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missjosie27 · 4 years

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Year 2 Part 6- Bill Weasley

Hey, guys! Sorry about the late chapter. Being in self quarantine has actually caused a degree of 'apathy' so to speak and it's tough trying not to let that infest your creativity.

But in any case I am back with a new installment and I'd like to say a few words beforehand.

For the first three years of this series, Slytherin isn't going to look good. But there's a reason for that (not the least of which includes shipping my MC with Merula xD) and it will reveal itself in good time. To all my Slytherin readers, portraying your house as the 'bad guy' is not my endgame. Not even close.

Anyway on the with the story!

The party following the triumphant victory over Slytherin could only be described as pandemonium. In one fell swoop the Gryffindors had opened up a huge lead in the standings and were already being favored to win the entirety of the Quidditch season. Hufflepuff was no serious obstacle and only the Ravenclaws stood as the last major threat to their title chances. It was also the first time in three years the lions had beaten the snakes in a major match such as this and dancing on their misery tasted almost as sweet as the butterbeer.

David and company could hardly keep track of anything during the celebration, but they didn’t care. He had never seen such a spectacle and though listening to Quidditch was always a popular pastime, to actually witness it in person in addition to crushing your biggest rival went far beyond expectations. Though he didn’t say it openly, he privately imagined Merula and the rest of the Slytherins sulking in their cold, black dungeon.

Let them. It’s no less than they deserve

He made his way through the crowd in search of Charlie, seeing as he was the hero of the day (seekers usually were) and also a roommate in need of basic congratulations. Along the way he passed Adolphus Blishwick and Henry McLaggen who were engaged in a chugging contest of sorts though the substance did not look like butterbeer. In addition, he encountered the fearless chaser herself, Skye Parkin.

“Great game, Skye!” he yelled out to her.

Looking around, she spotted her admirer and gave a cool thumbs up before resuming conversation with a crowd of Gryffindor boys and girls who sought her attention.

She’s going to be the talk of the whole school for a week after this. Let her have the moment.

Resuming his search, it didn’t take long to spot Charlie. The second eldest Weasley brother was being hoisted up in the air by several older Gryffindors, broom still in hand, chanting his name repeatedly.

“CHARLIE! CHARLIE! CHARLIE!”

“Come on, mates! I’m going to get bloody sick!” he laughed, clutching his stomach.

David could only watch in amusement as the crowd finally let him down onto his feet, breathing heavily from the day’s excitement.

“Butterbeer for the rookie of the day?” he offered.

“Ha, no thanks, Dave. If I have another one of those things, I think I might actually vomit.”

“Mate, you didn’t just win today. You crushed Slytherin into the dirt. No one will let you buy another drink again.”

Charlie laughed good naturedly.

“Wasn’t just me, Dave. Team effort won the day. In case you haven’t noticed, we have a pretty good chaser over there,” he said, indicating Skye.

“She’s as confident as they come,” David observed. “Didn’t seem to know who I was, though or anyone else besides her Quidditch mates.”

“She has to be,” Charlie shrugged. “With the family she hails from nothing less than winning is acceptable. As for the second part, don’t take it personally, she keeps to her own crowd. Likes the attention but not really a people’s person if you catch my drift.”

A glance back and David saw Skye flick the blue colored braid back almost as if it were an act of God himself. Several of her ogling fans ate it up, whilst the Parkin girl gave a small smirk but no audible reply.

“Yeah, you don’t say.”

The second born Weasley chuckled before turning serious for a split second.

“Listen,” he said in a low voice which was just audible above the noise of the ongoing party. “I heard about what happened on Halloween.”

David’s eyebrows became sharp.

“What did you hear?”

“Relax, Dave,” Charlie reassured him. “No one told me anything, just rumors. But from what I gathered you and Rowan are still searching for that cursed vault? The one with the cursed ice that’s been entrapping people.”

“And if I were to say ‘yes’?”

“Mate, it’s not exactly a well-kept secret. There was no sign of you or Rowan at the feast. Many people around here still remember when your brother was chasing the vaults, they expect the same from you.”

Memories and headlines flooded David’s brain, ones he did not want to think about at the moment.

‘Aw, but Jacob why won’t you tell me?’

The older boy shuffled a vast assortment of papers into his drawer, his appearance slightly disheveled.

‘Pip, what I’m working on is top secret and cannot be revealed to anyone. You have to trust me on that.’

‘But-’

‘You’ll understand someday when you’re older.’

“I’m not my brother,” David responded quietly. He did not want to discuss the matter further as he pushed the guilt ridden feelings into the darkest recesses of his mind.

“I know you’re not, that’s why I want to help. Or make a suggestion rather,” Charlie responded, no malice or ulterior motive in his hazel eyes. It was then that David realized he may have spoken too harshly.

“Fire away,” he said, the light, jovial tone returning. “Better be good or I’ll have those blokes lift you up and down in the air again.”

“If you want some assistance in your search, talk to my brother.”

That gave David some pause.

“Bill? Why would he want anything to do with this?”

“Are you kidding? He’s almost as obsessed with breaking curses as I am with dragons…well maybe not quite that obsessed but it’s a goal of his and make no mistake,” Charlie explained.

“You’re sure? I can’t exactly go around telling everyone what I’m doing, lest I get expelled,” David spoke candidly.

“He’d never rat on you, that’s one thing I am certain of. I’ve known him my whole life. He’s caught me doing loads of things I shouldn’t have, and he’s always had my back. Believe me, there’s no one better.”

“Well I’ll consider it. Thanks, Charlie.”

“Anytime.”

The new star Gryffindor seeker was led back over to the center of the party leaving David to ponder in the middle of the celebration. He did not want to risk trying to bust down that door again at least not without help. Two second years weren’t strong enough but adding Bill to the team might prove to be the deciding factor.

He would have to ask Rowan what he thought of the idea.

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“Are you kidding? That’s a great idea!” Rowan exclaimed at lunch the following Monday. “Why didn’t I think of it?”

“A good question considering you talk about him more than you do about your tree farm.”

Rowan lightly swiped at him with his book (and missed) before continuing.

“In all seriousness, think of the possibilities. He’s older, he knows more spells than we do, not to mention he has an interest in what we’re doing according to Charlie. What’s there to lose?”

In truth, not much. But that didn’t mean it was a sure thing.

“I plan on asking him today,” David shrugged. “Just don’t get your hopes up, okay?”

“Why not? He likes you, already. He taught you a few spells last year.”

The twelve year old Gryffindor took a massive bite of shepherd’s pie.

“Dat was ifferent,” he said before swallowing. “Merula was terrorizing the entire first year class. This is ten times as risky.”

“Since when has that ever stopped, you?”

“It never does, and it never will,” David proclaimed. “That also doesn’t mean I go looking for trouble. It just happens to find me most of the time.”

“Well we could save a lot of trouble if we could get him on board. I can read an entire book about potential curses in this school but if we don’t have the know how or power, then this ice could spread even further by year’s end.”

Rowan was never short on logic and he couldn’t fault him this particular time either. The worst Bill could do was say ‘no’ and that would be the end of it. As if to confirm his own intentions, Charlie suddenly came up behind him.

“Hey, David. Bill is waiting for you at the training grounds. Says he has an hour before his next class if you want to talk.”

“Wait, he’s already waiting for me?”

“I put in a good word for you,” Charlie said with a sly grin. “I think you’ll find he’ll be very interested in what you have to say.”

Rowan gave him a look as if to shout ‘what are you waiting for?’ before returning to his grilled cheese sandwich.

“Suppose now is as good a time as any,” he muttered getting up from the table. “Make sure Charlie doesn’t steal my pie, Rowan.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” the red head called back, digging his fork into the pie and shoving it into his mouth.

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The route to the training grounds was simple enough, one simply had to traverse two stories and past the dungeons to reach the outside door that led to the cold, autumn outdoors. David was hardly giving much attention to his surroundings as he adjusted his hat and scarf, very eager to see what Bill had to say.

Suddenly, he stopped in the middle of the dungeon corridor, instincts going haywire. Though this part of Hogwarts was always dark and gloomy, he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched.

“Hello?” he called out into the empty nothingness.

His natural reflexes kicked in as he just barely ducked a sickly-looking purple jet of light that created sparks on the stone walls.

“Goddamn it, what the hell?!”

Out of the shadows stepped a pale, black haired girl, one eye shrouded by the perpetual greasy mass of mop that never seemed to move. David immediately recognized her as Ismelda Murk, the same girl who had given him that creepy smile the previous week.

“So, you are going to see that blood traitor, Bill Weasley,” she said in a quiet, but deadly tone. “No doubt to discuss the cursed vaults.”

Her wand was trained on him, but David did not reach for his. At least, not yet. Any sudden movement would likely trigger another curse being sent his way.

“And how did you know that?” he stalled.

Ismelda rolled her visible eye.

“Please, your voice is loud enough. It’s not hard to overhear you.”

She took a step forward wand still pointed directly at his chest.

“But it makes no difference. You Gryffindors are all the same- cocky, arrogant, always hogging the spotlight for yourself.”

“Hey, Izzy, if this is about kicking your ass in Quidditch don’t take it out on me. I’m sure there’s a small, defenseless animal somewhere around here you can torture.”

Another jet of purple light barely missed his head.

“I didn’t have to miss,” Ismelda spoke with quiet fury. “Now here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell me everything you know about the vaults and I won’t have to hurt you…much.”

At this point, David had had enough. It was already irritating to constantly deal with one crazy Slytherin girl, two went beyond his patience.

“Yeah, okay let me tell you what’s actually going to happen. I’m going to hex you and I’m going to walk out that door.”

Without another second’s hesitation he whipped out his wand and fired the same spell Merula had used on him last year.

‘ Petrificus Totalus! ’

He caught her square in the chest, sending her toppling over like a four by four to the ground. However, she managed to fire off one more curse before it did, and this time he wasn’t quick enough to avoid it.

“GAH!” he winced as he felt his shoulder catch part of the blast. Still, he didn’t waste any more time waiting for Ismelda to regain use of her limbs and ran as fast he could out into the nippy, November air.

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So fast did he run that he barely noticed that after a minute or so, Bill Weasley was right in front of him. When he finally did, the older boy was already looking down on him with an eyebrow raised.

“Whoa, there David Grant. You look out of breath. What happened?”

Still panting from his recent escapade, it took a moment for the 12 year old Gryffindor to form sentences.

“Slytherin girl attacked me. Threatened me over the vaults. Managed to get away though.”

Bill leaned and took a glance at David’s shoulder.

“Not completely. Let me take a look at that wound.”

David saw for the first time the extent of the damage Ismelda had wrought. The top of his robes were cut open to reveal a nasty looking purple and black bruise which had the look of something that had festered for days.

“Ew,” he remarked dryly.

“Let me see if this helps,” Bill said as he pointed his wand at the injury. “ Episkey. ”

Much of the swelling went down and the size was reduced though there remained a remnant of the blackish/blue color in the center.

“Madam Pomfrey probably could have gotten rid of that in an instant. But I’m pretty rubbish when it comes to medicine, that’s the only healing spell I know.”

“It’s fine,” David shrugged. “No lasting damage. What was that curse anyway?”

“Only seen it a few times but it’s a nasty one, especially if a powerful dark wizard uses it. Bone bruise curse. Can cause severe internal bleeding in the hands of a real psycho. Sometimes kids at Hogwarts will use them in duels, but it’s generally taboo.”

“That explains a lot,” he muttered.

“It sounds like you were waylaid on your way down here,” Bill surmised. “Who was it?”

“Ismelda Murk. She’s my year. Makes Merula Snyde look like a flower girl by comparison.”

“I’ve heard of her,” Bill said darkly. “She apparently attacked Charlie on the train this year simply for bumping into her by accident. You were there for that if I recall correctly.”

“Indeed, I was.”

“Well in any case this might be the perfect opening into what you really came down here for. Charlie told me you needed some help with these cursed vaults.”

David nodded in the affirmative.

“I do. Rowan and I actually found the entrance, but there was some sort of enchantment on it. I don’t think we can break it, just the two of us. Charlie said you might be interested.”

“Interested? Hell, David I wish you had come to me sooner. I’m in.”

David didn’t know what to expect, but the fact that Bill accepted his request so readily was a tad surprising.

“Huh, well that didn’t take much persuasion.”

“You didn’t need to,” Bill said seriously. “This ice is becoming more and more dangerous by the week and doesn’t appear to be dissipating any time soon. If we can get through that door you spoke of earlier there’s a strong chance we can break this curse.”

His face broke into a reluctant smile.

“I’d also be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit excited too. This is my first curse breaking adventure and I’m honored to be a part of it.”

“The honor is all mine,” David grinned. “Seriously, I can’t thank you enough.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” the eldest Weasley warned. “It’s going to take a lot of preparation and even a little pain to break into a cursed vault. We’ll need to do a lot of research and spellwork if this is going to be successful. It’ll also give us the opportunity to learn a few more jinxes for dueling, especially considering you were just attacked.”

“Rowan will eagerly take care of the research. He’ll also be pretty happy to know you’re in on this little quest of ours.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Bill laughed. “Come on, let’s get started.”

And so they did. For the next few weeks, the trio met once a week to either study in the library or go to the training grounds to learn new spells and practice them on the wooden target dummies. This became steadily more difficult as time went on as the weather became colder the first snowfall hit but it was still good practice and it also provided an opportunity for Rowan to progress in his own dueling prowess, which steadily improved over time. Now and then they were also joined by Penny and Ben, who were eager to help in any way they could. For Penny that meant assistance in brewing certain potions that they would need in a tight spot- fire breathing and pepperup potions came to mind. For Ben, it meant assistance in some of the research and moral support…and the occasional training session.

“Remind me why I have to learn the fire making spell again?” he asked one cold December morning between the crunch of white powder on the ground.

The snow was also a good outlet to begin practicing a spell that would be quite useful in keeping warm and potentially knocking down the giant snowflake that fired concentrated freezing spells at those who tried to enter its domain (Bill did a double take when he was told that story). Incendio would create large blasts of red and blue fire, though it was still somewhat difficult to control, especially for second years, and so Bill supervised their progress.

“A freezing day in December is almost as bad as the sensation you’ll feel inside the vault,” David told him as he shifted his scarf to reveal his pink, rosy nose, clearly whipped by the slight wind. “What better way to practice?”

“No offense, David, but I’m not sure I’m the right person to go inside the vault with you,” Ben said glumly.

“We will cross that bridge when we get to it,” Bill interjected. “For now, being prepared to break the protective enchantments is the best way to go. We’ll need a full arsenal to do so.”

Penny beamed underneath her hat, coat, and mittens.

“I’m just glad we’re finally learning something that could be considered proper defense. This year’s Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is complete rubbish.”

“Yeah, well I’d be lying if that also didn’t factor into it,” the red head muttered. “I also figured the fire making spell would be a top priority based off what Dave and Rowan told me about this vault.”

“Speaking of curse breaking, I actually brought you something,” David said, remembering suddenly his gift. “I bought this through mail order a week ago.”

He stuck his mittens into the bag and presented it to his friend.

“ Patricia Rakepick: A Guide to Cursebreaking,” Bill read aloud his eyes lighting up. “Wow, David this is amazing. You didn’t have to get me this. Madam Rakepick is one of the best in the world.”

“Good practice for when you become a cursebreaker yourself,” he replied with a wink. “Not to mention it’ll be good for all of us when we enter the vault. Rakepick has been around the globe and back again. Seen and done it all.”

“We’ll pour through it once we get back inside. In the meantime, let me see your fire one more time.”

David point his wand in the air.

“ Incendio! ”

A large stream of flames issued forth, crackling the air before ceasing altogether.

“You really have a talent for this stuff, don’t you?” Bill chuckled. “Took me a lot longer to learn that spell. Penny, you next.”

The blonde obliged, sending a lesser but still decent amount of flames into the frigid December day.

“Not bad. You need a little bit more power but otherwise you’re coming along fine,” Bill encouraged.

“I know,” Penny said a bit sheepishly. “I’m just afraid I’ll burn one of you guys.”

“You can burn me any time you want. Feels like my ass is about to freeze off,” David quipped.

“Well we certainly wouldn’t want that,” Bill responded dryly but with a cheeky grin. “One more from Ben and then we’ll grab some hot cocoa.”

Shaking heavily from the cold, Ben nevertheless loudly proclaimed the incantation.

“ I-Incendio !”

The amount of fire that issued from his wand was so vast that David actually had to grab Penny and duck to avoid minor injury. Even Bill took a step back, a look of shock plastered on his face.

“Well that’s one way to do it,” he offered in his gentlest tone. “Maybe say it a little less loudly next time.”

David began laughing as he picked himself up from the frost bitten ground, putting an arm around his friend.

“That could have melted the entire door down. And you say you’re not worthy of going into the vault,” he ribbed him.

Ben only offered a weak grin.

“Heh.”

The rest of the month continued like this, with spell learning sessions occurring inside rather than the increasingly frigid outdoors of Scotland. As they continued to meet together outside of class, at lunch, and in the library the group also took extra pains to ensure the Slytherins were not following or attempting to sabotage them. After the embarrassing loss to their rival, Merula and her ilk were becoming more vocal again and more than a few times, David caught her messing with his potions again. She constantly whispered about how she was closing in on key information on the vaults to distract him, which he did his best to ignore. Merula loved to exaggerate her own achievements so it wasn’t particularly concerning. Nevertheless, he made a point to keep an eye on her and her prime lacky, Ismelda Murk.

As December wore on and the holidays grew closer, David grew more anxious to revisit the vault, especially with all the planning and preparation they were doing. Bill, however, aired on the side of caution. He too was eager to visit the first cursed vault but opined it would be more prudent to wait until after they returned from Christmas break. It gave them all time to practice their spellwork and would throw off the scent of anyone on their trail, namely Filch, who was always scouring the 13th corridor at night with Mrs. Norris. In the end, the group largely concurred with such thinking.

It wasn’t until the last day before the holidays that the pressure to enter the vault ramped up a notch. The three boys were on their way back from their final class of the day, a potions extravaganza that featured pre-Christmas goodwill from the Gryffindors and Slytherins tossing acid pops into each other’s cauldrons, until they noticed a crowd stood outside the 9th corridor. Though no one was panicking as of yet the murmuring became louder as David, Rowan, and Ben approached.

“What’s going on?” David asked aloud. “It’s not supposed to be this busy. Not until the train leaves Hogsmeade station anyway.”

“No idea,” Rowan shrugged.

“Can we find out what this is later?” Ben said nervously. “Ismelda threw an acid pop in my cauldron and I think some of it burned through my robes.”

But curiosity overrode the other two Gryffindor boys as they slowly weaved their way through the crowd and towards the front.

“You guys! It happened again!” Tonks said to them. But there was no need to expound further. Reaching the front, they witnessed a fourth year Ravenclaw covered nearly head to toe in the cursed ice, face dangerously blue, eyes barely open. It was quite a revelation and also quite disturbing. No student, not even Ben had been entrapped so thoroughly. The only part of his body that remained free was his head and neck, everything else remained submerged.

It didn’t take long for the whispering to turn to proclamations.

“The ice won’t stop until it gets us all!” a random girl shouted.

Thankfully, any mass hysteria was quelled by the sudden arrival of Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Snape.

“Students, remain calm!” the deputy Headmistress shouted over the low hum of gossip. “Please be on your way to prepare for the train. Those who are staying at Hogwarts over Christmas break, return to your dormitories until further notice. Prefects, see that everyone is accounted for.”

“You heard her!” Snape barked. “Away with you!”

The intimidating leer of Severus Snape was more than enough to disperse the crowd, but not before David overheard the professors commenting on the situation.

“The ice has never spread this far before,” Flitwick said with a note of anxiety in his voice. “Should we not alert the Headmaster to return?”

“Dumbledore has enough on his plate,” Snape replied. “He will not come back to Hogwarts until after Christmas. We can handle things until then. If the ice is getting stronger, we should not allow that information to spread beyond these walls.”

“I will letter Albus. But for now, let us focus on unfreezing Mr. Isaacs. Madam Pomfrey will need to attend to him for quite a while,” Professor McGonagall spoke, taking out her wand.

David, Rowan, and Ben looked at each other as Tonks and the Hufflepuffs headed towards the kitchen. All of a sudden, containing the ice was looking more and more impossible. If all of Hogwarts was threatened to be consumed by it, they had less time than originally thought.

“Happy Christmas, everyone,” David said ironically as they approached the Fat Lady to pack.

Though most holidays were spent opening presents, eating pie, and retelling school stories, this was once incident he planned to keep away from the ears of his mother and father, knowing both of them would panic if they found out he was attempting to break into the vaults himself.

Rubbing the back of his neck, David couldn’t help but wish for a quick end to December.

There was much more work to be done, yet.

#hogwarts mystery #hphm #hphm fanfiction #fanfiction #david grant #rowan khanna #charlie weasley #bill weasley #penny haywood #ben copper #nymphadora tonks #ismelda murk #gryffindor #slytherin #hufflepuff #minerva mcgonagall

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thirteenthspirit · 4 years

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ESG Investing in the Pokémon World

As a financial advisor (aka professional bank pimp), it seems the concept of “Sustainable Investing” has really taken hold this past year, despite being around for quite a few years. I was pondering new investment ideas and recommendations (so they can sit patiently on my desk waiting for my boss’s approval) and noticed that most of them are ESG-focused. Of course.

As a Millennial (like that means anything), imagining that your investments might go towards helping someone or doing some good for the world is a key motivation. I don’t mind even sacrificing some additional returns, if that means my money is being put to good use. Unfortunately, I don’t really have a lot of like-minded people as Clients, so raw returns still dominate the investment sphere. But we’ll get there!

I want to explain a bit what it is we call ESG – Environmental, Social and (Corporate) Governance Investing. It is a very studied and elaborated research topic that has become so convoluted that virtually any company can be qualified as ESG-passable (sigh). A company with a high ESG score means it Excels in all or one of these three key areas. The ESGest of them all, try to integrate in their daily practices some of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which range from ending world hunger to reducing inequality, climate action, etc.

I’ve also been replaying Pokémon Platinum (ayyy you see where this is going don’t you?) – probably not, since you haven’t read my previous newsletters. But anyway.

Sinnoh could really benefit a lot from some ESG-focused investing, especially in the Environmental aspect of it. The first thing that popped into my mind was the Fuego Ironworks. No, it is not related to the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest runner-up’s song of choice, but rather a big warehouse-like facility harboring a huge furnace in the center of it all. If you manage to get past the arrow-one-direction-thingies leftover from the renovation of the Viridian Gym, you eventually reach this massive incinerator. Ok, so, fossil fuels are a big no-no in the battle for climate change. Hydrogen plants and renewable energies trump coal mines and similar facilities. So I would take that big chunk of investor money and shut down the Fuego Ironworks. I know what you’re thinking – WHERE ELSE AM I GONNA CATCH A POKÉMON WITH FLAME BODY THIS EARLY IN THE GAME so I can hatch that perf Togepi (because what else) – but fret not, those Magmar can relocate to Stark Mountain. But uh… maybe I’d try to throw a couple of Slugma near the Lost Tower or something, so you can still hatch them eggs early on. Need a motherboard-frying Magnemite? You can now catch them in Iron Island! Have fun.

But shutting down a massive energy-producing (assumption here assumption there la la la) facility like this is BOUND to have an effect on the residents, especially for the people who live in the nearby towns – I mean where else are Floaroma residents supposed to work? Smell the flowers in the floaroma medow (which is somehow located DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO THE IRONWORKS but ok)? Serve as night guides to wandering girls and their Chansey in Eterna Forest? Or sweat away in the Valley Windworks?

Huh? Windworks? Like an actual wind power farm? Grab ‘em Pachirisu and let’s go!

Seriously, the Valley Windworks would be exactly where my inflows would go. From any residual money gathered from the sale of the Ironworks, my investors could provide a massive overhaul of the windworks. We could bring specialists in from Hoenn’s Weather Institute and build a ton more Teletubbies (my boyfriend’s endearing nickname for those huge fan-thingies). Maybe we could even expand to hydraulics, what with that huge river flowing alongside the facility. Just imagine the drifloon! One for each doom-bearing child.

Ok great! We’ve managed to take action by remodeling the energy supply from the area, effectively diminishing its carbon emissions while preserving the citizens’ quality of life. For me that qualified as a big E investment! And maybe our work wouldn’t stop here, if you’ve got a few cents in your pocket imagine if we could harness the energy from Mt. Coronet! With cares not to disturb any dimensional beings or pseudo-gods. Just a thought.

Miss Moving On is a song by Fifth Harmony. Next we have the “Social” aspect of ESG investing. This would be the category where you would find the community-improving or demographic and populational aiding aspects. Infrastructures, accessibility, any and every thing that could better a population’s daily routine and ensure its sustainability for generations to come. So which issues plague Sinnoh residents? I can think of a few – weird people with bowl-shaped haircuts stealing Pokémon, people-swallowing marshes, freakin’ SELFDESTRUCTING ROCKS (née Geodude) and the occasional time/space distortions from the odd attempt at creating new universes.

Well let’s not go overboard with our intervention, we cannot hope to solve ALL problems plaguing our beloved residents. Let’s start with a simple issue. Little Timmy loves everything related to boats. Boats boats boats and sometimes ships – so he loves going to Sunyshore City, to see the Lighthouse. He goes whenever he can - he swears one time he even had a date with a girl who was visiting with her Ampharos! Legend has it for him it was love at first sight. But she had a ship to catch, bound for her hometown region. So they agreed to meet that very night, before she departed. She waited and waited, but Timmy never came. With tears in her eyes, the girl was last seen boarding the ship, never to return…

Dang it Timmy! Why did you do that?

Well… the thing is, Timmy tried. Timmy lives in Solaceon town and works for the local newspaper. So on that afternoon, after collecting his heart scales, he cheerfully got on his bike and began pedaling, heading to meet his lover. But there is no direct route from Solaceon to Sunyshore – Solaceon is pretty much isolated where it stands, one has to either go North trough Veilstone or face the marshes of the south through Pastoria, to finally traverse route 222 to the city.

Since a bike would sink pretty hard on the bog, Timmy rode North. He got drenched in rain before reaching Veilstone, though – forcing him to change clothes in the city before carrying on. Oh and he claims to have also had an encounter with a couple of Psyduck which seemed pretty checked out… I assume Misty rammed her bike into one. After leaving the city, he just had to face – I’m sorry, am I reading this correctly, inexistent participant – “hellhounds”. Um… ok… Timmy is a BIG Supernatural fan (Destiel FTW). But he finally made it to the Hotel Grand Lake – the last rest stop before reaching Sunyshore. His legs were already tired, and he was sweatin’ bullets, but his spirits were high as a Staravia!

“I’m sorry sir but Route 222 is closed until further notice, due to the occurrence of a blackout”.

Aaaand that was the end of Timmy’s love story. Don’t feel bad for him, I hear he went on to win a Pulitzer from his work on exposing the Ditto sex trafficking scheme.

Maybe if Timmy had been a little faster on his route, he could’ve avoided the blackout altogether, it is just such a long stretch of Sinnoh to traverse…

Like Timmy, many residents who work in East Sinnoh face this issue in their daily commute – the lack of viable connections. So where could we begin to tackle this subject?

Well I heard of a guy who has been trying to dig a tunnel from Route 2014, to Solaceon Town, all by himself! Must be tough, Excadrill weren’t even invented back then…

Maybe our kind investors could give him a hand with their funds! We could make the efforts go faster and more smoothly, maybe even establish some underground ferry mechanism to aid in the crossover. Create a separate entrance, so people wouldn’t have to disturb the Unown. The newly crafted pathway would sure come in handy for travelers, maybe even helping in dynamizing Solaceon or Celestic Town with tourists staying at the Hotel Grand Lake! Seems like a somewhat simple-enough project for us to tackle.

So we basically identified a necessity, designed a way to overcome said necessity and then implemented it – thus creating sustainable impact!

Fantastic! Stunning!

Speaking of stunning – hrm, our efforts might be a bit derailed if these “blackouts” continue. Maybe someone could go have a chat with Volkner, to stop experimenting with the power grid? Perhaps Flint could help, I hear they get along quite well… Does he even have a license to tinker with the mechanisms? What, imaginary voice? You don’t need one in Sinnoh? So you mean I can just connect my Raichu to a generator and power my entire 12-story building?

That seems… unlawful. Couldn’t we do something to change that? Well, we could write a strong-worded letter to the lawmakers of Sinnoh, urging them to pass legislation on these activities. Maybe even use our leftover funds to raise enough awareness on this issue, so we could enact this change in policy! Wow, that’s what I call putting the G in Governance.

Random segway aside, that is exactly what the last letter in ESG is meant to state – policy, rules, means of internal conduct and culture that an organization runs with. And apart from Volkner’s constant need to reinvent his contraptions, there is a topic on which we can praise Sinnoh – gender equality.

Now, we recognize that we don’t know the details, but let’s assume Gym Leaders are paid equally, as not to have poor shivering Candice earning 70 cents on the poke-dollar, compared to Byron’s wage. 4 female and 4 male gym leaders comprise Sinnoh’s gym challenge. 50/50, nice message to relay. Ok fine, if we only look at the number and don’t analyze much else, we can give Sinnoh a passing grade on this one… what about the Elite Four?

The Elite Four is also comprised of 2 male and 2 female members. Wow, nicely thought out. And Cynthia is given enough screen time to actually be a fleshed out character, even appearing in several generations. She is, after all, in my opinion, the toughest Champion the Player is required to face.

But other generations don’t really follow suit – the list of League Champions or Elite Four members is comprised mostly of men… In these regions perhaps some gender diversity or inclusion metrics could be put in place, starting with getting each of them to affirm their stance and compromise with ending gender inequality in the League Challenge!

For that, I guess we’ll have to take that same ship and sail away to another region, with the sure knowledge that (maybe) we managed to help Sinnoh inch a little closer to a sustainable future!

Your ESG-type Trainer,

-João A. (Pachiren)

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thegreenwolf · 5 years

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The Invitation of Wild Geese

Originally posted on my blog, A Sense of Natural Wonder, at http://www.thegreenwolf.com/the-invitation-of-wild-geese/

I feel like not enough people knew of Mary Oliver, who passed away on Friday at the age of 83.

I myself, not being a huge fan of poetry, never heard of her work until just a few years ago. Somehow in my enjoyment of nature writing I had overlooked her work. While the poet herself is gone, her legacy is immortalized in an incredible body of work spanning several decades.

Like so many people, my introduction to Oliver’s work was her poem Wild Geese. I was working on my ecopsychology certificate in graduate school, and encountered her words in a reading. Initially my attraction to it centered on the imagery of nature, the painting in my head of the movement of pebbles and sun and geese over the land. For years I came back to it just for this picture as a source of solace and joy.

But over time it gained a deeper meaning for me. Having been raised Catholic, I was soaked from an early age in the idea of original sin and the idea that humanity is inherently flawed. This, of course, also bred in me a deep sense of guilt and inadequacy, as well as contributing to the anxiety disorder I still deal with today. When I shot forth from these confines as a teenager and landed in the lap of neopaganism, I thought the main thing I wanted was a religion that was centered on nature, rather than seeing it as a set of materials to be exploited.

I got that, of course, but what I also got was a lot of fellow pagans carrying a lot of Christian baggage. (1) The need for a higher power to have control of things and to be petitioned for aid; a tendency to divide things into dichotomies like “light” and “dark” or “white magic” and “black magic”; a desire for some authority (often scriptural) to offer clear lines of What To Do and What Not To Do. And with the crossover of paganism with environmentalism, I often ran into sentiments dripping with the idea of sin, guilt, and flawed humanity, like “humans are just cancer on the earth”, and “Gaea is going to make us all pay for what we’ve done to Her”.

I carried much of my Catholic baggage with me. I especially yearned for structure and ritual and orthopraxy and definitive methods of pleasing the powers that be, or at least that’s what I told myself I needed in order to be a Really Good Pagan. The crescendo of that particular adventure was the few years I tried putting together a formalized path using various bits and pieces of things I had learned and developed over the years. The harder I tried to make that work, though, the more I found myself rebelling all over again.

I went back and re-read Wild Geese. I read the opening lines:

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

In that, I broke open. Catholic tirades about how we are all tainted with original sin even from birth, pagan moralizing over how the Threefold Law is gonna get ya or preaching Gaea’s ecological smackdown–these all came flowing out as though from a deep wound lanced. “Love what it loves” wasn’t a call to crass, reactionary hedonism or indifferent amorality, but instead trusting our instincts and deeply-ingrained social bonds that our ancestors evolved over millions of years to thrive together.(2)

And that was the key: the idea that humans are not inherently flawed, that we are just another species of animal in a highly complex world full of many ecosystems. Our actions have evolutionary roots, even if we’ve taken them in some beautiful, strange, or even terrible directions. Our large-scale destruction of the planet has largely coincided with increasing beliefs that we are separate from nature; after all, it’s easier to destroy something you don’t see any responsibility toward. Yet here was a call to return to our place in the natural order of things, where we are one among many.

From that point, the rest of the poem is a joyful invitation to return home. And I suppose that there is a bit of that shared concept of forgiveness in the idea that no matter how badly we’ve screwed up our lives and the planet–if we stop and do our best to turn things around, nature will still be waiting for us.(3) But it’s not a forgiveness gained through penance and punishment, nor is it dangled over our heads as the one and only alternative to an eternity in hellfire and brimstone. There’s no mention of any specific religion one must adhere to in order to be saved, no threat of damnation. We aren’t required to do rituals A, B and C in order to avoid angering the gods.

All it says is that the rest of nature has been there all along, waiting patiently for us to come back into the rhythm of the dance of raindrops and rivers. It will continue on in some form with or without us, but wouldn’t it be glorious if it were with us? There’s a grand, amazing world out there full of wonder and awe. Nature does not dole out sinfulness and punishment, but only natural consequences to actions, which are inherently neutral and not steeped in human ideas about morality.

Since that time, my paganism has evolved into something more naturalistic, and anything but structured and formalized. Instead it pervades every element of my life organically and without pretension. I feel constantly connected to something bigger than myself–the entire Universe–which is a key goal of spirituality anyway. Rituals feel redundant, unless you think of my daily farm chores and my meals and my sleep as rituals, all of which celebrate the world I live in in various ways. And I don’t see myself as being part of some cosmic hierarchy; I am not inherently better or worse than any other being here.

I am still working on returning to the rest of nature, but it is only because I am unpracticed, not because I feel unworthy. I can be concerned about the environmental destruction I am contributing to by my very existence and lifestyle without letting that concern translate into a guilt that continues to keep me separate as something dirty, foul, not deserving of nature’s touch. And the more I feel close to nature, the more responsibility I feel toward it, and vice versa. Nature may not be an entity that can love me; it’s pretty indifferent as a whole. But I can make up for that with the utter joy and astonishment I experience every moment I am aware of my place in nature and what amazement surrounds me.

It’s a cliche to say that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. I never told Ms. Oliver how much her work meant to me, and of course now I will never have that opportunity. But I don’t think I realized myself the importance of Wild Geese in particular until the evening after she passed, when I began writing this post. And I sent out my gratitude in these words–too little, too late–but hopefully enough to share that meaning with those who remain.

What is remembered, lives.

Obviously, yes, #NotAllPagans. But after over two decades in this community, I’ve seen these and other leftover Christian patterns frequently. These phenomena do also occur in other religions, and arguably in some pre-Christian paganisms. But it was clear in the instances I saw that the patterns were most closely replicating those many of us were raised with in Christianity, with a thin pagan veneer pulled over them.

I recognize this is a pretty romanticized view of “instincts”, and that hunting and other violent things are also instinctual to a degree. That’s not what this is about, though. Leave those aside for the moment.

Of course, with climate change being what it is, it may not be able to wait for us much longer, at least not in a form that allows us to survive as a species. But leave the doomsaying for some other time and place. All it does is make people less likely to try to improve things, and more likely to just give up, and that is antithetical to what this entire post is about.

#Mary Oliver #wild geese #pagan #nature #deep ecology #mine

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a-rdentlyy · 5 years

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*finger guns* fuck vld s8 B)

I was incapable to do my final projects until I wrote down all my feelings. VLD is trash, but I’m sadly obsessed with it, dear god just end my suffering. Just to be clear, I also have some (very few) good things to say about this season but those will be at the end.

Cons

lol the whole fucking season

Pretty much everything concerning Lance was about Allura, nothing about his own personal growth except when talking to Keith

Sunset talk was romantic as FUCK and Keith spoke about how great Lance was and was just so fucking soft the whole time

Sitting at the table and confiding in each other about personal growth had me tearing up tbh

Literally episode one was extremely gay

Like, super gay

Lance and Allura have an awkward date, which was honestly pretty cute, EXCEPT for when Lance suddenly tells her he loves her and she’s just like “i mean ok i guess” and they kiss????????????

What the hell??????????

And why the fuck did Lance choose to seek solace in Keith when he was worried about his “date”??????? (hint: its gay fellas)

And then when Veronica asked about Keith and if he was single Lance literally freaked the fuck out for like 67493862988409 years

HUGE queerbait season and episode if you ask me :/

How the FUCK is Ezor still alive, I’m not complaining, but this was out of nowhere

The astral plane episode w the old paladins could have been so cool

Blaytz should have been with Lance, literally his whole speech about people underestimating him and “fucking having greatness within” is LITERALLY what Allura said to him in either season 5 or 6 (can’t remember and don’t really care about their interactions tbh)??????? Like??????? Give my boy some validation that isn’t centered around his romantic life?????

Alfor should have been with Allura. That’s her fucking dad and his whole “my daughter chose you cuz ur cool i guess” speech to Lance felt so flat and awkward, I hated it. Everything about Alfor’s speech would have been so much better if it wasn’t about how Allura liked him.

AND SHE DIDN’T EVEN CHOOSE LANCE, SHE CHOSE LOTOR AND SETTLED FOR LANCE BECAUSE HE WAS HER CONSTANT COMPANION

They did Lotor dirty, my trash son

Not a single bit of actual redemption

In the Honerva flashback episode could see how his parents tore him down. Zarkon destroying his first colony broke him.

Totally unresolved Lotura plotline. I really liked them together and they had genuine chemistry unlike the “main” bullshit ship of the season. Allura first tries to kill him in her nightmare and then immediately trusts him after he says like 2 words????????? Girl ain’t over her ex.

So was he actually evil and was really sucking out quinessence or was that plotline just never touched upon, cuz he tried to explain what was happening in s6 but was never really allowed to speak?????

The Altean colony was never really resolved???????

Like, who’s running it now??????

Altean/Farmer Lance

Don’t even talk to me about this shit

What the FUCK is with him suddenly becoming Altean????? Like, if he had, you know, some Altean descendents and his little markings were suddenly activated then i’d kind of get it

Also Lance has Altean markings now, because we just can’t let Lance move on from Allura and be happy can we

This ending was SUCH BULLSHIT. Lance has always wanted to be a pilot but now that some girl he liked is dead he wants to live on a farm w his family?????

I’m still not done with how they won’t just let Lance move on from Allura and be happy

He lives on Altea, of all places, so he’ll see her people everywhere

He has fucking Altean markings so he’ll be reminded of her every time he looks at himself in the mirror

Honerva seemed like such a good, complex villain but they just made her goal so fucking dumb

I figured she’d want to get Lotor back (which I dug because I’m always here for mother’s love n shit) plotlines, but suddenly she’s trying to get to an alternate universe?????? The fuck?????

And what the hell happened when she actually went to the AU, what the actual fuck

What a bitch, she’s still pissed at Allura even in this alternate reality

Lol AU baby Lotor telling Honerva how she sucks is incredible

Klance

Fucking gypped

So much build up

Where the hell is the “slow burn” endgame for Lance?????? Definitely not with Allura, that shit was rushed as hell

Literally so much chemistry between Keith and Lance

Allurance

I don’t actually hate Allurance

The writers just suck at doing their job and making good romantic relationships

Literally cringed at every scene where Allura and Lance interacted tho, it just felt so forced

When Lance said “my girlfriend” I actually had to stop watching and had to take a solid half hour to recover (I’m not even joking), it was the worst thing I had ever heard

HELLA rushed “i love you” to Allura. Lance, she’s the fucking best, I agree, but dude. You honestly don’t even really know each other that well (the demi in me is coming out lol)

Allura never once responded to Lance saying I love you until the very end, and even then it felt more like a platonic “I love who you are” deal. She definitely didn’t love Lance like he cared for her.

She even ended up dying and walked towards Lotor at the end, she still chose Lotor over Lance at the very end

And we just can’t let Lance have anything nice, can we

Lotura

“He was happy with you” fuckin Honerva speaking the truth for once

Literally one of the best ships that crashed and burned for no reason

Through this entire season you can still see Allura isn’t over Lotor

Allura, they did you so dirty as well

My wife

I’m so sorry for what they did to you

This amazing survivor of genocide that thought that she was the last survivor was killed off

They also ruined ur character tho, the real Allura would never have basically tortured the real Zarkon without quintessence poisoning

And you would have realized you don’t actually love Lance like that

Those goodbyes actually destroyed me at the end tho

“I’m gonna miss you Allura” BITCH ME TOO, THE FUCK

Shiro’s goodbye made me tear up the most

So she can create infinite realities because of her sacrifice except for one where she lives???????

And who’s leading the new Altea????? No one???? They never explain what happens with the actual colony that Lotor made and the current timeline

Holy shit I just realized we never actually found out if Lotor survived the quintessence field or not

I mean, almost certainly didn’t

But still, that shit’s important to tell us

Looked like a hawk carrying away a baby mouse

Shiro’s wedding was fucking bullshit

Like finally he can be happy

But god, give us fucking SOME development that isn’t damage control

At least I liked whoever he married in those background scenes despite never learning his name

MATT’S HAIRCUT IS A TRAVESTY at the end

He looks way better with long hair

What the fuck was with the lions just dipping??????????

Tbh that shit made me cry

And now they’re just chilling out in space??????

Pros

The beginning of the season was actually surprisingly really good? Like, I was nearly invested the whole time up until episode 8?????? And then it got fucking insane and weird with no explanation.

THE ANIMATION IS GORGEOUS

Baby Lotor was so fucking cute, I adore him.

Those small Klance scenes killed me

Keith supporting and validating everything Lance has done and just being a great bf in general

That romantic ass sunset scene (you CANNOT tell me that shit was platonic)

We could have had it all yo :(

Surprisingly really liked Kinkade’s vlog episode, it made me like the MFE pilots

I didn’t care about them at ALL in s7 but now I like them more

Just Kinkade and Rizavi tho

Some tasty VeronicaxAcxa shit

That’s lesbian activity

Thank god Bex was right when she said Kacxa wasn’t gonna be a thing

Old Paladin’s were pretty cool except for the bullshit talking

BAD. ASS. VOLTRON/ATLAS FUSION.

Thank GOD Galra Emperor Keith wasn’t a thing

Coran keeping Allura’s memory alive keeps me alive

HIS TOAST TO HER HAD ME CRYING

THEY REALLY WERE FAMILY

Thank god it doesn’t seem like Lance is insanely depressed a year after Allura’s death, this kid needs closure and to move on and find some semblance of happiness that doesn’t revolve around romance

Small Klance moments at the end

That fucking reunion at the end made me cry

At least we got a mlm kiss, even though it’s garbage :)

List of Those Done Dirty

ALLURA

Lance

Lotor

Shiro

Adam

The Whole Fucking Fandom

All in all, fuck v slur, 3/10 for the season and 4.5/10 for the whole show. Seasons 1-3 are the only canon seasons. Except for parts of Season 5 and 6. Those can stay.

Also Klance is Canon King.

#voltron legendary defender #voltron spoilers #vld spoilers #voltron season 8 #vld season 8 #vld season 8 spoilers #shut up tess

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peacefulheartfarm · 3 years

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Our Raw Milk Cheese Creamery Progress

Our raw milk cheese creamery was the center of the day today. The construction is moving along nicely. Our state inspectors made an appearance and helped us out with details on safety measures. We work with them every step of the way to make sure all safety concerns are addressed.

I want to take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. I appreciate you all so much. I’m so excited to share with you what’s going on at the farm this week.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

Winter animal care was high priority today. Let’s talk about that before we get into the details of our lovely raw milk cheese creamery project. We check up on the animals regularly. Some we can easily see in the front fields and every time we go out the driveway. Others are out there in the back fields. It takes a bit more effort to check up on them, but rest assured, they are not out of sight, out of mind. I’ll start with the cows.

Cows

Our beautiful Normande cows are the centerpiece of our small farmstead raw milk cheese creamery. It is our habit to check on them first. I say first, but they are all out there together. And while we may be aiming at the cows, sometimes it is the sheep or goats that we encounter first. Many times, it is the donkeys. More on that later.

There are five big girls in our current herd. I say big girls because these five have already had a calf. We have our newest arrival, Rosie, who is still known has a heifer. That means she has never had a calf. I guess technically she is a bred heifer. She has never had a calf but is currently pregnant. Currently she is in a pasture with the younger calves so we can keep a closer eye on her as her pregnancy progresses.

The “Big” Girls

Anyway, of the five big girls, four are pregnant. Everyone looks healthy and happy. Claire barely looked up as I approached. She was far too busy eating grass to give me much notice. Violet always looks up whenever we come near. She wants attention and yet she doesn’t want attention. I guess what she really wants in a treat. But they don’t get treats in the winter. Only during lactation. So, she will have to wait until late March or early April to get any more treats. Butter is quite open to petting, while Buttercup avoids it at all costs. Cloud has had her hooves repaired but she is still quite standoffish when out in the field. All of them are easy to get close to when they are up in the milking shed. Funny how that goes.

Grazing Abundance

The grass in those back fields is holding up very well. They are literally still eating green grass and it is coming on close to mid-December. Scott believes they will not need hay until late February. I can’t tell you how great that is for a couple of reasons. The cost, of course, is always the first concern in my mind. I do all of the accounting and cost is always on my mind.

The next great thing is that the green grass is always going to be better nutrition and the animals truly prefer grass to hay. We want to keep them on green grass for as long as possible. Ideally, we would be able to graze them all the way through the winter until the spring grass appears in late March. That is a goal we likely will not meet for many years. We would need additional pasture, especially as we are on a path to grow our herd.

Hay is Still Needed

If we double our herd size, having green grass available to them for the entire winter is a really long shot without clearing some of our wooded areas and turning them into pasture. That’s a huge job for the distant future. They do fine on hay. It’s just similar to having a burger and fries when you really want a nice traditional home-cooked dinner. Sure, the burger and fries will keep you fed. But the real treat is that homemade roast leg of lamb with macaroni and cheese on the side. Throw in some crowder peas and it is a meal to be savored.

Sheep

Speaking of savoring a good meal, the sheep will continue to eat as much grass as they can scrounge. When the pickings get slim, the cows will rush to the hay as Scott brings it into the pasture. However, even when they have hay available, the sheep are going to go for every little bit of grass they can find. They eventually go eat the hay. And shortly thereafter, they are right back out there grazing on little bits of grass.

Counting Sheep

One of the regular exercises we do when checking on animals is counting them. Well, we don’t really count the cows. They are all grazing quietly in the field and we simply identify them by name. The sheep can be a little trickier. They hang out in a bunch and they move together almost as one unit. Trying to pick out individual animals is nearly impossible. Even counting bodies can be a challenge. One method that works well is for Scott to walk toward them from one side and I hang out toward the other side. As they move away from him, they will string out just a little bit and I can more easily get an accurate count. Because they can see me, they walk or trot in my direction more slowly and I can get that accurate count. Eventually, they make a turn away from both of us and bunch up again. I gotta be quick with the count.

It’s important that we count regularly and make sure they are all there. If a predator starts picking them off, they will continue one by one until we do something. We have to be vigilant in protecting the sheep. We accounted for all 12 that are in the flock with the big cow girls. This includes three younger girls from spring a year ago and all nine of the lambs from this past spring.

Goats

As far as the goats, well there is no goat counting. At least not nearly as often. There is little we can do to protect them that they cannot do for themselves. Goats are quite different from sheep in their herding behaviors. For one thing, they can go places sheep wouldn’t dare. Case in point, they were all in a different field than the cows and sheep. It seems that no matter which field that everyone else is currently occupying, the goats find a way to get into the next field. Another disadvantage to counting them easily is that they mill around much more randomly than the sheep. They do cluster together but it is a much larger circle. The space separating each animal is quite a bit larger. And when they see someone approaching, they all get up and start moving about in varying directions in small groups. Eventually, one will take the lead and start to move the herd in a particular direction, everyone else follows – sort of.

Goat Herds

Again, this is a little different than sheep as they will be farther apart and then bunch up and then spread out again with one or two moving in a random direction. It’s kind of like they are trying to do a goat “head fake” trying to fool you into thinking they are going to run in a different direction from the rest of the herd. Lots of times it is not a fake and they bolt in that direction, taking 1/3 to 1/2 the herd with them. They split up into two or three groups and then rally back together after they run past you. This is what I am talking about when I refer to their self-protection against predators. They go in so many directions, it’s harder to catch them. It’s also harder to count them. Their speed and agility are phenomenal.

Today, when they saw us approaching, they immediately moved into the woods. Not running away in particular. Just moving out of sight and into the cover of trees. That’s a signal that these beauties are going to make you work hard for a head count. Maybe we’ll get them counted next time.

Donkeys

While we were checking on everyone, the donkeys came up for a cuddle and to say “hi”. They have their fuzzy coats on for winter and look so sweet. Just about every day, they wander up to the milking shed and bray at us, well mostly Scott while he is out there working on the building next to them. Have I mentioned how people friendly donkeys are? According to what I’ve read, they are even more personable than horses. I can believe it. They followed me around while we were checking on the other animals. And Daisy likes to come up behind me when I stop and give me a little shove with her head. You know, just a little notice that, “Hey, I’m here. Give me some loving.” And one of the greatest things is that Cocoa will come up behind Daisy and put her head across Daisy’s back trying to get close enough for a nice nose rub, but keeping her mom between us. After that, she will come around and get a more proper petting. What would we do without our donkeys to brighten the day?

Raw Milk Cheese Creamery

I didn’t give an update on our raw milk cheese creamery last time and lots has happened. There were special panels planned for the milking parlor and in the cheese make room. These panels are specifically chosen because they can be cleaned easily. That work is currently in progress.

Milking Parlor

Scott started with the milking parlor. The special panels are smooth, white panels that are glued to the wall. It was a little tricky getting them to stick strongly enough for the glue to set up in the cooler weather. In fact, they never did stick completely. So, plan B had to be put into action. Scott found appropriate screws to hold the panels in place. So far, so good with that plan. The milking parlor is done. There was a small run under the ledge where they stand in front of us. And then there was a larger bit of paneling along the wall in front of the cows. On to the cheese make room and more challenges.

Raw Milk Cheese Make Room

The cheese make room is designed to be cleaned easily and efficiently. These panels run from floor to ceiling, all the way around the room. I’m impressed with them. Clean up before, during and after cheesemaking is an important, necessary and time-consuming effort. These panels are going to be excellent for helping me out with keeping the room immaculate in the least amount of time.

Part of the challenge with getting the glue to stick relates to the ambient temperature and the temperature of the walls themselves. Even though screws have been added to the mix, they are really only there to hold it up against the wall until the glue can set. The panels are only screwed into the wall around the edges. The center is still held against the wall with glue. A few days ago, the temperature quite strongly took a downward turn. Additional techniques had to be employed to get the cheese make room warm enough to keep going with construction. It’s always something, right?

Heating Up the Room

We have a couple of small space heaters we used during our time living in a camper in South Carolina. Those had to be dug out. One was already in use in the small cheese room to keep the temp up to the proper level in there. Scott tried to use the other, lesser unit to heat up the cheese make room. He had even tacked up heavy plastic on the ceiling beams to hold in some of the heat. Imagine the extra time added for that little bit of unplanned construction.

He added the heater but it wasn’t strong enough to do the job. The cheese make room is quite large. The cheese cave is much smaller than the cheese make room. The remedy for that was exchanging the radiant heater out of the cheese cave with the weaker heater. The lesser unit is adequate for the job of keeping the temperature up to the target in the cheese cave, though it does not hold the temperature with the same steadiness as the radiant heater. Anyway, the radiant heater worked well enough when moved to the cheese make room, keeping the temperature up to 50 degrees or so. The work on the wall is now progressing quite well in there.

Stairways to Attics

Moving on to stairways. There will be two very long stairways from the ground to the attics. Attic space is in use above the creamery and then a half stair up to the attic above the milking parlor. There is an outside door into each of these areas. What’s missing is an easy way to get into those doors. Temporary methods using the tractor to lift a pallet full of stuff or simply climbing a ladder with your arms full are inadequate. Scott is working hard to get those stairs designed in between waiting for the cheese make room to be warm enough in which to work. Yay! I’ll be glad when the stairs are done. I sent lots of stuff up there for storage – stuff that I use but perhaps not that often. Being able to just climb the stairs to get it back will be great. And then of course, once I’m done using it, back up the stairs I go to put it back into storage. Lots of herd share jars, canning equipment, and so on. The dehydrator just made a trip back down and will go back up in a few days. Stairs are going to be great.

The Roof

Another huge step forward is the ordering of the materials for the roof. That was a big deal. Many hours went into the estimates for how many and which pieces are needed to do the job. It is going to cost lots more than I expected, but in the end, you just pay for it and move on. You gotta have a roof and the roof area for this project is huge. Take a look at some of the photos and videos on our Facebook page. There will be much more to report on that coming up soon in future podcasts. The materials are ordered but have not yet arrived.

The VDACS Inspectors

The last bit of info I want to share about the progress of the creamery is the visit from our local VDACS inspectors. VDACS is the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The state version of the USDA. We have a great guy that we have been working with for quite a few years, beginning long before the first tree was cleared from the land.

For this visit, he may brought along another inspector that will likely take over our inspections should he retire. She had been to our farm a couple of years ago and it was great seeing her again. Both of these great people offer lots of pertinent information to keep us out of trouble. We work together to spot areas where contamination may occur and how we might avoid the situation. New procedures, additional pieces of equipment and altering the work flow are all discussed.

We are getting closer and closer to completing this project and becoming a fully inspected USDA facility. At that point we will be ready to start selling our cheese to the local restaurants and wineries. Our dream gets closer every day, every moment.

Final Thoughts

That’s about all I’m going to cover in today’s podcast. A brief trip around the homestead with updates on the animals and bringing you up to date on our progress with the creamery. I didn’t talk about the quail. I’m figuring out how to pickle quail eggs and I’ll wait until next time to give details on that. There are five different flavor recipes I’m trying out.

Christmas is fast approaching. I hope you are enjoying the season. We don’t celebrate the commercial Christmas. It has been many years since I had a tree or a wreath or lights or anything. Sometimes I think about it but the effort to make it happen does not fit into my schedule. My children are long grown and my youngest grandchild is now 16. How about a nice nativity scene? I can go with making that happen.

Family visits mostly happen over Thanksgiving so Scott and I generally celebrate the birth of our Lord with just the two of us. There are a few other family members that we may visit sometime after the 25th. And who knows who might pop in to see us? We shall see. It’s always great to get together with those we love and Christmas provides the time off from work for others making it easy for us to catch them at home and unburdened by work. I do hope to work in a short visit or two between now and New Years Day.

Once again, I want to thank you all for listening to me ramble on about our traditional raw milk cheese and traditional homestead living and I hope all your dreams come true as well.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please hop over to Apple Podcasts or whatever podcasting service you use, SUBSCRIBE and give me a 5-star rating and review. If you like this content and want to help out the show, the absolute best way you can do that is to share it with any friends or family who might be interested in this type of content. Let them know about the Peaceful Heart Farmcast.

Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

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matthewwilliamcharles · 4 years

Link

Had a very nice interview with Zo Magazine about my latest album,”Love What You Do”! You can follow the link to the article.

I’m also just cutting and pasting the text below. Interviews hang around for a while, but I’ve noticed some of my old interviews and write ups have been erased, websites disappear and that stuff is lost into the ether.

There isn’t a Boomer who hasn’t uttered, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life,” or some version of that but aside from Boomers screwing up the world for most, they’re right about that. Having a passion for what you do is key to wanting to wake up every day and making it through those days with a smile on your face. It’s a concept that’s easier said than done for many, but for Matthew William Charles, he’s doing his best to live that life…which is likely why his 2020 release is ‘Love What You Do.’ We talked about just that, the record at hand, and I even introduced him to the world of ‘Sex and the City’ in this back and forth between creatives.

Kendra: Noting the release date of ‘Love What You Do,’ it seems like a lifetime has passed. March 2020. Looking back, were you like many in thinking that the pandemic wasn’t going to last this long and that you’d be out playing by summer?

Matthew William Charles: Yes absolutely, I thought that I was going to be out and playing by summertime when the pandemic first hit. A good portion of my summer had already been planned out. I had a UK tour lined up for July, tickets purchased, and shows booked. I was planning a small music festival for August in Philadelphia, PA. I had planned the release of “Love What You Do” to coincide with a couple of tours that I had scheduled for March and April. It was a day by day realization. Every week there were more and more cancellations. I had held on to hope until the last minute in most cases, not wanting to deal with the airline and car rental cancellations, and ultimately the disappointment of not getting to do what I love most, which is traveling and playing music. It was going to be an awesome summer for live music, needless to say, I was bummed out, but I dealt with the situation the best that I could.

Kendra: One thing I have admired about artists this year is their ability to keep pushing forward and finding ways to make their presence known in new ways. How do you feel these adaptations made this year will affect musicians in the coming years? Do you feel like we could be in for some sort of major shift in the industry as a whole because of 2020?

Matthew William Charles: Yes, it is interesting how musicians are adapting to the current situation. What I’ve seen is that many of us are becoming great at putting together online content. Many musicians that I know personally started live streaming performances for the first time at the start of the pandemic and have now set up mini studios and have been putting together really good quality live content.

In the future, It would be great to see people combine live-streamed concerts with actual live shows with people in attendance. I think it would be great to have an option for people who want to attend a live show but can’t, but still could watch the live stream from their home. Maybe they wouldn’t have to pay as much as the live ticket but could pay a lesser amount or contribute to a virtual tip jar for the musicians. As far as the music industry as a whole it’s hard to say, it has already changed so much in the last several years as far as how people consume music. I still prefer purchasing records, CDs, and tapes from bands after a live performance. I don’t think that you will ever be able to replace that experience, but I think the shift to a more digital music world is inevitable.

Kendra: Speaking of admiration, ‘Love What You Do’ is a great title and life mantra to have. Was music what you’ve always done or were you in another career and finally realized, nah…not for me?

Matthew William Charles: I had wanted to be in a band since I was a little kid, and I finally got my first band together when I was 15-years-old. I started playing shows at the local youth center, and in a couple of years, I was booking my shows at local bars and venues. I’ve always had a passion for music and have found a way to fund and maintain my habit. In other words, I’ve always had a job. I’m a working-class musician; get off of work and go to band practice, or drive straight to the show, get home at 2 am and wake up in a couple of hours to go back to work. I’ve always found jobs that would be flexible and let me tour, and if they said I couldn’t go on tour I would quit and find another job when I got back.

These past several years I’ve started my own screen printing business here in Philadelphia, PA. I make band merch for a living, and I can take time off for music whenever I want. It’s a lot of hard work and dedication but it’s rewarding. I’ve always had a do it yourself mentality and one of my main goals in life was to be in a position where nobody was able to tell me what to do.

Kendra: There are a lot of styles going on on this record, but the base seems to have a punk spirit. Did you grow up with that punk mentality, going to the likes of Warped Tour?

Matthew William Charles: I discovered punk music when I was in my early teens and it changed the trajectory of my life. I grew up with a lot of different influences, but when I heard bands like Black Flag and The Descendents it changed my perception of what a song could be. I didn’t realize that you could write songs that could hit you like a blunt object, intimately describing whatever personal angst and general unhappiness that you might have. That influence has followed me every step of the way through my various musical progressions. Looking back, surprisingly I only made it to one Warped Tour back in 98’, but I was never a really big fan of festivals and preferred the more intimate setting of a local venue.

Kendra: Anyone in a creative career can attest to “Living in Debt.” Despite what Carrie Bradshaw was pimping, freelance doesn’t allot every writer to live in Manhattan. What do you feel aspiring musicians should know about the financial side of making music before they jump in?

Matthew William Charles: Full disclosure I just had to look up to see who Carrie Bradshaw was, and seeing that she was part of the HBO series ‘Sex And The City’ I can understand why I don’t. Also “Living In Debt” is specifically about the problems associated with college debt, but I can see how that can be applied to musicians.

Before I could give any financial advice, I would first ask yourself,” Why do you want to play music?” The answer for me and I can only imagine this is the answer for most people is that you love music, you enjoy the way it makes you feel, or that you enjoy performing for people and being on stage. You can’t forget the reasons why you started. Being a career musician is hard, and most musicians have jobs or some sort of side gig to make ends meet. The percentage of musicians who make a lot of money is really small, but those people are most likely working all the time and many become physically and mentally drained. Financially, you need to have realistic expectations. You need to make a plan, plot out goals and understand what you need to do to make those things happen. You need to live within your means, many times that means living uncomfortably so you have more time and money to invest in your music. When you start, if you make money, save it. Put it in a bank account or some lockbox that you will not touch even in an emergency. Only reinvest that money into your musical project. If you’re going that extra mile to become a career musician you have to think about your music as a business. That doesn’t work for a lot of people because it sanitizes the experience. Again you have to ask yourself those important questions to figure out what is going to work for you.

Kendra: With all that has transpired this year, how do you feel 2020 has shaped your creativity and drive moving forward?

Matthew William Charles: 2020 has been a huge reality check. It’s made me realize, even more so than ever that I can’t take anything for granted. My drive is the same, and I’m going to continue to be positive and write music and try and share my music with as many people as possible. The landscape has changed and I’m trying to adapt the best that I can. Nothing can replace live shows, interacting with people face to face, and making new friends and fans. The silver lining is that I can learn some new ways to share and promote my music, and hopefully, if things return to normal I can use those new techniques in tandem with traditional touring and live performances.

Kendra: Usually, this is where I ask people what they have planned in the coming months but with the world in a strange place right now, plans aren’t as concrete as they typically are. You can go ahead and let us know what you have tentatively planned but can you also share a song that never fails to get you through when the world around you feels like a mess?

Matthew William Charles: It has been a struggle to make plans and be productive. I’m currently working on some home recording projects and I plan to release some of those songs periodically over the next several months. I’m working on making some music videos and I have been making more use of my video streaming accounts like YouTube and LBRY. I’ve done some live streaming events and plan to do some more in the future, it’s honestly not my favorite thing but it helps fill the void.

A song that never fails to inspire me and gets me through tough times is “Superhuman Coliseum” by the band I Farm. It’s an obscure, thrashy punk rock track off their album, ‘Sincerely Robots.’ The main refrain is “Live again, and start all over ” which I think is a good piece of advice, if not a necessary action if our world continues on its current course.

#mu

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

Text

Mutual Aid Groups Reckon With the Future: ‘We Don’t Want This to Just Be a Fad’

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Mutual aid networks swelled during the pandemic. How will they continue to grow and serve once it’s over?

In the early days of the pandemic, storied community activists and those newly unemployed, or working from home for the first time, came together to join or form mutual aid networks across the country. These groups have spent months building volunteer rolls, creating community connections, and perfecting the use of Slack as a virtual dispatcher. And with states opening back up despite the pandemic wearing on, some are trying to shift the resources and energy to fight a mounting challenge: food insecurity, which will outlast the pandemic.

Some projects aim to rewrite entire lanes of our food system: seeds and gardening advice distributed to hubs around the country, a quickly growing network of free fridges to store fresh food, and fleets of cyclist couriers ready to fill in the gaps. The new movement is also centered around food dignity: letting people eat according to their preferences, rather than subsist on whatever donations are available at a food bank that week.

“Distribution is the number-one reason why food injustice happens,” says Sasha Verma, a member of the operations team of Corona Courier, a mutual aid group that serves most of New York City. “We are helping all these people who can’t leave their homes. Who was helping them before? I don’t fucking know.”

After months managing dozens of daily dispatches across the city, in June, the group decided to pivot to a longer-term strategy it hopes will establish a groundwork for food security, without relying so much on central dispatching or coordination. It set up “pods” of about 50 families and buildings across the city, matching them with couriers who could address their needs more directly, which helps form community bonds. Basically, the plan is a slightly formalized way of matching folks in need of food with neighbors who can help them get it.

The pandemic, and its wave of unemployment, attracted tons of first-timers to mutual aid groups; folks who had the privilege of never experiencing food insecurity saw first-hand how hard it is just to get groceries to hungry people. Verma says she joined her group, a citywide grocery and supply delivery effort that attracted more than 500 volunteers, because she had a hunch no government or charity agency was up for the challenge ahead. That sunk in when she found out the state unemployment office was sending people to the newly formed Corona Courier instead of a more established service.

“I’m not surprised, because they can’t even do something as simple as what we were doing, which is just buying someone else groceries,” she says.

Corona Courier groceries are usually paid for through donations from Abolition Action Grocery Fund (which you can donate to here), an offshoot of the NYC Democratic Socialists of America’s COVID-19 Relief Fund. It’s raised nearly $80,000 so far, mostly from donations of about $25. That kind of small fundraising is key to the future of the efforts, organizers say. Mutual aid groups often have a distaste for some of the traditional nonprofits, which they say are bogged down by bureaucracy and red tape, and that they believe exclude people who don’t fit their specific requirements for aid. One of the guiding missions of this new era of support is to trust in people to take what they need.

“When we think about institutionalized food aid — for instance, CalFresh or food stamps or other means of distributing food to people — there’s a lot of means testing,” Gabriela Alemán of the Mission Meals Coalition, a San Francisco mutual aid organization that started in March, told the Extra Spicy podcast recently. “There’s a lot of questioning of, ‘Do these people deserve it? By what parameters do they deserve it? And how do we give it to them by however much we decide that they need?’”

Mission Meals Collective, she said, wants to instill trust in its members so there are no roadblocks to people seeking food through its resources, and eliminate the “savior complex” of other institutions that think they know best what a community needs. The group has set up a Patreon membership program to keep donations flowing every month.

“We’re not here to police people in what they do or don’t need,” she told the podcast. “I think also people fundamentally don’t understand that under-resourced communities, just because one family or one household might be under-resourced, that doesn’t mean that they completely forget their own sense of humanity for their neighbor.”

Liz Baldwin, the founder of Corona Courier, says her group hopes to expand its pod system to more families in the future (they’re still accepting volunteers, too), but keeping the agility of a loosely organized mutual aid group is crucial.

“I worked for [a nonprofit], and I just see how bureaucracy can really scramble missions,” she says. “There’s no part of me that’s like, ‘I should take this project and form it into a nonprofit.’ I think you lose the ability to really interact with individuals and try to help them in a way that makes sense for them. A lot of times what happens in nonprofits is that money gets kind of weird.”

Food insecurity is not just a pandemic problem: About 11 percent of Americans, or or 35 million people, were food insecure in 2018, meaning they didn’t have enough food to meet the nutritional needs of all members of their households due to money or access, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Advocates have little hope the federal government will help, while state and local governments are strapped for cash and food pantries are being strained. About 40 percent of people visiting food banks during the pandemic are first-time visitors, according to NBC News.

Mutual aid as a concept is not new, but it’s never been activated on this scale before, with the entire country on lockdown and so many able-bodied people out of work with nothing to do but help. It doesn’t hurt that this is the first crisis of the digital workflow era, when Slack, Zoom, and Airtable make complex coordination easy. Picking up an aid request can fit between gossip with coworkers on another Slack channel.

“We don’t want this to just be a fad. We want this to be a movement where we can be sustainable over the winter,” says Ash Godfrey, one of the people behind Chicago’s Love Fridge project. “This is something that 10 years from now could be a thing. We want people to do it right.”

The group was recently contacted by a city alderman to talk about adding a fridge outside of his office. Godfrey wasn’t expecting help from the government, but this connection fits its plans for serving the community for years to come.

“We believe that this relationship will give us more credibility as a movement,” Godfrey says. “While we are a community and people’s movement first and foremost, the more support we can get from those with resources and power, the stronger we will be. We are here to stay and having the alderman’s support is affirmation.”

The Love Fridge is now working to solve a major roadblock to its longevity: surviving brutal Chicago winters. The group is setting up a volunteer management program (which you can get involved with here) to make sure the fridges are maintained daily, working on blueprints for shelters around the machines, and talking with a community fridge group in Canada about how to survive a bitter January and February.

“If there’s a fridge everywhere, can you imagine the lives that would change?” Godfrey says.

Free fridges are not a panacea to food insecurity, says Sam Pawliger, who is heading up a community fridge project out of the Clinton Hill Fort Greene Mutual Aid group in Brooklyn. But they do help break down a barrier: Even a person who might feel embarrassed to call a mutual aid group for help could walk down the street to grab a sandwich from a fridge.

The fridge has been adding some elements to fill the gaps where food pantries fall short: When organizers found out residents of a nearby shelter were not allowed to bring food inside, they attached a can opener to the fridge and added disposable cutlery to an attached shelf.

“I saw this as something that we could stand up quickly to help build solidarity with our neighbors,” Pawliger says, “and as a resource to both combat food waste and food insecurity, both of which are major issues in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill in terms of food security.”

Of course, being able to produce your own food with consistency is the most secure thing. This is what Nate Kleinman hopes to inspire with the Cooperative Gardens Commission, which he helped start in March to collect and send seeds to hubs across the country. Kleinman learned the potential of mutual aid when working with Occupy Sandy in New Jersey in 2012, which was key to helping dig out homes and provide supplies to people deeply affected by the hurricane.

“In a lot of ways, Occupy Sandy changed the way that the official powers that be in disaster relief do their work,” he says, citing a 2013 report from the Department of Homeland Security that praised the work of the all-volunteer group and its non-hierarchical structure. “There’s a much bigger recognition and importance of mutual aid organizations in disaster relief.”

In the start of the pandemic, Kleinman saw a seed shortage coming: Many commercial companies were dealing with a huge surge in demand; others were shutting down entirely. The commission is providing donated seeds and advice for folks with home plots, community farms, and tribal gardens. The project started at the outset of the pandemic, but its goals are targeted at getting people to rethink how they eat.

“Seeds are at the root of all food security. This is a ‘teach a person to fish’ kind of issue,” he says. “If we’re giving people what they need to actually grow food themselves, that’s going to be much more sustainable in the long term at addressing food security.”

The group is working with local partners across the country to get seeds to disadvantaged or marginalized communities, places that were dealing with food insecurity before the coronavirus hit. Unlike other mutual aid groups, which tend to be located in population centers, the seeds can reach people in rural areas, with hubs in Mississippi, Texas, western North Carolina, and more. So far, they’ve set up 217 hubs across the country and reached an estimated 10,000 gardens, Kleinman says. And they’re accepting more resource donations on their website.

Donated seeds are sent in bulk to the group’s Philadelphia base, where they are then repackaged and distributed to the hubs. Some are sent to people through the mail, others have set up distribution hubs in neighborhood libraries and other public areas. Now, the group is focusing on fall seeds: cabbage, leafy greens, root vegetables, radishes, and cover crops, to keep the soil healthy for years to come.

“People have taken for granted that there will always be farm workers and farms producing food, and with the clamp down that also happened before the pandemic at the border, the challenges for migrant workers are very real,” Kleinman says. “I think it would be surprising if there weren’t more food shortages in the immediate future.”

The idea of exorcising capitalism from food access is an ambitious one. But organizers say the pandemic has shown that community-based mutual aid may be the only way forward.

“When I sparked this up, I never thought about, ‘What’s the government going to do for me?’” says Ramon Norwood, the founder of the Love Fridge. “That’s what we’re learning with the pandemic. It’s not enough. It shouldn’t just be the bare minimum.”

Tim Donnelly is a Brooklyn-based freelance reporter and editor. Follow him on Twitter.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/31RetWc https://ift.tt/3hYIxVG

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Mutual aid networks swelled during the pandemic. How will they continue to grow and serve once it’s over?

“I’m not surprised, because they can’t even do something as simple as what we were doing, which is just buying someone else groceries,” she says.

“If there’s a fridge everywhere, can you imagine the lives that would change?” Godfrey says.

The idea of exorcising capitalism from food access is an ambitious one. But organizers say the pandemic has shown that community-based mutual aid may be the only way forward.

Tim Donnelly is a Brooklyn-based freelance reporter and editor. Follow him on Twitter.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/31RetWc via Blogger https://ift.tt/3hRhI5u

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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starburyhead · 4 years

Text

twenty19 recap

Let’s talk about money.

2019 was an interesting year. I feel myself doing less extreme things as each year passes. I think it’s a sign of aging – maybe my body just can’t handle it anymore.

We start with a trip to Peru. Have you ever walked into a place where you’re like: “whoa, I’ve been living in a bubble.” This was my oh-shit moment.

As a kid, I used to think that I was the center of the world. I might’ve learned something this year – that maybe it’s not all about me.

If we were to get a bit philosophical, there have been roughly 100 billion humans who have walked the earth. Roughly 8% are alive today. And we’re all pretty much the same. We have fears, desires, goals, and a birth mom. We yearn for support from friends, food to survive, and a desire for meaning.

And at the same time, we’re all so different. It was truly eye opening.

Three things happened on my trip: I met a girl, and I got water poisoning. Twice.

Water, like air, is one of those things that we take for granted, always thinking it’s there and free until it’s not.

Apparently, I’ve learned, water is not always free. And it’s not always clean either.

In fact, not having clean water is one of the poopiest things in the world – quite literally.

It’s interesting to think about how humans have lived for the last few hundred thousand years. The rapid change we live by today has really occurred only in the last 1-200 years. We see huge divergence in life expectancy. Our thoughts have migrated from – “what are we eating tonight” to “ what will the interest rate on my mortgage be?”

And yet, this rapid change has not affected all humans on earth in equal weight.

That’s sort of where we are now. It’s a little mind numbing to think about where we’ll go in the next 200,000. And if you’ve never felt that one person could make a difference, the story of Genghis Kahn is a pretty interesting one.

As I left Peru and headed back to Baltimore, I kept thinking about one thing: what is my role in this world? It can’t be to just work in finance, earn a good living, and live a happy life. What is a happy life? I had so many questions.

I stumbled upon this article as I was Googling, trying to find the answer to happiness: top 5 regrets of the dying - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/top-5-regrets-of-the-dying_n_3640593

I guess if there’s any group of people to listen to about life, it should be the old. They have no incentive to lie anyway right?

The part in the article about relationships reminded me of something Dalio had said in an interview. I had watched a video between him and Rubenstein, two signers of the giving pledge, where these men with billions talk about what brings them joy.

I figured, who better to listen to about happiness than from guys who can buy anything in the world they want. Gates and Buffett started the giving pledge as an ask to billionaires around the world to donate half or more of their wealth upon death.

The signers post their letters in reply, which are available here to read: “https://givingpledge.org/

After buying their yachts, planes, and mansions, it seems that a common source of happiness for people with everything is philanthropy: a way to have a positive impact on the world. But could we skip the fun toys and jump straight to this treasure map? I was eager to find out.

Around this time, one of my friends began a fundraiser for his birthday with charity: water. Ahh water, my arch nemesis. He ended up donating a significant amount. That really peaked my curiosity. How does he trust a foundation with that much of his hard-earned money?

I looked a bit more into it, and ended up reading the guy’s story. Here’s his life summarized in a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4E1t2yIZlc

Don’t watch it if you’re not prepared to shed at least a few tears.

I finally understood what was missing from my desire to just work and live. Apparently, one guy (or girl: https://www.charitywater.org/rachels-gift/) can truly make a difference.

I did the math.

If the global GDP is ~80T and there are ~8B people in the world, that’s an average GDP per capita of ~10K.

This means that for every person making 100K, there are 10 making 1K.

A 10% tithe could theoretically affect 10 people at double their output per capita. Don’t quote me on this, but according to the WHO, water at 4x and sanitation at 8x, have the highest ROI in GDP growth.

The little girl (and it seems to always be the girl) who walks a few hours daily for water, with an unsanitary potty at school, gets left behind as she ages. She does more unpaid housework, falls behind on classes, and the GDP of the country suffers as a result.

Apparently, there’s a pretty clear correlation between output per capita and women’s availability to participate in the workforce. Water and sanitation also seem to be a huge variable holding that back (https://www.amazon.com/Moment-Lift-Empowering-Women-Changes/dp/1250313570).

As someone who loves allocating capital as a profession, allocating capital to the places in the world that have the highest ROI seems like an easy win. Maybe this was the golden ticket to finding happiness in the workplace.

I head back to Peru to visit the farmland where our coffee was being grown. I was shown an entire side of the world that is minimally discussed but still lived by ~800M, or roughly 1 in 10 people today. Historically, probably 90% of the all humans who have ever existed prior lived in a similar situation: close-knit communities that execute on farm and trade.

I remember after two hours of bean sorting, I yielded enough to buy myself almost a full cerveza. Though money is relative and so are costs.

Interestingly, I was the one who had the most to learn. How could someone be so happy without an iPhone, cell reception, and Amazon Prime?

As for the people who were struggling to make ends meet – why was it fair that the change in my pocket exceeded their income? The cost of my flight home could theoretically give a guy a year off from work.

This still rang true, but to a lesser extent, when you entered the vibrant city of Lima. A decent engineering job at a large MNC out of university would yield ~$90 per week or ~$18 per day. Money’s relative, but it really puts life into perspective.

I end the year back in Dallas as I reflect upon a few things. I’m not ready whatever that may mean. I’m just not there yet – mentally – there are still so many things that I’m trying to figure out and I think another year or two away from home would help.

But I’ve come to really appreciate the journey. It’s cliché, but honestly, this is the part where we grow. When we look back from our deathbeds, these are the times we remember: the times of change.

So maybe we can take a second to learn from the US billionaires who have collectively amassed wealth of 2-3x the GDP of South America as well as from the coffee farmer who grins from ear-to-ear.

If relationships are key to happiness, let’s cherish the time spent with loved ones – friends and family alike. If work seems dull and monotonous, let’s build a well in Rwanda. I think that’s a drink that we can all cheers to.

P.S. checkout my corn: :}}

#2019

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i-want-my-iwtv · 7 years

Note

I've been trying to read the whole vc series, but school and work just keep preventing me from getting really far! Is it ok to ask you to write a little summary for each book so I can catch up with the fandom until I have the time to read them all thoroughly?

Yeah, I understand, time is limited :P

I don’t know that summarizing VC will allow you to “catch up” with the fandom, you really only need to read the first 3 books and the Vampire Armand to get most of the jokes on tumblr, bc most of the jokes seem to center around:

Louis being a pyromaniac,

Lestat being an obnoxious but somehow lovable glittery murder machine,

Lestat and Louis being awesome and shitty murder dads,

Claudia being an ungrateful spoiled brat,

Armand being a little brat, or a slut, or an evul coven master, or all of the above,

Daniel Molloy just wanting to vampire plz!!!11!,

Marius being a pedo, or too bossy, or both,

Gabrielle is a bad mom and an ice queen,

Nicolas is spelled NICOLAS and he is NOT DEAD!,

Secondary characters not getting enough love from anyone!!

There are often spoilers in summaries tho, do you really want to be spoiled? I LOVE being spoiled.

We have these unreliable narrators, there is a lot of disagreement as to what canon really is, and some fans choose to ignore parts of (or entire books) in the series. We bring our own experiences to the reading, and we choose what to connect with, so I think we can agree on some things about each book, but you will probably get a different summary from any given reader. Even AR has told us to disregard the hybrid Mayfair/VC books (Blood Canticle, possibly Merrick and Blackwood Farm) when moving onto the more recent VC additions (PL and PLROA). So, for example, I have a friend who has only read the first 3 books. She doesn’t even know what happens after that bc she prefers to think it ended after QOTD. So any new vampires made after QOTD do not exist to her. #Your headcanon may vary.

Anyway, you want summaries.

http://vampirechronicles.wikia.com has a pretty good write-up for each of the books (they don’t have PL and PLROA currently, maybe they will eventually). It contains spoilers.

@vraik has thorough VC analysis in their series called The Consulting Analyst over on vraikaiser.com. Spoilers there, too.

@hyperbeeb‘s capsule reviews are pretty gr9 [X]:

Lestat’s Adventures with a Progressive Family

Lestat’s Bisexual Adventures in 18th Century France

Lestat’s Adventures with the Queen of the Vampires

Lestat’s Adventures as a Human

Lestat’s Adventures with Satan

Lestat’s Adventures in a Coma

Lestat’s Adventures with Polyamory

Lestat’s Adventures in the Deep South

Lestat’s Adventures with Not Being There At All

Lestat’s Adventures with Witches and Other Weird Shit

Lestat’s adventures with Being the Vampire Head of State

Lestat’s Adventures with Literal Fucking Aliens

(Note, Pandora and Vittorio are technically stand-alone “New Tales of the Vampires” books, but Pandora would be No. 6 of the 13 book series).

You can check my #VC Synopsis tag, which has more capsule humorous summaries.

Gonna try to do a little summary for each VC under the cut as a personal challenge.

Spoilers ahead! I’ll try to do this with as few spoilers as possible, as factually as possible.

1. Interview with the Vampire - Louis tells the story of his life and unlife to Daniel Molloy. Louis starts at the point in his mortal life just before he meets Lestat, and how his life up until that meeting influenced the unlife that followed after he became a vampire. Lestat’s reasons for choosing Louis are unclear to Louis, but he wants Louis to choose to be a vampire. Louis is under so much duress (failing health, still in emotional distress over his guilt re: a close family member’s death) that the choice is not 100% legit, Lestat can’t wait for a more opportune time and proceeds to turn Louis anyway.

The whole story could be seen as Anne Rice’s exploration of the role of religion and the reasons why terrible things happen to innocent people, the concept of punishment.

For me, it was also eye-opening bc I was 11 when I read it and it introduced the possibility of love between a same-sex couple, even if that was in more of a read-between-the-lines way.

It also has a child vampire and I hadn’t seen any media even attempt to tell a story with a child vampire before. Few media that attempt it seem to have captured the beauty and tragedy of such a creature as in this story, and she reappears in a few of the other VC. Unreliable Narrator thing that continues throughout the series.

^ok that was too long, I’m going for shorter.

2. The Vampire Lestat - Lestat seeks to “correct the record” that Louis laid out in IWTV by giving us his own backstory, starting at his mortal youth and how that influenced the unlife that followed when he became a vampire, against his will (hence the “I’m going to give you the choice I never had,” line from movie!IWTV). There is more exploration in the role of religion and reasons why bad things happen to basically innocent people, and whether you really can make the best of a shitty situation or just give up. More about punishment. A very unique take on the origin of the vampires as a species is revealed. And the reasons why Lestat behaved the way he did (basically all secretive) in IWTV. Unreliable Narrator thing that continues throughout the series, who are we to believe? Lestat or Louis? And the author’s retconning which is perceived as “making excuses later in canon for behavior that’s already happened.” Some readers really despise this. Personally, I like having the options and trusting one version of events, or none of them.

3. The Queen of the Damned - Lestat’s modern-era rock career wakes the Queen of the Vampires and she has this awesome Radical Feminist idea for world peace. She’s already gotten started on it! She upgrades Lestat physically so that he can help her accomplish her goals, but he’s not really on board. They meet with the vampires she has allowed to survive her purge and it doesn’t go very well. Also in this book, we have different narrators, more about the vampire origin story, and the Armand/Daniel ship is sailing at its best here.

4. The Tale of the Body Thief - Having suffered so much through the past 3 books, Lestat is a suicidal hamburger-brained moron and makes some very bad choices. Despite everyone advising him NOT to, Lestat makes a terrible trade with a body thief and learns quickly that he had idealized being human. He does some horrendous stuff, and wants off the Being Human ride. He has one friend who helps him set things back to the way they should be, and then he betrays that friend in a spectacularly cruel way. More importantly, Lestat also gets a wonderful cuddly doggo.

5. Memnoch the Devil - Lestat Goes to Heaven and Hell, meets Jesus Christ, meets God, meets Satan (who prefers to go by “Memnoch”) it’s all a huge interview process to decide if Lestat might work for God or Satan and it’s basically fanfic of the Bible. Some people hated it for those reasons. I found it really intriguing, bc it presents a reason why God created the earth, and why there’s suffering, why God allows suffering to go on, and where religion comes from. Like Lestat, Memnoch says he’s not the antagonist, but really the good guy in all this. When Dorothy gets back to Kansas Lestat returns to earth, there is disagreement about whether he went on a real trip or he was just fooled by a really talented spirit. Lestat is so confused that he throws a huge tantrum and then gets solitary confinement, then slips into a coma.

6. The Vampire Armand - Armand gets his spotlight and gets to really tell his story, do we believe everything he tells us? Lots of good Italy times stuff. Armand visits Lestat in his coma-state, and talks about that, too.

7. Merrick - Merrick is a Mayfair witch in NOLA who bewitches Louis in pursuit of his request for closure with Claudia, and hilarity ensues. Louis gets the most screentime he’s had since IWTV, but the whole book is told from a 3rd wheel’s POV, it would have been so much better from Louis’ or Merrick’s POV. Major fatal thing happens but fortunately Lestat wakes up from his coma in time to save the day.

8. Blood and Gold - Marius tells his story, as does the vampire Thorne tell his own story. Marius talks about his artistic influences and his experience with the early Talamasca and Santino and the Children of Satan. We see Daniel (now living with Marius) under a kind of spell, which Marius says is temporary.

9. Blackwood Farm - Lestat goes to the Deep South and hears the story of vampire Quinn (his story defies summary) and, with Merrick’s help, saves the day.

10. Blood Canticle - More vampire and Mayfair mixing. And Taltos. It’s a very big WTF book. But it has some very funny scenes and lines in it. It ends with Lestat promising the Dark Gift to someone.

11. Prince Lestat - Vampire scientists. A clone. Someone gets kidnapped. Ultimate Vampire Coven Gathering. Lestat is cranky, saves the day anyway. Ghosts apparently can linger on earth after death and make bodies for themselves. Characters from past books reappear. New characters are introduced. Louis writes a chapter about how OK fine, he does love Lestat. FINE.

12. Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis - I haven’t finished this but basically… the REAL vampire origin story, and it involves bird-like aliens, who were sent to earth bc the aliens feed on the suffering of mortals. The bird-like aliens didnt want to create Atlantis. in fact they were pissed because this one creature of theirs, Amel, made Atlantis with the Luracastria (i dunno i think thats how it’s spelled) and their viewing tech couldn’t see through the material. Amel made Atlantis to spite the bird-like aliens omg i cant believe im typing this. Louis and Lestat finally have some legit canon cuddletimes.

- Pandora - the story of the vampire Pandora, and why Marius is bad at relationships. Lots of good Roman times stuff.

- Vittorio - is not a VC vampire, and wants nothing to do with that dysfunctional pile of fanged crazies. @monstersinthecosmos and @vittoriathevampire could give you a better summary of that one, since I didn’t absorb it too well :P

#Anonymous #anon #ask #vc synopsis #always reblog vc synopsis #vc #vampire chronicles #iwantmyiwtv headcanon #iwantmyiwtv has opinions #your headcanon may vary #hyperbeeb #vraik #monstersinthecosmos #vittoriathevampire #Unreliable Narrator #retcon #spoilers #princelestat #princelestatspoilers

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ocelysium · 7 years

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Biography - Aelia Adrona

GENERAL INFORMATION

Full Name: Aelia Adrona Name Meaning:

Aelia: the female form of ‘Aelius’, which is a Roman family name which was possibly derived from the Greek word ‘helios’ meaning ‘sun’ [source]

Adrona: derived from the constellation ‘Andromeda’

Other Names:

Aely

Aelius

Apollo

Helios

Lia

Kiddo

Adrona

Gender: Female Race: Metahuman Nationality: American Date of Birth: 21st of June Citizenship: American Occupation: None Astrological Sign: Cancer Height: 1.68m Weight: 53kg Eye Color: Light brown Hair Color: Red Body Type: She’s quite slim but physically in shape

Outfit/Style:

She loves fashion, but despite that she prefers plain and simple clothing

She wears anything that’s cheap basically

She’s really good at disguises

She’s usually wearing a sweater because she doesn’t like it when people hit on her, at all

She loves showing off her hair though and looks after it like it’s a crown jewel

Everything needs to be fireproof though

Her combat outfit consists of a fireproof bodysuit with red accents

Physical Traits:

Her fiery red hair

Her plump lips

Her hair and eyes glow when she fully activates her powers

Fan Cast: Madelaine Petsch Alias: Blood Phoenix Family:

Biological Father: Henry Adrona

Biological Mother: Joanna Adrona

Biological Brother (older by 3 years): Aydan Adrona

POWER [SOLAR MANIPULATION]

Official Definition: User can create, shape and manipulate all aspects of a sun, starting from its immense heat, luminosity, mass/gravitational field, magnetic field, raw nuclear energy and reaction, etc.. More specific effects include solar winds/flares, geomagnetic storms, sunspot reactions causation, UV emissions, and plant growth promotion. [source]

Aelia has great control over her powers but her powers are so immense that she can lose control

She’s literally a walking ‘sun’ in a way as her body can emit heat, glow, emit radiation, magnetism and more

She gets weaker at night due to the lack of sunlight, and vice versa

She uses the gravity of the sun to fly and manipulate objects

She can control the weather to a certain extent

She isn’t affected by fire at all

She has the ability to produce fire and heat at will

She also has the ability to control stars to some extent, but her powers over them are extremely weak due to their distance. If she’s close, she can easily control any star

Sunlight can literally heal her

She can control plant growth to a certain extent, but she’ll usually end up killing them

Despite having control, she tends to act on her emotions

She can manipulate the magnetic field, radiation and energy, even having the ability to produce them from her hands so sometimes when energy is unavailable for a car or phone, she’d just use herself to get the devices to work

Her body temperature and the temperature around her are directly linked to her emotions

PERSONALITY [ESFP]

Entertainers recognize value and quality, which on its own is a fine trait. In combination with their tendency to be poor planners though, this can cause them to live beyond their means, and credit cards are especially dangerous. More focused on leaping at opportunities than in planning out long-term goals, Entertainers may find that their inattentiveness has made some activities unaffordable. Entertainers are welcome wherever there’s a need for laughter, playfulness, and a volunteer to try something new and fun – and there’s no greater joy for Entertainer personalities than to bring everyone else along for the ride. Entertainers can chat for hours, sometimes about anything but the topic they meant to talk about, and share their loved ones’ emotions through good times and bad. If they can just remember to keep their ducks in a row, they’ll always be ready to dive into all the new and exciting things the world has to offer, friends in tow. [source]

Aelia goes with the flow and loves to do things her way, becoming angry when told otherwise

She hates being controlled and oppressed

She is sensitive and gets angry really easily

She’s extremely creative, always coming up with new ideas and plans that people haven’t even thought about

She doesn’t mind being in the center of attention whatsoever

She’s a social butterfly, being able to speak to people and going as far as to manipulate them

She’s actually a very observant person

Her loyalty knows no bounds, especially when it comes to her brother

She has a heart, but she always puts her brother and friends first, no matter what

She’s reckless and confident and unashamed of who she is

Although reckless, she also has a logical side and though her ideas are wild, they are in a sense, also logical

She tends to be impulsive and spontaneous, saying things and doing them without actually thinking

Though she’s quite loud and confident, she’s actually conscious of how she’s viewed, especially when it comes to her past and her lack of education

She doesn’t stick with one thing for too long

She doesn’t care about much unless it involves her or someone she cares about, but she does have morals and make exceptions

She’s not afraid of expressing her emotions but she is afraid that her emotions will take over her

She doesn’t take insults lightly

SKILLS/HOBBIES

Aelia is a pretty skilled driver and very handy with cars and any vehicle

She can read and write to a basic extent, but since she haven’t been in school since seven she’s quite illiterate

She has street-smart and has become a very skilled street fighter, using dirty tricks to get what she wants at times

She’s extremely skilled at breaking in and out of places, as well as stealing and anything that involves sleight-of-hand

She has to learn how to mend wounds herself, and she’s gotten pretty good at doing it even though she doesn’t have any medical skills

Parkour. She’s a master at parkour

When she has free time, she’ll try to practice reading and writing. She’s still struggling but she continues to improve

HABITS

She always runs her fingers through her hair. Always, and for no reason whatsoever

When she’s concentrating she bites the inside of her cheeks

She grazes her teeth against the bottom of her lip when she’s lying

She sings in the shower

LIKES

Animals

Especially pandas for some unknown reason

Cars

Bikes

Any vehicles really

Hugs

Fire

Summer

Her hair

Bananas

Sweaters

Daisies

Superheroes

Traveling

Huge cities

DISLIKES

Abuse

Night time

Cold weather

Cloudy weather

Water

Snow

People hitting on her

Arrogance

Being restrained

Being underwater

Feeling powerless

When her emotions get the better of her

STRENGTHS

She’s adaptable

Her determination

Her powers

Her confidence

Her loyalty

WEAKNESSES

The night - her powers derive from the sun, so obviously when it’s night time she gets much weaker

Her emotions - sometimes her emotions control her powers, not her. Very often she’ll act on her emotions

Her confidence - she’s not afraid of her powers or afraid of letting people know she has powers, which makes the ‘hidden identity’ thing a little hard

Her lack of education - she often cannot read certain texts or use something to the fullest extent because she just doesn’t know how to

Her anger - her powers grow most when she’s angry and the temperature just rises when she’s furious, which can give her identity away as well as affect her. Many times she catches things on fire

Her reckless fighting style - growing up in the streets, she isn’t trained in combat and just does whatever she can. Because of this, her style can injure her as well as leave numerous openings for her opponent

Water and cold places - her powers are very limited

FEARS

Losing her brother

Just abuse generally

Losing her powers

Night time

Water

Cold places

Eventually getting caught for good

OTHER FACTS

Her mother died giving birth to her, causing her father to feel bitter towards her

She grew up in a small farm in Kansas

Her father was quite abusive towards her, but not enough to make it noticeable to the public or others

When she was seven, the abuse got particularly bad and as a result, her powers awakened

She had a hand in killing her father

She burned the house down and ran away with her brother

She’s very protective of her brother

Nobody really knows where Aelia got her powers, both her and her brother were born with it

Her powers are the complete opposite of her brother’s powers

Her favorite superhero is Wonder Woman

She’s had a few flings here and there but generally she avoids romance overall since she and her brother are always moving around, never staying in one place

They survive on stealing goods and doing jobs as mercenaries

Her and her brother are known as the Silver Phoenix

Her favorite city is Metropolis

Her best friend is her brother, but apart from that she’s actually quite close with Dinah Lance

Sometimes she’d mess with people and use her powers for pranks

Given time, she can pretty much drive or ride anything

She often has nightmares about the abuse she experienced

She never got a higher education than first grade

She doesn’t know how to swim--when she’s in the water she usually just uses gravity to push herself up

She used to be part of a street gang called ‘White Crows’ with her brother. They ended up taking over the gang then disbanding it

She and Aydan have hideouts in every city

She loves giving free things to street kids and animals because they remind her of herself

She always wanted to play the bass

If she were to study a subject, it would be engineering

Whenever she visits a new city she always take pictures in front of the huge sign

She hates the taste of coffee and can never drink it

#aelia adrona #aelia #adrona siblings #biography #official biography #aelia biography

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instantdeerlover · 4 years

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Mutual Aid Groups Reckon With the Future ‘We Don’t Want This to Just Be a Fad’ added to Google Docs

Mutual Aid Groups Reckon With the Future ‘We Don’t Want This to Just Be a Fad’

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Mutual aid networks swelled during the pandemic. How will they continue to grow and serve once it’s over?

“I’m not surprised, because they can’t even do something as simple as what we were doing, which is just buying someone else groceries,” she says.

“If there’s a fridge everywhere, can you imagine the lives that would change?” Godfrey says.

The idea of exorcising capitalism from food access is an ambitious one. But organizers say the pandemic has shown that community-based mutual aid may be the only way forward.

Tim Donnelly is a Brooklyn-based freelance reporter and editor. Follow him on Twitter.

via Eater - All https://www.eater.com/21408710/how-mutual-aid-groups-plan-to-fight-food-insecurity-post-pandemic

Created September 2, 2020 at 11:26PM /huong sen View Google Doc Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xa6sRugRZk4MDSyctcqusGYBv1lXYkrF

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poop4u · 4 years

Text

The Thunder from Up Over

#Poop4U

Last week we had one hell of a thunderstorm in the middle of the night, and for only the second time in five months, Skip barked in his crate. (The first time he had diarrhea.) Skip is normally a dream dog in his crate. He goes in happily, lies down and goes to sleep. Skip has been a “downstairs dogs” since he came, at first because I followed generic house training rules to introduce him to one area of the house at a time, and then he injured himself and couldn’t go upstairs at all. So right now he sleeps downstairs in his crate, while all the rest of us sleep upstairs. (Upstairs privileges are on the agenda for this month.)

While I blearily decided what to do, it being 2 AM, Skip let out a heartbreaking howl after an especially loud boom, and I scurried downstairs and began a counter conditioning program. It’s easy, if you can call anything easy at 2 in the morning. Skip and I lay on the rug, and every time it thundered I said “Thunder Treats!” and gave him a treat. The idea is as simple as the execution–teach the dog that thunder means something really good is about to come. Classical counter conditioning is a powerful tool, and I didn’t hesitate it use it right away at the first sign of Skip being afraid of thunder.

I’ve had great luck with it with my own dogs, and also with hundreds of clients. It was heartening, but no surprise then to see that a survey of dog owners found it to be more effective than other methods of treating thunder phobia. You can read about it here in Zazie Todd’s Companion Animal Psychology blog, where she writes about a study that finds classical conditioning and “relaxation therapy” to be the most effective method of dealing with thunder. (As described by owners.)

Of course, it’s not simple if your dog is so frightened that he won’t take food. In that case, you have to start at a much earlier point. I wrote the steps to take in a post of mine from May 2009. I include them here because thunder season is starting here in the Midwest, and if there was ever a time to jump on it, now’s the time. (I highly recommend doing this to prevent thunder phobia if you live in an area with a lot of thunder storms.)

From May 2009:

Counter Classical Conditioning: This is the first treatment I recommend, and it is especially effective in mild or moderate cases. I’m doing it now to prevent thunder phobia in Will, who is one of the most sound sensitive dogs I know, but so far has not reacted with any anxiety to thunder. In this paradigm (described in a a general sense in The Cautious Canine), you pair something the dog adores (food or play best) with a damped down version of what scares him. Your goal is to condition your dog to associate thunder with something he loves, so that his emotional response to the loud noise is “Oh boy!” rather than “Oh No!”

To get this to work:

~ You need to start at whatever stimulus first elicits any sign of fear in the dog. Dogs backward chain storms so well that you can use them as meteorologists… beginning to pace and whine when the wind comes up, and in extreme cases, when the barometer drops long before the storm rolls in.

~ The thunder or other stimulus has to be mild enough to prevent eliciting extreme fear (you can also use CDs or tapes of thunder, but need to have speakers distributed around the room, overhead being best).

~ The “treat” (food or play) has to be highly desirable so that the emotional response it elicits is more powerful than any fear elicited by the thunder.

~ The thunder/noise has to come first… so that it becomes a predictor of something good.

~ You need to proceed in a step-by-step manner, gradually linking louder and louder thunder with the food or play.

In other words, you hear thunder in the far distance, you say “Oh boy! Thunder Treats!” and give your dog a piece of chicken, or throw the ball if they are more motivated by play. Your goal is for your dog to emotionally respond to thunder as a predictor of something good, just like a clicker in clicker training.

Yeah, I know. Believe me, I’ve been through it myself with several dogs. You see the problem here…. how, exactly, does one make arrangements for thunder storms to begin in May with tiny, little quiet thunderettes and then gradually work their way up into glass-rattling boomers once your dog is ready for it? Well, you can’t (if you can, please write soon), but you can give your dog the ‘treat’ (I used food for Pip and play for Luke & Willie) whenever the thunder is relatively quiet, and then just stop once it becomes loud. I’d run outside with Luke and play ball when the barometer dropped and the wind came up, continue playing until the thunder started far away, and then come inside when the thunder began to get so loud that it would overwhelm Luke’s love of ball play. Then we’d go inside, I’d let him hunker beside me, rub his belly, sing and laugh. He got through it in two seasons (I’d call his case a moderate one, not at all severe, while Pip was severe for a few years but came through it fine after two summers of thunder = chicken.).

Back to the present: More thunder is expected this week, so I’ll be cooking up some chicken and getting other treats ready for Skip’s counter conditioning. There’s lots more to read on this topic if you’d like, I’ve written several posts about this topic, it being such a critical issue here in thunder alley. You can read about it (and my changing perspectives) in blogs on May 8, 2009, and June 26, 2018, or go to the Learning Center in my website.

I should also mention, that since I wrote those earlier blogs, a new medication, Sileo, specifically designed for noise phobias has been released. Several people commented in earlier blogs that they had found it helpful. I’ve personally had no experience with it, so chime in if you have.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Picture perfect weather allowed us to have a picture perfect night in the tent on Saturday night. I wouldn’t say it was the best sleep we’ve ever had, due to the nearby, and seemingly unceasing, chorus of coyote yips, howls and tremolos. Tootsie, by the way, seems to love the tent because she gets to sleep in the bed all night. (Another reason why sleeping in the tent is not the place for a good night’s sleep. Toots is not allowed on the bed in the house because she has fallen off of it, landing in a terrified, and terrifying, thump at dark-thirty in the morning.) In the tent we surrounded her with pillows, and carefully arrange our legs on either side of her and try not to move much.) Speaking of picture perfect, the dogs lined up like this on their own while Jim was building a fire, and if it didn’t call for a photograph, I don’t know what does.

The colors this time of year are so rich and varied. I loved this simple view of our Lilac tree in front of the light green Sunburst Locust.

Speaking of color, we have one Tree Peony bush that blooms for just a few days in the heat, but oh my, when it does . . .

The butterflies and bees are out in abundance now. Last night, a pair of Swallowtails flitted over and around my head in what I am guessing was a mating dance. They were so busy getting busy that they were oblivious to me–I expected them to alight in my hair while a bluebird perched on my shoulder and Bambi nuzzled my hand. Here’s one busy gathering food.

One more thing before I go. I have made it a point to avoid anything even vaguely political in this blog since its inception thirteen years ago. That decision was as much for my sake as for others; I wanted, and still want, this site to be a place that provides knowledge about human-animal relationships, and the joys and challenges of this remarkable miracle that we call life. Disagreements and controversies regarding training methods and beliefs have always been welcomed, as long as they are done with compassion and respect.

However, the events of the last week and a half in our country are so huge, and so critically important, that it feels unethical to ignore them here. I have struggled how to handle this for days–say something or say nothing? I’m aware that having a public forum is an honor, and should not be taken lightly. There are reasons for me to continue staying out of current events even today. I’ve received many comments over the years from people thanking me for keeping the tone and focus off of anything that doesn’t relate to animals and animal behavior.

But I have to say something today about what’s going on in our country–our poor, challenged, partially broken country. I just have to. Here is all I’ll say here: Jim and I believe that enough is enough. That there is deeply ingrained racism in this country that has been highlighted by the brutal, and heartbreaking, murder of George Floyd. That police departments need more support for community policing, for cops who bravely call out colleagues who betray the public’s trust, and less emphasis on violent, aggressive behavior. Jim and I are doing our parts as best we can. We’ve marched with protest signs in a small group of socially distanced friends. (Afterward I thought I should have made a sign that said “Old people for Equality.”) We’ve made numerous contributions to organizations that we feel are working toward positive and realistic changes. I’ve been involved for the last year in encouraging every citizen to vote, and I will redouble those efforts. We read and talk and listen and question and keep asking ourselves “what else can we do?”

I say this not expecting any responses; I just needed to say it. I apologize for breaking the “rules,” but as the duck said in the movie Babe, “That’s a good rule. But sometimes rules need to be broken.” I’ll post short comments related to this that are compassionate and respectful, but promise to avoid letting the blog be overwhelmed by controversy.

Thanks for hearing me out. Stay safe friends; let’s be careful out there.

Poop4U Blog via www.Poop4U.com Trisha, Khareem Sudlow

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goodra-king · 5 years

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Transcript of The Secrets to Impactful Speaking

Transcript of The Secrets to Impactful Speaking written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Transcript

John Jantsch: Choosing the right domain name is critical to ensuring the success of your small business, but it’s gotten a little harder. Now you can choose a .us domain to help your business stand out. Reserve your .us web address today. Go to launchwith.us, and use my promo code, PODCAST, for my special offer.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Allison Shapira. She’s the CEO, and founder of Global Public Speaking, Communication Training Farm, and she’s also the author of Speak With Impact, How to Command The Room, and Influence Others. So Allison, thanks for joining me.

Allison Shapira: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: So, I’m going to ask you a seemingly silly question, but I’d like to hear you frame this. Who needs to speak with Impact?

Allison Shapira: Everyone, in one word. My idea in the book is that every single day you have an opportunity to speak with Impact, whether you’re at a parent teacher conference, or whether you are sitting next to someone on an airplane who might potentially fund your next venture. We never know who we’re talking to, and every day we have this opportunity to make an impact.

John Jantsch: So, I’m sure in some of your work, particularly when it comes around to say working with you, and that’s going to cost somebody a fee, and there’s trying to judge the ROI on this. I mean, how do you first get somebody to realize maybe what not speaking with Impact is costing them?

Allison Shapira: Usually someone comes to me, because something has happened that is not good. Let’s say they [inaudible] presentation, or they didn’t win business that they were hoping to win, and they realize that it’s their communication that’s the problem. Or perhaps that because of their communication skills, the real value of what they do is not coming through. And so, usually by the time they get to me, they’ve already realized there’s a problem, and they’re taking steps to fix that problem.

John Jantsch: Yeah. I guess that’s usually the case, right? We have to admit there’s a problem for wherever we’re going to seek a solution to it, isn’t it? Because, I suspect there’re a heck of a lot of people out there that have risen to CEO ranks, or leadership ranks in big companies, and they are really holding themselves back, or holding the impact back, because they either assume they don’t need this help, or they just don’t bother to get it.

Allison Shapira: Right. And, my business model is based on finding the people who already realized they have a problem as opposed to going up to someone, and trying to convince them there’s a problem that they don’t see. That’s a much harder sell. And luckily, there are plenty of people who recognize they need help. And that’s kind of inward looking leader that I want to work with.

John Jantsch: Yeah. So one of the challenges I’m sure for a lot of folks that are… They’d realize that, and they’re coming for help is public speaking makes people nervous. And frankly, I do a fair amount of public speaking, and I can’t say I certainly suffer from getting nervous the same way I used to. But I think one of the real tricks is probably getting over looking nervous when you’re trying to have impact. How do you help people through that whole fear component?

Allison Shapira: Everybody feels nervous before they speak in public, and this could be having an important job interview with one or two other people, or it could be standing on stage addressing a huge crowd. Regardless, everyone gets some degree of nervousness, or feel some degree of nervousness. The goal is not to completely eradicate that fear. That’s nearly impossible, and unproductive. The goal is to help you overcome that fear, and harness it to create a positive energy that you have when you give the speech, or go in for that interview, or for that presentation or pitch. So, the techniques that I use start with trying to find the source of that nervousness.

Allison Shapira: What are the variables that you can control? Are you’re nervous, because you don’t know who’s going to be in the room? Walk to the room early, and start to meet people. Are you nervous you’re going to forget what you’re going to say? Well, prepare a particular type of bullet points that you can bring with you, and easily use if you lose your place. So, the more you can control the variables, the more comfortable you feel. And then, when you add to that reading techniques, relaxation techniques that I learned as an opera singer, then you can start to use those to calm the nerves to some extent. And then again, harness that energy in a positive way.

John Jantsch: You know, I’ve done this show for almost 15 years now, and you’re only the second former opera singer I’ve had on the show.

Allison Shapira: I’m not the first?

John Jantsch: Oh, maybe you are actually. I’d have to rack my brain, but I think you may indeed be the first former opera singer that I’ve had in my show. So, I know the quality of our connection, even though it is pretty good. It’s still analog, and digital, and whatnot all right? I’d have you sing something.

Allison Shapira: Yeah, like the credit, the sound is not optimal for an operatic performance right now. Nor have I warmed up for such a performance. So, maybe we can provide a link to a video of me performing.

John Jantsch: We will, I promise listeners, go to our show notes, and you’re going to find a link to that, among other things that we discuss today. So in your work, I’m curious how you fall down on this. Obviously in creating a speech, or speaking with Impact. There certainly is the content, and there is delivery. So how much of it is that? How much is the content, how much is the delivery?

Allison Shapira: There is no specific breakdown in terms of which is more important than the other. There are figures that are often cited. Those figures are usually wrong. And so, it really depends on who the audience is that you’re speaking to. And are they going to resonate more with the content, or the delivery of that content. As a general rule, we need both. The lack of one cannot be made up for by an abundance of the other. So, if you have really powerful content that you’ve crafted in a way that’s clear, concise and compelling, and you deliver it in a way that’s engaging, and authentic and confident, that’s when you have an impact, a positive impact on others, and you can’t compromise on either one. You need both.

John Jantsch: Okay, so let me ask that a different way. In your experience, what do people generally need more help with? Content or delivery?

Allison Shapira: Both. It’s really both. There are people who need help with the messaging. They ramble, they can’t get to the point. They are unable to clearly articulate what they do, or the value of what they do. And then there are others who have a clear value proposition, but they mumble it to the floor instead of looking in the eyes of their audience, or their voice is so scratchy because they don’t know how to project, and they don’t know how to protect their faults that it sounds like their words are falling into the back of their throat. And so, we don’t get the full power of those words. At people need both. Some people need more than, more than… one than the other, but it’s such a solid breakdown of both.

John Jantsch: All right. So, if I’m trying to create this clear and concise speech, is there a roadmap? Is there a template for what needs to be in it, or what boxes need to be checked? If I’m trying to figure out, “Okay, how do I do this?”

Allison Shapira: Yes. And in the book I outline a particular roadmap that you can use in a short amount of time. That starts with asking yourself a series of three questions. Who’s your audience? What’s your goal? And most fundamentally, why you? And by why you, I don’t mean why are you qualified? Where did you go to school? What PhD do you have? By why you? I mean, why do you care? What gives you a sense of purpose in your work? What are you proud of in your work? And when you can respond to that question, and answer into your speech, or presentation, or into the introduction of your pitch, then all of a sudden you connect with people on a much more personal, much more authentic level. And no matter how professional the situation we’re in, we’re human beings connecting with other human beings, and we have to bring our authentic self to that relationship.

John Jantsch: And, I think you just went a long way towards answering the fear question too, because I find that a lot of speakers just getting started. The fear is based in, they’re looking at me, you know? I have to perform. And, I think that where you really get over that is when you… Just what you mentioned there is, how am I here to serve? What do they need to hear that’s going to help them? And so, when you turn the focus on kind of serving the audience, whoever the audience is, or how big it is, I think that, I think a lot of individuals that really kind of takes away the fear because it changes the dynamic completely.

Allison Shapira: Exactly. It reduces the fear because it reminds you that you’re not just getting up to look good, or show off or show how many, how much you know. You’re getting up in the service of others, in the service of a mission that has others in mind, and not trust yourself. And, we may not like to be the center of attention, or we’re not. Our idea is the center of attention. Our audience is the center of attention. And once we reframe the purpose of speaking as not to show off but to serve others, then all of a sudden that sense of mission overrides our fear, and makes us stand tall, and animates our body and our language in a way that engages the audience. So, what we find is the right content, and the right mindset drive the right delivery.

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John Jantsch: So when it comes to the performance, or delivery aspects of it, what are some of the really common things that you see so many people do that they need to clean up?

Allison Shapira: I see a lot of people who don’t recognize the power of their voice, and this is something I’m particularly sensitive to as a singer. And by voice, I mean the physical voice. They don’t take care of their voice, they’re at a loud networking event the night before, they their voice, and then they wake up early on chug coffee, and the caffeine is drying out their throat. So, I don’t see enough people recognize the power of their voice, and the fact that their voice is an instrument that needs care, and nurturing. And a lot of… What I write about in the book, and a lot of what I teach is about how to care for that voice. And then how to use breathing, and breath support to project your voice so that it reaches every single person in the audience. And it’s not about creating a false performers voice that’s different than your day to day speaking voice. It’s about finding your most powerful natural voice, and making sure it’s the natural voice that goes on stage, not the nervous second guessing voice, which is what we hear instead.

John Jantsch: When I network with a lot of professional speakers, and professional speakers that are getting paid 10, 15, $25,000 for a performance. Quite often, we’ll actually hire and employ a vocal coach, just for many of the reasons you’re talking about.

Allison Shapira: Exactly, but it’s not only professional speakers who need this. When we think of the fact that every single day we have an opportunity to have an impact through our voice, whether on a conference call, a phone call, a pitch, a difficult conversation, because of that, because we use our voice every day, then we have to care for it every day. And, more and more of us regardless of what industry we’re in, are flying on airplanes, we’re taking the train, we are always on the road, and that takes a toll on our physical body, which takes a toll on our abilities than to speak, and to have an impact. And so, we all need to recognize it, whether or not we get paid for speaking, we all need to take care of our voice.

John Jantsch: How much, and I know that this is sort of reliant on how high the stakes are, but for a presentation that you’ve got a lot riding on it, let’s say, how much is rehearsal a part of that?

Allison Shapira: Rehearsal is a significant part of it, and there are different ways of rehearsing. In fact, I talk about six different ways of rehearsing in the book. It’s not simply about reading the speech over, and over, and over again, and memorizing it. That’s not what I want people to do. There’s the process of reading it out loud to make sure it sounds good to your ear, and you can pronounce it comfortably. And then, there’s reducing it to bullet points so that you don’t have a script in front of you. You have bullet points that you can clearly refer to if you need to. There’s practicing in front of other people to make sure it has the intended effect, and you see other people’s reactions.

Allison Shapira: And then, there are unique methods that I recommend such as mental rehearsal where you sit down, close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and then visualize the presentation word for word in your mind, and visualize it going well. And that’s such a powerful way of practicing, because it tricks your mind into feeling like you’ve already given the speech successfully. So you’re building up repetition, which builds your confidence. So there are different ways of rehearsal, and I recommend people choose at least three methods of rehearsing according to the speech, and the audience.

John Jantsch: So, you are in the DC area, so I’m guessing you work with maybe more politicians than some speech coaches. Am I wrong on that?

Allison Shapira: You’re wrong. I actually don’t work [crosstalk 00:15:30].

John Jantsch: You don’t. Oh, okay. I thought you just might because of your-

Allison Shapira: It’s a fair assumption, but actually I’m not passionate about politics, more passionate about individual businesses having an ability to make impact in their own way. And so, I love working with business, and with the nonprofit sector, and all different sectors, but I don’t work as much in politics unless, I know people running for office, and they ask for my counsel.

John Jantsch: Well, the point of my starting down that track was, I was going to just get your opinion. Is there something that really good polished politician who speaks a lot, typically can have a lot of impact, and a lot of influence? Is there anything that you see that the business owner could learn from sort of the eye that’s on politicians so often? That was the point of my question, but you may not have an opinion on that.

Allison Shapira: I do actually based on why I do, or don’t work in politics. What politicians do really well is, they focus in on core messages, and they repeat those messages, and they stay on message. And that’s something that a business owner of any size business needs to keep in mind. What are the three main messages that I want to keep repeating? Because, whatever I say becomes the talking points of my company that my employees will use, that will determine what our clients say. So this idea of having clear, concise messaging, and staying on point is very important for business owners. Where I don’t want them to sound like your stereotypical politician is in this sense of overly polished, inauthentic delivery style, which is something that politicians are challenged by.

Allison Shapira: How do you come across as genuine and authentic and not overly perfect and polished. And so, for the business owner I want them to know it’s okay to make a few mistakes while you’re speaking to have a few ums, and uhs. It’s okay to lose your place as long as you bring your authentic self to the speech or presentation, which is what the question, why you helps you achieve. And that’s something that we don’t see as much of, but I wish we could in politicians.

John Jantsch: So, you mentioned ums and uhs. There’s an App for that, I understand.

Allison Shapira: There are several. There’s one in particular, there’re a couple actually that I really like. There’s one particular app called Orai, that you can use to practice your fillers, and get feedback, and they have great interactive exercises that will help you reduce the use of ums, and uhs and other fillers like Kinda, and sorta, or minimizers like just, or I think. That’s a great practice tool. There’s another app called Like So, that also helps you connect with your, or identify your fillers and start to remove them. Those are two that I really like, and use personally with my… for myself, and that my clients will use as well.

John Jantsch: Yeah. I really didn’t think that I’d use them that much until I started getting recorded. And then I was like, “Holy Mackerel.” I use those a lot more than I thought I did. And so, I think a lot of people probably suffer from that, watch yourself videoed, and all of a sudden you will maybe be horrified but, I’ve realized that there’s things that you do instinctively.

Allison Shapira: That’s right. And there’s nothing wrong with one or two fillers here or there. They’re genuine, they happen. Nothing wrong with that. The challenge is when you have [inaudible] of them, that they undermine your credibility and your authority. So, if every other word is um or so, it looks like you’re making up your message as you go. The content could be perfectly credible, but too many fillers will make you appear unprepared. And so, that’s why we want to be aware of them. We don’t often hear them when we’re doing… when we’re speaking them, which is why you hearing yourself on a recording is what it takes to prompt your awareness of them.

John Jantsch: So, you mentioned breathing as well. And, a lot of people probably don’t consider that an aspect of speaking, because I mean we all breath, right? But again, going back to my experience, I remember when I first started, that was a serious issue. I’d get about three force the way through making a point and go, “Oh my God, I have to get a breath. Breath in here somehow I’m going to pass out.” And, I think a lot of people underestimate how important that aspect is. How do you start recognizing that and working on that?

Allison Shapira: Breathing is critical. And as you said, it’s something that we all know is important and we do instinctively, which is a good thing. The challenge is, when we get nervous, the first thing that goes is our breathing. We stop breathing, or we constrict our breathing, which means we’re holding ourselves back from getting the nourishment that we need to relax ourselves, and to keep going. So the breathing techniques that I use are [inaudible] to help you use breathing in a very intentional way to relax, to calm down, to center yourself before a speech or presentation. And, the phrase I use with people all the time is called Pause and Breathe.

Allison Shapira: Pause and breathe is what you do before you’ve given a presentation. When you have 40 other things on your mind, and all these unanswered emails, and employees asking you questions that you don’t have the answers to, pause and breathe. And then, that’s what you do in the moment when somebody asks you a question you didn’t anticipate, or you lose your place, pause and breathe, and then keep going. And that’s also what you do before you let all the fillers come out, pause and breathe, and then you’ll reduce the use of fillers.

John Jantsch: Sounds like good life advice anyway.

Allison Shapira: Exactly. It is.

John Jantsch: So, Allison, do you have a great number of resources related to the book on your website, and it is allisonshapiro.com, and we’ll have links to the resources, but do you want to tell people where they can find out more about your coaching work, and obviously about Speak With Impact?

Allison Shapira: Absolutely. The website I’m sharing with people is, speakwithimpactbook.com, and that takes you to a very specific page on the website where people can sign up for a free download of a chapter of the book, watch a video about the book and also learn more about all of the ancillary services.

John Jantsch: Allison thanks for joining us, and hopefully I’ll see you someday out there on the road soon.

Allison Shapira: Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure talking to you, John.

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