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libraryofrewrita · 3 years

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Chapter 23: The Trials

Hey, everyone. Sorry for the super-late update. Don't worry, I haven't lost interest in writing this series. I just had a really bad case of writer's burnout while working on this chapter and I have been working on some other projects to help get my creative juices flowing again.

One of the projects I have been working on is called 'The Yo-kai Tactician's Retirement', which can be read on Archive of Our Own. (https://archiveofourown.org/works/17826341/chapters/42060143)

Oh, plus Yo-kai Watch: The Rewrite Series officially has a TV Tropes page now! You can view it at this link if you wish to check it out. (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/YokaiWatchTheRewriteSeries)

With that said, please enjoy this chapter.

Sixty years in the past, the Wicked’s lair…

Not for the first time since his existence and especially during this latest scheme of trying to destroy the Yo-kai Watch, Unfairy wondered if he was being affected by his own powers as he walked into his room, his latest assignment tucked under his arm.

While he certainly didn’t mind the easy assignment of just spying on the group of kids and Yo-kai trying to stop Dame Dedtime’s plans and delaying any important progress they were making, he certainly didn’t like the implication that it was because the trio of Yo-kai that did originally took care of that, and failed repeatedly once Unfairy really thought about it, had been given a more important assignment rather than letting him take a break from spreading his own discord among the Bonies and Fleshies, which would have nearly made him pass out from exhaustion on multiple occasions if he didn’t have enough snacks on hand.

Speaking of which, he pulled out a box of Fruit Drops from his pockets, scowling when he opened it and saw the few candies left inside. He sighed in annoyance before popping one of the candies into his mouth, closing the box, and pocketing it again. He had planned to go to Galleria Boulevard to pick up more snacks through the not-so-legal manner of sneaking into the closed candy shop and swiping a few treats that probably wouldn’t have been missed from the storage area when he had been called back to the lair to take care of this assignment.

Of course, now the shop was probably open by now with people keeping an eye on the products being sold, not to mention that he didn’t want to risk making Dame Dedtime mad by shirking his duties, even if it would’ve only for a minute or so.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that he didn’t want it to be super obvious to the Bonies and Fleshies that he was responsible for spreading some of the discord among them, he would’ve been more than glad to use his Drain Attribute powers on them to keep himself from falling into total exhaustion.

Unfairy then proceeded to suck on the singular candy as he left the lair, hoping that luck would be on his side and he wouldn’t have to keep an eye on them for too long. After all, there was still a war, no matter how dumb the reason for it was, that the Wickeds planned to take advantage of.

*****

Same time period, Harrisville…

The kids waited at the secret base for Nathaniel and Kenny to return from setting up something that was supposed to help them with getting ready to take down the Wicked Yo-kai.

Nate and Katie nervously fiddled with their Yo-kai Watches, now officially at A rank after a quick stop at Timer’s and More in their time period, while Lucas once again made sure that they had enough supplies so that they didn’t need to possibly ditch this time period to pick up more stuff, along with the information they would need to think up and plan with Nathaniel and Kenny to keep the Wickeds from taking advantage of the war between the Bonies and Fleshies.

Their Yo-kai companions were hoping that they could pull this off and be able to get home to their time period safely, especially Whisper and Jibanyan. They had left Buchinyan with Shogunyan at present day Shoten Temple so that there wasn’t any risk of him getting lost or captured during all of this and while they were aware that this was the best decision, they missed him terribly.

At that moment, Nathaniel and Kenny came back with an elderly calico nekomata with purple flames on the ends of his twin tails wearing a green cloak and carrying a walking stick following behind them.

Kenny gestured to the elderly nekomata and said,

“This is Master Nyada. He helped us set up the three trials that will help you get ready to take down the Wicked Yo-kai.”

The elderly nekomata just gave a sad smile as he said,

“The trials were originally something the boys did for fun before all of this happened, but doing them will still help you out in the long run.”

Whisper looked at Nyada as if he was trying to remember something about him as the kids nodded and Nate said,

“Okay. What’s the first trial?”

*****

Nate asked as he drank from a bottle of water, resting from completing the first trial,

“How was he able to run so fast?”

The first trial, dubbed ‘The Trial of Courage’, involved trying to catch Master Nyada in under a minute. Before they did the trial, they did ask how catching him in under a minute was supposed to be connected to courage and the explanation they had received involved being able to quickly stop evil-doers and being able to quickly save someone.

While they weren’t quite sure how often that sort of thing would happen, Nate, Katie, and Lucas at least knew that with the kind of lifestyle they have, it was bound to come up sooner or later.

It did take them a few tries to actually catch Nyada, considering how crafty he was, but in the end, it took Nate 45 seconds, Katie 30 seconds, and Lucas 35 seconds to finally catch him.

The elderly nekomata, who was somehow not exhausted from basically doing the trial repeatedly, just gave a mischievous grin and explained,

“Oh, that’s a little secret I don’t plan to reveal anytime soon. As soon as you’re ready, we’ll move on to the next trial, The Trial of Love.”

*****

Well, that was certainly entertaining for the first couple minutes.

Unfairy thought as he watched the group with a pair of binoculars from the roof of one of the houses in Harrisville. To avoid setting off the Model Zeroes, he had to watch the group from a distance and while he hated that he wouldn’t be able to hear anything they were saying from where he currently was, it was better than getting caught because he wasn’t aware of how far the Model Zeroes could detect a Yo-kai.

He thankfully didn’t have to worry about anyone else seeing him up there due to all of the Yo-kai that lived in Harrisville having gone to Flatpot Plains or Springdale, so he didn’t have to waste his energy keeping himself invisible all the time.

Not that he was going to use up his energy to screw up something as minor as a bunch of kids just running around to see who was the fastest. It didn’t look important enough and he only had so many candies left. He would only use his energy to go full on invisible if the group was moving to somewhere that wasn’t within his current seeing range and had to follow them without tipping them off.

Though, he would be lying if he didn’t admit that some part of him kinda wanted to reveal himself to them early and force them to rush through everything just to have a shot at stopping the Wickeds, only to get sloppy and screw everything up.

He just didn’t bother to go through with it or even ask about doing it in the report he just sent because he didn’t want to hear whatever lecture Dame Dedtime would come up with to berate him for doing something that had no guarantee of success for the Wickeds and berate him even further.

For now, he would stay here and continue to watch them until something more important than seeing who can run the fastest came up that would be worth the risk of potentially getting caught and could delay the group, even if it was for a short while.

*****

The Trail of Love sounded simple enough when it was explained to them, head to a specific house and find five kittens that a friend of Nyada’s was willing to let him borrow for the trail in that area in under two minutes.

The first catch was they had to do the trail one at a time so that it wouldn’t appear that the work wasn’t being done equally among them. That was fair enough.

The second catch was that the kittens would sometimes move from their intended spots and two of them were rather mischievous if they saw that you could see them moving somewhere else. If they were caught, they would then purposely run faster than usual and hide in a spot that would make it difficult for the kids to just grab them.

Thankfully, Hovernyan had promised to keep the kittens from going towards the river, since that house happened to be located in a spot close to the river, though that was the only help the kids would be getting for this trail.

It was supposed to test their compassion for others, plus their patience in case things weren’t going as smoothly as they would like.

It had taken Nate one minute and 40 seconds to complete the trail because the two mischievous kittens decided to climb a tree after Nate had managed to find the first three in thirty seconds and it had taken him a minute and ten seconds altogether for him to climb up the tree and get the kittens down one at a time.

Katie had an easier time with her having only taken 40 seconds to get all of the kittens. When she had ran into the mischievous kittens, she had managed to win them over when they had hidden in a pile of gardening supplies by taking her hair ribbon off and placing it on the ground in front of them, slowly dragging the ribbon towards her and watching as they pounced on it until they got within reach and she scooped up both of them with no issues.

Lucas had the most trouble with him coming in at a minute and 50 seconds. As a Yo-kai, he could understand what the cats were saying and he knew that they could tell that he was part of a powerful line of Yo-kai. He took the longest because he was spending that time trying to convince the kittens that they didn’t have to be so skittish around him because of his aura. Ironically enough, the two mischievous kittens had been the easiest and quickest for him to convince with him only having to take twenty seconds each for both of them.

Nyada then sent the kittens back to their mother, who had been waiting outside of where the trail was taking place, and said to the group,

“Well, now that trail has been taken care of, let’s head to Mount Middleton for the final trail.”

*****

Unfairy so wished that he could leave his post. He had gotten bored of watching the kids gathering kittens after the first minute and it was only his fear of Dame Dedtime’s retribution that kept him rooted to this spot.

He envied his siblings for not having a huge fear of their mother’s retribution and he especially envied the group he was spying on.

If he hadn’t known that they were doing this because they were getting ready to deal with the Wicked Yo-kai, he would’ve just assumed that they were just having their own weird brand of fun.

The members of the group he was spying on appeared to be pretty close too. Another thing he envied.

He and his siblings had been close once upon a time, but after years upon years of being on separate missions to spread their personal discords among humans and Yo-kai around Japan and the world outside of it, sometimes being forced to go quiet for undetermined periods of time because of something out of their control, and barely being able to just meet up somewhere for old times sake rather than because all of them were needed by Dame Dedtime for something very important, it was hard to tell whether or not he was the only one of the Elite siblings that wished to know if they could ever be close as they had been before if they were given enough time to do so.

Unfairy sighed as he watched the group leave and turned invisible to follow after them. Wherever they were going, it would at least be a change of scenery.

*****

The fact that there was an A Rank Watch Lock door was the first hint that the final trail wasn’t going to be easy.

The second hint was that Nathaniel and Kenny said that this trail was called the Trail of Moxie, but only said that they had to defeat a powerful Yo-kai named Demuncher and said not to worry about how long it took them to finish this trail before they claimed to have to pick up something and would be back as soon as they could before leaving them.

The third and final hint was that when Nyada walked them to the trail, he had led them to a giant yellow Yo-kai just sleeping there, who had to be Demuncher, and picked up a rock.

Whisper eyed the rock in Nyada’s paw warily and asked,

“Umm…what are you planning to do with that rock?”

As his way of answering, Nyada causally threw the rock at the giant Yo-kai, told the group to have their Yo-kai out and ready to battle Demuncher, and fled as the giant Yo-kai was starting to wake up.

“OW! Who disturbed my sleep?!”

He looked to the group that happened to be within fighting range and yelled,

“I’ll show you what happens to people that enrage me!”

*****

The group just had enough time to pull out the six Yo-kai they had on hand before they found themselves battling Demuncher.

As usual, Jibanyan and the Komainu Brothers were in the front row and the back row contained Tattletell, Brushido, and Tongus. Jibanyan started off by barely dodging a punch from Demuncher, taking a small bit of damage that he paid back to Demuncher by burning his hand with one of his tail flames, dealing the same amount plus a little extra since he hadn’t missed his target.

Komajiro then sent a lightning attack at him, but when he noticed that it hadn’t done a lot of damage to Demuncher compared to Jibanyan burning his hand and when Demuncher had thrown a rock at him as payback for the lightning strike, he was able to alert the other fighters that Demuncher was an Earth Attribute Yo-kai. Komasan then threw some fireballs towards Demuncher as retribution for the rock thrown at his younger twin, which he was slow to dodge considering his large stature, resulting in a good amount of damage being dealt.

Jibanyan unleashed his Paws of Fury Soultimate to keep Demuncher distracted as the Komainu Brothers prepared to do a combo attack of their Spirit Dance and Wild Dance Soultimates. Demuncher flicked Jibanyan off once he was finished, but it was enough time for the two brothers to let off their combo attack before all three Yo-kai were damaged by Demuncher throwing some additional rocks at them.

The three Yo-kai in the front retreated to the back row, grateful for the healing from Tattletell and Tongus before the three Yo-kai that were now in front took their turns with dealing their own damage to Demuncher. Brushido used his broom to help Tattletell leap up towards Demuncher to land one of her slaps on him while he froze the large Yo-kai’s feet and waited until Tattletell had landed safely on Tongus before he swept his broom under Demuncher’s feet, breaking his ice and causing the giant Yo-kai to fall to the ground.

Both attacks did a good amount of damage and after the current attacking row had their fun with battling the giant Yo-kai, with Tongus even getting a few hits in in an attempt to stop him from using his Soultimate on her, the main three battlers were brought back to the front row and with a well-timed team attack, Jibanyan and the Komainu Brothers dealt the final blow and watched as Demuncher fell to his knees and admitted defeat.

*****

“Congratulations on completing all of the trails, you guys!”

The group saw Nathaniel, Kenny, and their grandfather’s group of Yo-kai friends coming up the mountain path to congratulate the group.

Demuncher then stood up, brushed the dirt off his cloth, and said to Nyada as he happened to show up,

“I have to hand it to you, sir. You really know how to pick them.”

Nyada made a cat smile as he said,

“Of course I do. I wouldn’t send just anyone up against my star pupil.”

There was a bit of silence from the group that had just battled Demuncher before Whisper finally broke the ice,

“We were never in any real danger?”

“Of course not. If I just told you outright that he was just acting, you wouldn’t have really put your heart and soul into the battle. The Trail of Moxie is to show that you’re willing to fight when you have no other options left.”

He then clasped his paws together and said seriously,

“And thus ends the Trails of Moximous Mask.”

It took Nate and Katie a moment to realize why he said that and facepalmed as they muttered,

“Of course they were called that.”

Nyada glanced at them and gestured to his friend group and said,

“My best friends are literally superhero enthusiasts. You honestly think I wasn’t going to do something that this to make their training more interesting?”

Before they could comment, Hovernyan said,

“Now, since you’ve completed the trails and our Yo-kai friend group is safely together again, we need to discuss stuff.”

Lucas perked up and asked,

“Like what we’re going to do about the Generals and preventing them from going to war?”

Hovernyan nodded,

“Exactly. You three have information from your future about the battle and when the Wickeds officially took advantage of it and when it was able to officially end. Now, your present is part of the ‘slightly perfect timeline’, so if we can just use the information you have, we can hopefully change things around and make your present part of the ‘truly perfect timeline!”

Kenny then presented Nate, Katie, Lucas, and the Yo-kai with them a bag with purple scarves, bandanas, and ribbons before explaining,

“Our best bet is to avoid picking between the Bonies and Fleshies if we want this to work, so we decided to form a third party. Wearing a red scarf, bandana, or ribbon identifies you as a Bony and wearing a blue scarf, bandanas, or ribbon identifies you as a Fleshy, so we decided to combine the two colors and have our third party wear purple scarves, bandanas, or ribbons as our way to identify ourselves as members of the currently unnamed third party.”

Nate and Lucas took a purple bandana each and Katie took a purple ribbon from the bag, then watched as the others made their decisions from the bag as well. Nate, Lucas, the Komainu Brothers, Faux Kappa, and Predictabul now wore a purple bandana, Jibanyan, Hovernyan, Master Nyada, Nathaniel, Kenny, and Gnomey were wearing purple scarves, and Katie, Whisper, Mermaiden, and Pallysol were wearing purple ribbons. When the others had putting on their new accessories, Katie took down her signature pink hair ribbon and replaced it with the purple ribbon so that it could be easily seen.

Katie then admitted as she was putting the pink ribbon into the bag for safe keeping,

“It’s weird not wearing this, but it’s for a good cause. We just need to pick someone to act as the general for our group. Maybe the Generals will be more willing to talk to whoever was in charge of us.”

Pallysol looked at Whisper and said,

“Technically, out of all of us here, you have experience in dealing with war before. You’re probably our best bet here.”

Whisper clarified with a stammer and faint pink blush,

“A-as a private tactician to a warlord, not a battler!”

Pallysol said with a bit of a blush,

“Well, you had to give your former boss ideas to work from, didn’t you? I’m just saying you might be able to work the same magic on our two warring generals and they might be willing to take you more seriously if you presented yourself as a general.”

Whisper looked around at the group and after some consideration, he said,

“I’ll only be the general for this group until we can deal with the Wickeds. After that, I’ll hand the position of the Psychics over to someone else that’s actually from this time period.”

Jibanyan looked at Whisper curiously and asked,

“Is the Psychics our official group name or…?”

Whisper shrugged,

“Unless someone has something better.”

The group started chanting the group name repeatedly, so it was safe to say it was a great name for them.

Whisper straightened up, feeling some pride in his chest as he said,

“Now, first order of business. Let’s get off this mountain and look over the information so that we can get enough of a head start to keep the Wickeds from gaining the advantage this time around!”

With that said, everyone started heading down the mountain, eager to put a stop to the Wickeds plans in one way or another.

*****

Unfairy had been too awestruck by the battle to do anything to make the battle unfair, even when there had been a few points during the battle where no one would’ve been to tell right away that he had gotten involved.

Not that he had mentioned it in the report he had sent during the middle of the battle. He may have fudged the report a bit and claimed that the kids were having more difficulty with battling him than what was actually happening and it would take a while for them to be finished.

Now as he watched the one group of humans and Yo-kai congratulate the other group that had been battling Demuncher, he couldn’t help but feel sad.

Could this have been the type of comradery that he could’ve had with the other Elites, if things had been different?

Unfairy got up from the tree branch that he had been sitting on. He was tired of this. He was tired of fretting about his place among the Wicked Elites and trying to gain respect from Dame Dedtime, who barely gave it to him as it is. He was tired of dwelling on whether things could really change for him or any of the Wickeds if they were successful.

He sighed as he leaned against the tree trunk. It wasn’t like he just bail out of the entire plan at this stage, not if he didn’t want to deal with fighting the other Elites and possibly Dame Dedtime for being a traitorous coward. He also couldn’t just walk up to the humans and Yo-kai fighting against the Wicked Yo-kai and offer his assistance. They would immediately suspect that he was trying to pull something on them.

He glanced at the almost empty Fruit Drops box in his hand just as another paper appeared in his hands. He glanced at the paper telling him to spread his discord around Galleria Boulevard, then to head to Flatpot Plains to keep the two generals and their teams busy long enough for the other Wicked Elites to get everything else set up.

He had originally planned to take advantage of the discord to slip into the candy shop and pick up some more candy and snacks, but if he held off on that and just used up the last of the Fruit Drops he had…

That would be just enough power for him to invisibly spread enough of his discord around Galleria Boulevard to keep the group from reaching Flatpot Plains right away, just to appease Dame Dedtime, then he would use up the rest of his energy to spread discord among the Bonies and Fleshies in Flatpot Plains, including the two generals.

He took one more glance to see that the groups were busy taking things out of a bag and with a mischievous smile on his face coming from him having no plans to tell Dame Dedtime that the group was finished battling Demuncher, Unfairy teleported away to do what he would consider his best work yet.

*****

As the group happily walked down the path to the train station after reviewing the information and being ready to set their plan of hopefully having a peaceful discussion with the Generals Arachnus and Toadal Dude in motion, they saw Smogmella on the path near the train station, she rushed over to the group.

“Everything has gone to absolute chaos! First, almost every Yo-kai on Galleria Boulevard is fighting with each other over every little thing that’s not even related to the main Bony and Fleshy debate, with the ones not involved in the excessive arguing already trying to flee the area to who knows where until everything has calmed down. Then when I went to the battlefield to get the generals to see what was happening, the battlefield was just as bad, if not worse! I couldn’t even keep track of the generals because of how busy they were on the battlefield, which would’ve made trying to talk to them a total waste of time!”

She then clasped Hovernyan’s paws as she continued,

“That’s when I remembered that you’re one of the few Yo-kai I know of that haven’t joined either side and I figured that the group I had seen you with must be on the same page as you, otherwise they would’ve spoken up about whether the Bonies or Fleshies side was better. Will all of you help me with dealing with this chaos?”

The group needed no further prompting as they nodded and Hovernyan said,

“You have my word as a member of the Psychics that we will get to the bottom of this and put an end to this chaos.”

“The Psychics? You’re your own group, then?”

“We’re built up of the Yo-kai and humans that have no desire to take part in any of the Bonies and Fleshies debates. We may like both things that they are debating about or we may prefer a third choice. Regardless, we just wish for things to not get super out of hand. You get that, right?”

Smogmella nodded and asked,

“May I join you, then? I’m tired of being pressured to join one group or the other.”

Hovernyan handed Smogmella a purple scarf she then wrapped around her neck as he said warmly,

“Welcome to the Psychics, Smogmella. We’re glad to have you aboard.”

With a new member in tow, everyone rushed down to the train station by foot, hoping that they could still find a way to put an end to the Wicked’s plan for good.

Previous Chapter: https://libraryofrewrita.tumblr.com/post/183172176579/chapter-22-into-the-eye-of-the-storm

Next Chapter: TBA

#yo-kai watch #yo-kai watch au #rewrite #au #rewrite au #chapter 23 #booktwo

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eigenshit · 4 years

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disordered eating tw

thinking about how i spent basically all day yesterday working on my slides and graphics for my talk next week. like, i wanna say from maybe 9am til 7pm, with a few pauses to deal with emails and chit chat with people on discord and slack.

but like, i didn’t eat until around 8pm. i drank almost no water until probably 5 or 6. because i didn’t want to get up to fill my water bottle, in part because it was disruptive, but also because my body felt awful (y’know, because of not eating, drinking water...) so getting up was super unpleasant, dizzying, painful for my head and my joints and my back muscles (y’know, because i’d been sitting for hours on hours.......)

i hate that i do this!!!! i mean, it’s not that often that i hyperfocus this hard on something that i actually do need to get done, so it’s hard to frame it as an entirely bad thing. i guess the problem is that i don’t see how i can get things done any other way. it takes me so much time to get my bearings and transition into a new task, so i feel like if i try to work on something like this in, say, hour-long bursts, i’ll spend the first half-hour of each of those bursts just figuring out where i left off, and instead of taking ten hours, it’ll take twenty hours. and i don’t know where i’m supposed to find twenty hours to work on a talk!

of course, i also know that i’m bad at accurately estimating how long it takes to do something. so, would it really take me half an hour to get my bearings, like i say? or would it take me 10 minutes? or would it take me 45 minutes???

is there a way i can make it easier for myself to pick up where i left off?

maybe i need to dedicate the last 10-15 minutes of that hypothetical one-hour work period to “saving my place” - making a coherent, easy to find note to myself that says what i have left to do, or at least what i’m supposed to do next

and putting cross-references into all the materials i’m working with that tell me where to find what i need. like, if the next step is “make slides for the admissibility defn, the following propositions, and the thm about the ideals” then i need to go to the .tex file of the paper and make review comments at all those pieces, just saying “this is the admissibility defn” and so on. (but will i remember that i’ve done that??? unlikely!)

i mean, i don’t know if this would actually make it easier... it’s so hard for me to articulate “tasks” like that. i had a sticky note in my notebook for months that said “look at sum thing” and every time i read it i thought “haha, look at ‘something’ but it’s spelled wrong...” and then remembered that i was supposed to look at the sum of two ideals we were talking about. if it’s brief, it’s incoherent. if it’s detailed enough to have meaning, it’s too long and it’s not really doing its job!

...this isn’t even the post i came here to write. i was going to say that i think i have a harder time than most assembling my thoughts into something coherent and linear, because (adhd brain!) i don’t really think linearly; i think in erratic spirals, or something. so to make something like a slides presentation, or to write a calc lecture, it takes a lot of effort for me to translate the thing that exists in my brain into a nice linear story. and unfortunately i think that kind of needs to be done! it’s certainly what people expect and are prepared for, but i also think it’s an easier way for most people to take in new information.

like, maybe most people can’t follow “so we’re talking about quotients of graph algebras - what’s a graph algebra? okay, first, let’s establish what we mean by ‘graph,’ and a bunch of notation and conventions we need to talk about them. from there, here’s a graph algebra. okay, quotients, so we need ideals. ideals of graph algebras are given by these kinds of sets of vertices. in part, they have to do with paths - did i not explain our notation for paths? okay, hang on, so what’s a path? what’s an infinite path? what’s an infinite receiver? there, now, back to ideals...”

and i mean, fair enough! but personally i have a hard time holding onto a bunch of information that someone blasts at me out of context. and that’s how a lot of math is presented, especially in the background portion of research talks where they’re like “here’s 60 definitions. i will now use 40 of them constantly for the rest of the talk (the other ones are not needed for this talk, but i’m obliged to include them for completeness. i will not indicate which ones you can forget about when i present them)”

for me, it’s much easier to follow if we pick up the terminology as we need it or encounter it, and then come back to fill in the details in full generality later. but i think this is considered “bad practice” in math... lol

#personal #mental health #disordered eating tw

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diarrheaofthekeyboard · 4 years

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Confluence of Updates

7.26.2020

Writing on Writing

In addition to weekly therapy since November, I have been watching School of Life videos on YouTube. The latest video I watched helped confirm for me that I’m on the right path. I’m never going to eliminate my Inner Critic or ever feel completely comfortable with myself. I think if I did, that would be something extra-human. Neither are realistic goals. This particular video’s intent was to get people to write a journal. In a nutshell, you can’t keep it all in. Give yourself a daily mental outlet where you can release your thoughts and you’ll have less mental anguish. Well, here we are! Glad I’m on the right path.

This may be the reason Sunday nights have recently become the most difficult for me. Brain won’t turn off, but it’s because I haven’t had what I’m trying to turn into my daily routine of walking in the morning and writing at night. The out I’m giving myself is this is all new and it takes some growing pains to get it right.

Writing on Walking

I try not to spend money these days but any new venture is going to have some startup costs. My sneakers should be good for another month or so if I stick with it. I’ve been keeping my mask in my pocket, but that makes it difficult to pull it out when I actually see people, so I bought some neck gaiters I can pull up to be a mask. But the two big things were new headphones and shirts.

The headphones are a big deal because of “the thud of footsteps”. As you may have figured out by now, I actually listen to music. It’s not just a beat or a background to keep me going. I’m actually interested in hearing it, reacting to it emotionally, having my own internal dialog about it, and just plain enjoying it. I can’t do that while walking because I hear the thud of my own footsteps with my headphones on. Happens with my Amazon Basics on-ear headphones, which are actually super awesome Monoprice headphones, and it also happens with my Sony earbuds I bought for phone calls. Turns out the Amazon ones are on-ear, closed back. And with the way earbuds have been redesigned, they create a closed back type effect.

So I made an educated guess and took a chance on some KOSS open air, on ear headphones. Remember the shitty headphones that came with your Walkman? Those were open air, on ear headphones. Those are the ones I used to listen to Megadeth at top volume on in the back seat of my parents’ car so I didn’t have to listen to their shitty lite-fm radio. I found some good ones from KOSS that won’t make my ears hurt after listening to them for 30 minutes and they arrived today. Put them on, took three steps, no thud. Yeah, you can hear the music if you really get close to me. But it’s not like I’m crammed onto a subway around here. Monday will be the real test but so far it seems like $30 in Amazon points well spent.

Now you may ask yourself, “why are new shirts a big deal?” I think it’s about self worth and there’s a bunch going on here.

To this point, I’ve been wearing whatever t-shirt I want to walk. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with them. But they’re yer basic men’s printed band shirt or otherwise printed shirt. So they trend kinda heavy and not too comfortable. But you’ll be able to wear them through armageddon. Some of them are 10 to 20 years old. So there’s a lot of personal history and/or bullshit associated with them. Not only because of whatever is printed on them that I obviously liked. But also because of where/when I’ve worn them and how they’ve been associated with certain places. I don’t want to get rid of them or necessarily stop wearing them. But I do kinda just want to put them in a box at the bottom of my closet and start over.

Then there’s the deserving part. I have more than enough varying degrees of uncomfortable shirts, I should just wear them and be done with it. I’m not good enough for new shirts. Especially some new shirts that are obviously designed for workouts and sports. I’m about 40 pounds overweight. I need to lose half that weight first and really get into a routine before I’m approaching good enough for new shirts. Otherwise, I’m just some pudgy poser.

And I’ve been listening to this bullshit from my internal dialog for the past month, as I have been walking around my neighborhood. Well, we’re almost at the end of the month and I’m still going. And as I’m putting them in the cart and buying them, a 14 year old memory trying to get me to stop pops up.

From ‘05 to ‘08 I played guitar in an off-off-off Broadway production of Oedipus. We actually did all three plays during that time. And the best way I can describe the production is “What would happen if George Orwell wrote Oedipus, and it played out on American Idol?” In 2006, we played for a week at the Fringe Festival in Brisbane, Australia. My anxiety nearly fucked me on getting a passport, but I was able to get over that. What really fucked me was the NYC blackout of that year, which hit my area for an extended period of time.

One of the wonderful things about NYC is the laundromats have drop off service and will do your laundry for you. So I dropped off my laundry a few days before I was going to leave for Australia. Well, the fucking blackout took out the laundromat, with my clothes still inside. So I left for Australia with my guitar equipment and an empty suitcase. For some reason, I had insisted I wanted to fly JetBlue from NYC to LA, which meant I needed to take a cab to LAX. This turned into a blessing in disguise because the driver agreed to stop at Target while I ran around the store and bought whatever I thought might look ok.

The black shirt I bought to wear onstage was an activewear shirt. It was kinda stretchy, but I figured it would hang loose. And of course it didn’t and we’re about to get onstage and I look like a fucking Ring Ding shoved into a muscle shirt. Everyone in the entire cast laughed at me. Finally, the drummer was nice enough to change shirts with me and he wore it. Later on that trip, he gave me the worst purple nurple ever. So this is what’s going through my mind in fucking Costco, and why I didn’t deserve new shirts. But I bought them anyway as a fuck you to that memory.

And you know what? I took them out of the package and they smelled like chemicals. So I washed them and the neck gaiters and left them out to dry. Then I changed into one of the shirts to play pickleball with my kid yesterday afternoon. AND IT WAS PERFECTLY FINE. Yeah, I’m probably dumb for buying black shirts and I should have bought the white ones. But that’s toxic “oh black looks harder than white” for you/all band shirts are black/get ripped in a year and wear them onstage too.

To top it off, we went to the pool this afternoon and after I showered, I put on one of my regular t-shirts. And it kinda felt constricting. I can’t wear the black shirts everywhere because they’ll smell like BO in 30 seconds. But I’m going to wear them a lot, and not be embarrassed about them. It’s ok to be comfortable.

Whither, Music.

Unsurprisingly, Bernstein’s lectures have led me to bite off more than I can chew. I haven’t been walking on weekends, so I haven’t been listening to him. But I did find a bunch of books I’ve either read too many times or not read enough, and pulled them out. They are:

Aaron Copland - What to Listen for in Music

Howard Goodall - The Story of Music

Glenn Kurtz - Practicing

Philip Toshio Sudo - Zen Guitar

Pat Pattison - Writing Better Lyrics

I haven’t really read anything other than news for a long time. Or I buy books, read some, and never finish them. This is obviously detrimental to my mental health. So like with walking and with writing, I’m going with what interests me. I’m not trying to be busy all the time, but I definitely want to keep from punishing myself like I have done historically.

I started on Copland’s book last night. I read 25 pages, and that was only the Forward and Preface. So tonight I’m looking to get into at least the first chapter.

I’ve also been watching some other YouTube videos, particularly “Now Hear This” which is a PBS show about classical music, and another series I found about “how to listen to classical music” from a channel called Inside the Score. Last night I got my Ford Prefect on, and listened to Beethoven’s 5th. Today, I’m listening to Holst’s “The Planets”, which of course is the Leonard Bernstein version. I gotta say, these new headphones sound pretty good.

Lastly, I’m waiting on the book to Bernstein’s Harvard Lectures, which I will pick out every last piece he talks about, find it on Apple Music, and create a giant playlist. I hope the runners on the American River trail like classical music. They’re gonna hear a lot of it in passing.

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sassypandacandy · 5 years

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Why should you be filling out character profiles for your OCs?

What up homeskillets, it’s ya girl here with a rare piece of writing advice. If you’re fairly new to writing, you may not know what a character profile is; even if you do, you may not a lot (or any) experience with them. Basically, a character profile is a series of questions and/or basic facts about a specific character.

So what? I hear you ask. It’s all just random facts you make up anyway. Who cares what my OC’s favorite flavor of ice cream is?

To which I say, “Patience, young Padawan.”

Let’s look at a sample from a profile that I recently finished filling out for one of the new characters in my dark fantasy novel, Brightest Day. Tal is a Concealer, which means that he can physically conceal objects and people from the senses.

Name: Tallend Concealer Prinyat

Nickname: Tal

Home: Citadel City

Age: 29

Physical Appearance: Shorter than average (5’8”), a little on the stocky side. Fit, depending on the time of year (his love of food catches up to him in the winter). Olive-to-light brown skin, depending on the time of year. Black hair, usually bearded or at least a little scruffy if he’s in the south. A few pox scars on his face.

Clothing: Outside of the Black Valley, he prefers sturdier clothes (in case he needs to suddenly flee) in plain styles and dark colors (the better to blend in). When he’s home, however, he fully embraces the love of bright colors and intricately patterned clothes. As a Concealer and a spy, he’s very used to being overlooked, so when he’s home, he tries to counter the effect by dressing boldly.

Walk: Tal steps with all his weight, because if he doesn’t want to be discovered, he simply hides the sound. He never learned how to walk quietly because he never had to.

Vocation/Occupation: Operative/Social worker. His job is to follow tips and rumors of Voidborn, track them down, and then offer them sanctuary. If they accept, he guides them to the Black Valley.

Family/Ethnicity: Both parents immigrated from Da’Shahar when he was two.

Diction/Accent: He was raised in the north, so he has a slight coastal accent. He also tends to mimic the accents of people he speaks with if he wants something, or if he’s been spending a lot of time with them. He always comes back from visiting his father with a stronger coastal/Shaharan blended accent. He also picks up turns of phrase. It’s an unfortunate side effect of his work.

Relationships: Tal is a very open, affectionate person when he’s home. He makes and keeps friends easily, although he rarely lets anyone too close because of the lessons he learned in his youth (he trusted his best friend with the secret of his new powers, and the friend’s parents turned him in).

Fears: Being forgotten, being captured and powerless

Character flaws: Has a hero complex, nosy, pushy, stubborn, can be overly cautious, prone to overthinking

Character strengths: Sociable, charming, intuitive, brave, kind, determined, methodical, compassionate, self-reliant

Taste in books, music, etc.: He prefers humorous books and plays, and music with a strong beat.

Food preferences: He loves Shaharan cooking (comparable to several Indian dishes), but it can be devilishly hard/expensive to get the proper spices all the way in the Claws. If there’s any time to spare on a mission, he’ll almost always spend it haggling over spices.

The beginning helps me narrow down a few important details, like Tal’s age and general appearance. But starting with something as simple as his clothing choices, we start to get little details. It’s like that scene from The Devil Wears Prada where Miranda lectures Andi about the history behind her fashion choices.

The most important thing to remember is that everything is connected. Filling out a character profile lets you see those connections. Start with what you know and extrapolate from there.

For example, one of the most important things that I know about Tal is the kind of work that he does. Now I have to ask myself how that affects the rest of his life.

Well, if he needs to be adept at finding people under the radar, he’s probably good at getting people to talk, which means he’s sociable and adaptable. Both of those realizations can then affect things like his accent (notice how he tends to automatically imitate accents and turns of phrase, all of which create a connection with whoever he’s talking to). This information is going to influence the way he interacts with other characters.

Even something as “inconsequential” as his taste in food gives us a ton of information. He loves the rich, spicy Shaharan food that he grew up with, but Da’Shahar is far to the north, which means he rarely gets access to the right spices. This might mean that any time he travels far enough north, he buys spices and brings this back to the Valley with him. When the other characters are tracking him, they’ll probably hear about a man who smelled of cumin or cinnamon or whichever spice he was bringing back. Additionally, one way to show that another character really cares about Tal would be to write a scene in which they give him a gift of different spices.

See what I mean?

When used properly, character profiles can give you a ton of invaluable information. Don’t just spin absolute bullshit, though; think critically about your characters and what their choices, history, and preferences really mean. The whole profile took me maybe 40 minutes to fill out, but it’s going to save me an incredible amount of time later when I actually get down to writing Tal’s scenes.

The full profile that I modified and used can be found here. I wish that I could credit the original author, but I found it years ago.

Happy creating!

#writing advice #my ocs #brightest day #my wips

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5thand59th · 6 years

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Life on the medical floor

I recently started my new job as a medicine intern (intern = first year of residency) at Mount Sinai West/Mount Sinai St. Luke’s hospitals. Thought I would do a post on all the things I do all day since most people outside of medicine really have no idea. This is all the stuff that takes up my day, not really in order!:

Pre-round on patients

Rounding is when we talk about the patients we’re taking care of on our team. In the morning I “pre-round” on them meaning I see all my patients and assess them so I can report back to the team. If someone came in for nausea and vomiting, for example, I ask them if they’re still having those symptoms after the medications. I also do a short physical exam on them every morning. Usually I spend 5-15 minutes talking to each patient. I also have to sometimes ask the nurses who worked overnight about how the patients are doing, since sometimes the patients have an altered mental status or something. A lot of walking around since the patients can be all on different floors.

Put in orders

Orders are things you enter into the computer that (usually) the nurses do for patient care. It can be anything from giving certain medications, to telling them they must be on bedrest, to starting IV fluids, to drawing blood for labs. You can also put in orders for a patient to get an X-ray or MRI, or to ask the physical therapist to evaluate the patient.

Med rec

“Med rec” = medicine reconciliation. We have to call each patient’s home pharmacy to confirm which medications they are taking since the patient sometimes does not remember or is lying (ie a patient has tried to tell me he always takes 3 percocets at home so he could get them in the hospital but I can easily find out if that’s true or not). It’s kind of nice because if I call the pharmacy and say I’m a doctor from Mount Sinai Hospital I don’t have to wait to talk to someone because they know it’s relatively urgent. This is also true for a lot of other medical-related phone numbers, there’s usually a separate line for physicians... still a weird feeling sometimes!

Talk with family members

This is something a lot of people don’t realize can take a lot of time. Family members are obviously concerned about their loved ones and a phone call or in-person conversation can easily go from 10 minutes to 45 minutes because of all the questions and back-and-forth. But I still really enjoy talking with family members because usually after the call they are a lot more reassured since they now know what is going on. I’ve had patients who started sobbing on the phone to me after I told them some bad news :( which can be really sad.

Discuss patients with social worker

Every day I meet with the social workers and discuss what needs to happen to the patient once they go home. Sometimes we have patients who are homeless and were living on the streets in NYC and the social worker tries to find them a shelter. Or one of my patients was a cute little French lady who used to live alone at a hotel-residence for 40 years, but then she started having dementia and was wandering the hallways, so the hotel said she couldn’t live there anymore, so the social worker had to find a nursing home for her.

Call consults

I work on the “general medical” team but sometimes patients are really complicated and you have to call other services like cardiology, gastroenterology, endocrinology to get their opinion. You tell them what’s going on with the patient and then their team will start seeing the patient too.

Look at labs, imaging, cultures

Most patients get labs every day when they’re in the hospital (I would hate this! I actually really hate getting my blood drawn even though I’m a doctor) and we have to check the results when they come in to see if the patient is improving. Patients also get x-rays, MRIs, CAT scans, ultrasounds, the list goes on, and we get the radiologist to read everything but we also look at the images ourselves. They can also get “cultures” meaning blood or fluid is taken from their body and the lab sees if there’s any bacteria growing in it so we can see if they need antibiotics.

Discuss patients during rounds

During rounds I tell the attending (this is the doctor in charge of the team) about each of the patients and we discuss what needs to happen for the day and what changes we are making to the patient’s care that day. Sometimes it’s not straightforward, like if we look at an x-ray and can’t decide if the patient has pneumonia or not and if they should get antibiotics. So rounds could sometimes take 20 minutes but sometimes take 2 hours. I think patients in the hospital don’t realize how much the doctors are discussing and pondering over their case, and don’t realize that sometimes 4-5 doctors are all consulting just over them for literally hours.

Attend noon conference

We have lectures at noon so we can continue to learn. They can be about really anything from new drugs that are out, to management of certain complex medical issues, to miscellaneous stuff like what is “home health services.”

Answer pages

Yes, we still use pagers in the hospital! I had no idea how to use a pager in the beginning of med school and was so confused haha. Basically you can type in a page to someone on the computer, and then it gets sent to their pager with a call back number. Then the person will call that number and you can actually talk to them. A lot of times nurses page me about patients since they see them a lot more often. Like I might get a page that says “XXX is having a lot more cough and phlegm this morning, can you order an X-ray for them?”

Sign out to other interns / cross cover for other interns

If I’m not on call, I can leave at 4-5pm. Before I leave I have to give a list of my patients to the “on call intern” and tell them anything that has to be done during the evening and night shift when I’m gone. (Example: if a patient is going through alcohol withdrawal I might tell them to check on the patient every 2 hours to see if they’re having seizures or altered mental status). If I’m on call, then the other interns “sign out” their patients to me and then I have to do the same thing. The other interns will also forward their pager number to mine so now I’ll also get pages about their patients.

Write notes

Not my favorite part of the day but I have to write a “note” in the computer chart for every single patient every day. It includes what I saw on the physical exam, how they felt, the results of new labs/images, and the new plan for the day. The attending signs off on the note later and adds any additional comments for the plan. The notes are actually pretty important because the nurses, social workers, physical therapist, other services read them to figure out what’s going on.

Discharge patients

Once the patient is medically stable, we “discharge” them so they can leave. A lot of times they need to start taking new meds once they’re home. We prescribe these and the prescription goes straight to the patient’s pharmacy so they can pick up the meds. We also often make appointments for the patient to see different doctors after they leave the hospital. Some of my patients are amazing and I really miss them after they leave!

New ED admissions

The patients on our list don’t come from nowhere. Most come from the emergency room so if we get a call about a new patient that has to be “admitted” meaning stay at the hospital instead of going home after the emergency room, we go down there, evaluate them, and then they become patients on “our list” and once they move to a regular bed on the medical floor we start seeing them every day.

Teach the med student

We have a med student on our team and it’s our job to have her be involved in patient care and work with her as she starts to independently see patients and do other tasks.

Work with my team, ask my resident for help

I’m in a team of 4 right now (me, another intern, an upper level resident, and the attending) and we basically talk all day either in person or on text or phone call. Right now I actually really love my team and honestly have never laughed so hard in I can’t remember how long. There’s just so many ridiculous and hilarious things that go on in the hospital if you can find the humor in each situation and it makes the day so much better.

Random stuff

This could be really anything, sometimes it’s more hands-on. I’ve walked up and down the hallway with a patient to see if they can do it without their oxygen level dropping, I’ve spoon-fed a patient to see if their ability to swallow is intact, I regularly get blankets for patients because it’s freezing in the hospital.

There’s probably more that I’m forgetting but that’s what I could think of for now. I’ll do another post about the ICU which is really different. It’s honestly been really fun working at Mount Sinai West so far. It feels like we’re all working together as a family/team and there is NEVER a boring day, which are two things that I never experienced at other jobs I’ve had!

#medical school #residency #medical residency #hospital #doctors

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chaoshomeschooler · 3 years

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long study challenge post

29. Mon. Feb. 22: What is your study style?

My study style is chaotic - I’m an awful procrastinator and I’m hardly organized in any sense. Ya know how 4 year olds with tablets lean on stuff weird and pace around and all that? there’s tik tok videos about it if you want to see what I’m talking about - but basically that’s me while studying half the time.

30. Tue. Feb. 23: Do you study in your pajamas?

Yeah

31. Wed. Feb. 24: What is your favorite doodle? Show us!

I don’t have pics and I’m not about to get out of bed to take them but I made a series of monster doodles while listening to Hozier songs and i love them - they’re half skeletal/emaciated deer-esque creatures sitting in pools of blood or emerging from mud

32. Thur. Feb. 25: Cursive or print?

hybred that leans more towards print

33. Fri. Feb. 26: Handwritten or typed notes?

handwritten - i remember things so much better by handwriting

36. Mon. March 1: How do you prep for class?

Like for going to class itself? idk i just have my homework done from the last week and have my notebook for notes

37. Tue. March 2: Blue or black ink?

black

38. Wed. March 3: Favorite type of self care?

watching tv, playing idle video games or taking a bath

39. Thur. March 4: How do you stay motivated for school?

Fear

40. Fri. March 5: What is your favorite vice?

? icecream i guess??

43. Mon. March 8: Planner, bullet journal or?

I write out to do lists of what i need to do the rest of the day

44. Tue. March 9: To- do list!

Tomorrow’s to do list:

watch my lecture

take the quiz for the lecture

submit at least one scholarship

45. Wed. March 10: Hydration station, how are you hydrating today?

I’m making a big pot of tea in the morning and taking it to work in my thermos

46. Thur. March 11: have you ever tried a study tracker?

Yeah but I don’t use it consistently - it’s a nice motivator tho

47. Fri. March 12: When was the last time you really treated yourself?

about an hour ago I had a bunch of chips and salsa and a bit of fudge

50. Mon. March 15: Halfway! Goal check in how are you doing?

School wise I’m doing okay but mentally/emotionally I’m really not okay but I’m managing i guess

51. Tue. March 16: Share your to read list!

OOOF you don’t want to see it it’s sooooo long. I’m constantly adding as I hear about new books and I think I’ve had this list running for two years. here’s a few tho:

the song of achilles

Florence Welsh’s poetry

The Last Man

Peter Pan

Ella Enchanted

51 planets to see before the collapse of the universe (a blog)

When You Finish Saving the World (an audiobook by Jesse Eisenberg)

Asuncion (a play by Jesse Eisenberg)

Absolution by Ramona Meisel (@/ibuzoo here on tumblr)

it goes on and on

52. Wed. March 17: Share what you have read!

Since the school year started I read:

Frankenstein

Rich Dad Poor Dad (for school)

How to Win Friends and Influence People (for school)

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (the second worst book I’ve ever read, also for school)

This Is How You Lose the Time War

currently reading

Interview with the Vampire (audiobook)

the Picture of Dorian Grey

Dracula (book club)

Dune (other book club)

53. Thur. March 18: Shameless self promo! Drop your handles!

@broveletters on instagram

54. Fri. March 19: Any new goals?

I’m trying to get back on using habitica because it helps me have a balanced day so i can get more things done instead of spending my whole day on one thing

57. Mon. March 22: What are you grateful for today?

my parents, my stuffed animals (I shamelessly love them okay?), youtube

58. Tue. March 23: What are you proud of yourself for?

I did everything on my bare minimum to do list today and I did a billion dishes

59. Wed. March 24: Favorite sweet?

peanut m&ms

60. Thur. March 25: What makes you happy?

It’s been hard to find things to be happy about lately because my graduation got canceled and we aren’t even having a zoom one or anything - I’ve been looking forward to this for years and years. Also I miss my friends a lot and I try to reach out to them to stay in contact but they don’t do it back they don’t even respond half the time so i think they got tired of me but i don’t know why and so i don’t have any friends anymore besides one but he’s an online friend so it’s sad that i won’t be able to meet him for at least a year

that said um

i really don’t know

i have things that give me comfort but i can’t think of anything that brings me happiness

61. Fri. March 26: What are your strengths?

doing things well. it may take me ages and i may put it off to the last minute but i put everything i have into it and make sure it is as near perfect as possible

64. Mon. March 29: What is your weakness?

procrastination and lack of structure/forgetting about things and focusing all my energy on other things

#study challenge

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officialcolumbiauniversity · 7 years

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48 Hours In The Life

Now that I’ve settled into a routine for school, well into my second month of sophomore year, I’d like to bring to you, inspired by @college-advice, 48 Hours In the Life of a Columbia Student. While my journal entries do indeed tell what I’m doing every few days or so, I tend to focus on particularly notable things that happened that day. This serves to delineate every single thing that happens on a typical Monday and Tuesday, the good, the bad, the dreary, and the absolutely typical aspects of my life here. And because classes are twice a week, Mondays and Tuesdays are a good impression of my whole week. So, let’s start with Monday.

Monday

7:00 AM--I wake up. I set an alarm across my room to wake me up at 7 AM sharp, every day, in case I want to work out that day. Usually my first appointment of the day is never before 10 AM, so 7 always gives me ample time to shower when I get back. I take long showers.

9:30 AM--I wake up. I decided to not go to the gym today so I fell back asleep.

10:30 AM--I get out of bed after having quite literally spent an hour on my phone. Not healthy, I know, but it’s quite comforting just scrolling through Facebook videos, even if I’m not actually watching them.

I go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, and wash my face. I have to bring a hand towel bc my dorm doesn’t have hand dryers OR paper towels.

11:30 AM--After having wasted the majority of this last hour eating cereal I got from JJ’s for breakfast and watching Youtube videos, I’m out the door to catch the 1 train. I’ve got work today!

11:45 AM--I arrive at work. Being a bit early to work means I get to see who the tour guides are for the 12 PM tour time, as well as who’s working the desk and how many people came in for a tour today. So far this year, no more than 50 people have ever collectively showed up for one tour on any day other than Fridays.

Work is always the highlight of my week. I get to talk to a coworker, help visitors out, and do homework. I even get to eat at desk sometimes. Today my supervisor calls me into her office so I can explain my timesheet, and we sort things out. I don’t get in any trouble. Coworker (who honestly deserves a better nickname on this blog) and I talk about relationship drama--not that there is much. He’s dating a guy from Juilliard and together they are unstoppable.

3:00 PM--I notice that I forgot to get a substantial lunch. I would normally get a sandwich from Uris deli because it’s so close, but I just ran out of Dining Dollars, so I head to JJ’s (again) and grab an omelette and some fries.

5:00 PM--The office closes for the day. However, Coworker and I are assigned to give an after-hours tour to some business execs. Idk. But we wait.

5:30 PM--We’re supposed to meet them now but they’re nowhere to be found. Turns out they’re still upstairs. Which is a problem because I originally thought this tour wouldn’t go past 6, bc I have class. Orgo, to be specific.

6:00 PM--The tour starts. I’m def skipping orgo. #putting all this on my timesheet for #more pay~

6:40 PM--The tour’s about to end, and Coworker and I are co-leading. This last stop was Havemeyer actually, so after the stop ends I leave Coworker to wrap up the tour as I book it to class, thirty minutes late.

7:25 PM--Class ends. I wasn’t paying any attention and kind of regret it. But it was because I was trying to study for the quiz in half an hour.

7:50 PM--I arrive early to recitation after chilling in the NoCo library on my phone. For some reason these two kids are always here in class before me.

8:10 PM--Recitation starts and I’m already wishing it was over. But the quiz goes smoothly, and afterwards the TA clarifies some stuff and then starts teaching us the most recent chapter again. Even though it’s redundant I love it because she explains things much more succinctly than the professor does. It’s like the sparknotes of lecture.

9:00 PM--We out. The lampposts on campus make me feel oddly alone even though it’s only 9 PM, but not lonely in any way. It gives me the impression that the night has already come to an end, and it takes real effort to go back to studying for tomorrow instead of just turning in.

9:20 PM--Back home I quickly grab my charger and study materials before the impulse to sleep gets any larger. Thankfully Golden has already texted me agreeing to meet at Butler library soon, so I have someone to not disappoint. We head into Butler and start working.

Today I’ve got two music theory assignments to finish, a response to a book to write for CC, and a little advance studying for my chem midterm next week to get started on. I decide to put off the MT assignments for tomorrow, work on Tumblr posts, and do a little bit of chem.

12:00 AM--I’m still an old man at heart so I say goodnight to Golden (she’ll be up until about 5 AM), head home for the last time, take a shower, brush my teeth, and fall asleep. The last things I do before bed is write about my day and drink a glass of water. I’ve already turned on my alarm for 7 AM.

Tuesday

7 AM--I’m up.

8 AM--I’m up for real. I forgot to mention this yesterday but I usually spend about 30 minutes reviewing my planner and writing out a daily to-do list on a sticky note. Helps me feel put-together. I could go work out, but I stretch and choose to split my time between my bed and my chair. Cardio, right? Today’s a little more rushed, as I have a 10:10 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I know I won’t ever get to class unless I’m already on campus for like an hour. So I’m out the door by 9 and grab a bagel sandwich from John Jay for breakfast.

9:11 AM--I arrive on campus and try to find some place to get work done. Today I end up in the Visitor’s Center. I actually finish my CC homework for today. I have physics in an hour.

10:10 AM--Class starts. The professor is barely 30 and he’s kinda bonkers. Last class he tried to explain gravity to us by shooting a stuffed monkey down from the ceiling with a rifle.

11:25 AM--Class ends and I have a break before Music Theory so I head to Schapiro to finish up the compositions.

1:00 PM--Music Theory starts in ten minutes so I head over. I realize on the way there that I forgot to get lunch, which makes me mildly annoyed.

2:25 PM--I go to JJ’s to get some snacks that will count as lunch for today. I sit on the lawns and work my way through an Uncrustable and get some work done. I would normally be working on CC homework because I never do it, but today I’ve got free time so I read some physics.

4:10 PM--I’ve got Ear Training. A great class, but it’s only an hour long and I wish it were longer. Basically all we do is work on sight-singing and rhythm dictation. If being a music major only consisted of learning complex rhythms, I would be so happy.

5:00 PM--Class has ended. I head to Starr library to take a nap.

6:10 PM-- I head to CC. Today’s class is about Aquinas, some guy who was deeply invested in defending Catholicism from Muslims and was heavily inspired by Aristotle. I realize halfway through the class that I didn’t know there were two assigned readings, and I only read one of them. But for the first half of class I am incredibly useful to the conversation.

My professor is a round, clearly gay man who flaunts his homosexuality at every passing chance. He sometimes cold-calls people to answer questions, but those questions are never directly about the text and for that I am grateful. He steers conversation in a remarkably efficient way, and I never feel like I haven’t talked about a topic I really wanted to talk about. I hated this class at the beginning of the semester but now I’ve come to like it.

8:00 PM--Class is done for the day, and the second I step out of Hamilton I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Tuesday and Thursday nights are like my Fridays in the middle of the week; I can breathe a little bit, and not worry about impending responsibilities until the next morning. So I head home with a spring in my step. I decide to walk home instead of taking the subway.

I get home and decide to put off studying since I don’t have anything actually due tomorrow. I work a bit on this article I’m writing for The Spectator and FaceTime a guy I’m seeing. He’s interning for J.P. Morgan this coming summer. It’s a shame we’re not dating because why be rich when you can marry rich, you feel me? But I’m not looking for a relationship right now. So I end the call after about an hour, finish up my draft and send it to Co-worker, who has written a ton of articles for Spec and is my most trusted editor. He gives me feedback, and by this time it’s about 11 PM so I go take a shower and turn in for the night.

#columbia journal entry #IP #info post #a day in the life #day in the life #48 hours in the life #columbia student #college student

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hyperballadofthesenses · 5 years

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a little too interested...

To Preface:

I’m a generally confused person in terms of being able to figure out social cues, and therefore most of my friends are either eccentric people my age or older adults. It’s kind of always been that way. I’m also a bit of a loner because of this. Keep that in mind.

So:

There's this freshman writing course at my university, and everyone is required to take it. It's sort of thematic and can vary in terms of theme depending on what you're interested in. I'm really into the arts in theory and practical work, and so I took an art-themed writing course my freshman year, as expected. The professor is a really cool, laid back guy (I don’t know how old he is). He sort of is a bit detached and comes off as a shy, quiet person some times. The poor guy is given a painfully boring curriculum and you can tell through the smiles that he is actually quite unhappy with his work. Because of this drone and his veiled disinterest in teaching such a drab curriculum to students after students, I kind of made this inside joke with my friends where we'd imitate him giving lectures.

I found that he was really overly harsh on my work in the first semester when I had his class. He would tell me my paper looked near-perfect and would give me a B+/A- while everyone else was making easy A's. I worked so hard on my final paper and earned an A- when I wholeheartedly felt like I deserved an A. I showed the paper around to my friends and they all said it was a solid, comprehensive essay. I confronted him and said that I thought he was being unfair, and he gave me all the contact info of people who could I could contact so as to report him for unfair treatment of a student.

What?

He was always super nice to everyone, and always cared about students' interests and would give them links to articles or magazines if there was something in there on their topic or interest in general. It honestly was all perfectly normal, though one day I found myself having lunch with him in the dining hall where he went after class one day. He was a bit shy and awkward, though he noticed I had a Beatles bag and liked old movies and suddenly he opened up and we talked for quite some time.

I don't specifically remember what happened since I had to be hospitalized due to my chronic illness, but this semester really was a fucking insane whirlwind. See, he lectures in another film class of mine (I'm a film major specializing in theory and aesthetics, and he lectures about films specifically), and we'd often get to talking about favorite films. He would give me recommendations and slowly he began to stop and engage in more and more and more chats with me whenever he saw me. We have probably had 5+ meals together as of now. He has never given any students so much attention as I've seen. I was honestly flattered.

I should also mention that ALL of the films he picked out for me were highly sexually explicit and super pornographic even. Like tons of genitals and BDSM, etc. I had no idea he had it in him, frankly.

He would even "cut class" to talk to me and ask me about how I was doing, what I've been listening to, watching, etc. Still, I thought we were just really into the same stuff and were having fun together. One day he cut his own class for 40 minutes to show me his DVD collection in his office, and then went to "survey" the dorm kitchen which I had been compulsively cleaning earlier., and he asked me about how I liked to tidy, what my dorm room looked like...

He gave me a bunch of DVDs, and suddenly he opened up about his childhood and his anxiety about being a good father to his six-year-old. He said that he really wanted to talk to me about the films and that I was welcome to come to his office at any time. He kept complimenting me about pretty much everything, and I had the tiniest bit of a crush on him too so it was all flattering (so I’d say I’m like 90% gay as of now). He has never once spoken to me about his wife, though I have heard him talk about her to other people quite loudly (within earshot, I assume intentionally).

Cut to our weekend arts trip down south of the state. Our itinerary was to visit tons of museums and see concerts, plays, etc. The entire trip he would make an effort to be near me. He was pretty much following me everywhere, though he clearly was trying to be discreet about it. One day, I was heading off with two of my friends to get lunch from a food truck, and he followed us all the way there. He was interrogating me about my summer, who my friends were, what music I've been listening to, what films I've been watching, etc, etc, etc.

My friends were walking a bit ahead and he suddenly leaned over and asked me:

"So, what's the party scene here at (insert university name here)?"

And so I jokingly said that it sucked and no one had anything decent except vodka. He went on and on talking about what he was like when he was "my age", describing in so much detail how he would get wasted and wander city streets with his roommates. Then, he asked me:

"Do you smoke? I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a stoner, but... I try to smoke or have some special treats at least twice a week, you know?" Oh my god…

So we had a conversation about what weed he liked, the funny names of his dealers, and where he gets it now. I later had to tell him that I'd keep it secret, and he blushed and looked totally freaked out. He would totally get fired if anyone found out he was basically implying to a student that he wanted to smoke with them.

He asked me how I spend my summers (now twice, actually), if I'm going to be in the area, and when I said I worked as a nanny he basically interrogated me about my childhood and told me stories from his childhood (like VERY personal stories such as how his parents' divorce impacted him). I ended up telling him that I have a chronic illness and doing little things are very painful, and he went into hawk mode and constantly offered to help me out. He told me about his ex-girlfriends and kind of casually asked about my relationship history, during which I told him I was a lesbian (not 100% true, maybe 90%), but he still wouldn't back off. I also mentioned that I can't have kids because of my illness (it's totally invisible, by the way), he got really sad for me and tried to console me, almost aggressively, actually.

When we went to a museum he said that he picked this one because he "knew I'd like it".

He would constantly try to engage in conversation with me or keep me in his periphery. He was just this kind of constant looming presence. He would always be in my museum tour group, he would always eat at the same place or nearby. He would follow me to shops and try to act nonchalant about it. At the airport waiting area heading back to school, he sat directly across from me even though I was tucked away from everyone else trying to read. He took out his book after I did, and LITERALLY copied me every time I crossed my legs or leaned forward slightly. I would catch him staring up at me from time to time, though he would immediately look away. Anytime I would talk with any other students who came by, he was watching me like a hawk as I interacted with them. When I said I had a headache and needed Advil (I didn't ask him for it, I asked another student), he basically flung into action and pulled out an array of medicines and other general stuff.

I have told two friends about this, both of whom think the weed thing is hysterical. They're both in awe about how much attention he gives me, as they both think he's cool and kind of vaguely have crushes on him as well (they're both gay guys). I should also mention that he's genuinely a decently good-looking guy. My friends are also both a little concerned and creeped out on my behalf.

After the trip, things were very awkward. He kept looking over at me and when I told him I had the DVDs to give back he turned white as a sheep and just nodded and hurried away. Then he tried to awkwardly talk to me about whether I liked them in the hall… Something weird is up. He recently told me that he’s really excited to watch my final presentation for his class.

Is he really lonely? Maybe. Am I some kind of weird embodiment of some kind of ex-girlfriend or something? Maybe. Any inputs, observations would be well appreciated.

This has been on my mind for a while, as I’m seeing him for (maybe) the last time on Monday. I might end up taking his class next year since it’s in my major, but it depends on whether I get in or not. He sent me all this info about how he wants me to be in it... it’s all really confusing. Is he being nice or is he interested in a problematic way?

The weirdest part of this all is that we honestly have a good time together and have the same interests. To be honest, I’d be down to smoke with him and hang out with him some more. I think he’s lonely. I am just wondering what his angle here is.

#entry 4 #relationship confusion #anyone?#professor #professor student relationship #what the fuck is this dynamic #are we going to be friends? and what does that even mean at this point

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zipgrowth · 5 years

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How to Move From Digital Substitution to ‘Deeper Learning’

Replacing VHS tapes with YouTube clips is probably not the ideal version of moving a classroom into the 21st century.

While that type of digital substitution may tick the boxes of education technology frameworks like SAMR, it doesn’t always provide an opportunity for deep thinking and real-world learning.

So how do teachers actually create meaningful work and allow students real agency in a 21st century classroom?

EdSurge talked with Scott McLeod, associate professor of education leadership at the University of Colorado in Denver. He’s the author of “Harnessing Technology for Deeper Learning,” which explores how his “four shifts” protocol can help educators test whether their practices and pedagogies support the goals of learning in the digital age.

Listen to the discussion on this week’s EdSurge On Air podcast. You can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen.

The highlights below have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity (the best experience is the audio, so subscribe to the EdSurge On Air podcast wherever you listen).

EdSurge: Why did you write this book, and what did you learn from it?

McLeod: One of the things we’re seeing is that a number of school systems now have these lofty 21st-century learning mission and vision statements and initiatives. They want their students to be critical thinkers, problem solvers,communicators, collaborators and globally fluent.

And then we start mixing in some of the social and emotional learning and all kinds of newer conversations and desired outcomes. The challenge is translating that into day-to-day practice. So I do a lot of work with schools all around the world and I see numerous places where they have these wonderful, visionary, forward-thinking mission statements and visions and then you walk in the classroom and it looks pretty much like it did 15, 20, 30 or 40 years ago.

Take me into a school that you’ve seen and describe that distance—between what leaders hope to do, and what the practice actually is.

We still see a lot of traditional practice. You’re walking down the halls of the school, and you’ll see a lot of teacher up front driving the learning, rather than student-directed learning. There might be teacher lecture, might be textbook-driven work. We do a lot of digital substitutions, so a lot of schools think they are doing more future-ready work simply because they insert technology into their process, but it’s basically just the digital counterparts to the analog work. So the teacher used to lecture up front with a chalkboard; now it happens with a $3,000 interactive whiteboard. You used to hand out a paper worksheet; now you’re downloading a document in Google docs and typing into it and submitting it back to your teacher in Google Classroom.

We used to watch VHS tapes on the television. Now we are watching a YouTube video, so the pedagogy hasn’t changed that much. The technologies that we see taking off in most schools are the ones that closely replicate traditional institutional practice because they are the ones we can latch on to the most easily. They are the ones that disrupt our teaching and learning the least.

So there’s this theory called SAMR, which is substitution, augmentation, modification and then finally redefinition.

Basically replication and transformation.

There is this idea that we have to climb up a scale. But isn’t it hard to climb up that scale? Do people know how to move from, “Okay, I’m using my whiteboard just like that chalkboard” to being more thoughtful about what this means?

Well the challenge with SAMR, which is sort of the dominant framework for K-12 schools right now, is that it’s a technology continuum, not a learning continuum.

In other words, the highest level of SAMR means that you’re using technology to do things you couldn’t otherwise do before. But you can do that, and it’d still be low-level learning. So take an activity like Mystery Skype for example. Mystery Skype is an activity where two classrooms try to guess each others’ location within 20 questions. So that’s actually not very deep learning.

It’s fun, and it’s engaging, and the technology allows you to connect to that other classroom somewhere else in real-time, which you couldn’t do before. So it’s high on the SAMR. But ultimately you just spent 50 minutes and you spent 50 to 60 kids’ time guessing each other’s location.

So let’s take that activity. Can we make that activity a deeper learning experience, or is that one a bit of a dead end?

No, we can. That’s what the book is all about. So the book introduces our “four shifts” protocol, and the idea is that if you want deeper learning to happen, if you want student agency to happen, if you want authentic work to happen, and if you want rich technology and infusion to happen as a lever to make those first three things occur, then the protocol can maybe help us accomplish that.

So we would take the Mystery Skype, for example, and we would look at the deeper-learning section, and we would ask the questions as diagnostics and we would say, for example, what evidence do we have? We always focus on claims and evidence. So if you’re going to say critical thinking is present in this activity, where is it? If you’re going to say that metacognition is present in this activity, where is it?

So the deeper learning section of the protocol has a collection of questions that you can ask yourself as diagnostics and then say, if we’re trying to make deeper learning happen in this activity, where is it? And if it’s not there, can we start redesigning toward those?

And hopefully with some colleagues, or an instructional coach, principal or tech integrationist, or somebody who can bounce some ideas around. So the idea is that we run down this set of questions in the deeper-learning section about Mystery Skype and see that most of our questions are answered “no.”

What if we want a couple of those answers to be yes? How can we redesign this activity to get there? So now all of a sudden, we’d do things like, instead of them asking each other yes or no questions, we would maybe have them collaborate on shared issues in their communities. So now all of a sudden they’re doing collaborative problem solving rather than merely guessing each others’ location.

So, in other words where Mystery Skype is entirely focused on yes-or-no questions, I might be asking a series of questions, maybe around, what’s the water like in your community?

No, so we would actually have an authentic, meaningful dialogue with the other class. Instead of asking just yes-or-no questions, and we would identify some shared problems that both of our communities have and then we would get to work on those. Maybe collaborative work teams that spanned both classrooms. So now I’ve got two kids in classroom A working with two kids in classroom B and they’re working on, say, how can we address water quality issues in our community? And then two other kids in classroom A are working with three other kids in classroom B and their issue is, how do we decrease the number of people who are hungry in our community. It’s meaningful work.

So the transformation, in this example, would not be just guess your location. Let’s actually work together on meaningful work. So we transform the task to something that’s more authentic.

You said there were four shifts. Can you tell us quickly what those shifts are?

Yes, so one of them is the shift from recall and regurgitation to deeper learning or higher-level learning.

So that’s what we were just talking about.

Yeah. The second shift would be the shift from teacher- and system-directed work to more student agency, where students have the opportunity to have more control and ownership of their own learning path so they really become those lifelong learners we say we want.

The third shift is around authenticity of the work, so that instead of being isolated, disconnected classrooms, how do we connect kids to the real world around them—locally, globally, digitally—so that they stop asking us why they need to know things and why they need to care about things that we ask them to do. Because now they see those connections, meaning and relevance.

Then the fourth shift is the shift from analog to digital, and that’s important because the information landscape is so different these days. But it’s also important because you can do deeper and more authentic work and give kids agency with tech in ways that you simply can’t with analog spaces.

You’ve developed these ideas through your work with schools. How many schools have you been in?

Hundreds, thousands.

Tell me one story that you’ve seen, perhaps one school that you’ve worked with that has made this journey. What were they like and where did they go?

So one of my favorite schools is called Iowa Big. It’s in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.Students spend half their day at Iowa Big and half the day at their mothership high school. When they’re at Iowa Big, they’re working on projects that come from their community, such as local nonprofits, government agencies or local companies that basically say, we have things that we want to get done. Projects that we want to accomplish. They then put some high school youth on these tasks. . And it’s in this amazing place where kids are redesigning schools with local architects. They’re building aquatic drones. They’re creating utensils for amputees. They’re creating the community’s first entrepreneurship conference for girls and women. I mean, just all these sorts of authentic community projects where the kids get a chance to do real-world work, side by side, with people in the community, as a complement to their more ordinary school experiences at their mothership high school.

Last question: How does this work from a teacher’s point of view? We’ve heard a lot of talk recently about there are teachers that jump into this and they can’t wait to do this. Then there are teachers who think, “Oh, my God. This is a lot of work. I’m changing all my practices. Do I really need to go down this path?” Tell me a little bit about the spectrum of teachers.

I think we always have a few teachers who are ready to jump in immediately and go. I think you have that next group of teachers who might be interested but doesn’t know how. And of course you have the small group of skeptics who aren’t very interested at all.

The biggest challenge for teachers is really around the dynamics of agency. More than anything else, that seems to be the sticking point—whether or not we want to give up control and hand it over to our students. It’s sort of about control and ownership and agency over what you do, and we violate that on an hourly basis in every school, everywhere. And so it’s about this idea that we have to turn things over to kids and let them drive their learning and make mistakes because it’s part of the process, instead of controlling everything so tightly [because] we just have these freakish control needs where we’re unwilling to let our students actually drive their own learning process.

But when we do, it’s always, always amazing.

How to Move From Digital Substitution to ‘Deeper Learning’ published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

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joyfullyimportantyouth-blog · 7 years

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Tell me a story: Yoga Abroad

It had been a long day since the Argentinian had MIA-ed into the sunset, leaving me groping for serenity that very long Wednesday before yoga teacher training was to begin. "Allo!" The hostel owner who everyone called "Daddy" chimed as I shuffled from my porch to my moped. Damn. I wanted something herbed to counterbalance my lunch of nerves and tempeh and air. Ten more minutes till I was expected to be at the Shala for what would be either a savasana cocktail of celebrity rehab or an om orgasm with taut Nordic goddesses who probably moonlighted as amber-infused Bhagavagita sexologists. I was gonna take my gamble and go find out after shelling out the skrilla G's in a moment of BLANKKKKK upheaval one hungover morning in Bangkok just two weeks prior. Time to smatter my Traggae Surf hostel wall with Giselle Bunchden and "Touch Yourself, Ganesh Offspring" quotes.

I decided to walk and observe everything to get into the practice of being "authentically mindful." It took me 3 times of listening to Yo Gotti's "Act Right" before I reached the tranquil wood sign of "Yoga Searcher, Uluwatu, Bali." There was a happy Buddha emblazoned on the coinage that I had arrived to find myself. Skeptical, a little. Facetious, no… it just dawned on me and probably a million times before that I could be the anti-christ to these types of programs. I'd always simultaneously cringed and fawned over the "yoga gurl" pics insta kept on titillating rotation: yoga gurl stretching into some fantastical bridge position, her bronzed bod entwined with an inspirational quote of having "found inner peace" in Peru. "Yoga gurl" sipping out of a chlorophyll coconut like it was the most delicious double-shot of patron that she'd ever guzzled. "Yoga gurl" beaming at her dreaded washboard abs surfer boyfriend, congratulating her graduation with matching sun and moon tattoos and the coordinates of where they'd once met at a surfer ashram.

Why was I here? Did I want to be yoga gurl? Textbook guilty. It was time to reinvent after spending far too much time withdrawn into a shell of "the post-grad life." I could've just bought a $30 insurance covered therapy session a few times a week with a frumpily dressed yet moderately compassionate shrink but nooooo, no no no... I had to go to BALI to talk about problems and laugh with nonchalance when I realized that my hair salty and my toes so tanned meant the world was so fine now, so fine. I could envision my previous selves clustering together to meet about this cosmic life transition, sharing kombucha while wondering where the wine and whiskey was hidden, rumpling a NYTimes paper to a Jay Z banger, reflecting then brushing off the meanderings with "oh, please, let's just say fuck it and do it. It'll be a great story." Indeed. I wandered up to the Shala, the grass seeming to emanate inner peace itself as it swayed by the infinity pool, inviting the gorgeous participants to "let that shit go." Beautiful women in flowing bohemian glory wandered up the steps, not breaking a sweat in the 90 degree sun, their smiles like sumptuous macca whirling in a sea of boison berries. "Welcome," one of our instructors, Amy, greeted us. I loved her immediately. Her hair was a fiery crown of auburn and she had a septum and her voice was as soothing as dark chocolate dashed in Jameson; when she said "gra" in her Irish lilt I wondered why Hozier hadn't married her already.

We all settled into our crimson pillows and were told to interview a partner so we could learn, embrace, introduce, get to know each other. My partner, Rebecca, was a holistic wunderkind platonic supermodel with a dash of sass who I assumed could do the splits with the conviction of the Dalai Lama's blessing. When it came time to go around the circle, she read my answers as I challenged myself to unravel from a painful expression of half-lotus that I could definitely not do: "Isabelle loves the color black, Bobby Shmurda club bangerz, painting, reading. She is currently traveling on her own for three months and has no expectations of what her experience will be here. She just wants to learn how to breathe and connect with parts of herself that she feels like she has lost." Goddamn, I wanted to cry for myself. Thank god everyone going around the circle wasn't set on this teacher track, they just wanted some expensive therapy with prayer beads and Shiva and all that. There would undoubtedly be the Eat Pray Lover who had found her moksha in India and in her rose-smelling coitus, but om mani padmi om to her.

I had always loved yoga, but like with everything else, I tended to conceptualize the whole experience into a tangent web of intellectualized thoughts and associations. Or inappropriate metaphors. I loved the feeling of the actual exercise, but all of this head business made it so that it was an experience outside of me usually; the spirituality had not yet caught me, although that was why I was precisely in Bali at the golden temple shala at that very moment. I wanted a jolt and so I was going to throw caution to the wind with a degree of control based on the internet's blessing of great reviews of women who were trying to do the same thing as me at yoga retreats and teacher trainings abroad. I'd felt like I'd been unraveling for a bit already, so decluttering some of the mess seemed beyond essential and spiritual tourism was what I thought would be quite the graceful quick fix.

The next few weeks turned into an amalgamation of self-discovery and trying to do certain asana positions and also some penetrating flares of frustration but also laughter at the absurdity of some "unfoldings." Every morning started at 5:30 am in the shala, which meant rolling out of bed and spraying myself with delicious DEET at 5:10 AM before sauntering out the door to walk with my neighborhood bombshells, Greta (from Wisconsin) and Becks (from Norway). Thankfully, Becks and I would sprint back to "Daddy" come 7:30 AM to guzzle buttloads of delish Balinese coffee while commiserating about how our hips couldn't open and yet how we loved Dipa's lectures on the feminine and the masculine merged into perception within the concept of the 8 folds of yoga. After this ritual I would usually blare Schoolboy Q and practice twrking (always come prepared) for a solid 40 minutes before going back to the shala for some alignment where I prayed that we would have partner massage sessions that would make my celibate self feel some firing synapses.

I found some soul sistahs in my atypical American peers. Erin and I found each other at the next door warung when she explained how she wanted some body bounce and less namestes. She became #1 woe. She is the baddest bitch of them all, especially when we listened to E-40 by the pool and she claimed in-person basis with the bay's pride and glory. And she worked at Twitter and claimed a title in an Aussie wet t-shirt contest and has traveled the whole world and is an acclaimed blogger. And would do neck shots of tequila with me. We became each other's co-dependent trap queens at the local Single Fin club. Thank god I wasn't in love while I was incorporating into this yogini program. Instead I meditated on everything I was looking for and why I was alone and why I was so ecstatic to be single (until 10 pm). It was like a study abroad for starving yourself on green juice and breathing and all I had to do was make decisions for me. My agenda was to get everything out of my system, although that comes at a cost: because then you actually discover yourself. And that can be... hard. But necessary. I realized I was a whole person and so was everyone else no matter what point in life they were at. Basically, yoga teacher training is like a caftan clad sorority who hold a cave open for worshipping Jack Johnson and period moon goddess parties. The worst part was feeling simultaneously annoyed and a little crestfallen that I couldn't cry post-meditation while others sobbed about varying levels of tragedy and spontaneous emotion. It was as if a little Eagle perched on my soul and clawed at any inkling of a tear. I cried when the nutritionist talked about how her old friends who drank cheap wine and smoked cigs didn't accept her newfound love affair with kale and B12 shots. Figures.

On a lighter note, I would check my Tinder abroad after an arduous day of leg flexing. Here is what I found that led me to keep doing downward dog to soul search and not find men.

Not too savory. But I would often wash away the unsightlyness of it all with a good ol' gin and tonic with the American girls, especially after getting our yoga certificates in our crocheted crop tops. One interesting note: Americans cannot accept awards without looking like complete douche bags. We all joked about it afterwards that the four of us couldn't make heartfelt speeches like the fellow Europeans did. We just collect those trophies like candies, stating after the acceptance, "yeah, thanks guys, love you" as a token of our appreciation. Point of relation, apparently.

The whole yoga experience has made wonder what acceptance is other than just where you are right now. It's also made me curious as to how it is apart of the woman I hope to be or already am. I mostly feel humbled and grateful for the women I got to know for a solid month straight x 1000 hypothetical days of deep talks. And for the times that I wondered about who I was; well, that will continue, and so will the sideways splits of discovering bad-assness that yoga training taps you into. I was gonna write a blog on travel tips and then I ended up writing a blog on inappropriate metaphors. Because that's just me.

#yogaeverydamnday #balilife #tinder #millenials #backpackingseasia

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autoirishlitdiscourses · 7 years

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Discourse of Friday, 12 May 2017

You're welcome! The email addresses on the paper. Note that I think that the extra credit from your knowledge periodically and reinforce it by 10 a. You have very perceptive comments in here, but need to be changed than send a new follower on Twitter. 5% on the final exam/except in genuinely extraordinary circumstances. I'll see you in section as a whole is 26 lines. Except for the quarter; and/or complex discussions about course material and the purest and most valuable form of fishing boat. I forget: Do you need to be sent home with no explanation of the more obvious is to lead from the text you'd selected.

I have to pick it up, I think is a clear and explicit about why the comparison is worth/an additional viewpoint on your politics, and you really have done some very perceptive reading of Godot is already closed. As you probably still have a more natural-appearing and impassioned delivery. You dealt very well. Let me know. And your writing is quite a good job of setting them next to each section that you gave them a few people who have written—I think that the video recording of his lecture pace rather than the theoretical maximum. Engaging in a productive choice, and your readings of a letter grade boost, but rather that texts should be set against each other would help you to discuss it without help, as well as in life in Switzerland would be helpful. Several new documents have been declared in writing a draft, but will try to recall what information there is a minor inconvenience. That's OK sometimes it's necessary to argue at this point, nor does it necessarily as bad as it could have been concerned about your topic, I would be the sign of maturity, and if you have a thesis statement is so as to avoid large amounts of repetition of an A-for the kind words. I can give you an add code, which is rather tricky to do with the paper to pay off the most basic issues if you have previously been attending but not spectacular audio capabilities; if this happens, you have a number of points. 40 _3, if you have a strong conclusion that ties together multiple strands you've been weaving or near the end of this is, I suspect are likely to be helpful. I haven't yet or you don't schedule immediately, but I think that you check your knowledge of Irish Airman Foresees His Death Yeats, The Stare's Nest again so that its purpose should be killed by the previous presenters for providing an introduction to things that are close together. This is especially true if you have any questions, please let me know if you are quite strong. Who has made the largest overall benefit to the group as a way that shows you paid close attention to small-scale course concerns and did a particularly good selection, in this response. Hawthorn is also potentially a very reduced set of ideas here, I can help you to stretch your presentation, I'm very sorry to take the exam! Have a good reading of the beautiful little gem that is necessary to start writing to figure out what that is productive overall. Do you have any questions, OK? Though it was understood both closer to being caught up on reading will probably make some very good ideas by going back through the writing process is a rather diffuse concept of Irish nationalism in The Butcher Boy, and you keep an eye on the table and people were holding up the image properties, then the smart thing to happen here, I think that having a different time. I remember myself how hard you've been describing. Remember that you whould need to ground your analysis is will pay off fully. Even if the section website:.

Just a reminder that you may have about any of the text itself and to use the texts that you're perhaps reading more into the discussion in a close-reading exercise. So I think that O'Casey's portrayal of Rosie is perhaps one that he will generally emphasize sections that he's talked about in this paper are borrowed from other students in relation to your analysis are. Many students are doing a large number of ways, and what the larger context of other cultural changes in many small ways, this is. Again, I'm suggesting that you might, of course! Ultimately, what do you think it's very fair way. It all depends on a specific analytical claim would help you to construct a nuanced reading of a combination that would be to spend more time on the midterm. Again, well done overall. Very well done, and that, with answers and notes on areas in which they engage. However, I myself tend to have a more specific about what it needs to happen differently for this to everyone who was it only Hynes. It turns out, but that you explicitly look for ways to narrow it down. The/discussion, either in linking to the connections that support your effort to say that I still crossed out the reminder email far enough or in his work Rope and People I; The Passage from Virgin to Bride. Whoops, there's also absolutely nothing wrong with only picking, say, because I think that your basic idea is good for your audio/visual text, you did quite an impressive move on its own interests while staying on task. I think might have been of concern in the context of conversations about Irish nationalism, depending on to question its own interests and observations Again, though it might be a stronger link between the two-minute or so if no one else grabs it. If that absolutely cannot be be received at least suggests to me as quite ugly. Of course,/not/that you don't show that you're going to be more impassioned manner. I gave you is so good, conveying the weirdness of Francie's mental state. I want to put them in your section often doesn't respond to a theoretically supportable level. You picked a good plan going into the perspective of a paper is wonderful in every imaginable way. Is it helpful to have coughed up more abstract and general questions by email or by phone and any other questions, I won't calculate participation until the quarter overall you did a strong step in this particular passage. But ran rather short. Hi! If you can find applications in the future.

I haven't yet read that part is going to give a more natural rhythm. I hope you don't already know her, and you have demonstrated maturity by not only help you bridge into other classes, etc.

For one thing that's like to see Dexter as admirable, and, like I said in a way of discussion that allow you, then you/must/attend or reschedule, and I think that you should make a presentation as a whole is 26 lines. If you have any other questions are related. Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail the John Synge Vocabulary Quiz from October 17, Pokornowski's midterm review. I think, always a productive way. Thank you for doing a genuinely excellent job with this by Sunday night, it may be a very small number of points. You have to fall back on it before, but ultimately, what he says, then you should email me and you've done genuinely strong work on future pieces of writing a strong recitation, you can ameliorate anxiety-producing situations related to each other. You picked a wonderful quarter, so although there's no overlap in your thesis statement make a final answer to something excellent. This site will have to have a backup plan in case time runs out.

I think that incorporating not just of choosing not to cancel my office, and encouraging the group without driving them, paying for their recitation plan in case it's hard to find somewhere else to leave it. If you have some very good selections for your thoughts are often articulated in the course will likely generate more interesting task. Ultimately, I think might have helped you to make a paper at many levels, and it showed.

Everything looks good to me and I think, a fair amount of difficulty. It's absolutely OK with me this long to get at least twelve lines would be for him to accept it by 10 am to avoid that would help you punch through to an oversight: there is also quite graceful and expresses your thought very specifically worded claim about the course discussion section meetings part of how Ireland looks, which would boost your overall argument that better or more of the beautiful little gem that is outstandingly wonderful while contributing to the section, and a punctuation mark. Thraneen p. I think, too. I'm sorry to take so long to get going, including the fact that a reasonable expectation that the music video for the Arnhold Program is a more streamlined fashion there is no outside narrator to give it back to you.

Similarly, having specific plans for your thoughts have developed a great deal more during quarters when students aren't doing a solid job here in a lot of interesting. Again, thank you for the reader or the other hand, I misspelled it. It's completely up to your paper as a study aid for other topics open for nominations:. You engaged the group to agree/disagree rarely produces discussion effectively because closed questions seek immediate resolution. Let me know if you want to recite. Good luck with finals, and that's control for only one of three people who are allowed to run up against is Joyce's lack of motherhood, those who have stereotypes about what the implications of saying that you have any more questions, OK? You demonstrate in a term paper of this will make it difficult for you if you need to do it while you are perfectly capable of tackling it. Pick a few minutes afterwards, and I'll see you in particular from Penelope, is not a statement about this in your key terms more explicitly about what your priorities are if you have to get back to you. Fill in the English Language; Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer.

I liked your presentation. I'll see you all on Wednesday from 6:50 or so if you want to go this week Yeats is not obscene: Why Dexter and not just a moment. You are absolutely fine, and how that sympathy is constructed in the book has that keeps her alive up to your section this week, whether or not this lifts you to be pretty or incredibly detailed, but it's a good student again for being a good idea in concept and well thought-out, but an A-becomes a B-, not worth inhabiting by the time.

Alas, what is the overall goal is to add compliance with that kind of magical faery realm in some particulars from Chris's, and this is difficult in this case, let me know. It all depends on where you want any changes made that are working. Your delivery was quite a strong paper in my other section for you would prepare for your recitation needs to be said about his deceased son. Again, I'm sorry. I think that it would have most needed to make it productive to look at the coin from the Internet, just what I take it; but you already do. My Window 6 p. Got it. These are fairly minor errors didn't hurt your grade should be a more complex than simply recite twelve lines of poetry that anyone has a particular text s involved as closely as it opens up an analytical structure that are not enough: you had a B-. Discussion Notes These notes are absolutely capable of doing even stronger.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #dadadodo

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cosmosogler · 7 years

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hi guys! i got home after 9. so i am six minutes late starting this post. 10:06 i mean.

anyway god dang it! i forgot my dream again. i think i was thinking about math and statistics though. numbers are super hard in dreams though because all the information changes and melts between instants.

i got up at a reasonable time- 7:40. still got out of the shower super late though. i’m not even sure what takes so long! maybe it’s because i brush my teeth and blow dry my hair and everything in that span of time so it’s not just “hopped in the shower at 7:50 and oH GOD IT’S 8:15.”

i tried to have a bigger breakfast than usual- i had a bagel and some bacon i put in the microwave. and a big glass of orange juice. i watched snoopy roll around in a patch of sunlight while i ate.

then i biked to campus a little late. i was super thankful that the light on the busy road happened to turn green right as i approached. if you miss it it’s a 2-minute wait for the next cycle.

i used my lecture notes today when i started the lab period!!! people started working on their labs while i was talking though and i got a little discouraged. i’ll need to ask for feedback over email i think. maybe it’s still good to lecture so that the people who already know what’s going on can get started while the people who are still a little confused have some basis to start from.

some questions really get me turned around though. i feel kinda stupid when i have to check my notes on the lab to answer a question like “but are the forces REALLY always equal and opposite?” because i think i know an exception but really no i don’t. and then i have to explain why there are no exceptions and i try to draw on some experiences as an undergrad ta but i only remember half-sentences and bits of anecdotes and i have to try to string them together into a coherent explanation that is catered toward intro physics courses.

i’m always exhausted afterward. i really give it everything even though i’m not the best ta.

i got scolded by my supervisor for getting suzanne to help me fix one of the computers when i couldn’t find him. what had happened was, i saw him talking to suzanne out the door earlier since the lab is across from the office. when i needed to find him i checked his office first, didn’t find him, and asked suzanne if she knew where he went. when she said the other side of the building she also offered to take a look because she’d been having a couple computer problems too on monday.

but a few problems i did fix myself fairly quickly. i don’t mind troubleshooting, but sometimes i have to stand there and process information and i get quiet and kind of stare into space and don’t move and then i feel dumb because i’m not actually thinking using any words.

maybe those are less “processing” thoughts and more “racing circular” thoughts.

ehhh afterward i went to my lab office hour. one of my students with the computer issues was in there trying to finish. he didn’t though.

during my office session i received an email from the grad advisor. he said every single first year grad student needed to be at a meeting right now. it was the end of my session anyway so i packed up and went over to the office to see if anyone else had caught the email.

they were actually all discussing it with an older graduate student. jennica was scrolling through every email she’s received on the student account to try and find any previous information about the meeting. there was none.

we talked about it for a few minutes before the older grad student went up to talk to him. jennica and harrison and i went to get some lunch and i picked a smoothie up for rebika.

actually that was funny. i asked her what kind she wanted and she said “i don’t know” so i said there were like a hundred and i would have to pick one at random so she better be okay with kale. she said whatever so jennica found an online random number generator.

anyway while we were out we got another email from the grad coordinator. this one was really passive aggressive and sent to the whole department about how no one showed up and the lady making the presentation had “come all the way across campus.”

i said “???” because this was well after the situation had been explained to him. i’m not sure why he was so mean about it when it was his mistake. we had literally never heard about this before and he told us to be there one minute before it started.

eventually suzanne found a reminder for it on her phone. we had to hack it to find out when she had actually set that reminder to give us an idea of where we might have heard about it.

it was during our “graduate welcome” presentation back in the middle of august. it wasn’t written down anywhere. it had just been mentioned in passing and suzanne made a note of it in her phone because it sounded interesting. not because we knew it was required.

my classmates complained that we’d never gotten any reminders for it but i was more annoyed that we hadn’t received any written notification of the event in the first place.

after that we studied a lot. i talked about some problems, fudged some math on the blackboard, and scribbled some stuff down on the homework problems i’d printed.

harrison has started telling me to “stop talking” whenever i say something depressing. jennica picked up on it pretty fast too.

during coffee/cookie time at 3:30 ish i was chatting with one of the upper classmen aboutttt star trek i think it was. i’ve never watched it but i know... enough to talk about it i guess. i ended up having a fun discussion with taylor about the boundary between sci fi and fantasy when he said star wars was the superior sci fi story.

i said it was based on how heavily it leaned thematically on hard science and logic to inform its worldbuilding. taylor said it depended on the setting.

anyway i was talking to the guy and i was maybe talking about how i’d burned myself on my tea and also spilled some on my shirt because i’d burned my face and flinched violently. i said “thank you for listening to my problems” and jennica was all “don’t get her started, oh god, unless you want to be depressed.”

i laughed and said “hey did i ever tell you about the time i broke my ribs?” and that got, i guess, a surprised laugh out of him. jennica gave me a Look. “just kidding, my ribs were too soft to break then,” i said apologetically-but-not-really.

i really relate to that short homestuck comic about dave talking about how his bro would leave him in the ball pit when they went to the store. except the ball pit was a slab of concrete in a dark room.

ok! i said my last prayers for the physics midterm and then at about 5:30 jennica and i played five rounds of love letters, adventure time edition. we were going to 3 wins and it stayed pretty close. i admitted that it’s a lot more active with three players and four gets to be a little too much. she seemed to like it well enough at least.

then at 6:05-ish i dumped all my trail mix in my mouth and turbo biked over to the drc to take my Accommodated Test in their Testing Facility. i almost got hit by a car while i was in the crosswalk. i was crossing at the same time as another bike, but as soon as he was past and i was approaching the end of the road, a driver slammed on the gas and i had to actually for real hard brake. i stared at her as she passed, she made eye contact with me. i don’t know why she did that if she saw me.

guess i’ll just go screw myself.

anyway i got there about fifteen minutes before the test was gonna start. there was trouble with the check-in devices so i was glad i got there early. i had time to get settled and put my stuff away and brush my hair a little bit to get the helmet tangles out.

then i took the test for two and a half hours! i was allotted three, and my classmates had two, so i think i made good use of the extra time and didn’t panic too hard.

i’d felt super sleepy and lethargic all day. the test wasn’t much better. but... i recognized all the problems at least. and i knew how to start all of them. and i had enough time to finish to my satisfaction.

i’m not gonna say i did well on the test. but i did way better than if i hadn’t studied. which is kind of a given, but. i think i tried more study strategies this time and asked for more help and maybe that made a difference. can’t say. i had no particular feeling about it when i looked over my work. i noted where i knew what i was doing and where i’d forgotten something, and where i’d probably made a mistake but had no idea what to do instead, and i really have no idea how i did.

i think biking home right after that though did a lot toward helping me not die of lack of energy. i had to bike up the big hill because of where i was leaving campus. that was ok though, i got up in no time at all! in third gear, even!!!

then i got home, and took out the trash, and devoured an ice cream sandwich, and then made some dinner. and then i sat down at my desk for 20 minutes, did a little e&m homework, sent some emails, and started writing, and then here i am.

five minutes left. i will try to talk about something good about me.

i uh... i was gonna talk about something ta-related but i can’t think of anything right now that i actually like about my method haha.

i’ve made a lot of progress this last week toward finding a study strategy that works for me. i know i have to use more than one of the study style fields to really learn material. two is good, three is better, four is overwhelming. i know that i am learning material on the backburner even if i don’t consciously feel like i understand anything because i look at some problems and i’m like “oh! i know what that is!”

still having trouble remembering relationships between equations. but i think that will get better the more time i spend looking stuff up over and over. like i really Get the yukawa potential and how that one equation basically provides a link between classical mechanics and e&m, and that’s so cool.

tomorrow i’ve got group therapy and it’s SPAGHETTI DAY. AGAIN!!!!!! but i also gotta start studying for that e&m test on friday. i need to figure out how to do that. maybe i will find and talk to adamya since he was helping suzanne the other day.

ok. it is 10:45. i will stop writing now and meditate for a few minutes and then go to bed. i need to get up a few minutes early to pick up a package. i think it is either the rest of my stuff i’ve been trying to get my parents to send for the last month, or it’s the cat food that i’m glad i ordered when i did and not a day later.

later guys, i hope you are well. drink more water.

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