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williamvinegrad-2024-blog · 1 month

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SICK HEALTH ARTS PROGRAMME SMASH! CALL OUT APPLICATION: PARTICIPATORY WORKSHOP

INTRODUCTION:

I am applying for the role of Participatory Workshop Leader because I am enthusiastic about the importance of engaging communities in the power of the arts. I believe i possess the skills required to carry-out the technical and organisational responsibilities for this role. I am empowered and inspired by assisting others to find their grace and expression through all forms of art.

I have previously manage a community Arts space called Ground; I have also been working in the hospitality industry for ten years, most recently becoming a General Manager in both corporate/independent environments. I have up until recently been living in Sheffield working for an organisation named Artworks who work with artists with autism and or learning disabilities as a full time support Creative Workshop Leader. I have recently left this post to study a Masters in Youth and Community Engagement at Leeds Beckett University.

I am an expressive and open leader and try to manage and lead from the front with flair. I approach tasks creatively, whilst recognising that infrastructure and organisation plays a major role in enabling change.

I am a naturally energetic person; I engage my enthusiasm into challenging projects and circumstances. Prejudice I have personally experienced allows me to work with empathy, and has given me a genuine desire through project administration and outreach work to create positive change for everyone.

I would relish in the opportunity to host a workshop with you folks and be part of the SICK! 2024. I would bring energy to the planning process, having a strong ability to prioritise tasks, manage time constraints and organise workloads. I have an extensive knowledge of working with under-represented communities and artists alike, having worked with low socio-economic communities as a result of establishing myself as a community art worker. I would relish in the opportunity to support our wider creative community in the excitement that comes with participating in festival activity. And do so with the sensitivity and professionalism required to support our wider community.

Although I have not had the opportunity to visit the SICK! Festival, I have been following the work you folks do for a couple of years now, and have been waiting for an opportunity to hopefully work with you folks, as I am inspired by the work you do. I tell lots of folk about you.

CONTENT/CONTEXT: THEMES / TOPICS

The Chaos Office:

The Chaos Office, was born out of finding a use for our weight in surplus legal documentation and associated office paraphernalia.

Ground Gallery Kingston Upon Hull, (my home town) was established by a group of friends, who studied together at Newcastle University and had the chance to return to their home town and establish a community arts space entitled GROUND.

Members of GROUND, got the opportunity to take on and make good a 3 story Victorian building, that had been empty for a number of years, resulting in the space falling into a state of disrepair. We lovingly spent 6 months, stripping, cleaning, plastering and doodling on our new space.

The building was once occupied, by a charity name HIHAC, an Independent Housing Advice Association Charity. The charity went into administration some years ago, as a result, mountains of paperwork file-a-faxes and hole punches, were stored both on the top floor and in the attic. Whilst gutting GROUND, we worked hard where possible, to re-purpose where possible, turning tables into chairs and vice versa.

OBJECTIVES:

I would very much like to collaborate with you folks, on bringing the Chaos Office to Manchester as part of the SICK! Festival.

Office’ workshop. We will begin by checking in and collectively establish an agenda for the next 2 hours. We will use the rest of our time to create and engage in office related activity. We will use the time to discuss our bureaucratic frustrations and how this impacts our mental health. We might discuss, how and where we can access different support services, dependant on the conversations that come out of the session.

My role as facilitator, will be to introduce themes and materials, I will guide participants and work with them in encouraging them to make best use of the time. I will make reference to other works folks have produced during Chaos Office sessions as a point of reference for participants.

At the end we will Check-Out. During this time, participants will be given the time to debrief and divulge to the group on how they feel the session went and what they can take away from it. They may also use this time to just sit silently. It is their time.

MY LIVED EXPERIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH:

My commitment to the creative arts sector has been a considerably tough journey, but it is a road I continue to travel through having built the emotional intelligence and resilience to endure and overcome barriers to my creative passions. I operate and can pivot resourcefully in finding ways to survive – an aspect of my personal and professional work ethic which has moulded the creative being I am today. Alongside my portfolio of creative projects, during the last decade I have also worked part-time in the hospitality industry to subsidise my ‘hobby’. I value this experience as it means I have had to experience life through necessity to live on the other side – something, more often than not, my peers have not had to do. These experiences position me as an eligible candidate to work with various communities whilst realising the genuine struggles folks are going through during these unpredictable and recently unprecedented times.

As a member of the LGBT+ community, I feel that I can relate to what it is to be a part of marginalised society. Although I have grown up in the predominantly middle-class, White suburb of ‘Hullywood’, I have always innately felt a sense of being ‘different’. People projected their ideas about my identity and who I was/am before I even knew, and I still don’t know. I am learning, it is a constant. I have found personal empowerment at 33 through working with younger community groups, learning about all the facets of my existence, a general level of acceptance amongst the younger generation and a desire to be understood. As part of my practising artistry, my work is centrally based in performance. Performance became a springboard to the acquisition of a confidence and theatrical expression in my art – talents and traits which allow me to excel and flourish within my professional fields.

OUTCOMES / OUTPUTS:

Solidarity.

Bureaucratic Liberation.

Peer Solidarity.

FUN.

Knowledge.

Confidence.

Space.

PRODUCTIVITY!

CHAOS!

I very much look forward to hearing from you.

Kind Regards, William Vinegrad.

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saint-hildegard-of-bingen · 5 years

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Nizhóní (Nee-zhon-ee) One quote one shot book 2

So much gratitude to @balfeheughlywed and @notevenjokingfic for their work and efforts organizing this one shot one quote. My story is set in the beautiful southwestern US, an area where I spent four years studying and working with the Navajo. I am indebted to them for teaching me many life lessons. When I most recently visited the southwest, in October 2018, I felt inspired to write an OL fanfic set among the multi-layered beauty and culture of northern New Mexico and Arizona. The photos are (1) the area where I imagined this story taking place (you might spot me in the photo), and (2) the beloved Navajo woman who taught me about weaving (photo used with her permission). I extend special thanks to my dear friend @notevenjokingfic for her beta expertise! My assigned quote is in bold italics near the end of the story.

She knew it could happen. She just never believed it would happen. What young woman imagines herself newly pregnant and widowed at age 25?

But that is indeed the reality Claire Beauchamp Randall found herself in, shortly after she and her husband Frank became homesteaders in the New Mexico territory, in 1872. Frank’s death came suddenly, following an accident that occurred while he was cutting down a tree. Unbeknownst to him, the tree had several dead branches, one of which broke off with the first swing of his axe, knocking him forcefully to the ground. He never regained consciousness, and Claire surmised he had suffered an injury to his brain.

Screaming and running, she had no idea how she arrived at the nearest homestead. Out of breath, and barely able to get the words out, she fell into the outstretched arms of her neighbor. Glenna and Charles Fitzgibbons, the Scots couple who befriended her from the day she and Frank arrived, brought her into their home and she poured out the whole story. While Frank never warmed to them, Claire knew from the first they were the kind of neighbors one always hoped to have; they were reliable, generous, friendly, and they knew everyone in the area, having arrived in New Mexico territory fifteen years earlier.

Several hours later, Claire felt strong enough to return to her homestead. While Glenna helped her prepare the body for burial, Charles dug the grave. Glenna had done this before, and her gentle strength enabled Claire to bear her jumbled thoughts and emotions.

“Claire, are ye thinking of returning tae England?” Glenna asked, her loving and compassionate voice reminding Claire of how grateful she was for such a friend.

“I have nothing there, really,” Claire starred off into the distance, her gaze settling on the red rock cliffs in the distance. “You know my parents and uncle are gone, and I have no other family. I do not even know what kind of life I would have there. And travel would be difficult for me with a baby coming. I have enough money to live on for now.” She spilled her heart out to Glenna, grateful to finally share her fears and anxieties with someone. Relief mixed with fear, sadness mixed with a sense of resignation.

So it was that just 2 years after arriving in the U.S., a mere 6 months after reaching Santa Fe following an arduous journey by covered wagon, and 3 months after settling on their land situated on the border of the New Mexico and Arizona territories, Claire found herself alone on the frontier.

When Frank made the decision for them to emigrate, they joined the unprecedented number of immigrants drawn to a new life in America, lured by the dream of economic prosperity and vast tracts of unspoiled land. While initially she found the idea of homesteading in the West foolish and reckless, after they arrived in western New Mexico, Claire relished the wide open spaces, endless horizon, and the landscape that seemed as though it was painted by a divine artist.

Frank wanted to make a name for himself, and he found prospects for doing so in England diminishing as he alienated himself from family, friends, and associates. Having read anthropology and history at Oxford, he initially imagined himself as a professor, but after hearing tales of the Indian Wars in the American west, and having a distant cousin who had joined the homesteaders, his sense of adventure led him to purchase tickets for the journey across the Atlantic.

That he only told Claire about it after the fact gave her heightened awareness of his total lack of regard for her preferences, feelings, and aspirations to further her work as a nurse and midwife. Having trained at St. Thomas Hospital and the Nightingale Training School for Nurses in London, Claire once imagined herself spending years working alongside the renowned staff at St. Thomas, even perhaps becoming actively engaged in the education of young nurses and midwives. But Frank’s decision to emigrate closed the door on her dream.

And now he was dead.

She faced the truth of her aloneness. While for some this truth may have felt harsh, for Claire it was an awakening of all she had hidden away in her heart. The previous day, Glenna and Charles visited and offered to take her to the trading post in Arizona. While there was a closer trading post in New Mexico, they preferred Fraser’s Trading Post in Arizona, telling Claire of their high regard for the proprietor, James Fraser, a Scotsman who was known far and wide for his kindness and fairness to the homesteaders, as well as to the Navajo and Apache.

“Come with us, Claire. It will do good to be away from here for a few days, to see a bit more of the area, and to learn your way there.” Eventually, Glenna persuaded her to join them. “Ye will be amazed at the variety of items at the trading post. Everything ye want and need, and then some!”

They left early the next morning, the journey to Fraser’s taking about four hours. When they arrived at midday, Claire noted how beautiful and orderly the Trading Post appeared, situated as it was along the southern banks of the Pueblo Colorado Wash.

“I have yet to see so many people in one place since we left St. Louis,” Claire reflected. “Is the whole territory here?”

“It seems Mr. Fraser attracts traders from as far away as California,” Charles informed her. “Folks seek out Fraser for his fair prices, as well as his uncanny ability to find whatever it is ye need. I have yet to leave the trading post disappointed.”

As she climbed down from the wagon, Claire noticed a tall man striding towards them, his air of confidence and warmth obvious even at first glance.

“Glenna, Charles, ’tis good tae see ye. And ye’ve brought a friend…” Jamie’s voice trailed off as his gaze settled on Claire. Even after a long ride through the dust and heat, her beauty captivated him.

Before Glenna or Charles could make proper introductions, Claire reached out for Jamie’s outstretched hand. “Claire, I’m Claire Randall.”

“Nizhóní,” Jamie said quietly, not realizing Claire overheard the word she assumed was Navajo. It dawned on Jamie that this was the widow of Frank Randall, the Englishman accidentally killed a few months earlier. “Mistress Randall, I extend my deepest sympathies. Ye’ve suffered a great loss.”

“Thank you, Mr Fraser.” Claire realized they were still clasping each other’s hand, and reluctantly pulled away, but not before she noticed the color of Jamie’s eyes, a shade of blue like the ocean.

Glenna broke the awkward silence, asking Jamie about news from Scotland.

“Well, ye ken the news is always about 3 months old by the time it gets here, but my sister has given birth to her second bairn, and the farm is doing well, so they cannae complain.”

The three Scots conversed amiably, and as they walked into the trading post, Claire found herself drawn in by Jamie’s attentiveness to everyone and everything going on around him.

As they moved through the various rooms of the store, Claire noticed the Navajo women effortlessly working their looms. By now, Navajo weavers were well known throughout the territory for the beauty and quality of their rugs and blankets.

One of the weavers caught Claire’s eye and smiled, the kind of smile that immediately puts one at ease. “I am Haseya.”

“I’m Claire. I have never seen anything quite as beautiful as your weaving.”

Haseya’s gaze rested on her work, as she reached for another strand of wool to add to the loom. She explained the design as well as the significance of the various colors. As Haseya talked, Claire knew Jamie was hovering nearby, and she felt uncharacteristically happy. She had not known happiness for such a long time, so the feeling startled her. Before she even realized it, she found herself asking Haseya about learning how to weave. The Navajo woman clasped Claire’s hand, and motioned for Jamie to join them.

“I have a student weaver,” Haseya stated in the direct, yet soft, manner characteristic of the Navajo.

Jamie’s heart leapt, as he realized Claire would be a frequent guest at the trading post. He knew that it was quite uncommon for a Navajo weaver to teach weaving to a non-Navajo, but Haseya was known to have great wisdom and insight, so he surmised she realized Claire needed something to actively engage her senses.

So it was that Claire became an apprentice to Haseya, learning all aspects of rug making, from carding and spinning the wool, to the intricacies of the patterns, to mixing the various plants and herbs used to make colors for dying

She traveled from the homestead to the trading post twice each month, initially making the journey with Glenna and Charles, but eventually felt comfortable making the trek alone, much to Glenna’s dismay.

“I will be fine, Glenna. I have to learn to make my way, and I want to learn as much as I can before the baby comes.”

Glenna acquiesced, realizing the futility of arguing with Claire. Her journeys through the red rock cliffs and wide canyons gave her a sense of peace and contentment. Rather than being fearful about traveling alone, she relished the time to think. While the baby was always foremost in her thoughts, Jamie Fraser was never far from her stream of consciousness. Each trip, she spent three or four days working side-by-side with Haseya, who, unbeknownst to Claire, was considered by the Navajo to be their most skilled weaver.

After working with Haseya during the day, Claire found Jamie waiting for her most evenings, eager to talk about the comings and goings at the trading post, but even more eager to hear about her progress as an apprentice weaver. “I dinna ken how ye do it, Claire. Keepin’ the colors straight, and the patterns bein’ so complicated.”

“Once you get the image of the pattern in your head, it is fairly simple. And I find that weaving is all encompassing. While I am weaving, I’ve no thought about what will become of me, or the baby. And I suppose I am grateful for that…” Claire’s voice trailed off.

Jamie smiled and reached for Claire’s hand. “My mam always quoted scripture to us, and one of her favorites was ‘Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?’”

Over the next few months, each evening during Claire’s visits, they walked and talked, oblivious to the late hour, sharing stories of days gone by, gazing up at the stars, comfortable with the occasional periods of silence. Claire shared her hopes to eventually resume her nursing and midwifery work, maybe working with the Navajo and Apache, as well as caring for the homesteaders.

“I ken ye well enough, Claire. You can do anything, and quite well, I might add.” He held her hand, accustomed as they were by now to being close to each other.

She found herself blushing at Jamie’s kind words. She was not accustomed to being praised. With Frank, there was near constant criticism, and disregard of her wishes.

Jamie reluctantly walked her back to the cabin she used during her visits, and almost before he realized it, he found himself saying, “I know ye havena been widowed so long, but life is different out here, and I ken propriety isna what it might be in England or Scotland. I would very much like to kiss ye, Claire. May I?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Claire turned toward him, her face lit up as though they were in bright sunlight. Frank never asked if he could kiss her. He always assumed that he was in complete control of their relationship.

“Yes, Jamie Fraser. Yes!”

And they both hoped and prayed that this was the first of a lifetime of kisses.

The next morning, while working in the weaving room, she told Jamie and Haseya that she would not be making the trek to the trading post for several months.

“I reckon the baby is due in about a month.” She felt her heart break as she watched Jamie’s face. “What else am I to do, Jamie?”

He felt as though his heart had been pierced with a sword. He interrupted and asked her to walk with him to his home. She had been there a few times, visiting in the parlor, but she sensed his uneasiness and anxiety as they walked toward his front porch.

“Jamie, what is it? You know you can say anything to me.”

He took her hands in his, raising them to his lips and gently kissed each one.

“I’m honest enough to say that I dinna care what the right and wrong of it may be, so long as you are here wi’ me, Claire. I know it may not be proper to marry to ask you so soon after Frank’s death. But will you have me, Claire? Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

As she looked at him, she felt as though she was holding heaven in the palms of her hands. Her gaze turned toward the grassy field stretching between his home and the trading post. In her mind’s eye, she saw curly headed children running and playing, screeching with laughter as Jamie chased after them. She saw herself nursing a red-headed newborn as Haseya sat next to her, dying wool. She saw all of it, all of the beauty and joy of a life spent by Jamie’s side.

“Yes, James Fraser. Yes, I will marry you.”

1 Month Later

Claire sat up in bed, carefully readjusting her curly haired baby girl, all of three hours old, already suckling at the breast. Haseya and the other Navajo women had attended her during the birth, and now, certain that she and the baby were healthy, they bid their farewells, assuring Jamie someone would be back in the evening to check on Claire and the newborn.

He settled in next to Claire on their bed, carefully enfolding her and the baby in a loving embrace. That Frank was the bairn’s father was of no consequence to him. He and Claire would raise the child, and Jamie knew that he was the child’s father, in every way that mattered.

“What name are we going to give her?” he asked, his eyes brimming with tears. Now that the bairn was finally here, he was grateful Claire had come through the labor and birth without any complications.

“There’s a word I have heard you say many times, but I’ve never asked what it meant,” Claire replied. “And it is not one of the Scots terms of endearment you use.”

“Hmm, well, I ken ye must mean Nizhóní.”

“Yes, that’s the word. What does it mean?’

“It means beautiful.”

Now it was Claire’s eyes that filled with tears, remembering Nizhóní was the first Navajo word she had ever heard Jamie speak.

“I want us to name her Nizhóní. Nizhóní Elizabeth Fraser.” Jamie pulled them closer, his wife and his bairn, gently stroking the face of the miracle who had just come into their lives.

And life was indeed beautiful.

#one quote one shot book 2

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socialyawkdude · 5 years

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Top 10 animes for first time viewers

Hello, my socially awkward friends,

I’m back after a much-needed vacation to bring you the content, which you crave. In recent weeks, I’ve been approached by friends and colleagues, about what amines they should watch. To say that it was a loaded question is an understatement. With the world of anime and manga being so vast, it's hard to know where to start.

After thinking it over, I’ve decided to follow suit of my supernatural top 10 and do a top 10 for anime for beginners.

Today's post will cover amines for first-time viewers. Let me start by saying that, This Is my Opinion! Please do not jump my bones because of the line-up. Now with that being said, let get this party started.

(10) Sailor Moon/Sailor Moon Crystal

Written by Nanoko Takeuchi

Genre/subgenre: Magical girl, action, romance, shoujo, superhero

Manga original run: (December 28, 1991, to February 3, 1997)

Anime Run: Sailor Moon (1992-1993) 46 episodes

Sailor Moon R (1993- 1994) 43 episodes

Sailor Moon S (1994- 1995) 38 episodes

Sailor Moon Super S (1995- 1996) 39 episode

Sailor Moon Sailor Star (1996- 1997) 34 episodes

The series follows the adventures of the protagonist Usagi Tsukino, a middle school student who is given the power to become the titular Sailor Soldier. Joined by other Sailor Soldiers, they defend Earth against an assortment of evil villains.

Let us start with a classic, remade for the modern-day. For quite a few of my generation, Sailor Moon was our introduction to the world of anime. I can remember watching sailor moon, in the early morning before the school bus came. Sailor Moon was the beginning of my love affair with anime.

Now here is what I got to say on sailor moon. It is a bit wonky, timeline-wise. Sailor Moon's overall timeline can be a bit hard to follow. That is if you are going in-depth with it. As long as you stay away from the headache inducing timeline, you’ll be ok.

(9)Bleach

Written by Tite Kubo

Genre/subgenre: Action, Adventure, Shonen, Supernatural, Comedy

Original manga run: August 7, 2001 - August 22, 2016

Original anime run: October 5, 2004 - March 27, 2012

366 episodes

What can I say about Bleach? It is one of my favorite anime’s of all time. It's not perfect but what is? You have a diverse cast of characters, a good story and plenty of action. In my opinion, that makes a great anime for beginners. For me, Bleach was my return to anime, after years of not watching. I think that I've watched this anime from beginning to end, one too many times.

I'm talking watching the U.S. airing up to the point that I had the watch in Japanese. I finished the anime a full 2 years before the finale aired in the U.S. I would highly recommend this anime to any beginners.

(8) Restaurant to another World

Written by Junpei Inuzuku

Genre/subgenre= Fantasy, Isekai

Manga Original Run: November 18, 2016, to June 25, 2019

Anime original Run: July 3, 2017, to September 18, 2017

12 episodes

I was recommended this anime by a friend of a friend. I am going, to be honest; I didn't know what I was getting into. This would be my first experience with isekai anime. Looking back on this anime, it is quite an anime. Not much action, but at a great story. I would not recommend watching after a 420 session, you will get the munchies.

(7) Sword Art Online

Written by Reki Kawahara

Genre/Subgenre= Isekai, Fantasy, Action, Adventure

Light Novel Original Run: April 10, 2009, to present

Anime original run:

Sword Art Online = July 8, 2012, to December 23, 2012

Sword Art Online II= July 5, 2014, to December 30, 2014

Sword Art Online Alicization = October 6, 2018, to present

And here we go again with another isekai. The genre in itself is pretty much the same across animes. Someone dies and is sent to another world, but Sword Art Online is different. Instead of dying and going to another world; our main character is trapped in a virtual world and if he dies there, he dies in the real world.

In general, I've been pretty hard on SAO because of its a little too real world for me. It deals with some very real-world issues. To give some examples: Death, rape, incest, and other issues. To top it all off, with it being 2019; we are only months away from when the anime begins. (Where is my damn nervegear?)

If you can get past all of that it's a decent anime. The first arc is by far the best. The second arc is OK and the third I haven't finished yet. Sword Art Online is a good anime for beginners, in my opinion. Plus, Sword Art Online always puts out a beyond great soundtrack.

(6) The Saga of Tanya the Evil

Written by Carlo Zen

Genre/subgenre: Isekai, fantasy

Manga Original run: April 26, 2016, to present

Anime original run: January 6, 2017, to March 31, 2017

12 Episodes

Here we are with the last isekai on our list. I understand that there have been quite a few listed, but besides the honorable mentions, there are no more. The Saga of Tanya the Evil is the perfect end of the isekai on this list.

Following the usual isekai tropes, Tanya the evil can best be described as a fantasy, historical alternative reality anime; taking place in a world similar to World War 1. As of this post, I'm only eight episodes in and quite enjoying it. I highly recommend checking it out.

(5) Fairy Tail

Written By Hiro Mashima

Genre/Subgenre: Shonen, Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Manga Original run: August 2, 2006, to July 26, 2017

Anime original Run: October 12, 2009, to Present

328 + episodes

It was around 7 years ago that a friend recommended fairy tail, to me. At the time, it wasn't my cup of tea. I was following Bleach, at the time, and hadn't leaped into the world of anime. Fast forward several years and it is still not my cup of tea. Now here is the thing, even though I may not be into fairy tail, ii know a good anime when I see it Given that fairy tail is entering its last full season; it a great choice for beginners and old alike. This is why I’m giving it the number 5 spot.

(4) Attack on Titan

Written by Hajime isayama

Genre/Subgenre: Dark fantasy, post-apocalyptic

Original manga run: September 9, 2009, to present

Original anime run: April 7, 2015, to present

Attack on Titan is one of those manga/animes that is a hit from day one. With a post-apocalyptic feel straight out of someone's worse nightmare. This isn't the zombie apocalypse folks; this is something far worse. The following that Attack on Titan has garnered is on par with American shows like The Walking Dead.

Along with the manga and anime, Attack on titan has spawned a live-action movie in 2015. In my opinion, the movie was just as gory and the anime, but a little toned down. If your a fan of post-apocalyptic shows like The Walking Dead, this is one that you have to check out.

A little piece of advice, do not watch the movie until you have seen the first season.

(3) Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

Written by Coolkyoushinja

Genre/Subgenre: fantasy

Manga original run: May 25, 2013 to present

Anime original run: January 11, 2017, to April 6, 2017

13 episodes plus OVA

If there was ever an anime that should be the official anime of this blog, this is it. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid has been one of my favorite animes that I've seen in recent years. This is not the usual action-pack thriller, that you'll usually see from animes that make there way west. It the cute and funny story of Miss Kobayashi and how she ended up with a dragon maid and the adventures that follow. I would recommend this to anyone, anime watcher or not.

(2) Fullmetal Alchemist/ Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.

Written by Hiroma Arakawa

Genre/Subgenre: Adventure, dark fantasy, science fiction, shonen

manga original run: July 12, 2001, to June 12, 2019

Anime original run:

( Fullmetal Alchemist) October 4, 2003, to October 2, 2004

51 episodes plus the movie Conqueror of Shamballa (2005)

( Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood) April 5, 2009, to July 4, 2010

64 episodes

Here we are at the number 2 spot. This was a toss-up for number one, but I decided against it. I would suggest watching Brotherhood because it follows the manga beginning to end. Fullmetal Alchemist ends at episode 51 and it is up the movie, Conqueror of Shamballa to bring an end to the story. I saw Conqueror of Shamballa and overall the movie was great. Well deserving of the praise it got from film festivals around the world. Do yourself a favor and check out this anime.

(1) Dragon Ball /Z/GT/Super/Heroes

Written by Akira Toriyama

Genre/Subgenre: Action, Adventure, martial arts, shonen

Manga Original run:

Dragonball= December 3, 1984, to June 5, 1995

Dragonball Super= June 20,2025 to present

Anime original run:

Dragonball(1986 to 1989)

Dragonball Z( 1989 to 1996)

Dragonball GT( 1996 to 1997)

Dragonball Super( 2015 to 2018)

Super Dragonball Heroes(2018 to present)

And here we are at the number one spot. Come on, everyone should have seen this coming. Anime lovers and non-anime lovers have heard of the Dragonball series. While I was fighting for Fullmetal Alchemist to be in the number one spot; it wasn't going to happen. The Dragonball series is perfect for new anime viewers fro many reasons. One of the main reasons is if you get confused, there is plenty out there to help you understand what’s going on. The Dragonball series has been around in manga form since 1984 and anime form since 1986. There is plenty out there to help newbies and confused them, at the same time. Just don't watch the shitty American made live-action movie.

Honorable mentions: Konosuba, Ghost in A Shell, Food Wars and Naruto

Like always my friends, don't forget to like/share/reblog and follow. To get more of an idea of what's coming, you can follow me over on twitter at @socialyawkdude.

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redandfranticfeelings · 5 years

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okay ive been wanting to make a post like this for a while but i wanted to make it an essay and i dont know if i can really organize my thoughts in that way yet, so here’s a chronological bullet-pointed dump to explain my very important thesis:

be more chill is about internalized ableism, and jeremy, michael, and christine are all highly autistic coded. this is going to be very long and detailed but only because there’s a lot of details that work very well under this lens.

there’s probably even stuff i missed but this is already extremely long so it basically just functions as a way for me to collect a bunch of details that i can piece together later in a more coherent manner.

“more than survive” in the context of jeremy being autistic works so much. the theme of wanting to be just socially acceptable enough to not burn out or be harassed is so relatable, and it visually establishes very early how jeremy is isolated from his peers due to his own awkward behavior and hypersensitivity. it’s coupled with his very obvious anxiety disorder, but the social aspect just screams autistic coding to me. i take this song to basically be “not having a meltdown is basically my goal but i would love to be neurotypical enough so i can heighten my standards and actually enjoy my social life.” some choice segments:

“if i’m not feeling weird or super strange, my life would be in utter disarray, cuz freaking out is my okay”

jeremy’s house being a mess is partly due to his dad’s serious depression, yeah, but i believe the other aspect is that jeremy’s executive dysfunction makes it just as hard to clean up in his place

he gets super anxious at the prospect of his expected routine being shaken up and having to make the decision on his own of how to get to school

“so i follow my own rules and i use them as my tools to stay alive” honestly sounds like a euphemism for autism to me

jeremy not really realizing that he’s staring at chloe

“avoiding any eye contact at all” explains itself

michael’s introduction, oh my god, every time i watch this part i just adore it. i could talk a lot more about michael’s autism later but this whole segment sells it especially.

first off, michael keeping his hood up and headphones on in a deliberate attempt to avoid social interaction and stay in his own space is such an autistic mood. even before this scene he’s constantly moving in the background to his music a la stimming. in the later performances he spends a lot more time playing with his hoodie strings and even chews on them!!

the fact he doesn’t talk to or even really look at jeremy until his song is done playing also feels very autistic to me! and the way he dances so confidently and basically pretends even his best friend isn’t there for the time being because he’s engrossed in his own passions.

michael is a great friend but it’s clear that he doesn’t really understand that his coping mechanism doesn’t really work for jeremy, and that even though michael feels confident reclaiming his identity as a ‘loser,’ jeremy doesn’t really feel any better about it. i think a lot of autistic folks, or at least i do, have this tendency to assume what works for us works for everyone around us at first due to our struggles with empathy. michael tries his best but struggles to see outside his point of view. it’s mind-blindness in action and jeremy can’t communicate why it upsets him any better than michael can pick up on it not working for him.

near the end of the song, they have a brief moment where all the ensemble crowds in around jeremy and the lights start flashing, which i interpret as a visual representation of sensory overload.

we’ll talk more about her soon, but outside of jeremy’s fantasies about her, christine also avoids social interaction during this number, constantly hiding her face in a book and avoiding eye contact just as much as jeremy. people forget that she’s not comfortable with unexpected social interaction, and that really informs my headcanon for her which brings us to....

“i love play rehearsal” is an autistic anthem. it also works, possibly even better due to in-text evidence, as an adhd anthem, but combined with the above it makes so much sense for her to be comorbid autism/adhd. i did a breakdown of the song in this context before, but i’ll sum it up here

the song showcases what having a special interest/hyperfixation is like. christine is singing to jeremy, yes, but she really seems so caught up in her own passion without much regard for how jeremy is following it, and even cuts him off from responding to her once or twice because she’s just so hyped up on her own feelings. she also basically implies her happiness is reliant on her special interest which is very relatable.

lines like “you follow a script so you know what comes next” also really sell the interpretation that christine isn’t good in unpredictable situations, and has so many identity issues and likes having something to look to where things are laid out for her. i think that stability is what a lot of autistic people look for, especially teenagers.

also with that in mind, look at how upset she gets watching a play she loves about get rewritten into something weird and new that she doesn’t know.

also gotta love how she still self-isolates before this song by focusing on her book, until she has a reason to infodump to jeremy. and then feels guilty afterwards and goes right back into her book while apologizing for getting “carried away”....biiiig mood there

the whole intro scene showcases both of their awkwardness so much. jeremy gets completely thrown off by her sarcastic comment about the swim team and almost believes it, which implies that he can’t read tone very well. and then christine’s “you’re a virgin” comment comes across like she really didn’t think about how that would sound to jeremy before saying it since she only made the clarification after he was ready to panic about it. she has a habit of speaking before she thinks, i think, the self-harm comment is also very awkward considering she barely knows jeremy.

after that scene we get “more than survive reprise” where jeremy admits to routinely having such bad breakdowns that he needs to step out and go to the nurse which works for both the anxiety disorder and the autism interpretation.

i’m not quite sure whether i see rich as autistic (i see him with a lot of mental issues for sure though) so i can’t say much on “the squip song” but there’s definitely something to describing a confused autistic kid as “almost helpless.” rich definitely has a habit of giving too much information though, i’ll say that.

“two player game” is just jeremy and michael being autistic solidarity: the song. i guess this is a good place to say that jeremy and michael work well as a contrast b/w two sides of autistic community, the side that struggles to function and desperately wants a change bc they’re afraid of being alone forever, and the side that tries to love all their symptoms and embrace their autistic pride. and as coincidental icing on the cake, jeremy wears blue (associated with the derogatory views from autism speaks) and michael wears red (associated with combating said views through autistic pride).

btw you could probably attribute michael’s ability to casually down a long-expired crystal pepsi as a sort of weird sensory quirk. and his fixation w/ that sort of memorabilia honestly feels like a special interest in its own right!

both “nice sideburns....wolverine, right” and “like in x-men????” using fiction as a reference point for real life always gives me autistic vibes (esp the first point where he awkwardly uses it to start conversation). can we assume x-men is a special interest? :3

jake referring to jeremy as a ‘freak’ when the squip turns on is really sad in this context but it also does make so much sense

now we get to the squip.....and what do you know, it uses tactics from abusive therapy used on autistic children. dare i say that “be more chill” as a song isn’t just an abuser’s song, but an ableist’s abuser’s song.

first off, the “spinal stimulation.” here’s a not so fun fact: electroshock therapy has been used to discourage autistic behavior in very recent years. (content warning in link for graphic description of ableist torture)

then the lyrics, in which the squip mostly focuses on jeremy’s posture and physically punishes him for disobeying. jeremy is shown to really struggle to stand up straight and pose himself in a normal, confident way, and i think that tendency to be unaware of what our body is doing is a pretty autistic thing?

the fact the squip singles out stammering and refers to jeremy’s “tics and fidgets” brings attention to two more autistic traits of jeremy’s

the squip basically punishes jeremy for responding “incorrectly” to social situations like rejecting brooke, even if they aren’t objectively wrong. it eventually just starts speaking for jeremy because jeremy seems incapable of acting natural. the squip is an abusive autism parent.

“sync up” demonstrates jeremy’s weird relationship with empathy. he wants to be nice to everyone- will has even called him “deeply empathetic”- but he’s initially really bad at seeing other people’s point of view, which is why he positions himself as sort of against the world, seeing everyone as better than him or trying to set up these barriers of Coolness where everyone else must be perfect compared to him. he’s so surprised to learn that the popular kids also hurt because of his strict idea of the social structure. it’s a combination of low self esteem and a black-and-white viewpoint.

let’s go back to christine. the squip, already established as ableist abuser, finds her “highly unusual” for acting in a way that disregards everyone who views her. she has very strange and specific visions in her head, and it seems very natural for her even if jeremy struggles to follow along.

in later performances, she chews on her sleeve and spins around during AGTIKBI. that’s stimming, babes. also gotta acknowledge “i don’t always relate to other people my age, except when i’m on the stage”

i’m gonna use this section to talk about jake and christine. christineis a bit unsure when interacting with jake, until he validates her interest- her acting is what really touches him. but jake, while good-hearted, has trouble being self-centered and thus not fully aware of christine’s own needs and space. so christine is always a little uncomfortable around him, especially in public, and not always willing to socialize. he is right about her being kind of stuck in her comfort zone, though, not doing anything off of her stage. and he is genuinely nice to her, it’s just a matter of their social strategies clashing.

the fact that the squip blocks out michael...i’ve had a lot of times in my life where i was told that socializing with other “weird” people would be counterproductive for my social development and it was part of why i was stuck with so few friends. so i really feel the idea that blocking out the person who helps you feel confident in your atypicality is framed as a good thing so you can act more socially adept, and that doing otherwise would just drag you both down.

hot DAMN does “loser geek whatever” make so much sense for an autistic kid with internalized ableism.

“it’s not only school that’s rough, being lonely’s stupid tough” makes it pretty clear this isn’t about the school social scene as muc as it is the entire social scene of the world. we may not see it, but it’s just (not) interacting with people in general that jeremy can’t stand.

“michael says that weird is rad but feeling weird just makes me sad” as stated above, makes a Lot More Sense with the idea that michael is both a more confident autistic and really bad at addressing jeremy’s own internalized ableism and desire to make connections outside his small friend group.

everything about jeremy boiling down all his problems to his “instincts” sucking and needing to basically be told what to do really highlights how autistic kids can feel broken because of their inability to fit into the social norm, to the point where we repress every behavior that actually makes us feel comfortable and unique.

not to mention the line about him being seen as a “normal handsome guy” since autistic people tend to be infantilized and never seen as desirable (will roland also implied this line has trans coding which is another discussion altogether but i feel i should acknowledge that here)

all of those terms that jeremy calls himself near the end- namely weirdo, misfit, oddball, freak, failure- all of this sounds like the shit people throw at autistic kids. like this goes beyond anxiety alone, this is jeremy being outcasted and oppressed by the general public due to his behavior. especially the “please don’t speak” part, considering how often autistic kids are mocked for misunderstanding when to speak, how to speak, and what to talk about. jeremy needs some freaking love. :(

“michael in the bathroom” is a panic attack, related to severe anxiety, but i do see a lot of aspects that play into autism as well. the little nervous stimmy movements of foot-bouncing and picking at grout, the explosive sensory overload during the “knock knock” section of the bridge, the whole concept of losing the only person you ever managed to connect to without sacrificing who you are, dealing with this massive change to your sense of philosophy and reality where you pinned everything on one person to ground yourself, and thus you’re now completely lost trying to isolate yourself from this big overwhelming social gathering...neurodivergent anthem all around.

jeremy and christine’s couch interactions during halloween give me such autistic positivity. christine basically echolales jeremy’s weird noise and they both have so much fun vocal stimming that they forget there’s another person in the room. it’s such a sweet moment until jeremy ruins it by realizing that asking her out right after a breakup is Not Really Good For Her.

christine’s reaction to the fire demonstrates a clear case of hyperempathy to me. it isn’t discussed as much as a complete lack of empathy, but autistic folks are prone to feeling way too much especially when it comes to others’ pain. christine talking about how she hates that everyone’s hurting and desperately wants to help but doesn’t know how, and how we’ve already seen how much she struggles to connect with others like jake....it’s a very relatable, very specific autistic mood.

going back to the theme of jeremy and empathy, christine’s above hyperempathy kind of breaks this mold, and while jeremy always does feel for the other kids, by this point he feels so strongly- particularly for christine, who he also saw as a perfect confident being until now- that the squip can manipulate him into “fixing” everyone the same way the squip was supposed to “fix” him. and he never considers that christine doesn’t need to be fixed because he just projects his own insecurity that strongly onto everyone else who seems “weird” in the same kind of way- hence why he assumes michael is jealous of him back in MITB. it’s likely a result of the squip’s manipulation but i feel like mind-blindness is a factor, even if jeremy switches between struggling to process others’ emotions and being extremely empathetic.

michael’s special interest saves the day!!! :D

the whole fight b/w jeremy and michael, assuming it comes from a genuine place of repressed bitterness, has a lot of added subtext with them both being autistic. jeremy accusing michael of “giving up” on social interaction, michael envies jeremy for trying bc michael is clearly Not comfortable in most large social settings, jeremy envies michael for his pride, it just hits home for me i guess

rich calling michael “antisocial headphones kid” honestly how is michael not canon autistic

in the off-bway version michael briefly speaks too loud forgetting that jeremy’s head still hurts which is a relatable Forgot About Boundaries thing. plus him smacking rich playfully forgetting that rich is Still In Pain

“voices in my head” works nice as a fuck-societal-norms-and-just-be-happy song. “embrace the traits that make you so odd” in particular :’)

jeremy remembering christine’s infodump about her obscure bowling alley performance art idea and bringing it up to her again!!!

the squip doesn’t go away because ableism and the anxiety it brings and all the upsetting symptoms of autism don’t go away, but with the right support and confidence you can live with them!!! good message for mental disorders in general and works very well in this context!!!

so in conclusion.....be more chill is autistic pride!!!

#be more chill #bmc #actuallyautistic #autistic headcanons #long post #be more neurodivergent #queue are so busted

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dippedanddripped · 5 years

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It was clear from the beginning what Shayne Oliver was trying to convey with Hood By Air, a brand he founded in 2006 with Raul Lopez that was originally named Elite Urban Brigade. At one of their first fashion shows, which took place at New York Fashion Week in 2007, Mobolaji Dawodu, The Fader’s former style editor-at-large, asked Oliver where he saw Hood By Air going. Oliver, then 18, who looks cherubic in the grainy clip, said he wanted to create a lifestyle brand for the new generation that appreciates what’s going on in the streets, but understands urban culture influences the mainstream.

In that moment, Oliver prophesized the impact his brand would have on an industry that spent years looking to Black communities for cues, but rarely exalted the culture, credited it, or brought people from it into the fold. But the 2010s changed that, and the generation Oliver spoke of 12 years ago became the designers private equity firms want to invest in, luxury brands want to partner with, and stores want to carry.

When something is happening, it’s hard to assess its influence, but as the decade comes to a close, it’s apparent that Hood By Air helped create the luxury streetwear category that’s been fueling fashion. You can’t think about the last 10 years without thinking about Hood By Air, which defined style and trends for almost half the decade. Oliver put his very Black, very queer, and very cool world on a pedestal and changed the way brands design, the way retailers merchandise their stores, they way companies approach casting, and, for many, the way they see themselves and their place in fashion.

“SHAYNE OLIVER’S EXISTENCE AND THE CULTURE THAT CREATED HOOD BY AIR, IN MY MIND, ARE VITAL TO WHAT WE HAVE TODAY AS A MIXTURE OF FASHION AND SO-CALLED STREETWEAR.” - VIRGIL ABLOH

“Shayne Oliver’s existence and the culture that created Hood By Air in my mind are vital to what we have today as a mixture of fashion and so-called streetwear,” writes Virgil Abloh, founder of Off-White and artistic director of Louis Vuitton men’s, over email. “In one word, I would say HBA and Shayne’s vision showed the fashion system at large what the word freedom meant. From garments to runway shows, everything exudes freedom.”

Musician Ian Isiah, a longtime member of the Hood By Air collective, calls 2007 HBA’s official birth year. Urban fashion brands like Sean John, Baby Phat, and Rocawear hit a peak in the late ’90s and early 2000s, but lost their cachet—most of them expanded distribution to department stores like Macy’s. Isiah says there was a void of Black-led brands, and Hood By Air was an attempt to fill it. Dominican tailors made Hood By Air’s first T-shirts and they retailed around $200, which wasn’t typical at the time. The initial T-shirts, which were sold out of aNYThing, a now-closed streetwear brand and store on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, were meant to transition from day to night, another new concept. HBA also became known for a plexiglass Hood By Air nameplate necklace that Kid Cudi wore and Kanye West purchased from Seven New York.

Isiah says although the brand was stocked in a couple of stores, their main priority was “selling it to culture and getting it on the right girls and in the right looks.” GHE20G0TH1K (pronounced “ghetto gothic”), a party series founded by Jazmin Soto, better known as Venus X, in 2009, embodied that culture. Oliver DJed on some nights for a crowd made up of streetwear kids, punks, and queer folks. They would all wear HBA. ASAP Rocky was also a part of that culture Isiah mentioned. Isiah says they met Rocky through Jabari Shelton, better known as ASAP Bari, who would bring his friends from Harlem downtown—members of the ASAP Mob appeared in one of HBA’s early lookbooks. Rocky, who would mix brands like Rick Owens and Hood By Air with Jeremy Scott’s Adidas sneakers and Supreme, adopted the line early on, which brought it greater visibility and hype. The brand went on a hiatus in 2009 and became almost a collector’s item for those in the know.

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“It was sort of like this thing that everyone was still talking about but no one knew how to get it,” says Zachary Ching, Oliver’s longtime friend. “They didn’t have a website. There wasn’t even an Instagram. It was just like this mythical thing that you would see someone wearing once.”

Because of the buzz surrounding the brand, Ching called Oliver as soon as he was tasked with turning VFILES’ space on Mercer into a store, but Oliver, who was taking a break from the line to tour with GHE20G0TH1K, didn’t have any product. VFILES produced the pieces and purchased them from Oliver—Ching remembers ordering about 500 T-shirts across six styles—and on June 12, 2012, VFILES held an opening party for the shop that seconded as an HBA relaunch event. Oliver and Venus DJ’d, ASAP Rocky performed—most of the ASAP Mob came through—and on that night both HBA and VFILES were solidified as relevant movements in fashion. Following the party, the HBA pieces sold out within two days, and VFILES had to upgrade its payment systems to accommodate demand, which Ching describes as bananas.

“It was a pivotal moment in VFILES’ history,” says Julie Anne Quay, the founder of VFILES. “To physically see both the community come together, celebrate one of their peers, and shop it was really rewarding to me. It further galvanized me in my passion to really build VFILES into this community platform that was unlike the traditional fashion world at large and embraced a community that I thought was not only overlooked, but was disrespected.”

“IT WAS SORT OF LIKE THIS THING THAT EVERYONE WAS STILL TALKING ABOUT BUT NO ONE KNEW HOW TO GET IT.” - ZACHARY CHING

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Hood By Air helped set the tone for VFILES’ assortment, which eventually included Abloh’s Pyrex, which transitioned to Off-White, Been Trill, and Fear of God—this was before luxury department stores picked them up. Been Trill and Hood By Air even released a collaborative T-shirt in early 2013, which Oliver said started out as a brunch gift for friends and family but turned into something bigger without him knowing. Because celebrities like ASAP Rocky wore HBA and it had an aesthetic and name that resonated with the hood, Danielle Greco, who managed VFILES at the time, says the early consumers who lined up for the product—she describes them as “big, burly, tough men”—probably had no idea who Oliver was or what some of his messaging and graphics meant. Oliver said many of the logo placements for HBA were inspired by documentaries on gays in prison.

“Streetwear was very much a boys’ lane, and all of the brands that were trending at the time spoke to a very straight man’s world,” says Vashtie Kola, who met Oliver and Lopez in the early 2000s and hosted a Hood By Air TV series on her blog. “I remember they made a tank top with the term ‘Realness’ on it, which comes from the ball scene. And so I remember straight boys wearing tank tops that said realness or banjee. It was really nice to see.”

Because HBA was doing so well, VFILES and MADE helped Oliver secure an official spot on the New York Fashion Week calendar at Milk Studios in September 2013. It was Oliver’s big introduction to the industry and a chance to bring showgoers, who included Abloh, fashion editors, and longtime friends of the brand like Kola, into his world. The music was loud, the lights were dark, and the models weren’t A-typical. Boychild, a trans performance artist, jerked her body in a haunting way as she walked down the runway. This was followed by an appearance by ASAP Rocky, who closed the show wearing a neoprene Hood By Air Jacket. Kevin Amato, a photographer who had never worked on fashion shows until he met Oliver, handled the casting, which became a hallmark of HBA.

“The Hood By Air narrative for me was always just the underrepresented, really,” says Amato, who was casting from the streets. “And that’s what I tried to do with the casting. It was very organic. Rocky wanted to walk the show, but we didn’t just want a celebrity to walk the show. So we cast Boychild and had this contrast of different people and cultures colliding. It wasn’t meant to be hype. But I think after HBA and the casting, the whole fucking industry changed.” You now see this gender-fluid casting from luxury houses like Gucci and Balenciaga. The Yeezy Season 3 collection/Life of Pablo listening party at Madison Square Garden in 2016 featured a mix of professional models and real people, in 2017 Nike dedicated a campaign to voguing, and Victoria’s Secret recently cast its first transgender model, Valentina Sampaio.

In 2013, style was moving beyond the heritage #menswear look. The Watch the Throne Tour with JAY-Z and Kanye West had just ended, ushering a dark, goth aesthetic into streetwear with brands like En Noir and Black Scale. Riccardo Tisci’s Givenchy T-shirts and hoodies were popular—his rottweiler graphic was a hit—and Hedi Slimane’s pieces for Saint Laurent—skinny jeans, tailored coats, and flannel shirts—were selling well at retail.

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Most consumers had known HBA for its T-shirts, but after this show, it was clear HBA wasn’t operating in the same space as its peers. Oliver was playing with gender fluidity before it became a talking point and presenting new silhouettes that played on the familiar, but elevated it. Long-sleeve leather shirts with zipper closures right below the chest could be worn open or closed, depending on the situation; puffer jackets were recreated into capes; and collared shirts were covered in HBA logos. The New York Times’ Guy Trebay questioned if Alexander Wang and Tisci took notes from Hood By Air.

“It was definitely a reinvention. It wasn't a copy-and-paste, which is commonly seen these days,” says Kola. “Shayne understood the hood, but also had aspirations of creating his own unique look and vision. He merged those two worlds so effortlessly.”

Jennifer Williams, wife of Matthew Williams, who was part of Been Trill at the time, handled sales and started showing the line to buyers in Paris, which is where Wanda Colon, Barneys New York’s former vice president of menswear, discovered HBA. Colon says at the time, the luxury/contemporary category was dormant, and the brands Barneys was selling felt “safe and a bit staid.”

“I felt there was an opportunity to offer our customer a new point of view as it related to menswear beyond the brands that were being offered,” says Colon, who purchased the collection. “HBA filled a void in the industry that wasn't being addressed. The brand came to embody the mid-2000s zeitgeist of hybrid XXL silhouettes, deconstructed streetwear, couture fabrics, immaculate tailoring, genderless silhouettes, and big logos—Shayne was there first.”

The HBA merch plan included Hood By Air Classics, which made hood basics like tall T-shirts and sweatshirts, investment pieces, and the more progressive ready-to-wear line, which reconstructed and recontextualized American sportswear. Ching says this changed the way department stores looked.

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“Because of Hood By Air, you go into Barneys and look at a designer section and it has hoodies and sweatpants,” says Ching. “Hood By Air was like a crazy statement jacket, but then you had amazing T-shirts and graphic hoodies to go along with it. And you didn’t feel like you were wearing a Stüssy hoodie.”

On a cultural level, Oliver was a designer who wasn’t typically touted in fashion—he was Black, gay, didn’t have a degree from Parsons or financial backing from his parents. He also represented a movement that was happening in the background. Robin Givhan, fashion critic at the Washington Post, remembers being struck by how he and his team had been able to grab the attention of the industry in an aggressive way with clothes that she says, initially, weren’t well made, but had a bigger story to tell.

“It felt like it was shaking up the industry out of its doldrums and pushing it on a different course,” says Givhan. “The industry needed something that speaks to a moment that was demanding diversity, questioning gender identity, questioning the path that the next generation of designers were going to take the industry on, and into that giant question mark stepped Shayne and Hood By Air.”

While Hood By Air’s star was rising, so was ASAP Rocky’s, and his influence on fashion started to take hold. But in his song “Multiply,” released in 2014, he called HBA weak, and said Been Trill “was booty like ‘Tip Drill.’” At first, Rocky told Complex in 2015 that he dissed both brands because he wasn’t getting the acknowledgement he felt he deserved from them. But he recently revealed he was upset because he asked for ownership in HBA and Oliver said no. "You don't ask Rick to put you on an official level if you wear Rick Owens. You're wearing Rick and that's it. Why is it not the same with us?" aksed Oliver in an interview with Kerwin Frost and Isiah. Years later, Rocky called up Oliver and apologized. But the fashion industry was still intrigued, and Oliver won the inaugural LVMH Prize in 2014 and the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s Swarovski Award for Menswear in 2015.

Isiah says they were skeptical of the recognition, but happy about it, since it supported the idea of giving the underrepresented a seat at the table in fashion after years of going unrecognized. The awards were helpful, but not knowing how to deal with a new brand like HBA, the CFDA would suggest traditional business structures that weren’t in line with how HBA wanted to grow.

HBA had always been a collective, but it became more fully formed before and after the 2013 fashion show at Milk Studios. Leilah Weinraub, a filmmaker who was the acting chief executive officer; Isiah, HBA’s brand ambassador; and Amato, who continued to handle casting, remained on board. Newer additions included Ching, who left VFILES to join HBA full time as commercial director. He looked over T-shirts, jeans, hoodies, and graphic T-shirts so Oliver could focus on fashion pieces. Paul Cupo came on as design director to help elevate construction, and Akeem Smith joined as a stylist. Smith says that when he came on, HBA was going through a transitional phase and Oliver gave him free range “to add some more faggotry to the mix and add more chic elements to the brand.” By this time, HBA was showing about four times a year in New York and Paris. Oliver was the father of the house. He had the vision for HBA, and everyone brought their particular expertise to the table.

“It was almost like living in a nomadic community. Wherever it took us, we went and it just worked out. We were never starving, but I think any creative knows that money's not the motive. It was more about building,” says Amato.

Making money was not a primary concern for Oliver in the beginning. The brand was approached early on about investment, but Weinraub told the New Yorker she wanted to remain independent for as long as possible. HBA worked with Edison Chen for a little in Asia, where the brand was wildly popular—Chen brought it to Yo’Hood, a streetwear festival in China. Ching remembers K-pop stars coming to VFILES and buying up all the HBA, and walking through China and seeing the craziest HBA bootleg T-shirts with Hello Kitty on them. In 2014, Oliver partnered with the New Guards Group and moved HBA’s headquarters to Milan. The New Guards Group, the parent company of Off-White, Palm Angels, and Heron Preston, which was acquired by Farfetch earlier this year, handled HBA’s production, distribution, and sales. Everyone from HBA lived in a monastery, and during the day they worked out of a compound alongside Abloh, who produced graphics for HBA’s third major collection. "I was just like, 'Wait, who is this tall African man playing beats in the other room in this Italian studio?'" says Isiah.

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Isiah says he was hesitant about signing with the New Guards Group and that he and Oliver got into arguments about it, but he opened up to the idea. “Instead of working so hard and spending so much money to get 10 samples made in New York, we were now making 100 samples in Italy. It opened up our inventory,” he says.

The shows also got more sophisticated and ideas were better executed. In January 2015, at Pitti Uomo 87, which was Hood By Air’s first show under the New Guards Group, they took over a villa in Tuscany but outfitted the space with strobe lights, smoke machines, a DJ, Venus X, and a neon HBA light logo. The show was dominated by tailored pieces with a Hood By Air spin. Showing in Europe also helped some in the industry view Hood By Air as less of an underground group of misfits and more as a viable brand that presents new fashion concepts. At other shows, celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg, Rick Ross, Jaden Smith, and Naomi Campbell sat front row. Givhan says construction improved, but the show production, which compelled her to the brand, got increasingly tamer. She called it a smart decision to focus more on the clothes, but she did notice growing pains.

“I think they struggled, but I think that’s OK. Brands take a long time for full gestation,” says Givhan. “I think the industry is a bit like a voracious monster sometimes. And it has a tendency to gobble up new ideas and to elevate them sometimes before they are fully baked.”

By then, Amato had left the company due to a death in the family, but he observed HBA’s evolution from afar. Some things he liked, and some things he didn’t. He thought the casting, which was handled by his apprentice Walter Pearce, got more weird, less authentic. And he felt like other brands were trying to get next to HBA for attention.

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“Once business is popping and everything's crazy, it kind of loses some of the main vision, but that happens with every brand,” says Amato. “Instagram was new and it was just a way to strategically align yourself with a brand, and then, boom, all of a sudden, you're in the game. Like Been Trill was a movement, but was it a movement?” From the inside, Ching also noticed changes. Sales were going well and distribution got wider. Once HBA partnered with the New Guards Group, it had 250 stockists, up from 50 in less than three years. At the end of each season, they would assess what stores they would drop and how to edit down different stores’ orders.

“It was always trying to control distribution, which I think towards the end got a little out of hand,” says Ching. “It was too easy to get it and shit was going on sale. It wasn't cute. It, like, really blew up, and then, you know, the market can only take so much.” While at the New Guards Group, Hood By Air was selling a lot of product, but not the product they thought best represented the brand. Oliver told Numéro there was miscommunication between the business side of things and the management and a lot of decisions were made in a "very panicky way." A clear business structure was never created for HBA within the group, so after a few seasons, HBA got out of the deal. In 2016, Oliver came back to New York wanting to position HBA as a conceptual fashion brand, not just a hype, of-the-moment line. Ching eventually left because he didn’t feel job security anymore, and in early 2017 HBA canceled its Paris show, which led to rumors that there were issues. In March, Helmut Lang announced Isabella Burley, Dazed magazine’s editor-in-chief, would be the brand’s editor-in-residence. She tapped Oliver to design a Helmut Lang capsule collection to show in September 2017. In April, Hood By Air released a statement that the brand would go on hiatus.

“THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO TITLE WITHOUT OFFENDING. SO, IT’S LIKE, ‘OH, HE’S IN FASHION? HE’S MAKING T-SHIRTS? THERE’S HIP-HOP INVOLVED? HE’S A HYPE DESIGNER.’” - IAN ISIAH

“I was so excited,” says Isiah about Oliver putting things on pause. “We needed a break. It was mood board overload. The culture couldn’t even keep up. We’ve already created so many daughters in so many fields, so it was time for them to flourish and grow. It was time for Virgil to flourish and grow. It was time for Heron to flourish and grow. It was time for Alyx to be born and then flourish and grow. The empire had to go silent for everyone else to rise as their own empire.”

In the midst of HBA’s trajectory, the industry was reaping the rewards of a market they helped form. Demna Gvasalia of Vetements, which was positioned as a collective of designers who embraced streetwear sensibilities, was named the creative director of Balenciaga, a position previously held by New York designer Alexander Wang. Gvasalia also won the same LVMH award Oliver received a year prior. And eventually Louis Vuitton tapped Abloh as their artistic director of men’s. Oliver went on to design capsule collections for brands like Diesel and Helmut Lang, but people, including Kanye West, questioned why the Helmut Lang partnership wasn’t longer or why Oliver wasn’t being propped up for a bigger luxury brand.

“When I saw it coming, it read to me that you had become the creative director of Helmut Lang —and it read to other people that way, too,” West said while speaking with Oliver earlier this year for Interview Magazine. “And it felt right, and it felt deserved. The reason I’m on the phone with you right now is that, of our generation of designers, you are the strongest of all of us. Of this entire crew that came up around the same time, you are the most deserving of one of these positions.”

POST CONTINUES BELOW

In a ShowStudio panel discussing the Spring/Summer 2018 collection for Helmut Lang Seen by Shayne Oliver, you get a better sense of how the industry views Oliver and Hood By Air. Olga Kuryshchuk, a Central Saint Martins graduate, founder, and editor-in-chief of 1Granary, a student magazine and showroom, says Oliver was chosen for his hype, not for his design skills. She later offered that no one would reference the collection because it wouldn’t present any new ideas—Oliver told Numéro that because it was only a capsule, it made sense to curate rather than produce something new. Towards the end, Georgina Evans, an editor at ShowStudio, makes a distinction of asking which graduates, not just designers, could take on the role after Oliver. Another panelists suggests that Helmut Lang should look to school in Europe and maybe not one in America or Britain—her logic was although Helmut Lang is identified as an American brand, Lang was Austrian. The video underscored the industry’s tendency to look towards the same funnels or type of person for talent.

“They don’t know how to actually title without offending,” says Isiah. “So it’s like, ‘Oh, Shayne’s a hype designer. Oh, he’s in fashion? He’s making T-shirts? There’s hip hop involved? They’re voguing? He’s a hype designer.’”

Givhan says the most accepted route to lead designer jobs at larger houses is usually graduating from design school, getting a job working for a larger designer, and then being considered for the job when someone retires or passes away. She believes it’s more challenging for designers of color to get into that pipeline and be considered for those positions, but she does think the industry is making progress. She references Abloh going to Louis Vuitton.

In 2019, Oliver announced the relaunch of Hood By Air. Plans around the reboot haven’t been explained in detail, but from different interviews, Oliver seems interested in developing a solid business structure, ensuring that HBA is seen as more than a T-shirt and hoodie brand, and providing a platform for youth to create and not be taken advantage of. Amato, who had dinner with Oliver in Los Angeles a couple of months ago, says he doesn’t want to make any sacrifices this time. “He said it has to be 500 percent or nothing, which I think is the best way to go. I mean, his vision is so strong that it’s hard to even explain half the shit he’s thinking,” says Amato.

The original collective is still cool, but they’ve moved on to other things. Isiah is traveling the world singing and sitting front row at fashion shows—he sang with Dev Hynes at Abloh’s second show for Louis Vuitton. Amato is doing less casting and more artistic directing on projects like Travis Scott’s Rodeo album. Smith is the fashion editor-at-large for Dazed magazine, Cupo is freelancing for different companies, and Weinraub’s film, Shakedown, was a part of the 2017 Whitney Biennial.

And Kola, who was voguing with Oliver and Lopez in her apartment just before the decade started, is no longer just a downtown sweetheart. She travels the world DJing, has her own Jordan, and is paid by brands for her influence—the same influence Oliver talked about at his first fashion show over 10 years ago. When asked what she thought when Oliver said HBA was taking a break, she can’t recall how she felt, exactly. She starts and stops her answer, trying to find the right words to describe her feelings around the hiatus. But when asked about his impending return, she perks up, knowing exactly what to say and how to say it.

“I’m all for it,” says Kola. “I feel like a lot of other brands and designers were birthed from his movement. So I feel like mutha needs to come back and take care of these children she birthed!”

#SHAYNE OLIVER #hood by air #vashtie kola #urbanwear blog #streetwear blog

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akabrookiej04-blog · 4 years

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K-Pop unpopular opinions

So this is my first post on Tumblr. Cool.

ME AND THE K-POP GENRE

First thing first, why I like K-pop.

K-pop is not my favorite genre in today’s scene, my favorite genres are Rock, Metal and Alternative. As y’all can see, I’m emo and a hard-die fan of MCR and in general, I love emo groups as P!ATD, Fall out Boy, etc. I also do like a lot of metal and alternative bands, as Rammstein, Metallica, Alice In Chains, Ghost (ik a lot of people don’t like them, but idc I f*ckin love them), Coldplay, Foals, Glass Animals, Alt-J and I can say a lot more, but I don’t think I need to. So as you can see, my favorites genres have nothing to do with K-pop, so let me tell you how I entered this world.

So all of this happened in the summer of 2018 when I just came from Dublin, you know, the moment school has ended and you go traveling with your friends and all that stuff. Still remember it as one of the best experiences in my life tho.

So there I was, again in my country, with nothing to do, bored af, listening to the same music again and again. And I was so tired of listening to the same songs again and again.

I was listening to “No Drama” by Tinashe and Offset on Youtube when “Fake Love” by BTS appeared in my recommended. I was really bored and wanting to die, so I told myself, “why not”.

And yeah... I spent 4 hours listening to BTS music. It was amusing tho.

By the end of the summer, I was an Army, I knew a lot of K-pop groups, I was into that sh*t. I started with BTS, then Blackpink, Twice, NCT, Red Velvet, Exo... I started with the same as people my age and k-popers in 2019.

At first in k-pop, I was so amused that I liked everything I was seeing, but, you get more experienced and you start to like other things and to dislike some you did love at first.

Now that I’m a little more experienced, I can tell my favorite groups are 2NE1, 4minute, f(x), Big Bang, Dreamcatcher and well, BTS (even tho lately I had been having encountered ideas about them).

But still, I like being honest to myself and I have my opinions. I moved on to other genres like metal and grunge etc. and I left k-pop to the side tbh. Some of the groups that I did like at first now they’re not my sh*t, I find some things kinda annoying now and as consequence I dislike some songs that I used to love.

Now that the introduction is done, and I don’t have anything else to say, let’s start.

These are my opinions, and if you have others I still respect them bro, so respect mines. Let’s get it.

MY K-POP UNPOPULAR OPINIONS

1. Aegyo and cute concepts are cringey.

Dude, 20-year-olds acting like babies is just annoying. These kinda 12-years-old voices that some idols have to fake is just... For example, Rosé from Blackpink. Man, let her sing with her real voice. Being brutally honest, cute concept choreos are all the same, they just don’t tell me anything. The thing I hate the most is that for these concepts some idols are forced to wear clothes that ain’t their style... So annoying, dude. (Groups that follow these concepts and I just don’t like as much as I used to, are Twice and Loona)

2. I think that interviews in English are boring if only one member knows how to speak English. They are idols, they should know at least the basics to communicate. Having to watch and listen to just one idol trying their best to communicate while the others are just doing the m*therfucker ain’t that funny.

3. Dating bans are stupid, they are used as a way to keep fans following their idol. Because if a fan knows their idol is dating it makes them seem unavailable. To childish fans (or most k-popers) being able to dream of dating and marrying their idol it’s more appealing to bias someone and continue dreaming a non-existent future. Real fans don’t care about the dating life of an idol, so they should be able to do whatever the f*ck they want.

4. Sexy concepts and badass ones are the best, fight me.

From what I heard from Korea, the racism and how conservative and close-minded some koreans are, I think these concepts break a Lil’ the rules. Idols like CL, songs as Hate (4minute), Jessi, Hyuna, etc. break korean schemes and rules, and they make me reset my faith in humanity like, come on bro, we all can be open-minded, live and let other people live.

Also, I think that these concepts have the best choreos, aggresive choreos are just so cool, and as well as they have the best instrumentals, noisy ones are just f*cking awesome, change my mind. The fact that they show 20-years-old as mature, strong people is just high-quality stuff. (Groups that blow my mind with this concepts are for example Ateez and Dreamcatcher)

5. Loona stans are so annoying with their “stan Loona”. B*tches, stop being so annoying. If we don’t want to stand your group we’re not gonna, stop that bullsh*t. Anyway, I’m not hating on Loona or her non-psycho fans.

6. Red Velvet lasts songs, Zimzalabim and Umpah Umpah are just messy. Their recent concepts are messy, they look uncomfortable in their clothes and the choreos ain’t that good neither. Hope their next comeback is better tho, they have the potential to do it.

7. Mamamoo are the real queens of k-pop, people should stop sleeping on them, they’re are amazing and their personalities are brilliant. On stage they are one of the best groups so far, their voices are just so stable and powerful. They have the potential to be as big as Blackpink or BTS, so y’all should stop sleeping on them, homies.

8. There are so many Twice songs that sound the same. Feel Special is not that much of a bop tho, and they have a lot of songs that are just simply a miss. Sorry, my dudes. I think a more mature concept would fit them so well, with a more powerful instrumental, with that, they would conquer the k-pop world.

9. Chung Ha’s songs ain’t that good. Snappin’ aesthetic is gorgeous, the concept is so attractive, but the song itself it’s boring. She’s pretty, she knows how to dance, her aesthetic is f*ckin’ awesome, but I feel like her songs need smth to spice them up. They need that smth that they don’t have to turn them to bops. (Also I hate Chica with all my life, that song just gets me on my nerves).

10. Y’all are gonna hate me with this one, but I think BAAM and BBoom BBoom ain’t the same. Like man, it’s true they sound alike, but to me, they have such different vibes. BBoom BBoom it’s amusing and cheerful, has this kinda vibes that make you wanna dance, and BAAM has this kinda nostalgic, melancholic vibe in the sound of the song that sets your heart on fire. That’s the way I find them, it’s my opinion.

11. I know y’all have been waiting for this moment. Let’s talk about BTS. Armys, say whatever the f*ck you want, but as a real one, I’m gonna spill the tea. Their music now is worse, too commercial and doesn’t transmit any feeling. Come on, let’s admit it dudes, is the reality.

Boy With Luv ain’t good. Halsey is a good singer with so much potential, Nightmare and Without Me are pretty good examples of this, and they did her so dirty. Also, the lyrics are just cringey. I don’t know about you, but Come be my teacher and your one, your two, don’t say anything to me. In general, I feel like Map Of The Soul: Persona ain’t that good of an album. They could’ve used the concept of Dionysus in all the album, I don’t know, something like greek gods flexin’ their money in all the album, and it could’ve be such a bomb. Make it Right, Home and Dionysus are the only remarkable songs of the album, the rest are just meh, I could listen to them 200 times and they won’t stick to me, they’re just basic and boring. They have changed, my dudes. I feel like they’re not who they were once anymore. It’s a fact that they slay on stage and their voices are stable (not all of their voices tho). Their concerts are bomb, the choreos are amazing and that’s something we cannot deny. (But the inflatable castle for Anpanman was a no for me). In conclusion, their music now is just commercial basic pop, they should try to mix their old sounds with smth new.

Well, my dudes, I have more opinions on k-pop but you know, I think this is long enough, in the future I will make a second part of this, but for now, this is all.

Tell me your opinions if you want, and if not it’s also okay.

That’s all folks, bye.

- Brooke.

#kpop #opinion

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yvoi · 5 years

Note

Not very active on tumblr, and thus not keen on my followed artists development. Could you kindly re-introduce your OCs for us?

gladly! however, I have a lot of them, so I’ll only summarize the ones I’m currently most fond of, if that’s okay :’D I’ve been working on a spreadsheet with information on all of my ocs, but it’s far from finished

oc introductions under the cut, listed in no particular order. some will be shorter than others

1. Seishirou Ono / STELLAR

originally a shallow design for a robot character named STELLAR, I revamped him for the roleplay group Shut Up and Dance, which gave him an entirely new backstory. He was a surgeon specializing in neurosurgery, until his only friend ended up in a coma from a spinal injury he couldn’t heal. In the rp, he joined a gameshow hosted by the Fair Folk, given the promise that if he won, he would be able to heal his friend. However, it was a kill-or-be-killed kind of game, and unfortunately he died, because he’s weak lol.

post endgame of the rp it turned out that the dead contestants weren’t fully disposed of yet, and they were brought back. now, he’s most likely going to stay in the world of the fair folk with the friend he made in the game, since his friend at home most likely died already.

he also changed his hair a lot.

2. Sasha Montrisk

made specifically for yet another rp group, Sasha and his twin brother Feliks (owned and played by Luka) grew up in the slums of the empire’s capital after being cast out of their noble family for having magic. They’re cunning and morally gray, prioritizing eachother and survival over anything else. After Sasha killed their last landlord, they got taken in by the owners of a bar, who ended up becoming parental figures for them.

They joined the military, which started the group’s plot into uncovering the corrupt leadership of both the empire and the military. Over time they both learned to be more empathic people and made friends. yay!

3. Decay / Wēn Zhìháo

one of my most recent, and dare I say, most favorite ocs! made for, you guessed it, a rp group run by a friend that allowed me to design a deity of sorts. I wanted to make a deity of rot, decay, decomposition and returning life to soil, and that’s how he was born! his design is mostly influenced by my current interest in mxtx novels and desire to step away from my common design tropes. He’s the child of Death and Earth, hence him being Decay. He’s a happy guy, really, but suffers from seasonal depression more than anyone could ever guess from his smiling face.

Only a slight difference, but here’s his mdzs au design ^

4. Cliff / Atlas Reyes

Castus Hollow is a horrendously long story, one I can’t even summarize without skipping over a lot of major plot points. So rather than putting it here, I’ll redirect you to his toyhouse page

Cliff didn’t always look like that, the night sky skin appeared after he got possessed by a dying god, or rather, a dying cosmic horror of sorts.

he’s the guy in my icon!

but anyway that’s it for now, I have an oc tag on instagram and if you have any questions regarding any of them feel free to hit me up!

#Anonymous

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photoddgrapher · 5 years

Photo

Ahoy Mateys!

I am brand new to this platform. I just signed up because I recently started following a Youtube Channel called Photo Assignments. That group started about 3 years ago and I am just starting out today. In the introduction of the Photography Assignments Channel, Ted Forbes (The Art of Photography) suggested that we sign up for a Tumblr account. So being a good student, I decided to follow his lead.

I am a sailor and I enjoy taking photos. My wife Jojo paddles Hawaiian outrigger canoes and our dog Lulu is starting her own blog and that is why you’re going to be witness to a mish-mash of all kinds of stuff in this Tumblr blog. I also author a few other blogs, so I will be treating this space as my laboratory, testing ground and/or staging area until I am comfortable enough with the platform to actually publish a blog with it.

I’ll give you a little background about my photography. I have been taking pictures since I was 5 or 6 years old. I remember my very first camera, a Kodak Brownie that my father gave me. I would shoot black and white photos while traveling with the family every summer throughout my childhood. From then on I recall going through a series of Kodak Pocket Instamatic cameras that took those super easy-to-use 110 film cartridges. It wasn’t until I got into High School when I would own my first 35mm SLR Camera (again a gift from my parents).

That 1st SLR was the infamous Pentax K-1000. Boy, that camera sure did make me feel like a grown-up. I was so stoked to have finally made it to the big leagues that I started taking my photography to the next level. I even set up my own personal photo lab in one of the bathrooms of the house. Truth be told, that was just way too much work and pretty expensive for a kid in high school. I think I dabbled in the darkroom for only a few months because it was so much easier to just drop off those film canisters to the photo store and wait a week to have the images professionally developed. That darkroom stuff was fun for a while, but way too much work.

In college, I managed to destroy a Canon AE-1 which I loaned to a friend to take on a hiking trip. When I got the camera back, it was all sticky and completely ruined. Apparently, there was a leaky fruit punch container in the same backpack that he was carrying my camera around in. I learned early on not to loan gear to friends, unless it was something I could afford to lose. Luckily for me though, that little hiking faux pas was my chance to upgrade my AE-1 to the AE-1 Program which came out that same year (1981). I never got to thank my friend because I guess I was still a bit angry about having to spend $700 that I didn’t have to replace my camera (I think I had to work an entire summer for that single purchase). I would hang on to that new AE-1 Program for over 15 years. To be perfectly honest, I may still have it in storage somewhere, but I’m thinking it may have gotten sold at one of our last moving sales.

Fast forward to the digital age of photography. Those original DSLRs were frankly too damn expensive for a hobbyist. I would have to wait. In the meantime, I must’ve owned at least a half-dozen point-and-shoots. I can recall owning Olympus, Fujifilm, Canon, Panasonic and Sony gear. None of these were really serious cameras. They were handy dandy gear that could be tossed into Jojo’s purse or my backpack (these were before the advent of the phone cameras widely used by most folks today). I think I started buying these bad boys from the time that 1.3MP was the most typical resolution. Today, my iPhone’s camera is almost 10 times as sharp as those early digital cameras.

A fairly long time had passed since I owned a “real” camera and I had never before owned a Nikon. So, in early 2015 (February), I was lucky enough to win all 4 quarters of the Superbowl pool and ended up $400 richer than I was pre-game. I decided to get myself an entry-level DSLR. I went to Costco and saw that the Nikon D3300 Kit was priced at $499.99. That’s $100 over budget, so I decided to wait. One day I was shopping at Sam’s Club and noticed that they had an open box of that same kit and the price was right at $400. Voila! I was able to get into a DSLR at no cost to me (so you could say I lucked into it).

In the summer of 2015 I was asked to chair the Transpac Honolulu Photography Committee. For those who don’t know, the Transpac is a Trans-Pacific Yacht Race from Los Angeles to Honolulu which is held every other year. At that time, I was on the Waikiki Yacht Club’s Board of Directors serving as the Rear Commodore for Power and was very involved with all things WYC. I took over the committee and have been chairing it ever since. One thing that serving in this capacity brought to my attention was how much I needed to improve as a photographer. I was surrounded by professionals and I was merely taking snapshots whilst they were capturing some of the most exciting images imaginable. Action shots of racing yachts from the water, from the sky, you name it and they were capturing it. It made me feel amateurish, mainly because I was.

This year, I’ve decided to up my game. I purchased a second hand Nikon D5500 on Craigslist and decided I would start improving myself as a shooter. I took a lot of Transpac photos again this summer and I decided I wanted to shoot my wife’s Na Wahine O Ke Kai Outrigger Canoe Race from Molokai to Waikiki (41 miles). The first time she did the race was 2014 and I didn’t have the gear. She skipped a few years, and when she did the race again in 2018, I was the Commodore of the Yacht Club and I was away on the Mainland at a function hosted at St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco, so I missed the women��s Molokai race last year. This year, I wanted to capture the event in photographs, mostly for her to show what a truly challenging accomplishment the race is. I took a lot of shots this year and you may be able to find some of that work if you search SmugMug and Facebook. I still want to improve my skills which is why I’ve decided to start these Photo Assignments on Youtube.

I know that this was a really long post for my first Tumblr post, but I wanted to introduce myself by letting you know a little bit of my background and more importantly, why I am here. I’m not sure where I’ll be taking this, but at least I have posted something of a brief history along with what I hope to achieve with this social media space. Wish me luck. It is my intention to share without reservation, so I hope you all enjoy seeing my process from day one... Aloha!

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alterrawrites · 5 years

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The Kingdoms of Faterra: Overview

Hey everyone! I decided to try something new for this blog (again since I have something similar in the works for characters) and start talking about some aspects of Alterra. And why not start with the realm I focus on the most, Faterra. This post is more of an introduction and subsequent posts will go in detail about the different kingdoms and nations. Though, I’d like to ask if anyone would prefer me writing out details in a template like this post or work on it on a site like Worldanvil and link to it on here? Please let me know and I hope you enjoy. Now to make sure I don’t ramble on, here are the Kingdoms of Faterra.

- Sen

More below.

In the realm of Faterra, kingdoms rose and fell at the drop of a gem throughout the course of history. Through fire and bloodshed, through peace and prosperity, and even a century of warfare, 16 kingdoms have made their home on the shores of these lands in the 13th century of the Dragon Years. 10 of them stand as Major Kingdoms, dominating the politics of the realm as they vie for power and control over one another. The other 6 minor Kingdoms play their own game of thrones and war, either against each other or the major Kingdoms that encroach on their borders.

Major Kingdoms

Froa

Froa is the northern continent of Faterra, home to the majority of the Faterran species. A center of warfare and political upheaval time and time again but home to hardy people who stand strong against the chaos that has threatened their homes many times.

Oterra: A kingdom that rules over the rolling plains and forests of central Froa. It is the center of humanity, the one kingdom where they are “truly” united under one flag. Within recent decades, that unity has been thrown into peril as they attempt to deal with the influx of non-humans, specifically the ones from Aslandail who threatened their sovereignty centuries past.

Kadem: The Theocratic Warden of the West. Kadem is home of the Kadembre, a humanoid lizard species native to the swamps and jungle and Salamanders, their more feral cousins. It serves as the seat of power for the Hissan, the dominant religion in the west. Currently, Kaven Tanasi serves as the Histan, or religious, while Tenno X serves as the monarch.

Estro: Also known as the Republic of Estro. A country of dominions ruled by the Assembly, or Kaeldin in their native tongue. Dominant in the forests of central Nataka, the people reign through their representatives and governors. As the leader of the Natakan Confederacy, the Republic struggles to keep the two other kingdoms united, to protect the east from all enemies, especially in the west.

Nunid: In Southern Nataka, the Nun desert grips the landscape. From rolling dunes to flat savannahs, the kingdom of Nunid calls this their home. The Felvin first came from the green plans and forests but they have long since eroded, leaving behind a harsh landscape they struggle to survive in. With the coming of desert folk such as Nagas from Aslandail, the kingdom has a chance to survive beyond their trade with Estro and Oterra.

Lathen: The Warden of the North. Split between the proud Eshal and the warrior Atril cultures, the Wolven call this land of snow and grass their home. A king may only rise if they have proven themselves worthy of the role, following the meritocratic theme of Nataka. They defend the east from the Nedane kingdoms of the north, offering powerful warriors to protect the Natakan Confederation from any threat, especially the humans in the east.

Kesia

The once mighty continent stretched across the southern seas from what would the Corrupted depths to the Endless Sea. However, the Desolation ripped all that apart. The West was ripped to shreds, leaving being isles that would never again reach the power they had in the past. In the East, the entire landmass was ripped into the sky, suspended in the sky thanks to the mana that served as the catalyst for Desolation.

Corvail: The Golden Isles have stood despite Faterra’s attempts to wipe it away. Remnants of the Great Cortavin Empire, they attempt to bring the world to true peace after the chaos of the Demon War. Ruled by the Council – a group of Kentori from all the Isles – they do their best to fix the world but as old rivalries flare up, they may find that harder than expected.

Askia: The Remnants of the Askian Empire in the sky. A center of technological advancement, the Avin look to the stars beyond, ignoring the fractured world below even as the embers of conflict begin to burn once more. Even as Faterra falls, Askia will rise to the realms beyond no matter what the cost.

Oceans

Beneath 3 of the 4 seas, old kingdoms lie dormant. The Selachi, a race of sharkfolk from ancient times slumber beneath the waves, rebuilding their strength as they attempt to aid the surface world above. Splintered between 3 kingdoms, they are the Guardians beneath the Waves.

Latia: A kingdom of trade and commerce, Latia helps ferry transports between Kesia and Froa and aids sailors in their journeys. They are by far the friendliest to the other kingdoms and species, wanting to help them prepare for the next conflict against their greater enemy: the Leviathans.

Tianu: The Watchers of the Abyss. When the Demon War ended, many Leviathans ended up in the Corrupted Depths, a series of trenches oozing with corruption magic. There, they plot their return to power but only the Selachi of Tianu can hold them back. They sacrifice everything to give the Faterrans more time to prepare for the war that will come.

Jado: The explorers in the east. They search the frozen sea for relics of their lost heritage. They sometimes trade with the Natakans but their eyes are set east to the endless Sea beyond. Maybe they can find someplace beyond where the Leviathans may not trouble them and a safe haven for them and the rest of Faterra.

Minor Northern Kingdoms

In the north lie the Nedane, people from across Nataka and Oterra who fled the chaos of the fall of the Faterran Empire. When the Aslandailians came, they were the perfect pawns to use in their war against the Faterrans. Centuries later, the Southerners have not forgotten the blood spilled by their kind. Now the northern kingdoms struggle to survive as they are attacked on all sides by foreigners who would see their way of life extinguished.

Vashak: Vashak is the Gateway to the North for Oterra, currently embroiled in a war against the Wintervale forces who try to conquer their lands. They were the main traders with Oterra before an incident where Wintervale Knights and Vashakian mercenaries were butchered by a feral White Loscath. At least that’s what Wintervale claimed before they invaded the north to “keep the peace.” Now Vashak stands as a bastion to keep the invaders back.

Rajen: Furthest from the war for the north, Rajen serves as the seaport for the north, sailing through the cold seas in search of new islands and new trade partners. In recent decades, they have been looking south to Kadem for new trade to aid their brothers in the war. However, Oterra has led recent naval campaigns to stunt their trade, forcing Rajen to look further west. With the kingdom of Tianu locking the area, they may have to smuggle their way through in order to aid their brothers in arms.

Davik: The Gateway to the North for Nataka. With Oterra pushing against their brothers to the south, Dravik faced the same issue with the Natakans to their east. Faced with a superior military foe, it’s only thanks to the rampant monster problem that Lathen hasn’t conquered them yet. But with rumors that monster hunters may come north soon, it seems like time is running out for Dravik.

Minor Southern Kingdoms

Lucitania: The “kingdom” of Lucitania is more like a collection of city-states that provide trade across the peninsula. Shelsera serves as the center of that union, offering land trade to Abavale and protection for any who seek to escape the troubles in Oterra. However, there isn’t a true peace among them. They still squabble and bicker like the major kingdoms around them, capturing what little territory they can without upsetting the power balance. How long that will go on has yet to be seen, however.

Kavira: A kingdom that refused to join the Lucitanian Union. Instead, the Kaviran kingdom went on a small conquering spree, swallowing up the city-states around it. Currently, it is stuck southeast of the river crossing between its lands and Lucitania but looks to own the entire peninsula by the end, even attacking Lucitania trade ships that try to go around the coast.

Alelas: A kingdom of pirates as the sailors like to call it. Though there is a king who rules there, he more a king of nothing. Alelas is ruled by sailors and pirates who go rouge from their countries, looking to make their own wealth. Some are trade ships that don’t follow the rules of the trading companies they face, others are pirates who raid ships too undefended in the Fallen Sea. Though, they may have to find their trade elsewhere if they want to escape the wrath of the other kingdoms who don’t look too kindly to piracy.

#writeblr #fantasy #writing #worldbuilding #faterra #sen's worldbuilding #he's such a nerd

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theolivechickken · 5 years

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So… I’m in EUROPE

Jan 9

Alternative titles for this first blog post:

The blind side?

Did I mention that my favorite river is De Nile? As in I’m in denial that I’m going abroad for a semester

The hardest goodbye

The shortest drive of my life trying to make it last as long as possible

¡Sorpresa! So January 9th came out of nowhere

I only cried 40 times

When will it sink in?

I don’t know why I’ve been so emotional about leaving these past few days. I love traveling and exploring new places, and I’m excited for this semester. I think I’m a little nervous for the shock when it hits me that I’m going to be away for four months. It’s not a big deal since I’m away from home and in Redlands for school most of the year. Yet it’s a different deal since my home is now in a different country.

And here’s me being real for a hot minute. I’m sad to be away from Nick for so long. I’m not worried about our relationship but I’m going to miss being in his company and sharing moments with him. Sure, we can always FaceTime (and watch Game of Thrones at the same time). But I think the big difference is that I’m not gone for a short trip or May Term. It’s a lot of time, yet I also feel like it will pass quickly and be over in a blink of an eye.

I’m just hoping to be as “in the moment” as I can and enjoy this experience while I have the opportunity :)

I’m also sad to be far away from my big. If you’re reading this Big D, I love you and miss you and we should travel once I recover from being broke from this trip.

I think I've been prepped all my life for long haul travel because it seems to feel shorter and shorter the more I take trips (especially after doing a 16 hour flight to South Africa). I had my first *oh shit* moment where I realized I’d have to navigate LAX by myself once I got dropped off. Bless traveling in groups but also bless people who are veterans or able to do it alone.

I’ve always wondered: how do people get cold in airplanes? I'm always hot and stuffy and lets cross our fingers that I didn't get sick (midway through the flight my throat started to feel very dry and scratchy). And hey what's the deal with airline food (jokes?) But for real why am I so gassy?

10 Hours later we arrived in London had to SPEED RUN THROUGH SECURITY to make it to our connecting flight to Munich. Actually we made it through alright. Even the workers told us that our flight wasn't boarding yet so we didn't need to stress (but Ayetzy did since her bag was stopped by security).

Jan 10

Alternative titles 2.0:

Walking in a winter wonderland

It's a bit nippy

Hey so what's Germany look like? Idk I couldn't tell you since everything is covered in snow

WOW they actually have seasons here

It feels like I'm in a weird dream where I think I'm just in a different state in the US, but I'm actually 13,000 miles away from home. Also, what the heck is a kilometer? What's the exchange rate from the euro to Dollar? How do I mentally convert Fahrenheit to Celsius? At least I prepped for time with a 24 hour clock. But what's the time difference at home? Also, everything is in German (but at the same time, I can recognize words here and there!)

The houses are kinda cute. They look like the houses little kids draw with the pointy roofs and windows in the middle of the wall. Jet lag has my body all out of whack. I’m starviiiiing and trying my best to stay awake on this shuttle ride to Salzburg so I can fall asleep when it gets dark out and reset my body to a new time zone.

Update: I definitely passed out on this shuttle ride.

Seeing all the snow is low-key a shocker (yes I was expecting snow but nothing in my life would have ever prepared me for this much snow) but I'm excited to experience a different life in a different world. Fun fact: this is the most snow that Salzburg has received in a long time. So our shuttle driver wasn’t able to make it up the mountain to our home. He was about to drop us off at the side of the road and make us walk up in the snow, but luckily Sara, Kaya, and Katharina drove down and picked us up!

Once again, I find myself in room no. 9 (a theme?). I remember walking into our home and immediately seeing the staircase. Kaya offered to help us carry our 50lb luggage up the stairs and I was like “Nah, I got this.”

First set of stairs was no problem. Then I realized there was a second set. We made it up but had to catch my breath. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. By this time, Kaya held up the bottom of my suitcase so that I could lift it up the stairs. Thankfully, I’m on the third floor.

Jan 11

We started off the morning with a light breakfast in the Mendel and then toured our building, Monschberg 21. I love it here. It’s quite charming and cozy. We are settled in the backyard of a park and on the top of a mountain, which gives us a beautiful grand view of the city. I better have swol legs from hiking this mountain and climbing 3-4 sets of stairs multiple times a day in the Monschberg.

Our classroom is on the fourth floor (along with a student/study room, a yoga/relaxing room in the tower, a small gym room, and a cozy library). The dining room (Mendel), student kitchen, and Marcus’ kitchen is on the first. Did I mention there’s also a basement? And a dungeon. And a Winter garden (probably my favorite room in the house)!

We all gathered in the Winter Garden for an introduction to culture in Salzburg. Turns out that Red Bull was invented here, and Mozart hated Salzburg. None of the locals really know what the Sound of Music is, but it’s important for tourism. In the US waiters shower customers in unsolicited, overly-friendly conversation and attention, but here you have to flag down the waiters for the check and they’ll leave you alone for the most part (which I could get used to actually). It’s encouraged to sit down and spend time with friends and families at restaurants (and Western food-to-go culture isn’t really a thing). People like to follow rules (especially older folk) so we probably shouldn’t be jaywalking or walking in the lane designated for bikes. We also learned some basic German words and phrases to help us get around town. And people here are very literal. If you ask them how they are, they will tell you how it is (instead of replying with a quick “I’m good” or “I’m fine”).

We took a break to have a delicious home cooked lunch. Marcus prepared pork, fried rice, and a salad. Afterwards, we threw on a butt ton of layers and walked down into the city for a tour. We passed by the opera house, Mozart’s birthplace and statue, Salzburg cathedral, and neighboring shops in the city.

I was toasty for the most part, but when we stood for long periods of time, my toes started to get cold. Also, I probably should have worn a scarf, but I also didn’t die without it. We were also able to explore a bit on our own before dinner. Raine, Aubree, Patrick, and I were trying to find a coffee house (that wasn’t overly bougie), and we stopped inside an Italian coffee shop to warm up.

We tried our best to use our navigation senses to try to find the Mozart statue and then Patrick wandered off and disappeared. We threw some chunks of snow at each other as the locals quietly passed by and then Patrick reappeared with Kaya and Sara. We walked to Zum Zirkelwirt and had Goulasch, Stiegl, and Kaiser schmarrn for dinner. It was also Nadia’s 21st birthday (and Patrick and Savanna had also recently celebrated January birthdays) so we headed to O’Malleys for drinks. I tried a shamrock cocktail and an Apple Strudel shot - both were surprisingly pretty tasty.

For the most part, our group is directionally challenged. I like to think I’m good with directions, but it was also difficult navigating around town at night when major landmarks are covered in snow. We didn’t know where the horse statue was located, so we went around in circles before turning right up the street and finding the bike tunnel back to the stairs by our mountain. A crazy ol’ (schwasted?) Austrian lady stumbled into our path and started shouting and mumbling things we couldn’t understand. It was an interesting spectacle to say the least. The snow started coming down hard and we ended up climbing 100 steps up the mountain and then getting lost at the fork in the road at the top. We ~eventually~ made it home and all in one piece :) Great start to the semester.

#Studying Abroad #Salzburg #Salzburg Semester

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lacrossecouponing-blog · 6 years

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Introduction to Couponing

So, you live in La Crosse and you’re interested in couponing. I don’t blame you. You can literally clear a shelf of its products and get paid to do so. You can create a stockpile that will last you months, even years, for a fraction of the regular cost. You can set your family up for success. You will never run out of toilet paper, toothpaste or body wash again.

However, you don’t have the slightest idea of where to begin. Trust me, you’re not alone. Every couponer has gone through an awkward learning phase. When I started couponing in January, I had no idea what I was doing. I made all of the mistakes you possibly could. And I still make mistakes.

The overall purpose of this blog is to help others save money through couponing. I have had plenty of family and friends ask me to teach them how to coupon, but it takes much more than a verbal explanation. It takes practice, patience and research.

This blog post will help you understand the very basics of couponing so you can start the learning process. Read the following points below to start your couponing journey. Notice that it gets complicated quickly, but the best way to learn couponing is to muddle through a few deals until you get the swing of things. Let’s begin:

0. Couponers Can -- and Should -- Give Back

Before I even start teaching you how to coupon, we need to get one thing crystal clear. Couponing is a great way to stockpile and prepare yourself. It is not, however, an excuse to be selfish. I have heard of couponers throwing away hundreds of tubes of toothpaste because they expired. That should not happen.

Couponing enables you to give back to the community. For me, because I’m on a tight college budget, I struggle to find ways to give back. But through couponing, I’ve been able to donate much needed items to much deserving organizations, such as New Horizons and the Coulee Region Humane Society. Always keep in mind what you can do for others with your new knowledge of couponing.

1. It’s not like TLC’s “Extreme Couponing”

If you’ve ever seen the show, please understand that real life couponing is nothing like that. You will never spend 4 hours in a store pushing 6 carts. Even if you find yourself in a scenario where that’s possible, I don’t recommend it. You’ll end up messing something up at the register, annoying the employees and those behind you in line, and looking like a crazy person.

On a good day, I’ll get $100 worth of merchandise for $5, not $1,200 for $.02 like in the show.

2. Store’s Don’t Just Give Stuff Away

You’re never going to come across a store that will automatically give you free or cheap stuff. They will never advertise the potential to get merchandise for free. Additionally, you will rarely come across “easy” deals that get you free stuff with a single coupon. Instead, the good deals happen when you combine a sales promotion with coupons, points, and rebates. More on that later.

3. In La Crosse, Walgreen’s is King

I’ve had success couponing at Target and Walmart, but nothing beats Walgreen’s. Other areas of the country have CVS, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous. CVS has incredible deals that are usually a hair better than Walgreen’s. La Crosse simply doesn’t have CVS, so I would ignore those deals and focus on Walgreen’s.

That said, most of this blog will be about couponing at Walgreen’s. We have 4 Walgreen’s in the area: Hwy 16, West Ave, Mormon Coulee Rd and Rose St. If I find a good deal at Walmart or Target, I will be sure to post that on one of my social media platforms, so be sure to follow me!

4. Deals Come and Go Weekly

Most of the deals are Sunday to Sunday. This is because, as I mentioned earlier, to get a good deal, you must layer coupons, rebates, points, etc on top of the sales that stores are having. And most stores sales last for a week. Understand that to keep up with the deals you must do your research and get organized on a weekly basis.

Deals on certain items come and go, so you don’t want to wait. For example, I recently scored a pile of makeup for about $5, but I might not see another deal on that makeup for 3 months.

Also, be prepared to hit Walgreens early on Sunday, especially for the hot deals. You’re not the only couponer in town.

5. Sign Up for Walgreen’s “Card”

Like I said, Walgreen’s is where 90% of your couponing will happen. It’s IMPERATIVE that you sign up for a Walgreen’s Balance Rewards Card here. When you shop at Walgreens, 99% of the sales will be posted “with card.” That means that without the card you might as well stay home. The card is table stakes, so get one!

In addition to getting the sale price, the card is how you earn points. More on points later, but they are extremely important in the couponing world. Long story short, you can earn points and use them on later transactions. Points are practically cash.

P.S. - Although Walgreen’s calls it a “card,” it’s attached to your phone number, so don’t worry about the physical card. Just make sure you enter your phone number every time you check out at the register.

P.P.S. – Download the Walgreen’s app on your phone. It’s extremely useful to see what’s in stock, look at the weekly ad, see how many points you have and clip digital coupons.

6. Follow Social Media Pages

Believe it or not, there are people who make a living through couponing. Not only do they go out and get stuff for free, they also manage social pages to help others coupon. These social pages help them earn money through ad revenue.

These folks will do the heavy lifting each week. They track down the deals, coupons and other specifics into “matchups.” That way you don’t’ have to think about it at all. All you have to do is get your coupons organized, go to the store and get the deals! Here is an example of a coupon matchup video created by Running Kimono for May 20-26. These couponing experts typically post the matchups a few days before Sunday so you can get organized.

The following are a few pages and channels I recommend that you follow:

Savy Coupon Shopper (YouTube) Running Kimono (YouTube) Hillary Hok (YouTube)

Couponing at Walgreens (Facebook) Walgreens Couponing (Facebook)

I prefer YouTube videos because the deals are personable and detailed. If you’re serious about couponing, I cannot stress how important it is to follow these pages and familiarize yourself. These people know way more than I do and have the patience to hunt down deals for us each week.

7. The Sources of Coupons

When you think of coupons, you might think of your standard paper coupons that you get in the newspaper. Although that’s one type of coupon, there’s so much more to it. I personally do not purchase the Sunday paper because it’s $4.00 and the point of couponing is to save money. However, my dad does get the Sunday paper, so I make sure to get the coupons from his paper if I need them. Thanks dad! Here’s a list of different ways to acquire coupons:

• The Sunday Paper (not recommended) • Walgreen’s Digital Coupons – these are coupons that Walgreen’s offers in their app. I personally find them to be confusing and sometimes they don’t work; however, I’ll use them occasionally. • Printing Coupons from Various Sources, Mostly coupons.com - you’ll be allowed two prints per coupon, per device. This is my primary source of coupons. Although you must invest in a printer and ink, it’s well worth it. • Bulk Purchasing Individual Coupons from Klip2Save – this is a great way to get a ton of coupons for those hot deals. Instead of spending $20 on multiple copies of the paper, I spent about $3 (with shipping) to get exactly what I need. This takes much more planning and patience, since you have to wait half a week to get the coupons, but it’s worth it. I don’t know where this company gets the coupons, but it works and it’s legit.

8. Points = CASH

Just like the heading says, points are equivalent to cash in most couponers minds. That said, 1,000 points is equivalent to $1.00. Walgreen’s also offers a better value for your points when you get a higher value, more on that here. For example, 40,000 points is equal to $50. But most couponers stick to the general rule of thumb, which is 1,000 points=$1. Cash money.

Let’s say you purchase a tube of toothpaste for $2.99 and you earn 2,000 points. In a couponers mind, you got that tube of toothpaste for $.99 after points. On your next transaction, you can use those points to pay. And as couponers, of course there will be another transaction.

As if this isn’t already confusing enough, there are a couple other rules you MUST understand about points. If a deal states that you must SPEND money to get points, you CANNOT use points to pay. If a deal states that you must BUY a certain quantity of items to earn points, you CAN use points to pay. Yes, that was confusing, but trust me, it’ll make much more sense once you practice.

I hope that this initial blog post gave you a good introduction to couponing in the La Crosse Area. If you have any questions, leave them in a comment below or on any of my social pages. Couponing is my favorite hobby. It’s addicting and it enables positive change in my life and in others. I genuinely hope that you try it out.

Next week, we will take a more detailed look at rebates and rewards. Until then, happy couponing!

#MKT400UWL

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taohua-shuohua · 6 years

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July 16th & 17th, 2018

As the program marches on—we’ve only a week left on the Xiamen University campus; after the 26th we live with our host families for two weeks before leaving for a half-week in Beijing and ultimately a return flight to Newark—the combination of time and energy necessary to write for my blog becomes harder and harder to scrounge up. I expect many future posts will be large chunks of time rather than single days. I expect this news, while welcomed by my mother, to be slightly less-favored by my roommates, who will be hearing the clicking of my keys for the two hours.

July the 16th was buzzing with nervous energy. That afternoon was set to be occupied by our first-ever on-site oral proficiency exam, an interview conducted by a program teacher who was not our own designed to measure our grasp of the topics we’d covered so far in the class. My Chinese class timeslot of nine to eleven-fifty in the morning was spent entirely on review for the test. There were seven possible topics: self-introduction, our recent trip to Shanghai, the history of Xiamen University and its campus layout, Xiamen’s climate compared to that of our hometowns, non-academic pursuits the NSLI-Y program offered, ordering food in a restaurant, and an activity where we would be shown a four-panel comic without dialogue and have to extrapolate and dictate a story from them; we would randomly be asked about three to four of the seven. As we broke for lunch, I was feeling confident about all except food ordering.

Like usual, I attended Dr. Chen’s history lecture and my folk dance lesson. Suddenly, 3:30 in the afternoon (and thus the testing period) was upon us. Students were assigned to teachers and given an order to go in, and told to wait in the hallway. Twenty-eight students in a tight space doing last-minute preparation for an exam is never a relaxing experience. I was to be the 2nd student tested by Ma Laoshi, who normally teaches the Intermediate I class section, and, in an attempt to soothe myself, reasoned that because she taught beginners, she was more likely to speak slower and thus be easier to understand. As the testing began, chaperones called for Ma Laoshi’s first student. No one gave any indication that they had been hailed. Another call, another period of awkward silence. There was a shuffling of paper, and Ma Laoshi’s second student was invited into the room. My time to shine.

I didn’t end up having to talk about ordering food. In fact, I pretty much hit the jackpot. After a self-introduction (name, hometown, grade, family members, past Chinese experience), I spoke for about a minute and a half each on tourist spots in Shanghai, buildings and landmarks in XMU, and my visit to the Xiamen Foreign Language School. Overall, I was feeling excellent about my performance. The best part? Once each student had completed their exam (which, for me, was by 3:45), they were free to enjoy the rest of the day at their own discretion. The only other scheduled activity was a shopping trip to Zhongshan Road, a popular commercial street near the university, and that was reserved for the groups that had won “Group of the Week” through a system of points awarded or taken away based on behavior. A few days prior, program officials had announced that Groups 4 and 5 had won for that week and should meet in the lobby at 5:30 on the 16th. I was in Group 1, so I was already planning a quiet evening in, possibly writing another blog post. My plans were (welcomingly) shattered, however, around 5:50, by my group leader’s frantic yelling in the corridor outside my room, alternating between my name and “小女儿” (xiǎo nǚér; little daughter, a nickname I received as part of an elaborate inside joke). Once I opened the door, he hurriedly informed me that there had been an error—it was us who had won Group of the Week, not Group 4, and the group needed to assemble in the front of the building in the next five minutes so we could reap our reward. I was mostly-prepared, and was able to hustle down to the bottom floor and join my cohort. People were overjoyed—we had previously mused that Group 1 (the official name of which is 黑龙 (hēi lóng; Black Dragons) had been completely robbed of our title after consistently performing in group activities. And now we were vindicated.

I spent the ride on the public bus—around twenty minutes—chatting with another group member. Once we arrived, an issue became apparent—since none of us had known we were going until it was time to leave, none of us had seen any reason to eat so early in the evening. Luckily, there was a McDonald’s right across the street from the bus stop. There’s simply no better way to remind oneself of the beauty of American culture. After our meal, we elected to make a detour through a few smaller streets before hitting a central shopping mall. I purchased some souvenirs for family and, once we reached the mall, three eyeshadows palettes that cost almost twice what they do in the U.S., but came with three free hats. Our final stop was a Chinese department store. I was able to find jeans that fit me—good news, as I had neglected to pack any long pants, as well as a dress and two shirts. My one hiccup was that the store, despite our having been told that stores in malls would generally accept credit cards, didn’t accept American cards. I had almost enough in cash in my wallet, and Ren Laoshi paid the remainder through WeChat Pay, which seems to be the largest component of China’s day-to-day economy. Concerned that the public buses’ schedules wouldn’t be able to accommodate the time we needed to be home, chaperones divided us into groups of three and sent us, each group accompanied by a chaperone, onto a series of taxis. I arrived back on campus a little before ten, and spent the night in a gossip session with my roommates. I went to bed late—a poor choice, especially given the agenda for tomorrow, but it would’ve taken a lot more than falling asleep at 12:30 to bring my mood down.

On the morning of the 17th of July, NSLI-Y students boarded a bus to the city of Quanzhou, about an hour-and-a-half’s ride out of Xiamen. The theme for the excursion, as our tour guide impressed upon us, was Quanzhou’s status in China as a cultural melting pot. The now-metropolitan city’s origins lay in the fact that it was the eastern end of the Maritime Silk Road. As a result of this, it had a lot of exposure to non-Buddhist religions, notably Islam; Dr. Chen informed us that Quanzhou is home to a large amount of Muslim Chinese, most of them descended from Arab traders who originally settled there during the time of the Silk Road. Our first stop, however, wasn’t a mosque—it was Kaiyuan Buddhist temple, intricately large and dotted with phoenix trees, the official city tree of Xiamen. Incense was free, three sticks per person; after exploring the area, I joined Song Laoshi and Wu Laoshi, two chaperones, in praying to the Buddha. It went significantly better than my first time using incense in Shanghai’s Jade Buddha Temple, where I burned my hand by accident. Flesh intact, I extinguished my sticks in the ash provided and joined the rest of the group, which was assembling to depart for lunch.

Lunch was served banquet style at a round table, a refreshing change from Xiamen cafeteria’s ever-crowded buffet. After its conclusion, we boarded the bus once more, this time headed to Guandi Temple and Qingjing Mosque, the latter a house of worship for the city’s aforementioned Muslim population and the former specializing, we were told, in fulfilling the prayers of those seeking love.

Guandi Temple is directly adjacent to a market area where people were selling the usual jade bracelets and Mao Zedong busts, as well as some more eccentric caged birds and porn magazines. Once again, I joined Song Laoshi in praying. Afterwards, the two of us made our way to Qingjing Mosque, where the rest of the program had already clumped outside the entrance. They weren’t going in, however—the short shorts and sleeveless tops worn by the majority of the students, while useful for fending off Quanzhou’s heat, meant we were barred from entry to the mosque. It made sense in retrospect, but was still a bit disappointing, and I was surprised no program coordinators had realized it beforehand. We boarded on the bus once more, this next ride lasting not even ten minutes. We’d reached our final pair of destinations, the Quanzhou Maritime Museum and the separate but closely-positioned Arabic Museum. The Maritime Museum featured a beautiful collection of maps and early ship designs that originated from or docked in Quanzhou. The caveat, however, was that once you had spent about fifteen minutes walking through the small exhibit hall, you had seen the entirety of the museum. By some combination of fate and good fortune, the museum was also hosting two other student groups at the time: similar but unrelated programs where teenagers of Chinese descent could enjoy a “roots-finding” trip to the country, one based out of Canada and the other out of Australia. We intermingled for a bit; I learned that Australians call cantaloupe “rockmelon”, which is easily the biggest dose of culture shock I’ve received so far in the entire experience. Following the Maritime Museum, we visited the Arabic Museum, where we were greeted by a statue of Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta and a large amount of grave stones. Once again, however, the museum didn’t house enough materials to keep us occupied for the allotted hour and a half, and my peers boarded the bus while I was in the bathroom. I wasn’t left behind, thankfully, and didn’t even lose my team any points, so perhaps another shopping trip is in our near future. I’ll be sure to pen an update if I do.

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