#even outside of the role it will allow me to play within my community | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

etenvs3000w23 · 1 year

Text

Unit 10: Nature Interpretation's Role in Environmental Sustainability

If I were to be totally honest with myself, the only reason I took this course to begin with was to fulfil a credit required to earn a certificate of environmental conservation when I graduated. There were very few options as to what credits I could take, and this one was available so I jumped at the chance. But I could not have been more lucky in taking that chance. That is because from the start of my university career I have consistently asked myself ‘what if I went the other way?’ I ask myself this because when I graduated highschool I was at a pretty big crossroads. I had spent my years in highschool volunteering as a student journalist in addition to taking the required science credits to go on one of two career paths: that of the scientist or that of the journalist. I of course took the route of the scientist, but again, what if I had gone the other way? This thought persisted, and as a result I have always valued the chance at learning how to integrate what I learned in science with that of communication, unfortunately I haven’t had as many chances to build these skills as I would have liked. Enter: this course.

In taking this course I unknowingly received the perfect opportunity to do what I’d always wanted, interpret what I’d learned in my zoology major and gain the skills to present it to a larger audience. Over the course of this semester I have learned way more about nature interpretation than I could have predicted, and I am definitely leaving this class a better communicator than when I began. So then, what have I learned?

I think one of the most important things I learned within this course was the importance of ethics while communicating. I’ve always tried my best to consider my audience when creating a project, but at the end of the day I am just one person with one point of view. Something that stood out to me while taking this course was the emphasis placed on privilege and the part it plays in experiencing nature and the lack of opportunities faced by those who lack it. In my own personal ethic I have always strived to be empathetic, honest, and responsible for my actions. But, what this course has allowed me to do is see the ‘invisible backpack’ described by Gallavan (2005) that many people carry with them. In considering my own code of ethics I need to be responsible in not making assumptions about certain groups, and know that not everyone has had the same opportunities as I have. Like many people I have felt the guilt of having these opportunities when others don’t, but rather than continue to think that simply feeling bad about my place in our society is enough, I know I have to strive to do better and make personal goals for myself. In other words, in order to be a good communicator I can’t just provide for one audience, but all audiences. It is so easy to tell people that if they want to experience nature then they should just go outside and touch the grass as they say, but this is not as easy as people think. There are hundreds of invisible barriers people with privilege who perceive their norm as the cultural norm simply cannot see. Economic barriers, cultural barriers, communication barriers, and so much more. It is learning about these barriers, and working with the people who face them that we can find ways to overcome them and provide less privileged people with interpretation catered to their needs rather than the same run of the mill experience that may be equivalent to others experiences, but not nearly as impactful.

I mentioned before how I once wanted to become a journalist rather than a scientist, and how I am still striving to be a better communicator. Communication is a broad term that has many different definitions. If I wanted to communicate with someone, I could do so using visuals, or music, or writing, or even through dance. Over history, different cultures have found different ways to interpret nature and communicate lessons learned from it to the next generation. For me, my skill set lends itself to utilising writing as the best approach to nature interpretation. Not only am I more confident in the written word, I am creative as well, or at least I try to be. Both the textbook and Strauss (1996) describe the importance of anecdotes and imagery to engage the audience. I know that throughout my life the lessons I have remembered the most were the memorable ones that had a great story behind them. It's part of the reason I can recount twenty hours of lore for major sci fi franchises and yet can barely remember my first year chemistry class. What sticks with people are experiences, and if you can engage people with nature through an immersive and creative experience, they will take that lesson and repurpose it for themselves.

Next year I plan to take a year off science and pursue a graduate certificate course in creative writing. I am in no way giving up science, but what I am doing is trying something new, and something I have always wanted to do. I have learned that influencing people to learn science through media such as fiction and other forms of creative writing can be just as impactful if not more so than discovering the facts in the first place. I hope to one day use what I have learned in this class and the rest of my undergrad to not only continue to be a responsible scientist, but a scientist who can communicate creatively with the next generation and inspire them to consider not just their own needs, but everyone's needs when it comes to nature.

Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018b). Chapter 5: Guiding Principles of Interpretation. Interpreting cultural and natural heritage : for a better world. (pp.81-101) Sagamore Venture.

Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018c). Chapter 7: Serving Diverse Audience. Interpreting cultural and natural heritage : for a better world. (pp.105-123) Sagamore Venture.

Gallavan, N. P. (2005). Helping teachers unpack their “invisible knapsacks.” Multicultural Education (San Francisco, Calif.), 13(1), 36–36.

Strauss, S. (1996). The passionate fact : storytelling in natural history and cultural interpretation. North American Press.

33 notes · View notes

onaperduamedee · 1 year

Text

Back when I would obsessively rewatch my favourite scenes after each episode, this barely audible line struck me as particularly portentous. At the time, I hadn't dived into the books yet, and hearing these words, even half off-screen, from Nynaeve of all people, had my mind spinning.

Nynaeve is portrayed as a leader from the start, not only holding spiritual power during Egwene's ceremony and the pools' cleaning rituals, but also executive power as she meets the strangers in town asking for their names, hand on her dagger. Her understanding of leadership isn't theoretical: as Widsom, being in a position of power has been a reality for years now.

From what we glimpse in the show, much of Nynaeve's power and place within the Two Rivers stems from traditions and enforcing them: being Wisdom, carrying the braid, performing the rituals, cleaning the pools, protecting the town from strangers… An outsider who came to the Two Rivers as a baby, Nynaeve believes integration through respect of traditions is crucial: to her and beyond her love for her community, protecting the Two Rivers' way of life is key to maintaining her status and safety.

This is why, despite her understanding of conformity, her obvious dig at the White Tower and indirectly Siuan displays a fundamental misunderstanding of power within the White Tower: Siuan in all her extravagance embodies just another enforcement of traditions. We are shown, from the beginning of episode 6 to her tête-à-tête with Moiraine, that Siuan is far from removed from reality. Although living in a literal ivory tower, she is no fool, unable to lead and rule without the symbols of her power. Yet, as shown in the Hall, her power and position within her community, like Nynaeve's, is extremely dependent on enforcing traditions and performing conformity.

The Tower, the Hall, the stole… Like Nynaeve's braid, the pools, the Two Rivers, these are attributes of power that do not hold power but allow Nynaeve and Siuan to follow on from the legacy of other Wisdoms and Amyrlins before them. It means safety in their respective community, while unbeknownst to all, both Nynaeve and Siuan will disrupt their order: Nynaeve is Ta'veren and Siuan has hunted the apocalypse for twenty years. Ruling from a throne or a moss-covered cliff requires equal dexterity – Nynaeve just hasn't realized it yet and has fallen for the same trick she's been herself using for years.

Like all our heroes, she's on a journey here.

Part of Nynaeve's condemnation of the Tower still shows how sheltered she has been: her world has always been reduced to the Two Rivers. Meeting the Aes Sedai and Lan forces her to confront people and nations who think and behave differently from her. The differences at the beginning are seen as threats, soon to be met with curiosity as she exchanges more with Lan and the other warders.

Even her opening to Lan during the prayer scene in episode 4 comes from a place of tradition, and here for the first time curiosity for a culture different from hers: Nynaeve believes in traditions and rituals, and seeing Lan performs a prayer for his people is familiar to her. What is truly incredible about the writing in this scene is that, because Nynaeve is deeply respectful of customs, she thanks Lan by sharing with him part of her culture.

Turns out Lan is familiar with this part of her history and offers to lift a veil for Nynaeve. Perhaps part of Nynaeve's emotional reaction after his translation, beyond the romantic thread, comes from an overwhelming realization that they are all connected. Much like Moiraine's recollection of the battle of Manetheren for the Emond's Field four, Lan's explanation connects Nynaeve's story to the world around her, beyond the Two Rivers: the Two Rivers is part of Andor, of the world, whether they want it or not.

This comes back to Siuan's words about consequences and the role we play. It would be so easy to have no responsibilities to the people who are not immediately close to us, and it is a burden to shoulder that task. But there is also joy in those responsibilities: connections. To Lan first, and with sincere fondness, but I have no doubt that Nynaeve will meet more people and very much come to embrace her responsibilities toward strangers, toward the world. Which is what leading is about, just as much as looking after the threads of traditions in a community.

Perhaps Nynaeve will even connect with leaders who should not call themselves leaders if they rule from lavish halls of ivory white.

#the wheel of time #wot meta #wot on prime #nynaeve al'meara #siuan sanche #like a raging sun #clever as a pike #meta #ramblings #there's also a lot to say about these lines in relation to someone's arc but this is meant to remain spoiler-free #I am not kidding I did rewind this part a few times to be sure she said what she said #I am so excited to get more of them together #THEY ARE SO GOOD #also woohoo meta is back on the menu because my brain has returned to being mostly all WoT #Remblai

32 notes · View notes

fazedlight · 6 months

Text

(Excerpt is from The Persistent Desire, published in 1992.)

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, how people perceive roles differently, how perceptions differ across time and across different cultures. I've also been thinking of how bisexuality was perpetually suppressed, how nonbinary identities were perpetually suppressed, and how it relates.

If a culture does not make room for people outside designated binaries, people will feel pressure to conform to those binaries. (But people also exist within the binaries too, of course. It's not as though bisexuality makes heterosexuality or homosexuality disappear.) When that pressure is relieved, we see a flood of people who say "Yeah, actually, that's me". Which is how we're getting the moral panic over nonbinary people today, or bisexual and trans people in the last decade or two, even as gay people were gaining acceptance. They were always there, they just weren't allowed to be outside the designated categories before. Both in the mainstream, and within the queer community.

For me... my sexuality and my gender are vaguely defined and in a sense unimportant. But my sense of butchness is unvarying - as a conception of self, as a casual disregard for the male gaze or any gaze that might seek to control me, as an energy, as a presentation. But others may feel differently - more able to play with the masculine and feminine, but with a very concrete sense of sexuality or gender, for example.

We're using limited set of labels to describe 7 billion people - there's a beautiful complexity in humanity that we're barely scratching the surface of describing. To me, the most important thing is to build a community against oppression, a community that builds intersectionality (I haven't even touched on how my race impacts all of this), regardless of how concepts and labels shift over time. Because without that, I'm alone - and I think most of us are.

#mel stuff #gender #queer

5 notes · View notes

polciascas · 2 months

Text

General reflection on Service

Engaging in the Service strand of CAS has been a deeply enriching experience, providing me with opportunities to contribute positively to my community and beyond. Volunteering at school events, participating in Habitat for Humanity initiatives, offering support to peers, contributing to education, and helping within my community have all played crucial roles in shaping my understanding of service.

Volunteering at school events has allowed me to foster a sense of school community and support various activities that enrich the academic environment. Whether assisting in school functions or aiding in extracurricular events, this form of service has connected me with my school community in meaningful ways.

Participating in Habitat for Humanity has been a humbling experience, providing hands-on opportunities to make a tangible impact on the lives of others. Building homes for those in need has instilled a sense of gratitude and reinforced the importance of collective effort in addressing housing challenges.

Volunteering at outside-of-school events has exposed me to diverse causes and allowed me to contribute my time and energy to initiatives that align with my values. This has broadened my perspective and deepened my understanding of the various needs within the wider community.

Being a peer supporter has been a particularly rewarding aspect of service. Providing assistance, a listening ear, or guidance to fellow students has created a supportive network within the school community, fostering a sense of unity and shared responsibility.

Contributing to education through volunteering has allowed me to witness the transformative power of learning. Whether assisting in educational programs or tutoring, these experiences have reinforced the significance of education as a catalyst for positive change.

Helping within my community, whether through local events or initiatives, has allowed me to connect with the people around me and actively participate in creating a positive living environment. From neighborhood cleanups to supporting local organizations, this form of service has reinforced the idea that collective efforts can create a stronger and more vibrant community.

Participating in the Service strand of CAS has not only provided me with a sense of fulfillment but has also instilled a lasting commitment to making a positive impact. It has taught me the importance of empathy, cooperation, and the profound effect that even small acts of service can have on individuals and communities. As I continue my service journey, I am inspired by the belief that contributing to the well-being of others is a powerful force for positive change.

0 notes

badkarmaviscomm · 3 months

Text

MP - Tran, J. and Patitsas, E., 2020. The Computer as a Queer Object.

LO1

Null space

We see in the histories of the computer, like WW2-era in Bletchley Park, where women were named as Computers for doing high-level computations (Hicks 2017), that there has never been a delineation between machine and human since the beginning.

Queer theory: An introduction, she finds that since queerness was first conceptualized as an answer to the term homosexual, at its core queer theory will always be rooted in the context of sexuality (Jagose 1996). However, due in part to the long and ongoing history of homosexuality’s marginalization as a target of systemic and other violences, queer theory emerged in academia as a means to examine history, art, literature, and culture from within the view of the constantly fluctuating margins. Outside the center, a queer perspective allows for thinking beyond the hegemony

Queer theory is meant to de-normalize what is often normal—to discover, or reveal, what was hidden but obfuscated. The what may vary from subject to subject, from ethos to ethos.

I (Elizabeth) am from a rural part of Canada where there was no queer community. Where I always felt different for being queer. The internet was my lifeblood as a teenager. I “grew up” part of an online community that, luckily for me, had a large contingent of openly-queer members for me to befriend and look up to as role models. The internet gave me a space to experiment with my identity and to realize I could be accepted by others.

is there something more queer about computing that’s been drawing us all in?

Identity is malleable, and yet, we treat it as fixed. What artefacts in the world have come to contribute to our way of thinking like this? I (Jess) grew up playing video games that allowed me to choose whatever gender I wanted. There is always an implication you ought to be the corporeal, fleshy version of you, but I always chose what drew to me; you can change your clothes. In online games, people always addressed me as a man. They would not know the difference, and as a young person, I was always afraid of being caught (for fear of lying, for fear of being exposed).

[Feminists] characterized the conceptual dichotomizing central to scientific thought and to Western philosophy in general, as distinctly masculine. Culture vs. nature, mind vs. body, reason vs. emotion, objectivity vs. subjectivity, the public realm vs. the private realm—in each dichotomy, the former must dominate the latter and the latter in each case seems to be systematically associated with the feminine. — Feminism confronts technology (Wajcman 1991, 5)

The exclusion and the reinforcement of status quo for women, trans, non-binary, intersex, black indigenous and people of colour, disabled people are being revealed by one “revolutionary” tool after another (Benjamin 2019; Hamraie and Fritsch 2019; Bivens 2017; Nathan et al. 2017; Prates et al. 2019). Rena Bivens exposes how Facebook and other social media sites may just provide non-binary options for your profile’s gender field, however, your interactive data becomes reified back into the binary male or female when it gets sold to advertisement companies (Bivens and Haimson 2016). In 2020, an application was launched to provide a social network for only women, using AI to screen the user’s gender; but was unable to recognize transwomen for their tool (Schiffer 2020).

Therefore, it becomes a matter of why a website is asking for your gender—do they really need to know? Or do they merely want to sell your data (the answer is yes)? We see that while Facebook is solving one problem, providing a complex spectrum of gender options, it is doing a hidden violence by selling data through its reification of gender.

But more common in the queer HCI and STS literatures is to not even acknowledge the existence of intersex people. For example, in “Hacking the Cis-Tem”, Hicks provides a valuable queer lens on the history of computerizing government records in Britain. Hicks documents how trans individuals hacked the system in various ways (technologically, socially) to change their officially-recorded sex. Hicks positions these records as an early case of algorithmic bias, and discusses computerized government in this light (Hicks 2019).

They told me incidents their early days at YouTube their team pushed a feature that, as a side-effect, changed videos that were set to private to public. This was detrimental to people in the LGBTQIA+ community who were not out to their communities and had been using their YouTube channels as private diaries to talk about their sexuality. This resulted in YouTube notifying theirfollowers and friends and accidentally “outting” these people.

Social networks have impermeable memory. Even if something gets erased or taken down on the web, it is likely that the internet archive has preserved the content. In the age of data collection and monetization, the act of forgetting is an incredibly necessary act of resistance in the face of raw data trade. Algorithms persist and aggregate your data to reify behavioural patterns through advertisements, or even for their community. For queer users, this includes identity when exploring different forms of gender expressions. The paper proposes that “without erosion, the data portraits are likely to be qualitatively different from representations of the past in that they would not be easily superseded but only built on incrementally” and “forgetting resists the opportunity for systems to infer increasingly accurate behavioural patterns and hold us to them”(Light 2011, 434).

He focuses on a third value available to MySQL databases: a NULL space. NULL in the language of computer science is somewhat synonymous with empty or undefined. Gaboury makes a case that the unspecificity and the undetermined-ness of NULL makes space in computing for programs and technical logic to be queer

the claim that the NULL space is a technical system which leaves room for indeterminacy and can be exploited toward alluding control within technologies of identification. The queer quality is its ability to avert having identity visible, fixed, and named.

#mpbw

0 notes

mediarulestheearth · 3 months

Text

Navigate, Curate, Elevate

I spent about a week monitoring and tracking my media usage and the results did not surprise me. Firstly, I confirmed that I'm an analogue man in a digital world. I still watch the news on television and hardly stream anything. I enjoy listening to the radio on my way to work and prefer reading a hardcopy, printed newspaper over its digital counterpart.

Secondly, I engage in a lot of passive content consumption. This allows me to multitask, such as preparing a meal while listening to the news. I don't interact much with social media except to indulge in specialty information feeds targeting specific audiences. My preference is connecting with automotive enthusiasts interested in metal shaping and mechanics, and occasionally reacting to the odd hockey meme. Blame my lack of interactivity on some Twitter fights from years ago.

However, passive consumption does not equate to being a passive consumer - there's a distinction. I constantly evaluate and compare the information I receive, weighing it against what I already know. With my background in the television news industry, I bring an insider's view to understanding how media stories are created, including what's included and what's left out, and why.

This exercise has renewed my interest in questioning narratives and the role of communication. Paul Lazarsfeld, one of the original communication scholars, prompts us to consider who controls the media, how it influences social relationships and how to consider our roles within those relationships (Lazarsfeld, 1941, as cited in Shade, 2013). This line of inquiry is even more important now than in Lazarsfeld's day.

Fully engaged citizens as media consumers will use this information to make critical decisions. Peters (1999) touches on this when he talks about considering communication from more than a "semantic" level to one where we're able to "manage social organization and live together with difference.”

So with all the rich media available to us now, with our attention spans shattered, with misinformation and bots running rampant, and with artificial intelligence deep fakes emerging as a new thing to be wary of, are we really better off?

I think we are.

Even though social and new media has their share of dark corners, disagreements and slanted material, we can communicate with people across the world. We can hear firsthand viewpoints on important topics of interest. We own the ability to create and distribute content in a way that was never possible in all the preceding centuries. But, it's up to us to maintain diligence on what we're consuming.

Critical thinking plays an important role as we scan stories, memes and other material to determine which information will help us make better decisions and which might be better to reject. And even with a number of information channels available, the audiences are largely specialized - pick the channel of interest but be bold, and step outside of that comfort zone to engage in material that brings a different perspective.

This is the practice of an active media consumer that will help elevate the understanding of how the media operates and how communication.

Peters, J.D. (1999). Speaking into the air: A history of the idea of communication. University of Chicago. Chicago.

Shade, L. R. (2013). Mediascapes: New Patterns in Canadian Communication (4th ed.). Top Hat. https://online.vitalsource.com/books/9780176727413

#traditional media #digital media #new media #social media #media

0 notes

dilesxpressions · 3 months

Text

Angelica Anderson

1. Name, Year, Major, and Hometown

Angelica Anderson, 4th year, Psychology major (Technology Management and Music minor)- Elk Grove

2. What’s your roman empire?

My shitzu named Gabby (just look at her, she is so precious)

3. What is the best compliment you have ever received?

Someone recently told me that I am the most emotionally aware person that they know :0

4. If your life was a movie what genre would it be (comedy, horror, drama, etc.) and what actor would play you?

My life would 100% be a K-Drama. I honestly don’t know many actors/actresses.. so I don’t really know who would play as my character.

5. What is something on your college bucket list?

To study abroad in Singapore!

6. What’s your guilty pleasure? (song, movie, food etc.)

My guilty pleasure would definitely be binging all of the Mission Impossible despite Tom Cruise’s reputation..

7. What are your bad habits?

Shaking my leg constantly and fidgeting all the time LOL.

8. What are your favorite song lyrics?

ALL of the lyrics to W.A.Y.S and Eternal Sunshine by Jhene Aiko.

9. Defend your unpopular opinion/ hot take

Water DOES have a taste. There are so many gross water brands out there and even filtered Brita water can taste so nasty

10. Describe a time where you had to step up and be a leader?

During my time as a member of the National Honor Society (NHS) at Franklin High School, I encountered a situation that required me to step up and take on a leadership role to address several issues within the organization. One of the significant challenges was the lack of engagement and effective involvement from certain board members who were not fulfilling their roles and responsibilities, particularly in terms of planning community service events and engaging with NHS members.Recognizing the need for change and improvement, I decided to step forward and assume a more prominent leadership role within the NHS. I began by collaborating with other dedicated and motivated members to form a core team dedicated to revitalizing the organization.First, we initiated a comprehensive evaluation of the current situation, identifying areas that needed improvement. We held discussions and meetings with board members to understand their challenges and concerns, and then we collectively established clear expectations and responsibilities for each board member. This proactive approach not only addressed the issue of disengaged board members but also created a sense of accountability.To enhance the NHS experience for our members, we started planning more social events that fostered a sense of community and friendship. We recognized that while community service was an essential aspect of our mission, socials were equally important in creating a cohesive and enjoyable environment. We organized movie nights, game days, and team-building activities that allowed members to bond outside of their service projects.Additionally, we sought out service events that were not only meaningful but also enjoyable. We engaged with the NHS members to gather their input and preferences, ensuring that our service initiatives resonated with their interests. This approach led to a higher level of enthusiasm and participation in our community service projects.My experience in the NHS taught me valuable lessons about leadership, including the importance of proactive communication, collaboration, and adaptability. I also learned that leadership often involves leading by example and taking on responsibilities that may not initially fall under one's role. By addressing the challenges within the organization and working with dedicated team members, we successfully transformed the NHS into a more engaging and fulfilling experience for all its members, leaving a positive and lasting impact on our school community.

#hanyosaydeeznutz

0 notes

actpei · 1 year

Text

MEET THE CAST ! LAURA STAPLETON as Belinda Blair (Flavia Brent)

Laura Stapleton’s love of theatre began at a young age in Cape Breton where she was born and raised. After being cast as Little Red Riding Hood at the age of 6 in a children’s theatre group the acting bug took hold. Fast forward 20 odd years through high school musicals and various community theatre projects, Laura arrived on PEI, and heard about ACT from one of its founding members, who also happens to be her husband, and became a member. She has since been in such productions as, Our Town, Little Shop of Horrors and, most recently,12 Angry Women. Laura and her husband Greg live in Cornwall with Greg`s son Evan and their 2 dogs.

ACT asked Laura a few questions….

How is your character like you? Different?….Belinda Blair is described as “cheerful and sensible, a reliable actress and the company’s de facto peacemaker, although something of a gossip”. Flavia Brent, is an “English wife, dependable but not one for household duties”. The similarities are uncanny, especially when it comes to not being one for household duties. I consider myself reliable and a problem solver and I certainly prefer when everybody gets along. Belinda is also somewhat of a caretaker and my life and career is very much centered around looking after others. I’m definitely a more anxious and sensitive person than Belinda.

What do you love about this character?….I envy Belinda’s ability to remain cheerful and steadfast despite the chaos surrounding her. What’s the biggest challenge about taking on this role?….By far the timing and movements. Being in and out, on and off at precisely the correct moments so as not to interfere with other cast members’ timing is a challenge very unique to this play.

Without giving anything away, what’s your favourite line of dialogue?…..“Just keep going…”

Besides yourself, which actor in this production is going to blow people away?….The talent in this cast is unbelievable. The first few rehearsals were intimidating for me as I felt entirely out of my league. Every single actor in this group, each with their own version of comedic genius, working together will be amazing.

What do you enjoy most about doing a comedy? ….I love all forms of theatre but it’s been a while since I’ve performed in a comedy. There is a different kind of “high” that comes from making an audience laugh. I think there is something really exhilarating about providing an audience with laughter and the opportunity to (hopefully) let loose from their daily stressors for a couple of hours.

What is your impression of community theatre on PEI? …PEI is so incredibly lucky to have such a rich and diverse theatre community. There is truly something for everyone. Community theatre allows me to have a creative outlet outside of my daily living. It connects me to others that have similar passion and love for performance, and creates connections and friendships that would be otherwise impossible to establish. Acting allows me to escape from my own head for a while and become somebody else. The opportunity to engage audiences and create positive emotions within them can be very therapeutic.

What do you want the audience to know about this show?…I want the audience to know that having the opportunity to see this show staged in little old PEI is a real treat. The effort required to bring this farce to life is immense and I hope people come from far and wide to take it in. I hope people leave the theatre with sore bellies and faces from laughing and maybe even a little spark of interest to try theatre themselves.

Get your tickets now at https://tproatlantic.ticketpro.ca/en/pages/HC_NoisesOff (photo: Brian Collins, Landwash Studios) #act #farce #actpei #noisesoff #theatrepei #doorsandsardines #communitytheatre #florencesimmonsperformancehall

0 notes

lyreleafblog · 1 year

Text

☽ Crystal Magic / Part One ☾

After years of therapy and many hours of candle lit meditation, I have realized that the reason I became estranged from my spirituality is because other human beings deliberately used it to manipulate me. Now that I am more self-aware and able to identify that kind of manipulation, I am longing for an aspect of my identity that I’ve been keeping myself away from. It’s interesting to be disabled and still find oneself drawn to the earth-worship that celebrates our own uniqueness here in a world where calling someone “special” is a school-yard insult. Following a decade of questing to figure out if a physical science could explain the so-called healing properties of crystals, I discovered that the answer is that it simply doesn’t matter whether science has an accepted, stable explanation. Science can only vaguely guess how the Tylenol I just took magically immunized me against the sensation of my dulled-out-neurosurgery contractions.

Instead, I have learned, through trial and error, the science of biology is not only perhaps more important to my goal, but itself is as much of a science as the science of cinematography. Less of a science, really, and not at all an equation—biology follows the patterns of communication. It is a process that neither high priestesses nor philosophers nor doctors or chemists can properly articulate. In a world of genetics, everyone is biologically imperfect, and imperfection is the very variable that thwarts our demise. The science of biology is so powerful that for nearly ten years after I was diagnosed with bradycardia, deliberate, diligent efforts towards daily meditation— towards meditating in the doctor’s office while sitting bare-assed in a paper nightgown— did much more than make me feel normal in myself, but presented a level of confidence that demanded my autonomy. I don’t want to, and I look like I know what I’m doing, so people have listened. I didn’t want to be “The Sick Woman” like my mother had always been to me, and so I refused to become her.

But now, I know better. I know better than to fake normalcy in front of my doctors. The secret of my weakness protects absolutely nobody because I am a 25-year-old adult and there is no longer a risk over the legal supervision of my neglect. I no longer must pretend that I am not sick to escape localized or systemic abuse.

The things I haven’t talked about are incredible. I’ve been talking about talking about them for years while I am never ready. Have I told you just how deeply this tribulation can devastate a lineage? I’m sure I’ve muttered about it in stupid, cryptic, passing glances. Like a little whisper on the wind, I’ve been tickling my audience, covertly trying to pull this experience out from within all of us so that I can compare myself against it.

Allow me to put it simply: no, I did not have magical auric vision for seeing ghosts and dragons like the Christian Counseling service my mother dropped me off at when I was in first grade would have somehow, apparently, permanently convinced everyone else of; instead, I had un-medicated seizures. My mother of course simply would not have such a thing. She was the one with real problems, after all—with arthritis and endometriosis and a clinically labeled somatic disorder that she refused absolutely any form of psychological intervention over. Despite that I was born weeks before my due date with an infection serious enough to prevent me from even going home in the beginning, I was never allowed to actually be sick. Instead, I had to role play as being spiritually broken.

In real, scientific and clinically-repeatable reality, I was not the spawn of a voodoo curse. I had multiple neurodevelopmental abnormalities, all of which with offensively practical, simple and very truly human therapies. I grew up in a household that defaulted to blood-ghosts when they didn’t already have the answers to their predicaments. Somehow, they still knew better than to let the outside world become aware of the depth of that phony ignorance. Children like I was seldom invite friends (spectators) over. The series of (non-biblical) therapists I’ve had over the course of my lifetime have all explained it away with the infamous label of “neglect.”

That’s why I stopped— why I put the pendulum and the cards and the long skinny rainbow candle collection into a box under the bed and then tortured myself for craving the connection that had, in some way, always been there for me. Did you know that this connection is a big part of my marriage? Of course you didn’t. Nobody knows. The blood-ghosts got me, after all, but not in the way my parents were ever expecting. I still hear the voice of my own old crone talking down to me over a flame lit crucifix at the dusty, cigarette-ash-stained iron wrought kitchen table. It appeared like a scene from the original “Carrie.” I remember looking at one of her eyes—just to the left, behind her head, at the idyllic floral pattern on the country curtains a much more normal version of her had once hung over her sink window. She described how stories of hell terrified our savage ancestors into walking with her lord. I sat baffled at the hypocrisy that a great spirit became a white-but-middle-eastern man all because of Christopher Columbus—who we hated, despite enthusiastically adopting his beliefs. I stuffed all the quartz and more colorful variations of quartz into an old flimsy shoe box and left them in my closet, under my S.O.’s utterly unused paintball bag, for years.

My health dwindled. No, it wasn’t because I’d shaken the sand and crystals out of my baggy, paisley pockets. It was because I’d had them there in the first place. I surrounded myself with the walls of a man-made echo chamber so that every sound I heard was merely a reverberation of my own, already existing thoughts. Crystals in my pockets would keep me healthy, therefore, I believed, I didn’t need to save up for medical appointments. Moreover, I had long deluded myself into my own pseudo-spiritual rabbit hole—one that is so extremely common that a hashtag describes it.

The #vegan community wasn’t exclusively self-perpetuated. I hadn’t really thought the lifestyle would be feasible for myself until the pediatrician my step mother had selected for me cooed in approval over my sixteen-year-old-self-declared-vegetarianism. “In fact,” she went as far to say, “You could even go vegan and still get all of your vitamins and minerals.”

She proceeded to explain that I could get my iron from raisins! Y’know, I once had a teacher who told me that everyone gets exactly one exclamation mark that they’re allowed to use for the rest of their lives. I choose to implement it just then because I really want to convey to you the valley-girl enthusiasm in how this middle aged doctorate-wielding woman told me, a visibly anorexic teenager who still used four fingers to hold a pencil like a toddler, that raisins would cure my pre-vegan low iron levels. Unfortunately for everyone involved, I would outwardly lie about my health in all possible situations and do nearly anything to avoid both medical examinations and treatments. There are reasonable reasons for this behavior—at least, reasonable given the cognizant capacity of an awkwardly neurodivergent, neglected teenager—that I will not get into here. I successfully avoided much supervision of my health. When I turned 18 years old, my health insurance became much more expensive and I was removed from the plan. This ensured that I wouldn’t be able to have my health monitored even if I had been willing to allow it. I opted to keep up with my life-long-prescribed meditation.

I doubled-down on what, at the time, was an overwhelming majority opinion in the scientific and medical community. Meat was bad, phytochemicals and fiber were good. Nobody could possibly eat too many fruits and vegetables, ahahaha. Salt was, of course, super-very-bad for you because it caused bloating! Bloating just so tanked my body image. Like I had mentioned in my prior entry on this blog, I was a happy-go-lucky-ed-recovery girlie—one who had once had a doctor and therapist supporting my newfound restrictive diet. I found every possible justification for my behavior.

There’s a bit of a lesson, I suppose—the moral of the story that I’m sharing with you today is this:

Humans can justify anything.

Justification doesn’t require justice—which is an immeasurable, immaterial, ethical philosophy vocabulary word— but merely willpower. Justice might describe something more value-centric—as in, fiscal value—but justification is the decision to subscribe to a set of beliefs, against which to compare the actions of oneself and others—and even more ironically, is so mutable and fragile that each individual warps it circumstantially. I had suddenly found myself consumed a new system of justification upon my lifestyle change. My new sense of justice was validated by pillars of authority I once felt like I had been rebelling against. I will clarify now that apparently, those pillars of authority have a bit of a controversy regarding their alleged support of some parts of the new justice system I had taken on. At the time, however, it was hard to find a legitimate shred of scientifically literate doubt in the idea that abstinence from animal foods prevented all known diseases.

I remember a time much more recent than my aforementioned kitchen curtain scene. Instead, in this memory, I was a messy, frumpy 18 year old runaway in a town I’d never even been to, sitting on the tip-jar-penny-littered carpet of my $375 per month apartment bedroom. I remember hurting, aching, really, with my spaghetti-arms wrapped around my abdomen, and swaying back and forth in the warm sunlight of northern Florida’s golden autumn afternoon. As my insides curled and twisted, I retched and dry heaved next to my box spring set up. I kept telling myself that it couldn’t really be all that bad. I simply was just a very dramatic human being—maybe thanks to all those high school years spent analyzing Tarantino’s foot fetish through his so-called art. The thought of it all being in my head was an addictive, dark and disturbed comfort that had long kept my sensitive mind from facing the reality of being born disabled. It was like a lucrative secret—it feels, if one can even postulate such a thing—the same way that not eating for days once felt in my mind. I feel like I’m winning when I succeed at hiding the pain.

So, I told myself, over and over, that I had already gone above and beyond to eliminate the risk of sickness from my life. I was living a lifestyle that the global authorities on health and nutrition were broadly claiming eliminated much of the risk, so I justified my action by repeatedly regurgitating what, at the time, was one of the most common opinions. I crafted my little echo chamber and refused to communicate with conflicting information. As I sat there weeping on the floor beside my bed, way back in 2015, in that sparsely decorated, crummy little apartment room, I recited instructions I’d received years prior in less-than-ideal-therapy. I told myself that my pain was a fuzzy-wuzzy-pink pillow, scratchy and stringy and present. I tried as hard as I could to depersonalize the sensation into a mental object I could then discard. No matter what I told myself, it continued to feel real to me.

I was willing to keep this charade up for quite some time. I believed in my adoptive ethics so thoroughly that I was clearly willing to suffer for them—after all, the only thing really wrong with me was just anxiety, right? I went as far as humoring the idea that perhaps my own suffering was somehow divine in itself; Christlike, since that’s the branch of religiosity that had framed my upbringing—and to be Christlike, I would, like Christ, suffer at the mercy of life around me. I force-fed myself dated, blurry slaughterhouse footage from establishments whose exposure had long ago warranted and attained their closure to mentally drive myself farther into my position. Sure, my hormones were clearly failing me and my pain was taking me over, but at least I wasn’t being skinned for leather-making.

It all tied back into a warped sense of spirituality. Many spiritual and religious practices discourage an overbearing ego and even go as far as to claim that human existence is inherently plagued by our spiritual inadequacies. At the root, many western practices argue that humans are incapable of perfection but should strive to be some form of tolerance or good for the sake of our own larger wellbeing. Egoists, however, perhaps even King James type of egoists—have found many ways to flounder the values of individual interpretation. Instead, egoists infiltrate the sensitive, vulnerable communities who flock towards the historical and perhaps even anthropological inclination of human beings towards some form of religious practice.

I had allowed my egoist-prescribed sense of ethics to supplement that missing component from my life. As I’d described, my notion of spirituality revolved around my own incapacity for a long time, so my newfound connection to the world around me, which I nurtured, supposedly, through my disciplined actions, occupied a void that I was raised longing to fill. This obsessive behavior made it far easier for me to cling to my beliefs, especially since they coincided along a natural vice towards avoiding food. As I ached on, and things worsened for me, I began seeking every possible solution that my new religion tolerated—but never, of course, considered that my own behavior might be playing a role in the pain I experienced.

I remember this period vividly, with a curdling sense of horror, because of the mix of confused desperation that strung me along through it. At time, my blessed little group of girl friends and I would frequent the expensive Co-Op grocery stores. Never-mind my face-consuming acne, which I spent great efforts pining over “all-natural-cruelty-free” labels for any product that didn’t contain some form of comedogenic oil, I also disproportionately veered our trio towards the extra-expensive isle of supplements. B12 and niacin, magnesium, iron, and zinc were readily available, right alongside the devious little bottles of mysterious, magical hormone-curing pills. I had already done my own (little g) google research, fully aware of some of the grossly underregulated concoctions I wanted to blame my next catastrophe on. I struggled to find Vitex and Dong Quai that didn’t come stamped out in those little gelatin capsules—as I was a pectin-only type of gal and would apparently rather suffer than take (fake) medicine (that I didn’t yet know wouldn’t work). I came across some vegetarian Evening Primrose on one little shopping trip and added it into my arsenal.

I took fistfuls of these pills every single day. To this day, I take a lot of pills most days and I know that I probably will for the rest of my life. Still, nothing can compare to the discomfort of having to take these three bulky pills evening primrose pills three times a day. I remember my period had come and gone without nearly as much incident or a reliance on nearly as much ibuprofen after a month or so on my magic-oil-pills.

Oh, boy, did I think I had done it all. I remember bragging to my friend, who ironically, has EDS too, and was diagnosed years before I was, (and who has been a tremendous help and friend to me since the day I met her) about my au-natural period pain remedy. I have no idea how she ever had the stamina to tolerate my bullshit and to this day I still do not. I obviously had no idea what I was talking about. Nevertheless, I sure thought I did… at least for a few more months.

It was right around the time that I started dating my partner when it seemed that my new all-natural-cruelty-free-supplement had suddenly and inexplicably stopped working. Older, more mature me questions if the coinciding pint of ice cream he and I somehow consumed in one sitting every Friday night might have been just a little too much sugar for my extremely fragile endocrine system to handle. My pain became horribly, upsettingly bad all of the time.

I had no insurance at the time, so I used a service called prjktruby to initially talk to a professional about my pain and figure out a reasonable route for treatment. Right away they recommended that I take a pretty conventional combination contraceptive and encouraged me to skip as many periods as I wanted to by avoiding the placebo pills. Being that I had started a relationship that had the capacity to result in a pregnancy for the first time in years, I was excited by the prospect that this class of medication is even more effective as a contraception than some of the others available. Believing that I was perfectly healthy, too, besides what I thought were a few supposedly “minor” issues I had been diagnosed with earlier in life, I saw no reason to actually monitor my own vitals or get regular bloodwork while on this medication.

The medication did not effectively stop my menstruation which was much of the purpose of going onto it. I had also developed a new host of symptoms that were extremely debilitating. I had honestly completely forgotten that my pre-existing stomach issues were something worth mentioning to a doctor, so when I did finally talk to one about the side effects of the medication, I would up getting re-diagnosed with IBS. I was experiencing what were pretty normal symptoms of my already existing stomach issues, however, and just didn’t know because I had only experienced other symptoms of it previously (and since). More concerningly, this doctor ensured me that my combination-hormone medication was not responsible for my symptoms and argued that perhaps I was misrepresenting the accuracy of my perfect use of the pill. I did some more googling.

As it turns out, there don’t seem to be many studies that do a good job of testing this out—even now, far into the future. On google scholar, I couldn’t find one to reference here. But, fortunately, in the areas that science has wrongfully or willfully ignored, we can fall back on the philosophical source of deduction itself; we can rationalize anecdotes and draw inferences from existing ideas.

Looking into the realm of existing ideas, I discover many articles with a similar ring to them. One begins with “Even though several hormones…specifically control the activity of the gastrointestinal tract, there has been curiously little research to date on the role these hormones might play in IBS. However, there are a few indications that aberrations in gut hormones may be a factor in IBS symptom production” (Palsson & Whitehead, 2017). It’s clear that there is evidence that supports the anecdotes of the masses. Speaking of the anecdotes, let’s take a moment to explore some of those as well. This thread in an online forum is just one miniscule example of someone’s experience with this phenomenon, but one comment paints a broader picture. User kd1410 writes “In the back of my mind I’ve wondered if birth control is the root cause of my IBS issues (I know it’s somewhat common from reading here).” User goldstandardalmonds replies “You’re right it’s common from reading here. It’s been posted about here a lot. I’ve also come across it on r/askdocs periodically so it isn’t out of the question.” It would have appeared that other people had already been exchanging about this dialogue.

As any good google-er does, I compiled the data I could find and deduced my way into a decision. I took myself off of the hormonal medication. Now that I had a boyfriend and what not, this was a rather big deal for a number of reasons. I still remembered my partners tragically bad attempt to convince me that he was in fact completely okay with using good old, reliable rubbers. Regardless, it was evident to both of us that this medication was having some kind of negative impact on my health, and so we went into our new plan together.

My symptoms kind of, maybe, slightly improved. I remember announcing that I could see colors more clearly and felt like myself again—which is another oddly common retrospective comment among birth-control-abandoners. I had again decided to experiment on myself with the herbs, oil-pills and period-cramp-teas. I naturally persisted with my strict vegetarianism. Mind you, I had previously had what were identified as allergic reactions to both eggs and dairy products—namely, from using shampoo that contained either product—and I couldn’t imagine that adding those ingredients back into my diet would have had any kind of positive impact, so of course, my abstinence was the one aspect of my consumption that I never thought to change. Again, my health seemed to temporarily get better. Then, it got much, much worse.

One of the darkest times of my life occurred in that period between the medication, Aubra, and what would eventually become my next, and this time permanent medication, Norethindrone. Shrouded in a depressing cloud of darkness, my household became very still and quiet during that lull between medicinal interventions. Days began to blend, enmeshed entirely by the unbridled experience of pain. I remember feeling grateful, initially, that the worst of my so-called period-pain had again seemed to retract back down to only a couple of weeks out of every month, but before I knew it, the sensations of menses became borderline omnipotent in my life.

It was around this time that I remember losing most of my general mobility. Now, an older, more mature version of myself can see that the pain in my abdomen disabled me to the extent that the rest of my body would become dramatically weaker from my lack of using it. At the time, I was only 21 or so, and had neither the self-awareness nor the physiological experience necessary to infer how chronic pain causes cumulative damage to a body, even in areas outside of its source. Rather, from my perception, it simply felt like I was dying.

Every day, it seemed, another new problem emerged. I remember that I had started having trouble with my daily ritual of walking home from work. I remember noticing severe pain in my shoulder as I would try to style and brush my hair in the mornings. I had trouble with every kind of food I could possibly eat—but especially, and specifically, the foods that had for so long been pushed by society, healthcare providers and every other outlet I had ever encountered as being the healthiest choices possible. My food troubles were agonized by the even still worsening chronic nausea and vomiting that by now I’d been living with for many years. I persisted in my egotistical earth-worship.

The crystal magic hadn’t quite finished draining out of me at that age. I replaced a worn-out, molded tarot deck that I’d had since childhood with new, shiny, clearly synthetic-gilded cards, hoping that perhaps paying some form of financial respect to the tools of whatever divine I had yet discovered would have any chance at changing my current path. I prayed to non-existent entities while repetitively reminding myself that my innate speculations against their reality were the true origin of my physical suffering. I threw up almost every single thing I ate and ran off the fumes of the American Spirits I’d stolen from my partner to keep in my wallet. Somehow, as my hair thinned and my skin yellowed and aged decades in a matter of months, I still didn’t think to question the raw-fruit-and-kale-salad.

Eventually, somehow, my partner found something online on one of the many, many days we spent in our damp little roach-infested Our-First-Place-Together. He had encountered either an article or a forum or something that explained one layer of the living conspiracy that is endometriosis treatment. At that point, I had become so desperate for relief that, while I clung to the soymilk and spirulina, I had decided that, fuck it, I needed whatever surgery it was that my father had told me my mother once underwent for her own endometriosis treatment. Known as laparoscopic ablation, this operation consists of creating small incisions where a surgeon then uses a tool to burn the lesions of suspected endometriosis. This process achieves nothing and is entirely a waste of both the duration of human life and the limited resources in the medical world (in my totally unqualified but inevitably correct patient-opinion). My partner, however, in his research had found that other people self-reported benefiting from a different kind of surgery—one that was markedly less likely to result in recurrent pain or damaging scar tissue. Excision surgery was a different ballgame and perhaps even more importantly, to the matters of science and research, that is, the excision surgery (cutting the diseased tissue out in entirety) technique allowed for genuine pathological analysis to occur. By one technical definition, the ablative treatment of suspected endometriosis could not actually itself warrant an authentic diagnosis because the diseased matter, once destroyed by heat, would become unidentifiable.

I think that this was probably one of the first times in my life that I felt a sense of hope regarding the scientific-medical community. I had always been a science-kid growing up, to the extent that, to this day I have held onto a ratty old science-achievement-certificate, still framed, buried deep in the crevices of my closet so that I might never rid myself of this lethal battle between crystal magic and underfunded medical research. Suddenly, science had the answers again, and suddenly, I found myself looking at this gaunt, ugly girl in the chipping full-body mirror and wondering how I’d let her fall so far into so-called grace.

The story of how I first got my health insurance through my job will be an article all on it’s own, so I’ll save that tale for later date. To simplify, I got insurance and my partner and I began our pilgrimage from Tallahssee, Florida, to Jacksonville, where Dr. Michael Fox operated out of Jacksonville Center for Reproductive Medicine or JCRM. Dr. Fox is a life-saving surgeon with the bedside manner similar to that of a schoolyard bully. In his office, after watching me wring my skinny little vegan fingers while explaining my magical pain, he metaphorically turned me upside down and shook the crystals out from my pockets.

“A vegetarian or vegan diet is one of the single worst things you could possibly do to your health.” (I sure hope I’m not misquoting him, but since he’s vocal about this perspective online, you can probably find some of his opinions in your own research) He had told me. He insisted I immediately quit my diet—which was also my entire identity due to its ethical associations-- and eat as much meat, cheese, eggs and the like as I possibly could. I was around 95lbs and I was given to goal to get to the triple digits—but ideally 103lbs, before my own endometriosis excision. I had a few months, but if by the date of my pre-op, I was not a safe weight, my surgery, that I had been waiting and fighting and suffering and dying for, would not happen. I would then loose my job from my inability to work, and after that? There would be no after that.

I made the weight. Then, there was my heart, which worried me because on the morning of my surgery, as we left while it was still dark, I ended up puking in the grass on the freeway, as my stomach was processing the bowel prep a bit slow. Vomiting always at least temporarily worsens my heart rate, so I assumed the worst—that I’d find myself sitting there waiting for anesthesia for them to come and tell me that, despite even throwing my system of ethics away and gaining weight, I’d eventually find myself writhing outside, unemployed and utterly hopeless. To my surprise, on the most important day of my life, my heart, for once, decided to simply play along. My vitals were strong. I was strong—strong enough, anyway.

#lyreleafblog #crystal magic

0 notes

in-the-pupspace · 1 year

Text

Online puppy play identity

My intrigue about pups and handlers online us me to look on TikTok and Reddit, and for the purposes of this blog, also Tumblr. Content ranges in style and intimacy between platforms. I found Subreddits to be moderated, rule-based online safe spaces where pups, handles and anyone interested in puppy play can post, ask questions and try to connect with others. TikTok on the other hand felt more ambiguous in terms of safety and validation because videos can easily go viral on there and attract attention from pups/handlers as well as (judgemental) outsiders. But I think people posting on TikTok are aware of that, and probably going into it with awareness. Tumblr, that is long known for its sexually explicit content, is a space for more artistic and sexual writing, photos and videos that seem to be mainly interacted with by others who are interested in puppy play. So, although it is a huge platform with content easily visible by anyone, it doesn’t seem to sacrifice safe free expression.

Looking online at puppy play communities felt like secretly peeking and lurking, even though the content is public. Though this may have to do with my own sense of privacy and what I would feel comfortable posting online. We are told growing up that posting explicit content online is dangerous and shunned upon, so it is not immediately graspable that for others it can create a sense of community, validation, identity and feeling seen by like-minded others. Therein lies the key difference in how each individual, whether within or outside of the puppy play community, defines their online presence as part of their identity and daily life. Social media consumption plays a role in my everyday life, but I rarely, if ever, post. However, for others posting and sharing is an extension of their identity and a source of affirmation. That depends on how one perceives and exercises their privacy. Some may prefer to only connect with others in real life and preserve a veil of privacy around their interactions, potentially also compartmentalizing those parts of their lives from the rest. Privacy and intimacy are very relative concepts when linked to any form of social media, but they can link closely to how the role of online presence in one’s daily life (how important and influential is it?).

That is not to say that social media use cannot feel as though it is done in private, as Subreddits for example feel much more intimate than TikTok. Reddit may strike the balance between privacy and exposure to safe others. This possibly allows for users to engage with it more privately and as a pastime. TikTok leans more towards widespread exposure and a central part of the identity of pups/handlers who are active on there. PupTok is focused on (relatable) content creation, which takes a conscious effort and probably leaves more of a digital footprint than Reddit would, therefore is probably more pursued by those who have a strong online identity in their everyday life. Tumblr is also a form of wide-spread exposure to the pup community, yet feels like a space for free artistic and creative expression can take place. I find that Tumblr normalizes unfiltered expression of one’s sexuality and identity a lot, with a “live and let live” atmosphere. In that case, intense presence and exposure of online activity can flexibly vary depending on the individual. All of these differences between the platforms in the type of use and content can be reflective of a difference in the centrality of online pup/handler identity in one’s everyday life.

#online #onlinepuppyplay #puppyplay #pup #handler #puppy #TikTok #Tumblr #Reddit #PupTok #pupspace #in-the-pupspace

0 notes

mahaliaaa · 1 year

Text

Since the pandemic began, I have been constantly on my phone. I've developed the habit of checking my phone as soon as I wake up every morning. My hand will touch it the first thing when I wake up and the last thing before I go to sleep. It is the only thing that matters to me. I need it to survive in the pandemic; otherwise, I'll pass away from boredom and loneliness.

Although that might sound exaggerated, it is accurate. In a pandemic, our phone becomes our only source of communication. I'll pick up my phone when I'm feeling lonely, message my pals, and talk about anything that comes to mind, sometimes even going off on a rant about how Covid 19 affects so many of our lives. I usually blame Covid 19 when there are minor inconveniences, claiming that it is to blame for what happened. I'll get my phone and open TikTok or play games when I'm bored. I scrolled for almost the entire day, laughed at weird things I found online, and played games.

I tried engaging in indoor activities like painting, cooking, crocheting, and drawing to divert my attention away from technology, but I find it hard to resist checking my phone constantly. So I spend all of my time on my couch playing games, watching korean dramas, movies, and browsing through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. I'll eventually just leave my room to grab some food and perhaps take a shower. When my mother needs to ask me a question, she just texts me, and my siblings do the same. Since we are constantly occupied with our gadgets because we are unable to leave the house for work, we rarely have face-to-face conversations even within our own home.

No one is allowed to leave during a pandemic. We are completely under lockdown due to the virus's propagation. We are unable to socialize with our friends outside or visit them. It's a good thing we have phones and other technologies since it allows us to contact people without having to go out. It is currently the most practical approach to interact with people and disseminate the information we require for daily life.

Being stuck at home is often challenging and, for some, sad. We all need to socialize in order to live. We usually find being alone depressing. Personally, I enjoy spending time with my friends since it makes me feel happy. I find that having company greatly improves my mood. Additionally, talking to someone helps me feel lighter and reduces a lot of tension. There is a day in my life when we are still in quarantine and I am feeling particularly sluggish for no apparent reason. Knowing that you are alone worsens the unexplained emotion I'm experiencing. I can't help it; I find myself thinking a lot of negative thoughts. Fortunately, when I called one of my friends, she picked up. Even though I know she won't be able to comprehend what I'm saying, simply having her there to listen to me makes me feel a lot better.

Especially during a pandemic, technology saved my life. I use technology to stay away from difficult or unpleasant feelings, which were in abundance during the COVID-19 pandemic. I used screens to communicate safely with my loved ones and friends. Even communicating digitally with them lifts my spirits. In these circumstances, having someone to chat to can truly help a person feel less alone.

Studies have indicated that being in touch with loved ones via technology, particularly social media and other messaging services, enhances mental and emotional health, particularly during tough situations. Teenagers' ability to handle a challenging crisis, particularly how they used technology to fortify their resistance, is impressive. However, equity also plays a role in resilience since teens who receive a lot of support from their families and other sources are better able to deal with the pandemic. Children may spend less time with their families the more time they spend in front of screens. While staying connected is helpful, in-person contact with people can help young people build valuable interpersonal skills.

Young and older children alike may become socially isolated as a result of increased technology use, which could have a negative effect on how well they learn to interact with others.Teenagers, including myself, are constantly using their phones for texting, sharing, trolling, scrolling, and other activities. We frequently talked on the phone rather than in person. Teenagers today are being taught, among other things, to communicate primarily through screens rather than with actual people.

The pandemic has a massive effect on how we communicate with one another. We learned a lot of new, simpler, and more open ways to communicate. Like how we can now contact friends and family who live far away using social media, instant messaging, or video chat. Despite the fact that it improves communication, it has an impact on our social or communication abilities. Many of us will grow up to be individuals who are afraid of talking, our society's fundamental form of communication, since we don't receive enough practice relating to people and meeting their needs in person and in real time.

We have to exercise social distance because of the pandemic, so when we have to resume normal activities and have face-to-face interactions, it feels unusual. I am so accustomed to speaking to a screen that I find it impossible to make eye contact when speaking to someone. Additionally, because it has been a while since I spoke to someone face-to-face, I occasionally stutter when I speak. Speaking with someone face-to-face is significantly different from doing so via a screen.

By seeing the other person's expressions, I can determine their response to or level of interest in what I am saying and adjust what I say. Because I frequently employ sarcasm in casual conversation, I have offended a number of individuals online. I am usually unaware that I have offended someone until they block me. On the other side, speaking online gives you the opportunity to carefully construct your arguments and omit any that come out as boring.

Since we are still getting used to this new normal, it is acceptable to have a difficult conversation when using traditional ways of communicating. Many people encounter this type of difficulty. You should put yourself in the best position to overcome the difficulties and practice a one-on-one conversation by becoming knowledgeable of them.

We are starting to replace actual human interaction in communication with online chatting and texting. Calls, emails, instant messages, and social media are all used. Even while some people don't mind and even prefer not to see the other person when speaking, they frequently lose the ability to have face-to-face conversations. We are now more likely to interact directly in person since things are slowly getting back to normal and everyone is now able to go out. It could be difficult for us to get used to it once more, but things will always get better.

0 notes

quinntik · 1 year

Text

Reflections on Season 12 of League of Legends

youtube

In early Season 11, I made my debut in the amateur League space. Not as a player - I was far too insecure for that - but as a coach and analyst for my friend's team. I had previously made Diamond in Season 9 and failed to return for Season 10, discovering a complete and utter lack of fundamental knowledge. In response, I pledged myself to studying the game, limiting my actual play time so I could develop a deeper understanding of strategy and theory. During Season 11, I believed this had worked wonders; despite barely playing the game outside of 4fun games with friends, I felt that I had learned more in that season than during my entire history with the game.

Fast forward to mid-season 12. I had just finished a major project outlining in my own words the fundamental purpose of every champion in the game. I had experienced a lot of success on my Day 1 guides, proving to myself that I can break down, analyze, and understand new concepts very quickly as they come at me. My understanding of draft strategy was at an all-time high. And despite that, the performance of the teams I coached was declining while I consistently found myself making draft mistakes and panicking on my decisions in the moment.

The entire time, I was struggling with my cripplingly low self-esteem. Despite having spent more than a year trying to understand the game, I always felt I hadn't made enough progress. I always second-guessed my own decisions, and I regularly put my players into very poor positions. Upon making those mistakes, I would beat myself up for the entire game, failing to properly take notes during the game so I'd have nothing meaningful to tell my players mid-set. When I reviewed our VODs, I'd come out with immensely detailed notes about what went wrong and why (sometimes writing 8-page documents on a single 2-game set), and then immediately doubt the value of those notes. I had absolutely no confidence to speak of because at the end of the day, surely nothing I said had value. I hadn't even hit Diamond within three years (ignoring the fact that I was practically no longer playing the game). And if I hadn't even gotten near Masters, why should anyone listen to my opinions?

I recognized at a certain point that my matchup knowledge was too poor and that my creativity was lacking. My notes were in fact not helpful to my players, because they just overloaded them with information, obfuscating the actual learning goals. Furthermore, all of the time I spent learning draft theory stunted my development on actual in-game decision making. There was no doubt - I needed to develop the perspective of a player.

In Fall 2022, my team experienced a shake-up that required me to step in and actually play alongside my players. The team needed an in-game leader and I knew that somewhere within me I had the skills to be that leader, but I didn't trust myself. To supplement my experience, I also signed up for another league - the Victoris Rival Draft - allowing me to sign up as an individual and granting me access to new teammates with a fresh perspective. This wasn't my first run through the VRD; I had previously attempted to play in Fall 2021 and made my legendarily bad amateur debut with a 1-17 game record. With that in mind, my expectation was not to win - it was just to learn from the people around me.

At the same time, I had received an opportunity to sit on the analyst desk for the VTS - Victoris' Masters-capped League. Putting my self-doubt aside, I took the opportunity, which later turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made.

Throughout that competitive split, playing on two teams while maintaining my content and getting some semi-professional analyst experience (a role in which I must gather and communicate my thoughts quickly), I experienced more positives than I could have imagined. I gained the respect of my fellow analysts, my Day 1 K'Sante guide was recognized by one of K'Sante's actual designers, and most incredibly, my VRD team actually won the entire league. I owe a lot to my ADC, Dallas, touted as the best player in the league who critically spent much of his time building up the confidence of the entire team and encouraging them to share their thoughts. I learned a lot from working with him.

While playing in the VRD as well as its sister League, the VRS, with my main team, I finally learned a fundamental truth. The strategic depth I had studied wasn't meaningless, but it did not apply at our level of play. I vastly overestimated the abilities of both myself and my peers, and underestimated the sheer amount of practice time needed to execute compositions with even a simple alternate premise. I'm fundamentally a Control player, but most League players are not! And solo queue does not teach players how to play Control - it teaches almost exclusively Teamfight and some Aggro strategies. Winning the VRD felt a lot more brainless than I thought it should, but it's because I was actually overcomplicating the game. While it's true that at the top level a Bait and Punish composition should beat a Dive composition 100% of the time, if the Bait and Punish comp is played by Platinum players with limited experience on that style, they're actually likely to collapse in lane and lose an "unlosable" matchup. The skills I was studying were irrelevant at my level of play, because we're not good enough at executing on the foundations that they were built on. And even if we were good enough, amateur players have lives beyond the game and cannot commit the time needed to learn how these alternate compositions work via practice.

Meanwhile on the VTS analyst desk, I was shocked at the level of play I saw from Masters players. Mistakes that I thought surely should have been stamped out at this level of play (jungle pathing errors, spontaneous solo deaths, etc.) were still being made frequently. The games were sloppy and imprecise. I knew that I would not have been able to recognize these mistakes before committing them if I were in their shoes, but if I could break the mistake down in such detail using my limited experience as a player, surely the more experienced, stronger players I was watching should have already thought about the things I realized in the moment, right?

Fast forward to Worlds 2022. It had been ages since I was able to get my friends together in person but Worlds in NA presented the perfect excuse to invite everyone over, throwing a pseudo-super bowl party. At that party, I finally got the in-person social interaction I was lacking. I spoke with my friends about everything going on in the game, breaking down some draft concepts, trying to understand certain decisions, and getting caught up in the excitement of T1 vs. DRX. In that moment, everything finally clicked for me.

I should be confident because I am a smart player. I have some baseline competence in my gameplay, as demonstrated by the VRD. Gaining the respect of my fellow analysts wasn't a fluke - I actually knew what I was talking about. My insight is my greatest strength - as demonstrated in my Day 1 videos and on the VTS, I can catch on to new concepts quickly and develop them into sophisticated models, and integrate them into my knowledge easily. The Masters players I watched weren't perfect at all - so I didn't have to be either. No longer was my self-worth tied to what I did and didn't know. I'm allowed to not know things because I learn so quickly. After years of hoping, the day had finally come; my confidence was restored.

The final piece of the puzzle came from an unlikely source - an Anthony Padilla interview with Hostage Negotiators in which I heard words that I've never heard before: "there's a difference between knowing something and having the skills to actually do it - and sometimes it takes practice." This blew me away - it validated further that I'm not always wrong, just that I had severely underdeveloped methods for practicing what I'd learned. When combining that with Coach Curtis' concept of Analytical vs. Intuitive players, I realized that I had over-indexed in my analytical skills. Why when doing draft practice would I give myself 300s per decision point when in a real scenario, I only have 30s? Why am I only developing my ability to think deeply rather than quickly? Why do I have no ability to "feel" things out without overthinking? I relied on spending an abundance of time due to my crippling fear of failure developed over the last few years, but I had been causing more failure by sticking to that. Failure can't hurt me anymore, because I have faith in myself to grow from it.

I have a general sense of how to develop practice methods after asking myself what more I can do for my teams after discovering that info-dumping isn't effective. What I can't believe is that it took me all of these other sources to truly appreciate what I had thought I learned from my favourite book from the past year - Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by K. Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool. Deliberate practice means properly working with the information - not just studying one concept and immediately jumping to the next. Intellectually I knew that, but I hadn't properly felt out or absorbed the concept.

I'm therefore going to play more games and practice more drills, hoping to internalize the feeling that I need to practice as well as research. My expectation is that I will spend one more season languishing in Diamond as I develop the intuitive skills needed to go further. I'll need those skills if I want to pursue my dream of being an analytical content creator, because my natural insight and analytical brain combined with increased intuition should make me unstoppable when it comes to researching for videos. But since I know how to learn and I'm learning how to practice, and since I'm finally starting to overcome my debilitating mental health issues, I know that one day Grandmaster or even Challenger will be mine.

If you'd like to support my content, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel or follow me on Twitch.

If you'd like to, you can also support me on Ko-Fi. I offer video editing commissions here!

#league of legends #essay #reflections #improvement #practice #esports #Youtube

1 note · View note

brynnmorgan-reflection-blog · 1 year

Text

Module 12: Sports

When looking into sports, this chapter highlights how American sports have been exclusive since the early working of organized sports. Where organized sports in America began as a monolithic representation of whiteness that actively tried to exclude minority groups from entering those arenas of competition and athleticism, meaning resources and opportunities were kept from marginalized groups. This created many set-backs for marginalized groups including Latinx athletes where coaches would create teams composed of only all-white players, the cost of sports was highly expensive, and these social stigmas even dominated college admissions affecting the representation of Latinx athletes within professional sports. This led to marginalized groups having to create their own leagues and work twice as hard to get the same opportunities as a white athlete. With this, Latinx athletes were overrepresented in baseball and invisible in every other sport where in reality this is because the baseball league was just trying to accommodate the limited inclusion of nonwhite Others which influenced other sports organizations as well. They were not looked at as true athletes and instead sports just wanted what these athletes were able to contribute to the greater good. There was even objectification and commodification of Latinx bodies in sports were images of athletes on front covers, like Richard Gonzalez, were whitened without any mention of the player’s identity. Eventually, with the women’s liberation movement and the emergence of the NFL it allowed sports to become more visible which allowed Latinx athletes to have an important place within sports. The media also played a major role in the increased engagement of Latina/os in careers in athletics where the ESPN era encouraged Latinx athletes and gave them the representation they deserved. Although, many athletes still faced discrimination and had to fight through prejudices of others while on teams showing the tension created when Latinx athletes achieve high levels of success in American sports. This did not stop Latinx athletes from claiming their spots in American sports, not as outsiders, but as true athletes whom continue to shock the world with their talent and change the meaning behind American sports.

What I found to be of particular interest within this chapter is the success and controversy of Mark Sanchez’s whom was the quarterback for the University of Southern California Trojans. He experienced tons of backlash which erased all his significant achievements due to him having a special mouthguard made that represented the Mexican flag. Where Sanchez showed pride in his culture, identifying as Mexican American, he wanted to acknowledge his family history in which individuals responded by saying, “that young man needed to discard the specialty mouthpiece because many will think that he is a Mexican citizen, and it is an insult to this country, where he was born and raised.” Society ignored all his accomplishments and success because they wanted to shut him down from acknowledging his history and heritage while also representing the Latinx community within Los Angeles. This shocked me, to see how threatened some people are when an athlete whom is other than white has high levels of accomplishments in American sports. Sad to see when white individuals begin to feel out of control, the amount of backlash they will cause on someone.

I can connect this chapter in a way, to my own experiences when I participated in sports throughout high school. Where I only played softball growing up, but I had a realization of how truly expensive sports can be in general. Remembering all the equipment I had to have just to play this one sport and on top of that there were fees to even be able to play the sport, as well as donations the organization would insist on. I would have to help my parent out when it came to trying to afford everything, making me realize the struggle marginalized groups and individuals with lower socioeconomic status had to experience to play.

youtube

#Youtube

0 notes

jesse-eisenberg-interview · 14 years

Text

Exclusive Interview: Jesse Eisenberg On Holy Rollers And Playing Producer, Kind Of

Jesse Eisenberg is coming off of a massive box office hit, last fall's Zombieland, but his reputation as an actor with a penchant for indies isn't going away any time soon. He's got a role in this spring's Michael Douglas vehicle Solitary Man, but up first is this weekend's Holy Rollers, a movie best described with its simple plot: based on a true story, it's about Hasidic Jews involved in an Ecstasy smuggling ring.

Eisenberg stars as the young Hasid Sam Gold, struggling a bit within his insular community when the girl he wants to marry turns him down, and discovering a whole new world when his rebellious neighbor (Justin Bartha) includes him in an Ecstasy smuggling ring, which allows Sam to travel outside of New York and meet all kinds of people previously foreign to him, but comes with its consequences as well. Eisenberg, Bartha and director Kevin Asch were able to research the world of Hasidic Jews for two years before production started, which lends the film a striking authenticity and a sympathy for characters rooted in a religion that, from the outside, can seem constricting and irrational. As we learn watching Sam, though, it can feel that way from the inside too.

I talked to Eisenberg about all the producer-like duties he did in getting the film together, his experiences meeting Hasids during his research, and how it all comes back to that universal New Yorker experience of passing a Hasidic neighborhood and thinking, 'Wow. I wonder what it's like to be those people.'

Holy Rollers opens this weekend in limited release.

Was the pitch for this the true story that it's based on?

Well I wrote the text on the poster: "In 1998 one million pills of Ecstasy were smuggled into the United States by Hasidic Jews." That's the pitch to producers as well as the audience. That's not why I wanted to be in it-- that I could care less about, that part of the story.

As a New Yorker did you have that experience of driving past the Hasidic neighborhood and think, 'What is up with these people?'

That's exactly the experience. And I'm Jewish as well, so on one hand you feel attracted to them because you share ancestry and culture and traditions and a religion even, and on the other hand they couldn't live in a more different community.

And you guys did tons of research.

Yeah, we had two years where we had to pitch producers the plot. During that period we could go to all these communities in Brooklyn to meet this people.

Were people excited to talk to you and give you all this information?

I never told people we were doing a movie about this. Hasidic Jews don't watch secular movies.

So what did you tell them to set up the interview?

Nothing, because there's a sect of Hasidic Jews who are interested in speaking with secular Jews. You can go to their school and just say, 'Oh, can you show me around?' I didn't feel like I was exploiting them, because this is what they want to do. Even if it doesn't take, they're happy to do it.

You're not credited as a producer, but you did a lot to help get this movie made. What did that involve?

I helped get a lot of the actors involved. My little sister, the guy who plays my father. I got Justin to be involved, Justin brought on the cinematographer and one of the producers. Then the cinematographer brought on his crew. This was a very homegrown production.

Have you been involved in production on that level before?

Yeah, I like to do that a lot. If I sign on to a movie that I really want to act in, a lot of times the only way it will get made is if I'm really involved in it early on. I like being involved. It makes me feel included, and it also allows me to do the things I really want to do. I wasn't the only person pushing for it, of course, but if we weren't all instrumental in that way, and all passionate about it in the right way, it wouldn't have gotten made. There's nothing pushing this thing forward that's in the market.

Do you feel like your taste is just off the mainstream enough that you really have to push?

Well movies in general are hard to get made even at the studios. If I really like something, and I so rarely find stuff that I really really like, you try really hard to get them made. As opposed to just being an actor for hire waiting at home, I just don't have the patience for that.

Does that make you want to be a filmmaker?

No not at all. I like facilitating the things I want to be in.

It seems like there's always lines drawn between actor and producer, so it would be hard to do as much as you do.

It's really whatever you want to do. Especially if you're savvy enough to know that what you have might be of interest. That's the trick, just knowing what people to ask and how to do it. At the end of the day you're just making movies. For example, the people that are very close to me are all in education, oftentimes with some under-served communities. And they have to work that much harder. For me, I'm just convincing people to make a movie.

How did you find yourself feeling about this world, after learning everything that you did?

I felt more sympathetic to the characters, which is the goal because I was playing a character that I felt bad for. He was brought into this [drug smuggling] world in a dishonest way. Sometimes I did have a critical attitude toward the community. Sometimes the way they may talk about people who are not part of their community would be in a way that rubs me a little bit the wrong way. Some things they could say would occasionally seem a little incendiary to me. Overall the people I really liked and spent a lot of time with were very generous to me.

SOURCE

#jesse eisenberg #2010 #holy rollers

0 notes

thebrightsessions · 4 years

Photo

Entertainment Spotlight: Briggon Snow

Briggon Snow is a Los Angeles-based actor, writer and creator, originally from South Portland, Maine. He is known for voicing Caleb Michaels in The Bright Sessions and The College Tapes, and roles in The Big Loop (Podcast), Seal Team (CBS), Game Shakers (Nickelodeon) and Masters of Sex (Showtime).

Can you share any fun facts about the making of The Bright Sessions and/or The College Tapes that fans would be surprised to find out?

Oh boy. I was just wracking my brain on this and struggling™. “Should I mention the obvious: That we did this remotely? Talk about those challenges?” And then moments ago my husband stepped out onto our balcony where I was staring at my laptop, read this question, and made a very cheeky suggestion. So here we go:

Everyone loves kissing in audio, right? *crickets* No? Only some of you? Well, I know it’s a hot-button topic, but when it comes to squishy romance feelings I’m here for it, I’ll admit. And well, we recorded this in a pandemic, so...no kissing allowed. And how did we get around that? Well, as one of our illustrious and poor defenseless audio designers got to e̶x̶p̶e̶r̶i̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ suffer through...I sent over “roll-the-tape” recordings of me pulling my husband into my home recording booth to - essentially - makeout for all of your enjoyment/cringes. Now...who’s kissing in The College Tapes? You’ll have to wait and hear (again sorry) because...well...reasons...

If you could have a conversation with Caleb, what would you want to talk about?

I’d love to go on trail with him or go camping and just talk about...feelings. I know the feelings/emotions thing is a constant for him so this is a little on the nose - but in playing Caleb and now writing for him too - I was challenged to submerge myself in my heart and mind and body and meditate with the emotions that pass me by every day. Lauren’s writing gave me a roadmap to identify and place things within myself outside of recording (a gift I’ll never be able to repay). And in these last five years I’ve found myself endlessly fascinated with human emotionality and our awareness or lack thereof and how we move throughout life in relationship with the things we feel. I’d love to look Caleb in the eyes and have us be unabashedly open with each other; the good, the bad, the everything.

Do you have a memory from college or young adulthood that you think would make a good College Tapes scene or episode?

It’s funny. I pulled on so many memories and feelings from my time at college. There’s one particular story involving greek life and my freshman roommate that I absolutely stole when writing my episodes. But I have one memory that’s so...nothing really...but so powerful in my life that I’d like to share...

My best friend in college ended up showing me Avatar: The Last Airbender, and when we’d watch it in his dorm, we would naturally smoosh up on his bed and cuddle under a blanket. And for me, a gay kid - just cuddling up with my straight best friend because we loved each other - and it not being weird or joked about when our friends were around - meant - like - everything to me.

Again, not a big crazy college memory. But let’s hear it for the straight boys out there dismantling toxic masculinity one soft action at a time!

If you could be Atypical in real life, would you want to be? If yes, what powers do you think that you would have?

I want to be an Atypical! I’d love to be able to communicate with anyone (+ animals) regardless of language. I want to know people. I love meeting people. I think one of the greatest privileges of being an actor is that we’re thrown together with other folks who (if it’s going right) open themselves up to you and participate in a created intimacy to seek understanding. More than anything, I’m curious and want to be influenced by other perspectives in this life - and the idea of being able to connect with and learn from a person in Morocco or even an Orca Whale off the coast of Washington is *heart eyes*.

Do you have any headcanons (something that you believe to be true that isn’t explicitly stated) about Caleb?

I don’t know if I’m going against actual canon here. After 5 years it’s hard to keep track of what’s in what episode in The Bright Sessions universe. But I’ve always imagined Caleb as a closet master chef of sorts. I think he learned to cook out of necessity growing up; odd hours for practices and games and his parents being a little scattered. And I think by college, Caleb is super impressive in the kitchen. The kitchen - like the gym or sport or nature - is one of his churches.

Can you share your favorite piece of The Bright Sessions fan art?

There have been so many incredible pieces of fan art over the years and I’ve loved them all. It’s wild how transformative fandoms can be. You never know what aspect of a character or a story is going to take hold in a person’s imagination, and all of the different headcanons and pieces of art our strange and unusual family has shared over the years continues to be my favorite part of being in the cast of The Bright Sessions.

(Grayson, ghostcribs)

I’ve always adored Grayson’s imagining of Caleb and Adam. Grayson is one of my very favorite artists ever; so much so that I eventually - nervously - reached out, and now he and I have started work on a little project of our own. And I love that. We all get to (and I think have the responsibility to if we can) inspire each other with what we put out into the world. It’s call and answer and it makes for the best stuff.

Thanks for taking the time, Briggon! Catch The College Tapes, only on Luminary.

#entertainment spotlight #briggon snow #the college tapes #the bright sessions

4K notes · View notes