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harriskm · 5 years

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Some College Advice (from a college student)

Some Things I Learned to Help Be a Music Student in College (Before you go)

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Kaila, and I graduated with the CR Class of 2019. I got my AA through Running Start and have loved band since 5th grade. At the time this is written, I am going to Pacific Lutheran University to get a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education, with an endorsement in math.

Most Important Advice: Practice all your music and more, all the time. More on this below.

Even if you don’t think you are going to continue music in college or as a career, practice and play as if you will. Commitment alone can look much better to jobs/colleges and shows dedication.

Being better at music will also over time pay off in other things, like knowing how to keep a steady work/practice schedule and holding yourself accountable. It also is really fun even just recreationally.

For all you know, especially as a high school freshman, your life or career plans may change by the time you are applying to colleges. From middle school to junior year, I wanted to be a lawyer, then had a change of heart at the end of my junior year and wanted to be a music teacher. I didn’t focus enough on music before then because, well, I didn’t have to and I had other things to worry about. My biggest high school regret is not putting my full effort into music even when it wasn’t my future career. The moral here is to keep improving at music no matter what you want to do, because you never know where your life will take you. If nothing else, many colleges give music scholarships to non-music majors, which can make a HUGE difference for your tuition costs.

In no particular order of importance…

· Running Start students/those wanting to go to LCC after high school: You can take private lessons through LCC for elective credits for only $500 each ten-week quarter. You may also be able to get lessons from LCC instructors just as a high school student, but it may cost more, and may depend on the instructor. It never hurts to ask.

· Any high school student that takes any private lessons for their instrument can audition to play in the LCC symphonic band (and I would assume for their choir). This can be with private lessons from an LCC instructor or a third party private teacher. For more information, contact the LCC music department and/or visit the LCC music page https://lowercolumbia.edu/music/index.php

· College music is much more difficult than music that tends to be played at Castle Rock’s level. This is nothing against the music program, other than instrument limitations, but because of a tendency of students’ lack of effort. Even if you find a piece to be incredibly easy for you, practice it! You can work on your tone more and musicality once you have mastered fingerings and rhythms! In addition to concert music, invest in some technique books, or etude books, or look online for cheap/free sheet music! Keep challenging yourself, as there will always be more you can do. Work towards college-level pieces while you are in high school so that you are not behind other students your age. More work now will mean less work later.

· If the college you want to go to is like PLU and has music scholarship auditions with no specific repertoire (suggested music to play) listed, look at their ensemble placement audition repertoire, as they might be more specific. Look for this months before the audition dates so that you can adequately prepare.

· PLU and perhaps other universities may allow you to get a free private lesson on your instrument, at little to no extra cost, if you are considering them as a school. This is a great way to not only improve your skill, but meet some of your potential music faculty even before an entrance audition. You may be more likely to get a scholarship or into a higher level ensemble if the professors know you and your skill level better personally.

· If you are doing running start before going to a 4 year (or going to community college after high school) try to get a music-specific degree if you may want to have a career in music. PLU and likely other colleges allow you to test out of the basic classes, like Music Theory, Keyboarding, and Ear Training, which means a lot less time paying tuition at the 4 year. Keep in mind though that if you skip many fundamental classes, you may be with mostly college upperclassmen in the next few class sequences.

General Pre-College Tips:

· IF THERE ARE ANY SPECIFIC COLLEGES YOU ARE INTERESTED IN NOW, LOOK AT THEIR PROGRAMS AND COMPARE THEM TO EACH OTHER. Look at the standard financial aid/scholarship packages given from each school. Look at all the scholarships you are eligible for and compare how much you might get.

· YOU CAN GET SAT, ACT, AND MANY COLLEGE APPLICATION FEES WAIVED. IF YOU QUALIFY FOR FREE/REDUCED LUNCHES, ARE IN A TRIO PROGRAM, OR FIT INTO SEVERAL OTHER CRITERIA, talk to Mrs. Wilson or another counselor to see if you are eligible. LCC students, it is very easy to join Trio, and they help you with other things like college essays too. Their office is in the Admissions building on LCC campus.

· If you need to study for the SAT, Khan Academy has a very helpful service where they personalize study material to give you. I raised my SAT score by 100 points using their website alone. Their service is completely free of charge.

· Use the Common Application when you can. This is a college application service where you can fill in personal information only ONCE when applying for different colleges rather than every single time you apply to a new one. This service is completely free and can reduce a lot of application time.

· Do not be afraid to ask any teachers for help with your application. Many will likely be happy to help, especially with personal statements and scholarship essays. They can provide many different helpful perspectives to give you a better chance.

· Many colleges have different scholarships for freshman vs. transfer students. Look at all of these when comparing financial aid to figure out if it is more cost effective to go to a community college and transfer first. Also, if you go to a community college first, look at the university’s general ed requirements so that you can make good use of your community college credits.

· LCC students: if you are eligible with a high enough GPA, join Phi Theta Kappa (PTK). There is a fee to join but it may be possible to waive it, and many colleges might give you an extra scholarship just for being a member. PLU gives an extra $1000 a year to PTK members.

· Look at and apply to many colleges early on. Even if it seems a ways away, it is closer than you think, so it’s never too early to start looking. The earlier you apply, the more likely you will get more scholarship offers from the schools, because they will have more money to give out. If you do apply for many, and get accepted to many, DECLINE the financial aid and admission to the schools you aren’t going to BEFORE Decision Day on May 1. This will allow the other colleges to re-disperse any scholarships you got so other students can have more money. After May 1, the unaccepted scholarships will be unavailable to anybody forever.

· Visit the campuses before you enroll to any school. Sometimes you might go onto a campus and just have a gut feeling about where or not the school is for you. A campus may be bigger or smaller than you think, and on tours you will likely learn more about the college than you can by emails and fliers. This also provides an easy opportunity to talk to students going to your potential schools and see how it really is.

· Once you get in to a school, check your schedule and see if there’s anything to change. You will hate yourself in the mornings if you have an 8 AM class, so try not to have one that early if you don’t have to. Talk to an advisor early on about finding another time to take that class. Also, look up professors on something like ratemyprofessor.com. You can find out before the semester begins what methods they use and if they are a right fit for you as a student. Look early and you may be able to switch classes if you need to.

· If you email any college faculty, it is most professional to address them as Dr. or Professor, and then their last name. Do not refer to them as Mr. or Mrs., or by their first name unless they ask you to call them differently.

· Compare prices of things you buy for your dorm before purchasing them. Go to different stores if you can and see what has the best sale or deal. Your parents or wallet will thank you later.

When You Start Your Freshman Year at a 4-Year:

· Your dorm room is much smaller than you hoped. Move in day will be very long and stressful. Arrive as early as possible to get all your stuff packed in, pack your things as tightly as you can before arriving, and don’t bring anything you don’t need.

· If you have a roommate, become friends with them as soon as you can. You will be living with them for at least the semester, sharing the space. It will be very helpful if you can get along.

· Music Majors/Minors: You will likely have to practice everything a heck of a lot more than you ever did in high school, unless you practiced every day. Generally music students are supposed to practice AT LEAST an hour a day and that is for basic improvement on your instrument.

· College tests and assignments will be different than their high school counterparts. College tasks will be centered more around applied knowledge, whereas high school work tends to focus more on memorization. You will want to study all aspects of how different learning points interact with each other in order to do the best on homework and tests, and study everything multiple times.

· Boxes and easy storage will be your best friend within your dorm. The space will be very small. Particularly for girls more than boys, you will likely have more things you brought than there is space for all of it. Boxes and bins are a great way to keep everything organized. Similarly, the Dollar Tree and other places have drawer organizers that will make your life a lot easier to grab things quickly. Invest in these if you can. The Dollar Tree actually has

· Make sure to have plenty of cold and flu medicine before you leave home. Going to a pharmacy to get meds when you are sick is not a trek you want to have to make.

· Your college will likely have many resources available to help you succeed. This may include but is not limited to: Faculty office hours, a health center, a counseling center, a library that has way more than just books. USE THEM. You are paying for all of those with your tuition. They are there for your success. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

· Unless you regularly wear all of them now, you will not need your whole wardrobe of shoes. Me personally, I barely wear anything more than volleyball shoes for games, tennis shoes for walking, and converse for comfort. Shoes are clunky and take up valuable space. Evaluate how many you really need, or find an out of the way space in your dorm to keep the ones you don’t wear often.

· Power naps will save you when you are feeling too overwhelmed in your head. It’s like restarting your system, giving you time to physically debrief and take a mental break. About 20 minutes is the best amount of time for a power nap, but make sure not to oversleep.

· Some professors don’t always take attendance, but it is still crucial to go to class anyways. Missing class makes it so much easier to miss information, important dates, announcements, and if nothing else, a lecture.

· Socialize within your first few weeks. Make friends in your dorm or within your area of study. Try to do this sooner, before everybody else has already found a pack to hang with.

· It is okay to say no to commitments. It is okay to say no to your friends, that you don’t have time to go hang with them. It is okay to say no to your peers or professors, that you can’t handle more on your plate right now. Do not overwhelm yourself. Do not give yourself so much work that you cannot sleep or take proper care of yourself.

· College students do not drink and party as much as the movies makes it seem. It is completely normal to turn down a drink, and most if not all other students will understand and not push you to participate. If they do push you to drink, you need to get different friends. College is for education, and you don’t want to watch your grades slip just because of any mistakes. If you do drink in college, do so responsibly. Drinking until around your junior year (when you are 21) is illegal anyways, as is in the dorms, so there will be many bad repercussions if you get caught.

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studywithusblog-blog · 5 years

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College Apps Breakdown

No, not a mental breakdown, although those will happen. This is a breakdown of the process.

Step 1: Choosing Colleges to Apply to (July-September)

Tip 1: Try to apply for an application fee waiver. You can get help with this through your schoo guidance office. A waiver will allow you to send the common app to any school that accepts it for free, widening your opportunity to get into a school.

Tip 2: Get an idea of what you want to do, even if it's vague. From there, talk to teachers, friends, adults, about what they did, especially if it's related to your interests.

Tip 3: Apply to schools all over the country!!!! This is a huge one, because college apps are usually filled out months ahead of decision time, and you have no idea what you will want at that point. Having a variety of schools and options is in your best interests (as long as you have the fee waiver of course).

Tip 4: Look into specific program types. For each subject of study, there are many different types of programs available. Look into what those are, whether there are integrated bachelors/masters programs, certification programs, whatever they may be. There are plenty of articles online breaking these down; google is your friend in this case, use it. I'd apply to multiple different programs as well, again GIVE YOURSELF OPTIONS

Step 2: Filling out the Application (September-November)

I only filled out the common app, so I can't speak for any colleges with their own applications, but I'm sure most of these tips will also apply to those as well.

Tip 1: My favorite bit of advice for anyone who is applying to literally anything is to check out the description, website, whatever it may be. In the case of colleges, it's usually a website. For the love of god, look at the website, read about their values, what kind of things they're looking for. Use some of those words or ideas in your responses on the common app, make yourself fit the student they're looking for. That's a really great way to peak interest in admissions counselors.

Tip 2: Scores matter. They aren't everything, and admissions are always a dice roll, but SAT, ACT, GPA all matter. Colleges use these numbers to filter out students that are below their expectations, particularly large schools. Check the schools website to see what their average score is. If your score is well below that you may choose not to report. If they aren't test optional, I'd be sure to make everything else on you application look really good. Don't sweat it too much though, scores aren't everything.

Tip 3: Ask for letters of rec in September, and don't ask for more than 4. Give teachers time to give you a personal, thought out letter. Many will refuse if you ask too late. I also would avoid getting more than four letters, as most colleges have a cap on how many you can send; even if they allow you to send many, they will most definitely not want to read through all those letters and it will be a turn off. Four letters, ask early, and you should be just fine. Try to get a letter from someone you've done community service with, or someone outside of the school sphere as well.

Tip 4: Community service doesn't matter unless it has to do with your major. You can have spent every weekend at the animal shelter petting cats, and colleges will not care unless it has something to do with your major, or truly enriched you as a person. If your service doesn't have anything to do with your major, try to spin it so that it sounds as though it made you grow as a person. Other than that, colleges don't care too much. Still report all the service you've done though, more hours still looks better than nothing.

Tip 5: Clubs and organizations only matter for leadership. Leadership roles are what make your clubs and organizations stand out. Please, detail your role and leadership when listing clubs. Even if you weren't "in charge" talk about what you contributed to the club. Just being in a club is not interesting to anyone, you had to have done something with it.

Tip 6: Make your supplementals unique to you. These are the best opportunities to tell the colleges something about you. In one of my supplementals I talked about my favorite director and why he's inspiring. Nothing to do with English or College, but it showed that I had interest in other things and could write a though out piece. Colleges want to see you can write, and that you think about things other than school. We're all capable of both of these things, so do it! Show them who you are!

Step 3: Getting In (November-February)

I know what you're thinking: after my application isn't it just a wait to see? No, it isn't. There's still more work to do.

Tip 1: Tour the schools you've applied to. I applied to a lot of in state schools, so I toured all of them multiple times. For the closer schools, or your top schools, your should tour in person and meet as many people as possible when there. It really proves your interest in the school. If for some reason the school is too far to tour, do an online virtual tour; the school will ask for your name and email, so it will be on file that you showed interest.

Tip 2: Set up an interview. Many schools offer interviews, and even travel to different regions to offer them to applicants further away. The interviews are usually really easy, unless it's like Yale or Harvard or something, and it's a great way to get your admissions counselor to focus on you. This is the number one way to show interest in the school, and is a REALLY GREAT OPTION FOR THOSE WITH LOWER SCORES OR SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES. Just interview.

Tip 3: Email as many people as possible. Email professors, admissions counselors, financial aid counselors, whoever. Ask questions and introduce yourself. This puts your name in their minds, and again, shows your interest. If you prove that you want to be there, you'll be so much more likely to get in.

Please feel free to add anything to this post, to ask questions, and please share so juniors and seniors can see this. This would've been such a lifesaver for me and so many other people.

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ib-bachelorette · 5 years

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I’m thinking of applying to Cambridge as an English student. I’m not a UK citizen and have limited knowledge on application via UCAS. How does it work? Do you have any advice?

Hi!

I was really similar to you. Not many people from my school apply and honestly the UK application system is a bit of a mystery and even worse is the system of applying to Cambridge. I applied for Natural Sciences so there will be differences, for example I was required to take a pre-admissions test whilst for english they would probably require academic work instead.

So, here goes a condensed list of applying to Cambridge for someone who has absolutely no idea!

UCAS

To apply anywhere in the UK you need to do it through UCAS. You can apply to 5 or less universities and only one of Cambridge or Oxford (unless you want to be an organ scholar I think?). You usually apply through your school so get your teacher/ college counselor/ principle involved. You need one reference, a personal statement, and records of your grades.

Your Personal Statement

This is super important for someone studying english!! Less so for me, but you really need to think carefully about this. I’m going to admit my statement was awful, but there’s lots of great examples online and watch a lot of youtube videos of people giving advice on their personal statements. Basically, this is an opportunity for you to write why you love the course you’re applying for, why you’re a good fit for it, and examples of how you’ve engaged with it (reading, courses, etc).

Deadline:

Get your application in by October 15th! Cambridge has an earlier application than most UK schools.

Picking a college

This is going to be where you live, eat, and have supervisions for the next 3 years. It’s a huge part of your experience as you don’t usually have much contact with your university outside of exams or lectures. Your college sorta is your university, as you pay fees to it and they decide to accept you (not the university).

Both in your UCAS application and in something that you will be send by email afterwards called the SAQ, you need to pick a college. Pick one you like! It might be worth looking into rents/scholarships if that’s something that you’re interested in. Stay away from “Playing the game” by applying to a ‘bad’ college for a better chance to get in. Cambridge has a pool (basically if you don’t get into your first college another one can take you).

You can also choose to apply to no college, where you’ll be randomly allocated. I didn’t do this mainly because if you identify as female (or non binary) on your application you could be pooled into an all girls college, which are great but not the experience some people want for uni.

Admissions Tests

Some subjects do this. You take an admissions test in November. You can do this at a test centre, but this usually costs money. Ask your school to become a test centre. It’s really easy and all you need is a test room, a teacher free to invigilate, and a lockable cupboard to put the exams in.

Interviews

If you have the grades, you will usually be invited to a Cambridge interview. This is super expensive because they sometimes don’t tell you about your interview date until a week or two before, and you have to pay for flights yourself. I think some colleges offer up to 80 pounds on travel, but it depends on where you apply.

Interviews vary by college. In english I hear they ask you to read an article and discuss it, and also go over your written work you sent in. I’m planning on doing an interview help post later!

Offer

In January (there’s a specific day and all colleges use this day) you hear if you have a place. The UK works on offers, so they’ll usually ask you to graduate with certain grades. My offer in the IB was 42 points with a 776 in Chemistry, Biology, and Maths at HL. Some offers are higher and some lower, it depends on the college and the person.

Note, by sometimes in May? (I think) you have to pick 2 universities that you want to go to. One becomes your “main” which you go to if you get the grades and the other your ‘insurance’ which you go to if you don’t meet the grades of the first one but meet the second. So usually, you pick a second uni with a lower offer.

Your results

When your results come out you either meet your offer (yay!) or you don’t. If you just miss your offer you could be put into the ‘summer pool.’ Note your college would tell you if you were int he pool though. This is basically a chance for colleges to fill places with students who are amazing, but narrowly missed their offer. This means you could still be accepted to cambridge, but to a different college than you applied or got your offer from.

#cambridge #university #applying #studyblr #university of cambridge #UCAS #help #mine #Anonymous

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eleanor-writes-stuff · 6 years

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oh baby, you could devastate me [one-shot]

moodboard courtesy of @reylocalligraphy

Rey works for the Admissions & Recruitment department at the University of Naboo because she loves her alma mater and never wants to leave. Kylo works for A&R because he's the disgraced former president of a for-profit university, and his mom told him to. When these two are paired up, things go... surprisingly well, actually.

Until they start sleeping together, that is.

For Day 5 - Alternate Universe of @reyloveweek.

Below please find nearly 10k words’ worth of a uni recruiters!AU. (Is that a thing? I’ve made it a thing. I apologize.) Also, my first M-rated fic ever.

Also available on AO3.

The summer after high school, Rey makes a two-hour drive to the nearest big city in order to attend a U of Naboo reception. It’s taken her all year to save up enough money for the trip, and she’s pretty sure it won’t lead to anything – this is the University of Naboo they’re talking about, and she only applied because her guidance counselor managed to get the application fee waived – but this might be the closest she’ll ever get to her dream school, and the forums tell her the food at these receptions are great, so off she goes.

She sits through an hour-long presentation, tries to pace herself at the buffet, and nearly smashes a plate full of tiny appetizers into the chest of one Amilyn Holdo, the provost herself.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry-” Rey stammers as she takes three steps backwards and sets her plate down on the nearest table. Half of the appetizers fell to the ground when she made a last-minute adjustment to avoid Holdo, and her cheeks burn with shame as two staff members rush forward to deal with the mess. She’s about to crouch down and help them when Holdo wraps one well-manicured hand around her elbow and gently pulls her away.

“It’s okay, Rey. I should’ve watched where I was going, really,” the woman says with a smile, and Rey can only blink at her dumbly while she processes that sentence.

“You… you know who I am?”

“Of course I do! Your essay has been making the rounds at the university, you know,” Holdo tells her almost proudly, referring to the essay Rey hates herself for writing, the one that’s all about the sob story she never tells anyone, the one her guidance counsellor had assured her would get the attention of the scholarship department. “We’re really looking forward to having you join us this fall. And on behalf of the university, I’d like to be the first to congratulate you – in person – on winning the scholarship. It was a close call – we always get such strong applicants – but I fully believe you deserve it.”

And that’s how Rey learns that she’s won a life-changing full ride to the University of Naboo, courtesy of the Padmé Amidala Education Fund.

The next two months are a whirlwind of selecting her courses and uprooting her entire life and applying for part-time job after part-time job, but it’s all worth it – the past two months of planning and the past year of waiting and the past eighteen years of hard work – the second Rey sets foot on campus.

For the first time in her life, she feels at home.

A week before graduation, Rey gets an email that sends her sprinting back home.

“Finn!” she calls out to the empty apartment the second she gets home. “Finn! I got the job!”

Her roommate comes running out of his room and charges at her, picks her up in a huge bear hug and allows himself five seconds of excited, high-pitched squealing. “Me too! I just got the email!”

They scream in joy and dance around the apartment and pop open a bottle of sparkling juice that’s been gathering dust since their housewarming party three years ago.

A month later Rey and Finn show up for their first day of work at the Admissions and Recruitment department, a job that’ll allow them to stay in the safe and familiar bubble that is U of Naboo indefinitely even though they’ve just graduated.

Poe Dameron, head of the department and Finn’s longtime crush, takes it upon himself to personally show them around an office they’re more than familiar with and introduce them to staff members they’ve already known for years, thanks to their work as student ambassadors. “Best job ever,” Finn gushes in a low whisper when Poe reminds them that their work as recruiters will include a lot of travel.

The first few weeks go remarkably well. They’re paired up with various members of the department to learn the ins and outs of the job, and their first major assignment – a briefing for that fall’s incoming students – goes off without a hitch.

By October, Poe decides they’re ready to travel.

“Rey, you and Jessika will be heading to Coruscant,” Poe tells her, and she bites on her lip to hide her smile when Finn lightly elbows her and excitedly mouths Coruscant!!! at her. “You’ll be hitting up a lot of high schools and a few education fairs, but I’m sure you’ll be able to handle it. And Jessika is one of our most experienced staff members, so you’re in good hands.”

“Finn,” their boss says next, and there’s no mistaking the apologetic look on his face. “This was totally random, we needed someone to pair him up with and he’s burned through half of the department already-”

“Oh, no,” Finn says, holding his hands up as he takes a step backwards. “No no no, please don’t say-”

“You’ll be heading to Canto Bight with Ren.”

Rey watches with equal measures of sympathy and amusement as Finn stomps his foot. “Poe,” he whines. “You know he hates me.”

“I’m beginning to think he hates everyone,” Poe mutters under his breath before he starts comforting Finn and assuring him it won’t be that bad.

It is that bad, Rey figures when Finn sends her four disgruntled texts within the first hour of his trip with Ren. Canto Bight is a city best described as an excess of extravagance, and Rey knows that Finn will instantly fall in love with the glitz and glam of the place. It’s a shame that he has to share the experience with Kylo Ren, the surliest member of their department and a notoriously difficult person to work with.

On their own flight to Coruscant, Jessika fills her in on Ren’s checkered past, the highlight of which has to be his involvement with a for-profit uni that turned out to be a scam. “They shut the whole place down, even threw the founder in jail, I think,” Jessica whispers over a dinner of surprisingly tolerable airplane food. “The only reason Ren didn’t go down with him is because they found out he really didn’t know anything about the scam. It was all Snoke and Armitage Hux, who was CFO of the parent company. Ren cooperated with the investigation and testified against them both, and when it was all over Leia Organa dragged him back home and insisted that he apply for a job here.”

“Leia Organa?” Rey asks in confusion, wondering why the President of the university would involve herself in something like this.

“Oh, I forgot,” Jessika sets down her cutlery and turns to Rey. “Mrs. Organa’s his mom. They try to keep it a secret, so that people don’t think she got him the job. Though really, if nepotism were involved you’d think Mrs. Organa could’ve done better than a lowly recruiter position in Admissions and Recruitment. Not that I don’t love our jobs, but… you know. The guy was president. And she’s the president. It’s obvious she wasn’t involved in this beyond making him apply.”

“Right,” she mutters absently as Jessika goes back to her food, her mind reeling from this new information. They don’t talk about Ren again for the rest of the flight, and when Rey lands she busies herself with catching up on her messages while Jessika takes advantage of the duty-free shops.

Worst job ever, Finn’s latest text reads. Pray you never get paired up with Kylo Ren.

Rey manages to go a full year before Poe comes to her with that all-too-familiar look of preemptive apology.

“Fuck,” she mutters as Poe hands her a file, unease pooling in her stomach. A year is plenty of time to hear all of the department’s worst horror stories about Ren, and she’s been dreading this moment ever since Finn’s first run-in with the man.

“I’m sorry, Rey,” Poe says, and she knows he means it but still. “He’s worked with literally everyone else, and not a single one of them is willing to do it again.”

That reminder really doesn’t help. “You’re making it worse,” Rey tells him as she flips the file open to find nearly a year’s worth of scheduled trips. “What the hell, Poe? You’re making me work with him permanently?”

“No! God, no!” he exclaims, taking the file from Rey. “This is Ren’s schedule, not yours. You’ll be heading to Coruscant with him,” Poe points out the details for the Coruscant trip, which seems to be more or less the same as the one she took with Jess a year ago. “And we’ll see how it goes from there.”

“What do you mean, we’ll see how it goes from there?” Rey asks warily.

Poe sets the file down on her desk and sighs. “Look, I’ve been watching you work for a while now and I think you and Kylo could really get along. Not as friends or anything, but I think if anyone in this office can work with him, it’s you. You don’t let others get you down, so I know he’s not going to depress you or anything, but you also don’t put up with bullshit, so he won’t be able to walk all over you.”

In some strange way, all of that is probably a compliment since it’s coming from her boss. But pretty words aren’t going to distract Rey from the matter at hand. “So this is a trial run for some kind of, what, permanent partnership?”

“Only if you’re okay with it,” Poe assures her. “I promise, Rey, if you really hate him then we’ll just go back to making him work with rotating partners. But I really think this could work, if you’d just give it a chance.”

Poe gives her those puppy dog eyes Finn is such a sucker for, and she caves with a heavy sigh. “Fine. One trip. And then we’ll see how it goes.”

Badly, Rey predicts as Poe thanks her. It can only go badly.

They decide to meet at the airport after a string of brief, to-the-point emails discussing their upcoming assignment. Ren is seldom in the office – god knows what he gets up to, but it’s not like anyone’s going to complain about not having him around – and the few times she’s spotted him skulking around, Rey has gone out of her way to avoid interacting with him in person.

Which means that when she walks up to him at the airport on a chilly October morning and introduces herself, it’s the very first time she hears his voice – his normal speaking voice, that is. Everyone in the office has overheard his occasional heated debate with Poe behind closed doors.

“So you’re the girl I’ve heard so much about,” Kylo muses as they shake hands, and the combination of his thoughtful tone and his low voice nearly knocks Rey off her feet. Isn’t this the guy who routinely yells at Poe about mismanaged funds and unnecessary trips? Isn’t this the guy who greets everyone with a scowl, then proceeds to ignore them as much as possible?

Flabbergasted, Rey turns to her default setting when meeting strangers: suspicious. “What do you mean?” she asks warily, pulling her hand out of Kylo’s when she realizes they’re sort of just…holding hands.

It’s not unpleasant.

Kylo shrugs; the motion looks out of place on his broad shoulders, too casual for a man who routinely stalks around the office and leaves a cloud of gloom and doom behind him. “Everyone in A&R loves you. Even Poe gushes about you all the fucking time. It’s like you’re God’s gift to this whole damn department.”

Poe does not gush – not unless it’s about Finn, anyway – but Rey’s too busy taking offense at that last muttered bit to contradict him on his claim. “I just care about my job,” she crosses her arms and narrows her eyes at Kylo, “unlike some people.”

He stares at her for a beat, something incomprehensible clouding his eyes while he scrutinizes her. Finally Kylo sighs, shakes his head, and throws a mumbled “whatever” over his shoulder as he turns his back on her and proceeds towards the check-in counter.

Rey feels oddly guilty as she scurries off to catch up to him, and she spends the rest of their time in the airport dissecting their brief conversation to figure out whether she was needlessly rude.

But this is Kylo Ren – the bane of their department’s existence, the asshole who insisted on referring to Finn by his employee ID. No matter how gentle or teasing or whatever his tone had been, none of what he’d said to her could possibly have been anything than a snide insult… right?

It’s a five-hour flight to Coruscant, which is all the way on the other side of the country. As soon as they’re in the air and the seatbelt signs are turned off, Rey reaches for her laptop and starts working on her slides for their presentation.

“This is a waste of time,” Kylo mutters as he flips through their itinerary. “Coruscant U is our biggest rival, and they’ve beaten us in the rankings for two years now. Anyone there with the grades and money to get into a top five uni has probably already applied and accepted an offer to go to CU.”

Rey bites her tongue, counts to ten, and plasters on some semblance of an encouraging smile – her best customer service smile, Finn calls it – before she turns to her downer of a colleague. “CU might have beaten us in pre-med and law, but we’re still globally #1 when it comes to the arts and engineering. We’ve also got more reasonable tuition, more famous faculty, and the biggest university library on this continent.”

Kylo shakes his head at her. “Sure,” he scoffs derisively, but his pinched features have given way to something almost like a smile. “Kids will definitely pick a university based on library sizes.”

“I did,” Rey shrugs as she goes back to tinkering with the size and color of her text. From the corner of her eye she sees Kylo still turned towards her, still watching her. There’s an awareness around his presence, of his presence, that she’s never really felt with anyone else. But then again, she’s never spent a full year hearing about and dreading and avoiding anyone else, either. That’s all there is to it, she tells herself.

“Did you?” Kylo asks after a while. “Pick U of N because of the library, I mean.”

“Among other things,” she says, as if U of N hadn’t become her dream school the day Luke Skywalker joined their faculty, as if the deciding factor had been anything other than a full scholarship. These are things Finn and Poe and Jessika know about her, things they earned with respect and friendship and common decency.

Kylo Ren hasn’t earned any of that, but he does earn some brownie points when halfway through the flight he turns to her and says, “That would’ve worked on me. Your pitch from earlier, about our arts program and our tuition and the library. It was a good pitch. I see why the department loves you.”

It’s the longest string of sentences she’s ever heard him put together, heated debates with Poe included. When she lands, a text from Finn awaits: how’s it going? I know he’s a monster but please don’t kill him, he’s sorta childhood friends with Poe and that would be awkward.

Rey sneaks a look at Kylo, standing by the baggage carousel after offering to wait for her bag if she’d get them both some coffee in return. When he catches her looking, he offers her the tiniest of smiles.

She smiles back and shoots off a reply to Finn. Surprisingly well, actually.

When Rey comes into work with a smile on her face a week later, Poe follows her to her cubicle with baited breath.

“So…” he produces a to-go cup of her favorite coffee and hands the blatant bribe to her nonchalantly. “How’d it go?”

She takes her time sipping her coffee, setting up her computer, pulling her planner out of her bag. When her boss starts wringing his hands in obvious unease, Rey tilts her head and allows her hair to fall forward and hide the smile tugging on her lips at Poe’s expense.

“Rey,” Poe finally snaps when she pulls up a blank document and pretends she’s going to start typing up her report right there and then.

“Oh, right,” she turns to him with an innocent smile, lets it widen into a grin when Poe huffs at her. “It went okay. You can go ahead and partner us up for the rest of the year.”

Poe blinks at her.

Rey stares back.

“Oh my god, you mean it?” he exclaims loudly, his voice drawing the attention of her cubicle mates. Poe clears his throat and pulls an empty chair up to her table. “Rey, you’re serious? You’ll do this for me?”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Not everything is about you, Poe. But yes, your days of Kylo roulette are over. No more blindly selecting his next victim and getting all the blame for it.”

Poe draws even more attention when he lunges forward and picks her up off her chair, drawing a surprised yelp from Rey when he pulls her into a hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

The rest of the office casts them puzzled looks that slowly morph into expressions of sheer relief when Poe whispers the news into Jessika’s ear, who quickly spreads it like wildfire.

For the next week, Rey is treated like a benevolent goddess, sent from the heavens above to take pity on Kylo’s poor, tormented colleagues. Every single day there’s someone waiting to treat her to lunch (and a horror story or two about their time with Kylo), and no one steals any of her snacks from the breakroom as a silent gesture of appreciation.

The first few times she comes back from an assignment with Kylo, she’s painfully aware of everyone’s eyes on her, of everyone holding their breath and waiting for her to declare that she’s changed her mind and he can be someone else’s problem because she’s done.

It never happens, and slowly life at the office settles into a new normal – a ‘normal’ which now includes Kylo smiling at her whenever they’re both at the office.

The rumors shouldn’t come as a surprise, but they do anyway.

She remains blissfully unaware of the office’s favorite gossip topic for the first four months of their partnership. And then–

“Jessika thinks you and Ren are sleeping with each other,” Finn declares at lunch one day, prompting Rey to choke on her sandwich while Jess punches Finn in the arm.

“No, I don’t!” she cries defensively while Rey struggles to catch her breath in between bouts of coughing. “It’s just something Rose said about them. Right, Rose?”

Rose, who’d been in the midst of offering Rey a glass of water, freezes. “What? No, no, it was definitely not me. Snap, didn’t you say something about Ren the other day?”

Poor Snap stares at them with his best deer-in-headlights look and shakes so hard his fork clatters to the ground. “It’s just. He smiles. At you. A lot.”

“So what?” Rey rasps, her voice still scratchy from the coughing. She clears her throat a few times before adding, “I smile at all of you a lot. It just means we’re friends.”

“Yeah, buuut…” Jessika trails off with a shrug as everyone else shares a knowing look.

“He doesn’t really smile at anyone else,” Rose points out gently. “And the way he looks at you…” she sighs, looking dangerously close to swooning.

“Look, I hate to admit it,” Finn says quietly as he leans forward, blocking the others out from their conversation. “But Ren actually acts like a person around you. That’s got to count for something, right?”

“Oh god,” Rey groans, letting her head fall forward into her hands. “Not you too, Finn.”

Finn gets the message and forcefully changes the topic to his budding relationship with Poe – because he really is the best friend a girl could ask for – while Rey composes herself. She joins the conversation a few minutes later, and shoves all of these ridiculous ideas about her relationship with Kylo to the back of her mind.

The thing is… Kylo does smile at her an awful lot, doesn’t he? She’s never even seen him smile at Poe, and they’ve apparently been friends since they were in diapers. And there have been times, on the plane first thing in the morning or at the bar after a long day or even just on the way to their separate rooms, when they accidentally fall asleep on each other’s shoulders or their knees bump or their hands brush – times when Rey wonders, what if?

So two days later, when they’re having drinks together at a hotel bar in Corellia after a long day of briefing sessions, Rey finds herself saying, “The entire department thinks we’re hooking up.”

Kylo sets down his whiskey, a local variety he appears to begrudgingly appreciate. All of a sudden Rey finds herself wondering why she didn’t just ask about that instead of blurting out the first thought that came to mind. “And why is that?” he asks, turning around in his bar stool to face her.

“Just, you know,” Rey falters, swipes at the salt on the rim of her glass and absentmindedly licks at her finger out of habit. Somewhere between licking the salt off her finger and finding the courage to face Kylo, her brain finally catches up to her actions and points out, in a rather panicky and loud voice, just how obscene that gesture could be in the wrong situation – a situation like this one, where you’re discussing why your colleagues think you’re sleeping together.

In the dim lighting of the bar, she thinks she spots a smirk playing on his lips.

“Because you’re not an asshole to me,” she blurts out, shoving her margarita glass aside so forcefully the contents nearly slosh over the rim. “They think that just because we get along it has to mean something. You know, because you’re legendarily awful to everyone else.”

“Is that all?” Kylo raises one skeptical brow, because of course the man has perfected the single-raised-brow look. Rey suspects that in any other situation, it might be an effective manner in which to convey disappointment while still giving off an air of superiority, somehow. But in this case, it comes across as a challenge – familiar ground, then, in this odd partnership of theirs.

“There was something about the way you look at me,” Rey adds almost casually as she moves closer, turns to mimic Kylo’s position and shifts her feet to his footrest so that her legs are bracketed by his. He leans in, presses the length of his legs up against hers.

“How do I look at you, Rey?”

He’s warm where they touch and his voice makes her toes curl and still, still there’s that familiar glint of a challenge in his eyes even as they flit down to her lips for the briefest of moments before they move back to her eyes.

“You tell me,” Rey hears herself saying as she moves to the edge of her seat, close enough for her knees to graze the inside of Kylo’s thighs.

“Rey,” he murmurs, eyes searching hers as one hand reaches out to curve around her hip, warm and heavy and not enough. “Are we doing this?”

She backs away, hops off her stool and watches a flicker of disappointment flash through Kylo’s eyes before he sets his features into a polite mask. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed-”

“Kylo,” she can’t help but smile at him, at the way he perks up like an overeager puppy when she curls a hand around his arm and makes her intentions known. “Settle the tab. I’ll be upstairs.”

Then, for good measure, Rey leans in close enough for her lips to brush his ear and whispers, “Don’t keep me waiting.”

Kylo goes back to his own room after – they’ve still got some packing to do – and they don’t talk about it on the flight home the next morning. They talk, instead, about the whiskey he both hates and loves, about the father he both hates and loves. Somehow, it feels more intimate than what they’d shared the night before.

Two days later they find themselves in Jakku, and Rey finds herself drowning in memories when she’d rather be drowning in him. She sticks close to him as they make their way to their rooms at the one respectable inn the town has to offer, and as soon as Kylo opens his door she’s pushing him past the threshold and into bed.

After, while Rey stares out the window at the oppressive, suffocating sight of the never-ending wasteland she once called home, Kylo takes it upon himself to do some research on this one-horse town they’ve somehow found themselves in.

“Why are we even here?” he wonders out loud after going through some unhelpful data. Jakku is a tiny town, with an even tinier population. As far as prospective students go, they only ever get a handful of applicants at most each year. It makes no sense whatsoever for the university to have channeled any money or manpower here at all, let alone two of their best recruiters. “I know I said Coruscant was a waste of money, but this, this really makes no sense at all. Why did the department even–”

“It wasn’t the department,” Rey says quietly, her hunched back still turned to him, her unfocused eyes still staring out at the desert. “Necessity is the mother of all invention, right? That’s what they say, at least,” she shrugs, twisting slightly so that half of her face is visible to him, so that all of him is visible to her.

Kylo watches her with confusion on his face but patience in his eyes. Somehow he knows to set down his tablet, to crawl across the bed and move closer to her.

“Necessity is a fact of life here in Jakku,” she tells him, pressing her cheek to the sun-warmed glass as Kylo comes to sit right at the edge of the bed, just two feet away from the ratty old armchair she’s curled up in. “It’s all we ever know, from the day we’re left in this desert until the day we leave it. You’d be surprised what kind of innovation that can lead to.”

“You’re from here,” Kylo realizes out loud, his voice uncharacteristically gentle and hushed.

“I grew up here,” Rey murmurs. “I thought that all the things I did, all the things Jakku kids grow up knowing how to do, were just ordinary skills – or less than that, even, because none of us learned from proper schools or fancy textbooks or futuristic labs. And then I went to Naboo and I realized that none of this is normal, none of this is even close to average.”

Finally she tears her eyes away from the window, turns back to Kylo and his understanding eyes. “There are kids here who are just like me. Kids who’ve had to make do with scraps all their lives, kids who are more creative and intelligent and inventive than you could ever believe. They might not make it to Naboo– not everyone can be as lucky, even if they deserve to be – but I just want them to know that someone believes in their potential, that they have potential.”

She reaches for his hand, and Kylo tugs at her until Rey turns her back on the desert and moves back to him. “Let’s get back to work, then,” he says even as he pulls her into his lap and wraps his arms around her waist. “I want this to be our best presentation ever. They deserve that much.”

Rey smiles, wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him slow and lazy. “You’re not all bad, Kylo Ren,” she declares with a grin.

“Call me Ben,” he murmurs against her lips, pulls her back in and holds her close.

They don’t talk about it.

They don’t talk about it when they fall asleep in each other’s arms, or when they wake up and head to the airport together. They don’t talk about it when they run into each other at the office, or around campus. They don’t talk at all outside of work, in fact, and even at work they only ever discuss upcoming assignments.

But it works, somehow. Rey knows it can’t last, knows Kylo – call me Ben, he’d told her, but somehow she knows that only applies to very specific situations, the ones they don’t talk about – probably never meant for it to. But for now, as long as they’re traveling every week, as long as they can disappear into a world of their own every now and then, it works.

Two months after that first night in Corellia, they find themselves in Kylo’s birthplace of Hanna City, Chandrila. He’s tense the entire flight there, grumpy as hell when they land, and he outright ignores anyone who recognizes him.

Their presentation at the local high school is… difficult, especially when one of the teachers turns out to have been a classmate of Kylo’s back in the day and keeps trying to rope him into some reminiscing. After, when they’ve dumped everything back in their rooms and Kylo suggests hitting up the hotel bar, Rey comes up with a different idea.

“There’s a beach here, isn’t there? And the sea?” she asks, going through tourist attraction pamphlets on his coffee table while Kylo changes out of his work clothes.

“Rey,” he pokes his head out from around the bathroom, “I’m not exactly in the mood for sightseeing.”

She neatly rearranges the pamphlets, stands up and crosses the room to lean against the bathroom doorway while he finger-combs his hair. “Please, Ben? I’ve never been to the beach.”

Kylo catches her eye in the mirror, sighs and turns around to face her. “Only because you’ve never been,” he tells her and then adds, with an unexpected tinge of hometown pride, “and because Hanna City has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.”

The beach closest to their hotel, the one his parents used to bring him to as a toddler, truly is beautiful. It’s too bad that Rey is too busy making out with Kylo and laughing at his muttered complaints about sand to pay much attention to it.

“Can’t do anything in this fucking sand,” he mumbles against her neck as if she hadn’t grown up in a desert, and then he picks her up and carries her away from the beach, Rey shrieking with laughter and poking fun at him the entire time.

Together they travel the country and even some neighboring nations, and between it all they don’t even trade so much as a text message while they’re home. For their grand finale that summer, before the freshmen come pouring in and it’s all hands on deck back home to welcome the students, Poe sends them off on a months-long international trip.

Not going home between trips means no sudden silences, no prolonged absences. Rey loves every minute of it, loves having Ben as her one constant while they jet from one foreign place to another and deliver their well-rehearsed presentations and speeches.

And Ben – well, Ben seems to like it just as much, because by the time they reach their final stop, he has no qualms about wrapping an arm around her waist as they walk into their hotel.

Maz’s Castle is said to be the finest hotel in Takodana, and any questions Rey had about why the department had shelled out the money to put them up here are laid to rest the second a tiny old woman heaves herself up on the counter.

“Ben Solo! You don’t write, you don’t call, and when you finally do visit you bring along some pretty young thing instead of that handsome uncle of yours?”

“Hi, Maz,” Ben smiles as they reach the counter, and he lets go of Rey to hug the tiny woman who’s apparently the Maz Kanata. “Uncle Chewie says hi, of course. He misses you.” Even with her perched on the counter, Ben still has to bend down to reach her. It’s adorable, Rey thinks. She’s adorable, all tiny and wizened with glasses that look more like goggles and lenses that give her the illusion of goldfish eyes.

Those goldfish eyes stop being as adorable when they’re focused on her. “So, this is the girl you’ve chosen to bring home to your aunt Maz,” she says to Ben as she studies Rey from head to toe. It’s unnerving, it’s as bad as all of her nightmares about running into Leia Organa, and it takes what feels like an eternity but is probably less than a minute.

Maz nods decisively, holds out her hand and yanks Rey into a surprise hug when she reaches for a handshake. “Welcome, dear. We’re so happy to have you here.”

“Um, thank you,” Rey says, smiling despite her confusion. She catches Ben’s eye over Maz’s shoulder and does her best to convey how lost she is, but Ben simply shrugs and mouths just go with it, grinning all the while.

It makes him look boyish and happy and young. Young, happy, boyish Ben Solo does things to her, things she should not be contemplating while an ancient woman is hugging her.

“Okay!” Maz scoots backwards and hops off the counter, climbs up a stepstool and adjusts her glasses as she types something into the computer. “Knew you were coming, so I’ve prepared a special surprise for you,” she tells Ben conspiratorially. “Our best cabin by the lake! It’s a beautiful lake, and there’s a lovely view of the forest too, you’ll just love it,” the little old lady assures Rey with a wink.

“Maz, you didn’t have to–” Ben begins to protest.

“Of course I didn’t have to, darling, I don’t have to do anything and haven’t for a very long time now,” she sniffs almost imperiously. “But I wanted to, and so I did. Now off you go, I have better things to do around here than squabble with you Solos. Lovely meeting you, dear,” Maz tells her, and with one last nod at Ben she motions for a young woman to replace her before disappearing into a door at the end of the check-in counter.

“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Solo. It says here that you’ll be staying in one of our lovely lake cabins for the next–”

Rey is painfully aware of how rude she’s being, but she can’t stop herself from turning to Ben to whisper, “Mr. and Mrs. Solo?”

The smile he gives her is pinched. “Maz’s idea of a joke,” Ben tells her flatly, and they don’t speak of it again as the woman finishes her introductory speech and hands them their keys.

There’s barely time to appreciate the cabin before they’re rushing to get showered and changed for the evening’s reception, and they take turns using the hair dryer while making last-minute changes to their Welcome to life in Naboo! presentation.

The rest of the day is a blur of coordinating with hotel staff and welcoming attendees and mingling with alumni, and by the end of the night they’re both so drained from traveling and interacting and presenting that they end up just falling into bed and dozing off almost immediately.

Rey dreams in disorientating snippets that night, jump cut after jump cut with barely anything in between, just a never-ending series of hotels and smiling receptionists and bookings made under the name Mr. and Mrs. Solo.

She wakes to the sound of birdsong, the gentle warmth of diffused sunlight, and a hand between her thighs.

“What time is it?” she asks in lieu of a good morning, moving closer to Ben without opening her eyes.

“Nine,” he murmurs against her bare skin, presses a kiss to her shoulder as his free hand snakes underneath her to cup her breast. “Still three hours before we have to be at the airport. Plenty of time to spare.”

Rey blinks as the world slowly comes into focus, smiles to herself at the sight of Ben’s eager hands moving underneath her tank top and pushing her underwear aside. She lets him work in silence for a while, helps him along by reaching down to take over when he finally slips two fingers inside her.

Ben nuzzles into her neck while they move in tandem, a well-practiced team at this point when it comes to preparing her for him. He speeds up when her breath starts coming out in sharp little gasps, slows down when she finally melts into him and turns around to blindly place an appreciative kiss somewhere on his upper arm. Rey knocks his hand aside while she regains her breath, and he takes the opportunity to properly divest the both of them of what little clothing they’d worn to sleep the night before.

“Like this?” Ben asks when Rey starts squirming against him, her back to his front, and waits for her to hum a small mm-hmm before he lines them up and pushes into her as if they have all the time in the world.

She tries very hard not to think of the fact that this is their last trip together for the foreseeable future, that this might be the last time she’ll ever get to share this with Ben. But it’s soft and slow and he’s whispering sweet nothings into her hair, and all Rey can think of is Mr. and Mrs. Solo and the fact that Ben has never once shown even the slightest interest in meeting up with her back home.

“You okay?” Ben murmurs, and Rey realizes that at some point she’s stopped moving with him.

“Perfect,” she claims, turns around to give him a smile and a chaste peck before she reaches for the hand around her hip and moves it to press down on her lower abdomen, right over the bulge of him inside her.

Ben moans at the feeling, his breath warm and ticklish on the sensitive skin right under her ear. Rey presses as close to him as humanly possible, clutches at his arm and begs him to go harder, bites back the desperate plea bubbling up her throat to make me forget, please, Ben, make me forget this is the last time make me forget this isn’t forever.

“Rey–” Ben chokes out her name, snakes his hand down to where she needs him. “So close, sweetheart.”

Their time together is drawing to a close, and Rey realizes with a burst of panic that she’s been so worried about it ending that she hasn’t taken the time to fully appreciate it, to feel everything and commit all of it to memory. She closes her eyes and makes a conscious effort to clear her mind of everything but this, everything but Ben and her and how they feel together.

“Me too,” she whispers as Ben’s movements start growing erratic, his lips dotting little kisses along her neck as he rubs tight, frantic circles into her clit.

He comes first, muffles a loud Rey by sinking his teeth into her shoulder. The intimacy and bittersweetness of it all pushes her over the edge not long after, and Rey twists uncomfortably in Ben’s arms to bury her face in his neck as she falls apart.

The sun has climbed higher now, past the canopy of trees. When Rey finally gives in to her aching muscles and turns back, she glimpses a thousand dazzling pinpricks of light dancing on the surface of the lake in between the gaps of their curtains.

It’s beautiful, and Rey mourns briefly for the fact that they didn’t even have the time to appreciate the view during their short stay.

She wants to voice her thoughts, wants Ben to hold her tight and promise her they’ll come back here someday and see everything together. But her phone goes off before she can come to a decision, an alarm set for 9:30 lighting up her screen, and suddenly it’s time to shower and pack and grab something to eat.

In the cab, on the way to the airport, Ben wraps an arm around her and looks at her with a tiny little furrow between his brows. “Are you okay? You’ve been a bit quiet this morning.”

“I’m great,” Rey assures him with a plastered-on smile, the one she hasn’t given him in months. It doesn’t set him at ease. “Just, you know, thinking about home and the office and real life. It’s going to be weird, adjusting to everything again.”

Ben’s arm slips from her waist and he retreats to his side of the backseat. “Yeah,” he mutters, looking out the window. “Weird.”

She knows that today’s the end, knows that it’s time to slowly start the adjustment process, but a part of her had hoped that Ben would at least play along until they land in Theed. Instead he pulls away from her at the first mention of their lives back home, and for the rest of the journey they barely talk aside from the occasional inane comment about last night’s reception.

At the baggage carousel, Ben wordlessly picks up their bags and hands Rey her carry-on and her suitcase before he shoulders his weekend bag and checks to make sure that his common black luggage is actually his.

“All right,” he says once he’s satisfied with his inspection, straightens up and runs a hand through his hair, looks at her without ever really meeting her eyes. “See you around, Rey.”

And with that, he walks off.

Finn comes over later that night with their usual celebratory Chinese to welcome her home. The minute he catches sight of her red-rimmed eyes, he turns around and walks back the way he came. “I’m going to kill that bastard,” he seethes, and Rey rushes out of her apartment barefoot and clad only in an oversized tee-shirt to stop him.

“No, Finn, come back. It’s not his fault,” she says weakly, pulls her best friend back into the safety of her home and locks the door behind her.

“You come home after two months with Kylo ‘Asshole’ Ren only for me to find you crying your heart out and somehow you expect me to believe it’s not his fault?” Finn demands, albeit gently.

“It really isn’t,” Rey insists, swiping at her eyes while she attempts to focus on unpacking the food he’s brought. “It’s just… it’s me. This one’s on me. God, Finn,” she chokes on a sob, slams down a pair of disposable chopsticks so hard they snap in half. “How could I have been so stupid?”

Finn rushes forward and pries the chopsticks out of her hands, inspects her for splinters before he guides her to the couch. “Hey. Talk to me, peanut. What’s going on here?”

The thing is, Rey’s been keeping it together – somewhat. Sure, her heart had broken at the sight of Kylo walking away from her at the airport. And fine, so maybe she had cried a bit while unpacking her bags only to be greeted with little memories of their time together. But for the most part, she’s been fine – up until Finn turns those big, worried eyes on her, calls her peanut, and pulls her into a familiar, comforting hug.

She clutches at his shirt and muffles a wail against his chest, and it’s like she’s opened the bloody floodgates because no matter how hard she tries, she can’t stop crying for even one fucking minute to give Finn a much-needed explanation.

Finn, to his credit, just holds her tight and runs a soothing hand up and down her back until she calms down.

“I’m gonna get you some water,” he says when Rey finally pulls back, diplomatically giving her a private moment to wipe her tears away and blow her nose.

Rey takes the glass from him with a shaky smile, sips at it while she tries to gather her thoughts and Finn turns the TV on but keeps it on mute. Finally, she settles into her nest of pillows on the far side of the couch and regards her best friend – her first friend, her oldest friend. He might well be the only person on Earth she’ll ever be able to admit this to, and so she does.

“I love him, Finn,” Rey confesses in a whisper, and it’s as much a revelation to herself as it is to Finn. Somehow, she hadn’t known the full extent of her feelings right up until the very second those words decided to escape her.

“I love Kylo Ren, and he doesn’t feel anything for me.”

Rey has spent her whole life studying the mechanics of addiction, trying to figure out how her parents could’ve been so far gone as to abandon their own child in the name of their endless quest for alcohol. She’ll never fully understand them, but she likes to think that at least this way she’ll never be like them.

But the part of Rey that misses him, the part of her that craves him the way her parents must’ve craved their next drink… that part of her isn’t something she’s proud of, but it isn’t something she can deny either.

So when Poe hands her a proper assignment sandwiched between a dozen on-campus student engagement activities, Rey jumps at the chance to see him again, to be near him again, even if it’ll only break her heart even more. All she wants is another hit, no matter the cost.

She wakes up bright and early on the first day of the Naboo Education Fair, held on the first week of October every year. The U of N booth is basically the fair’s crowning jewel, and every year the department sends two senior staff members to supervise the student ambassadors on their first day to make sure everything’s properly set up.

It’s her first time being assigned to the fair, but Rey barely even notices. She gets in the car an hour before she needs to leave, drops by the nearest café to pick up drinks for the both of them. There’s a joke around the office that Kylo is definitely the kind of person to drink coffee as black and bitter as his soul, but none of them have seen Ben fumbling with his coffee first thing in the morning, scooping in lump after lump of sugar and creamer until the drink is practically a dessert. It takes Rey a good five minutes to modify the drink to his liking, and as she walks out of the café she takes pity on the poor, horrified barista.

At ten to eight, Rey strolls into the office fully prepared to give Kylo a polite smile along with his cup of coffee, to pretend that he didn’t break her heart.

Instead, she finds herself face to face with Jessika Pava.

“Jess! What are you doing here?” Rey asks, her eyes discreetly scanning the rest of the office for Kylo even as understanding dawns upon her.

“Isn’t this exciting? Poe just called me yesterday, said Ren has something else to do and asked me to cover for him. I said yes soon as I heard what it was for and who I’d be partnered with. We haven’t worked together in ages! Oh, is that for me?” Jess asks, reaching for the cup of coffee.

“Um, I mean, you can have it. But be careful, it’s–”

Rey scrunches up her nose as Jess chokes down the coffee. “Holy mother of diabetes, what is this?” she asks, holding the cup at arm’s length. “It’s worse than one of those Starbucks frappes.”

“It was for Ren,” Rey mutters, taking the cup from Jess as they make their way outside.

“Was it a prank? Rey, that’s brilliant!” Jess laughs as they make their way to the sidewalk. Rey should’ve noticed Jess’ car parked out front, she realizes as she dumps the contents of the cup into a patch of grass before throwing the cup itself into the trash.

They decide to take Jess’ car – Rey puts up significantly less of a fight than she normally would have, but Jess doesn’t notice – and she uses the rest of the hour-long trip to the convention center to snap herself out of it and dive into work.

She ends up volunteering to supervise the fair for the rest of the week, but she needn’t have bothered – Finn tells her Ren doesn’t show up at the office the entire week, and Poe explains that he’s been borrowed by the President’s office for a bit since they’re short-staffed this semester.

Rey doesn’t buy it for one second, but it’s not like her opinion matters to him anyway. She throws herself into work, takes charge of every assignment that’s up for grabs, and somehow manages to make it all the way to Christmas before she sees Kylo again.

Well, see isn’t exactly the right term for it.

She catches a glimpse of him at the office holiday party, towering a full head above everyone else, and her heart starts beating so fast it physically hurts. Kylo turns around, definitely sees her too, because before she can gather up the nerve to say hi his head is bobbing away in the opposite direction.

He avoids her for the entire night, as if to really drive home the point that whatever they had is in the past now. Rey gets the message loud and clear, but that doesn’t stop her heart from aching for him anyway.

God, she misses him so much, and he can’t even be bothered to say the briefest of hellos to her. How are they ever going to work together again?

Even worse – what if they never work together again?

January rolls around and with it comes a new travel schedule.

To Rey’s surprise, she finds she’s been partnered up with Kylo again. To her total and utter lack of surprise, he goes ahead and boards the plane separately, greets her with a curt nod, and doesn’t say anything to her for the entirety of their flight to Canto Bight.

Canto Bight is too loud, too bright, with too rich kids ready to throw an obscene amount of money at Naboo as long as it means getting into a top five school and getting their parents off their backs. Rey hates every second of it – hates how her cheeks start to hurt from her fake smile, hates how some of the prospective students are clearly paying more attention to her body than her slides, hates how Kylo doesn’t say a single word to her all evening.

He comes to stand by her side as she thanks the attendees and wishes them a good night, and every single fiber of her being reacts to his physical proximity in a way that makes her want to tear her heart out and throw it into the ocean.

“So,” one of the rude douchebags from earlier saunters up to her, gives her a clear once-over as he picks her business card up from the table, “guess I’ve got your number now.”

“My work number, yes,” Rey says, feeling her smile start to crack as the rest of the boys join their friend. From the looks on their faces, she’s in for even more insufferable bullshit.

“So, Rey – I can call you Rey, right? –, how old are you, anyway?” a second boy asks, his friends snickering behind him as they jostle each other in a playful manner. “Because I think older chicks are pretty hot,” he adds with a smirk before Rey can so much as roll her eyes, and the rest of his entourage howls with laughter and drawn-out calls of ayyy.

An arm snakes its way around her waist, and the boys seem to take a collective step backward as Kylo moves forward. “So, how did you gentlemen enjoy the presentation tonight? I trust you found my wife’s slides very informative, since you don’t appear to have any actual questions about the university.”

Wife, he says so casually, as if it doesn’t hurt like a dozen knives through her heart, as if she hasn’t been haunted by Mr. and Mrs. Solo for the last five months.

The kids back off, stammer something about the presentation and yeah it was super helpful really looking forward to uni okay good night bye, and suddenly she finds herself all alone in a darkened hall with no one but Kylo, his arm still tightly wrapped around her waist.

Rey shakes him off and storms over to the table to collect what’s left of their course catalogues and pamphlets. “I could’ve handled that myself,” she mutters when Kylo’s shadow falls over the table.

“Well, it was taking you a while, so I thought I’d speed things up,” he bites back, stuffing their business cards and pens and sign-up sheets into his messenger bag.

“By pretending we’re married?” Rey confronts him, and makes the mistake of looking up just as he steps into her personal space.

Kylo grits his teeth, his jaw tense as he avoids her eyes. “If I had known that the mere thought is so abhorrent to you, I would’ve kept it to myself. My apologies.”

He snatches the pile of catalogues from her hands and storms off, and something about the sight of his retreating back just breaks her.

“Don’t you dare!” Rey calls out, picks her bag up from the floor and abandons the rest of their stuff to stalk after him. “You’re not walking away from me again, not after saying something like that.”

“Like what, Rey?” Kylo turns on her when she catches up to him at the bank of elevators, and for all the emotions she’s seen on his face, for all the tales she’s heard of his anger issues, the sight of him angry at her nearly knocks her off her feet. “Like the truth?”

“What do you even–” The doors open with a soft chime, and she follows him into the elevator. “What truth, Kylo? Because all I heard was you assuming that you know how I feel about you or marriage or anything! How the hell would you know the first thing about me after avoiding me for five months?”

Kylo stabs the button for their floor and backs himself up against the opposite wall, putting as much space between them as possible in this tiny metal box. “What was I supposed to do, Rey? Hang around the office and wait to see you walk in and out every day the way you walked in and out of my life? Did you really think we could go back to being whatever the fuck we used to be after you made it clear that our time together meant nothing to you?”

“Oh my god,” Rey yells as they storm off the elevator, “what even the fuck are you talking about right now? I made it clear? You’re the one who said see you around and turned your back on me!”

“Because you dumped me!” Kylo growls as he swipes his keycard into the slot, and Rey is so taken aback that she doesn’t move in time to follow him before he shuts the door in her face.

He thinks she dumped him. Ben thinks she dumped him, and he’s been… nursing his wounds for the past five months? Avoiding her because he was hurt?

“Ben!” She knocks on the door, starts all-out pounding her fists against it when he fails to open up. “Ben, let me in. Let me in right now, you impossible, unbelievable, idiot of a–”

She doesn’t notice the tears streaming down her face until he opens the door and stares at her in horror. “You’re crying. Why are you crying?”

“I’m crying because you’re an idiot and you broke my heart,” Rey says bluntly as she shoulders her way past him and stomps into the room.

“Rey–” Ben closes the door behind him, leans against it as he watches her pace the length of his room.

“How the hell did I dump you?” she demands, still pacing. “Explain. Now.”

Ben walks towards her almost warily, each step slow and deliberate and cautious. “That morning in Takodana… you were so quiet, so off. And then you said all that stuff about getting used to normal life again, and I just… I knew – I thought – you meant life before us. Life without me.”

Months. For months they’ve both been in pain because of a stupid misunderstanding. “Ben,” she sobs, brings a hand up to her mouth to muffle her cries.

“I waited,” he tells her, moving close enough to sit on the edge of the bed. “For you to call, to visit… hell, I would’ve been happy with a text, Rey.”

Rey stares at him while the gears in her brain grind to a sudden halt, and then she’s throwing herself at him and rolling them towards the center of the bed. “I missed you,” she gasps, taking his face in her hands, “so much,” tears obscure her vision as she leans down to kiss him, “every day.”

Ben brings a hand up to wipe her tears away. “Then why didn’t you–”

“I thought you didn’t want anything more! I thought I was being stupid and sentimental and–”

He stops her right there, pulls her down for a kiss and rolls them over until he’s all she can see, all she can feel. “I want more. I want everything with you, Rey.”

“Good,” Rey smiles, chokes on a laugh as she threads her fingers through his hair, “because I love you, and I want everything with you too.”

Ben laughs, leans down to press their foreheads together. “God, we’re such idiots. And I love you too, sweetheart.”

. . .

In the morning, Rey scrunches up her nose in delight when Ben greets her with an Eskimo kiss and burrows into his side.

“Now what?” she asks with a smile as Ben laces their fingers together.

He sits up straight, puts enough distance between them to look her in the eye. “We could get married. I mean, when in Canto Bight…”

Rey stares at him in wide-eyed shock until she spies a familiar gleam in his eyes. “You’re joking,” she calls him out, half-relieved and half-wary.

“You did say everything,” Ben reminds her very seriously, manages to keep the act up for a whole ten seconds before he gives in to the grin tugging at his lips. “But yes, I’m joking. For now, anyway.”

Rey tugs him down for a kiss. “Let’s revisit that in a couple of years,” she suggests.

(They do.)

Gods above and below, I thought this fic would never end! Look, at this point most of you probably know I always end up running over my self-imposed word limit. That's normal, I've gotten used to it. But this was a projected seven thousand words at most, and now it's nearly ten. It's ridiculous, even by my standards.

Also this is my first M-rated fic ever. Yeah, you read that right: after more than a decade of tame fics, I sinned for this ship. And you guys. Mainly you guys. Feedback would be great, but also maybe let's never talk about this again while I go burn in the eternal flames of my shame?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. As usual, thank you for reading and I'd love to hear from you guys so don't hesitate to like/reblog/comment/etc.

#reylo week 2018 #reyloveweek #reylo #rey/kylo ren #rey/ben solo #kylo ren x rey #ben solo x rey #modern au #star wars #rey #kylo ren #ben solo #fic: oh baby you could devastate me #fic archive #my fics

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astrogeoguy · 6 years

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The Full Milk Moon precedes June, and Many Pretty Planet Pairings!

(Above: In this image taken on March 31, 2012 by Damien Peach, yellowish Saturn at top and reddish Mars at centre, hold court over the spectacular, distant globular cluster Messier 22. This week, Saturn alone guards the distant deep sky object. NASA APOD April 12, 2012)

Astronomy Skylights for this week (from May 27th, 2018) by Chris Vaughan. (Feel free to pass this along to friends and send me your comments, questions, and suggested topics.) I post these with photos at http://astrogeoguy.tumblr.com/ where the old editions are archived. You can also follow me on Twitter as @astrogeoguy! Unless otherwise noted, all times are Eastern Time. Please click this MailChimp link to subscribe to these emails. If you are a teacher or group leader interested joining me on a guided field trip to York University’s Allan I. Carswell Observatory, or another in your area, visit www.astrogeo.ca.

If you’d like me to bring my Digital Starlab inflatable planetarium to your school or other daytime or evening event, visit DiscoveryPlanetarium.com and request me. We’ll tour the Universe together!

Public Events

On Monday evenings, York University’s Allan I. Carswell Observatory runs an online star party - broadcasting views from four telescopes/cameras, answering viewer questions, and taking requests! Details are here. On Wednesday evenings after dark, they offer free public viewing through their telescopes. If it’s cloudy, the astronomers give tours and presentations. Details are here.

On Thursday, May 31 from 11 am to 1:15 pm, join Dr. Kim Tait, Teck Endowed Chair of Mineralogy at The Royal Ontario Museum for Journey to Mars: Rocks, Rovers, Results and the ROM. It’s free with ROM admission, and registration and details are here.

If it’s sunny on Saturday morning, June 2 from 10 am to noon, astronomers from the RASC Toronto Centre will be setting up outside the main doors of the Ontario Science Centre for Solar Observing. Come and see the Sun in detail through special equipment designed to view it safely. This is a free event (details here), but parking and admission fees inside the Science Centre will still apply. Check the RASC Toronto Centre website or their Facebook page for the Go or No-Go notification.

After a long period of inactivity, I’m pleased to announce that the David Dunlap Observatory will re-open for public events starting this Saturday night, June 2! Kicking off the season will be Professor Paul Delaney of York University talking about The Search for Planet 9, all about Pluto and the objects beyond it. Tickets and registration can be found online here. If you would like to volunteer at the observatory, contact me and I’ll connect you.

Asterisms Abound

If you missed last week’s tour of the many Asterisms in the night sky, I posted sky charts with the asterisms labelled here.

The Moon and Planets

Tonight, Sunday evening, the very bright waxing gibbous (nearly full) moon will start a tour of the major planets – landing less than a palm’s width to the left of Jupiter and accompanying it as it crosses the sky all night. Look for the pair of objects in the southeastern sky after dusk.

On Monday evening, the moon will hop east to appear a fist’s width above the bright orange-red star Antares, “the Rival of Mars” in Scorpius (the Scorpion). The moon never ventures too far from the zodiac constellations because its orbit is tilted only 5° from the ecliptic, the imaginary circle that defines the 13 zodiac constellations. Yes! I said 13. Annually during the first half of December, the sun passes across the foot of Ophiuchus (the Serpent-Bearer). Maybe he’s trying to trip Ole Sol!

(Above: The sun’s path along the ecliptic, as indicated by the green line, carries it through the 13th zodiac constellation, Ophiuchus, in December every year. This week, the moon will hop over Ophiuchus’ foot, as shown here for 10:45 pm local time on Monday, May 28.)

On Tuesday morning at 10:20 am EDT, the moon will reach a point opposite the sun in the sky, triggering its full moon phase. The full moon of May, known as the Full Milk Moon, Full Flower Moon, or Full Corn Planting Moon, always shines in or near the stars of Libra (the Scales). To unaided eyes, the moon will look full on Monday night, and still look full when it rises on Tuesday at sunset. But binoculars or a telescope will reveal shadows in craters along only its left edge on Monday and along its right edge on Tuesday.

Look for a medium-bright star sitting a few finger widths to the upper left of the full moon in the southeastern sky during late evening on Tuesday. That star, named Sabik, marks the knee of our friend Ophiuchus! On Wednesday evening, the moon will hop over Ophiuchus’ leg, putting Sabik about a fist’s diameter to the moon’s upper right.

(Above: This week, the moon’s eastward orbital motion along the ecliptic, as shown here at 11:45 pm local time on Wednesday, May 30, carries it past Saturn and Mars.)

Also overnight on Wednesday, the moon will be situated a fist’s diameter to the upper right of yellowish Saturn. Then on Thursday evening at about 10:45 pm local time, the now waning gibbous moon will rise in the east with Saturn. The moon will sit only two finger widths to the left of the ringed planet and both objects will fit easily within the field of view of binoculars.

Saturn is sitting near three deep sky Messier objects this week. (If you wait a few days for the moon to pass out of the sky, you’ll have better luck seeing them.) Messier 25, an open star cluster 2,000 light-years away and nearly as broad as the full moon, will be sitting a few finger widths to the upper left of Saturn. Messier 22, a globular star cluster nearly ten thousand light-years away, will be two finger widths below Saturn. And Messier 28, another globular star cluster that is almost 18,000 light-years distant, will be three finger widths to the right, and below, Saturn. You should be able to see Saturn itself until almost 5:30 am local time, when it will sit about 1.5 fist widths above the southwestern horizon.

(Above: A close up view of the Moon - Saturn encounter on May 31. The three deep sky objects, Messier 22, Messier 25, and Messier 28 will remain in place once the moon departs the area. Binoculars will show a field of view similar to the orange circle.)

Wrapping up the moon’s tour, low in the southeastern sky between 1 am local time and dawn on the morning of Sunday, June 3, the waning gibbous moon will sit a few finger widths above bright reddish Mars. Both objects will fit into the field of view of binoculars. Mars, now noticeably brighter than Saturn, continues to steadily brighten and increase in size as the Earth’s faster orbit brings us closer to the red planet this summer. (We will pass it on the “inside track” in late July.)

(Above: The moon will meet Mars on the morning of Sunday, June 3, as shown here for 2 am local time.)

Venus continues to gleam in the western evening sky this week as it climbs away from the sun. The planet sets at about 11:30 pm local time. Tonight (Sunday), our sister planet will end up extremely close to a yellow, modestly-bright star named Mebsuta which marks the waist of Castor, the westerly twin. Both objects will fit into the field of view of a small telescope. You can observe Venus drawing away from Mebsuta on each subsequent evening.

(Above: Brilliant Venus will pass close to the much fainter yellow star Mebsuta in Gemini on Sunday, May 27, as shown here for 10:35 pm local time.)

Jupiter is still visible all night long this week. Look for it as a very bright object in the southeastern sky after dusk. It will reach its highest elevation (about three fist diameters) above the southern horizon around midnight local time, and then descend into the southwestern horizon before the sun rises. The bright star sitting just to the right of Jupiter is Libra’s (the Scales) brightest star, Zubenelgenubi. In binoculars or a small telescope, it splits into a closely spaced pair of stars.

On Wednesday, May 30 between 11:07 pm and 1:17 am, the black shadow of Jupiter’s moon Io and its little round black shadow will cross (or transit) Jupiter’s disk. A reasonable backyard telescope will show the black shadows, but a very good telescope is needed to see the moons themselves.

The Great Red Spot takes about three hours to cross Jupiter’s disk. But the planet’s 10-hour rotation period (i.e., its day) means that the spot is only observable from Earth every 2-3 nights. If you’d like to see the GRS, use a medium-sized telescope (or larger). You’ll have your best luck on evenings with steady air – when the stars are not twinkling too much. The best times to try this week are: Sunday, May 27 at 10:10 pm, Tuesday, May 29 at 11:49 pm, Friday, June 1 at 9:19 pm, and Sunday, June 3 at 10:57 pm. All times are given in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), so adjust for your local time zone. Try to look within an hour before or after the times I’ve given.

Distant blue Neptune, still among the modest stars of Aquarius (the Water-bearer), has become observable in telescopes in the pre-dawn eastern sky after it rises about 2:15 am local time. I’ll post sky charts for the observable planets here.

Keep looking up to enjoy the sky! I love getting questions so, if you have any, send me a note.

#space #astronomy #planets #stars #Venus #Jupiter #Saturn #Full Moon #Messier 25 #Messier 28 #Messier 22 #Mebsuta

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writingcontests189 · 4 years

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changemyessaywords475 · 4 years

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inspirationalelle · 6 years

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How to Apply to College Like a Pro

Hello, all of my lovely college applicants! I have just finished my first term of senior year and all of my college apps went with it! I can proudly say that I am done applying to college (for now)! I think that my college application process was surprisingly stress-free and I was not too panicked when I hit submit. I thought I would share my best advice to get through this wonderful and scary and exciting time, or at least how I got through it.

First of all, an important note is that I am applying to 99% of my schools as a BFA musical theatre major and so most of my applications required something additional (like a pre-screen video via acceptd, etc) so I will be throwing those important tips in there was well.

get started EARLY. like so early that you think you’re a nerd. My junior year I was dating a senior and he was so late on the whole process that I vowed to never do that, so I started before I even finished my junior year. UC prompts are revealed over summer. Common App is a little bit after. Individual school apps are open at the same time. Create your accounts, start researching schools, and know what/where/criteria for where you want to apply. I started writing my UC essays over summer so that when the UC app opened in November I was already done with all of the hard stuff. If you are applying for art majors and need to film a prescreen, get on that asap. At least start listing some potential audition songs and choreographing some tentative dances. Most schools have requirements up early so you can start thinking about the requirements and your capabilities.

Take it little by little. Start early and set some goals that you will stick to. My school was so on me about my deadlines that I had to plan way ahead. Some things to plan/set deadlines for: final list of colleges, college tours, scholarship deadlines, the first draft of essays, first meeting w college counselor or writing coach, teacher recommendations.

Talk about costs. applying to college is so much money. UC’s are $70, privates range from $10-$90. Shit adds up fast. Some schools will waive your application fee! Email a representative and find out if they’ll waive yours. ALSO if you are sending in prescreens through Acceptd, rip your wallet, save up. Acceptd has probably been just about as much as application fees. Also, think about the cost of touring, going to campus for auditions/interviews. This will be pricey if you are applying out of state. Get a summer job, babysit, write a letter to your grandma, beg your parents, steal your dad's credit card ask your dad for money.

Only apply places you WANT to go. this will cut down cost and make you happier. It is YOUR future, not your parents. It is YOUR potential student debt, NOT your parents.

Talk to college representatives. Getting in touch with them has saved me so much time. Just by talking to them at college fairs I get a really good idea of the school (even if it is in the best light). They won’t lie to you if you ask them honest questions, and if you make a connection with them you could up your admissions chances.

Don’t blow off standardized testing. If you are taking the ACT/SAT again, STUDY. If i could go back and do this again, I would have studied more for the ACT instead of focusing so much on apps. It’s a balance.

Now is the time to utilize your resources. Teachers who loved you and said that if you ever needed anything to ask them? Ask them for a letter of rec. Ask them to read your essays. Ask them about a certain school. They have been with you the past four years and WANT you to go to college. if you are applying to art school, now is the time to ask your arts teachers for help. My dance teacher was a fantastic help, my theatre teacher found me monologues, my voice teacher played accompaniment for my videos. Favors are so important right now, just write them a nice note.

Take care of yourself. Senior year is so so so so demanding, so if you have to take mental health days, do it. Take the time to do things you love, focus on what you need to focus on, and enjoy your time. Go to football games. Drink coffee (the expensive one!). Reconnect with old friends. Who knows, maybe you’ll remember something essay worthy when you’re relaxing with your family.

I hope this maybe helped someone. PM me if you have any questions/need any support. I will update when I experience the college audition process;).

xoxo

Grace

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visawords · 4 years

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The Worst Advices We’ve Heard For Sign Up For Apple Card | sign up for apple card

The Angel Card has a lot of arresting appearance — none of which can advice you if you don’t authorize for it. But a new affairs launched in backward June 2020 aims to advice some alone applicants eventually snag that titanium agenda of their dreams.

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If chosen, you’ll acquire a notification on the Angel accessory you acclimated to apply, and you can adjudge whether you’d like to participate.

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The Path to Angel Agenda affairs

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There’s a focus on three areas, but you’ll get advice alone about the ones that administer to your situation:

Resolving past-due balances.

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Apple will apperceive if you’re arrive to participate in the Path to Angel Agenda program, it will apperceive if you accept, and it will allotment that advice with Goldman Sachs. Beyond that, an Angel adumbrative accepted that the aggregation doesn’t absorb any alone identifiable information.

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paw-sitivi-tea · 6 years

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Hi Yui! This may not be your typical ask - but I would love to know more about the education system in Austria and how welcoming they are to foreigners? I have a huge desire to study abroad there and I am just seeking first-hand experience (even if you are native)

Hey Anon! This is actually a very good question, and I will do my best to explain it to you! (I am not a Native, btw, but I have been enjoying Austrian education since primary school, so almost native ;-))I assume you are talking about university (feel free to send another ask if this isn't what you were asking for), but I will not be talking about private institutions because I don't know much them. First, I will introduce the kinds of universities we have, followed by the admission requirements, fees (and stipends/benefits) and the atmosphere (tolerance, culture, image, etc.) Thia is going to be a looooong post...

There are two kinds of institutions considered as universities: the actual universities/UNI (23 public, 19 private) and what's known as the "University of Applied Sciences" (UAS) (about 20 of them) Both offer BA and MA degrees (or the equivalent), but UAS do not offer doctor/PhD programmes.

UNIs have more freedom in regards to classes: you make your own timetable by choosing what classes you want to do at what time and in what pace. Of course, there is a certain amount of credits and courses needed for a degree, and some need to be taken first or require other exams to get in. You are also allowed to enroll at more than one university (like me!) if you want. It can get a little hectic, but some people just want to study Linguistics AND Architecture. *shrug*Though the system is very flexible, those who work full-time will definitely have difficulty to attend class. Part-time workers who work less than 25 hours a week will have to plan very carefully to keep up with those who study full time, but it is possible.

UAS offer programs that are tailored for certain careers, and function like schools: you get a timetable, do projects, exams, and internships. They do offer programmes designed for part-time or full-time workers, but full-time (student) programmes offer little flexibility. Enrolling at more than one UAS is logistically almost impossible...and not really necessary.

As for admission, the following are always required (for international students):

Proof of your nationality (passport photocopy, in colour!)

a secondary school leaving certificate or an equivalent that would allow you to study at a university/college in your home country

If you are from a non-EU/EAA country: A certificate which proves that you are allowed to study at a university (this may vary from uni to uni, please email the students office for details! )

Proof of your German language proficiency (either at least 4 years of regular German lesson or level B2 or the equivalent, music schools are usually content with B1)After you contacted the students office (always do that if you are unsure) and your documents are alright, there will be an entrance exam (but not for all programs. I can't name it here bc post is getting too long, but just throw an ask!) They can be part online (motivation letter) and part (or fully) written / oral. Usually, they take place during Jun/Jul/Sept for winter semester, or Jan/Feb for summer semester (may vary!) The scores are ranked and the best get in.

Now we get to the fees. As of December 2017, non-EU/EAA students have to pay a tuition fee of 726.72€ per semester, and a 19.20€ fee for the student organization (everyone has to pay that, even if you're not required to pay tuition fees). A permanent waiver of tuition fees applies to students of several least developed countries, poke me for a link to the list.

You can also apply for stipends (but not for benefits), requirements vary, but normally, you get around 700 - 1500 € (min. and max. respectively) per semester (usually around 1000€, speaking from experience)

Now, the question concerning the acceptance of international students in Austria. Let me say that the majority doesn't really care where you are from except Germany (lol just joking) The students are very tolerant and happy to see something else. Austria is a country with all kinds of nationalities and cultures, after all. While the current less-middle-more-right coalition worries me... You won't get harassed on the street and kicked out of shops because of your nationality. It’s safe here (despite the annoying nationalist parties) for most of the time.Older Austrian people can appear as rude and grumpy, but they are not coldhearted, it’s just their way of being, uh, friendly. The younger generation will most likely bombard you with questions or/and treat you like a normal fellow student. we don’t bite ^.^Just know that there are good and people everywhere ^-^

Experience: Uh, I don’t know? There are a lot of student discounts? Depending on the size of the university, it might be hard to make friends at first. Everyone will have a different schedule planned, so it’s hard in the beginning. (#studygroups!) I am bad at describing my experience except for saying “good” or “less than pleasant” or “brilliant”, so the questions have to be a bit more specific...

I hope I could answer your question! If note, poke me ^-^(but come to us, we have good chocolate and coffee and cake!)Have a good day, everyone!

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alittlebitofpersonality · 6 years

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aLBoP a Scam? Drama, Scandal, Ooh Ahh!

Once upon a time, last winter, we moved A Little Bit of Personality to WordPress from Blogger. It was a long, tedious process with a lot of formatting (which on some posts I’m still not pleased with). The site was down for almost a month. All the urls changed, even though I went through and made redirects for as many as I could. And all our Google+ comments got removed (which honestly was part of the point of moving platforms. It was being an annoying system).

All this led to the complex set of algorithms which is Google Search to be very confused as to what was important on aLBoP. When you Googled aLBoP or A Little Bit of Personality, suddenly it was trying to give search results of random image links and obscure posts, instead of things people really wanted to find, such as Type Specializations, the Super Simple Series or Type Heroes.

It also didn’t help that we were working on other aspects of aLBoP and life in general, so posting has been a slow game all year. As I understand it, Google prioritizes frequent posting, as well as Google+ shares (nepotism lol), neither of which were in our favor anymore.

But this also meant that non-aLBoP links, especially from popular sites, suddenly came up much earlier in search results. One in particular, with the most click-bait-y subject line ever, notably rose to the first page of search results right away: a forum thread with the subject line “A Little Bit of Personality Blog: Is it a scam or did I overreact?”

Well if the promise of a scam won’t get people to listen to you, I don’t know what will. Talk about the most buzzwordy word possible lol.

Ha, which just now when I Googled to be sure I was quoting the name of the thread correctly, I saw something relieving which I didn’t know, but I’ll talk about that in a minute here.

So I have never clicked on this link, I’m pretty sure. As soon as we were live again on WordPress, I was trying to make sure that Google had our sitemap, working on our SEO, etc., so I believe I saw that link there as early as January 2017. And seeing it there immediately upset me, not gonna lie. But I wanted to listen to the immortal words of Taylor Swift and shake it off. Plus I had way too many other things to worry about, not the least of which was continuing to be sure my links went where they said. And I also knew that reading people lying about me would just upset me and keep me from getting things done. So I went on with life and working on content like INTJ – The Dragon, which came out in February.

But apparently a lot of my aLBoP friends, (people who we’ve met through their long-time reading and loving of the site, but have become so very much more than just readers, as so many of you have ) had seen this link too, and several of them were even more upset than I was about it. They checked it out on their own and then came and told me about who had posted on the “scam” thread and what they had said.

As soon as Justin and I heard what the original poster of the thread had said, we were immediately like “Oh, him.”

Now before I go briefly into what this guy’s “grievances” were, let me tell you what I was relieved to see this afternoon while writing. When I Googled “a little bit of personality” and saw this link there, not actually clicking on it (it’s gross enough to smell a pile of poop, I don’t want to put my hand in it), it says under the link:

“Oct 2, 2015 – 10 posts – 4 authors” [emphasis added]

*Whew* when my friends were describing what was on there to me, I thought it was like pages and pages of all these people saying how much I suck! To know that it’s just four people, two of which I know who they are and knew that they were like that before they even had anything to complain about, is incredibly relieving.

Okay, so four people. I don’t know who two of them are because I haven’t actually read the thread, although it’s likely I would know them too.

Most of the people who get really angry about aLBoP are ones who liked us at first, often even people who vied heavily for our attention initially, until we say something that offends them, or more often their worldview, and then they hate us with the burning passion of suns and must tell anyone who will listen. Although I don’t think there is a single one of those people who we didn’t get a red flag in our minds at their first email, “watch out, this is one of those kinds of people” no matter how positive they were toward us at first. Observing people is our job, after all.

Person 1

So with this particular guy, the one who started the “scam” thread, *sigh* I knew from his first email “ah, one of those.”

He bought a typing + personal chat package from the store, sometime around then in 2015. We don’t actually carry personal chat time anymore, because it was taking way too much time and we were getting behind. We actually *still* have some out that we sold but haven’t done. We will either go ahead and do those ones at some point, or refund their money. But I know there were several really cool people who ordered them near the end, so I would really like to fulfill those at some point here, rather than refunding them.

Anyway, we don’t carry them anymore because they had gotten really stressful and after we had a forum, which we’ll talk more about later, we thought people can get their questions answered there anyway, answer each other’s questions, etc.

We’ve never been especially timely with Typings, but we do always get to them. I don’t remember how timely we were fulfilling this guy’s order. We do them in big batches, usually, where we sit down and type a bunch of people at once, oldest order first. So if we took a while to get back to him it wasn’t at all because he was a less pleasant customer, because the time we take has nothing to do with that. So if you have to wait a while for your Typing, it’s not because we don’t like you, lol <3 (If we’re ever taking too long, you *can* send us a polite email and ask if we can go ahead and get on it. But we always do get to it and we always feel really bad making people wait.)

Oddly, I vaguely remember doing this guy’s really fast anyway, so I don’t think that was part of the problem. We may have been like “this guy is a live wire, we shouldn’t let his sit too long.” We do occasionally do that.

Anyway, if I understand correctly, his main reasoning in calling us a “scam” is that the following happened:

1) He ordered a typing + a video chat.

2) We felt immediately “eh” about him, but fulfilled his typing order in a normal and polite fashion.

I think it was his condescending attitude toward people in general in his first email that seemed like #badsign to me.

3) He was displeased with the type we gave him. We have a post about this.

No matter how consistent and repeatable the results are, no matter how many people are over the moon about our typing of them, no matter how many people are repeat typing-customers because they see how it all lines up over and over again in real life; there are so many people who are set on the type or set of types they want to be a part of, and therefore who dislike the type we give them. But the way we Facial Type is a science, with consistent data-sets that have proven universally consistent thousands of times, holding up over time and experience. We can’t go changing the answer because somebody gets his panties in a wad.

There are also plenty of people who are personally threatened by the idea of Facial Typing at all, or just very uncomfortable about it. You are welcome to feel however you want on the topic. But I don’t understand why people order from us if they feel that way.

It’s like someone coming across town to tell you he thinks your house is ugly. I feel like “… Okay, thanks? Then don’t look at it and get off my lawn.” The internet is a big place and no one is making you stay here. Honestly there’s probably a more fitting analogy with someone who hates seafood yelling at Red Lobster or someone buying an orange and getting mad that it’s not an apple, but eh, I like the lawn one.

4) We don’t give refunds on Typings we have fulfilled. We never have, and say so very clearly on the Type Me page, which has all the instructions. That page didn’t exist in its current version at the time, but we have always listed that on pages describing the Typing process.

The effort and our typing results are what is being paid for, and people who get snotty about their results take far *more* effort than people who are happy with them. That’s not to say you are required to be happy, but that even if you are not, our time and our results have still been given to you, so we can’t just refund that. If you don’t trust our scientific process and our definitions, then that is completely your prerogative. But if that’s the case, then please don’t order a typing and waste our time, as well as yours.

5) He also applied to the, at the time, brand new Phase 2, via a separate self-invite system.

Okay, the thing to know about all our websites is that they are 100% free, always are, always have been, always will be. We currently have—*counts*—4 websites. They all have free admission and no subscription fees or anything of that nature. The only things we charge money for as part of aLBoP are specific services and merchandise. That used to include video chats, which as I said we don’t offer anymore, and now includes Personalized Typings and, hopefully in the future, merchandise such as t-shirts (you can buy t-shirts here, but I really want to make more designs and figure out a better system for producing them), patches or whatever other physical or digital items you guys might want to buy. We do not have any premium content, if the definition of “premium” is content you pay for.

All other funds from aLBoP come to us via Patreon where people can support our content, which helps us produce more of it, or via Love for aLBoP, one-time donations in the aLBoP shop. (Everyone has been remarkably patient as I haven’t been great at giving out everyone’s Patreon rewards, such as the monthly desktop wallpaper for $5+ people, etc. But I really am excited to do that and plan to do it sooooon. Not one person has said anything about it yet, I just feel really bad because your support means so much to me. <3)

HOWEVER, we do have content that is restricted to people we have given access. Like I said, we have 4 websites, of which this is the first; Phase 1 as we call it. Yes, this is a blatant reference to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Phase 2 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Why, yes, we are giant nerds. Here, have a picture of stick figure Phil Coulson with his gun from Avengers, if you haven’t seen it on the Phase 2 Intro site.

But while we do gate these websites–the Phase 2 Intro behind a self-invite you can use right now if you want (it’ll open up in a new tab so you don’t have to lose your spot here <3), and Phase 2 gated behind applying and us getting to know you—ALL of them are free. Let me repeat that: none of our websites cost any money. (The fourth site only has a few people on it so far and it’s still under construction anyway, but it’ll have a similar kind of gating.) These websites are provided free of charge, including our time spent on the Phase 2 forum, where we give lots of personal help and advice. We don’t even have ADS on any of the websites!!!! (Although we are considering adding them to our videos, because we find that less invasive.)

6) Where was I? Oh yeah, he had applied for Phase 2, but then we were busy and hadn’t gotten to adding people to the new Phase 2, back before the process was automated.

7) He sent an annoying displeased email. I could pull up said email now to remember the details (I never delete aLBoP emails from anyone, which is why my Gmail storage is exploding), but I really really don’t want to.

But I recall that he was firstly, really whiny about his typing. I don’t remember if he actually said he couldn’t be an F, like we had typed him, or if that was just the impression we got from his email, which is a very common tale, especially with people who hold onto the internet’s definition of Feeler. Men typed as Fs and women typed as Ts have been trends in our grumpiest clientele, because people believe that Feeler means soft like mush and Thinker means Vulcan, and people equate those to feminine and masculine traits, respectively, which is frankly pretty dumb. Although I can only blame people so much for wanting certain types, when the internet deems some types so wildly more worthwhile than others. However, how people react when they’re disappointed says a lot about them.

The second thing that really got our eyes rolling about his email was his attitude that because he had given us money, he owned our time. Money seemed like his main card to play, which makes all the more sense why he made money the focus of his thread title, calling us a scam. Anyway, it was a very “but you have to do what I say, I paid you,” attitude.

But if you’re not sure on my character judgment of him, go ahead and look at the thread. I haven’t read it, but if he doesn’t come off whiny and like someone who feels like money makes him entitled, then I will eat my hat. Well, I won’t, but it’s the only idiom I could think of. But if you don’t agree then you won’t agree, and that’ll be the end of it, but at least I will have left the opinion up to you.

8) So we saw from his email, which wasn’t a surprise from his original email, that we didn’t want to waste time and energy having a personal chat with him. We also didn’t want him on the brand new forum, which as a private, free forum was our prerogative.

9) So I sent him an email telling him that we would refund the chat money because we didn’t want to talk to him more and that he was the first person banned from the forum, which was true.

I think we only actually banned… 2.5 people ever. I say 2.5 because we officially banned 2 people from ever entering the original site, and were close to banning another, but he quit before we could fire him, so to speak.

Was I especially nice in this email reply? No. I wasn’t trying to be. I wanted to really let him know why we didn’t want to deal with him anymore, and frankly he was a buttmunch. Again, you can go look at the thread if you want to verify his buttmunch-itude.

10) WE REFUNDED HIS VIDEO CHAT.

Again, like I said in point 5… No… 4, we don’t give out refunds for typings. We had fulfilled that part of the deal, so we kept our $15 dollars (I know, huge quantities of money being exchanged ), but refunded him the $10 for the video chat we didn’t give him. He was our first refund; we had to figure out how to do it on the website.

11) I think he probably replied again, angrily, but I was super done with it.

12) Shortly after (we launched Phase 2 on September 15 and he wasn’t in the first several batches of applications, so he probably rage posted pretty quickly), he started that thread.

Apparently his reading comprehension was limited enough that he thought paying for a video chat was paying for Phase 2…I guess… Even though you would have to read the Phase 2 announcement page from the time to even apply… idk. I’ll give him the limited benefit of the doubt that he was more stupid than flat-out lying… Stupid isn’t a nice word, it implies mental limitations and implies that if other people missed information, I think they’re stupid too, which I don’t. “Making the decision to be willfully idiotic” is a much more fitting term. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he was being willfully idiotic, rather than flat-out lying.

13) I thankfully haven’t heard from him since and hope he finds happiness despite his buttmunchiness. Totally a word.

Anyway, you can have any opinion you want about my choices in responding to him, but since he had no purchase that wasn’t either fulfilled or refunded, he has zero claim to a scam. Although, you know, I’m really rolling in his fifteen bucks. *Evil laugh*

Person 2

The other person who I know wrote on the “scam” thread, got upset in the very earliest days of the forum. It was a lot of drama in a short period of time that happened… two years ago today! [At time of writing, which was the middle of September.] Holy crap, I didn’t know that when I started writing. Happy anniversary to drama .

There was a lot of drama in those early days of the forum as we were attempting to establish an atmosphere different than so many forums and so much of the internet. This other person wasn’t the only one involved at the time, but since other people didn’t feel the need to run my name through the mud, I don’t feel the need to address their personal issues with aLBoP.

This woman was INFP and I’m referring to her by her type since I have no intention to be petty enough to share her name. That doesn’t mean I think all INFPs are that way *obviously,* it’s just easier than saying “woman” on repeat, because that’s weird.

But, as I’m sure she talked about on the thread in question, she thought we were harsh and mean on our forum in a way that she deemed “never called for.” She was referring to one particular forum post of mine. Here’s what happened, from my perspective:

If you are unfamiliar with cognitive typing, you will need to know that ESTPs like to poke for reactions. It’s how they interact with the world, which is a good thing. And because motives and character judgment is their primary Type of Information, it really really matters to them what people are really like. They hate fakeness, perhaps most of all the EPs, and attempt to cut through the crap of pretension (wow I had no idea that was spelled with an s instead of a t, interesting), or fake nicety, by catching people off guard and seeing how they react. Reactions are an EP’s bread and butter, after all.

So since very early aLBoP, there was this ESTP. Great way to start a story lol. And he had been all over the internet and in real life, and had seen people being crappy on repeat, so he was used to that as the norm rather than the exception. We can all relate with that.

So when he found aLBoP he immediately began his routine “poking for legitimacy” like a 19th century miner biting a gold coin lol. But because of the crappy he had experienced, he was used to having to poke oftenly and fairly hard to see what was really inside someone.

But when he first began poking at aLBoP, I didn’t know this backstory. I just saw that the same guy was commenting on *every* new post, and giving me pokie lip on each one lol. He would comment things on each post, trying to get a reaction, commenting about how I said this or that, or on what he’d read elsewhere that disagreed. And at first I was just like “>:( leave me aloooone! If you don’t like the posts, why are you here??”

But that was the thing, he kept staying around. I didn’t get it. I felt like his comments meant he didn’t like the posts, so why didn’t he just move on? And the comments were getting more positive over time, usually just with something pokie at the end or something. And he ordered a typing from us and I was like “What??? Well, I guess he does trust us some… Huh…” That was before Facial Typing, but when I realized his type it just made all the sense. (I have obviously since seen his face and it was spot on what we predicted, for the record. Take that people who try and pretend this isn’t a science . When it can accurately predict what people will look like before we see their faces.) And he had really been open about himself in his typing emails (of which there were several, telling us about himself, which is so adorably ESTP lol <3), and I was already liking him a lot more already. And then he posted pokie comments on the Spartan, being skeptical and I’d feel grumpy about him again, but as much as I wasn’t a fan of the way he was poking, feeling like “how many times are you going to have to poke me before you’ll believe I’m legit? :P”, I did still really like him and care about him, and was starting to appreciate his bold, frank, poking sense of humor.

But this back and forth dance of poking and a surprising growing loyalty we saw from him about aLBoP, was at an interesting place right before we launched Phase 2. I remember he had left a really sweet comment on SS:P2 (which isn’t there anymore because we moved, remember?) and I was feeling really supported and happy about him. And yet because of this history, and the fact that I was aware the poking was still strong with him, lol, Justin and I were nervous about him as we came up to launching Phase 2. I remember three individuals that we were worried about with it and this ESTP was one of them. But like I said, we liked him too, so Justin and I had high hopes about the whole situation as we launched.

Now, if you haven’t read what is now the Phase 2 Intro, and don’t know about what kind of content we have over there, it’s not only more in depth than what we have here on Phase 1, it’s about understanding yourself in a very core way, even deeper inside than cognition even, which is why we didn’t want it to be drive-by internet bait. It’s not secret, but we think it’s pretty special, and we wanted to foster an environment of reading-comprehension and self-examination, for this information that is intended to help individuals grow, for people who want to do that. Like I said, it’s pretty special to us, and we’ve had immensely special experiences seeing it work in the lives of others as well as ourselves <3.

But because of the crap he’d experienced, and because most of the time Motives aren’t treated as a valid Type of Information, even after all the times he’d poked us, this ESTP felt very wary as he came onto Phase 2 and began reading the new information. It was all new stuff and lifted the ceiling on his own potential, making him worried he was going to be judged unfairly for things he didn’t know yet (I hope that’s a fair assessment of his feelings at the time). And so he sort of acted out about it. From what he said later, he skimmed the Intro, feeling grumpy about it from the very beginning of the information, and went to the fresh new forum even more wary than he had started.

He read the forum rules, which we had written purposely open-ended, talking about attitudes that weren’t acceptable on the aLBoP forum, and referenced content from the Intro in showing how those attitudes would be identified. Having been treated unfairly other places for doing the “wrong” action (his last step and mine), and I think feeling grumpy about the new information being referenced again, like he was expected to know everything right away or, like I said, be judged unfairly, our ESTP’s first forum post was a criticism of the forum rules, saying they were too open ended and wouldn’t work. I remember in one of his posts in this conversation, he said that other forums’ rules were better and said it would be better to be like every other forum, which was the opposite of what we were aiming for.

Justin replied very nicely to him, explaining that he wasn’t expected to know everything yet, and to just relax and settle in, trying to encourage him to get comfortable and let us worry about whether or not we could reasonably make it better than other forums.

(I swear, I don’t know why people consistently treat Justin like he’s going to be the intense, harsh one. 9 times out of 10 *I* play bad cop, not him. Which people don’t expect from me because I’m adorable and smiley, lol, and the unsuspected nature of it works in my favor.)

But our ESTP (running out of ways to say that) was still feeling upset from the Intro, and didn’t want to be soothed about the topic, still arguing about it being unfair. I think some others might have talked too at that point? Don’t remember. But it was a particular “won’t let this go” thing iirc.

And we were working so hard on the atmosphere of this baby forum. Justin and I were getting about 2 hrs of sleep a night, trying to help the forum feel like a safe place where people could actually talk about things, and this was the last thing it needed. And I was so done with this ESTP’s mood and attitude at that moment. He was being so stubborn (which I lovingly joke ST stands for sometimes, lol <3) and obstinate, and I decided “no more!”

I sat down and wrote a reply post that was intended to smack him upside the head, hard, and say “Stop it! I think you can be better than this! Are you going to prove me wrong?!” It was an intense post, not gonna lie. I actually remember very little about it besides my calculated fury and the fact that I quoted XKCD. And I said he wasn’t allowed to say “I didn’t do any specific actions wrong, you can’t call me on my bad attitude and intentions.” Oh and I may have said he was acting like a “dick” at some point … Yeah, apologies, that is a phrase I use, not actually on Phase 1 before this point. It’s just so concise and jerk is just not strong enough sometimes!! Is it bad that it’s a little bit funny looking back at how intense I got, since it’s been very resolved on that front since? Like I’m kind of embarrassed that I am that intense of a person. You know, as if someone took a picture of my battle face and I’m looking back at it now like “That’s what I look like angry, huh?”

Which isn’t to say that I rage posted. I don’t rage post. Case in point, how the thread that sparked this whole post is now over two years old, and I began writing this post over a month ago. I am meticulous and thorough and attempt to predict the reactions my words and choices will evoke, as is my one-true-mental-love as an ENTP.

I stayed up all night writing that post, trying to imagine how he would reply to different parts and trying not to let him wiggle out of it, and yet wanting to give him the opportunity to do better if he wanted to.

I am a very passionate person, I’ll give you that for sure. People and things mean more to me than I can ever say, often against my will. But that means while I get really truly incensed about plenty of topics, I will never write an angry message to someone if I have no hope of getting through to them. Like this post for example; there’s a reason it isn’t addressed to the people over on that thread. I have hopes of actually communicating with very many of *you,* however I won’t try and communicate with them. I don’t have any hope that that would do squat.

Ask Justin’s brother, also ETP, sometime about the intense face-slap email I sent him, he’s definitely never forgotten it. But I would never have sent it if I didn’t respect him and his ability to apply things and desire to grow. (He replied epically to it, btw.) If I ever get truly angry with you, and let you know it, know that I respect you enough to believe it’ll make a difference to address the issue with you.

ETPs need to be poked as much as poke (saying that is going to get me into trouble with people lovingly poking me, heh), and I wanted to poke this ESTP hard enough to get a reaction of change, and I poked as hard as I felt he personally needed, based on knowing him personally and knowing his cognition.

But the INFP woman in question immediately replied informing us that you never ever ever (need a bunch more evers) speak to someone that way! She said we were mean and rash and harsh and she would have no part in it! And for the record, she was definitely not the only one concerned.

The post I wrote *was* in fact harsh, but it was not a knee-jerk reaction. It was a calculated move decided upon, based on love for the person I was talking to, and the hope that snapping him out of the way he was acting would induce him to be *more*, which I hoped he could be.

And if you consider “lovingly harsh” to be an oxymoron—if you believe that there could never be a situation where harshness would be the appropriate reaction in order to get through to someone you care about—then this may not be the place for you, especially the later Phases of aLBoP. aLBoP is a place for adults to come of age, and attitudes that say “you always deal with people this way or that way” are, frankly, childish and therefore wouldn’t fit in with the atmosphere of aLBoP’s later Phases.

We deal with people on a case by case basis, not by one-size-fits-all rules, and this was actually what I thought would be most effective. And to be honest, it worked. He immediately stopped in his tracks and said “I’m sorry, what can I do differently?” Honestly, his reaction was much more epic and adult than I expected it to be, but I did anticipate that the best way to handle an ESTP acting that way, was to shock him to get his attention, and stop him in his tracks.

But this INFP woman didn’t care whether or not it worked. She was all too pleased to be indignant. She told the forum (if I remember correctly) that she was leaving, and also emailed to chastise us again, and to tell us she was leaving. We emailed her a short but polite “sorry you feel that way” email, but tbh were pretty pleased to see her go. (Now when I say “polite,” I actually mean polite. I don’t consider my harsh post in question to be polite, for example, but it wasn’t intended to be polite.)

She was actually one that we *did* have a video chat with before we even launched Phase 2 (you guys see why I didn’t want to carry them in the store anymore?), after we had typed her. And while we made it very pleasant and answered all the questions she had, to her stated satisfaction, Justin and I both could tell there was something about aLBoP that made her very uncomfortable. He and I discussed afterward, “that was good… right?” “yeah, but we had to make it good.” I could go into the ins and outs of what made her uncomfortable, things having to do with her Type Angst, blah blah blah, but that just seems petty at this point. Interestingly, I talked about her in What if I’m not the Type I Thought I Was and referred to her as a “cool INFP.”

I was being nice.

I will say, disappointingly, that there has definitely been an FP trend among the people who have been the least cool about aLBoP. I mean, I know soooo many cool FPs, and I suspect we get more of them, quantity-wise, since their Type Specs are all about the meaning that they can get out of Individuals and Situations <3 and I think and hope that aLBoP is right down that alley. But when an unhealthy FP feels like we’re a threat to their own personal meaning, watch out! We’ve especially had a lot of ESFP and ENFP guys (more often guys than girls, interestingly) who have approached us as “nice guys” with obvious warning signs, that when they ended up showing their true colors were anything but nice. I won’t go into tales of the one who wouldn’t stop emailing me in all-caps not-so-nice words, or the one who spammed comments about how ENTPs didn’t have feelings. I don’t make character judgments flippantly, especially negative ones. And unfortunately, my spotting of warning signs has proved depressingly accurate, as individuals have demonstrated with later actions.

But in a twist of couldn’t-get-more-ironic, the reason I decided to write this post was because Justin was chatting with the very ESTP she had said I was abominably too hard on. He’s been one of our biggest supporters ever since, both in having our backs with emotional support and sharing aLBoP, and he’s been ridiculously generous on Patreon (I hope it’s okay to share that, I never know what is couth when it comes to talking about money and donations ).

Lol, when he found out about people discussing him on that thread he was like “Hey, they’re talking about me! That’s pretty cool.” ROFL, could he *be* any more ESTP?! Idec, I love you, you are seriously amazing and I can learn a lot from how you let stuff roll off of you!! <3

But he had a friend whom he’d been telling about aLBoP, and the friend saw the “scam” link and got wary, so I felt like it was finally time to address this. I have better things to do than tell people on the internet that they’re wrong, but when it’s deterring other people who are looking for aLBoP, then that’s something I need to try and fix.

*Whew* sorry this has been so long!

But I don’t want you guys to worry that this has delayed posting at all. The only major posts this year have been The Dragon, like I said, and the Four Types of Love, both of which I am ridiculously proud of, although I have been worried sick about not posting more, especially since you guys have earned it with Patreon all year; don’t think I’ve forgotten it!!

But the reasons we have been gone so much are somewhat other aspects of aLBoP, working on later “Phase” stuff, especially training people who want to help us help all of you guys more, but also working on our own personal situation as well.

In June I was offered a part-time job by an INTJ friend of mine that I really respect, at his business, and I felt like it was the perfect time. (For the record, he doesn’t know I’ve typed him shhh ) And while I’m really enjoying it and I think it’s benefitting aLBoP, I felt fairly overwhelmed and anxious the first few weeks, so that took a lot of my attention at first. But really, there’s been plenty of other aspects going on with us working things out to establish ourselves for the long haul.

Which, for the record, the part-time job is in financial planning, so I had to have a background check for it, which I passed, so I guess the FBI doesn’t believe I’m a danger to people’s money if that helps with the whole “scam” thing lol… Unless that’s a ruse and they’re watching me *right now.* O_O Considering that I’m writing this from the bathtub, that would be super pervy.

However, apparently I have very little fingerprints left, I guess from my skin condition, so I am considering a life of crime. If anyone has any suggestions, please leave them in the comments below.

Anyway, I have two short Super Simple posts almost done, working on a new format for shorter posts and faster posting, so I hope to get those out to you guys ASAP. I will make up for all the months I’ve missed, I swear!! Thank you guys for your patience as always. And for your trust of us as a source. I can’t tell you how much it means to me those times when people are impugning our character (which thankfully seems to be happening less and less these days), to know you beloved readers are out there; knowing that you know us, love us and have our backs. I couldn’t ask for a better audience or better friends. <3

My hope in clearing this up is to just soothe people’s worries and hopefully overcome misleading search results so that new people can find aLBoP every day, and hopefully feel like who they are and the way they think naturally is worthwhile and wanted.

Much love, <3 Calise

The post aLBoP a Scam? Drama, Scandal, Ooh Ahh! appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

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#Miscellaneous #News #Patreon #Comment Response #Facial Typing #Personalized Typing #Phase 2 #Q&A #Ty

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alexsmitposts · 5 years

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Cheating Scandal in Admission to Elite American Universities is Telltale Sign of Decay in Higher Education One only needs to give a few lessons about how to apply to US universities – you teach students about the admission policies, motivational letters, etc. However, it is also necessary to make an attempt to get across to them the simple truth that they are most probably wasting their time and money applying to the so-called elite universities, unless they have super-rich parents or sugar daddies (gender notwithstanding). As a graduate of a US academic program, I would advise them that it is better to aim for the average universities, as the quality of education there is just as good, if not better; they are also far more likely to get accepted at one of these. But this advice applies mostly to the above-average students dreaming the Great American Dream, as the best of the tribe would not pay heed to my advice, howsoever logical it might be. As a teacher, what is most discouraging and disheartening to know is that deserving students cannot obtain the places they deserve, just because they are not from families through whom they can call the Clintons and the Obamas family friends. But what is especially discouraging is when foreign students, and those from working class families, who have brains and can actually get accepted, fail to get accepted to their dream Universities. What is even more disheartening is that, when deserving students have asked me over the years how the kids of the rich, famous and the powerful have always managed to enroll in the elite universities, I have had no answer. But I now have. It should always have been obvious – they scam their way in. When, in March, Federal prosecutors in the US charged nearly 50 parents, including celebrities and others in higher education, some of the who’s who among the “rich and famous”, with taking part in a massive cheating scandal designed to get their less than “so bright” children into elite universities, I understood why deserving students I knew were missing out on university seats that should rightfully have been theirs. While a lot many of us will rejoice that the perpetrators have been booked, as someone who understands how the underground power structure of the world works, I know very well that this is just the tip of an iceberg, and something that has been going on for a long time. In reality, elite universities are often just a country club for the brats of the rich. They are full of legacy admissions. One only has to think of George W. Bush, and how he got accepted into Yale and then somehow managed to graduate. The latest scandal even involved paying bribes to a so-called charity, and then using the bribe as a tax write off, a trick your Average Joe would never be able to get away with. I am close to Berea College in Kentucky, which is technically an elite college based on academics, as you had to be poor with lots of brains to get accepted. It is perhaps the only college in America that will not even consider your application if you come from a higher income class and are not in financial need. Back in my day, it had a 12 percent admission rate. You also had to work at least 10 hours a week to earn your keep at various college-based jobs and industries. But I would add the caveat that my characterization of corruption, and better choices of where to attend an American university, is more applicable to undergraduate education. The top universities are still the “go-tos” for masters and PhDs, I would say—those where you get the most bang for the buck. In this context, where academics are key, the admissions process is generally a legitimate one. I still wouldn’t discourage undergrads from applying to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and such-like, because they often get better financial aid packages as well as perhaps more useful connections in terms of internships or work later on. Many such universities have blind admission policies, which means they don’t look at your financial status when examining your candidature. If they find you eligible, and if you don’t have the money, they will find it for you. But for those who fail to get into the American Ivy League, I sincerely advise them to look into other places where the educational experience is just as rich, if not even fuller. What I always try to instill in my students is a sense that education is a way of self-formation, of growth, of something that will make them inherently valuable. I think many of them appreciate that approach. As one of my former students wrote, “My life experience has been so different. I’m quite spoilt, and I continue to be spoilt. Can you imagine the Virginia taxpayer is footing the bill so that I do things I love – read and write? God bless them. I often wonder how and when I’ll give back to so many to whom I owe so much.” But – no offence – that’s a stupid sentiment to have. My friend, albeit well-intentioned, is overlooking how little he is involved in the entire scheme of the world. He is like a slave worrying about the dire condition of other worse off slaves. The true problem is that his only choices are “reading and writing”, and the State of Virginia pays him to remain ineffectual. The “God bless them” statement in his email is to me the ultimate affirmation of his own superiority and his own self-deception. It appears that he thinks his reading and writing are authentic experiences, rather than empty distraction for faux intellectuals. Once hooked by such ideas, foreign students often have a tendency to look down on those less fortunate. Thinking of my own college experience – who wouldn’t want a unique, fantastic education like that, especially if it was on a full scholarship? But you must find the money for most colleges, unless you fit their selection requirements: academically strong, motivated, and committed to the Appalachian region. I was deeply privileged, blessed, and just plain lucky to have managed to get funded. That’s a key element in the mix, needless to say. Another colleague recently shared with me about the status of higher education in the USA, “As part of my Ph.D. studies here in the US, I am participating in a small seminar course on the state of the university and academia in general. It has been very eye-opening. I always knew I wouldn’t want to be a part of the cut-throat publish-or-perish world, but I didn’t realize how, for example, disciplines, sub-disciplines, and tenure committees are as a rule highly specialized and rigid in their expectations – to the extent that, as a professor awaiting tenure, one is actively discouraged from engaging with the world through, say, op-eds in newspapers or blogging or other such public activities.” If you believe me, it is all about your field, and publishing in certain important journals and getting one or two academic books out (which should, in turn, be published by certain key university presses). It all seems a bit much to me. I think I just want to return to the classroom and teach, tenure be damned. But ask me again in a few years, I suppose. That is why plagiarism, even self-plagiarism, is so common amongst university professors – publish or perish. I took a graduate course on the economics of education, and how programs are funded, and universities ranked, based on publications, even volumes of books in libraries. All that goes into the national and world rankings. The other side of the coin is former USSR countries, where little or no research is being conducted. Lecturers are using the same notes year on year and are paid peanuts—no outside research, no office hours and little student interaction in or outside of the classroom. Special Relationship But how is it in Europe, and specifically the UK, the country the US long had a “Special Relationship” with? That may be the next great scandal waiting to happen, as foreign students push out native Brits, who cannot afford to go to university anymore because tuition fees were tripled by the previous coalition government, despite one of the coalition parties, the Liberal Democrats, having won a lot of votes on a public promise that it would abolish tuition fees. Those Brits who can afford to go are now focused on diplomas rather than the once-dominant social aspects of university, for obvious reasons, But their parents have watched in horror as the value of their degrees is progressively eroded, to the point where being well connected is a greater guarantee of a job and a future, exactly what opening up higher education to all was supposed to prevent. Of course, tongue in cheek, such a cheating and bribery scandal could never happen at a British university, as Brits already know not to apply where they are not welcome due to their social class. But like Americans, Brits are also a bit naive at times, especially when it comes to white privilege and the Golden Rule -he who has the Gold makes the rules. Unlike Americans, Brits make a distinction between how you talk to a dustman and how you talk to an elected politician. As they don’t see the problem this causes, as it does in other countries, cheating by those who can becomes a way of life, as universities such as Exeter – described in guides as having a “high twit factor” – amply demonstrate. But keep in mind that the American system is completely different. You can’t get access to Cambridge, for instance, by means of sports achievements. There is no such system there. The entrance requirements for new undergrads are strict, and 87% of the students selected for each year are either from the UK or have lived in the country for most of their lives (it’s really difficult to get accepted as a foreigner on an UG course). The problem is that if you have two candidates, both brilliant, one coming from a state school in a non -prestigious place and the other from an elite school, in all probability they will take the rich kid – or they will send the rich kid to the most exclusive college, e.g. the likes of St John’s or Brasenose, and the poor one to a second-rate college. Why? The UK is effectively run by an aristocracy which still owns 1/3 of the land and has most of the financial power. This class is very well represented in the academic world – to put it simply, it can’t get rid of itself. When it comes to post-grad, MD or MSc etc, the criteria are completely different. There is much more flexibility. But say a rich Chinese or Arab entrepreneur tells the college: if you take my son, I will give you a donation of 25 mln pounds. You know what the college will do, and there are many examples – all those chairs of Islamic Studies, funded by and named after Arab businessmen and sheikhs, haven’t appeared out of academic curiosity or considerations of balance. Who would say no? Another thing to investigate is that there’s quite a rich history of the sons and daughters of people who studied at Oxford or Cambridge, politicians and businessmen, ascending to degree courses by some sort of hereditary right. Is it possible, for instance, that the son of a couple of former Pakistani prime ministers is so gifted that he was able to pass the severe tests again? Was that in his DNA? I’ve never heard of any serious investigation of how so many of these cases occur. They might be more credible through the private school route, where donors buy privilege routinely, but not amongst comparative arrivistes who think privilege can subvert democracy, though not without foundation. . So there you have it – even what makes America Great is not what it used to be, and elite universities are proving themselves to be rotten to the core. But I see hope, as at least the new generation is starting to realize, not only on the international level, that the financial payoff from an expensive American degree is not what it is billed as. But is any degree worth it for that matter?

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melvinfellerstuff · 5 years

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Melvin Feller Business Ministries Group Details Small Business Ideas

Melvin Feller Business Consultants Group Ministries in Texas and Oklahoma. Our mission is to call and equip a generation of Christian entrepreneurs to do business as ministry. We provide workshops and resources that help companies discover how to do business God’s way. When the heart of a business is service rather than self it can be transformed into a fruitful ministry.

M elvin Feller Business Ministries Group asks if you need a profitable small business idea. Well if you do, you came to the right place! Here some ideas of profitable small businesses that you can start today. These businesses can also be a blessing to others!

On average, people more want their own business rather than a good salaried job. This article is includes small business ideas that are well researched and profitable and which you can start it in small town or from your home.

There are tons of small business ideas, and what defines a “best” small business idea largely depends on an aspiring entrepreneur’s personality and skill set and its potential to earn you money, of course. Therefore, when you are considering the best ideas for your future small business, you will need to answer a few clarifying questions, including:

What are your interests?

Where is there a need in the market, and how can your skills satisfy that need?

Who is your ideal client?

What is your ideal work environment?

Cleaning company

Probably widely regarded as the most straightforward business to make money from. Get Microsoft Publisher or Adobe, print off some flyers, put them up in local shop windows, and drop them in mailboxes nearby. The costs are minimal, just your own cleaning supplies and the ink for your printer. Easy to scale too.

Laundry service

Go to big apartment blocks and pass out flyers. Many apartments in built up areas don’t have washing machines. You can also collaborate with launderettes to offer their existing customer base a ‘delivery option’, simple!

Carpet cleaning

Same as above, although a little more expensive as decent carpet cleaning equipment can be pricey, but with that comes a higher barrier to entry so you can charge more.

Window cleaning

You get the gist now, print flyers and target your local community. Everybody has windows unless they are living in a tent.

Pool cleaning

Only do this is you know what you are doing, you do not want to be responsible for a swimming pool turning green. Contrary to popular opinion, you do not have to be 21 and well built to do this job.

House sitting

Pretty awesome job if you ask me; are paid to hang out in a mansion while the owners are on holiday… a fully stocked fridge and a king-size bed, happy days! Now, back in the real world… there is also a decent market for waiting for deliveries when people are at work.

Catering company

I f you love cooking and can handle catering for the masses, a catering company could be an excellent idea. You can work from home and start small catering for buffets with sandwiches and such, then scale up to hog roasts. Be careful with this one and make sure you have all the required licenses like a food certificate.

Personal chef

This is catering without the masses. The wealthy people that live among us are partial to a personal chef, somebody that is just on hand to cook for them morning noon and night. Think catering + house sitting, same rules apply for licenses.

Childcare

The perfect business for stay at home parents. If you really love looking after children, then look after other people’s kids while yours are at school. You can become a registered babysitter, or even open a day care center.

Painter/Decorator

Take everything I said for a cleaning company, change the designs, job done. You may also need some form of business insurance.

Gardening Company

I worked for a small gardening company when I was younger; it is great to work outdoors. The great thing about gardening is the results speak for themselves, start working for a neighbor and work your way up to an empire.

House staging

For those of you with an eye for killer interior design. House staging is setting up a house to maximize its appeal to potential buyers. It is quite the science but if you are good at it, you can make a fortune in commission.

Animal related business ideas

Let us face it – who does not love animals? As the saying goes, if you do something you love you will never work a day in your life.

Pet sitting

Babysitting but with less paperwork. You are paid to walk, cuddle, feed and play with puppies all day and even other animals are available. Market your services through social media, local advertising and partnerships with other animal companies.

Pet grooming

My friend has three dogs and every month or so they go off to get a haircut and a bath. Therefore, certain dogs need haircuts just like humans do, but they are more complicated so you can charge more. As for how to market, see the above advice.

Aquarium cleaning

Advertise on services like craigslist and approach local pet shops and partner with them – offer them a fee for each successful referral. Local partnerships will work with independents; I would not waste your time with the national stores unless you get massive.

Dog training

Everybody loves the dancing dog that won Britain’s Got Talent a couple of years ago. If you are a bit of a dog whisperer this could be the perfect idea for you.

Selecting a small business idea is a personal decision. Nevertheless, it can be helpful to bounce ideas off your friends and family. Do not be afraid to ask for help throughout this process -- and remember to have a little fun while you are putting in the work.

Photography

Professional photographers are in high demand for weddings, corporate events, family portraits, and more. In addition, because you can build this business out of your home with the right tools, of course, a freelance photography business has relatively low startup costs. Moreover, you are in charge of your client load and schedule, so professional photography is a great way to build a side hustle while working full time elsewhere.

Event Planning

More and more individuals and companies are hiring freelance event planners to manage the design, logistics, and coordination of pulling off major events. If you love every little detail of coordinating your kid’s birthday or your dad’s retirement party, start offering your Type-A services to partiers in your community or within your personal network. You just need to pull off one great party, to start, and your event-planning business will take off with all those word-of-mouth recommendations.

Event Space

Look at your local market: If there is a demand for weddings, birthdays, corporate events, and fundraisers, but few venues to host those events, seize the opportunity and start an event space yourself. You could offer planning services along with the venue, or collaborate with another local event-planning business to become the ultimate party-planning team.

Interior Decorating

Rather than redecorating your living room for the 20th time, apply your love of design to an interior decorating business. To start out, leverage your personal network to offer help decorating residential and commercial spaces. You can charge an hourly fee to clients for your work, partner with your favorite furniture stores or manufacturers to work on commission, or a combination of the two.

Woodworking or Furniture Building

Do you love working with your hands to build beautiful, custom furniture? Take a page from Harp Design Co. in Waco, Texas of “Fixer Upper” fame, and start your own custom woodworking business. You might start working weekends out of your garage, but as business takes off, you will be well on your way to your own shop and a brand new, full-time career doing what you love.

Graphic Design

If you have a background in design or art, then this business idea is a no-brainer. Even if you do not have a background in this field, consider taking a course in graphic design—it’s relatively easy to pick up.

In addition, the tools to get this business started are minimal. With just a few handy computer programs—think Adobe, Sketch, or Canva—you could be operating this lucrative business out of your home in weeks. You do need to find clients though, so try networking with small businesses in your community. Everyone could use a well-designed website, online materials, email campaigns, physical print work, and more.

Please note, here are some great small business ideas for entrepreneurs who love teaching, guidance, or taking care of toddlers or the elderly, but who don’t want to work in schools/daycare/nursing homes anymore or at all.

College Application Consultant

According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling, only 28% of public schools employ at least one college counselor. Yet, the process of studying for entrance exams, completing college applications, and navigating the financial process is complex. If you’re organized, knowledgeable about the higher education process, and enjoy working with adolescents and their parents, consider starting a side business as an independent college application consultant to help more smart, ambitious, and qualified kids get into the schools of their dreams.

Daycare Provider

Opening up a daycare facility can be a great option for parents who want to work from home, or simply for people who love working with toddlers. The process to becoming a licensed childcare provider is relatively simple, but be aware that requirements vary by state. Cities, towns, and municipalities occasionally have their own regulations, too.

Senior Care Provider

As the baby boomer population ages, more and more senior citizens are in need of at-home care. These needs range from medically specific requirements to simple companionship or help with cooking, tidying up, or transportation to and from appointments. This is a great option for anyone with nursing experience who would like to move into working for themselves.

Tutor

Kids need access to tutoring at some point in their academic careers. In addition, not only is tutoring a highly demanded occupation, but on average you can earn up to $50 an hour as a private tutor. Therefore, if you are fluent in a foreign language, or you excel in math, science, or writing, set yourself up as a freelance tutor for students of all ages in your local community.

Better yet, grab your equally qualified, eager-to-teach friends and establish a full-service tutoring business. By offering a variety of subject areas to parents in your neighborhood, you will quickly build a client base eager to pay you for your help in achieving the best possible academic results.

Whether you are a student, a working mother, or you are simply tired of the 9-to-5, in-office grind, you might be ready to strike out on your own and right onto your couch with these work from home small business ideas.

Virtual Assistant Service

If you’re the most organized person your know, your best small business idea from home just might be a freelance virtual assistant service: You might be surprised by how many companies are increasingly outsourcing administrative tasks to remote workers. As a virtual assistant, you can choose your clients, then manage their emails, schedule meetings, book travel, and complete other essential tasks to make your clients’ lives and businesses run more smoothly all from the comfort of your own home. To become an admin yourself, all you need is a laptop, an internet connection, and a true passion for daily planners.

Freelance Copywriting and Content Creation

Need to support yourself while you chip away at your magnum opus? Then starting a copywriting or content creation service could be one of the best work from home small business idea for you.

You might have heard it before “content is king.” In addition, with more businesses trying to produce high-quality written resources—like blog posts, eBooks, white papers, and newsletters there is tons of room in the freelance market for a wordsmith like you.

Music Lessons

Chances are, if you are a musician— professionally, either semi-professionally or professionally only in your daydreams—you already have the skills, and tools, needed to become a freelance music teacher. Make those daydreams a reality by offering music lessons out of your own home. Reach out to your local schools and newspaper and ask whether you can offer flyers, or ad space, to begin building up your client base.

Blogging

For a certain kind of person (i.e., the hermetic kind), blogging is a true dream job: You get to write about your passions, test out new products/recipes/life hacks or whatever your specialty is, and earn money through advertising or by earning sponsorships from companies in exchange for reviews all without ever needing to get out of bed. It takes some time, dedication, and hard work to build up your readership enough to make blogging your full-time job. Nevertheless, if you stick with it, you just might join the ranks of the world’s top-earning bloggers.

These days, more and more people are shifting out of traditional, 9-to-5 jobs and striking out on their own. In fact, according to the 2017 Kauffman Index of Startup Activity, about 540,000 people switch into self-employment every month. Therefore, if you have caught the entrepreneurial bug, you are certainly not alone.

So decide what you are good at, what you love to do, and turn that into your new career.

Melvin Feller Business Consultants Group Business Ministries in Texas and Oklahoma. Melvin Feller founded Melvin Feller Business Consultants Group Ministries in the 1970s to help individuals and organizations achieve their specific Victory. Victory as defined by the individual or organization are … achieving strategic objectives, exceeding goals, getting results or desired outcomes. He has extensive experience assisting businesses achieve top and bottom line results. He has broad practical experience creating WINNERS in many organizations and industries. He has hands-on experience in executive leadership, operations, logistics, sales, program management, organizational development, training, and customer service. He has coached teams to achieve results in strategic planning, business development, organizational design, sales, and customer response and business process improvement. He has prepared and presented many workshops nationally and internationally.

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