, and on probation from December 16, 2017 until June 16, 2018. She later became a regular CPU employee after some time. “Thank you so much to University President Dr. Teodoro C. Robles for the job,” she said.

Joan was appointed Logistics Coordinator under the CPU Project ETC in June 2019 until this time. Joan also enrolled in the Diploma in Teaching program of the University (2018-2019).

“I was scheduled to take the Licensure Examination for Teachers in March 2020 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, I took the exam on September 26, 2021 as scheduled.” Joan passed the LET Board Exam.

“It was a roller coaster ride before that since I stopped reviewing for the LET last year March 2020 upon knowing the postponement. I was almost losing hope for the LET exam to finally push through.” She added, “I stopped my review and did not open my notes anymore until August this year. Last June 2021, I was hospitalized, and I thought I won’t survive.” Her blood pressure was at (50/0). “This is my second life now. I had to realize the purpose of this God-given life,” Joan reflected.

“I prayed hard as I was about to take the exam. I asked God to give me wisdom so I can make it to the list of the LET board passers. God sustained me. I passed the Exam! Praise the Lord! God is always there despite the challenges in my life. I was strengthened by those challenges.” “I would always remember our work student motto, “Labor is Honor”, Joan added. She shared a favorite verse from Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Joan was recently married to Mr. Rene Castor Jr.

cpu.edu.ph

#centralphilippineuniversity #centralian #iloiloschool #bestschooliloilo #panayschool #westernvisayasschool #ilonggopride

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missyeppeuda · 2 years

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Hi, Icaaaaa!

Girl, nami nami di St. Paul's Hospital and IDH kung where kita ga intern noh?

We passed MTAP 1 & 2, Comprehensive Exams and Pre-Board. ☺️

We achieved the the glow up we deserved. Daw mga chix eh. Lantawa aton grad pics ka pretty2 saaton.

It's 2023. 🫶🏻😭

• I RANKED TOP 1 MTLE 2023 ✨🤍✨

• Girl, OMGGGG. CONGRATULATIONS TO US BOTH!!!! 🥹

TOPNOTCHER KITA 😭

Gina manifest tagid ni since 2021 and lalo na nung 2022. Both RMTs na kita and si Nathaniel Ross P. Brillantes kay Topnotcher man. 🥹

• Girl... mag take man ko NMAT and naka-passed ako.

• Ang clothes/swimwear business ko kay ga flourish pagid. Naka save up nako enough money to open up a restaurant & coffee shop/bakery. Restaurant - ang specialty ko na chicken sisig, bistek, & Filipino charcuterie gid ang patok. Coffee shops - nag partner ko sa mga coffee masters and learned more about coffee because we're not just serving the best look sang coffee shop ko na very insta-worthy but also the taste, location and we have it all ah. Also, ga run man bakery ko sa tupad ya which ga supply sang food for the coffee shop and also ga supply man ko to other shops and grocery stores.

• self-made millionaire at 23 years old

• Finally, I got my driver's license. I'm driving SUV or Jeep na car. Sunduon taka soon kay we need to catch up and also maka study break ka from med.

• I am living the lifestyle I always wanted. Shopping, traveling & I do vlogging with hundreds of thousands subscribers sa YouTube, Tiktok & Instagram.

• Mike waited for me to graduate and do the things I always wanted to do. He didn't asked for my past anymore and wholly understood me and my life decisions. We're both happy in our relationship.

• Anyways, naka-book nako gali tickets ta to HongKong next week after your exams. So please don't get too excited focus danay and para super sulit aton vacay kay passed ka with high scores.

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bllsbailey · 1 month

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Too Dumb for Harvard? Lemon's Too Dumb for Twitter

Interviewing Elon Musk this week, former CNN host Don Lemon demonstrated the real-life consequences of affirmative action.

Interestingly enough, Lemon himself is an affirmative action beneficiary who miraculously hung on at CNN despite committing one moronic gaffe after another (maybe he's just got television magic!). The only CNN on-air personality to handle himself worse was Jeffrey Toobin.

Lemon was baffled by Musk's claim that "if we lower standards for what it takes to become a board-certified surgeon ... then more people will die than if we don't lower the standards, therefore we should not lower the standards."

This was apparently Lemon's first encounter with the logical sequence known as a "syllogism."

Lemon's response: "Do you understand how by saying just that standards are being lowered that you're implying that they're being lowered because people are less skilled and less intelligent, and you're talking about people of color?"

What on Earth do liberals think "affirmative action" is? (And when I say "liberals think," of course, I'm speaking figuratively.)

Does Lemon understand that when universities fight like wildcats to hide their black students' SAT scores, they are also kind of implying blacks are less skilled and less intelligent?

Last year, during the part of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit known as "discovery," Harvard University finally coughed up the data. If -- you'll pardon the expression -- "newsman" Lemon had followed the news, he would know precisely how much standards had been lowered for black students.

Applicants in the top "academic decile" (GPA plus standardized test scores) were accepted in the following percentages: Asians: 13%; Whites: 15%; Blacks: 56%. Perhaps more jaw-dropping, in the fifth academic decile -- not quite Harvard material -- the percentages were: Asians: 2% (musicians); Whites: 3% (football players and Jared Kushner); Blacks: 22%.

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People who've been paying attention were shocked. Good lord, who are the 44% of blacks in the top academic decile who DON'T get into Harvard? What kind of horrendous character defect do they have? Do they all submit "Cill My Landlord" as their personal essay? How can it not be 100%?

Nonetheless, Lemon asked Musk, "Why do you think they're lowering the standards for minority doctors?" To his credit, at no point did Lemon cry out, "I thought we agreed there'd be no math during this interview!"

The Manhattan Institute's Heather Mac Donald has been documenting the total abandonment of standards at medical schools for years. Before choosing your heart surgeon, you might want to review the statistics she's laid out most recently in her book, "When Race Trumps Merit."

In 2021, the average white score on the MCAT was at the 71st percentile. The average black score was at the 31st percentile.

Whereupon medical schools began dropping the MCAT altogether. Henceforth, some students (guess who?) would be offered admission on the basis of their "strong appreciation of human rights and social justice," as The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai puts it. In other words, would-be physicians can now skip those chapters on chemistry and physiology as long as they watch the Source Awards.

The lowered standards persist throughout medical training. Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), given after the second year of medical school, allows students to begin practicing medicine and "matches" them to a residency. But it seems that the average score for black students is a full standard deviation below the score for whites and Asians.

Although the test is multiple-choice and graded by computer, in January 2022, the USMLE dropped grades for Step 1 and converted it to "pass/fail."

So now, instead of medical students being matched to specialties that play to their strengths, they are randomly assigned to residencies for which they may have little aptitude or interest. You know, the same way they assign on-air talent at CNN. It's a brilliant way for training the next generation of doctors.

Also, starting next year, open-heart surgery will be graded "pass/fail."

Responding to Musk's claim that the "probability that someone will die I think at some point is high," Lemon said, "but that's a hypothetical that doesn't mean it's happening."

In fact, it already has happened, countless times, all over the country -- but notoriously, to the most famous affirmative action doctor of all: the black applicant who took Allan Bakke's place at the medical school of the University of California at Davis. Here was an incompetent black doctor whose medical errors couldn't be brushed under the rug, though affirmative action proponents did their best.

Dr. Patrick Chavis openly admitted that he never would have gotten into medical school without UC Davis' affirmative action program. Sen. Teddy Kennedy, The New York Times and the Nation magazine all touted Chavis as an affirmative action success story! Unlike Bakke, who went to work at the Mayo Clinic, Chavis was serving a disadvantaged community and "making a difference in the lives of scores of poor families," as Sen. Kennedy said.

Yes, he was making a difference in his patients' lives, mostly by shortening them. Dr. Chavis' liposuction surgery left one patient bleeding, vomiting and urinating uncontrollably. But instead of taking her to a hospital, he let her bleed in his home for another 40 hours. By the time she managed to escape and check herself into a hospital, she'd lost 70% of her blood. (To be fair, she looked amazing when bikini season rolled around!)

Miraculously, she lived, as did most of his other liposuction patients who ended up in the emergency room. One, Tammaria Cotton, did not.

But the affirmative action cover-up can never end: It took the California medical board a year to suspend Dr. Chavis' license, with patient advocates screaming bloody murder at such a pathetically slow response.

You think Bakke could have killed a patient to so little fanfare?

The New York Times took no notice of the affirmative action doctor's grisly liposuctions, except a brief notation in his obituary years later, after he was gunned down in an attempted carjacking. In paragraph 7, the Times extravagantly described Chavis' medical malpractice thus: "He was accused of mistreating eight liposuction patients, one of whom died."

Or, as Lemon repeated on autoplay: "There's no actual evidence of what you're saying."

Then there was Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital in South Central Los Angeles -- or "Killer King," as the locals dubbed it. A "symbol of justice and political power to many black people," as the Los Angeles Times put it in a Pulitzer Prize-winning story, "the majority of its staff has always been black."

"Entire departments," the Times investigation found, "are riddled with incompetence, internal strife and, in some cases, criminality. Employees have pilfered and sometimes sold the hospital's drugs; chronic absenteeism is rampant; assaults between hospital workers are not uncommon."

Despite having "abnormally high salaries for ranking doctors," Killer King paid out "more per patient for medical malpractice" than any of the state's 23 other public hospitals or medical centers.

So there's loads of "evidence" that affirmative action kills, despite the best efforts of our universities, medical system and media to hide it. Of course, if you mention the evidence, you'll be called a "white supremacist."

See? No evidence.

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