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kitkatguillermo · 2 years

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La-la-la- La Union

Our friends were interns in organizing Mutia Ti La Union. And they can't stop talking about this place and who wouldn't.

La Union or popularly known as "Elyu" is a fave summer destination mostly by the younger generation, beach lovers, and surfing enthusiasts. We had a 3-day vacation last December.

A short "hike"

It was a fun and exciting trip. We experienced riding on the roof of the jeepney while traversing the steep mountain slopes. Better grabbed the roof rack as if your life depends on it. Fuel your body too. The up and down path was challenging but it's all worth it when you reach the falls and submerge yourself in the refreshing turquoise water.

Kabsat - an Ilocano word that means brother or sibling.

It's also the name of this restaurant/bar. The interior was inspired by nipa huts to create this overall coming home to the province vibes. You can order delicious Pinoy meals with or without alcoholic drinks. They also offer this gorgeous panoramic view of the sea where you can watch the sunset.

"Odds and Ends"

Flotsam and Jetsam is a typical hangout place at night for tourists and locals in La Union. I found out that "flotsam and jetsam" means two types of marine debris. It also refers to small items found together with no connection with each other. Sounds like the series of events that happened that night.

1. It's our first meeting with Mac.

2. We witnessed a dance battle between dancers who I just found out are popular on TikTok. Actually, a lot of popular influencers were there at that time.

2. After the party, we're still in the mood to stay up all night. So, we decided to have a picnic at the beach.

It was a full moon and so the tides were higher. While taking photos of the sea, I noticed a strong wave coming. I wasn't ready to move since I'm using a low shutter setting (see the last photo for the result) and thought it wouldn't reach me because I'm somewhat above and far away from the shoreline. But I underestimated it and just ran back towards my friend. Other people near us noticed too. We grabbed everything even stuff we don't know belongs to us and scampered off as the tide made it to our spot. We laughed about it afterward.

3. Around 1AM, two young women approached us. They asked if they could stay for a while because a group of men were harassing them. They told us that after they bought drinks at the convenience store, these guys showed up. The group kept following them while they were on their way to the beach.

My friends went to the entrance to investigate. When they returned, we saw 7 to 8 guys behind them. They obviously want to approach us but it's a good thing they walked past us instead. I'm ready to break my pale Pilsen bottle in case, just kidding. Then we shared stories to ease their tension.

Grateful the night turned out all right.

#kitkatguillermo #philippines #photography #vacation #travel #travel photo blog #travel photography #travel diary #la union #elyu #flotsam and jetsam #kabsat #tangadan falls #san fernando la union #beach #beach philippines #waterfalls #hiking

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see-arcane · 9 months

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Somewhere in the Dracula green room

Jonathan: A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Renfield. From what I hear we have a great deal in common with our respective plights.

Renfield: I’ve heard much the same. All the flotsam about detainment against our will, being observed and prodded for our keepers’ interest, guarding our little journals, being cruelly refused the opportunity to eat cats...

Jonathan: What was the last one, sorry?

Renfield: Denied the opportunity to eat cats. It’s right here in my notes, see?

Jonathan: Oh. Yes.

Renfield: Come now, don’t tell me a little creative culinary experimentation is enough to upset your sensibilities.

Jonathan: At this point, no. I just realized there’s a typo in my own notes. Nothing here about being denied the chance to eat a cat. In so many words.

Renfield: Oh? What is it you’re not being allowed to eat due to your predicament?

Jonathan: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Elsewhere, in England

Mina, white-knuckling her pen: Dear Diary, if I don’t have my Jonathan back here to feed and feed and feed within the month, I am smashing the fourth wall with my typewriter and using the shrapnel to stake the Count myself.

#running on -10 maturity for this one sorry folks #r.m. renfield #jonathan harker #mina murray #dracula #re: dracula #dracula daily

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meowchickameow · 4 months

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your a theatre kid?

fr?

what musicals have you been in?

i also am a musical kid.

we should be friends :D

I love theater sm OMG. Yes, we should be friends and here are the musicals I've been in

-The Jungle Book (Mowgli)

-The Little Mermaid (Flotsam)

-The Snow Queen (Old Crow + Troll)

-And currently, I'm gonna be in Diary of a Wimpy Kid the Musical (Greg)

But ive also been in a TON of plays

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el-im · 11 months

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diary

- dreamed keegan and i were in the same... housing arrangement (’dorm’ would stretch the term). there were these little bordered rooms set up in a larger enclosed space, like the kind we gave conferences in for s&s. the room was set up with stalls in a (frankly--very confusing) maze like pattern, where there were different dividers set up with people’s names plastered over the single doorway and wall. the whole thing was rather like a hastily assembled collection of bathroom stalls--walls and doors of that variety, i mean, which didn’t reach more than... oh, seven feet up, then stopped, some with space under the railings so you could see people’s feet as they walked about within them. I wasn’t sure if i was living there, and was anyway upset a little by the arrangement (thinking it would certainly be cheaper for me to go on living with melissa and armando, and that if only i could stay there, i’d be closer to the library, and downtown...). i was looking for my name, but found nothing, though in truth didn’t look at the whole complex--only peered down some corridors which seemed crowded to me and which i didn’t want to insert myself into. i went out, then came back again, and found at the front a display of laminated sheets of paper with everyone’s names who was to be housed in the... arrangement. printed on them. they were sorted alphabetically by last name, so i sought out the place where mine ought to be but didn’t find myself. then, doubling back, i found myself, though i was listed under “alcalde” rather than my legal last name. i was pleased by this--figuring my mom must have arranged for it or something. on it was a photo of me from middle school, wearing... i don’t know. a sleeping with sirens shirt, and on the back was a pronouncement that keegan had made my card--designed the whole thing for me as a surprise. it was nice of him, and i felt touched by the effort, but was affronted by the photo. he must have gotten it from my mom, and the idea of them colluding, even for my benefit, left a twist in my stomach. - i thought last night about calling--for ages, i mean. or breaking down and texting again though that would prove to be just as embarrassing as it was the last time. i’m feeling very hurt and sullen and occasionally hard-hearted which is really uncharacteristic for me. i keep writing things and stashing them in the back pocket of my notebook, hopefully never to see the light of day again. they’re mean, and i’m mean. i think a lot of it is justified, really, cause a lot of it comes out of confusion but. i mean. what the fuck. the phrase ‘you can lead a horse to water, but ya’ can’t make it drink’ occured to me (in which i am water, and horse-leader, which is the shitty position to be in). i took a moment to digest that for a bit, and it made sense then. now, in the morning, it’s awful again. i’ve been listening to leonard cohen since i got up (BAD MOVE) so am thinking about how everything wonderful ends, and how fickle you become, and how unhappy, and how bitter and angry and alone he was at the end of his life. that’s no great solace. i think, yanno, you have no hold over him. you don’t! you wish you did, you wish he were tempted, but... but... but... oh, there are greater things, stronger forces at work here than you. yanno. desperate though you are. and you think--god, if only i could have held on a little tighter, or if there was something he wanted me to do and i didn’t, out of fear or filth or cowardice or shame*... and i ought to have done it, and maybe then... but that’s all flotsam anyway. and then you take another moment and you think. well. you wouldn’t want him if you got him only by clinging, and keeping. (my mind is a couch full of embroidered cushions with cliches and trite sayings cross-stitched into them--just now i think “if you love something, let it go” and i AM god damn it, because what choice do i have anyway. so i promised myself no more letters unless (because there’s always an unless) i hear from him, which i don’t expect to, really. and i promised myself that my last “you know what? this persists. even without you here, even as time goes by, and that’s not so much you, but me.” letter i sent would be my final words on the subject, but fuck if that doesn’t just suck... and it SUCKS). anyway. so i think. you wouldn’t want him if that’s how you kept him around. so unless he’s here by his own volition, and will, it doesn’t mean anything. and it’s not that he doesn’t maybe want to be here (who can say but him? and he’s not talking, so you won’t know), but he can’t be. and that’s how it is. so what can you do but keep your head down. lament the fact that he didn’t want to try, but know where he’s coming from, and understand, even if you don’t admit that you do. love him anyway, in spite of, and because. - despite all this, you persist in imagining a knock at the door. opening it to find him windswept and sorry and yours again. LORD. YOU MADE THE NIGHT TOO LONG. *leonard cohen lyric

#captain's log

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delphoxqueen · 1 year

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Robecca Steam’s Diary- Wave 4 (2012)

{Scroll to the of the post for the actual diary pages!}

This Diary Belongs to: Robecca Steam

I’ll blow my stack if you read my diary.

Name: Robecca Steam

School: Monster High

19 September - Then

Our show tonight was a rousing success. My rocket boots worked to perfection after the adjustments father made and I was able to complete the trick in such a way that it elicited gaps from the audience yet remained perfectly safe for me. Father was so pleased that he is allowing me to take tomorrow’s train instead of the one tonight so that I may stay and engage in a round of roller maze. I am so excited my boiler is near to bursting! My only regret is that father was not able to adjust my internal clock before he departed. Well, it is not to be a worry tonight and I am sure he will be able to resolve the problem when we are reunited on the morrow.

20 September - Then

Frost my firebox was I vexed this morning! I missed yet another appointment due to the inability of my internal clock to keep the correct time. Now to be sure there are appointments and there are appointments, and one is to be forgiven if fashionable lateness allows for a grand entrance in the former; but when exacting punctuality is required of the latter, such as catching a train that leaves promptly at noon and your arrival is thirty minutes after the departure of said train, vexation will rule the day. Thus I found myself standing on the station platform with steam rising from my ears and baggage piled high around me. From a distance it must have looked as if some monster had fashioned a cabin of suitcases on the platform and upon finishing their labor celebrated by lighting a fire in the stove. I was obliged to send father a telegraph informing him of my situation and assuring him that I would be on time for tomorrow’s train even if I had to spend the night on the platform. Fortunately, it did not come to that as the gargoyle that drove me from Miss Kindergubber’s boarding house to the train station will, however, make it possible for me to attend the gala birthday ball being thrown in honor of a Miss Draculaura. She is the daughter of a very famous, and well-to-do vampire, named Dracula. I am excited to have the opportunity to make both of their acquaintances. I was delighted to learn that Dr. and Mrs. Stein had arrived in town on the very train that I missed! Dr. Stein is one of my father’s most respected acquaintances, both he and his lovely bride will be attending the ball and have offered to act as my chaperones so that I do not have to present myself as unattended.

21 September - Then

The party was grander than I could have imagined. Every creature was dressed in their finest and I saw many famous monsters and digniscaries. Draculaura could not have been a more kind and gracious host. I do not know how she knew I missed my train but she did, and was very genuine on her expression of sincere concern for my predicament. I was immediately pulled into her social circle as she introduced me to her friends with such rapidity that I hardly remembered a soul when she was through. Several of them had seen me perform however and were quite keen on hearing my tales of daring do. Eventually I excused myself in order to reunite myself with Dr. and Mrs. Stein, as I did not wish to appear ungrateful or rude for the kindness they had shown in escorting me to the party. I did not see either of them in the crowd so I made my way toward a group of guests where a lively discussion seemed to be under way about what made one a true monster. The most vocal of the group was rather corpulent goblin with a pince-nez, prominent teeth and absurdly hairy ears:

Well of course she isn’t and how could she be? A wonder of modern mad science? Perhaps. A true monster? Never. Fashioning the flotsam and jetsam of a laboratory into some semblance of a creature does not make that creature a monster any more so than kittens born in an oven makes them scones. Do you know the old crackpot, genius though he may be, insists on calling her his daughter? Even more preposterous is that she refers to him as her father. As if steam could replace screams.

I felt as though some monster had thrown a handful of sand into my gears and I thought, “Is that what every monster believes?” I was about to turn and quietly slip back into the crowd when I felt a very large but gentle hand on one shoulder and a smaller but reassuringly firm one on the other. Then a voice, at once calming to me and challenging to the speaker said, “Perhaps Herr Goblin would care to pronounce us either kitten or scone then.” I suppose it was un-lady like that I should have enjoyed the panic I saw on his face, as he looked from Dr. Stein to Mrs. Stein to me, but I did. The goblin quickly stammered an excuse and unceremoniously fled the room. Later, Dracula found us and offered his sincere apology. “Miss Steam I regret not that you heard such an insult to your monsterhood but that it was uttered at all. It is not an opinion shared in this house. Please accept our sincere apolo-gies.” We conversed several more minutes and he left to attend to other guests. He is indeed a true gentle-monster and the remainder of the gala was so delightful that it all but eclipsed the one brief moment of unpleasantness.

22 September - Then

Today as I was packing to leave under the punctual eye of Miss Kindergrüber, we received word from the railroad station that sometime in the night a very large and rather belligerent dragon had taken up residence in the main train tunnel between here and where I was to meet father. Owing to the dragon’s size and coloration it is believed that it might be preparing for hibernation. If that is indeed the case, I could be stranded here until the spring. Even though plans were being made to send for a dragon whisperer there were no guarantees. Clog my gears and rust my bearings! What shall I do now?

1 October - Then

“Werden wir jemals ein eigenes Kind haben?” {Will we ever have a child of our own?} to which he replied “Wenn die Zeit gekommen ist, das verspeche ich dir, werden wir es.” {When the time comes I promise we will} I could tell that I had interrupted a private moment so I attempted to change the subject by asking Dr. Stein if he might have an idea why my internal clock could not keep proper time. He laughed at my request and for a moment I felt embarrassed until Dr. Stein said, “It had been my experience that no amount of adjustment is sufficient to make a ghoul run on time.” For this Dr. Stein received a playful tap from Mrs. Stein and he continued, “Besides that, your father is the foremost mechanical mad genius in the world and it would be arrogant of me to speculate.” We ended our time together with a promise to meet again. I am already looking forward to that.

15 October - Then

I received a telegraph from my father this morning informing me that he was joining a team set to explore a newly discovered area of the catacombs. I miss my father and look forward to that dragon moving on so we may be reunited. Tonight however, I shall skate in the maze with a local club against a team of gargoyles with a rather unsavory reputation. I am confident we shall prevail.

20 October - Now

I remember everything that happened to me up until the last time I skated in the maze. It has been all I could do to daily resist the urge to let my life go to rust. The most difficulty has come from my father not being here. The team of explorers that he joined never returned from the catacombs. It has been a hundred years since any monster had seen them but I know they are still trying to find their way home because Ghoulia Yelps, as amazing and intelligent a ghoul ever was, had been following any and all news about the team since before I was discovered and reassembled. She says that it is a great mystery and that there have been many books written about their mysterious disappearance. She also told me that previously undiscovered cavern. It read simply, “Forward to our families. Onward to our hope.” It was signed by my father and dated three months prior to the cavern’s discovery. Ghoulia also helped me find my father’s old lab where I was delighted to find Captain Penny, the mechanical penguin father built for me. Poor thing’s Fire had completely gone out and when I got him restarted he was so excited that he almost blew a heart gasket. I am still living at Miss Kindergrübber’s, who is now a teacher at Monster High, and it was she convinced me to enroll. Even though I feel rather old fashioned and I am unfamiliar with much of the current technology my new friends have been very accepting and are… scary sweet.

15 November - Now

I have become reacquainted with Dr. Stein and his bride through their daughter Frankie. Dr. Stein was sincerely apologetic for not being able to reassemble me after the accident. “You are a very complicated ghoul and I feared I would damage you further.” I assured him that I carried no grudge and I do not. Dr. Stein even interceded on my behalf with Headless Headmistress Bloodgood when she told me that I could not perform my scaredevil act at the middle school carnival as she thought it was too dangerous. I do not know what Dr. Stein said but the Headmistress relented and I was able to give two performances with an encore. It was truly an epic way to bring some old school to the new and shake off some of the rust in the process.

About Me

Name: Robecca Steam

Age: 116

Monster Parent: A Mad Scientist

Killer Style: I would have described my style as rather old fashioned in this current time although I have been recently informed that it was totally “steam punk” and quite “cutting edge”. This is a relief as no monster wishes to be thought of as dull.

Freaky Flaw: My internal clock does not properly function and I seem to always arrive late. It seems not to matter how many alarms I set or watches I wear; nothing helps. Good thing I have a permanent mechanics excuse in the Headmistress’ office.

Pet: Captain Penny is my mechanical penguin. Working wings are unnecessary when one is equipped with a rocket pack.

Favorite Activity: I am quite the scaredevil and I delight in using my rocket boots to do stunts and tricks that make other monsters stop what they are doing to watch me perform.

Biggest Pet Peeve: Rain

Favorite School Subject: Biteology.

Least Favorite School Subject: Home Ick. I am skilled, however, in the boiling of water.

Favorite Color: Copper

Favorite Food: Even though I do not require traditional food, I am fond of ginger tea.

BFF’s: Rochelle Goyle and Frankie Stein

#monster high #monsterhigh #monster high dolls #monster high diaries #mh robecca #robecca steam #ghoulia yelps #monster high g1

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tamaralewellen · 1 year

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Georgia Tech Versus Georgia - An Outdated Competition

Isolated by 70 miles of highway among Atlanta and Athens Georgia, and established 100 years separated, The Georgia Organization of Innovation (Georgia Tech) and the College of Georgia (UGA) have been rivals beginning around 1893 in something beyond football. Seeking everything in the province of Georgia, from likely understudies and fans to government awards and scholastic acknowledgment (Georgia Tech is a designing exploration college while UGA is a human sciences research college). Nonetheless, it is on the turf that this competition succeeds.

The aversion that these two schools have for one another likely begun just after the Nationwide conflict when it was concluded that another mechanical school ought to be established. Then, at that point, UGA president Patrick Mell endeavored to persuade lawmakers that the new school ought to be situated by Georgia's fundamental grounds in Athens. notwithstanding his endeavors, The Georgia Organization of Innovation was laid out close to the city furthest reaches of Atlanta in 1885.

It didn't take long for the principal threats toward start a couple of years after the fact in 1891 over, for goodness' sake, the school tones. UGA's school magazine announced the school tones to be gold, dark and blood red. Georgia's football trainer felt that gold was excessively near yellow, which he felt symboled weakness. That very year nonetheless, the Tech understudy body casted a ballot white and gold as the authority school tones. In their very first football match-up against Reddish, Tech would utilize gold on their football garbs, some felt as an insult of Georgia. After two years, after Tech crushed Georgia in their most memorable football match-up, gold was always eliminated from Georgia's school tones.

That first critical game occurred in Athens on November 4, 1893 with Georgia Tech, then, at that point, known as the Smithies, won by a score of 28 - 6. However, it was who scored those 4 scores that started the competition. Leonard Wood was a 33 year old US Armed force Doctor who was formally enlisted as a Georgia Tech understudy a couple of days before the game. Be that as it may, being a full time understudy, he was qualified to play. This reality upset Georgia fans since during and after the game they heaved rocks a flotsam and jetsam at all the Tech players. The following day an article in the Atlanta Diary, by an Athens sports essayist, derided that Tech's football crew was just an assortment of Atlanta occupants with a couple of understudies tossed in.

A competition was conceived.

For the following quite a while, Georgia Tech's football program would perform ineffectively. Timespure Therefore, they chose to employ another mentor from another adversary school, Clemson. In 1904, John Heisman was paid $2,250 and 30% of participation expenses to be Georgia Tech's football and baseball trainer. (NOTE: in the wake of resigning from training football in 1927, he was the fate of the Midtown Athletic Club in Manhattan in 1935. After his demise in 1936, the club's prize for the best university football player was renamed the Heisman Prize). Heisman quickly turned Tech's football program around going 8-1-1 in his most memorable year. By 1908, Georgia graduated class were having Tech's enrolling strategies researched, by the SIAA (Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Affiliation). The allegations were dubious and the SIAA later decided for Tech. In his 16 seasons at Georgia Tech, Heisman drove the Brilliant Twister (as Tech was known) to three undefeated seasons, including a 32 game series of wins and an exceptionally significant 23 - 6 triumph over Georgia. Heisman likewise drove Tech to the most noteworthy scoring football match-up at any point played with a 222 - 0 win over an absolutely outmanned Cumberland State in 1916 (really awful it wasn't Georgia!).

By 1917, with the beginning of WWI, UGA disbanded its football program since a large number of its capable bodies understudies were enrolled for the conflict. Since Atlanta was a tactical preparation ground at that point, Tech held its male understudies and proceeded with its football program all through the conflict. At the point when UGA resuscitated its football program in 1919, they gladly declared "UGA in Argonne" and "TECH in Atlanta" on march floats. Thus, Tech cut off all athletic binds with UGA, including dropping a few Georgia home games at Atlanta's Award Field (UGA ordinarily utilized Award Field as their home field). It wouldn't be until 1925, by common understanding, that normal season rivalry would continue.

In 1932, Georgia and Georgia Tech would become 2 of the first 13 individuals from the SEC, of which UGA is as yet a part. Tech in any case, would leave the SEC in 1964 after mentor Bobby Dodd started a fight with Alabama's Bear Bryant (the consequence of a dirty move by an Alabama player that finished the profession of a Tech player, and Bryant's refusal to teach the competitor). There were additionally worries of grant portions, sketchy selecting strategies and understudy competitor treatment that prompted Tech's takeoff from the SEC. Notwithstanding, Dodd grasped the significance of a contention and would lead the Yellow Coats to 8 back to back triumphs (1946 - 1954) and outscore Georgia 176 - 39 in those games. This stays the longest dash of one or the other group in the competition.

Quite a while later, Tech would endeavor to return the SEC however their application was denied, to a great extent because of the resistance of Georgia. With no association to contend in, Tech would tracked down the Metro Meeting, for all its intercollegiate games aside from football. Like Notre Lady, Tech would contend as an autonomous for the following 15 years, until in the long run joining the ACC in 1979, the meeting in which it actually finishes today.

Not happy with essentially loathing each other on the football field, the two foundations have likewise fitted their battle tunes to the competition. Tech's Ramblin Wreck melody contains the line "Screw Georgia", and "Up With the White and Gold" is promptly trailed by the verses "Down with the Red and Dark" and later on "Drop the Fight Hatchet on Georgia's Head". The Georgia battle melody, "Magnificence Brilliance", which has in fact stayed unaltered since first being distributed in 1909, formally finishes with G-E-O-R-G-I-A. The understudy body nonetheless, has adjusted the end verses to "and Screw Georgia Tech!"

On the off chance that your a school football fan and love the power of highway contentions, show your help with your #1 school group clothing [http://collegeteamapparel.net/]. Whether its football or ball, baseball or hockey, your school colors rule, no matter what the last score, so wear your school activewear gladly.

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tangleweave · 2 years

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@brooklynislandgirl (xx)

Stephen scoffs at the dry wit she hurls at him like so much flotsam. Too blatant a jab to be personal, especially with the promise to guard his anonymity. "Yes, I'm sure an exposé through the Daily Bugle will garner you all the money and prestige you could ever want."

A smile that's both sardonic and wistful touches his lips at her spot-on assumption regarding how he would entice a partner. "Tried and true method," he admits. "Reliable. Up until I woke in the morning. And then... it may as well have never happened. Guess I played the part a little too well."

There is no particular clip to Beth's voice, which makes the words themselves bite all the more deeply into Stephen, and his eyes flash open and dart towards her, brow furrowed as though she's pierced him on a talon. He keeps his lips pursed until she winces and apologizes, and for two reasons -- he has nothing useful he can supply in response, and now he has something very difficult to unpack in what she's saying.

Jealousy. There's no doubt of that. The bite is far too sharp for it to be anything else. Even back then, he'd long suspected that she had feelings for him which ran considerably deeper than were appropriate for a professional relationship... and it was why he'd done his level best to hold her at arm's length when in the company of others, and permitted her no closer than forearm's length even in private. Because as much of a reputation as he might have had with the ladies, Beth Riley was far too exceptional, exquisite... special... to be ruined by that reputation.

How the wheel had turned. She'd left residency in order to spare his reputation. He's sure she remembers. He still does.

"Beth... you're so close. You've told me for years how much you want this. You've invested so much of yourself into it. Stick to it, just a little longer."

Her face was etched with obvious sadness, despair even, but he could swear he saw the briefest spark of hope. "F' you?"

His brow stitched in puzzlement. "No. For you. Becoming a doctor is an honor. Seeing you become one, just as much so. If it's the diary entry you're worried about, Allison Goff's been ejected, and I've already put anyone else who's tried to show it to me on notice. I was appalled to learn about the incident. You shouldn't be crucified for the things you mean to keep private, and I'll make sure it has no bearing on your career. You fought so hard to get here. See this through."

There was no telling when, during his litany, the spark had gone out. But it had. "... I no can anymoah. An' if ya don' know why, den mebbe mo'beddah we leave it dat way."

"Beth..."

"Mahalo, Doctah Strange. F' everyt'ing."

She turned away, clearly hoping to avoid him seeing her face crumple. But he caught the downward tug on the corner of her mouth as her eyes closed -- something they so rarely did, she always seemed to blink only halfway -- and he saw the shake of her shoulders as she made her way to the door and let herself out.

The moment is etched into his memory. And he wouldn't analyze it until years later... but that was the moment he lost his drive to teach.

Returning to the here and now, he catches up to what she says just in time to hear her own up. Not just to her jealousy, she even names it, and along with it, very nearly names the person she'd been jealous of. Not that she needs to. It's no secret of whom she speaks. And for the briefest of moments, Stephen considers challenging Beth on the notion that she'd been rooting for that relationship to go the distance, although he does remember the exquisite evenings out his protégé had silently and surreptitiously arranged for them... few and far between, but somehow always paid for. And somehow managing to portray Stephen in the most thoughtful and kindly manner. Jewelry. Tickets to the opera. The theater. A lecture series. Even the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, once, though they'd had to cancel thanks to a catastrophic pileup on the GW Bridge during an ice storm.

He still remembers the doe-in-the-headlights look on Beth's face when he'd handed her the envelope bearing those tickets, quietly advising her to get her refund while she still could... even though they'd been entirely anonymous... because they were more salvageable than what was left between him and Christine after that night.

Memories. That's what Beth evokes. Memory after memory. Why he should focus on the melancholy is a subject for debate, though it only makes sense to him that after his arms had been crushed by the Hulk, there's little to prevent him from wallowing. But there are a great many more pleasant ones with her, as well. Cultivating samples. Challenging her theses. Going head-to-head on musical trivia. Gala events, on those occasions they'd had to play the part of socialites.

He has nothing to offer in reply to her self-description, though he's perhaps a little surprised to learn she's still a virgin. A young, attractive, affluent woman, perhaps only a few IQ points off from him and surely more worldly than he's ever been... and never once? Perhaps if she's asexual, it makes a certain amount of sense... but she's already contradicting the notion with the description she offers, something unmistakably sensual, intimate. Desirous. If he lets his mind wander too much, he would surely find what she says arousing, both in the words she offers up and the tone upon which they're carried.

She brings his own crack back around and bears it against him. Again, he offers nothing in retort. Perhaps she's seeking battle through verbal engagement... trying to tease him out, get him to raise his blade against hers. Draw out the man she remembers. Or perhaps she's putting him on notice for having somehow slighted her, though it's not immediately clear to him what he's done to warrant it.

Her last question leaves precious little to the imagination, and he has to put forth a certain effort to not splutter at her. Were it not for the years of separation between them, to say nothing of there no longer being a mentoring association in place, he might have asked her to keep it professional. But even if that were a possibility -- and he recognizes it is not -- it would be, at the very least, incredibly difficult advice for her to heed, given the presence of her left hand's fingers in his hair and a straight razor on the tray nearby.

If she's looking for things that'll rattle his cage, she doesn't have to look much further than this. It's striking something within him. And how she manages to impale him on a sheathed sword is truly remarkable, for her voice has no bite to it, but the words themselves? They could saw through bone with a single stroke. And his first instinct is to meet her blade with his own. "Why, are you planning to watch?"

Now it's his turn for a moment of regret. A flashback to when he'd angrily dismissed Christine from his loft, and by extension his life. Or when he'd snarled in anguish that had Beth not walked away from residency... she could have been in the operating theater instead of Nic West. That she could have fixed him.

Things he'd said that he could never truly take back.

He swallows the lump in his throat. "Sorry. Guess we're both aboard the petty train tonight."

And then he decides to answer her question more directly, if only as a peace offering to counter the snipe. "I don't prefer either one. I've heard both. Never really thought about it until you asked just now... and as I'm thinking about it, if I'm with someone who really makes me feel alive... really, I'd just want her to call me Stephen." His face nearly cracks into another smile, but this one would have been even more wistful and mirthless than the last.

"But I'd settle for her calling me the next day."

#brooklynislandgirl #beth riley #muse: strange #nsfw-ish #[ long time coming ]

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xtruss · 8 months

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Where is Malaysian Airlines Flight 370? A Simple Barnacle Could Help Lead Us to the Missing Plane.

By studying the shells of washed up barnacles, scientists have developed new methods for reconstructing the drift of ocean debris that may help narrow the search.

— By Cynthia Barnett | August 23, 2023

In 2014, a Malaysian Airlines flight mysteriously disappeared. A barnacle-encrusted piece of the plane's wing is one of the most important clues that has been found. New science may be able to unlock the ocean records logged in those barnacles, narrowing the search for the missing flight. Photograph By Rahman Roslan, Getty Images

Barnacles growing on airplane wreckage washed up on the island of Réunion after the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 have led scientists to promising new models for reconstructing the drift paths of ocean debris—and could someday help solve the great aviation mystery itself, researchers say.

The new temperature and chemistry tools, published today in the American Geophysical Union journal Advances, are among the most precise yet for using shell chemistry to retrace unknown paths of crash debris, ocean plastics, dead bodies, and other flotsam carrying Lepas anatifera, known as goose, gooseneck, or stalked barnacles.

“The chemistry of barnacle shell layers is like a forensic recorder for drifting debris,” says marine ecologist Gregory Herbert at the University of South Florida, who began working on the MH 370 mystery in the summer of 2015 after seeing news accounts of a flaperon from the missing plane washed up on a Réunion beach, encrusted with barnacles.

The Barnacle-Encrusted Flaperon was the first piece of debris found from MH 370. It was discovered on a beach on the French island of Réunion, 16 months after the plane's disappearance. Photograph By Romain Latiurnerie Xinhua/Eyev/Redux

In the eight years since, Herbert built an international team to develop methods for tracking the ocean temperatures the barnacles traveled through and statistical formulas that could, in theory, “turn that temperature history into a drift pathway that leads back to the crash,” he says.

Australian senior government oceanographer David Griffin, who has helped search for the missing jetliner since it vanished over the Indian Ocean in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew members onboard, called the research “an important step towards possibly satisfying Malaysia’s requirement for ‘credible new evidence’ to restart the search.”

“We knew there were clues encrypted in the shells of the barnacles, but the problem was that no one really knew how to decode them,” says Griffin, who was not involved in the research. “That’s what this group has done. They’ve given us the methods to decode the data that’s there—stored in barnacle shells.”

Hitchhikers of the Sea

Living throughout the world’s temperate and tropical seas, stalked barnacles begin life as free-swimming larvae that ride ocean currents until they settle, often en masse, on driftwood, a ship’s hull, or other floating objects. Lepas cement themselves at the base of their soft stalk, which secretes one of nature’s most powerful adhesives. They use calcium carbonate and other minerals from the surrounding seawater to build their wing-shaped shells layer by layer as they grow.

Each new layer has slightly different chemical markers, vestiges of temperature, oxygen ratios, and other conditions in the water where it was built. The science of reading those layers is called sclerochronology, the shell equivalent of tree-ring science.

“Imagine a shell like a thick book, where the animal has added one page after another as it grows,” says lead author Nasser Al-Qattan, a geochemistry professor at Kuwait University. Deciphering the chemical composition of each individual page—each thin, calcite layer—gives scientists a diary of the seawater through which the animal journeyed as it built its shell.

Al-Qattan was working on his PhD in Herbert’s Tampa marine science lab analyzing oxygen isotopes in mollusk shells when the flaperon’s discovery made news around the world. Photographs and video footage showed several generations of stalked barnacles anchored to the wing piece, a retractable surface that helps control take-off and landing. The size of the largest barnacles suggested to Herbert that they could have been growing for more than a year—meaning they could have hitched a ride close to the time the jetliner vanished in March 2014.

Knowing precise sea-surface temperatures and times the barnacles drifted on the flaperon could narrow the search area by an order of magnitude. Oceanographers have temperature histories from satellite-tracked drift buoys throughout the world’s oceans—and temperatures change distinctly along the search corridor known as the “7th arc” where the plane is believed to have run out of fuel.

A buzz of science news stories about the barnacles followed the flaperon’s discovery, speculating the hitchhikers would soon help narrow the search area. Griffin says the investigative team hoped so, too. But barnacle sclerochronology is an exceedingly esoteric science. And French authorities, who oversee Réunion as a territory, limited access to the flaperon and its crustacean clues.

The French released two science reports on the barnacles within a year of the flaperon’s discovery. While they were not definitive, they laid a path for longer-term research, Herbert says. Marine scientist Joseph Poupin’s expert report established the species, size range, and their growth curve, confirming larger, older barnacles on the flaperon that could have colonized close to the crash date. In an unpublished report, researchers Dominique Blamart and Franck Bassinot analyzed isotopes from some of the actual barnacles, which gave Herbert and Al-Qattan data to model part of the flaperon’s drift.

Herbert reached out to the Lepas expert Anne Marie Power at the University of Galway in Ireland, who signed on to raise live L. anatifera in aquaria to establish shell chemistry for different temperatures. Those data helped the team develop an equation that can glean sea-surface temperature records from a mystery barnacle.

The scientists conclude they can track a barnacle’s water-temperature history within 0.1 degrees Celsius, the precision Griffin says oceanographers need to narrow the search area. The methods available in the wake of the flaperon’s discovery were accurate to only about 2 degrees Celsius, which Griffin says the investigative team found too uncertain.

Next Steps

The research, which blends the zoology and shell geochemistry with ocean drift modeling and geospatial statistics, still has a way to go before scientists can mark an “X” on a map of the Indian Ocean. The team was able to model only the final leg of the drift path based on the smallest barnacles that had colonized the flaperon. Those youngest specimens, from the Blamart and Bassinot report, are still the only ones that have been made publicly available to scientists by French authorities. In theory, Herbert says, deploying the same methodology to the oldest, largest barnacles seen on the flaperon—those that may have hitched a ride closer to the time of the crash—could model their complete journey.

The disappearance of MH 370 remains a confounding mystery despite the multi-nation, $200 million search of 46,300 square miles (120,000 square kilometers) of remote Indian Ocean, called off in 2017, three years after the crash. The Australian government’s 429-page report on the search calls it “almost inconceivable and certainly societally unacceptable in the modern aviation era with 10 million passengers boarding commercial aircraft every day, for a large commercial aircraft to be missing and for the world not to know with certainty what became of the aircraft and those on board.”

The Malaysian government has said it will not restart another search mission without evidence that is both “new” and “credible.”

“The case has gone cold, and at this point it’s very hard to actually find new evidence,” says Griffin. Whether the new barnacle methodology will meet that standard, he says, “I think we will only know once full use is made of this technique.”

Vindication of the Crusty Foulers

Stalked barnacles, which both filter feed and capture prey like tiny shrimp and polyps with hairs on their feet called cirri, have far-reaching ecological roles in cleaning seawater—and becoming food for predators including sea snails and slugs. Their super-glue strength and penchant to pile on together in crowded colonies make them a scourge to boaters, who refer to them widely as “biofoulers,” or the slang “crusty foulers.”

Griffin says he wouldn’t have imagined when he was a student assigned the squalid work of scraping barnacles from scientific instruments on the afterdeck how crucial they would prove to science. “We really need to remember how important these questions are to life here,” he says, “and to looking after our planet.”

Today, barnacles’ applications in forensics, conservation science, and biotechnology, where they inspire adhesives, are vindicating. Italian marine scientists helped prosecutors estimate that a badly decomposed body had been floating in the Tyrrhenian Sea between 65 and 90 days based on analysis of L. anatifera riding on the deceased’s pants and shoes. Researchers are also using barnacle shells in conservation biology to help track sea turtles and other marine mammals.

Charles Darwin himself spent eight years on barnacle science after finding an “ill formed little monster” during his voyage on the Beagle. He set out to write a single paper on a barnacle he called “Mr. Arthrobalanus” and ended up completing four monographs between 1846 and 1854 on diversity among hundreds of different barnacle species. The research helped shape his theory of evolution, says Power, as he saw the sweeping variation of barnacle lifestyles, still similar enough to be linked through a common ancestor.

“Eight years may seem like a long time, but in our case, since the time of the plane crash, the oxygen isotope thermometer is now calibrated for Lepas barnacle shells and there is a new methodology for constraining where the plane debris lay,” says Power.

Ultimately, says Al-Qattan at Kuwait University, one common cause kept the researchers motivated over the eight years of fits and starts. “Thinking about closure for the tens and hundreds of family members and friends of people on that plane really kept us going.”

#Environment #Malaysian 🇲🇾 Airlines #Flight 370 #Missing Plane ✈️#Barnacle #Cynthia Barnett #National Geographic

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dumparchivesblog · 5 years

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Some more photos from my La Union trip with my bestfriend :-)

I know, it’s been long overdue hahaha but I was finally able to write again and it felt so damn good! Link here to read more about <3

#snaps #photos #travel #la union #elyu #elyu hits #when in la union #flotsam and jetsam #travel diaries #adventure #reading #wander #wanderlust #as i wander #i wander #wandering #adventures of rie #weekend getaway

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salamispots · 8 months

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dream from several days ago

#dream diary #artists on tumblr #flotsam diaries #sequential #...I said I was gonna sleep but that obviously didn't happen HAHA #anyways really happy that I was able to get the colors/vibes I wanted down fjhkgj :'D #a lot of nitpicking and adjusting hahah #also kororon/eve was on blast for the majority of drawing this hghhjf #alright good night/morning/something yall #edit: was thinking more and the feeling I wanted to get across I guess is like when someone voluntarily #reaches out to touch me/casually/platonically and it's like a 'you're touching me of your own free will??? o H'#because when I was growing up had a parent who wasn't physically affectionate/would kinda brush me off #and that uhhhh kinda internalized as I'm gross and therefore shouldn't touch other people #(lmao took covid lockdown and very good friends to basically destroy that feeling yay)#anYWAYS had feelings but didn't quite know how to verbalize it hahah

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coochiequeens · 3 years

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Susan Dela Cuesta, 57, and her partner, David Crouch, 78, will soon know if they have full custody of their one-year-old granddaughter. The child’s mother, 20-year-old Caroline Crouch, was killed on 11 May this year, by her husband, Charalambos Anagnostopoulos, 33. Initially, he had claimed that intruders had murdered his wife. “One thing that makes me even more sad than her death is the fact that our daughter will grow up without remembering her beautiful mother,” he said, before his arrest, at Crouch’s funeral.

Her diaries revealed that she had been in an abusive, controlling relationship. Now, it seems likely that the little girl will grow up not in Athens but on the island of Alonissos, her maternal grandparents’ retirement home. “There,” her grandmother said, “she will not be known as a killer’s daughter.”

She is one of many children each year, hidden behind headlines about killings, who are left motherless by femicide. Families and friends will struggle to take on the role of carers, hit by a juggernaut of sudden loss and unexpected added responsibility.

Their stories are just some of those now being highlighted by the Observer, as part of its collaboration with the Femicide Census, a database that includes a 10-year review of all female killings. Activist and former solicitor Clarrie O’Callaghan, and Karen Ingala Smith, chief executive of Nia, a sexual and domestic violence charity founded the census. They have been helped by pro bono support from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, an international law firm, and consultants Deloitte. The aim of our collaboration is to try to reduce the rate of femicide. One woman is killed by a man every three days, a statistic unchanged for a decade.

“The least the government can do is to establish precisely how many children are affected and produce an action plan to meet their needs. Currently, that is not happening,” says O’Callaghan.

She and Ingala Smith estimate that at least 80 children a year in the UK are left motherless by femicide. “Bereavement through violence has a profound impact on children, even more so when the perpetrator is your father,” says Ingala Smith. “In addition to the trauma of loss, there are the questions of identity, loyalty and genetic inheritance.”

Emma Radley of Winston’s Wish, a charity that supports bereaved children, says that many of them “puddle jump’’. “One minute they will be in the depths, crying , wanting to know, ‘Where’s Mummy?’, the next they will be asking if they can go out and play. It can make adults think, ‘It’s OK now’. And it may not be. It can have a domino effect on a child’s entire life.”

In the UK, in what is still the only major study of children affected by one parent killing the other, six-year-old Harry was asked to draw what he saw when his father shot his mother and later killed himself.

“Are you sure you want to see it?” Harry asked. “I can only draw sad faces.” Often, children stay silent in case the pain is too much for their new carer and they are abandoned again.

The study, When Father Kills Mother, was conducted by a team of child and adolescent psychiatrists headed by Dora Black, now retired. In it, the team records how 400 children impacted by domestic homicide, “flotsam in the sea of life”, were helped. Forty per cent (160) were under five at the time of the killing. Some had been returned to the care of the perpetrator, having witnessed the killing. Many suffered from anxiety, nightmares, phobias, post-traumatic stress, aggressive behaviour and an inability to trust –“frozen watchfulness”.

“If they behave as if nothing has happened,” the authors warned, “this should be regarded as a problem.”

The book was first published almost 30 years ago when “psychological first aid”, understanding and practical help were in short supply – so, has there been progress?

Drawing on the Femicide Census database, 80% of mothers (402) in domestic homicides were killed by a current or former partner. For example, Mumtahina Jannat, 29, mother of two, was strangled by her husband, Abdul Kadir, 49, in 2011, six years after they had separated. Five per cent (27) of mothers were killed by strangers.

In 19% of cases it’s unknown if the victims had children under 18. Over 10 years, at least 52 children were killed and, excluding by terrorist attack, 31 were killed by their father. In at least 19 cases, femicide was followed by suicide leaving the child or children orphans.

More than 100 children witnessed a killing or were in the home when it occurred. In one instance, a man murdered his girlfriend and their 10-month-old daughter in a “sustained and fearsome” knife attack, leaving a two-year-old in the house with his dead mother and sibling for over 24 hours.

In 59% of domestic homicides, a history of domestic abuse was identified, “a considerable undercount”, according to the census. So, long before the loss of a mother, many children will have witnessed, if not experienced, violence and coercive control.

Roann Court, 27, appears confident and outgoing but some days, she says, that melts away. In 2009, Benjamin Cooper, 35, stabbed Court’s mother, Clare, 41 times. She had left him after a decade of abuse. Court, then 15, witnessed the attack, grabbed her little sister, ran to a neighbour and returned to try to save her mother. ”My mother’s last words to me were: ‘Look after the girls.’”

She says: “I wouldn’t be here but for my nan, my husband and my two boys. I’ve taught myself how to cope. He [Cooper] is out now after only 10 years; our sentence continues.”

Court’s “brilliant” grandparents, then in their 50s, adopted their three granddaughters. “They picked up the pieces.” Therapy, however, soon stopped. “It was PTSD treatment for veterans. They don’t know how to deal with children. My sister was three but she can remember word for word what happened. It’s so important to ask the child. Instead, the professionals would talk to my nan and grandad but only we can know what we need.”

Court’s sister is now 15. She has good support from school but, “she does ask, ‘What if I turn out like him?’ And some parents of school friends seem to think murder is catching.”

Court says she remembers her mother as someone full of life who, “loved dancing, Elvis Presley and laughter” and “not as a dead woman in the newspapers”, adding: “That matters to me.”

She would like to become a child counsellor if she can find the money. “I didn’t get the support that I needed when I was young so if I can help someone else experiencing what I did, I’ll feel good about myself.”

Hetti Barkworth-Nanton chairs Refuge, a domestic abuse charity and is co-founder of the Joanna Simpson Foundation, set up to help children bereaved by domestic homicide and fund research.

“Is there enough support today? Categorically no,” she says. JSF was established after the killing of her best friend, Jo, in 2010 by her husband, leaving two children. “When support does happen, it’s patchy at best. Victim support is for the adult but the child is invisible.

“Almost half of these children end up in care or, on average, they are moved four or five times, changing schools, not allowed back into homes after a killing so they can retrieve clothes or school work or something to remind them of their mother. They may be bounced between both sides of battling families and end up in limbo when what they desperately need is love and security.”

A domestic homicide review (DHR) investigates a killing to learn lessons and make recommendations. A 2018 report analysed 55 DHRs published between 2011 and 2016 that involved children under 18. Only three had any input from a child; only 11 mentioned ongoing support for the children.

Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse, an extraordinary charity that provides specialist advice and support for families, would like to see children having a voice and many more specially trained child advocates.

Also not considered in the DHRs was how, after separation, the family courts and other agencies continue to insist that “contact is best”, a dangerous man can still be a “good enough father”, even when he is using contact to continue to exercise coercive control.

A Women’s Aid report lists 19 child fatalities from 12 families in the context of post-separation contact. In 2014, Claire Throssell’s sons, Jack,12, and Paul, nine, were burned to death by their father, Darren Sykes, on a contact visit. Now, she campaigns. Belatedly and slowly, reform is underway but some judges still fail to understand the toxicity of coercive control.

What is it like for a child to be returned to the care of a man whom your mother feared? Gemma Graham lectures in forensic psychology. On 1 May 1993, when Graham was six, her mother, Linda, took her own life. “She had left her husband after years of abuse, but he kept tracking her down. She lived in terror. She told my grandmother, ‘If anything happens to me, don’t let him have Gemma’.”

Graham was placed in foster care. “I never lived with my brother again. I thought I’d done something bad.”

Then, her father won custody. He had a new partner. “They were violent, noisy, drunken,” she says. When she was nine, her father abandoned her to his partner who told Graham to leave five years later. “There was no love. She wouldn’t let me eat in the same room. I got accused of bullying at school. Nobody recognised something was wrong. I’m 34 now and I’m still massively impacted. Two years ago, I told my husband, ‘I’m alive but I’m not living. I’m constantly catastrophising about losing my job, my marriage, my friends.’ Anything would trigger those awful feelings I had as a child.”

Graham had a year of trauma therapy. “It was the best and the worst thing I’ve ever done. Eighteen months ago, I couldn’t have had this conversation. Now, I’ve got a mental tool kit that reminds me: ‘You’ll be all right.’”

Outcomes for children after a killing are linked to support for their carers. Many relatives, or kinship carers, have a special guardianship order until the child reaches 18. Some have to share parental responsibility with the perpetrator and allow his family access to his children.

Leeds City Council has a dedicated team to support special guardians (SGs), offering assessment, training, workshops and practical and financial help.

That is rare. A group of organisations, including the charity Kinship, are campaigning to improve the help SGs receive. Income is an issue. If a grandmother gives up work for a second round of parenting, her pension will suffer. She may also face sanctions from the jobcentre, further reducing her income.

“Kinship care and poverty are inextricably linked,” says the charity’s chief executive Lucy Peake.

Unlike fostering, which usually has a minimum allowance of £134 a week, the average weekly allowance for SGs is about £91, although one in four receive no allowance at all. A child may receive a payout from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority but that is generally reserved until they come of age.

On 28 November 2018, George Worgan strangled his wife, Kelly, 33. Their children were aged four and five. He must serve 12 and a half years before he is eligible for parole. Two days after the killing, grandparents Glynis and Paul Holder became the children’s carers. Paul, 57, has disabilities and Glynis, 65, is his full-time carer. Glynis says: “Social workers were here all the time. It was stressful.”

Money is sparse but the community has given strong support. The children were given “a van load” of Christmas presents, their first without their mother. “It’s been very hard,” Glynis says. “As my granddaughter grows up, how she walks, her temperament, is so like her mum.

“They won’t sleep alone. She is having therapy. The other day she made a mask, inside she had written ‘Help’. The father used to say there was something wrong with my grandson. He used to smack him. When the boy started school, he was still in nappies. Now he is doing so well. They know we love them and they are safe.”

This year, for the first time, domestic abuse legislation recognises children as victims of abuse in their own right. The Home Office says it has provided more than £3m for specialist services for children. It is currently undertaking consultation prior to statutory guidance.

In 2018, Italy passed a law for children affected by domestic homicide, “orfani speciali”, based on the work of the late feminist campaigner, Professor Anna Constanza Baldry. Among other elements, it provides money for scholarships, further education, job training, legal aid, medical and psychological care, and funds civil proceedings and a monthly allowance. It also ensures the child receives their dead parent’s pension and the right to change their name. The UK needs a similar model.

Of course, the best outcome of all would be for the killing and abuse to stop.

Care system failings

Children may also become victims of femicide because of statutory neglect. Samantha (Sami) Sykes had known Elisa Frank and her younger sister, Kimberley (Kim) Frank, since primary school in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. Then, the Franks were placed in care.

In a children’s home, Elisa began a relationship with Ahmad Otak, who arrived in Britain in 2007 as a refugee, an unaccompanied minor. After he and Elisa moved in together he would threaten to sew up Elisa’s mouth and kill her relatives if she left him. Sami successfully encouraged Elisa to end the relationship.

“Sami was fearless,” says her mother, Julie Warren-Sykes, an NHS associate director of nursing. “She had a strong sense of right and wrong.”

In March 2012, Elisa, 19, and Kim, 17, were in Elisa’s flat when Otak arrived. He tied up Elisa and stabbed Kim to death and made Elisa call Sami, 18, whom he also killed. He is serving 34 years.

“Looked-after children are also victims of femicide,” Warren-Sykes says. “No one confronted Otak about his abuse except Sami. When vulnerable children do come forward and nothing is done, what kind of message does it send to all women?”

Warren-Sykes and her family established the remarkable Samantha Sykes Foundation Trust, in 2014, to support children in care and care leavers. More than 3,000 young people have been helped with further education, laptops, transport costs and therapy.

“It was important to turn what was so brutal and negative into something positive in Sami’s name,” she says.

#Domestic homicide #Violence against women and children #Special guardians #Children left motherless because of domestic violence

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mhdiaries · 4 years

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Wave 4 Robecca Steam Diary

19 September - Then

Our show tonight was a rousing success. My rocket boots worked to perfection after the adjustments father made and I was able to complete the trick in such a way that it elicited gasps from the audience yet remained perfectly safe for me. Father was so pleased that he is allowing me to take tomorrow’s train instead of the one tonight so that I may stay and engage in a round of roller maze. I am so excited my boiler is near to bursting! My only regret is that father was not able to adjust my internal clock before he departed. Well, it is not to be a worry tonight and I am sure he will be able to resolve the problem when we are reunited on the morrow.

20 September - Then

Frost my firebox was I vexed this morning! I missed yet another appointment due to the inability of my internal clock to keep the correct time. Now to be sure there are appointments and there are appointments, and one is to be forgiven if fashionable lateness allows for a grand entrance in the former; but when exacting punctuality is required of the latter, such as catching a train that leaves promptly at noon and your arrival is thirty minutes after the departure of said train, vexation will rule the day. Thus I found myself standing on the station platform with steam raising from my ears and baggage piled high around me. From a distance it must have looked as if some monster had fashioned a cabin of suitcases on the platform and upon finishing their labor celebrated by lighting a fire in the stove. I was obliged to send father a telegraph informing him of my situation and assuring him that I would be on time for tomorrow’s train even if I had to spend the night on the platform. Fortunately, it did not come to that as the gargoyle that drove me from Miss Kindergrubber’s boarding house to the train station was still available to convey me back. My tardiness at the train station will, however, make it possible for me to attend the gala birthday ball being thrown in honor of a Miss Draculaura. She is the daughter of a very famous, and well-to-do vampire, named Dracula. I am excited to have the opportunity to make both of their acquaintances. I was delighted to learn that Dr. and Mrs. Stein had arrived in town on the very train that I missed! Dr. Stein is one of my father’s most respected acquaintances, both he and his lovely bride will be attending the ball and have offered to act as my chaperones so that I do not have to present myself as unattended.

21 September - Then

The party was grander that I could have imagined. Every creature was dressed in their finest and I saw many famous monsters and digniscaries. Draculaura could not have been a more kind or gracious host. I do not know how she knew I missed my train but she did, and was very genuine in her expression of sincere concern for my predicament. I was immediately pulled into her social circle as she introduced me to her friends with such rapidity that I hardly remembered a soul when she was through. Several of them had seen me perform however and were quite keen on hearing my tales of daring to. Eventually I excused myself in order to reunite myself with Dr. and Mrs. Stein, as I did not wish to appear ungrateful or rude for the kindness they had shown in escorting me to the party. I did not see either of them in the crowd so I made my way toward a group of guests where a lively discussion seemed to be under way about what made one a true monster. The most vocal of the group was rather corpulent goblin with pince-nez, prominent teeth and absurdly hairy ears;

I felt as though some monster had thrown a handful of sand into my gears and I thought, “Is this what every monster believes?” I was about to turn and quietly slip back into the crowd when I felt a very large but gentle hand on one shoulder and a smaller but reassuringly firm one on the other. Then a voice, at once calming to me and challenging to the speaker said, “Perhaps Herr Goblin would care to pronounce us either kitten or scone then.” I suppose it was un-lady like that I should have enjoyed the panic I saw on his face, as he looked from Dr. Stein to Mrs. Stein to me, but I did. The goblin quickly stammered an excuse and unceremoniously fled the room. Later, Dracula found us and offered his sincere apology. “Miss Steam I regret not that you heard such an insult to your monsterhood but that it was uttered at all. It is not an opinion shared in this house. Please accept our sincere apologies.” We conversed several more minutes and he left to attend other guests. He is indeed a true gentle-monster and the remainder of the gala was so delightful that it all but eclipsed the one brief moment of unpleasantness.

22 September - Then

Today as I was packing to leave under the punctual eye of Miss Kindergrubber, we received word from the railroad station that sometime in the night a very large and rather belligerent dragon had taken up residence in the main train tunnel between here and where I was to meet father. Owing to the dragon’s size and coloration it is believed that it might be preparing for hibernation. If that is indeed the case, I could be stranded here until the spring. Even though plans were being made to send for a dragon whisperer there were no guarantees. Clog my gears and rust my bearings! What shall I do now?

1 October - Then

I passed much of today in the good company of Dr. and Mrs. Stein. I had supposed that Dr. Stein’s scientific curiosity would be drawn to the nuances of my mechanical nature but aside from some polite questions regarding energy consumption most of the conversation centered around my relationship with my father. They had many questions on the resulting challenges of one day waking up as a fully formed monster in her teenaged years and how we dealt with those challenges as a family. I admitted that while the road was not always made for smooth traveling we were learning to navigate the more arduous portions of it together. Several times during these conversations it appeared to me that Mrs. Stein gripped the doctor’s hand more tightly and several times he seemed to be hesitant to ask certain questions. I excused myself at one point to add water to my boiler, as I was feeling a bit low. I returned to hear Mrs. Stein ask Dr. Stein in their native German: “Werden wir jemals ein eigenes kind haben?” to which he replied “Wenn die Zeit gekommen ist, das verspreche ich dir, werden wir es.” I could tell that I had interrupted a private moment so I attempted to change the subject by asking Dr. Stein if he might have an idea why my internal clock could not keep proper time. He laughed at my request and for a moment I felt embarrassed until Dr. Stein said, “It has been my experience that no amount of adjustment is sufficient to make a ghoul run on time.” For this Dr. Stein received a playful tap from Mrs. Stein and he continued, “Besides that, your father is the foremost mechanical mad genius in the world and it would be arrogant of me to speculate.” We ended our time together with a promise to meet again. I am already looking forward to that.

15 October - Then

20 October - Now

I remember everything that happened to me right up until the last time I skated in the maze. It has been all I could do to daily resist the urge to let my life go to rust. The most difficulty has come from my father not being here. The team of explorers that he joined never returned from the catacombs. It has been a hundred years since any monster has seen them but I know they are still trying to find their way home because Ghoulia Yelps, as amazing and intelligent a ghoul as ever was, has been following any and all news about the team since before I was discovered and reassembled. She says that it is a great mystery and that there have been many books written about their mysterious disappearance. She also told me that six months ago a message was found written on the wall of a previously undiscovered cavern. It read simply, “Forward to our families. Onward to our hope.” It was signed by my father and dated three months prior to the cavern’s discovery. Ghoulia also helped me find my father’s old lab where I was delighted to find Captain Penny, the mechanical penguin father built for me. Poor thing’s fire had completely gone out and when I got him restarted he was so excited that he almost blew a heart gasket. I am still living at Miss Kindergubber’s, who is not a teacher at Monster High, and it was she convinced me to enroll. Even though I feel rather old fashioned and I am unfamiliar with much of current technology my new friends have been very accepting and are... scary sweet.

15 November - Now

#monster high #monster high diary #robecca steam #wave 4

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sunseekerdeluxe · 4 years

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Music for Mondays 3

Also heard this week:

Christian Älvestam - Self 2.0 Lindsey Buckingham - Out of the Cradle Charli XCX - how i’m feeling now Cirith Ungol - Forever Black Corrosion of Conformity - Wiseblood Crowbar - Odd Fellows Rest Depeche Mode - Songs of Faith and Devotion Engine - Superholic Flotsam and Jetsam - The End of Chaos Goblin - Il Fantastico Viaggio Del Bagarozzo Mark Godflesh - Decline & Fall Godflesh - Messiah Great Northern - Trading Twilight for Daylight Guadalcanal Diary - Watusi Rodeo Huntsmen - American Scrap Immaculate Machine - Fables Kyuss - Wretch Manowar - Hail to England Manowar - Into Glory Ride Moron Police - A Boat on the Sea Nightwish - Angels Fall First Nucleus - Entity A Perfect Circle - Mer de Noms Rise Against - Appeal to Reason Robbie Robertson - Sinematic Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything? Six Organs of Admittance - Sleep Tones Skyclad - Oui Avant-Garde á Chance Skyclad - Vintage Whine Smoulder - Dream Quest Ends theSTART - Ciao, Baby Tanith - In Another Time Tool - Undertow Vanden Plas - Far off Grace

Backlog: 507

#music for mondays #aimee mann #guadalcanal diary #aktor #abba #billy joel #crowbar #the comet is coming #godflesh

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cbdmoonrocks-blog · 4 years

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The Moon, The Mantle, And A Mars-Sized Tragedy

Despite the fact that it is our planet's closest neighbor in Space, Earth's enormous Moon can shroud a considerable lot of its old insider facts very well as it does its charming, confusing move around our planet- - reflecting daylight like a mirror into the twilight sky over the Earth. Our Moon is a strange motivation for verse and fantasy, just as a long-standing representative wellspring of franticness. In any case, where did Earth's Moon originated from? The main hypothesis clarifying our Moon's old birth is known as the Giant Impact Hypothesis, which suggests that our Moon appeared as the consequence of a calamitous impact between the antiquated Earth and a meandering, not well featured Mars-sized protoplanet that cosmologists have named Theia. In September 2016, planetary researchers reported that their information affirm one specific situation that clarifies this heartbreaking impact previously, recommending that the moving Theia collided with Earth- - and pummeled it like a bowling ball hitting a watermelon.

About 4.56 billion years prior, when our infant Solar System was still during the time spent framing, Theia hit the proto-Earth and shot quite a bit of our newborn child planet to bits. Because of this terrible old crash, Earth's stones didn't only dissolve - they disintegrated! The components in those Earth rocks transformed into a gas similarly that bubbling water transforms into steam. At last, what survived from the first pre-crash Earth chilled, and it again framed a strong planet. What survived from the antiquated impact turned into the Moon.

This is the most recent translation of a decades-old hypothesis clarifying where Earth's lunar friend originated from, and it depends on ongoing estimations of components contained in both the Earth and its Moon. The planetary researchers suggest that their new estimations, which they have acquired of a component found inside both Earth and lunar rocks, presents a test to the main speculation of our Moon's puzzling roots. Incredibly little varieties in the isolation of the isotopes of potassium among Earth and Moon were shrouded like a lost fortune underneath the discovery furthest reaches of investigative methods as of not long ago.

Nonetheless, this changed in 2015 when Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) geochemist Dr. Kun Wang, at that point a Harvard Origins of Life Initiative Prize postdoctoral individual,CBD MoonRocks and Dr. Stein Jacobsen, teacher of geochemistry at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, built up a procedure for examining these isotopes with a precisions multiple times superior to the best of every single past technique.

Dr. Wang and Dr. Jacobsen report in their new examination that isotopic contrasts among Earth and Moon rocks uncover the principal test proof that can segregate between the two driving situations clarifying lunar beginnings. As per the main situation, a low-vitality impact leaves afterward both a proto-Earth and Moon covered in a clouding silicate climate; in the second, a significantly more cataclysmic impact disintegrates Theia and the vast majority of the proto-Earth, extending to make a massive superfluid plate out of which Earth's Moon eventually shapes.

The new isotopic examination reinforces the case for a high-vitality situation, and it is distributed in the September 12, 2016 online release of the diary Nature. "Our outcomes give the primary hard proof that the effect truly did (to a great extent) disintegrate Earth," Dr. Wang remarked in a September 12, 2016 WUSTL Press Release. Dr. Wang is an associate educator of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences at WUSTL.

The Lunatic, The Lover, And The Poet

Earth's shimmering Moon balances suspended in the twilight night sky over our reality. In view of its incredible excellence and strange, gleaming evening time nature, Earth's Moon all through the ages has been the motivation for stories, legends, verse, and supernatural stories. It has likewise filled in as an antiquated image for that which is ladylike, just as for sentimental love and lunacy. Some society stories and youngsters' accounts notice the "Man in the Moon", on the grounds that - with a smidgen of creative mind - it would appear that a man's face has been carved on our lunar friend's far off surface. Different stories include a "Moon Rabbit". Dream and fiction aside, our Earth's dumbfounding Moon is an undeniable little world in its own right. Earth's Moon has been with us nearly from the very beginning, when our Sun and its combination of planets, moons, space rocks, and comets, were first shaping about 4.6 billion years back. It is likewise the main world past Earth that we have strolled after, deserting our impressions in the Moon-dust- - a quiet declaration murmuring that once we did exist, and that we had been there.

Despite the fact that most planetary researchers feel that Earth's Moon is the snitch story relic of an old calamitous impact among Earth and the catastrophe that was Theia, endeavors to affirm this driving hypothesis of lunar development have been troublesome. This is on the grounds that exhibiting the truth of this proposed old wreck relies upon estimations of the proportions between the isotopes of silicon, titanium, oxygen, and others. These proportions are known to vary all through our whole Solar System, and the extraordinary similarity between our planet and its Moon negates hypothetical models of the old disaster. The explanation is that these models suggest that our Moon would have shaped principally from the destruction of the disastrously pounded Theia. Consequently, our Moon would need to be compositionally not the same as Earth.

The eight significant planets of our Solar System have their own one of a kind arrangement that can be controlled by researchers contemplating isotopes. Isotopes are variations of concoction components, for example, the component oxygen seen in astronomical examples. All together for the Giant Impact Hypothesis to fill in as a clarification - recommending that an interesting Solar System object collided with the antiquated Earth, and that its subsequent crash related flotsam and jetsam made a critical commitment to the organization of Earth's Moon- - the Earth and its Moon should show contrasting proportions of essential isotopes. Be that as it may, this isn't the situation - our planet and its secretive Moon are practically indistinguishable twins in sythesis.

In 2001, a group of planetary researchers from the Carnegie Institution of Washington detailed the most definite estimation so far of the isotopic marks of Moon rocks. To the researchers' astonishment, they found that the stones got from the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and mid 1970s contained an isotopic mark that was indistinguishable from Earth shakes, and were not the same as practically the entirety of different bodies in our Solar System. Since the greater part of the flotsam and jetsam that entered circle around our early stage planet in the long run coagulated to shape the Moon, and it was then idea to have originated from the pummeled Theia, this new perception was astounding. In 2007, planetary researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California reported that there was not exactly a 1% chance that Theia and Earth had indistinguishable isotopic marks. An investigation distributed in 2012, of the titanium isotopes found in the Apollo lunar examples indicated that Earth's Moon has a similar piece as Earth. This contentions with what is normal if Earth's lunar friend had been brought into the world a long way from Earth's circle or from Theia.

So as to clarify this improbable likeness, planetary researchers needed to think of an approach to frame the Moon for the most part from the Earth- - and not Theia. Dr. Wang was captivated by another PC model that had made its presentation in the spring of 2016 at the yearly Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. In this new PC model, Theia collided with the newborn child Earth with such viciousness that both Earth's mantle and Theia disintegrated.

Mammoth effects are for the most part thought to have been visit events in the beginning of our Solar System. In reality, supercomputer reenactments demonstrating a mammoth effect are reliable with estimations of the precise energy of the Earth-Moon framework and the little size of the lunar center.

The Moon, The Mantle, And A Mars-Sized Tragedy

In the 1970s, two free groups of astrophysicists originally suggested that Earth's Moon was the consequence of a brushing kind of impact among Theia and the proto-Earth. For sure, the Giant Impact Hypothesis clarifies very well various significant perceptions, for example, the enormous size of the Moon comparative with our planet.

The extraordinary amount of vitality freed in the cataclysmic effect occasion, and the inevitable re-growth of launched out material in Earth circle, would have liquefied the external shell of our planet, in this manner making an expanse of burning hot and searing magma. The infant Moon would likewise have had its own magma sea. Appraisals for the profundity of the antiquated lunar sea extend from around 300 miles to the whole span of the Moon, which is 1,079 miles.

Planetary bodies that are conceived in contrasting areas of our Solar System have diverse isotopic arrangements. Consequently, unique isotopic marks fill in as "fingerprints" for planets and shooting stars got from a similar item. The possibility that Theia- - a meandering outcast from somewhere else in our Solar System- - coincidentally had a similar isotopic signature as Earth is incredibly little.

Along these lines, the Giant Impact Hypothesis had a major issue. It had the option to represent countless the physical qualities of the Earth-Moon framework yet not their geochemistry. The isotopic organization research set off an "isotopic emergency" for this in any case preferred theory.

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