#lots of hard work but also so much uncertainty about my future career/life etc | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

twenytwenytwo · 1 year

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Dec 13 2022 (6:53am)

Feeling mostly fine this morning, but a zippy, nervous energy is still present in me.

This energy seems very interesting in figuring things out, surveying my life, and finding safety.

It’s also interesting in looking far ahead and figuring out where were going and if it likes it or not. Because things are uncertain lately, it’s hard to confidently see I guess.

Three questions:

1. What is certain and what is uncertain lately?

2. What destination am I worried/uneasy about seeing in the future?

3. How do these certainties/uncertainties bring me closer or further from this potential future.

1a) It’s certain that there are some uncertain feelings right now. When this is the case, anything I do, large or small, is trying to fit into a safe image for the future. Sometimes I don’t know how or if it helps create a good future, so I get nervous or confused. I’m uncertain how the band situation will develop. I’m uncertain about how Izzy and I will be in the future. I’m uncertain the generalities of my life will look like in 5 years (no shit). There’s a feeling of “I must be careful” right now, otherwise I could make things more uncertain or complicated (this pretty unrealistic).

1b) What sort of behaviours, actions, choices, etc would likely complicate a future, regardless of what future it is? I suppose one would be doing drugs, running from feelings and unpleasant thoughts, feeling angry about things, not continuing in a balanced manner, being mean, not putting time into useful skills (not practicing)… that’s all I can think of right now. I’m not really doing any of those things, except maybe I could practice useful skills more.

2a) The future I worry about is basically just the feelings I have now, except solidified situationally. I feel uneasy about how my work-life relationship will work, and how it will work with my music life, and what exactly my music life will be. I feel uneasy about my current friendships and where they’ll end up, worried they’ll continuing to drift out into weirdness (that there*). Worried I’ll always be overwhelmed by life too much to enjoy it (self fulfilling prophecy). Generalized, I guess it’s living some ambiguous version of life where everything is sorta fine, lots is up in the air, but there’s little certainty or enjoyment, which again just sounds like right now.

There’s also this funny effect of how lots of time has gone by, but not a lot has changed. I work a part time job, I live with my mom, and I’m trying to do stuff. Perhaps that’s oversimplified, probably is. It’s a far cry from my school days when things always felt in motion, the years were punctuated by moving houses, friends, new things, upward, forward. Right now, I feel like I’m on a dirt plateau in a canoe, wiggling along thinking “what the fuck”. Of course this is a metaphor, and could surely be replaced by something more useful.

Just because things are annoying, uncertain, in flux, doesn’t mean that things are going to end up bad. They’ll probably end up in some partly satisfying and certain, partly annoying and uncertain conclusion… kinda like right now. So manage your impatience, your paranoidness, because they’re not doing anything besides being unpleasant distractions for you.

There are some core things right now that are in a state of uncertainty. That will happen plenty more times in my life, and has happened before. I think difference right now is I’m also going through a significant change, so it’s hard to tell how everything’s dancing.

I’m still a cool music, I’m still in a really cool house (gotta clean the effer up!), Ethan and I are on a good path, I’ve got a new career path that is going to be great, I got out of a very stressful relationship. I’m in a period of reinvention and refinement. It’s awesome, but also fuckin scary. I want everybody to be happy and okay, I don’t want to feel so much aching inside me, I want my future to embody the best parts of my past (there’s a topic for exploration).

I think, as I thought before, making conclusions about stuff, particularly career path, is going to help me hum a little more harmoniously. I think of times I have to make a simple, kinda unimportant decision. “It’s 3pm. Should I go home or go do something else for a bit, and then go home?” I get stirred up sometimes, and the thing that helps is thinking that it doesn’t matter what I decide, it’s arbitrary, do whatever you want. Maybe thinking like that with big life decisions is useful, ironically.

I feel like I could do that easily with work, other decisions that only require me, but when it comes to stuff involving people… it feels more complicated. That feeling could be an interesting indication of something useful.

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studiopeachz · 3 years

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Task Brainstorm & Research

What am I passionate about?

Food

Cultures

Traveling

Music

tattoos/illustrations/designs

art/painting/drawing

Mental health

Self discovering/acceptance/explorations/expressions

What do you wish more people understood?

I wish people understood more about the different forms of self expression through different ways such as art, design, fashion, literature, etc.

I wish people understood more about human rights, or general personal choices without judgement

What do you feel strongly about?

I feel strongly about self love and acceptance because the factors of accepting ourselves can be hard but can make us flourish, and gives us opportunities to express how we feel

What makes you feel good?

Art in different forms makes me feel good has it drives my curiosity to learn and dig deeper for meaningful things

Beauty and self acceptance, embracing our imperfections

Wise words/sayings that inspire and impact me and others in a positive way

What makes me unhappy?

As an empathetic person, I feel unhappy for the one who also feels unhappy or any certain unstable emotions.

Making mistakes also make me upset as it is hard to admit our own wrong doings

Stereotypes, because it gives us an invalid label to individuals which do not define us as a whole

I don’t like when people judge you right away without knowing you

If you could fix something, what would it be?

I would want to fix the past mistakes i have done, wishing i could of done better

I would of want to fix the moments that I wish i could of done or fulfilled which leads to present regrets

What would you like to see in the future?

I would like to see everyone in the world to be kinder, and more understanding towards each other as it gives opportunities to get to know individuals truly, without having to judge them right away.

I would also like to see people normalizing natural and imperfect things and different creations of forms of self expression without any judgement, but curiosity instead.

What would you like to shine a light on?

I would like to raise awareness about the beauty of differences and self expression, even in peculiar artistic ways

What do you see that others don’t see?

As an optimistic person, I like to see the good in everything, therefore I have this willingness to listen and to understand situations, stories, and journeys of others.

I find the most imperfect things to be beautiful.

Things about Gen Z

https://www.livingfacts.org/en/articles/2020/meet-gen-z

https://danschawbel.com/blog/39-of-the-most-interesting-facts-about-generation-z/

Demographics

Gen Zers are also the most diverse generation. Research by the Center determined that nearly half (48%) of 6- to 21-year-old Gen Zers are racial or ethnic minorities, compared with 39% of Millennials in that age bracket in 2002 and more than double the percentage of early Baby Boomers in 1968.

Attitudes

In many instances, the youngest generation’s views follow Millennials’ social attitudes, and are in stark contrast to the oldest group, the Silent Generation, with Baby Boomers and Gen Xers falling in the middle.

For example, 70% of Gen Zers say government should do more to solve societal problems, rather than leaving it to businesses and individuals. By comparison, 64% of Millennials and only 39% of Silents say government should do more. Similarly, roughly 6 in 10 Gen Zers and Millennials say increasing racial and ethnic diversity is good for society, compared with about 4 in 10 Silents.

Gen Z’s as consumers

55% of Gen Z would rather buy clothes online and 53% would rather buy books and electronics online. [JWT]

Their favorite items to spend money on are food and drink (36%), going out with friends (32%) and clothes (18%). [Visa]

66% want to own both houses and cars in their lifetimes. [Deep Focus]

Gen Z’s most used tech devices are the smartphone (15.4 hours/week), TV (13.2 hours/week) and a laptop (10.6 hours/week). [Vision Critical]

50% would look on their phone to look for a better price while shopping at a retail store. [Gen HQ]

63% are concerned when it comes to protecting their identity when paying with a debit or credit card online or in a retail store. [Gen HQ]

Gen Z values

76% are concerned about man’s impact on the planet. [JWT]

79% of display symptoms of emotional distress when kept away from their personal electronic devices. [University of Maryland]

90% would be upset if they had to give up their Internet connection while only 51% would give up eating out and 56% would give up downloading music. [JWT]

84% multitask with an Internet-connected device while watching TV. [Forrester Research]

They have more than 10 apps on their smartphone with 10% having more than 40. [Visa]

60% of Gen Zs say “a lot of money” is a sign of success. [Deep Focus]

What are some general Gen Z issues/behaviours/values:

Social anxiety (mental health)

Racial equality

Gender identity

Self esteem

Political and social issues

Technology/ social media content

Personal beliefs and values in comparison to older generations

Speaking up/inner voice

Stress response

Optimistic attitude “it is what it is”

Three Campaign Ideas relatable to Gen Z demographic In Aotearoa:

(self expression)

gender identity / fashion & style / art & design / illustration / ink / skin art - tattoos

(self acceptance & confidence)

Body Image & Positivity / cultural roots / growth / well-being /

(cultural diversity)

Culture / tradition / ethnicity / foundation /

Research Gen z with self expression, self acceptance, and cultural diversity

WHAT DOES SELF-EXPRESSION REALLY MEAN TO GEN Z?https://www.havaspeople.com/project/what-does-self-expression-really-mean-to-gen-z/

We always knew that Gen Z would be distinctive. They are the first true digital natives, and grew up during times of uncertainty (the wake of the last financial crisis and Brexit in the UK). But over the last year the identity of this generation has been further shaped in a profound way as some of their most formative years are taking place against the backdrop of a global pandemic, with the significant interruptions that has wrought to school, university, and early working lives, as well as social connections. Gen Z were on the precipice of progress when COVID hit “pause” on life. And yet many Gen Zers are emerging as resilient, energized, and eager to express themselves and have their voices heard.

Rinsta (real) and Finsta (fake) social media accounts, often to keep certain aspects of their life hidden from family, potential employers, and others outside of their close social circles). Yet – on the whole – they trust the technology brands and platforms themselves.

69% of Gen Z believe that brands should make their stance on social and political issues known publicly. I believe this is what Gen Z mean by brand authenticity.

showing us that authenticity does not just mean having a clear point of view, but also using your clout as a brand to share and amplify the causes that matter to you.

showing your own alignment with the purpose and intent of a brand. Gen Z see the brands who they follow, ‘like’, and buy as a personal reflection of them as individuals, which is why they are prepared to pay more for brands that they believe support sustainability. If that’s how profoundly Gen Zers believe the impact of their consumer choices can affect the way they express themselves, it stands to reason that this will cut even deeper with regard to career choices, which is one of the reasons

This seems an important aspect of self-expression. Gen Z share a willingness to discuss issues in an open reflective way, and to seek out different opinions, which is one reason social channels are increasingly viewed as credible sources of news. To give another example, Gen Z are more comfortable talking about mental health issues than previous generations. While this can be attributed in part to the overall rise in awareness and acceptance of mental health issues over the last fifteen years, it is a noticeable shift from previous generations.

https://extremereach.com/blog/for-gen-z-consumption-is-about-self-expression/ “Consumption for this generation is an expression of individual identity.”

“Some people are angry and resentful because they feel like their voice isn’t heard, so clothing is a space where they can be self-governed.”

They’re experiencing brands in every corner of their online life and so these same “brands need to beware this generation’s discernment because they have a bloodhound-like nose for inauthenticity.”

We’ve been more empowered than ever, so why are Gen-Z the least confident generation yet? https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/gen-z-least-confident-generation

Indeed, statistics show that, instead of a defining feeling of hope among Gen Z, there is a groaning sense of pessimism - of hopelessness. Long running research from University College London, revealed earlier this year that depression levels are two-thirds higher than millennials. The study found 14.8 per cent of 14-year-olds in 2015 said they were depressed, compared to 9 per cent in 2005. While 14.4 per cent of young people said they had self-harmed, compared to 11.8 per cent a decade ago.

“I feel like Gen Z and millennials occupy a really interesting place in politics,” says Nogia, 20 “- we’ve only known austerity, we’ve only know casual work, we’ve only know life long sentences of debt for getting an education and we’re living in an age of populism and hatred in politics.”

So, is this having a detrimental effect on a generation’s mental health and personal confidence? Pretty much.

Youth Engagement Officer at YoungMinds, “Young people today have to navigate a huge range of pressures, from school or university stress, to worries over their career and housing prospects, to the rise of social media, which can make problems like bullying or body image issues more intense than they were in the past.”

Social media is - predictably - a major cause of generational anxiety. Not only is it connecting us to the world’s most depressing news stories, it is also connecting us to a plethora of airbrushed, Facetuned accounts making us feel terrible about ourselves. No wonder confidence is low.

Gen Z demands more diversity and inclusion from brands https://www.campaignlive.com/article/gen-z-demands-diversity-inclusion-brands/1705491

Gen Zers made clear throughout the study that they want brands to step up their efforts around representation. For example, 76% of Gen Zers said they feel diversity and inclusion is an important topic for brands to address, compared to 72% of millennials, 63% of Gen Xers and 46% of Baby Boomers who felt the same.

“Consumers don't want to see brands making an effort to be inclusive just for means of publicity,” said Jenna Stearns, researcher at quantilope and lead on the report. “They want to see something that's authentic and consistent.”

But brands that resonate most with Gen Z consumers are consistent in their support of social justice. Target, for example, has been vocal around LGBTQIA awareness and Pride month for years, said Steph Rand, senior research consultant at quantilope.

“These brands are rising to the top because they are sustaining and consistently making [these issues] a priority, either in their communications or around the content they produce,” Rand said.

Responses regarding representation also varied by race, gender and sexual orientation. Individuals responded they feel their gender is more represented in mainstream media (70% male; 66% female) and brand advertising (71% male; 68% female) than their sexual orientation or ethnicity.

In 2021, consumers hope to see more individuals with disabilities represented in advertising and media, as well as more authentic PR backed up by action.

Integrated Awareness Campaign Examples:

Self Expression Campaign example: https://www.lsnglobal.com/youth/article/24865/a-kombucha-campaign-that-celebrates-self-expression

Los Angeles – Health-Ade Kombucha’s latest campaign targets a new generation of health-conscious drinkers.

The campaign, You Brew You, introduces the brand’s new flavour and packaging concepts, as well celebrating the popularisation of kombucha. Diverging from traditional drinks advertising, it features a series of young models in bright clothing with colourful, neon-lit backdrops.

While kombucha brands tend to communicate in a way that focuses on health, wellness and fitness activities such as yoga, Health-Ade Kombucha is on a mission to change the image of the beverage and target a new generation of digitally-native consumers.

As the younger generation look to the future and consider how drinking impacts their health, they are turning towards soft drinks with additional health benefits. For more, explore the insight section of our macrotrend Anxiety Rebellion.

Self love/acceptance Campaign Example: https://fredandfar.com/blogs/ff-blog/banksy-made-me-do-it-transforming-everyday-ads-into-self-love-campaigns

This stunt can have multiple meanings, as Banksy often uses his art to comment on such structures as capitalism, power imbalances, and corruption.

Wrapped up in the Banksy frenzy ourselves, we started questioning art and its subjective worth. What makes art valuable? What qualifies as art? In what way can art be used or manipulated to impact our everyday lives? We live in a world saturated by advertisements, media and marketing targeting and manipulating us to be passive consumers. Thinking about what we are subjected to daily by multimillion dollar companies is eye opening, as is Banksy’s take on copyright laws and advertising.

Banksy urges, “any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.”

So let’s take back the power. We got the ball rolling by taking some campaigns and slogans you might recognize, and turning them into campaigns for self love and acceptance.

Join us by creating your own better slogan and use the hashtag #banksymademedoit. What we need is more self love in the world. Let’s saturate the world with our mission.

Cultural Diversity Campaign Example: https://www.refuelagency.com/blog/examples-of-brands-who-got-multicultural-marketing-right/

Rihanna’s brand, Fenty, is all but synonymous with authentic inclusive marketing, created on the foundation that everyone woman is beautiful and should feel included. In 2017, Fenty Beauty launched 40 shades of foundation, and that has since grown to 50. Chaédria LaBouvier wrote in Allure that Fenty Beauty’s sheer number of foundation colors is “a statement that women of color deserve complex options”.

Rihanna shared that, “It’s important to me that every woman feel included in this brand.” Once this campaign launched, it had a ripple effect called “The Fenty Effect”, a movement calling for brands to challenge the status quo in advertising.

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vagarius · 4 years

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misukazu 21

(if you saw me fuck up the other one no you didnt)

EDIT I THINK THIS ONE GOT A LITTLE FUCKED UP TOO BUT IT’S... READABLE...

questions from this post, and answers originally written for this thread!!

If you had to change the pairing’s very first meeting, how would you change it? their canon first meeting is already so good SHDGFLJASHG but if i had to choose a different one that's still within the context of mankai... meeting as kids and losing touch and coming back together completely different at mankai

What song fits your pairing the most? uhhHHhhHHH i don't have a real answer but i do have a partial playlist for one of my misukazu aus and the only two songs in it are furaregai girl by sayuri and champagne's for celebrating by mayday parade and i feel like that says enough sldhgalsdhfalsh

What is your favorite AU/prompt idea/trope for your pairing? ALL MISUKAZU AUS ARE GOOD but. i really love any au where their first meeting is in the future and both are still kind of lost but they're Older and it's hard to let themselves fall into the easy trust they find in canon. i just think that'd be neat.

Do you prefer canon ideas or do you have your own headcanons for them? I'VE SAID THIS MANY TIMES BUT CANON MISUKAZU GIVES OFF MADE FOR EACH OTHER VIBES AND USUALLY I DON'T VIBE WITH THAT BUT THEY REALLY ARE WHAT THE OTHER NEEDS... AND I THINK EVEN IF THEY HAD TO PART THEY'D STILL BE ABLE TO BE BETTER PEOPLE BC THEY HAD MET

Favorite canon moment of them? THERE ARE SO MANY but the one that immediately comes to mind is misumi carrying drunk kazu to bed (latest bday line) because drunk kazu is so soft and it implies that misumi wanted to wish happy birthday to kazu pretty late... what did he want to give him...

Least favorite canon moment of them? hmm... there's not really one i can think of??? IM SORRY I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY I LOVE ALL THEIR CANON MOMENTS

Favorite headcanon trope/idea? (Your own or someone else’s) this is somehow both vague and very specific but i think misukazu gives off this vibe: He's beautiful. I can't tell him. or "Kazu is always beautiful~" Don't call me that, Kazu thinks. I'm not. so... insecurities i guess ????? AJSHAJJD

Favorite aspect of them/their relationship dynamics? THIS IS GOING TO SOUND SO CHEESY but i love how /real/ they allow themselves to be around each other. misukazu at their best is when one thinks "you're you. and i love that you" and the other knows this. i just. THEY VALIDATE THE OTHER SO MUCH CRIES

Least favorite aspect of them/their relationship dynamics? (Can be headcannon) this isn't a "least fav" so much as "it makes me sad" but if either of them showed any sign of not being interested anymore the other is more likely to give up then push anything. sort of like "it was bound to happen, so i'll enjoy now until they drop me" or EVEN WORSE they think the other would be better off without them and pushes them away. so yeah the fact i can see one of these happening makes me sad.

If they aren’t a canon pairing, how would you get them together? they give off "everyone knows we're dating but us" energy but at the same time i feel like they'd acknowledge there's something and just not define it bc a) they don't need to (misumi) or b) they're too nervous to (kazu). in other words i think one day they are holding hands and misumi says "kazu? is this dating?" and kazu holds his breath before asking "do you want it to be?"

If you had to take them and plunk them into another fandom, what fandom would that be? Why? i think theyd be hilarious in any sports animanga (kazu is manager tho bc noodle arms but maybe they bond when misumi walks him through some of his usual training menu one night - ahem. anyway) BUT ALSO horimiya au...

How hard is it write/draw your pairing? Scale of 1-10. AJDHAJDHSF I REALLY LOVE THEM SO IT COMES PRETTY EASILY... but sometimes you try to put them in tropes and realize they would Just Not Work Like That. idk where i'm going with this. but yeah. anyway 3 for sankaku.

Is there a pairing that you think rivals them? in terms of what i ship, i tend to ship kazu and misumi individually with a lot of dif charas AJDHAKD. but in terms of like... in-universe "rival" pairings: kazu side: tsuzukazu (maybe, lbr it would take them 273924 yrs to actually get together), kazu x someone from winter (i... have my reasons but they'd take longer than what this answer entails) misumi side: ... surprisingly none that i can think of ahdjahd

Which character of the pairing do you like more? (Would you ever pair yourself with them?) you know that tweet that's like "sometimes a ship is just your two favs"? yeah that's misukazu for me. but if i had to choose... misumi AJDHAJHDSF I HONESTLY WASNT THAT INTO YUME UNTIL THESE TWO CAME AROUND (NOT COUNTING 707)... but yeah if they wanted to hold me in their arms i wouldn't oppose

Which character of your pairing would be the one to break up with the other? Why? OOOOOH BOY well. i think it could be either of them. i don't think they'd break up for lack of love but too much love and wanting the other to be happy and thinking that the only way to give them that is to let them go. so i guess the question is which of them would be more likely to be selfish and hold on. thinking this way, i think misumi would be more likely to break-up, bc kazu has lots of friends who are better than him!! and misumi is more ready to leave if he thinks he needs to than kazu is. now im sad.

Are they relatable as characters or as a pairing? THE NUMBER OF TIMES I'VE BEEN CALLED KAZU KIN... in all seriousness kazu's struggles with speaking out and (shinobi spoilers) his uncertainty over his future hit real close to home... while i don't relate as much as misumi, his struggles always manage to tear my heart into pieces... ((oversharing alert) i guess what really separates me from misumi is his struggle with his desire to connect with family who has treated him poorly... whereas im more "lol fuck you") tldr i relate to kazu slightly more LOL

Did you once/ever dislike one/both of them? i never disliked them but i was NOT expecting either of them to shoot up so quickly into my favs list ahdjahdjf. also i started shipping them Immediately After reading summer main story so there's that

On an estimate, how many posts have you made about them? as of september 28th 2020 i make up 11/78 fics on ao3 in the romantic misukazu tag and 2/12 in the platonic one. i may have brainrot.

What made you decide to ship them? TBH I FINISHED THE MAIN STORY AND WENT "OH MY GOD... THAT'S MY SHIP" but now that i'm here i continue to ship them because they have the potential to bring out both the best and the worst in each other and i'm all about that

Favorite genre for them? (Angst, fluff, etc.) angst. i just. angst hurt/comfort all the way. im so sorry babies.

lol you thought there would just be 21 ANYWAY EXTRA 1: how do they spend breaks/vacation? they'd travel a lot when they're older!! kazunari loves to travel and misumi would follow kazunari anywhere (also, new triangles!!) so they go somewhere new whenever they have the time. however i think eventually one or both of their future careers will take them anywhere and everywhere anyway, so their "ideal vacation" might turn into an evening in, cuddling and catching up (as if they didn't already send play-by-play updates over the phone of whatever they did during the day)

EXTRA 2: first date? i don't they ever have an explicit first date, but if asked they'll cite the time they had a picnic in the park turned triangle hunt turned accidental dip in the duck pond. at least, kazunari will. misumi just tilts his head and wonders what you mean.

EXTRA 3: gifts? IM FEELING REALLY CHEESY SO I'M MAKING THIS ABOUT ANNIVERSARY GIFTS they both end up getting each other jewelry (although kazu was really really nervous bc he wasn't sure if misumi would wear it). kazu gets misumi a bracelet (with triangles, of course although misumi only wears it sometimes because he doesn't want to lose it) and misumi gets kazu a pair of triangle earrings "so we can match!" and kazunari combusts at the implications

EXTRA 4: sharing clothes THEY'RE ACTUALLY AROUND THE SAME SIZE (and tend to wear baggier stuff barring kazu's skinny jeans)... but they have completely different Styles so it's still really obvious when steal each other's stuff ahdjajdkaf. as cute as kazu would look in sumi's sweatshirt i think the much more likely scenario is kazu wrapping misumi in his jackets because this boy nEVER BRINGS HIS ANYWHERE anyway just. accidental shared wardrobe misukazu.

EXTRA 5: lake house au consider: kazunari living in a house on the shore of a lake for a summer for Art Purposes (and a little bit for Dealing With Life purposes but he's not gonna admit that) and meets his lake neighbor misumi who kazu thinks might be a ghost or spirit for a while but he actually just lives further down the lake and misumi unknowingly helps kazu with his Life Issues and maybe they fall in love

#a3 #misukazu #kazumisu #ikaruga misumi #miyoshi kazunari #a3!#act! addict! actors!#headcanons #ernb its me

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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Hi, I'm sorry if I bother. English is not my first language, and I hope to be clear. I read that you are a historian. Here, in Mexico, I was studying history, but I discovered that after bachelor's degree, you need at least a master's degree in order to get a job that allows to live. Other factors aside, that put me off quite a bite. I wanted to ask you how that works in your country, if there are job opportunities and things like that. Thank you so much!

First off, you’re not a bother at all, your English is just fine, and I’m happy to help!

As for your questions: ..... ahaha, oof. Up front, I will say that I’ll try to be both supportive and realistic here, since I obviously feel strongly that we need more historians, I myself am a historian, and I don’t want anyone to base their decision solely on what one person on the internet tells them. There are a lot of factors for you to consider, and this is intended to just give you my perspective on how I’ve experienced them. I have answered several other asks about my academic research and career trajectory (such as it presently is....) in my school stuff tag, which you might like to consult to see what else people have asked/I have answered. But I do want to be honest with you about what you might expect, especially in the COVID world, which has turned an already-grim academic job market into... well, one thing at a time. Let’s get started!

I am American, or at least my passport says I am, and I have either studied, done research, or taught (sometimes all three) in the US, the UK, and Europe. I did my PhD at a fairly prestigious large research university in the UK, and I’m currently applying for jobs in that same general sphere (the US and the Anglophone academic world). That, therefore, is the experience that I’m speaking to, though I can imagine there are some things that are more or less the same across the world. Obviously the US is a screaming hellfire nuclear waste dump right now, teetering on the brink of permanent fascism, so.... that’s a cheerful and promising prospect for long-term academic employment in this country, by which I mean it terrifies me. Also, as I have ranted about on many occasions before, the humanities in general have been so systematically, deliberately, and extensively devalued by late-stage capitalism as not being monetarily “worthwhile” that it’s no accident that there aren’t many jobs. This isn’t to say there aren’t ANY, but.... yeah. Nobody wants to become a historian because they think they’re going to get rich for it. They’ll be lucky to get a stable job. My perusal of job boards has all been “online part time adjunct instructor!” which is frankly, brutally depressing. Everything is gig-economy, ad-hoc, temporary-term disposable labor, which is devaluing and destabilizing an entire generation of eager young academics who really WOULD like to be gainfully employed in education and just can’t be, and.... oy.

Ugh. Anyway. I promised I was going to be supportive, so we won’t get too far into the weeds of my existential despair right now. In short: yes, to teach college/university, and possibly the better kind of high school, you will need at least one graduate degree in history, and there’s no getting around that. If you want to do something history-adjacent but not academia, that requirement might be changed. There are plenty of other careers that would value a history degree and the critical thinking, reading, analytical, and big-picture skills that it teaches, assuming that any of us have jobs in the future. You may want to consider if you have enough passion for the subject to do multiple rigorous (and often expensive) advanced degrees in history; if you don’t want to do a master’s, that might be a sign that you like history as a hobby, but don’t want to commit to it professionally. And that is completely fine! it doesn’t make you a failure or mean that you’re any lesser as a person, and if you study history up to the bachelor level and decide that you don’t want to do it anymore, it’s better to know that now than before you’re stuck sinking years of money and effort into something that burns you out and isn’t where you want to be.

I have been honest about the fact of how hard a PhD is (the hardest thing I’ve done in my life) and how dispiriting the post-degree job market is (I realize I have the especial bad fortune to be job-hunting in the plague world, but hooo boy). The basic standard is that you never hear back from anybody at all. Sometimes they send a polite form-letter “your application will not be progressing to the next stage we wish you the best” rejection, but the culture has basically become that they just straight-up ignore you, and I hate it. It’s like screaming into the void over and over. Applications are often multiple pieces of labor-intensive work (CV, cover letters, teaching statement, research proposals, previous courses, contacting people to write letters of reference for you) and to constantly do that and get.... absolutely nothing in return is, again, complete trash on your mental health. Even if you recognize that it’s not really about you and there are a ton of people going through the same experience, it’s not fun. I’m about to submit yet another application, 18 months or so after I first started job hunting, and I have yet to receive even a single request for an interview. Imma be real with you chief: It sucks. You run through the whole “I’m clearly a fraud/an idiot/wildly unqualified compared to everyone else/etc” impostor syndrome highlight reel. And you just kind of have to deal with it, suck it up buttercup, and trudge your ass back to the job board anyway.

Then again: no matter how nihilistic that sounds: there are some jobs, and people do get them. There aren’t many of them, and the competition is therefore intense; every humanities/history postdoc or entry-level professorship opening will probably have a good 50-75 applicants at least, and that’s on the very low end for the more prestigious schemes. My dear @oldshrewsburyian, however, has gone through the exact same grind with early-career researcher hell and temporary visiting jobs, and she did in fact just land a tenure-track position earlier this year, which is wonderful and well-deserved. So: It can happen! I know people who have gotten real academic jobs, in other words! There is hope for the rest of us! Theoretically!

Basically, you’ll need to decide what your appetite is for future study, what kind of positions you might like to apply for and where, what your plan is if that doesn’t work out, if you would be happy doing something history-related but outside academia, if you’re willing to accept that we may not know for several years what the post-COVID job situation is, and all the other major uncertainties right now. I really wish I could give you clarity on these things, but unfortunately, I don’t know myself. Nobody does. So I mean this from the bottom of my heart: Good luck. Hang in there. Let’s hope things get better soon, or at least eventually. Until then, Ave Imperator, etcetera.

#history #school stuff #anonymous #ask

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harrietjulia · 3 years

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So you want to be a Graphic Designer?

I’ve been a creative person since a young age. I drew constantly as a child, creating my own silly comics and trying helplessly to trace my big sisters artwork as well as the drawings inside the mangas I so loved.

To my teachers dismay at school I would continuously draw and doodle in my school diaries and notebooks (which for some bizarre reason was seen as bad?)

My favourite subject at school was to no ones surprise, Art & Design. But similar to classmate, Mark’s observation, it was mainly focused on the Art side and the Graphic Design class was a separated subject to which my limited 1st year self got to create very boring perspective drawings. No surprise I did not select this subject in my later years.

Graphic Design has always been there in the background. My mum studied Graphics at University and was a successful freelance graphic designer for many years, she also taught the subject at Glasgow University and James Watt College. However, it was not something I ever paid a lot of attention to.

When it was time to leave High School and enter the”real” world, I quickly jumped at the opportunity to study a general art and design course at Dundee University. School really drilled in to you that University straight after school is the route you go, no other option. However, looking back on this experience, I don’t think I really knew what I wanted to do. I didn’t take it all too seriously, or think much about a career at age 18, I would often skip classes or just feel unmotivated in what I was doing. (I don’t think my prison like student accommodation with no window was helping) I think I needed time to properly grow up and consider my options, which school didn’t really explain, I just thought, well I got into a Uni, I should probably go right?

I dropped out after the 1st year, moved to Edinburgh and threw myself into the hospitality industry, for which I got sucked into for 4yrs, moving into an Assistant Manager role and coming home exhausted everyday, I was not happy, I did not want to do this forever and yet, I got comfortable.

Eventually I decided to leave, and I found art again. I was drawing everyday not only to improve my skills, but as a sort of therapy for me. I was watching tutorials, teaching myself more than I had ever learned at my University course (thank you youtube). As my work started to improve I decided to set up a little side business, selling cards and prints and working on some commission pieces. I was starting to take it seriously and realise I could forge a career from this, but it takes a lot of hard work, hard work that I realised I enjoyed, and that was important.

So then we land at 2020, ooooooh what a year. I recall sitting my living room, on furlough for the past god knows how long, doing some of my drawings (again as an act of keeping sane too), thinking about what I was going to do with my life now that I’m nearly 30. I had recently been made redundant from my day job (working in a little gift shop) was this a bad thing? sure, loss of income, uncertainty etc. but maybe it was the kick I needed to do something else. So, I decided to look into other ways to improve my skills, as I loved teaching myself new skills and learning on the side. I stumbled upon the evening Graphic Design course at Glasgow City College, and it just felt right. I had already been playing around with logo creations, poster designs and lusting at beautiful packaging that I decided I wanted to learn more about the nitty gritty of this “stuff” and improve my skills and future employability. I wanted to be more secure moving forward after 2020 shitshow....now also 2021 shitshow.

So I applied, got in and thought, ah cool! Now I’m kinda a student again! My anxiety can be a pain sometimes, so I was patting myself on the back for even just applying. As the course has progressed I’ve realised just how much I didn’t know and I’m so thankful for all I’m learning. Sure, I can draw and my software skills aren’t too bad, but there is soooo much more to it, and I’m enjoying it immensely, which I guess is a good sign right? I finally feel like I’m doing something for me, and for the right reasons, my 18 year old just wouldn’t get it :P

I’m not sure what route I will end up taking at the end of all this, but I’m certain it will involve some illustrative element as that has been a passion of mines since I can remember. I’m really keen to try my hand at packaging design and so far my favourite brief has been working on book cover designs. I think seeing which briefs I feel most connected to is helping me decide.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings for this next project, that was weirdly therapeutic. Maybe I should do this more haha.

#why graphic design #ramblings

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tarot28 · 4 years

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MANIFESTATION, GOALS, INTENTIONS AND GRATITUDE AND MOREEEEEE

This is my guide to how I do my daily self work to bring some joy and happiness and better things closer to me. Everything I do listed below is written down in the same place - a generic leftover half used spiral notebook next to my bed.

I have a little anxiety and uncertainty and a little moop (a word for when you’ve got sad mood that’s kinda blah but it doesn’t have as quite of a severe connotation as depression does imo) when it comes thinking about the future. To get super real for a second here, it can be so so bleak sometime to look ahead and look at where I am now and where I could be like if only if only. Coming out of an unhealthy and toxic relationship and being on the mend from that also has me looking for ways of actively reviving my worth and my joy and I’m glad to report that what I’ve outline below has helped me personally and by sharing, I hope I can help others :) :)

Also just as a note: I use the Universe instead of God, Goddess, Spirit, etc bc that’s my preference. Mentally sub that for whatever works for you <3

Contents: sorry this is a hella long post but here’s the break down - Manifestation (what I used to do) - Goals (what I do/how I altered manifestation to make it work for me) - Intentions (goals are long term, but here’s the daily) - Gratitude (how it puts things into perspective) - Meditation (an on and off again relationship/the one that always gets away) - How the fuck do I fit all this into my daily routine ?

Manifestation: So when I first started this routine I used kinda generic manifestation and threw literally everything I wanted at the Universe like here this is what I want and it’s your problem now. That’s the idea I got from the very minimal reading I did on manifestation and law of attraction type shtuff. I reallllllly hesitate to call what I currently do manifestation but it’s like a cousin and is closer to setting goals. I’m not going to go into manifestation further but the “manifestation work” I do is like everything written here collectively.

Goals: This is the branching out I did for manifestation. It’s more accessible language too. A goal is something I want and it’s something attainable. Transitioning from manifestation to goals was kinda necessary to me because when I was doing manifestation was me throwing every tiny little want and need at the Universe. Goals was that but with filters and then elaboration. I went from asking for like 8 or 10 things that would change often to asking for 3 consistently.

Here’s a working example. One of my old “manifestation” items was “a sense of confidence in my body.” Let’s pull this apart a bit. This isn’t a bad thing to ask for at all; it’s definitely something that can happen. But like does the Universe really need to bestow that onto me or is that something I could do on my own. It’s too specific and exclusive as well. The perception of my own physical health comes from my personal relationship with myself, mentally and emotionally. My body confidence won’t change unless I work at how I talk to myself or unless I start to praise my own appearance.

I use a different, but related version of this older item currently in my goal statements that aims to “improve the relationship I have with myself for myself through positive self talk, self care, and recognizing the joy that comes through exploring my relationship with myself.” This is longer, but it’s bigger picture. It encompasses mental, physical, and emotional health. It also emphasizes my part in it, which was the biggest issue I had with what I was calling “manifestation.” I think it’s ok to ask for things, but personally asking and waiting passively for something to drop into your lap just on the merits of asking for it felt unrealistic. I think my biggest personal distinction between goals and manifestation was introducing accountability, thus empowering myself to make the changes in my life that I wanted to see.

Intentions In addition to writing my goal statements, I write my intentions. The goals are more specific to the season or a couple month to a year long period, whereas the intentions are a couple of ways I want my day to go. Again, this is kinda me empowering myself to take action and decide how my day will unfold. It’s just a couple of brief statements about things I want to happen, but less of a tangible to do list and more like what’s the vibe today boysss

So for example on a to do list I had this week: chem for mon, wed, fri, bio lecture notes from thursday, final revisions on whatever weekly essay it was lmao rip, and then a couple emails. This was a to do list from Monday and I have work and class and meetings and bathroom break and have to take care of the dogs and make food and eat the food and drink water and maybe squeeze in a workout from 9am to 3:30pm on top of the to do list, which is usually just classwork. My intention for the day was to “be productive enough to prepare for tomorrow.” This is a way to say do the bare minimum and feel better about it. Another intention I had was to “recognize and when I need a break and give myself the rest time I need to be productive.” Another way of justifying slacking off occaisionally but giving it an elevated purpose through the wording. It also makes me feel like shameful about not getting everything I planned to do in one day because I carried out my intentions.

Gratitude! This is my absolute favorite part of my routine! It brings everything home for me and I can really draw attention to all the mundane disguised positivity in my life that might go unnoticed or underappreciated otherwise. This one is so simple. I start by writing “I’m grateful:” and then just list whatever comes to mind easily.

If it’s hard at first, make sure you’re not overthinking. When I introduced this into my routine I would almost talk myself out of the stupid things, but I think that’s where a lot of my small, daily joy comes from. Yesterday was cold and rainy and that’s my favorite weather so I wrote “rainy and cold” on my list and I think I put sweatpants on their too. Don’t overthink it and don’t force it and just start doing it.

Here’s some research for the benefits if you don’t want to listen to me, please listen to the science, more of the science and a little more. If these links don’t work- sorry but they’re random articles I found from google scholar after searching gratitude journaling. SO much evidence out there

Meditation This is my long lost love. I feel like I never have the time and I’m fighting to put her back into my routine. It makes me feel great and settles me into my body. More posts to come if when I get back at it. If anyone has techniques or guided mediation recommendations omg let me know. I use a couple podcasts, one is purely guided mediations because they’re like 5 or 10 mins each and I’m short on time a lot. The other is called nothing much happens and it’s just like bedtime stories about mundane routines and not strict mediation, but I love them.

My daily routine and how I make this work for me and don’t give up: My first rule is that if I’m not in the mood, I simply do NOT. Like days where shit sucks is different from days where you feel like you’re breaking down and it physically hurts to think about the future or your goals because everything is so hard. I get that and I treat myself like an adult and know that not doing it one day won’t be an issue as long as I make sure I do it the next day.

In the morning, I think about my schedule. What is today and what is the best way to approach what I have going on? What is the best way to direct my energy? This is intention time :) And then this is where I’m trying to add meditation back in but I really suck at morning time management and I’m trying to use the time to work out before my day gets started. We’ll see lol I’ll prob add it in at the end of my day to help me get to sleep feeling a little more settled and comfy in my own body and mind.

I try to keep my intentions in mind during the day. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not. It’s ok because I did them and I thought about it at least one time during the day for it’s own special, dedicated amount of time.

After I’m completely done for the day, I go what the fuck am I doing on this planet, how can I improve my existence, what do I see happening for myself? Under my intentions, I write my big three goalssss. Something for my own healthy, something for my career and academics, and something to kinda talk about my meant to be, forever home of person that I’m trying to attract. Self-career-social kinda triangle of goals.

Under my goals, I zoom in on everything that went great. The last thing I write down for the day is gratitude so that even if I get a little stressed about not following my intentions too well or not making a lot of progress towards my big picture goals, I can look at today and go I had a great cup of hot chocolate and binged AHS though and I don’t regret it because it made me so happy that I wrote it down.

The end thanks for reading this incredibly long post. I love these long posts where I can just go on about what I do :) I really hope this helps someone who doesn’t vibe with what they’re seeing in their skimming over of law of attraction and manifestation stuff. Fuck that and do you. Sending so much love to y’all <3 L :)

#tarot28 #manifestation #manifesting #manifestation work #Law of Attraction #LOA #intentions #goals #personal development #self love #self care #do it #witchblr #self work #gratitude #meditation

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zachvillasource · 5 years

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interview | zach villa - schonmagazine.com

As the infamous Night Stalker, Iowa-born actor Zach Villa is a chaotic evil in the latest series of American Horror Story. Entitled AHS: 1984, the show plays off the hopes and tropes of the 1980s, incorporating elements from films like Friday the 13th and Halloween into a spine-tingling thrill ride. The chief villain of the series is Villa’s Richard Ramirez, a reality-based serial killer set on making the lead characters’ lives a living hell — quite literally.

In real life, however, Villa is an obvious contrast. A multihyphenate with a strong career across a range of disciplines, he first caught the attention of the mainstream from his collaboration with Evan Rachel Wood in the project Rebel and a Basketcase. Now, as AHS: 1984 keeps audiences around the world thoroughly spooked, Villa opens up to Schön! about growing up in Iowa, his willingness to collaborate with Taylor Swift, and the unexpected call that announced his role on American Horror Story.

How did you get your start in acting?

Well, I’ve been on stage since I was two, so the whole shebang started quite early. Acting, oddly, was an afterthought when I first started. I had been dancing and singing on stage for years, idolising great song-and-dance performers like Gene Kelly, Donald O’ Connor, and Sammy Davis Jr. when it occurred to me that I should probably focus on learning the craft of acting if I wanted to continue pursuing that particular path in the entertainment industry. I had focused intensely on two out of the three “triple threat” disciplines, so I guessed it was time that I figured out the third part. It was an accessory to being able to perform musical theatre roles more effectively, and I guess that backfired in a sense and became a more central focus as I developed.

Iowa isn’t the most common birthplace for a big-time actor. What does your family — and presumably other Midwestern relatives — think of your journey into Hollywood?

They are both thrilled and confused. Don’t get me wrong — my family is very happy for me, and while we have had our spats over the years about whether or not I should be pursuing a highly volatile, financial unstable career, they have ultimately come through and rooted for me and my success.

That being said, I think pursuing a career in the mainstream entertainment industry is a very singular experience. Unless you’ve lived it and hit the pavement in NYC, L.A., etc., it’s very hard to understand the day-to-day struggles of a performing artist. I think that certain regions of the country are — generally — a majority of media consumers as opposed to creators, and there is a disconnect between the public and those of us pursuing an arts career that propagates the fallacy of things being easy and breezy, since you don’t have to get up every day at 6 AM, go to the office, and then come home and make dinner. People see that lack of structure as undisciplined and fancy-free. Let me tell you, it’s anything but. Artists have to hit the pavement in a very different way that is highly varied from day to day, and that uncertainty introduces a unique kind of stress, in addition, to actually trying to be good at your job. I always say that booking work is my “job” as an actor, and when I actually book a gig, that’s where the job ends and the craft and career begins. Translating that to someone without firsthand experience can be infuriatingly difficult.

Where were you when you found out about landing AHS: 1984 and the scope of your role? What did you do?Who did you call first?

I was in the studio recording an audiobook — one of the many ways that this particular actor has been able to supplement their income, and it has been such a gift. I was waiting on the call, and I stopped narrating mid-sentence — much to the puzzlement of my audio engineer — and picked up. I got the news, opened the door of the vocal booth and leaned against the front wall, sliding down to a sitting fetal position, and started to tear up. I called a few close friends and family and walked around for the better part of an hour mildly freaking out. The studio staff secretly went and bought a bottle of champagne down the street, and after I finished my page quota for the day they surprised me with a toast. Then everything in my life became a blur.

Of course, without spoiling anything, what can you tell us about your role as Richard Ramirez in AHS: 1984?

Oh, that’s a very difficult question. Richard Ramirez was a real person. I am playing a character that shares his name and is informed by him and his history. Beyond that, you’ll just have to wait and see.

What was the most memorable moment from shooting the series?

I can’t say my absolute favourite without revealing secrets! But I’ll say that the encounter with the hiker in episode two was quite “fun” — if you can call pretending to murder someone “fun.” The makeup and FX team on the show is the best in the biz, and the blood rig that was used in that scene was just wild. It was messy and crazy, and [there was] high pressure to get it right in one take, and I loved it.

What’s your method for getting into character, both in the weeks and moments leading up to a shoot or performance?

I have to play these cards close to the chest. Some of it is instinct. I just feel as though I am inside the character’s head at some point after spending enough time with the material, but it’s different with each role.

Sometimes I need to know how they sound, sometimes it’s historical research. It’s ALWAYS spending an exorbitant amount of time with the script — that’s the golden rule for me. Whether its Shakespeare or the 200th episode of Friends, you have to start with the text as an actor, and the most minute differences in phrasing, punctuation, word choice, etc. are clues to how this person operates as a human being and in the world. I always come back to the text. Any other secret sauce that I do I’ll keep secret for now.

What’s been the most challenging part of playing a character like this?

I’ll modify the question to ask what’s the most important part of playing a character like this… and that, I think, is being able to let it go at the end of the day — which I don’t always succeed in doing. Sometimes after an intense shoot it takes me a minute to let go of the energy I was carrying around on set. I pride myself on being able to flip in and out, but that is challenging from time to time for me on this particular project.

If you could only watch one film and one television series for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

The Back to the Future Trilogy for movies and Battlestar Galactica for TV. Nerd alert.

Apart from acting (and dance) you’re also well-versed in music. How did you begin as a musician?

The same time that I started hearing it, so very, very early. Growing up with a dance studio attached to your house, you hear a lot of very diverse music over the years. That all seeped into my subconscious, and I was writing full-on symphonies in my head walking through the woods in Iowa when I was seven or eight years old. Mind you, I didn’t have the skills to put that into writing or notation — and still don’t, not for the symphonies anyway.

I learned how to read music by playing the violin in elementary school. I didn’t pick up a guitar or actually start producing original music in any tangible way until my junior year at Interlochen Arts Academy. There, my roommate Filip — a wildly talented self-taught metal guitarist and visual arts student from Macedonia — taught me things here and there, and I also taught myself by ear. The Internet, man.

Who are some other musicians with whom you’d like to collaborate?

St. Vincent. Top of the list. Blink 182 — a childhood dream. Jimmy Eat World. John Mayer but only if he lets me be in his next ridiculous green screen music video. Mac Ayers, Tears For Fears, Snail Mail, and oh, I dunno… Taylor Swift. Come at me.

Who are your biggest musical inspirations? And what have you been listening to lately?

Biggest? That’s tough because it changes with each project. Tower of Power is a huge influence for me. My first band was funk-based, and man, they are so groovy. If you don’t know, now you know go listen to them. St. Vincent. Jimmy Eat World. And, regardless of the drama surrounding this artist from time to time, John Mayer. He really is one of the great guitarists of our generation, and more importantly, the songwriting that he produces is top-notch. I’ve learned a lot from diving deep into his material over the years. Miles Davis, and jazz in general, is huge for me. Brain fuel. Listening lately to Sleater-Kinney’s new record, Knuckle Puck, and a lot of 2000s pop-punk.

What else can we look forward to from Zach Villa — be in 2019, 2020 or later?

World domination.

The track on the video content [for this shoot] is the first single — a tease if you will — of my new solo project. Go check it out. My band Sorry Kyle will be dropping a ton of music over the next few months if you’re into punk and emo.

And that’s just music. Acting-wise, post-AHS I’m waiting to see what comes down the pipe. I’m always creating. I want to be fluid in music, movement, film and TV, directing, etc. There’s no time like the present and the present is, well, now. So hang on tight.

#zach villa #ahs cast #american horror story #ahs 1984 #interview #photoshoots #*

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queen-scribbles · 5 years

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Steady as Stars: Tragen Meta

So time to ramble about Tragen because I am overly attached to this goober and have TOO MANY FEELINGS. Quick note, everything about his home planet is my own headcanon bc canon and Legends diverge pretty sharply so I just said “Screw allll of it” and am doing my own thing 😎 Also, i tried to keep some sense of order to it, but did not 100% succeed. Lots of parenthetical asides incoming.

Brief backstory, for anyone who’s not familiar with my wonderful paladin son, Tragen is from Stenos, which is in the Outer Rim, right on the edge of Imperial space. They remained neutral during the Great Galactic War, but did host several Imperial supply lines. These supply lines eventually wound up integral to Stenosi economy, which the Empire used to blackmail them into actually joining shortly before the Treaty of Coruscant was signed.

Tragen’s love of the stars goes back to his childhood, but up until about 10 years old, it was just typical child’s awe and wonder at how many there were all the different places you could go among them, that sort of thing. Around ten is when the Empire started really pressuring Stenos to join, making threats, etc. This wasn’t common knowledge, but since Tragen’s parents were both high ranked government officials/nobility(the two are somewhat linked on Stenos; there’s the king/queen, their inner circle, and then a moderately-sized parliament of sorts drawn from the nobility. I’m still hashing out all the details, but that’s the basics), he’d hear them talking behind closed doors or after they thought he and his sister were asleep. They were worried the Empire would actually attack or invade or something like that, based off the displeasure the Imperial diplomat was conveying.

With the planet/culture’s future uncertain, Tragen started really appreciating the stars’ constancy. They’re always there, always the same, even if you can’t see them or are looking from a different angle. They’ve been there for ages and will be for ages more, and he finds that comforting.

Even moreso after the Imperial diplomat discovers how important the supply lines are to the economy and blackmails Stenos into joining the Empire with that knowledge. There are assurances things won’t change, of course, or at least won’t change much, but they do. And that’s before the Sith start looking for Force Sensitives. It’s very disconcerting for an acquaintance to be there one day and not the next. There are so many rumors about what happens to the people who go with the Sith(willing or no), it’s impossible to figure out the truth. With all the uncertainty, and his parents working even longer hours trying to merge Imperial statutes with Stenosi culture, Tragen finds even more comfort in the stars. Everything else might be changing, but they don’t.

And then the Sith find him. It takes a little over two years from winning Stenos to the Empire for the Imperials to work their way bottom of society to top looking for potential Sith, but Tragen’s one of the first they find when they finally get to the nobility/officials. By this point, the Imperials have abandoned all pretense of this ‘honor’ being optional, and so off Tragen goes to Ziost at thirteen years old. (He doesn’t want to, but loyalty/honor/duty are so central to Stenosi culture his father uses those to talk him down from a full-on freakout and into at least accepting this new path for his life, even if he doesn’t love it)

Tragen is not particularly gifted with the Force. It’s there, he has a decent enough connection to... amplify other things(ala Force scream, etc), but his real saving grace talent is martial combat. He’s been trained with a blade since he could hold one, is extremely observant and good at reading body language, and has a good head for strategy/thinking on his feet. The Sith training is where he’s introduced to the idea of dual-wielding(he’s ambidextrous, which is why one instructor suggests it), which is the only enjoyable thing about it.

Right from the start, Tragen has to hide his true self, bury it beneath a mask of anger and hatred he doesn’t really feel. He knows if he lets it slip he’s dead. He’s watched it happen; decent people who couldn’t ‘get over’ their scruples fast enough fall in duels to fellow acolytes who did, or are cut down by trainers as an example. He skates the edge of discovery the entire seven years he’s there; beating opponents to unconsciousness(so he doesn’t get stabbed in the back) but never killing anyone if can be avoided, claiming it’s so they have to wallow in the humiliation of defeat and/or “I rather like them owing me their life”. Still, he gets lectured multiple times about this merciful “flaw” he has.

During this time, he clings to the stars; to knowing that even when they’re hidden they’re still there, still shining bright, still the same. Just like him, sometimes their true nature is obscured or the constellations aren’t where you expect. bc you’re looking at them from somewhere different. None of that changes them, just how/if people see them.

Tragen’s survival tactic of hiding behind a mask of expected emotions he doesn’t really feel gets tested to its limit once Tremel summons him to the Academy for his trials, especially after Baras takes an interest in him. He’s constantly trying to outfox one of the most paranoid and brilliant Darths around, and sweats bullets the first few times he’s near the man. Once it starts to seem like Baras isn’t suspicious of him, Tragen relaxes ever so slightly. Not enough to do anything stupid, just enough he’s not a mess of suspicious tension every time he’s in his master’s presence. (And let’s not get into how hard the whole ‘wish the Jedi found you instead of the Sith’ thing with Dorgis hit him bc I’ll get too emotional to function. So many feeling for this dork.)

It’s a little easier once he picks up Vette. He doesn’t entirely drop his guard or his mask around her, but she at least is okay when he does nice/reasonable things, instead of lecturing about how he’s a terrible Sith yada yada. The two of them strike up a friendship pretty fast(she reminds him of his sister, actually), and Vette is usually the one to tag along when Tragen leaves the ship, even after Quinn joins.

It’s a still-tricky balancing act to accomplish enough of Baras’ objectives he doesn’t get suspicious while not violating his own code, but somehow Tragen manages. He leaves everyone alive he can, trotting out the ‘yes, but now they owe me their lives, giving me power and humiliating them’ excuse when needed. The entirely of looking for Jaesa, he’s adamant and upfront that he just wants to talk to her, leaves everyone alive(even makes Master Yonlach question his view of Sith :3) and resolves things as peacefully as he can. Even when faced with Jedi who are raring to fight and operating with the bias Sith = evil(tbf, he’s a rare exception...), Tragen always tries to talk things out first. He’s found pointing out he’s acting more Jedi-like than them works really, really well. On the whole, his conscience is pretty happy with how the search for Jaesa is going, though it does make him uneasy when he hears Baras got his hands on her parents. There isn’t really anything he can do at that point, so he just has to hope for the best and keep going.

While he is happy with the increased freedom and decreased oversight of having his own ship and underlings to do his job, it’s still lonely. He can’t completely relax on the ship, and he’s so used to having his mask up, he can’t bring himself to drop it around people, even Vette. Quinn there’s the obvious reasons(the man’s born and bred Imperial AND owes Baras his career; there’s no way Tragen’s trusting him with this), but Vette it’s more... worrying she’d accidentally spill the beans. She’s such a chatterbox and very impulsive, so even though he thinks she’d try to keep his secret, he’d rather not take chances with something this dangerous. This means the only time Tragen can drop the facade and be himself is when he’s alone, in his cabin, with only the stars for company. This adds a layer to his love of them; alone with the stars is the only place he can be honest, and living this lie is so exhausting he treasures those moments more than he can say.

He’s very used to opponents(especially Jedi) jumping to conclusions about him based purely on him being Sith, so Nomen Karr’s reaction on Hutta is.. expected At least, the initial hostility is. Tragen tries and tries and tries to be reasonable and just talk to the man, but Karr doesn’t cooperate. That he starts calling on the dark side is a bit of a surprise(not a huge one, though; a lot of the Jedi Tragen’s met have been hypocrites, and he could sense Karr’s pride and anger from the start), but Tragen is a skilled enough swordsman(I guess swordsman still applies to lightsabers??) he handles it.

Then Jaesa shows up. Tragen sends Vette to check in with the soldiers outside, and for the first time in eight years, drops his facade. If Jaesa can sense a being’s true nature anyway, there’s no point fighting it, and he hopes a gesture of trust like this will convince her(I did a lot of flashpoints/side quests etc with him, so he’s Light II by this point, better than a lot of my SWs). Dropping his guard like this makes him feel exposed, vulnerable. Naked, almost. He’s been so hidden for so long behind that mask, it’s mildly terrifying to let go of it.

*ahem* (But trusting Jaesa feels right, and safe, and this was the best course of action, right?)

(Wrong. She’s confused this Sith reads as merciful and compassionate against Master Karr’s arrogance and rage, and attacks him anyway)

During their fight, Tragen can’t help but admire her form; he knows dualsabers are tricky to wield and she’s very good. Good enough that it’s a challenge to beat her without hurting her(too much). By this point, Vette’s brought the Imperial soldiers back in, so he has to hide how giddy he is when Jaesa agrees to join him and help change the Empire from within.

(Having her along is like surfacing for air after much too long underwater.)

It’s a little bit... cautious at first--they can’t speak freely enough on the ship to really connect. Tragen does encourage her to have confidence in herself; she’s grown since her days as a handmaiden, and understands all too well her struggles with pretending to be something she’s not. A lot of the advice he gives her is the same things he’s clung to for years(”Keep your eyes on the goal” and “masks worn for survival are different than those worn for personal gain”) Jaesa has a million questions and Tragen’s dying to talk to someone he can be himself around, but they don’t get a chance until Taris. Tragen marks a couple firsts for me there; minorly, he’s my first male toon who did the planet arc but didn’t flirt with Thana, and more importantly: first Sith Warrior to talk every. single. War Trust target into surrendering. He didn’t kill a single one. (which I didn’t know was possible until him; I thought at least one of them[Frelka] fighting was unavoidable, but he did it.) This is where Jaesa starts accompanying him pretty much everywhere(she’s his apprentice, why shouldn’t she?) and they start building up trust and friendship and she gets a real look at his character.

Tragen keeps his word to the Siantide miners, shows restraint, and is basically the least Sith-y Sith Jaesa’s ever seen, let alone met. This is what brings her curiosity out in Shining Bright. That conversation opens the floodgates and they talk freely as they work their way through Taris, a freedom both miss once they’re back on the Empire Dawn. But even if Pierce’s quarters weren’t right next to Jaesa’s, being more open is not a good idea. Too much risk.

It is, however, very difficult to keep their conversation quiet when Jaesa tells him about the other light-leaning Sith. Tragen’s ecstatic (and relieved) to know he’s not the only one(also, impressed by how much stronger + more skilled Jaesa’s gotten with her power). He’s very eager with his encouragement she keep looking, and so giddy when she actually finds them, they’re both equally to blame for Pierce almost catching them. (It’s very hard for a pair of excited 21 year olds to keep their voices down) He sends her to make contact with these light-leaning Sith and paces his cabin in antsy, impatient circles until she gets back.

Thanks to their Force bond, Tragen can tell even before Jaesa boards the Dawn that something’s wrong. When she tells him how badly her attempt went, the first words out of his mouth are reassuring her this wasn’t her fault. She tried, and no matter the outcome, that was the right thing to do. (He does hug her, even if it’s risky, just for a moment. She’s his friend and she’s hurting, he doesn’t care if it raises suspicions)

(side note: this is where the first seeds of Jaesa falling for him are planted, when her feelings matter more than her failure, even if she doesn’t realize it until years later)

Disappointed as they might be by this setback, there’s not much they can do about it(both somehow find solace in the stars, though neither mentions it), so they soldier on. Both improve in combat prowess, Jaesa’s strength with her power grows, they become uncannily good at working as a team. (this is part experience and part Force bond--Tragen might barely be decent at most Force stuff, but he and Jaesa bond STRONG)

It’s almost a relief when Baras tries to kill him. He can stop even pretending loyalty. Though he does find it deeply ironic the Emperor’s Hand reaches out to recruit as Wrath someone so diametrically opposed to Sith values. He shares Jaesa’s excitement for potential influence he can wield, being so high-ranked and even less subject to oversight bc who’s gonna be brave enough to question the Emperor’s Wrath? Between that and Lord Emmoridg reaching out to Jaesa, Tragen’s actually feeling good about their chances at reforming the Empire. It turns out a bit more complicated than he’s anticipating--while there’s less oversight, there’s also a stricter and more definite set of expectations placed on the Emperor’s Wrath than on a run of the mill Lord. Expectations that are harder to look like he’s fulfilling while actually subverting.

Belsavis, for example. Tragen has no problem or qualms about killing Ekkage. And he knows Jaesa’s not going to tell anyone how readily he partnered with a Jedi(who he not only let live, but parted on good terms with) to achieve his goals. But he didn’t kill Col. Trill for not helping him, and he lets Lord Melicost walk away, and he has no guarantee those actions won’t raise eyebrows. Sure he can argue he doesn’t want to weaken the Empire/Sith in their war with the Republic, but a) it doesn’t stop other Sith and b) he has a history of being less brutal than a Sith should. With being Wrath now, Tragen’s starting to really stress over the balance and his facade is straining him to the breaking point.

The stars remain a huge comfort to him. He spends a lot on his time on the ship just sitting in his cabin and staring out the viewport(he calls it meditating if anyone other than Jaesa asks). The stars are still there, still the same. The constellations and which ones he can see might be different depending on where in the galaxy he is, but even when he can’t see them, he knows they’re still there. Still magnificent and beautiful no matter what happens. That thought is one of the few things that keeps him going strong.

Another is his friends. Tragen is all too happy to help Vette find her family(it makes him miss his even more) and backs her up in her reluctance to seek revenge for her mother’s death. The two of them are pretty close, and Vette always manages to make him smile, so helping her is no trouble at all. There are times Tragen wonders if she suspects how truly un-Sithy he is, but he can never quite bring himself to admit it to her for sure. That mask is such habit, it stays on around everyone.

Except Jaesa. Even if their Force Bond and her power didn’t make hiding things an exercise in futility, they’re a team and Tragen a) trusts her and b) is eternally grateful to have someone he can be himself around. Completely himself. And he feels like no matter how daunting this goal of reforming the entire Empire is, with her as his partner it’s possible. Jaesa found the light-leaning Sith, Jaesa reached out to them. Despite the initial disaster, she’s the one Lord Emmoridg reaches out to and she’s the one who keeps in touch with him.

Tragen is feeling very good about about their goals and actually starting to hope he won’t have to hide forever when they learn about Cendence. Jaesa is so distraught when relaying her encounter with the tortured and dying apprentice, Tragen shuts and locks the door under the pretense of meditating so he can comfort her without being disturbed. Knowing there’s a Sith out there hunting down ‘their kind’ is more than a little troubling(terrifying is the word he would use), but Tragen’s too busy with the Hand’s assignments to do anything about it, so he entrusts this foe to Jaesa. He knows she can handle it. She a gifted Force-user, skilled saberist, and stronger than she realizes. He’s so proud of her when she goes face to face with Cendence and beats him bc he knew she could do it.

Regarding the Quincident--bc how do you meta a Sith Warrior without touching on the Quincident?--Tragen of course forgives him. Has to dress it in the usual ‘Your life is mine now’ rhetoric, but he’s secretly amused at the irony. Baras is the Proper Sith(TM) between the two of them, is more in line with Sith values and would technically be the right choice by that metric. Tragen’s just more powerful--even if it’s still more combat skill instead of the Force. (He’s better with the Force than he used to be, but still largely relies on lightsabers. He’s more comfortable with blades)

After defeating Baras(which is a relief) and being confirmed as Wrath by the Dark Council(which is stressful af), Tragen takes a long time wrestling with how to balance his goals and his new position. Yes, he has more influence, but people will also be more wary/skeptical that the EMPEROR’S WRATH is light-leaning and trying to change things,and he’s pretty sure the more times he’s merciful, the more questions will be raised. If he and Jaesa thought what Emmoridg is doing is dangerous, training LS Sith right under the Council’s nose, this is.... too perilous for words. He actually talks to the Emperor. Tragen interacts with Vitiate; pure, remorseless evil and incredibly powerful, who he’s actively working to undermine. It makes the next few years extremely harrowing, but at least things are never boring(and most of his orders--what few there are--come through the Hand, so he doesn’t talk to Vitiate MUCH). The only thing that keeps all his plans from crashing down and totally wasting the years of wearing his mask, is that the Wrath is allowed to maintain autonomy rather than being bound to Vitiate’s will via dark side rituals. That would have led to his discovery and torture/execution, Tragen is 100% sure. Even as things stand he has to be incredibly careful.

It helps him immensely that Jaesa’s sticking around; both for her help with their goals and just bc Tragen values her as a partner. He admires her growth and resilience, she admires his bravery and sacrifice(both admire the other’s inner strength), they work fantastically well as a team--by the SoR prelude they can practically read each other��s minds, and his future plans rely heavily on her being there. Which she’s all too happy to do.

(both of them are halfway in love at this point and both are completely oblivious to it. There’s no pining--yet--bc neither has a clue the true nature of their feelings-- largely bc they both come from planets where marriages are usually for politics over love, and then their respective orders; the Sith encourage lust, not love, and the Jedi ofc with their acting like Love Is Bad Bc Attachments)

I’m toying with headcanon-ing that Tragen’s acquaintance with Lana and Theron starts with the Depths of Manaan flashpoint, bc I’m verrryyyy conflicted about him doing Attack on Tython. It feels OOC for him(I played him through it, but it didn’t sit right >.>).Whatever I do there, his familiarity with Vitiate’s nature makes him all the more frantic to stop Revan bc seriously, man, you don’t know what you’re doing, this is going to end so very VERY badly. He is, of course, right, and he hates it.The disgust he’s always felt for Vitiate multiplies exponentially at the end, when Mr. Embodiment of Pure Evil and Dickishness escapes and promises to consume his Wrath last since Tragen’s “special” to him(which makes his skin crawl; he doesn’t want to be valued by something so evil). And like all my Force-users, Ziost hits him really hard. He’s more familiar with how evil Vitiate is, so on that score he’s braced himself. But even with his mediocre Force connection, all of that terror and death so fast hits him hard--though not as hard as it hits Jaesa. She goes catatonic for a little bit, which scares Tragen half to death. It’s only about 5-10 minutes, but he recovered in under a minute, so it still feels like an eternity. And she’s quiet and closed off the rest of the day.

The one good thing to come out of SoR-RotE (aside from new friends), is Tragen can now openly, full-throttle oppose Vitiate and it’s okay. More than okay, Darth Marr himself approves. And being the Empire’s Wrath instead of the Emperor’s has him back with the increased leeway to do his own thing which makes it possible to work(still subtly) toward reforming the Empire. And he’s more sure they need it than ever now; with Vitiate out there as a threat, he’s pretty sure the Empire and Republic will have to ally again to deal with him. That’ll be much easier to do it they aren’t so wildly different. His progress may be measured in inches, but he has time; he’s not going anywhere.

Or so he thinks.

(KotFE onward coming soon in a separate post)

#queen in space #tragen xo'ric #wow that's a lot #tolja i have many MANY feelings about my boy here #otp: my north star

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beinglibertarian · 5 years

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About Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ 70% Tax

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in the progressive limelight yet again today because of her latest proposal: raise the federal income tax on top earners to 70%. This, of course, is being heralded by progressives; at least by those in my social circle. Why shouldn’t those who have an inordinate amount of money be forced to give some of it up for the common good? This is a good question (in their eyes), but I have a question of my own.

Why are we only taxing money?

I have a friend — let’s call him John. Like many people in my social circle, John is a “democratic socialist,” but John is unique in that he and I are so alike in all of the ways socialists think matter: we’re both white, heterosexual, grew up on the same side of town and in the same school district; both in families that were lower-middle class; we both graduated high school the same year; possess relatively similar intelligence and physical ability, etc. Demographically, we’re damn near identical, but there are two ways where we differ greatly: in ideology and values.

Before I continue, I want to make something as clear as I possibly can: I am not vaunting what I value above what he values. I am not saying that I chose a better path than him, or anything of the like. Likewise, I’m not saying the opposite: the path he chose is not “better” than the one I chose. I’m merely laying out the stark difference between those paths.

I don’t want to give away too much information here, so I’ll keep it vague.

John has pursued things that he enjoys and loves immensely. He works in a career field that many would say should be relegated to a hobby. He reads hundreds of books every year because he loves reading and learning. He explores different cultures and foods he finds fascinating. He decided to pursue things he found interesting in college rather than things that would generate income. He left the economic security of home to move to the city where the love of his life, and now wife and mother of his child, live.

I have taken, well, essentially the exact opposite path. I put off college, deciding instead to enlist in the military and learn a trade in my state’s Air National Guard. Shortly after my enlistment was over, I got a job contracting overseas. Instead of moving to a city with my wife, whom I love just as much as John loves his, I opted to leave so I could help secure us financially for the future. I, admittedly, make a lot of money right now because I’m in a third-world country living in half a trailer and working six days a week every week, in a physically-demanding industry. Also, the summers are very hot, and that sucks too.

I did this because I saw people very close to me put in hard, dire situations financially at all points in their lives. I saw how these situations impacted their relationships, their plans for retirement, and most of all their general happiness, and decided when I was a teenager that I never wanted to be in that situation. I have gone to great lengths to do everything I can to insure myself against those situations. I work a job I don’t like in a place I don’t want to be, separated from everyone I love and care for, to try and make sure that I’m never in that situation. I have sacrificed a great deal; sacrifices I didn’t have to make, to pursue that goal of shoring myself and my family against the buffeting winds of financial uncertainty.

John has taken the exact opposite path. Instead of sacrificing his personal fulfillment in career for money, he has sacrificed his potential earnings for fulfillment. Instead of spending his spare time researching investments and starting his own entrepreneurial ventures, he spends his spare time reading about things he enjoys reading about. I sacrificed time with my loved ones for economic security, he sacrificed economic security to be with his loved ones.

And all of that is, once again, perfectly fine! We simply value different things at this stage in our lives.

But it does make wonder why he, and my other “democratic socialist” friends, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, feel entitled to tax a huge sum of what I gain, in pursuit of the things I value, when he gets taxed very little or not at all in pursuit of the things he values.

Why is it, that because I have pursued different things than he has, that they feel I should have to give up 70% of what I earn – or whatever massive number AOC and her followers would like to tax people who make as much money as I currently make?

We all have 24 hours in a day. That’s our resource, the primary resource that all of us have, universally. That’s true equality right there, no matter where we were born, what our last name is, we all have 24 hours in a day; no more, no less. I choose to spend that resource to pursue economic stability, while John, and a vast number of socialist friends in my circle, choose to spend that resource pursuing things they enjoy. Why do I have to sacrifice so much of what I gained spending that resource when they don’t have to give up anything they gained from how they spent their resource?

Put simply, if I spend 10 hours of my potential leisure time working overtime, it is taxed at, let’s say 40%, after all taxes are accounted for. This is, from what I am told ad infinitum, “the price we pay for a civilized society.”

Yet, when my peers spend those same 10 hours opting to read, or go out with the friends or loved ones, or watch TV, or play video games, or browse social media, or get high, or get drunk, or doing whatever it is that they enjoy doing, none of that gets taxed. Society benefits nothing, except for perhaps very vaguely and tangentially, from these activities, but if I complain about my egregious tax rate, I’m “selfish.”

So, I’d like to issue a proposal. Socialists want to tax those with “disproportionately high incomes” at 70%? Fine, I’ll agree to that, the moment they also agree to tax the time of those with a “disproportionately high amount of leisure time” at 70% as well.

How would that play out? Well, that evil 1% can be summed up quite nicely with CEOs. Harvard conducted a study of CEO work hours and found that they work an average of 62.5 hours a week or an average of 8.9 hours a day, every day of the week. To put that into perspective, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the average American works 3.6 hours a day, meaning CEOs are spending 56% of their waking hours working towards the acquisition of money while the average American spends about 23%. Once again, keep in mind that these CEOs have the same 24 hours a day that we all have, and they are using that one, fundamental resource to pursue the collection of money. Since AOC and my friend John want to tax the always-maligned 1% at 70%, it seems fair to me to use their work hours as our baseline, and that 70% as our top tax rate. So, whatever hours an individual works (defined by generating taxable income, with income taxes being paid) will be subtracted from 62.5, and we’ll call that “leisure time.”

Let’s keep our “leisure time” tax consistent to the income tax. So, if you have very little, say 5 hours or less, of “leisure time” you owe no “leisure time” tax. From 5 hours up to 62.5 hours of “leisure time” the tax rate increases, all the way up to Ocasio-Cortez’s applauded 70% rate. So, people who don’t work at all will be charged 43.75 hours (70% of 62.5) of “leisure tax.”

What would this tax entail? Well, these people aren’t generating taxable income that society can benefit from during those hours, so whatever your “leisure time” tax comes out to is time that you are legally mandated to perform some type of volunteer service that is assigned to you by the federal government. We’ll even make a new 3 letter bureau to enforce it, say, the “Leisure and Responsibility Service” or LRS, just to keep it fun. The LRS will tell you where you are to log your volunteer hours based on your expertise and physical fitness, utilizing some type of “from every person according to their ability” assignment system. So, if you are a young, fit male, for example, you might be assigned to pay your “leisure tax” by building roads, while the old or infirm could be assigned to clerical work, etc.

And what happens if you refuse this unpaid labor the LRS has determined you owe society? Well, the same thing that happens to anyone who doesn’t pay their taxes. Your bank and investment accounts will be seized to pay your bill. If you don’t have enough money to pay your bill, the LRS will send men to take your possessions away from you. If you don’t have enough possessions to pay your bill, the LRS will send men with guns and haul you off to jail.

If all of this seems fundamentally wrong to you, just remember that it’s a tax, and taxes are, after all “The price we pay to live in a civilized society.”

If the notion of stealing people’s time and labor under threat of physical violence and imprisonment seems “uncivilized” to you, well, I would agree.

And I hope you keep that in mind when you think about income tax as well.

***

P.S. I would like to address, albeit briefly, what I’m sure some will deride me for in that I chose a military-centric career when I am taking a stance against taxes. Exploring all of my political stances on taxes, politics and the military, are far beyond the scope of this article, but suffice it to say that I am not an anarchist and I believe the government has legitimate roles for which taxes may be levied.

Summed up: I take the “necessary evil” view of taxation, and favor a drastic reduction in the size and scope of our military operations, a view I apply to nearly everything governments of all levels are involved in. For my current contract, we are not working for the United States, but are working for and paid by our host country. And I pay a lot in taxes.

The post About Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ 70% Tax appeared first on Being Libertarian.

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atopearth · 5 years

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Shall we Date? Wizardess Heart Part 16 - Klaus Goldstein Sequel

Ooh so Klaus’ sequel is set two years later as they’re preparing for his graduation ceremony! Is this also the start of the change in art with the soft and fluffy tones since Al has appeared? Btw, it’s really cute how just like the heroine, Elias is kinda sad that Klaus is graduating as well, since he really wanted to strive to work hard and best him in the same place. Such a cute brother hahaha. Omggg I didn’t expect Klaus to be the one to instigate the exchanging of gifts (legend where if a graduate and a student exchange gifts, they’ll be together forever) and it’s even a handmade star-shaped lantern!! It’s so beautiful and sweet of him! Dangg, it even has a magical stone in it that shows all their memories together, like whaaaat, that’s the best present ever, Klaus is so thoughtful, I would cry loll. He even called her beautiful, Klaus is so honest😍 I’m loving this route already, Klaus is so honest about his feelings of uncertainty as well since they’ve always been together in this academy for two years, so just like her, he’s also sad that they won’t be able to be together every day anymore, so he wants to give her that lantern so whenever she’s sad about that, she can think about all those memories they’ve shared together.

Seeing the heroine confidently use her magic alongside Klaus to fight the Chimera was really cool, made me happy to see that she has truly grown as a person and as a wizardess. The present she gave Klaus in exchange was perfect. Not only is it a rare and beautiful crystal flower, but the petals also reflect their memories from her perspective, and thus with the two presents combined together, their memories are perfect, whatever one can’t remember, the other will, they really are such wonderful presents. Looking forward to Klaus finishing his Ministry of Wizardry training and becoming a professor~ So cute that the flower means eternal love as well~~ Btw, Taffy crying and saying congratulations to Randy graduating is the funniest and cutest thing ever lmao. What?! The headmaster is leaving the academy too?!

Kinda crazy to think that after Klaus graduated, the heroine actually became top of her class and has new freshmen reading her the thesis on speaking to plants and animals saying they want to be a great wizardess like her lol. Although I have to say, the heroine is a great wizardess now because she studied hard and put in a lot of work and effort, but we’ve also got to remember that her latent magical powers etc are very strong as well, in a sense, she probably fails a lot because she didn’t know how to control her powerful magic. So really, her situation is special and maybe different from these freshmen, but oh well, guess it’s good to give them hope that hard work solves everything too. I mean, you’ve gotta at least have hope that you can improve and change.

Wow that the heroine can apply for an advanced graduation exam for her to graduate early. Guess she really does want to catch up to Klaus as much as she can so they can be on the same level. Well, the headmaster said he’d teach her everything he knows about magical creatures so I guess she’ll be very capable in the future~ It was obvious that Klaus would be the new professor-in-training at the academy but it was kinda cute that he wanted to surprise her so he didn’t tell her and instead kinda hinted it to her when she wanted him to tell her through the phone that he loves her, but he said he’d rather tell her in person haha, silly heroine. Not surprised that Klaus suddenly appearing would cause her to be distracted and mess up her magic spell haha. Even the most capable wizards mess up every now and then XD

Tbh, I’m not that impressed with the heroine wanting to be a professor, not because it’s not a good profession but because it seems more like she’s doing it just to be with Klaus. She’s supposedly smart, can achieve a lot of things and had a dream but I feel like she’s kinda compromising just to be with him. It’s true that the path you choose can change and what you initially wanted to do may be different from what you choose to do as a career, but I don’t feel like she’s ever been really interested in teaching others. I feel like it’s more one of those, I can do it, I can spend time with Klaus and be on the same wavelength since we’ll be doing similar things so why not. Oh well, it was pretty cute when he kissed her when she thought they won’t have the chance to be intimate since he’s a professor in training and he even suggested about going further soon hahaha.

Also, considering that the heroine has the gifted ability to talk to animals, it’s such a waste for her to not be like a vet and take care of animals etc. Just because she could successfully teach one student doesn’t mean she’s good at teaching a whole class, but whatever lol (why am I still whining hahaha). I can’t believe the chimera was capable of stealing Klaus’ magical power, now he’s just another human that cannot use magic? How can that be… Klaus is so strong to think that he won’t give up on his dream of becoming a professor and that instead he’ll be a professor at a normal academy. He really does like this job, huh? Defeating the chimera may restore his magic back to him, huh, if I was the heroine, I’d try and take it down too, regardless of the consequences. It’s nice that Vincent told Elias to watch over her, knowing that she’d probably go and fight the chimera, but Elias after all is Klaus’ brother! He’s always admired and acknowledged how great Klaus is and has always believed that he’ll achieve great things, so how could he not go along with the heroine and take the risk to get his magic back? Klaus is very gifted and very smart, he’s still so young as well! He’s got a great future up ahead of him, so really, you can’t blame them for risking their lives to do this for him. Good thing is that two people are always better than one, so at least now, they can watch out for each other :)

I think it was really cool to see that despite losing his magic, Klaus can still fight with a sword alongside Elias and the heroine. Not sure what the chimera meant by it’ll take their most precious possession but they’ve won for now so yay? Her memories? Is that her most important thing? The good thing about the heroine losing her memory though is that now we can see Klaus chasing her instead of her always chasing Klaus hahaha. I think it’ll be nice to see. I always love how great of a friend Amelia is though, to cry over the fact that her memories are gone but also be positive enough that no matter what, their friendship will remain the same because the heroine is who she is even without her memories of the past two years she came to this academy. Even if you can’t remember, those feelings still remain with you, so it’ll be okay. It’s kinda like a walk down memory lane of Klaus’ route and it feels so nostalgic and heartwarming to reminisce about it all~

Klaus’ declaration of love was so sweet and touching. When he said that he didn’t want anyone else but her and when he told her that even if she were to never remember or if she were to fall out of love with him, he still would never give up and continue to love her, it really made my heart warm to see him care so much. The lantern and the flower really were the perfect gifts for the both of them, huh? Best way for her to recover her memories XD Lmao at Schuyler saying that he’ll probably never see a student as bad as she was and become as good as she became hahahah.

It was really nice of Klaus and Elias to gather all the guys and Amelia to have a makeshift graduation ceremony for the heroine (since early graduations don’t have ceremonies). Really goes to show how many bonds she’s made and how many people are fond of her. Aww, Klaus proposed to her with a diamond ring! Sweet! Lmao when the guys noticed and the first thing Randy asks is how many layers will their wedding cake be🤣🤣 And after many years, she and Klaus are both respected professors with students coming to this school because of them~

Overall, I enjoyed this route. Klaus was sweet, cute and kind and I guess we could finally see more of Klaus’ feelings and how much he loves the heroine and hopes to walk towards the future with her. Also cool to see that she’s caught up with him and that even though she shows the most affection, you can tell that Klaus loves her just as much. It was a nice little sequel to see how highly Klaus regards her in his life and a very sweet story I guess hahaha.

#wizardess heart

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wellesleyunderground · 6 years

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Wellesley Writes It: Jane Ridgeway ‘09 (@janeridgeway), Fiction Writer and Teacher

Photo by Jane Ridgeway.

Jane Ridgeway is a fiction writer born and raised in Seattle, now living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the current Writer in Residence at the Kerouac Project of Orlando, Florida, living and writing in the house in which Jack Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums. Her work appears in the Cover Stories anthology from Volt Books. She has an MFA in fiction from the University of Oregon, and has taught creative writing and literature at the U of O, as well as at prep schools in California and Hawai’i. Interview by Camille Bond ‘17, Wellesley Writes It series editor.

WU: Welcome, Jane, and thanks so much for chatting with the Wellesley Underground! One of your short stories was recently published in an anthology, Cover Stories. What is the story about?

So, as the title suggests, Cover Stories’ mission was to anthologize “cover” versions of other short stories—so you take a canonical (or not-so-canonical) story that you passionately love or hate, and you riff off of it, explore some particular facet of it, or write very literary fan fiction of it, essentially. It’s an exploration of that weird and glorious phenomenon in which, over the decades, a song can be transformed through the different covers of it that are performed by artists with radically different sensibilities.

My story, “Peredelkino,” is a take on Isaac Babel’s “My First Goose,” a personal favorite and a story that definitely haunts me. Babel’s narrator, Liutov, is this gentle, nervous Jewish intellectual who finds himself embedded with the incredibly violent Cossacks and has to find a way to integrate himself to survive—and because he finds himself both drawn to the sort of sexy, robust glamour of the soldiers and terrified of their brutality. My piece updates some of the same conflicts that Liutov experienced to the era of the Soviet purges of intellectuals carried out by the KGB (which took the lives of many artists, including Babel himself).

WU: As a fiction writer, are there specific themes or issues that you feel drawn to? How do you discuss these themes/issues in your writing?

Grief, loss, sex, queerness, mortality, the sturm und drang of being a teenage girl, the way the past keeps popping its head back up throughout a life/a century/a place’s history. People who try really hard to be good but aren’t very successful at it. For some reason, religion, which is certainly not because I want to espouse any particular set of beliefs through my writing, or even something I focus on deliberately—I just can’t seem to get away from it, even if I try to. I’m really interested in the stories we tell ourselves about the afterlife, and how that shapes the way we live.

WU: As an emerging fiction writer, you’ve been accepted as one of four annual residents at the Kerouac Project in Florida. Congratulations! Kerouac residents spend a season living in Kerouac Project housing and working on creative projects. What are you working on during your residency?

I’m now one month into the Kerouac and have been using my time to generate new short story material! When I accepted the Kerouac I self-imposed some pressure to come here and bang out an entire novel draft, which isn’t what’s happened so far. The Kerouac is gloriously unconstrained: I’ve been given time to work on any project I choose, so I’m taking advantage of that freedom to play a little, write outside of my usual range, and create things that aren’t geared toward any particular publication, workshop, etc.

WU: How do you hope to develop as a writer during your time at the Kerouac Project?

I’ve been greatly enjoying finding my rhythm and discovering a creative schedule that works for me outside the constraints of my usual day job and responsibilities. It’s also been an exercise in overcoming self-doubt, because when I first arrived I was walloped by a wave of uncertainty and impostor syndrome. Through some combination of “faking it till I make it” and adopting some of the swaggering ego of the Beat generation that permeates the Kerouac House, I’ve found a way through it. (Kerouac himself said, “You’re a genius all the time!” which feels awfully audacious, but I think we could all stand to borrow a little of the audacity of a man who wrote his unedited first drafts on a single continuous scroll of paper.)

WU: You previously worked as a staff writer at the Los Altos Town Crier newspaper. How, if at all, has your journalism career informed your creative writing?

Working at the paper was one of the happiest phases of my working life! I loved having an immediate and local audience of subscribers with a clear stake in the stories I was covering, rather than a hazy sense that someone might read my fiction years in the future after I’d painstakingly revised for months, spent a year or so waiting to hear back from lit mags, then many more months before publication. I also love the precise, straight-to-the-point journalistic style. (Readers of this interview may notice that my natural tendency leans to the verbose!) Having experienced journalists and a brilliant copy editor to learn from helped me write crisper prose. Coming out of an MFA writing literary fiction, I think I also took the (unproductive) attitude that all of my stories were delicate, precious creations that I couldn’t possibly let out of my hands until they were perfect. Working at a publication that publishes weekly taught me to work with a much tighter turnaround time, much more efficiently, with less unnecessary psychodrama. There’s a deadline—just get it done!

WU: You’re currently teaching in a prep school environment, and have also taught Creative Writing at the University of Oregon, where you studied for your MFA. How, if at all, has teaching the subject changed your perspective on the act of creative writing? How has it informed your development as a writer?

I wholeheartedly love teaching, even though I can’t exactly recommend it to aspiring writers on the grounds of short hours or great work-life balance! Teaching literature means I get to spend my days hanging out with some of my favorite stories, novels, and poems, and really thinking about how to break them down for a young audience. It’s great to admire literature, but it’s even more useful to know how it ticks! On a more woo-woo level, teaching has helped me as a writer because it’s balanced out some of my edges and helped me grow into a softer, more vulnerable, caring, and patient human. Which is hard as hell, and not something I’m sure I would ever have gotten good at otherwise, because that’s not my natural inclination! I’ve always tended to be a seething ball of snark and sarcasm, and, untempered, that’s no way to go through life! The writers I admire most are all able to observe how much humankind can suck without losing their love and compassion for what a desperate, scrappy lot we all are. Teaching gives you great respect for people (young or otherwise) who are trying their hardest. Being a person is hard! We shouldn’t dismiss how hard it is, even when people disappoint us.

WU: Can you tell us a bit about your background in theater, and how this background has informed your literary career?

Some useful lessons of a theater-kid background for writers:

Better to commit to a choice than to be boring

Say “yes, and”

Don’t write any dialogue so stilted your actors would be embarrassed to say it

Read everything out loud after you’ve written it

I actually first started writing seriously after a playwriting class in my senior year of high school resulted in a festival production of my short play. Watching the actors and director in rehearsal, hearing my words, realizing how I could make the work better, was one of the most electrifying experiences I’d ever had as a young person.

WU: Are there any teachers and/or students who have been particularly influential to you?

A long and glorious lineage, starting from my absolute miracle of a second-grade teacher who made me fall in love with Greek myths, to my brilliant high school English teachers who were tremendously overqualified to be teaching me grammar and who told me I could be a writer, to Prof. Erian at Wellesley who actually taught me how to edit, to the teachers who caught me as a proper adult and really kicked my butt into writing things that an audience other than myself might care about. Also, Ehud Havazelet, the stern fiction father figure who permanently broke me of the ability to use the word “impactful” or read it without a tinge of disgust.

Hillger → Culhane → Doelger → Aegerter → Erian → Kiesbye → Brown, Bradley, Havazelet

WU: You have described your thankfulness to belong to a network of writers and thinkers. How can Wellesley students and alumnx build similar networks around themselves?

I love knowing writers and artists and readers all over the country. A lot of my writer acquaintances come not from my grad program but from an eclectic network of youngsters who were all applying to grad school at the same time as me, and joined forces to share information behind the scenes on how well-funded programs were (among other things.) I’ve always found networking in the traditional sense grotesque and repellent, but I think there’s a lot to be said for finding other people who care about the things you care about, befriending them with no regard for whether they’re currently (or ever likely to be) in a position to help you, and generously sharing information that might be helpful. Do your best to root for other people’s success even though sometimes you’re going to feel bitter and jealous because you’re a human and, like all of us, you kind of suck sometimes. Also, don’t be a dickbag. We all know who the dickbags in a given community are.

WU: What is your approach to self-care?

I take a very pragmatic approach to self-care that wouldn’t play well in a glossy magazine! To me, self-care is about doing the things that will make my life better, like doing the dishes I don’t want to do, taking out the trash, and clearing my inbox, more so than ‘treating myself’, you know? This summer, this has included writing lots of snail mail, going running even when I don’t want to, and long, slow, inefficient cooking projects.

#wellesleywritesit #wellesleyunderground #wellesleycollege #@wellesleyalumnx

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aijee · 3 years

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Hi, aijee. This seems like a random ask to you but first, let me introduce myself as your avid reader. I've read all your meanie fics and you're one of my favorite fic authors <3 so, here it goes: I've been visiting your tumblr from time to time, i have no other reasons but I just like reading your thoughts, life updates and rants about your personal life. I hope, I'm not creeping you out but yes, I like how eloquent and persuasive you are. (1/3)

Since, you're sharing updates about your work, I hope you don't mind that I'm sharing what's bugging me lately. I'm a fresh graduate medical student and yey, I passed my board exam, I got my license but the joy and relief that I've felt when I passed that exam was just... temporary (?) like, I've been feeling depressed and my anxiety goes up whenever I think about my future career. I feel lost, I don't know what to do; i want to get a job but at the same time, I don't want to.

I'm so scared of meeting new people, new environment and I've been thinking that this career I chose is something I don't want to do for my whole life. And the mentality of asian family is a big factor why I've been feeling this way. I feel like, I just want leave this home, runaway, go to jeju and live the way i want. I'm sorry If this rants is burdening you but It's okay, you don't need to response. I just want to let it out. Thank you so much, aijee. -🍠

Hello, it's been a long time since you've sent in these messages! Thank you very much for the kind words and I'm glad you enjoy my writing across the different platforms and topics I write in. ❤️ My apologies for a late response, I honestly held off on answering these asks, mostly because I feel like I'm not old or experienced enough—or trained—to give good advice. But I do have a fuck ton of word vomit. As always, take what I write with a grain of salt since I don't know the whole situation. I do tend towards a Western perspective on the Western/Eastern scale as well.

First of all, congratulations for passing your board exam and becoming a licensed practitioner in medicine! God knows the world is always sorely lacking of people like you, and that the field itself is often obscenely brutal in its standards for the people who really just want a stable income while helping the health of society. It's a rough field. It's also a field Asians are often pushed into because of familial expectations. A common narrative, but in no way does that commonality undermine the visceral experience.

If it's any comfort, we're still in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. Sure, vaccines are slowly rolling out in some countries, but the world continues to be an unprecedented state right now. It's important to be consciously forgiving of yourself for those heightened negative feelings. I often think, "There are so many people out there who are still working hard and thriving despite the pandemic, so why can't I handle it?" In reality, EVERYONE is not having a good time. It might not show, but it's true. Uncertainty about the future is rampant all around. You are not alone in questioning your future, in being in limbo, etc.

Something I'm slowly coming to terms to with my therapist is the fact that, for so long in my life, my self-worth was predicated on external successes—grades and school, profession, appearance, etc.—because that's what's so loudly valued in my culture and family. I grew up with this mindset, and I wouldn't be surprised if you did, too. External successes are still important, but in far more moderation than we often treat them, especially since so many are fleeting and shallow. As much as we want to start healing and valuing and developing internal successes more—empathy, self-forgiveness, confidence, knowing your boundaries—Asians can get stuck between a rock and hard place: shifting our priorities for "success" versus following through with our family's priorities.

I feel your situation so much. It's a very complex one. You're on a professional path that seems to check the tick boxes for success, but what's on the outside doesn't align with what's on the inside. I'm seeing different facets of your reality that not only don't match, but you're torn between. That shit's scary and it's okay for you to feel torn. And the notion of a new environment and new people heightens those bad feelings, I'm sure, especially in an era where we've been forced to minimize socializing and feel especially judgmental of others. If you are questioning how you feel, I want to tell you that those feelings are valid and totally okay.

Based on your text, it seems like family is a big obstacle and unavoidable part of your life; me as well. While I can't be 100% giving you advice, I will say that talking to family can make a big difference. Even if their minds don't match yours immediately (unfortunately, time is a necessity for change), it helps to express yourself and develop your voice separate from the hands that tried to mold it growing up. "I feel X." "I think Y." "I believe Z." My therapist tells me this is a good technique to bolster your truth in a conversation that may try to manipulate it (e.g. gaslighting).

I am of the mindset that YOUR life is YOURS, not your family's, because who else is living it? Whose feelings and energy and body are standing in the fire of life? Yes, in cultural spaces, perhaps you're inextricable from family. But you are still your own person whose life is valuable in and of itself, regardless of what you do.

My first reaction, aside from "talk to family", is to test out the waters of this professional field with an open mind. It's easy to psyche yourself out of something you anticipate not liking from the get-go. Take a few months or a year to see if it's a field that can still make you content, even if it was a path you were pushed onto. Maybe you'll branch out into a completely different but related career. I'm not sure how old you are, but I feel like young adults and twenty-somethings are taught to rush to get their shit together before they're 30 or their life is over. There's still so much time ahead! Go at a pace that suits you and makes you HAPPY.

Okay I'm gonna have to stop there or else I won't stop. Hopefully a fraction of that was helpful in some way! It's a VERY complex situation with a lot of caveats so I'm sure a lot of what I wrote doesn't apply to you. I'm also a super big advocate for therapy, so if that's in your ballpark, then I highly recommend it since you'll be talking to someone trained to untangle that messy yarn ball of feelings and life with you. In any case, I’m also happy to be a listening ear or soundboard. It just might...take a little while...😬

#askaijee

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jobbmaroc · 4 years

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12 Personal Finance Tips That Will Change Your Life

Good financial habits are hard to develop and harder to stay. Sometimes, it feels overwhelming once you realize that managing your finances may be a lot quite having the ability to regulate your expenses or maintaining a gentle stream of income. Personal Finance compiles everything that directs your financial life to utmost stability and peace – paying down your debt, saving for the longer term, budgeting and everything else that's somehow associated with money.

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

While it'd sound boring to formulate a budget or cultivate a frugal lifestyle, it'll be worthwhile once you begin noticing small positive impacts on your financial journey. Below are a number of the foremost effective personal finance tips which will cause you to feel rich in your financial journey and can get your finances in order:

1. Track your net worth- Your net worth determines your overall financial standing and provides you the right picture of your financial stability. Keep track of your net worth – the difference between your assets and your liabilities. While your net worth could be negative at the beginning of your career due to the debt component, your ultimate goal should be to extend your assets and pay off your liabilities. More internet worth, better financial stability.

2. Set a workable household budget- Budget is an estimation of your income and expenses over a specified period of your time, say every week or a month. Have a household budget in situ to stay your expenses in restraint and to form sure that you simply save a minimum of a particular amount monthly to assist support your future needs. Your budget shouldn’t be too rigid to follow but should be workable enough to incorporate all of your necessary expenses like groceries, utilities, etc. Having a budget is merely effective if you follow it abreast of a daily basis and make changes when needed.

3. Cultivate a frugal lifestyle- Cultivating a frugal lifestyle shouldn't be misunderstood as living cheap. A frugal lifestyle is anything that helps you economize by making small changes in your spending habits. Here are a number of the foremost effective frugal living tips which will assist you to economize in no time:

Pay your bills on time to avoid any late fees. Use discount coupons and avail cash backs while shopping online. Control Impulse spending and avoid pocket money on belongings you don’t need. Wait for products to travel on sale than having to pay a full price for them. Prefer eating a home-cooked meal over eating out. Resort to the choice of effective meal getting to economize on groceries. If your schedule doesn’t allow you adequate time to plan your meals, a $5 hotel plan is often the last word solution to your problem. they need to make meal planning simple on behalf of me and I’m not leaving them anytime soon.

4. Set Specific financial goals- Have specific financial goals in situ for the longer term. Have an image in mind on where you'd wish to see yourself 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now and 30 years from now. once you know your financial priorities, your personal finance journey gets much easier. So once you know that paying off your student loan and automobile loan are some things that you simply would like to realize five years from now, you'll be ready to adjust your finances accordingly. Also, your financial goals might need a revision every now then with changes in your financial situation.

5. Retirement Planning- How you manage your finances in your 20s and 30s is what determines how your life would be post-retirement. people that are ready to retire after 40 are usually those who are managing their finances during a smarter way right from the start of their careers. everyone dreams to measure a financially comfortable life post-retirement which makes it necessary to try to complicated retirement planning. you ought to be ready to save enough amount of cash to supply for your basic needs in your 60s without having to depend upon anyone else for an equivalent.

6. Keep track of your finances- once I first visited the college, wont to be"> I used to be completely used to the habit of keeping track of where my money was going. Every penny spent would be taken note of and cross-checked at the top of the month. My Mom wont to call me a paranoid for being concerned about little expenses but this habit helped me learn the art of cash management. Keeping track of your finances can go an extended way in stabilizing your financial life by creating a way of self-awareness concerning your finances. Your bills, unplanned expenses and proportion of income that goes into each component of your budget should be tracked by you to assist you to retain your finances in restraint.

7. Write off your debt- Debt repayment should be your favorite priority when it involves setting your financial goals. You might, of course, got to make sure small sacrifices in your debt repayment journey but what comes out of it might be worthwhile.

8. Have an Emergency Fund- Life is filled with uncertainties and it’s on us to be prepared for love or money that life might throw at us. does one have an idea in situ for the unforeseen circumstances which will arise in the future? How long are you able to feed your family if you suddenly happen to lose your job? what proportion are you ready if a shutdown were to occur within the company you’re working for? Well, that’s not me being pessimistic. But everyone wants to possess themselves and their family secured at any cost which is why having an emergency fund should be one among your topmost priorities.

9. Start Investing Today- Investment is one of the simplest ways to form money from money. Now, investment is that the word that's known to scare people thanks to the associated risk factor but many folks fail to understand that multiple investment options are safer and carry lower risk than stocks. land, Fixed deposit schemes, high-yield bank account are a couple of options where your money sits safely. At an equivalent time, it’s always in your best interest to possess an entire knowledge of the investments that you simply are getting to make.

10. Have a Side Hustle to form Money– Having a side hustle helps you earn some extra bucks while keeping your day job. Although it’s easier said than done I’m sure it’s not difficult to possess a side hustle since all folks possess some unique skills that go underutilized. With the arrival of the internet, I do know people that are easily making a couple of hundred dollars in their spare time by managing the social media pages for brands. Writers and creatives can easily sell their services online, people with basic educational knowledge can tutor others in their spare time and people with some knowledge of the online can become virtual assistants.

11. Create a savings plan and stick with it- You don’t get to be making thousands of dollars a month to be ready to but your future needs. With a correct savings plan and a touch of motivation to stay thereto is all you would like to save lots of some money. Every time you get your paycheck, put aside a particular amount as your fixed savings and spend the remainder of it towards your expenses. Always list savings as a hard and fast item in your savings plan and don’t use it for love or money else. Keep a record of your expenses and see where you'll save extra money.

12. Spend time on your financial education- Basic financial education may be a must to be ready to manage your finances adequately. You don’t require a knowledgeable degree when it involves acquiring basic financial knowledge. a daily reading habit to stay yourself updated with the happenings within the financial world is all you would like to spice up your financial literacy.

Personal Finances may be a subject that will never be avoided when it comes right down to financial security. Invest in yourself to be ready to earn extra money and discuss your finances together with your spouse as it’s always good to possess a special opinion on how you ought to set about handling your finances. nobody can know your financial needs better than you and therefore the onus is on you to create up your financial security.

#finance tips

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blog-researchblog · 4 years

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The Inside Scoop of an Elementary School Teacher

Reflection:

When I graduate I want to become an elementary or special education teacher. By answering Scott Christ’s “ 7 Powerful Questions To Find Out What You Want To Do With Your Life” I got to reflect on what I value in life. I value many things that I believe will help me succeed in having this career. One thing I value is I love to help others, and being a teacher involves helping others all day long. You help your students to learn and understand the information being taught, and you also help other teachers around you. Getting my teaching degree in Pennsylvania, I have the ability to teach in almost every state without getting a new certificate. I would like to travel and teach down south, or even overseas for a year before having a family. Teaching also would give me consistent hours which is helpful when wanting a family. I would like to eventually live in a suburban area and be involved in my children’s school/social life. I am willing to work very hard for what I want in life. For example, I worked hard to create lesson plans and activities while traveling to South Africa with a group from Kutztown University. There we tutored middle schoolers to help with their fluency in literature and math practice. It took a lot of confidence to travel so far with only knowing my one friend. Going into teaching in general, and especially Special Education, it requires a lot of confidence and patience. You need to put in the time and energy into everything you do, which I believe I do.

In order to find out more about the teaching profession, I looked at the Occupational Outlook Handbook.

The Facts:

According to the entry “ Kindergarten and Elementary School Teachers” in the Occupational Outlook Handbook, an elementary school teacher starts the basis of learning for a child. They prepare lessons, teach students social skills, observe students, prepare students for standardized tests, etc. Elementary teachers typically teach basic subjects- such as math, reading, and writing. Teachers can work in public and private schools. A typical teacher schedule is working with the students during the week September- June , preparing lessons during nights/weekends, and having summers off. If a teacher teaches year long they typically work 9 weeks in a row followed by a 3 week break. An elementary school teacher usually teaches kindergarten- fifth grade. When students are in the classroom they instruct in several subjects. They may also escort their students through the halls to assemblies, recess, or other teachers classrooms (art, music, gym, etc.) To become a teacher, one must get a bachelor's degree from a college and receive a state-issued certificate. Most states have tenure laws which are laws that provide job security after a certain number of years of teaching in one school. In 2018, teachers held 1.4 million of the jobs in the US. The median wage for this profession is around $58,000.

Important qualities teachers should possess are communication skills, patience, physical stamina, and resourcefulness. To look more in depth about what being a teacher is like, I interviewed a current first grade teacher to get her insight.

In the Eyes of a First Grade Teacher:

When you were little do you remember what your favorite game to play was? Maybe it was hide and seek, dolls, toy cars, or tag? Well for this first grade teacher her favorite game was teacher. She found herself setting up her toys all around her basement and reading to them. She also had her sister who would sometimes play with her as well. As she grew older this love for teaching inside of her never died. Similar to her, growing up playing school was the moment I noticed I loved it while other kids hated it. Teaching is something that I am passionate about and want to pursue. She decided to start looking for colleges in which she would be able to get a teaching degree, and she seems very glad with the career she chose.

During our interview, she spoke her teaching philosophy to me and it has definitely made me more excited to teach and inspired to be a good teacher. Her philosophy is “ I believe in making all students feel welcome, safe, loved, and at home. I believe in teaching the whole child; mentally, socially, and emotionally.” You could just tell her excitement when she spoke about what she loved doing and having an impact in all her students lives. She enjoys so many things about her job such as the bonds she creates with her students and their families. Her favorite part of the day is teaching reading (the read alouds and shared reading) because “there is so much you can do with it that captures their interest and imagination.” She also appreciates all the other little things that come along with teaching- their notes, pictures, and cards, their funny stories and excitement, and watching how much they grow before her eyes as the school year continues. She loves being able to see how much they’ve progressed from the beginning of the year to the end. Each day is just as impactful as another to help shape their minds into little masterminds.

Her days are busy so I asked her to explain to me what it’s like. Her classroom has an 180 minute literacy block in the morning that includes independent reading, phonics, read aloud, guided reading rotations, as well as shared reading and writer’s workshop. They then have a break for lunch and then come back to complete 80 minutes of math which includes guided math rotations. The student’s break for their special and then they return for 25 minutes of science/social studies before packing up at 2:55. Her school days are pretty much always the same, just different material each day.

One thing she explained that is hard to do is move around. She said she had the idea to move into a suburban area that she subbed at but the pay cut was too extreme so she continued to accept a job and teach in the city. “When I moved to the city and was hired as a full time teacher in a grade that I loved, I just wanted to stay here because to leave would bring so much uncertainty.” While traveling was one thing I have always looked forward to, I would be willing to save it for the summer when we have off because I would become just as attached to my students and school district.

While you don’t go into teaching for the pay, you have to look at the bigger picture. She said while most days are super hard- it makes the good days that much better. “Your heart is what gets you through those really hard days.” Lastly, I was interested in what advice she would give someone like me about going into teaching. She suggests getting your masters degree as soon as you can. She is currently one semester away from getting her masters degree on top of maintaining a classroom and she explained that it has definitely been very difficult. Also to go to your mentor teachers as often as you need because they’ve gone through what you are going through and they know the ins and outs. Always keep an open communication with the parents and give them good news before delivering any bad news about their child's day. This will make them realize their child doesn’t only do bad things- you should call their parents about the good news too.

Where she is teaching they are dealing with it being their contract year. Three years ago her district got out of a contract freeze after six years without raises or a contract. They are all nervous that they will have to go through that again. Another thing is a lot of the schools around her are being closed for asbestos within the schools. Safety is one thing you don't think about right away going into being a teacher, but where you teach at definitely has an impact on your teaching and students learning.

I believe everyone has something in life that they were meant to do, so always take every opportunity you get so you get the chance to experience it and find it. Speaking with her definitely gave so much more insight on what a teacher has to go through and deal with, especially with all that is being broadcasted in the news such as the asbestos problem.

Education in the News:

In her article “Teachers are refusing to enter a Philadelphia Elementary school because of asbestos fears” Kristin A. Graham gives insight on the teachers feelings about the schools their teaching at allowing students back into the buildings without proof that the asbestos is gone. Teachers and staff refused to enter a school without proof that the asbestos was completely gone. A lot of them were boycotting going inside and holding up signs outside the school until there was evidence. Some parents kept their children home while others who didn’t have any other choice had to send their kids back to school. There was a leak in the schools boiler room and to fix the problem would have to be removed in one weekend. Parents are worried about their children's safety as well as teachers that work there.

This topic is one that definitely scares me. Going into teaching, you don’t necessarily always think about your safety or the building you are in before your students. I chose this topic because the teacher I interviewed teaches in Philadelphia where this epidemic is happening. I wanted to get a better insight about what was happening. Being a future teacher and mother, these are the types of things you need to be ready to face. Teachers and parents are boycotting going into a school because there is no proof it is 100% completely free. This topic relates to my career choice because it could potentially happen where I teach. In older schools it is possible things may go wrong or not always be as up to date as newly built schools. You need to be just as aware of your surroundings and safety with as much of thought you put into decorating your room or making lesson plans. I don’t know that I would want to continue to teach in a city where such a harmful substance keeps popping up. This may be something I could have to face and decide if I ‘m going to keep my job but be at risk, or risk moving and finding another job but being positive that your safety is a top priority. From this article I have learned to always research where you are accepting or applying for a job. Make sure you are willing to put up with all the challenges you might face. Also to make sure you weigh the factors going into deciding if your safety is worth the money. I would like to still know if anyone else got hurt besides the one teacher they referenced. I would also like to know how long it is taking for them to completely clean the schools. Also if teachers and staff can’t enter if they are still getting paid.

Lauren Kovacs

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