#And that we are just following a trend of not forcing ourselves to have kids

[mx-paint]

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[teachablemomentsblog]

Heart Map: My Sunfire Circle (Part Two)

"The traffic slowly started to inch forward, making me the brand new 4PM, Friday afternoon traffic jam catalyst."

I can pretend like I remember specifics about my work week leading up to Happy Hour, but I’d be lying. At that time, the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR test had come and gone, and we had celebrated our positively trending scores (although not at Carlo’s). I also relished in the fact that the school year was close to finished and I could start applying for jobs closer to home. My MacArthur 9th students and I had an unwritten understanding, like most teachers have with their students at the end of the year, to stay cordial and give some degree of effort for the final two weeks of school and we will make it through together.

The bell rang at 2:35 on Friday afternoon for the students to walk to their buses. I lagged behind, and waited for students to disperse before heading to my car. Charles had given me directions to Carlo’s which was right down the street. I walked through the door to Charles, Lawshe, my buddy Glewwe from across the hall, and a couple other random faces I had seen once or twice in the hallway.

Surprise, surprise, within five minutes, the conversation waned without work as a buffer. And, of course, we all proclaimed through forced chuckles we didn’t want to discuss work! Come on! It’s Friday! Let’s enjoy ourselves! And then the ensuing twenty minutes of forced conversation as we searched for common ground on anything...ANYTHING. Thank God Glewwe had shown up, who avidly followed the Minnesota Timberwolves. At least we could chat about basketball. And I could enjoy the relief of talking to a coworker about something BESIDES work.

Charles noticed my effort to socialize had run its tepid course. After an hour of checking my watch in 10-minute intervals to decide if an appropriate amount of time had passed, Charles sat down next to me.

“Hey man. Thanks for coming out. It wasn’t too bad, was it?”

“No way man! This was...fun! I had a great time!” What else do I say? “No, Charles. This was as bad and boring as I thought it would be. But thanks for helping me with my flat!”

He gave me his all-too-familiar smirk as he replied.

“Yeah, I’m sure you did. Haha...well don’t feel obligated to stay if you are ready to go. I know you have the fiance and kid at home.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I mean...I wish I could stay but, I probably do need to head out.”

I quickly said goodbyes and rushed to my Sunfire. (Sorry, Glewwe, for leaving you to fend for yourself.)

From prior experience, I REALLY didn’t want to fight the traffic on Fm1960 at 4PM on a Friday, so I made the ill-fated decision to take the Beltway 8 which connected Highway 59 and Interstate 45, two of the main roads out of Houston. In hindsight, this senseless decision changed me forever. Maybe my happy hour margaritas did more damage than I realized.

No matter which route I took, traffic at 4PM on a Friday was unavoidable. But, at the time, my plan of action seemed like a brilliant idea! And then...Boom! Honk! Honk! Traffic. And not just mild inconvenience that moves molasses traffic. No, I sat idling in standstill traffic in the smoldering Texas sun, stuck in the middle lane, with nowhere to go.

As I mentioned before, my 2002 Pontiac Sunfire had seen better days. It still sluggishly moved me from point A to B, even though the perpetual check engine light did annoy me. Beyond that, its only current issue was its tendency to overheat if idling for too long. And, unfortunately, the traffic continued its standstill. So, I stared in agony as my thermometer slowly tilted further and further up.

When I told this story in class, one kid asked, “Why didn’t you just turn the car off?” Um...shut up...that’s why. 

I didn’t know what to do. I literally had nowhere to turn and had to wait for my car to overheat. I had no idea what happened if my Sunfire actually overheated. I attempted the few feeble troubleshooting tricks I knew, like turning up the hot air to push the heat out of my hood and through my car. It didn’t work. (I learned this unsuccessful tip from an episode of King of the Hill. If only they had gone over changing a flat tire, I wouldn’t be in this mess!) I stared in horror as the thermometer needle tilted towards the red sliver at the end of the gauge. Thankfully, instead of a mushroom-cloud explosion in the middle of the highway, which I halfway expected, the car promptly shut off for the last time and I found myself even more stuck than before. And, naturally, the traffic slowly started to inch forward, making me the brand new 4PM, Friday afternoon traffic jam catalyst.

I tried turning the ignition key three more times, but it had fallen silent. The Sunfire had died. I sifted through my limited options and fell back to my mom’s AAA card. Oh good! Finally a legitimate, non-flat tire excuse to give it a try! I looked out my window and noticed the news chopper surveying the traffic overhead. Even better! My smoking Sunfire had made it on television! This day kept getting better and better.

I called the number on the back of my AAA card and followed the prompters for a tow truck. I did my best to ignore the honking and cursing from the commuters all around me. Cuss and honk all you want, but my Sunfire isn’t un-overheating. With sincere regret in their voice, they informed me it would take roughly an hour before they got through the traffic. I also didn’t feel like any of my fellow motorists were willing to help me push my Sunfire to the shoulder. So, I sat, stuck, with my head down while everyone crawled around me. I did my best to continue to ignore the lewd comments from people as I slowly melted in my car.

Finally, the tow truck carefully sliced its way through the sea of automobiles. They pulled in front of me and reversed to the hood of my car. I opened my door, completely drenched in sweat, and greeted the tow truck guy.

“Oh, thank god you’re here!”

“Yessir! So you’re the one that’s holding up all this traffic?”

“Um, yes that would be me. Do I need to show you my AAA card or anything?”

“What? Oh, no. The police called us. We have to get you out of the road.”

“Wait...I called AAA. They should be here any minute.”

“Sorry, bud. We have to do what the coppers tell us to do. And they told us to get you out of here. It’s a safety issue.”

Since they didn’t work through AAA, AAA definitely wouldn’t pay them. Which meant the bill fell onto me. Great! What a nice finishing touch to my first Happy Hour experience!

I took my ride of shame with the tow truck guy, who impressed me with how great he pretended to empathize with my situation but, of course, didn’t hold back when it came to payment I barely had for the tow.

“Oh, yeah. That does sound rough. Eesh, and a new kid, huh? What horrible timing. Anyways, that’ll be $150 bucks. Of course, I take credit cards.”

Ugh.

I never drove the Sunfire again. It’s so peculiar to think back on it now. To think of the chain of events that led to my car’s demise. Charles taught me to change my flat tire which set in motion my car overheating on Beltway 8 and breaking down for a final time. Funny how that works.

I didn’t hang out with my Mac 9 coworkers again. At least not all together. I finished my final week of school, applied for jobs closer to home, interviewed a couple of times, and finally landed a job at Caney Creek High School, where I’ve worked for eight years. 

After the last day of school, I needed to pick up a handful of items from my old classroom. Charles happened to be in his room. We joked around for a while and took a selfie together to send to Lawshe. And then I left and I never walked through the doors of MacArthur Ninth Grade Campus again. And I never saw Charles again.

A couple years later, December 20th of 2015, I received a call from Lawshe.

“Hey, Lawshe! What’s up!?”

She was crying.

“Charles. H-he passed away.”

“What?”

“He passed away a couple of days ago. Just went to sleep and didn’t wake up. Gannon, he has a wife and a kid. It’s almost Christmas. I don’t know what to do.”

I didn’t know either. We sat silent on the phone for a moment. I don’t fully remember my response as I gathered myself. I told her to please let me know the information for the funeral and I hung up.

I stared at the wall in a daze. The selfie I took with him in the summer a couple of years ago was the last time I would ever see my friend. I felt the weight of my mortality and fragility, since Charles was 41 and I was already in my late 20’s. Time doesn’t wait.

When we gathered for the funeral, it felt bittersweet. On one hand, we all felt the excitement of seeing each other again, if only under different circumstances. The funeral blurred by, but I do remember a conversation with a couple of my friends about the impact of Charles..

“Charles was forever a teacher. That’s what inspired me. Even when he wasn’t teaching, he was teaching.”

I explained to them about my Sunfire and Charles helping me change my flat tire, which led to its retirement.

“And even though it was a bummer with what happened to my Sunfire, I wouldn’t trade that memory for anything. That memory shapes the kind of teacher, the kind of person I hope to be. It gives me something to strive towards.”

Reflecting on it with my students, I tell them I hold onto that teaching philosophy even to this day. And sometimes, I may start a story thinking it’s about one thing but, really, if I give myself the time to think about it, deep down it’s about something much more meaningful.

“So, was this story really about my Sunfire?”

Edmund piped up. “No way, mister. It was about your friend Charles and what he meant to you.”

Absolutely. Sometimes it takes searching our feelings about our memories that shows us what has really shaped us into who we are.

Even though the students may not have necessarily gotten to a point with a story from their own lives that permanently affects them this much, it gives them a starting point and shows that vulnerability is okay. Most great writing starts from a place of vulnerability. Teaching students this concept can prove difficult, so thank you Charles for the lasting impression you have on my classroom and on me.

My Teachable Moments

This one goes without saying,, but don’t take any of your moments for granted. The selfie I took with Charles seemed extremely unimportant and stupid at the time, but now it has turned into the final moment I ever had with him. I still have that picture so I can look to it as a reminder of this philosophy.

Try to put yourself out there. I still regret how I handled myself at Carlo’s restaurant when I wanted to leave. Hell, for all I know, if I had just stuck around a little longer and enjoyed myself I wouldn’t have found myself stuck in traffic and on the 6 o’clock news.

Never stop teaching when people need it. I remember feeling like a very selfish teacher my first year. I didn’t believe in what I was doing. I thought about my wife and baby and made sure I had a paycheck to bring home to them. Charles changed that for me. Even though my first year felt impossible, it reignited my passion to give the world one of the only true things we can offer, our  knowledge and our time.

[azeez-unv]

WE NEED FOLLOWSHIP, NOT LEADERSHIP QUALITIES IN STUDENTS TO INSTILL

தமிழில்

I’m in a lot of schools on a pretty frequent basis, and I’m noticing a disturbing trend: a focus on what is called “leadership” in a way that is hurting, not helping.

I saw it most closely when a friend of mine taught at a school last year that even had the word “leadership” in the name of the school. On paper, it sounded great. We’re going to raise leaders! We’re going to instill leadership qualities in the students! We’re going to require parents to be involved! It’s going to be awesome!

Except how it wasn’t.

There was little or no accountability for students who not only didn’t follow the identified leadership traits, but didn’t even follow fundamental standards of conduct. They didn’t enforce the parent involvement requirement, so it added to the dynamic that they didn’t actually mean what they said. The school’s own leadership didn’t lead, so that was a problem.

I’m not naming the school because I don’t think it’s all that unique.

❄️ WHY WE NEED LESS LEADERSHIP

There are four reasons I think this is true, though the idea will likely ruffle some feathers.

1. Too Many Leaders Are A Problem

The first reason is that by definition, you need fewer leaders than followers. We’ve even got a (probably no longer politically correct) saying for an inbalance in this dynamic: too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

To operate effectively, an organization needs fewer people guiding it than they do people following that leader. That’s just simple organizational math.

It’s silly to pretend that just because it sounds good, we’re going to make everyone a leader. Look, schools aren’t Oprah’s Favorite Things Show, throwing out qualities: And you get to be a leader!

And you get to be a leader! And you get to be a leader!

It doesn’t work like that.

We don’t actually need more people who want to be in charge. We need people who deserve to be in charge, and we need people to execute the vision.

2. We’re Confusing Leadership with Personal Responsibility

One of the fairly common companies that sell leadership curriculum to schools (Oh, I should throw this out here as another problem: it’s yet one more money making thing for companies that get schools to spend lots of money on their curriculum.) lists these as the qualities of leadership their curriculum teaches:

▪️Critical Thinking

▪️Creativity

▪️Self-Discipline

▪️Vision

▪️Initiative

▪️Communication

▪️Relationship Building

▪️Goal Achievement

▪️Public Speaking

▪️Global Awareness

▪️Emotional Control

▪️Teamwork

▪️Listening Skills

▪️Time Management

▪️Leading Projects

▪️Self-Directed Learning

▪️Valuing Diversity

▪️Problem Solving

Friend, these are traits of personal responsibility and emotional intelligence, not leadership.

You want to teach traits of leadership? Try these:

▪️Personal sacrifice in pursuit of common good

▪️How to share your ideas persuasively

▪️How to instill confidence in others

▪️How to inspire others

▪️How to have candid conversations

▪️Delegation

▪️How to grow others

▪️ How to empower people

▪️Diplomacy

▪️Graciousness

We need kids to learn the traits in the first list, but we are deluding ourselves and lying to our students if we tell them that these things will make them leaders.

We are also undermining our own efforts when we label them leaders but don’t even have expectations of age-appropriate executive function and personal management.

3. You Can’t Force Someone Into Leadership

Becoming a leader is more subtle than a bunch of traits or skills. It involves possessing that certain je ne sais quoi we sometimes call charisma. It involves having people willing to follow you (see problem #1 for how the math of this won’t work out if we keep thinking everyone needs to be a leader).

From personal experience, I can tell you this is true. I am not a leader. I have fairly strong skills in nearly all of the list of skills that so-called leadership curriculum are trying to teach, and yet, I’m not a natural (or even fake) leader.

I have personality traits that make me not particularly leaderly. For example, I don’t suffer fools (or their stupid ideas) gladly. We can stop there. I think you get the picture.

Leadership is far more complicated than simply some pre-packaged curriculum with a bunch of slick posters and even slicker slogans.

You have to actually lead something, and you have to have people willing to follow.

4. We Create Unreasonable Expectations

If I go to a school that touts me as a leader simply because I attend a certain school, I may develop unreasonable expectations of the role I will play in environments outside of the school.

I know that this (thinking a kid’s a leader because they’re breathing in a building with “LEADER” in big letters on the side) happens because I’ve seen the bumper sticker: “My child is a leader at Blank Leadership School.”

You can guess how I feel about that.

For many students, the very last thing they need is have the self-aggrandizing view of themselves as leaders. They are not being taught a servant leadership model, by and large.

They go out into other environments like clubs and jobs, and they think they can run it better than it is currently being run. Frankly, there are places that probably an eight-year-old could run better, but in general, it’s not helpful to think that you’re superior to everyone.

I fear that many of these schools are teaching superiority, not leadership. And to make it worse, it’s unwarranted superiority.

❄️ WHY WE NEED MORE FOLLOWSHIP

Followers are leaders of themselves. That’s an underrated skill far too underappreciated in today’s world.

Effective followers have powerful skills that serve themselves, their families, and any organization lucky enough to have them.

In addition to the habits of personal responsibility disguised as habits of leadership listed above, effective followers have:

▪️Enthusiasm

▪️The ability to see someone else’s vision and move it forward

▪️A Willingness to use their own strengths and to appreciate the strengths of others

▪️Initiative

▪️Humility

Give me more students developing these traits, please.

❄️ DON’T GET ME WRONG: I think teaching traits of personal responsibility is terrific. I actually think it’s the job of parents to do that, but if we’re going to make the actual raising of children the job of schools, we could do worse than to teach personal responsibility.

What I object to is the labeling of these traits as being limited to leaders, the creation of the expectation that everyone can or should be a leader, and the complete lack of accountability in expecting people to actually act like leaders, not just be labeled leaders.

Much of this current fad in education owes itself not to a desire to really build strong students, but rather to appeal to parents who want to see their children as leaders. That’s not a good enough reason.

LAST WORDS

The greatest leaders in the history of our world did not go to a school with “leader” on the building. They went to the schools of hard work and hard knocks. They learned resilience through real-life experience. You can’t hand leadership to someone on a silver platter, even if the platter is handed to them by a teacher.

Want to teach a kid to be a leader? Let them spend more time actually leading something and less time playing last-person-standing video games like Fortnite where you use violence to win, rather than humility and empathy and vision.

நம் தேவை பின்தொடர்தல், மாணவர்களை வ��ர்ப்பதற்கு தலைமைத்துவத் தகுதிகள் அல்ல

நான் அடிக்கடி பல பள்ளிகளில் சென்று வருகிறேன், மேலும் ஒரு குழப்பமான போக்கை நான் கவனிக்கிறேன்: "தலைமை" என்று அழைக்கப்படுவதைப் புண்படுத்தும் வகையில், உதவி செய்யாத வகையில் கவனம் செலுத்துவது பற்றி.

கடந்த ஆண்டு ஒரு பள்ளியில் எனது நண்பர் ஒருவர் கற்பித்தபோது, ​​பள்ளியின் பெயரில் "தலைமை" என்ற வார்த்தை கூட இருந்ததை நான் மிக நெருக்கமாகப் பார்த்தேன். காகிதத்தில், அது நன்றாக இருந்தது. தலைவர்களை வளர்ப்போம்! மாணவர்களிடம் தலைமைப் பண்புகளை விதைப்போம்! பெற்றோர்கள் பங்கேற்க வேண்டும் என்று நாங்கள் கேட்டுக்கொள்கிறோம்! இது அருமையாக இருக்கும்!

அது எப்படி இல்லை என்பதைத் தவிர.

அடையாளம் காணப்பட்ட தலைமைப் பண்புகளைப் பின்பற்றாதது மட்டுமல்லாமல், அடிப்படை நடத்தைத் தரங்களைக் கூட பின்பற்றாத மாணவர்களுக்குப் பொறுப்புக்கூறல் குறைவாகவோ இல்லை. அவர்கள் பெற்றோர் ஈடுபாட்டின் தேவையை அமல்படுத்தவில்லை, எனவே அவர்கள் சொன்னதை அவர்கள் உண்மையில் அர்த்தப்படுத்தவில்லை என்பதை இது மாறும். பள்ளியின் சொந்த தலைமை வழிநடத்தவில்லை, அதனால் ஒரு பிரச்சனை.

நான் பள்ளியின் பெயர் கூற விரும்பவில்லை, ஏனென்றால் அது தனித்துவமானது என்று நான் நினைக்கவில்லை.

❄️ நமக்கு ஏன் குறைவான தலைமைத்துவம் தேவை

இது உண்மை என்று நான் கருதுவதற்கு நான்கு காரணங்கள் உள்ளன, இருப்பினும் இந்த யோசனை சில இறகுகளை அசைக்கக்கூடும்.

1. பல தலைவர்கள் - ஒரு பிரச்சனை

முதல் காரணம், வரையறையின்படி, பின்தொடர்பவர்களை விட உங்களுக்கு குறைவான தலைவர்கள் தேவை. இந்த இயக்கவியலில் சமநிலையின்மைக்காக ஒரு (அநேகமாக இனி அரசியல் ரீதியாக சரியல்ல) ஒரு பழமொழியை நாங்கள் பெற்றுள்ளோம்: அதிகமான தலைவர்கள் மற்றும் போதுமான இந்தியர்கள் இல்லை.

திறம்பட செயல்பட, ஒரு நிறுவனத்திற்கு அந்தத் தலைவரைப் பின்தொடர்பவர்களை விட குறைவான நபர்களே வழிகாட்ட வேண்டும். இது ஒரு எளிய நிறுவன கணிதம்.

அது நன்றாக இருக்கிறது என்பதற்காக, நாம் எல்லோரையும் தலைவராக்கப் போகிறோம் என்று பாசாங்கு செய்வது முட்டாள்தனம். பாருங்கள், பள்ளிகள் விருப்பமான விஷயங்களைக் காட்டவில்லை, குணங்களைத் தூக்கி எறிந்து: நீங்கள் ஒரு தலைவராக இருக்க வேண்டும்!

நீங்கள் ஒரு தலைவராக இருக்க வேண்டும்! நீங்கள் ஒரு தலைவராக இருக்க வேண்டும்!

வெறும் பேச்சு வேலை செய்யாது.

உண்மையில் பொறுப்பில் இருக்க விரும்பும் அதிகமான நபர்கள் நமக்கு தேவையில்லை. பொறுப்பில் இருக்க தகுதியானவர்கள் தேவை, பார்வையை செயல்படுத்த ஆட்கள் தேவை.

2. நாம் தலைமைத்துவத்தையும் தனிப்பட்ட பொறுப்பையும் குழப்புகிறோம்

தலைமைப் பாடத்திட்டத்தை பள்ளிகளுக்கு விற்கும் பொதுவான நிறுவனங்களில் ஒன்று (ஓ, நான் இதை இன்னொரு பிரச்சனையாக இங்கே தூக்கி எறிய வேண்டும்: பள்ளிகள் தங்கள் பாடத்திட்டத்தில் நிறைய பணம் செலவழிக்கும் நிறுவனங்களுக்கு இது இன்னும் ஒரு பணம் சம்பாதிக்கும் விஷயம்.) இவற்றைப் பட்டியலிடுகிறது. அவர்களின் பாடத்திட்டம் கற்பிக்கும் தலைமைத்துவ குணங்கள்:

▪️விமர்சன சிந்தனை

▪️படைப்பாற்றல்

▪️சுய ஒழுக்கம்

▪️பார்வை

▪️முயற்சி

▪️தொடர்பு

▪️உறவுகளை உருவாக்குதல்

▪️இலக்கை அடைதல்

▪️பொது பேசுதல்

▪️உலகளாவிய விழிப்புணர்வு

▪️உணர்ச்சிக் கட்டுப்பாடு

▪️ குழுப்பணி

▪️கேட்கும் திறன்

▪️நேர மேலாண்மை

▪️முன்னணி திட்டங்கள்

▪️சுய இயக்க கற்றல்

▪️பன்முகத்தன்மையை மதிப்பிடுதல்

▪️பிரச்சினையைத் தீர்ப்பது

நண்பரே, இவை தனிப்பட்ட பொறுப்பு மற்றும் உணர்ச்சி நுண்ணறிவின் பண்புகள், தலைமை அல்ல.

தலைமைத்துவ பண்புகளை கற்பிக்க விரும்புகிறீர்களா? இவற்றை முயற்சிக்கவும்:

▪️பொது நன்மைக்காக தனிப்பட்ட தியாகம்

▪️உங்கள் யோசனைகளை எப்படி வற்புறுத்துவது

▪️மற்றவர்களிடம் நம்பிக்கையை எப்படி ஏற்படுத்துவது

▪️மற்றவர்களை எப்படி ஊக்கப்படுத்துவது

▪️எப்படி நேர்மையான உரையாடல்களை நடத்துவது

▪️ பிரதிநிதிகள் குழு

▪️மற்றவர்களை எப்படி வளர்ப்பது

▪️ மக்களுக்கு அதிகாரம் அளிப்பது எப்படி

▪️இராஜதந்திரம்

▪️கருணை

முதல் பட்டியலில் உள்ள குணாதிசயங்களைக் கற்றுக் கொள்ள குழந்தைகள் தேவை, ஆனால் இந்த விஷயங்கள் அவர்களைத் தலைவர்களாக மாற்றும் என்று சொன்னால் நாம் நம்மை ஏமாற்றிக் கொள்கிறோம், நம் மாணவர்களிடம் பொய் சொல்கிறோம்.

நாம் அவர்களை தலைவர்கள் என்று முத்திரை குத்தும்போது நமது சொந்த முயற்சிகளை நாங்கள் குறைமதிப்பிற்கு உட்படுத்துகிறோம், ஆனால் வயதுக்கு ஏற்ற நிர்வாக செயல்பாடு மற்றும் தனிப்பட்ட நிர்வாகத்தின் எதிர்பார்ப்புகள் கூட இல்லை.

3. நீங்கள் யாரையும் தலைமைத்துவத்திற்குள் கட்டாயப்படுத்த முடியாது

ஒரு தலைவனாக மாறுவது பல குணாதிசயங்கள் அல்லது திறன்களை விட நுட்பமானது. உங்களைப் பின்தொடரத் தயாராக இருப்பவர்களைக் கொண்டிருப்பது இதில் அடங்கும் (எல்லோரும் ஒரு தலைவராக இருக்க வேண்டும் என்று நாம் நினைத்தால், இதன் கணிதம் எவ்வாறு செயல்படாது என்பதற்குச் சிக்கல் #1 ஐப் பார்க்கவும்).

தனிப்பட்ட அனுபவத்திலிருந்து, இது உண்மை என்று என்னால் சொல்ல முடியும். நான் ஒரு தலைவர் அல்ல. தலைமைப் பாடத்திட்டம் என்று அழைக்கப்படுபவை கற்பிக்க முயற்சிக்கும் அனைத்து திறன்களின் பட்டியலிலும் எனக்கு மிகவும் வலுவான திறன்கள் உள்ளன, இருப்பினும், நான் ஒரு இயற்கையான (அல்லது போலியான) தலைவர�� அல்ல.

என்னிடம் ஆளுமைப் பண்புகள் உள்ளன, அது என்னை குறிப்பாகத் தலைவராக்கவில்லை. உதாரணமாக, நான் மகிழ்ச்சியுடன் முட்டாள்களால் (அல்லது அவர்களின் முட்டாள்தனமான யோசனைகளால்) பாதிக்கப்படுவதில்லை. நாம் அங்கே நிறுத்தலாம். படம் கிடைத்திருக்கும் என்று நினைக்கிறேன்.

நேர்த்தியான சுவரொட்டிகள் மற்றும் மென்மையாய் வாசகங்களைக் கொண்ட சில முன் தொகுக்கப்பட்ட பாடத்திட்டத்தை விட தலைமை மிகவும் சிக்கலானது.

நீங்கள் உண்மையில் எதையாவது வழிநடத்த வேண்டும், மேலும் நீங்கள் பின்பற்ற விரும்பும் நபர்களைக் கொண்டிருக்க வேண்டும்.

4. நாங்கள் நியாயமற்ற எதிர்பார்ப்புகளை உருவாக்குகிறோம்

நான் ஒரு குறிப்பிட்ட பள்ளியில் படிப்பதால், என்னைத் தலைவராகக் காட்டிக் கொள்ளும் பள்ளிக்குச் சென்றால், பள்ளிக்கு வெளியே உள்ள சூழலில் நான் வகிக்கும் பங்கைப் பற்றிய நியாயமற்ற எதிர்பார்ப்புகளை நான் உருவாக்கலாம்.

நான் பம்பர் ஸ்டிக்கரைப் பார்த்ததால், இது (ஒரு குழந்தை தலைவர் என்று நினைப்பது, பக்கத்தில் “லீடர்” என்று பெரிய எழுத்துக்களில் உள்ள கட்டிடத்தில் மூச்சு விடுவது) நடக்கிறது என்று எனக்குத் தெரியும்: “என் குழந்தை வெற்று தலைமைப் பள்ளியில் தலைவர். ”

அதைப் பற்றி நான் எப்படி உணர்கிறேன் என்பதை நீங்கள் யூகிக்க முடியும்.

பல மாணவர்களுக்கு, அவர்களுக்குத் தேவையான கடைசி விஷயம், தங்களைத் தலைவர்களாகப் பற்றிய சுயமரியாதைக் கண்ணோட்டத்தைக் கொண்டிருப்பதுதான். அவர்களுக்கு வேலைக்காரன் தலைமை மாதிரி போதிக்கப்படுவதில்லை.

அவர்கள் கிளப்கள் மற்றும் வேலைகள் போன்ற பிற சூழல்களுக்குச் செல்கிறார்கள், மேலும் தற்போது இயக்கப்படுவதை விட சிறப்பாக இயக்க முடியும் என்று அவர்கள் நினைக்கிறார்கள். வெளிப்படையாக, எட்டு வயது குழந்தை சிறப்பாக இயங்கக்கூடிய இடங்கள் உள்ளன, ஆனால் பொதுவாக, நீங்கள் அனைவரையும் விட உயர்ந்தவர் என்று நினைப்பது பயனுள்ளதாக இருக்காது.

இந்த பள்ளிகளில் பல தலைமைத்துவத்தை அல்ல, மேன்மையைக் கற்பிக்கின்றன என்று நான் அஞ்சுகிறேன். மேலும் அதை மோசமாக்க, இது தேவையற்ற மேன்மை.

❄️ நமக்கு ஏன் அதிக ஃபாலோஷிப் தேவை

பின்பற்றுபவர்கள் தாங்களாகவே தலைவர்கள். இது இன்றைய உலகில் மிகவும் குறைவாக மதிப்பிடப்பட்ட ஒரு மதிப்பிடப்பட்ட திறமை.

திறமையான பின்தொடர்பவர்கள் தங்களுக்கும், தங்கள் குடும்பங்களுக்கும், எந்த நிறுவனத்திற்கும் சேவை செய்யும் சக்திவாய்ந்த திறன்களைக் கொண்டுள்ளனர்.

மேலே பட்டியலிடப்பட்டுள்ள தலைமைத்துவ பழக்கவழக்கங்களாக மாறுவேடமிட்ட தனிப்பட்ட பொறுப்பின் பழக்கவழக்கங்களுக்கு கூடுதலாக, பயனுள்ள பின்தொடர்பவர்கள்:

▪️உற்சாகம்

▪️மற்றொருவரின் பார்வையைப் பார்த்து அதை முன்னோக்கி நகர்த்தும் திறன்

▪️தங்கள் சொந்த பலத்தைப் பயன்படுத்தவும், மற்றவர்களின் ப��த்தைப் பாராட்டவும் விருப்பம்

▪️முயற்சி

▪️ பணிவு

தயவு செய்து இந்தப் பண்புகளை வளர்க்கும் மாணவர்களை எனக்குக் கொடுங்கள்.

❄️ என்னை தவறாக எண்ண வேண்டாம்: தனிப்பட்ட பொறுப்பின் பண்புகளை கற்பிப்பது மிகவும் சிறப்பானது என்று நான் நினைக்கிறேன். அதைச் செய்வது பெற்றோரின் வேலை என்று நான் நினைக்கிறேன், ஆனால் குழந்தைகளை வளர்ப்பதை பள்ளிகளின் வேலையாக மாற்றப் போகிறோம் என்றால், தனிப்பட்ட பொறுப்பை கற்பிப்பதை விட மோசமாக செய்ய முடியும்.

இந்த குணாதிசயங்கள் தலைவர்களுக்கு மட்டுமே என்று முத்திரை குத்தப்படுவதை நான் எதிர்க்கிறேன், எல்லோரும் ஒரு தலைவராக இருக்க முடியும் அல்லது இருக்க வேண்டும் என்ற எதிர்பார்ப்பை உருவாக்குவது மற்றும் மக்கள் உண்மையில் தலைவர்களாக செயல்பட வேண்டும் என்று எதிர்பார்ப்பதில் பொறுப்புக் குறைவு, தலைவர்கள் என்று முத்திரை குத்தப்படுவதில்லை. .

கல்வியில் இந்த தற்போதைய மோகத்தின் பெரும்பகுதி உண்மையில் வலிமையான மாணவர்களை உருவாக்குவதற்கான விருப்பத்திற்கு அல்ல, மாறாக தங்கள் குழந்தைகளை தலைவர்களாக பார்க்க விரும்பும் பெற்றோரை ஈர்க்கிறது. இது போதுமான நல்ல காரணம் அல்ல.

❄️ கடைசி வார்த்தைகள்

நமது உலக வரலாற்றில் மிகப் பெரிய தலைவர்கள் கட்டிடத்தின் மீது "தலைவர்" உள்ள பள்ளிக்குச் செல்லவில்லை. அவர்கள் கடின உழைப்பு மற்றும் கடினமான தட்டிகளின் பள்ளிகளுக்குச் சென்றனர். நிஜ வாழ்க்கை அனுபவத்தின் மூலம் அவர்கள் நெகிழ்ச்சியைக் கற்றுக்கொண்டனர். வெள்ளித் தட்டில் உள்ள ஒருவரிடம் தலைமைப் பொறுப்பை ஒப்படைக்க முடியாது, ஒரு ஆசிரியரால் தட்டைக் கொடுத்தாலும்.

ஒரு குழந்தையைத் தலைவராகக் கற்பிக்க வேண்டுமா? மனத்தாழ்மை மற்றும் பச்சாதாபம் மற்றும் பார்வையை விட, வன்முறையைப் பயன்படுத்தி வெற்றிபெற வன்முறையைப் பயன்படுத்தும் ஃபோர்ட்நைட் போன்ற கடைசி நபரின் வீடியோ கேம்களை விளையாடுவதற்கு அவர்கள் அதிக நேரத்தை செலவிடட்டும்.

[nickgerlich]

Clothes Encounters

What goes around, comes around. When I was a kid, we were still in the Spy v. Spy era, an artifact of the Cold War with the USSR. We didn’t trust them, and they didn’t trust us. You never really knew if your operatives had sold out to the other side. The story of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed President Kennedy, was fresh in our minds. Prior to his misdeed, he had defected to the USSR, and then defected back to the US. If ever a person were shrouded in mystery, it was LHO.

Today, while we aren’t exactly best buddies with Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, it seems we are more concerned with China. Our relationship with them has always been tenuous at best, and whereas not long ago we simply outsourced much of our manufacturing to them, they have now developed to the point that they are a formidable economic foe, not to mention political.

Thus, we find ourselves concerned about companies like TikTok (banned by 34 state governments), Temu and its ridiculously cheap bargains, and Shein, the fast-fashion giant. All were founded in China and maintain ties there, but all have US operations as well. I suspect those US operations are more smokescreen than anything, designed to deflect criticisms and concerns.

Shein, the e-commerce darling during COVID, is now planning an IPO for the US. But before it does so, it must try to shake a slew of allegations centered on forced labor in its supply chains, labor violations, and stealing designs from independent creators. These are the kinds of things that will find Shein appearing in case studies and text book chapters for years to come. Ethics, anyone?

Fast fashion, by definition, is not just quick, but also cheap. Companies routinely introduce new items every week, not so much to follow a trend, but to create one instead. Items may have a shelf life of as few as six weeks. The implicit message to customers is that, if you want to stay on the bleeding edge of fashion, you have to buy in early, and be prepared to keep buying as new items come out.

What people do with those now-it’s-in-now-it’s-not clothes is up to the customer. Quality is usually suspect, given the price. And, given that the garments are designed to have such a limited run, they don’t have to hold up to dozens of washings. Thus, last month’s hot item may languish in the back of a closet, be sold or donated, or, in some cases, thrown in the dumpster because it is already falling apart.

A quick look at the Shein website as well as their Amazon store quickly reveals their target market: young and female. Yes, they have some men’s clothing, but it’s kind of like going to a Lush store in the mall. You know, the one with all those overly fragrant bath soaps and personal care items that draws in women by the score. There is a tiny men’s section with shaving butters and the like, but you have to look for it. I bet they have those for the poor guys being dragged along for a day of shopping.

Technically, Shein is a DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) firm, a purely online retailer of its own wares. It has, however, dabbled with pop-up shops in large US cities. I wouldn’t be surprised if it expands on these, just like eyeglass maker Warby Parker has done with its shops. But I have my doubts they would start distributing through other retailers, primarily because those cheap prices don’t carry very high margins to begin with. Prices would have to go up to give various channel members a piece of the action, which would then defeat Shein’s primary advantage.

But back to ethics. These allegations are huge, and China, like other Asian nations, is rumored far and wide to have some of the worst working conditions on the planet. Never mind the fact that Americans can’t just fly to Beijing, rent a car, and pay a visit to these factories.

Then there’s the issue of intellectual property. If you’re busy churning out new items on a weekly basis, there’s a need for fresh takes on style. I could see a creative team having to work 24/7 to keep up with this treadmill.

Lastly, there are lingering concerns about US data, which Shein swears is kept here under lock and key. TikTok owner Byte Dance swears the same thing, but that didn’t stop those states from banning them on government-owned devices.

It’s enough to make me compare the current situation to that of my youth. While the case against Mr. Oswald ultimately found him to be the lone assassin, there are still lingering unresolved issues even now. We may never know the details of his behaviors and actions leading up to that tragic day in Dallas.

Shein has its work cut out for them. I am pretty certain we may never truly know all the ins and outs of this firm. The opaque curtain behind which it operates shields them, but will probably also lead to investor skepticism. And that’s a style that no one looks good in.

Dr “Count Me Out” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[liam-93-productions]

Liam’s full interview with Tings Magazine - Part 1

Note: the interview was recorded in may 2020.

Justin Campbell: What is the weirdest YouTube/Instagram trend hole that you’ve fallen into? Liam: One that always gets me is putting Mentos in Pepsi or Coke. We all know what happens, but we have to watch the ending. I’ve seen it about fifty times, and it doesn’t change. But it’s weird finding out what things are interesting when you’re stuck inside. It’s a crazy ride watching the world react to this. It’s almost like everybody’s become a street performer. You see these people on the street who have a special skill like magic and the internet is now the place for that and everybody does it. 

Do you feel pressured to participate? Is there currency in that? Does that keep you relevant? I think artists have had to change a lot to fit in. There used to be mystery where you didn’t know too much about their lives, whereas we are in my living room now for all the world to see. I think that’s the biggest change of these newer platforms. I think you have to join in if you want to stay relevant. If you look at someone like Jason Derulo, he has 19 million followers on TikTok and he just started. His old songs are re-charting because of the TikTok chart. So, you can’t just make music and expect it to go well anymore. There has to be a personality and a story. It’s not quite the same anymore. 

There’s so many differente avenues to keep up with. There’s Instagram, YouTube, TikTok. It used to be you did radio, tours and late-night television. Now there seem to be a dozen things to do.  It’s crazy, this last promo schedule for me, having to do it indoors. I had to learn how to do a bunch of different jobs for the people that couldn’t be here. We put up a green screen in my lounge. We moved all the sofas, me and the camera guy that is staying with me set up the green screen and then you have to film it as well. It’s just crazy the amount of different things that you have to get involved in right now to stay relevant. And that’s all it is. The majority of the stuff isn’t really doing anything, but it’s doing loads at the same time if that makes sense. It’s a difficult thing to get used. And also, things have gotten jovial. So, you have to learn to make fun of ourselves. You can’t be Mr. Serious pop-star anymore. People aren’t really attracted to that anymore. People like the fun side of you, your personality and your humor come through on these things. It’s crazy. I thought about when I joined TikTok the other week, there’s a pressure to film something fun. But then if you are not having fun filming it, you’re not going to film a fun video. And I didn’t want to live my life every day thinking I got to film a video or nobody is going to care. I spent an hour trying to think of stuff and I don’t want to live my life like this. I enjoy then. I like going on TikTok and getting lost in a little TikTok rabbit hole, we all do, but I don’t know if I’m that way inclined mentally. 

With the need to share more, to share a comedic side or a vulnerable side, where do you draw the line? When do you stop sharing? How much of it is constructed sharing and how much of it is authentic sharing? It’s difficult. I’m very prone to enjoy a moment rather than take my camera out and film it. I’m always one of those people who take a picture of a sunset and then never look at it and say why did I bother taking the picture. I’d rather enjoy the moment. We live in a day and age where the camera phone is people’s first thought for things. And I’m just not one of those people. Humorous stuff will happen and it will be off the cuff, but we didn’t film it. And it will be like “aw, should we recreate it?” But we don’t want to recreate it. It just feels stupid. It always feels forced in that sense. So for me, I definitely struggle with sharing moments.  And you have those people out there, who are literally willing to do anything. There’s a trend for people who are shaving their eyebrows off at the moment. I’m not going to shave my eyebrows off so people will care a little more. That just doesn’t register with me. You have Jake and Logan Paul, who do a lot of crazy, crazy things to get noticed. And it’s like where do you draw the line. 

These platforms make it challenging to carve out a private life. People expect more and more of celebrities’ lives to be shared. They feel they have ownership of every aspect of people’s lives. What are your thoughts on that? From the start of this lockdown, the first James Corden TV performance was filmed in the lounge and we went through my whole house. I can remember back in the day when a newspaper sent out the photos of my house. I don’t like people knowing where I sleep because it’s a security problem for me. I had a big complaint about that. Now fast forward 5-6 years and the world has changed to where nothing is really a private or intimate moment. It’s strange. As One Direction, we were in an era on the rise of Twitter. I think Twitter helped us a lot. It was the way we trended on Twitter that actually made us famous. But being on the cusp of that internet stardom, we didn’t really care about how many followers [we had].  Now, it’s become a currency. I just struggle to take those things seriously, that it is part of the job because it feels so foreign. When we had apps as kids, there was no way to becoming MSN famous. Now kids want to be an Instagrammer or a TikTokker. It’s crazy. We never had that. 

You said something about people chasing the currency of liked and follows. Kids are thinking about that validation when they are creating content. How much of that are you thinking about it when you create music or social media/video content? I think, for me, I don’t often pay attention to how many likes thing gets. As a pop star, you have to have an average amount per post. We have to have meetings now where people will go through posts, and tell you why this works. Which for me, it seems insane, but you have this persona that you have to keep up online. And definitely, when posting certain things, you are gauging whether it’s going to get a reaction or there’s no point in posting it. And that’s always been the problem for me. I’m hoping for a big reaction for stuff which limits the amount you post because you think there’s no point posting this.  Often the people who do the best in these scenarios are the people that didn’t mean for it to happen. Someone makes a little challenge like The Ice Bucket Challenge. Someone thought I’ll do this. It will be fun for us to film and because they are having fun, everyone is like we will get involved. If you think about it too much, it will overtake you. For the longest time, I didn’t post a lot. I got off of Twitter because of the backlash and the fact that you are always going to annoy someone with a post. I was like, I can’t deal with it. I might as well keep it to myself. There’s no disappointment. 

I think that’s part of the condition of being an artist. You crave a certain amount of validation.  When it’s work, you can take that some people won’t get it. But because everything has become so personal now like it’s about you. You sell your personality to people. It’s like if someone asks you “what five things do you want people to know about you”. And everyone goes, well, I’d like to be... You suddenly think, what we are doing every day online is trying to sell ourselves.  It’s a difficult balance. You have to have the right amount of humor and humility and the right amount of this. It’s so difficult to find that person. And you see people who become caricatures of themselves online. They overdo it. You don’t know what works any why it works. The internet is such an untested experiment. The public decides. It’s so crazy.

You just said that it can feel so personal, which I think is such an honest statement because when you are putting yourself out there, it is hard to celebrate the work and you. When people don’t like something, it can feel like they are personally attacking you.  It genuinely scares me sometimes. Even to post a selfie, because you just don’t know what the recipe is. I’m not trying to impress anyone. I’m just trying to stay around if that makes sense. I don’t know, it’s difficult. The fact that you just let it go and it’s gone and people either take it or leave it. It’s like jumping on stage every time you post, which scares me anyway. 

You’ve spoken pretty openly about dealing with depression and anxiety. How does this level of exposure impact your ability to manage your anxiety? Before all of this started, the first day of school would probably be when you are your most anxious. Or it’s your own clothes day and you don’t know what to wear. That feels like what everyone is going through every single day online. It’s like the teen generation has so many more questions to answer that we had. I know as a kid I was quite stressed. I can’t imagine how these kids feel these days.  The only way I can relate is by how I feel in this scenario. Obviously, being a little bit older, you are a little wiser with it. I thinks it’s a different kind of pressure these days. It’s a worldwide pressure. The fact that anyone can become a superstar overnight or also the most embarrassing thing in the world and the line is that thin. I can’t imagine what is like for kids growing up in that scenario. For me, it’s raised a lot of questions about my mental health and having to deal with these things. I’ve been running a pilot with someone for people in my position, people who struggle with fame, with the position that they get themselves. You don’t really realize the playbook you’re pressing. Once you’re in it, you’re in it.  I started from 14-16, were my two start years. And the only answer that people had for you was that you’ve got have thick skin. But I don’t think that’s really the point because once you are here, you have to find out if your skin is thick enough. You have to learn. For the longest time, if somebody wrote something about me in the press, I’d rise back up and bring back up. I didn’t realize they were trying to bait me out because they knew I’d do that. Then they’d write three more articles about the scenario that I didn’t want them to write about. You can only know that with years of experience. If something comes out now, I just leave it to die and go away and that’s it. I just think it’s difficult when people say the only answer is that you have to have thick skin to do this. 

That’s not really a solution. That’s just saying you asked for this. This is just part of it, which I don’t think is fair. Is fame something that you struggle with a lot? For me, there’s different periods, severe highs with different things and a lot of questions about stuff. I’ve been going at this now for ten years, which seems insane. I’m only 26 as well, which is quite a long time to be doing anything. And to be in this pressure cooker for that long is quite difficult, but I say I’ve learned to deal with it better now. Age and time are wonderful things. And we were buffered as teens. We had each other in the band. When I look at someone like Justin Bieber, I think no wonder he went completely mental at some point because there is no one in the world that knows what is like to be Justin Bieber, but Justin Bieber. He had no one to share it with. We had each other to share it with, to remember it with and be reminded how to behave, how to act. You shouldn’t do that. It was tough at some points, but for the most part it was helpful growing up in that team exercise rather than be let off on your own and you’re the most famous person in the world. It must have been pretty crazy for him. 

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

HALESTORM: Behind-The-Scenes Footage From Making Of 'Back From The Dead' Video

HALESTORM has shared behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the official video for the band's new single, "Back From The Dead". The track is taken from the group's upcoming fifth full-length album, due in 2022. Directed by Dustin Haney (Noah Cyrus, Luke Combs) and produced by Revolution Pictures, the clip features frontwoman Lzzy Hale and the rest of the band in a morgue and cemetery somewhere between life and death.

Lzzy says: "'Back From The Dead' is about survival, not in a physical sense, even though I know we all have been touched by death especially these last few years. This song is personal and written from a mental health perspective. I wanted to give myself and the world a hard rock song we could shout out loud as the gates opened again. I was on the edge of this world getting completely lost in oblivion, but even though it was the harder of two choices, I didn't just let the darkness and depression in my mind dig me an early grave. I didn't just sit and let it take me. I've erased my name from my headstone, so save your prayers, I'm back! I hope this song, as I pass it on to you, reminds YOU of your strength individually and that you are not alone."

She continues: "The video was so much fun to film! Dustin Haney is an amazing director. Dustin and his team really helped bring my words to life and the video is one of the most cinematic pieces we've done in years! I hope this song, as I pass it on…reminds YOU of YOUR individual strength and that you are not Alone. Raise your horns!"

By breaking rules, bucking trends, and busting down doors, HALESTORM has surged through rock 'n' roll on a singular path without compromise or apology. Along the way, the Pennsylvania-bred and Nashville-based quartet — Lzzy Hale (vocals, guitar), Arejay Hale (drums), Joe Hottinger (guitar) and Josh Smith (bass) — has collected a Grammy Award, scored successive number ones at radio, garnered multiple gold and platinum certifications, and performed to sold out crowds on five continents.

Going against the grain again in 2021, the band weathered the flames of chaos in 2020 and returned stronger than ever with their most empowering and undeniable anthems to date.

"Throughout the pandemic, I was writing a lot of melancholic and hopeless songs about the ups and downs of the world," admits Lzzy. "I've been in this group longer than I haven't been in it. We've always had shows. Even when I was 13 years old, we had a couple of bowling alley gigs once a month. This was the first time I didn't know if we would ever play again. However, I started to use music in the same way I did as a teenager—to get myself through this situation that was plaguing us all. I sidestepped and said, 'Let's keep our heads up, get our attitude back, be a light in the dark for a second, and celebrate the fact we're surviving and there's hope for the future.' So, we started to write songs that were a reminder to ourselves of who we are and what we're capable of. That became the mission statement."

In a way, it's always been the mission statement…

Since roaring to life in 1998, HALESTORM has uplifted audiences with a combination of sonic ass-kicking, provocative songwriting, and unshakable hooks. The four-piece received a Grammy Award in the category of "Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance" for "Love Bites (So Do I)". The song also minted them as the first female-fronted band to hit #1 on the Active Rock radio charts. Thus far, their discography spans two gold albums "Halestorm" and "The Strange Case Of..." , a platinum single "I Miss The Misery", and two gold singles "Here's To Us" and "I Get Off". Between surpassing one billion cumulative streams worldwide, they've notched two consecutive Top 10 debuts on the Billboard Top 200 with "Into The Wild Life" (2015) and "Vicious" (2018). The latter represented a critical high watermark with Rolling Stone citing it as "a muscular, adventurous, and especially relevant rock record." In its wake, "Uncomfortable" emerged as their fourth #1 at rock radio and earned their second Grammy Award nomination, while Loudwire christened HALESTORM "Rock Artist Of The Decade" in 2019. Not to mention, they have supported everyone from HEAVEN & HELL and Alice Cooper to Joan Jett on the road.

Even as the world went dormant during 2020, Lzzy remained prolific. She lent her voice to collaborations with everyone from Dee Snider of TWISTED SISTER, IN THIS MOMENT, APOCALYPTICA, and Mark Morton of LAMB OF GOD to EVANESCENCE, Cory Marks, and Mongolian phenomenon THE HU. Additionally, she joined forces with a trio of legends — Corey Taylor of SLIPKNOT, Scott Ian of ANTHRAX and original SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo — for the theme song to Netflix's "Thunder Force". Plus, the group contributed a cover of THE WHO's "Long Live Rock" to the documentary of the same name. Expanding her presence across television, she hosted the AXS TV "A Year In Music" series, joined the cast of Hit Parader's "No Cover" as a judge, provided the singing voice for Bella Thorne in the Prime Video hit "Paradise City" and launched her own show "Raise Your Horns" on Rolling Live. On the channel, she appeared in Mike Garson's David Bowie tribute with a performance of "Moonage Daydream" alongside Broadway star Lena Hall. She also participated in the platform's Ronnie James Dio tribute, supporting the Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund.

At the same time, she remained a huge proponent of encouraging the dialogue around mental health. She participated in a Grammy Mental Health panel and empowered the next generation of rock musicians as the keynote speaker at the Little Kids Rock Modern Band Summit. She also made history as Gibson Guitars' first-ever female ambassador.

"I've learned a lot about myself through all of these different projects," she admits. "I said 'yes' to various adventures, and it made me a better artist."

Working out of her home studio in Nashville, Lzzy and the band channeled this renewed spirit into the music at the onset of 2021. Collaborating with Scott Stevens of THE EXIES, the musicians hit their stride and cooked up the single 'Back From The Dead'. Dramatic distortion and drums rumble as she screams, "I'm back from the dead!" HALESTORM come out swinging as punchy verses give way to a call-and-response chorus shocked to life with a searing solo and thunderous groove.

"We needed a reintroduction," she exclaims. "We needed something that simply said, 'Hey, we're back'. The live show is the time we feel as truly alive as we can be. When you walk out on stage with your guitar strapped on, your guys are next to you, and you have an audience looking at you, it's everything. We're celebrating the fact we're all back together again. Whatever it is that was trying to destroy that part of myself and my bandmates that our fans need couldn't do it. It failed miserably. We're fucking back."

From the moment the band graced the stage at a secret Nashville gig, they were indeed "back," albeit louder, heavier, and emboldened by an unbelievable year. Amped up to jump back in, their tour schedule took shape with festival dates followed by a co-headline run with EVANESCENCE in the fall.

Readying their fifth full-length album, they're delivering the soundtrack for a world ready to roar again.

"We've lost a lot of people, but we can start healing again," she leaves off. "I appreciate the little things even more. I don't only feel this confidence in myself, but also in every one of my band members. We're not the same people, none of us could ever be. HALESTORM is my source of my joy. It's my connection. It's the closest thing to my religion. We're moving forward. With this next album, I hope we're able to create a greater sense of community. We have a beautiful opportunity. When you listen to it, I want you to feel like you can walk through any fire."

[mxngy]

yellow - semi eita.

a/n: based on the trend, who is your yellow? listen to yellow by coldplay! wrote this for semi because bb boy needs love!!

characters: semi eita x reader

genre: fluff(?) with a tiny bit of angst. 

warnings: overthinking, semi needs a lot of assurance (if there’s more please lmk!)

wc: 1.1k

you have been looking for semi all over your shared apartment but he’s nowhere to be found. you tried calling for his phone but your calls went straight to the voicemail. you let out a sigh with your hands on your waist, trying to figure out where your boyfriend has been all day. and then you remembered that one place semi always visits every time he feels down. you quickly grabbed your coat and rushed out of the apartment.

as soon as you arrived at the special spot, you spotted semi’s car at the parking lot. it’s a park that sits on top of the hill he found when he was in high school. you turned off your car’s engine and hiked all the way to the park to get to your boyfriend who might be there at this hour. did something happen to him while he’s at work today? you weren’t quite sure either. you mentally prepared yourself to calm him down because you’ll support him nevertheless.

a familiar figure of someone sitting on the hill relieved your worrisome. you took a deep breath as your legs brought you closer to him. “hey” a tiny voice came from behind of him. semi was startled, but he was quick to wipe away his tears. he’d been at the park for almost an hour now and it’s getting darker. he felt bad for making you worried sick. semi smiled at you as you sat beside him. of course you knew he would be here.

“what’s going on? i came home without you. were you having a rough day, baby?” your voice soothed his uneasiness. he tried to smile for you, but he just ended up crying in your arms. seeing semi broke down in tears made you worried about him even more. he rarely cries. something must have been bothering him to the point he couldn’t take it anymore. you calmed him down by pulling him into your warm embrace and just let him cried. he needed to let it out.

“i’m sorry” semi mumbled, his voice was trembling. you shushed him, telling him that it’s okay to cry and that you’re there with him along the way. “you don’t have to apologize. i’m always here for you. always” you calmed him down. semi wiped away his tears with a forced smile. he looked at you feeling sorry for making you taking care of him. sometimes he thinks of himself as a nuisance and that you deserve someone who’s better than him to take care of you.

“i know you’re having a bad day, semi. come here, tell me. you know you can always tell me, right? if you’re not ready, then it’s fine. let’s go home and eat dinner, okay? we can watch movies tonight if you’d like to” you smiled. if he’s not ready to tell you then it’s fine. you believed he needed some time to recover before opening up to you. semi grabbed your hands, he still couldn’t believe you saved him from falling down into a dark hole every time. you’re his angel.

semi didn’t want to worry you any longer, so he told you about what he had been feeling for the past few weeks. the reason why he kept it inside because he didn’t want to trouble you and made you worried over him. he just felt terrified that you might find him as a burden and leave him someday. he’s not ready to lose you. “you were overthinking things, babe. there’s no way i would leave you alone. i love you too much for that” your lips quivered.

“i know” he heaved out a sigh. “i was.. just scared, babe. i can’t afford to lose you. you’re the reason why i am still alive. i wanted to marry you and have kids together and be happy until we’re old, but i’m afraid if we can’t do that. wh-what if i lose you?”

you pulled his body in your arms, “i would marry you today if i could, semi. we’re going to get married and have kids, alright? we will and i promise you that one day it will come true. i pinky promise you!” you linked your pinky finger with his. semi’s lips formed into a smile. you’re always patient with him and he’s not going to trade you with anything in the world.

“do you know the song yellow?” semi asked in all of sudden. you looked at him, nodding your head. semi’s a musician, of course he knows a lot of songs. “coldplay, right?” you replied, followed with giggles after. semi hummed, he smiled at you. the purest smile he had given you for the night. the cold night air brushed over your faces, and your hair flew all over your face. semi removed the hair strands that fell on your face.

“you’re my yellow, do you know that?” semi chuckled. he sounded corny, he knew that. but whatever, he’s not gonna let his feelings take control over his mind anymore. he felt a lot calmer now that you’re finally by his side and he’s not alone anymore. you chuckled at his words, “the tiktok trend isn’t it?”

semi shook his head while giggling. it’s the most beautiful sight to you. “maybe. um, i don’t know. maybe it is? the only thing i am sure is, you’re my yellow. you’re my everything. sometimes i wish i could tell you how much you mean to me but words can’t ever describe how i truly feel. you’re so special to me. and when i said i am afraid of losing you, i sincerely meant that. you’ve saved me from my own thoughts. and ever since you met me that day, i believe that there’s more the world could give us. and it’s you that the world has to offer me.”

listening to him being sincere to his words made you cry every time. “you meant, the day i helped you when you were injured?” you chuckled. it’s an unforgettable day for both of you.

“was i stupid at that time? good lord!” semi cursed under his breath. but that night brought you into his dull life, and he’s never been happier since. he’s ready to risk it all for you. after all, you’ve done so much for him and he doesn’t hesitate to jump out of the trains for you.

you held his hands, gripping his hands firmly. “no. that day brought us to be where we are today. look at where we are now, we’re way more matured than we were back then. we grew ourselves together, fixing our flaws together and making each other happy together” you giggled, your eyes telling him that both of you are gonna be fine even if the world is telling you otherwise.

his husky laugh filled the silence, “you’re right. if you assured me that we’ll be fine, then we will.” semi looked into your eyes as he held your hands firmly, kissing your knuckles lovingly.

“yes, we will” you replied.

[that-bi-bitch-writes]

The Rumor Around Hogwarts (Ch.4)

Chapter Four: The Train Ride There

1k+ Words a lot of it is taken from the book but as always I added a lot of [Name] in to make it.... chaotic and slightly angsty

Still uses he/him pronouns for now and later addition of they pronouns will be announced before the chapter. Hope you Enjoy!!!

Last  //  Next

“What the actual hell- Ow, heck i meant heck.” [Name] choked out while rubbing the back of his head

“Mhm sure you did”

“Anyway you mean to tell me I have to run at a wall.”

“Yup”

“In a muggle train station”

“Yes”

“In the middle of the day?”

“Look, do you want to go to Hogwarts or not?”

“I mean I do but-”

“If you don’t you’ll only disappoint Harry” [Mother’s name] interrupted

[Name] hesitated before responding “I’m sure he’ll be fine he like defeated an evil lord as a baby of course he can run at a wall and make other friends”

“[Name] if you miss the train I’m not taking you to school myself”

And just as [Name] seemed like he’d be okay with that aspect (anything to not embarrass himself in public really) all his hopes were completely crushed

“And I’m not taking you back home to ride on the house elf express”

“Okay but if I die or embarass myself I’m gonna have to find a way to jinx you or something. Maybe i’ll tell that weird muggle mailman you find him cute and force you to flee the country”

“You wouldn’t”

“That’s what you think”

[Name] seemed to gather the courage of all his ancestors (may they rest in peace) and ran straight at the obvious death trap. He had a chosen one to meet after all. He closed his eyes right before impact only to have his senses assaulted by the sounds and sights of something completely unexpected

‘Wow' he whispered under his breath

“I told you so”

“Alright alright I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. But I mean you’re not exactly the most trustworthy. If I needed someone to help me cover up a crime maybe, but a prank that could end in bodily harm..”

[Mo. Name] pretended not to hear a word as she fussed over [Name], the train departing soon. She’s a mother, she couldn’t help it. After running down a long list of things [Name] should have (And did) pack in his trunk she gave a forehead kiss and pushed him off to the trains. As he got on she did the unthinkable.

“Bye baby!! Momma loves you. Tell Peeves I said Hi’

Yeah [Name] definitely wasn't gonna be popular now. At least… not in a good way. There’d be rumors around hogwarts. And he’d be in the center of them.

          ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harry sat alone in an empty compartment after all the hustle and bustle that came with parents seeing their children off for the first time. And could’ve sworn he had heard someone say something about being peeved. Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted when the door of the compartment slid open and the youngest red headed boy he had seen earlier came in.

“Anyone sitting there?” he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Harry. “Everywhere else is full.”

Harry shook his head and the boy sat down. He glanced at Harry and then looked quickly out of the window, pretending he hadn’t looked. Harry saw he still had a black mark on his nose.

“Hey, Ron”

The twins were back

“Listen we’re going down the middle of the train- Lee Jordan’s got a giant tarantula down there.”

“Right,” mumbled Ron.

“Harry,” said the other twin, “did we introduce ourselves? Fred and George Weasley. And this is Ron, our brother. See you later then.”

“Bye” said Harry and Ron. the twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.

“Are you really Harry potter?” Ron blurted out

Harry went to nod but the compartment door slammed open once again

“Harry there you are. Thank God I found you.” [Name] gasped out “My mother totally embarrassed me as I was getting on the train screaming about someone named Peeves and she called me BABY. Anyway I’ve been trying to find you without drawing to much attention to you or myself.”

Harry had wondered how [Name] had said so much in one breath. He didn’t know [Name] to be particularly talkative. He of course had his moments when he’d stand up for someone but Harry had always seen name as a little bit of a worrier or an outsider like himself.

“Sorry." [Name] said almost as if he read Harry’s mind “It’s the nerves. I’m super glad that you’re not alone but I’m also jealous I didn’t get to you first.” [Name] continued as he moved to sit next to Harry.

“What were we talking about? Oh yeah he was asking about your chosen one status which is kind of cool and lame at the same time. Is that offensive?”

“Have you really got - you know?” He pointed at Harry's forehead.

Harry pulled back his bangs to show the lightning scar. Ron stared. And surprisingly [Name] did too.

“Y’know as close as we are for two people who only met twice, I realized I haven’t gotten a good look at you Harry.” [Name] realized turning all of his attention on the resident Chosen One

Harry and [Name] stared at each other for a moment. [Name] was curious as to who the boy who lived really was and why he was drawn to him. It was like they were meant to meet up. At the Zoo, in Diagon Alley and now hopefully they would remain on the same path at Hogwarts too.

Harry on the other hand was staring at [Name] in appreciation. They were strangers, yet [Name] came to Harry’s rescue so naturally. Ron was to be a good friend to Harry, he’s sure of it, but it was different with [Name]. Their friendship wasn’t founded on titles, or reputations, or anything but mutual respect and destiny perhaps? If he were more naïve he might’ve attributed this feeling to a crush.

“So that’s where You-Know-Who-? Ron interrupted the staring contest

“Yes” said Harry “but I can’t remember it”

“Nothing?” Ron said eagerly.

“Well- I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else.

[Name] got incredibly bored of the topic, not really keen on discussing Voldemort’s attack on Harry so he began looking out the window like the main character. Only catching flashes of the conversation and adding his own commentary when appropriate. Apparently Ron had 5 brothers and a little bit of “a lot to live up to” but being friends with the chosen one was sure to give him some stories to tell..

[Name] didn’t interrupt with much about his family because he’d already talked about his embarrassing mother and there was nothing else to talk about but his incredibly large and empty house which would have made him a little uncomfortable and slightly awkward. Y’know since he was talking to an orphan and a poor kid with a huge family. How could either of them relate?

What he did however pay attention to was Harry’s bravery and generosity. Apparently he was only a little bit of an oblivious idiot. Sure he proudly said Voldemort’s name (a trend [Name] hoped to follow) but he was smart enough to realized in the wizarding world at least he was rich and could splurge a little bit on the less fortunate *ahem* Ron *ahem*

“Go on, have a pasty” said Harry, who had never had anything to share before or, indeed, anyone to share it with. It was a nice feeling, sitting there with Ron, eating their way through all Harry’s pasties, cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten.)

“What are these?” Harry asked Ron and [Name] holding up a pack of chocolate frogs. “They’re not really frogs, are they/” He was starting to feel that nothing would surprise him

“No” said Ron “But see what the card is. I’m missing Agrippa”

“He has no idea what you’re talking about, look at his face” [Name] laughed out. Ron followed his line of sight and chuckled at Harry’s confused face as well.

“Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know - Chocolate frogs have cards inside them, you know to collect - famous witches and wizards. I’ve got about five hundred, but I haven’t got Agrippa or Ptolemy.”

Both Harry and [Name] removed the cards from the chocolate frogs. Harry got Dumbledore which set his curiosity aflame once again. [Name] kept his a secret for dramatic effect of course. After answering his questions Ron asked for a chocolate frog as well only to get Morgana.

“Well Ron” [name] started “if you show me a trick, I’ll give you this” flipping over the card Ron’s eyes went wide at the sight of a Ptolemy card.

After a long conversation about the dangers of eating Bertie's ever flavored beans (which [name] would never even touch) Ron eventually worked up the courage to perform a spell when the toadless boy from earlier appeared, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.

“Has anyone seen a toad? Neville’s lost one,” she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair and rather large front teeth.

“We’ve already told him we haven’t seen it,” said Ron, but the girl wasn’t listening, she was looking at the wan in his hand.

‘Oh god.’ [name] said to himself as the girl’s thoughts assaulted him and drowned out the obvious awkward silence in the car ‘this girl may have redeeming qualities, or at least I’m hoping she does but she needs to get over herself’

“Oh, are you doing magic? Let’s see it, then.”

She sat down. Ron looked taken aback

“Er- alright” he cleared his throat

“Sunshine daises, butter mellow, Turn this stupid fat rat yellow”

He waved his wand but nothing happened. Scabbers stayed gray and fast asleep.

“Are you sure that’s a real spell? Said the girl. “Well it’s not very good, is it? I’ve tried a few simple spells just for practice and it’s all worked for me. Nobody in my family’s magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but…

[Name] having heard most of this speech in his head already tried to tune her out and gave a snort at the end of her rambling when Harry and Ron looked at each other incredulously. Only a little offended when he heard Harry's comparison of Hermione to the nervous [Name] earlier

They all introduced themselves but Harry’s introduction led her on another tangent about him not looking himself up as if this was a common thing to do?? Then she asked what houses they thought they’d be in before leaving, taking the toadless boy with her. Poor Neville.

“Whatever house I’m in, I hope she’s not in it”

“I doubt we’ll be in the same house Ron” [Name] realized “you’ll probably be in whatever house your brothers are in”

“Gryffindor” Ron spoke up

“Right, and Harry will probably be with you where as I’ll end up in Slytherin probably”

The car went silent a bit before [name] spoke up again “I know what you’re thinking. Literally. I never had a Ptolemy card. I only said that because I wanted to show off my powers as a legilimens. I can see into your mind basically and I made you see what I wanted you to see. Don’t worry though I won’t like brainwash you or anything. Wouldn’t want to be a typical Slytherin and end up a dark wizard.

[Name] got ready to flee the cart after that whole speech and he could tell Ron felt kind of guilty but [Name] couldn’t risk Harry hating him. He was going to the house that produced Voldemort after all. He rushed out of the cart as some blond entered probably because Hermione had spread the rumor about seeing the chosen one.

Before [Name] knew it he was facing his newest worst enemy. The sorting hat.

[muthaz-rapapa]

Let’s talk TroPreCure! (^∀^ 🌺)

i’m so stupidly proud of this dumb pun “tropurikyua~”, hahahahaha

Last post of the year and wow is there are lot to be excited for!

I even had to make a list for the stuff I want to talk about and I’m sure I already forgot one or two things but we’ll get to them as we continue to float~ along the wave to February 28th, mmkay? :)

Now for what has peaked my interest so far. And yes, we have to talk about the following first:

1) HealPre the shortest Precure season??

Unless they plan for double features in February (which I doubt but you never know), HealPre is likely going to reach only 45 episodes long instead of the usual 48~50 before TroPre I’m using this shortening of the title for now so if there’s a better alternative, tell me and I’ll switch out begins its broadcast.

Understandable because the producers probably want to get back to their normal scheduling as soon as possible (toy sales, y’know) and I suspect pushing the start of the new season back by a month is the most they’re willing to compromise.

As for me, I’m quite happy about this since HealPre’s lost its hold on my attention a while ago so the sooner TroPre gets here, the better. Though the downside might be a scrambled climax and a rushed, underwhelming ending for HealPre (I dunno if it’s January’s titles that feel a bit messy or if the hiatus is still throwing me off) but whatever. We’ll refresh ourselves with the new blood Cures so it’s all good.

2) Tropical movie announced for Autumn 2021, no All Stars??

(source)

First saw this mentioned on Youtube somewhere but it’s all over the fandom forums by now. I mean, HealPre’s movie is set for March, the usual time slot for All Stars release. If Toei intended for there to be an All Stars in 2021, there’s no way they would announce the seasonal movie before it so speculations of them skipping it this year are probably true.

To squeeze it somewhere between March and October-ish would force them to readjust their budgets as well and I don’t think even Toei wants to go through that extra hassle after all the trouble the pandemic’s caused for everyone already. It’s just easier to resume All Stars in 2022.

That, and I think Laura being a major character in TroPre despite not having a Cure title (yet) would make for an awkward situation when the three latest teams gather so perhaps that’s also one of the reasons. But I’ll get back to Laura in a bit.

3) Cure Summer is a RAINBOW Cure

So god help me if I see anyone calling her a Pink Cure.

Yes, she’s the lead Cure for this season. NO, she is not a Pink Cure.

Look, even the official website has a rainbow overlay for her profile pic and text font while everyone else’s respective theme colors are a solid hue:

Therefore, RAINBOW.

In promotional material and merchandising, they’re probably going to advertise her primarily with pink bah and at worst, she might occasionally be labeled as a White Cure with multiple subcolors (her outfit is not pink-dominant) but definitely NOT. PINK.

...also, this goes without saying but f***yea, we finally got a lead Cure practically and unabashedly wearing the LGBTQ flag and you cannot tell me otherwise, Toei!

Own up to it! Declare Manatsu/Cure Summer as the Precure queer icon!

I’m not gonna stop yellin’ until you do! 😠

4) Laura = obvious midseason Cure is obvious

First of all, Laura is a babe. I already love her the best and she’s not even Precure yet. <3

Anyways, the set-up is pretty much in the description. Important main character who’s not a mascot, stated to have a self-confident personality and just speaks her mind (oooh, I like~ :D), magical/foreign being from another world looking for Precure to save her home, possesses her own special item(s), has aspirations to become the next Queen (so she’s a princess-candidate or something to that effect, I suppose).

We’ve seen various combinations of these traits in past midseason (and a few starter) Cures so nobody should be surprised when we all guessed that one of the Cures would be a real live mermaid.

The only question is why not just make Laura a Cure from the get-go if she’s introduced to us at the beginning (like Hime or Lala) and having a team of five with no unnecessary extra add-ons later on (like Smile).

Well, there’s a simple answer for that: formula.

Toei is afraid that if they don’t spit out some new animation sequence at the halfway and third quarter points of the show, the kids will lose interest and abandon the series altogether. Which means failed toy sales. Oh nooo... [/sarcasm]

...Yea. 

And this way they can also have Laura available in the Cure lineup for the next All Stars in 2022 instead of making her sit the fight out if we were going to have one in 2021. I’m convinced that’s gotta be one of the reasons. *shrug*

But ok, whatever. Her debut is gonna be later, that’s all. She’s a delayed Cure.  Midseason Cure, same difference.

Moving along to the more important stuff now like what’s her Cure name gonna be, y/y?

Well, knowing Toei, a translation of the term “mermaid” into another language is the most predictable route even though we already have a Cure Mermaid. Not like that ever stopped them from repeating words before (ex. Cure Happy vs Cure Felice). Though if they do go down that road, I hope they opt for the Spanish/Italian “sirena” and not the French “sirène” because the latter sounds too close to how Cure Selene is pronounced in Japanese. And, putting it nicely, we all know Japanese pronunciation of foreign words is as off kilter as can be.

Hell, even the the Portuguese “sereia” sounds aesthetic as hell so it’d be nice if they can just remember there are other languages that exist out there besides Japanese, English and French when making the final decision at the writing table! *stomps foot* >:/

Alternatively, “nereid” or “naiad” are good choices too but they remind me too much of Greek myths and Laura’s from the Grand Ocean which covers more than just a couple of seas (Greece is surrounded by three, btw) so...

I dunno. But whatever it’s gonna be, she’s definitely got a strong association with water and her powers will probably be based on that.

As for theme color, since there’s noticeably no blue or green Cure in the starter lineup, it’s likely she will take up that spot when she debuts around ep 20.

Pink is also open since Cure Summer, again, is technically not a Pink Cure and Laura’s hair and tail fin are hot and light pink respectively but looking at Laura’s design and concept, does anyone seriously believe that?

Her upper torso consists of aquamarine while the body of her tail is definitely some shade of cyan, implying they’re aiming for somewhere around the middle of green and blue on the lighter spectrum.

And yea, I’m aware that green and blue are considered exchangeable in some perspectives with how close some of their shades are to each other but officially, I think Laura’s gonna be grouped with the Green Cures.

Cuz of the hair. If Laura’s gonna keep it the same or a similar shade after transforming, that is. The Blues have always had cool-colored hair so putting Laura in with them might disrupt that harmony whereas if you put her with the few Greens there are (including Parfait), she’d fit right in.

I mean, we’ll see but that makes the most sense, doesn’t it?

On another note, I just want to say that I love how they added frills to her arms instead of letting her elbows go bare naked. It definitely makes her look more like a genuine mermaid than if she didn’t have them (remember, half fish doesn’t mean half the body :P).

5) Magical Items

Frankly, I’m tired of seeing the transformation device being a compact again even though one of the main motifs is make-up this season. But at least, as far as Precure compacts goes, the Tropical one is my favorite cuz of how cute and delightfully colorful its toy version looks! So I guess I’m okay with it.

The Heart Rouge Rod, though? ...I dunno. I think it would’ve been fine without that...straw (?) jutting out at the top. It looks weird, doesn’t it look weird? :S

As for the collectible clip-ons, I can live without those for the rest of my life. Yeesh.

Laura’s items, the Aqua Pot and the Ocean Prism Mirror.

Again with the portable, travel-size housing. *sigh* 😩

Alright, I can let this year slide cuz Laura (I’m so soft for her, omg) probably won’t be getting legs for 20 weeks so she’s got to move about on land somehow. But unless they’re really thinking about turning this idea of carrying your apartment around in your bag/pocket/purse into a reality (cuz that would be effin’ awesome), please be more creative with your toys.

On the other hand, I’m much more interested in the Ocean Prism Mirror but from what Kusyami (the Precure merchandise reviews I follow on Youtube) said in his latest vid, this is the ED dance item so don’t know if it’ll actually have an relevance to the story or not. But I did hear him mention it having something to do with the Queen as well and since Laura wishes to become Queen, maybe it’ll be important after all? Maybe it’s her transformation device?

That’d be super cool. Let’s continue the trend of the midseason Cure having a different transformation item than the starters. Honestly, we should alternate every other year or two but we’ve gone three seasons with all of them using the same henshin gimmicks up till HealPre and I just want a break from that.

6) Fin sleeves??

These look so impractical for combat so maybe it’s exclusive to group attacks.

And/or a sort of precursor to the super forms?

*GASP* Does that mean they all eventually turn into mermaids? 🤩

7) Yui finally became Precure!! 😭

lol, it’s all crack from this point on so don’t take it too seriously but man, after Yuni’s deceptive braids, I thought I wasn’t gonna see anything that reminded me of Yui for a while and lo behold, Sango.

kehehehehehe xD;

Though Yui might be closer to Minori in terms of personal interests (fairytales and storybooks).

8) Akira, the actual Onee-chan version

I didn’t think this when I first saw her but once I read “Onee-san” in her profile, there’s no saving you now. Sorry, Asuka. 😅

Also, damn, do her sandals make her feet look big! Compare them to the heels she wears as Flamingo. Are they even the same?! lololol

9) ...this sounds awfully familiar...

Translation:

Tokimeku Tokonatsu! [Exciting/Thrilling Everlasting Summer!] Cure Summer! Kirameku Hoseki! [Sparkling Jewel!] Cure Coral!  Hirameku Fuurutsu! [Flashing Fruit!] Cure Papaya!

Japanese reiteration:

Mallow/Mao: Pink no tokimeki! Lillie: Blue no kirameki! Lana/Suiren: Yellow no kagayaki!

….........

@Toei 

Care to explain yourselves, punks?! 

୧(ʘ ∀ ʘ ╬)

[kuriquinn]

just because it ain’t broke, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be improved

I feel like a few things need to be qualified about the feedback culture discourse if it’s going to stay civil.

Feedback advocates ARE NOT demanding every single consumer leave feedback on every single piece of art or story every time they log on to the internet.

Consumer advocates ARE NOT suggesting that fanartists and fanwriters are not entitled to feedback ever.

Let’s not go putting words in each other’s mouths, that way inevitably leads to lurking trolls deciding to become keyboard warrior anons.  

Feedback discourse is not meant to shame anyone, consumer or writer, it’s to open a discussion about how the general culture could be changed for the better.

That said, fandom in general is in need of a change in how consumers and creators interact with one another. 

One of the main arguments I have seen in the past few days is that passively consuming fandom works (with the occasional outlying consumer occasionally or always leaving feedback) has always been the norm, is currently the norm and will always be the norm.***

Which to me boils down to, “we’ve always done it this way, why change it?”

(I doubt I need to give all the historical examples of where that kind of thinking has gotten us, or how it’s been challenged.)

Just because it’s normal practice now and everyone does it this way and supposedly always has done it this way, doesn’t mean we can’t strive for something better. Fandom creators and consumers are in a symbiotic relationship—without the consumer, we have no one to share our work with but ourselves and maybe a few close friends; without the creator, consumers don’t get access to new content related to their interests (or at least have diminished access). 

We need each other.

If tomorrow some law is passed that basically bans all fan created content from the web and some major purge happens just deleting everything that doesn’t belong or isn’t endorsed by the actual creator, what happens to the fandom? I can tell you right now, creators will keep creating—we just won’t be able to share it with anyone but our closest, real-life friends. And consumers might keep consuming fan-created content, but it will be in a much smaller capacity. 

Neither side wants this.

So why not discuss ways to make the fandom experience better for both sides here? Including listening to the parties in the relationship who are basically explaining something that is discouraging/damaging to them?

It’s a pretty simple equation: 

creators produce/share free content --> consumers enjoy free content--> consumers provide feedback--> encouraged creators produce/share more free content, continually improving over time-->consumers continue to enjoy free content

VS

creators produce/share free content -->consumers enjoy free content without providing any indication they care about the content-->creators still produce free content but at lower frequency/quality over time (months, years, etc.)-->consumers continue to enjoy free content without providing any indication they care about the content -->creators still produce content but not longer share their work or start putting their work behind a paywall--> consumers complain that so many favorite creators now want money for their creations

Obviously, this is a generalization and doesn’t speak to every single creator and consumer’s behavior, but as both a creator and a consumer, this has been my experience more often than not. 

Now, I know not every single person is going to provide feedback on every single piece of art or writing they encounter. But right now, the average fandom consumer defaults to the following behavior:

Consume fanfic/fanart + [leave likes/kudos] + move on to next

(At the moment, even the kudos is entirely optional, since a majority of consumers don’t even bother with that. )

We need to change this default behavior to:

Consume fanfic/fanart + did I like it? = No? + move on to the next

Consume fanfic/fanart + Did I like it? =Yes? + reblog/share [and/or leave a comment]

(I’d make a flowchart, but I’m doing this on my phone, so...kinda hard.)

It takes the same amount of energy to reblog/share a fanwork as it does to leave kudos/likes. So if you like something but don’t have the energy/confidence/interest to comment, the least that can be done is boost the signal and pay it forward.

We need to normalize this behavior instead of passive, entitled consumption.

Again, this is NOT a call to FORCE people to leave feedback.

It’s more like when you’re a kid and your parents teach your to say “please” and “thank you”. Obviously, their goal is that as you get older, you will automatically say those things in the appropriate contexts, such as when you would like something or are expressing gratitude.

Does that mean everyone in the world uses “please” and “thank you” when interacting with others? Not at all. We’ve all run into some real dickheads that are downright rude for the sake of being rude, as well as people who are unintentionally rude because they don’t think it’s worth their time to be polite. Would the world be a better place if everyone did use “please” and “thank you”? I like to think so.

The reason we’re talking about feedback culture now is because we want a better future in the fandom. We want a better situation than what we have right now.

And honestly, if we can have people start treating fan writers and artists better here at the unofficial level that is fandom, think of how that kind of change and discourse could change the way art and literature is viewed in the world at large? Because right now, we live in a society where funding for the arts is more often passed over for funding sports, business, military, etc. The only sectors of society that are treated worse than artists and writers are the teachers, nurses and retail workers (and don’t even get me started on the trend of female-dominated sectors of the economy rating lower than predominantly male-dominated ones!)

Personally, I think a lot of these disagreements could be mitigated by an update to Ao3’s feedback system.

Kudos is like a checkmark on a list. “Yep, read that...Yep, read that.” 

The only time I don’t leave kudos on something is if I didn’t finish reading it. And yes, that is my personal experience, but we’re human beings and we tend to frame the actions of others based on our own practices.

The kudos feature should be replaced with a new system either emojis (think Facebook) or canned comments (pre-written responses generated by a simple keystroke). For the simple fact that these can better convey the emotions of the consumer than a faceless kudo.

Having started using an emoji based system last year, I can tell you from experience that every week or two, I have someone comment to me how much they like being able to use an emoji to get their words across because they’re not good with words / their first language isn’t the same as mine / they’re still processing what they’ve read and can’t formulate a response yet/ etc.

TL;DR: The purpose of discourse related to feedback culture is to try to normalize leaving feedback on fanworks, instead of passively consuming—not forcing people to leave feedback.

_______________________________________________________________

***It has NOT always been this way. I have been part of several fandoms in my time— Lord of the Rings, Gundam Wing, Beyblade, Harry Potter, Inuyasha, Supernatural, Rurouni Kenshin, Doctor Who, Naruto, Batman/DCU, to name a few. And twenty years ago, people left way more feedback than they do today. Even on the really terrible stuff (and I say this as someone whose first fanfics were exclusively dedicated to horrible Mary Sue OC self-inserts), if you posted a chapter of something, within the next day you had a half dozen comments—more if you were writing a one-shot/completed fic. Ten years later, I noticed feedback started to be almost half of that; now it’s even less. The content hasn’t changed; the quality of writers hasn’t changed. However, the mindset of the consumer has definitely changed.

[7r0773r]

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World for Men by Caroline Criado Perez

In the mid-1990s, research by local officials in Vienna found that from the age of ten, girls’ presence in parks and public playgrounds ‘decreases significantly’. But rather than simply shrugging their shoulders and deciding that the girls just needed  to toughen up, city officials wondered if there was something wrong with the design of parks. And so they planned some pilot projects, and they started to collect data. 

What they found was revealing. It turned out that single large open spaces were the problem, because these forced girls to compete with the boys for space. And girls didn’t have the confidence to compete with the boys (that’s social conditioning for you) so they tended to just let the boys have the space. But when they subdivided the parks into smaller areas, the female drop-off was reversed. They also addressed the parks’ sports facilities. Originally these spaces were encased by wire fencing on all sides, with only a single entrance area — around which groups of boys would congregate. And the girls, unwilling to run the gauntlet, simply weren’t going in. Enter, stage right, Vienna’s very own Leslie Knope, Claudia Prinz-Brandenburg, with a simple proposal: more and wider entrances. And like the grassy spaces, they also subdivided the sports courts. Formal sports like basketball were still provided for, but there was also now space for more informal activities — which girls are more likely to engage in. These were all subtle changes — but they worked. A year later, not only were there more girls in the park, the number of ‘informal activities’ had increased. And now all new parks in Vienna are designed along the same lines. (pp. 63-64)

***

. . . Fifty year’s worth of US census data has proven that when women join an industry in high numbers, that industry attracts lower pay and loses ‘prestige’, suggesting that low-paid work chooses women rather than the other way around. (p. 76)

***

We teach brilliance bias to children from an early age. A recent US study found that when girls start primary school at the age of five, they are as likely as five-year-old boys to think women could be ‘really really smart’. But by the time they turn six, something changes. They start doubting their gender. So much so, in fact, that they start limiting themselves: if a game is presented to them as intended for ‘children who are really, really smart’, five-year-old girls are as likely to want to play it as boys — but six-year-old girls are suddenly uninterested. Schools are teaching little girls that brilliance doesn’t belong to them. (pp. 100-01)

***

But the disparity in the relative female-friendliness of plough versus shifting agriculture is also a result of gendered social roles. Hoeing can be easily started and stopped, meaning that it can be combined with childcare. The same cannot be said for a heavy tool drawn by a powerful animal. Hoeing is also labour intensive, whereas ploughing is capital intensive, and women are more likely to have access to time rather than money as a resource. As result, argued [Danish economist Ester] Boserup, where the plough was used, men dominated agriculture and this resulted in unequal societies in which men had the power and the privilege.

According to a 2011 paper, Boserup’s hypothesis holds up to scrutiny. Researchers found that descendants of societies that traditionally practised plough agriculture held more sexist views even if they emigrated to other countries. The paper also found that sexist beliefs correlated with the kind of geo-climactic conditions that would favour plough agriculture over shifting agriculture. This suggested that it was the climate rather than pre-existing sexism that dictated the adoption of the plough — which in turn drove the adoption of sexist views. (p. 146)

***

The data that we do have is unarguable: as we continue to build, plan and develop our world, we have to start taking account of women's lives. In particular, we have to start accounting for the three themes that define women's relationship with that world. 

The first of these themes is the female body — or, to be precise —its invisibility. Routinely forgetting to accommodate the female body in design — whether medical, technological or architectural — has led to a world that is less hospitable and more dangerous for women to navigate. It leads to us injuring ourselves in jobs and cars that weren't designed for our bodies. It leads to us dying from drugs that don't work. It has led to the creation of a world where women just don't fit very well. 

There is an irony in how the female body is apparently invisible when it comes to collecting data, because when it comes to the second trend that defines women's lives, the visibility of the female body is key. That trend is male sexual violence against women —how we don't measure it, don't design our world to account for it, and in so doing, allow it to limit women's liberty. Female biology is not the reason women are raped. It is not the reason women are intimidated and violated as they navigate public spaces. This happens not because of sex, but because of gender: the social meanings we have imposed on male and female bodies. In order for gender to work, it must be obvious which bodies elicit which treatment. And, clearly, it is: as we've seen, 'the mere sight of a woman' is enough for the viewer to 'immediately elicit a specific set of associated traits and attributions'. To immediately class her as someone to speak over. Someone to cat call. Someone to follow. Someone to rape. 

Or maybe just someone to make the tea. Which is where we run into the third trend, which is perhaps the most significant in terms of its impact on women's lives worldwide: unpaid care work. Women are doing far and away more than our fair share of this work — this necessary work without which our lives would all fall apart. And, as with male violence against women, female biology is not the reason women are the bum-wiping class. But recognising a child as female is the reason she will be brought up to expect and accept that as her role. Recognising a woman as female is the reason she will be seen as the appropriate person to clear up after everyone in the office. To write the Christmas and birthday cards to her husband's family — and look after them when they get sick. To be paid less. To go part-time when they have kids. 

Failing to collect data on women and their lives means that we continue to naturalise sex and gender discrimination — while at the same time somehow not seeing any of this discrimination. Or really, we don't see it because we naturalise it — it is too obvious, too commonplace, too much just the way things are to bother commenting on. It's the irony of being a woman: at once hyper-visible when it comes to being treated as the subservient sex class, and invisible when it counts — when it comes to being counted. (pp. 312-14)

[dippedanddripped]

While research can help us understand our generation’s new morality and its changed consumption habits, the impact that the Covid-19 crisis will have on how our future looks and feels remains the most unclear. While times of crisis are when clothes seem to matter least, the irony is that fashion has been making itself at home with the idea of apocalypse as an aesthetic for quite some time.

“Survivalism” isn’t a word one normally lumps in with others like “glamour” and “style,” but according to the strategist and writer Lucas Mascatello, the idea of braving a dangerous future is one that has been a central pillar to many trends for quite some time (and will continue to be). Here, he explores the myriad ideas of the apocalyptic aesthetic — from dystopian to utopian — in our past, present, and future.

What Is Survivalism?

“Survivalism is a mentality. More than the daily practice of preparing for some unknown disaster, war, famine, or disease, it’s a complete worldview unto itself. Survivalism is a kind of reasoning that invites paranoia in, hammering your senses for warning signs and cranking your adrenaline into hyper-vigilance. In nature, we see the armored hides of armadillos and the scales of fish as practical choices made by mother nature, tactical choices that create an aesthetic. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs introduced the concept of tiered values, saying that at their most base, people first satisfy physiological needs like food, water, and sleep. These needs are followed by safety needs (security and shelter), then belonging and love, followed by self esteem and, finally, self-actualization. As a luxury market, fashion largely considers this top tier need: How can I achieve my full potential and what does that look like? It’s a far cry from where we started, concerned with security and defense ideas that inform military design and created armored organisms like turtles, serpents, and dinosaurs.”

Thirst for Annihilation

“Thinking about the end of the world is a romantic idea. And similarly, believing that you are living in the end of times is a great way to add meaning to one’s life. Fashion trends such as chest-packs, camouflage, and tactical gear all gesture toward survivalism as an aesthetic, one that feels like a rebelling against the classic luxury object (even if it’s just as expensive). There’s a long menu of world ending possibilities, each inspiring designers, authors and artists to consider what it might look like if the ice caps melted, if an asteroid hit, if locusts wiped out the crops and we were forced to live off of dehydrated proteins. The thirst for annihilation has helped propagate an array of disaster-based looks.”

Cyberpunk and Tech Gibberish

“Dystopia has its own aesthetic, one reaching deep into fetish and counterculture, mashing sex against sexlessness, turning nerds into heroes, and flipping the paradigm. The incel-meets-BDSM style of The Matrix was the brainchild of costumer designer Kym Barrett. And now, violent models dressed in spandex at a Burning Man-style orgy is how we imagine dealing with a hostile future. In Hackers, costume designer Roger Burton created the most everlasting pop-cultural reality for cyberpunk, featuring club kids rollerblading through New York City. This idea of a post-apocalyptic youth culture would later be echoed in the work of Alexander McQueen, in particular his FW99 collection for Givenchy, a collection created for the eve of Y2K that explores the possibility of a post-human type of glamour. Even in the face of disaster, there’s optimism.”

Disaster Chic

“Trend forecasting is about predicting the future, or at least making a bet on outcomes. Yet style is almost always about being ahead of the curve. At a citizen level, many of us want to be first: stockpiling, prepping, or wearing a mask before everyone is else wearing one are different ways of signaling a truth to come that most are too stupid to recognize. Crises are always a surprise, and yet they always feel inevitable in a way that hangs over even the quiet times. And it’s not always as straightforward as Diesel’s famous 2007 ads Diesel-ifying global warming. Brands like Acronym, Maharishi, and Stone Island have made their bread and butter by sexing up survivalism as a type of high tech roleplay. The apocalypse is stylish because it communicates pessimism, irony, and indifference — like being a smoker or drinking hard because we’re all going to die anyway. Rather than the classic outsider stance of ‘Fuck the World,’ it’s infinitely cooler to say, ‘The World is Fucked.'”

The Dirty Future

“If you zoom ahead 20 years, it is very unlikely that we will all be Errolson Hugh-style cyber ninjas. For while the future is generally tied to the idea of progress — the notion that things develop over time in some cumulative type of way — the unfortunate thing is that beings tend to decay. Colossal world events create the kind of disruption that upends progress, causing fissures and deltas in place of what was once stable. Films such as Mad Max show a world filled with skin rash, poverty, and violence. Kanye West’s first Yeezy Season collections (despite their flaws) were an example of embracing this kind of back to roots, spartan future. Martin Margiela’s first runway show on a playground in Paris’ 20th arrondissement was arguably the first to propose this dirty future in the context of fashion, an idea that began as something romantic and would later spin out into heroin chic. The idea of fashion role-playing destitution is so seminal that it plays a central role in the most famous fashion parody of all time, Zoolander, whose creative director villain Mugatu is planning a homelessness-inspired runway show called ‘Derelicte.'”

Hypothetical Optimism

“Having spent considerable resources imagining the apocalyptic future in its various manifestations, generations of designers and thinkers have proposed speculative solutions that point toward an apocalyptic brand of optimism. Geniuses like Issey Miyake explored survivalism as a pure function through conceptual brands like Final Home and APOC — both dedicated to innovating adaptive solutions for the barren earth to come. Founded in 1992, by Lica and Masahiro Nakagawa, the label 20471120 epitomized Harajuku maximalism while showcasing a future aesthetic based in recycling old products, fighting industry waste, and setting up studios where fans could donate old clothes to be remade as one-of-a kind pieces. Yet even in their most earnest, these future-facing solutions were at best speculative, never made to scale and living firmly within the realm of academia.”

Conclusion: Predictions About Our Real Future

“In the face of our present global disaster, we find ourselves in a situation that feels as though we’ve skipped the bells and whistles of dystopia and gone straight into decline. Few would imagine that New York City would be enduring a shortage of medical supplies and pondering the creation of mass graves — and, for now, the future looks more like looted Wal-Marts and canned tuna than flying cars and floating cities. Today, we’ve become focused solely on what we know works, turning away from novel aesthetics and how things look and returning to our most basic instincts. The real future involves catering to our physiological needs, making masks from old dish towels, draping ourselves in plastic, and wearing latex gloves. These are the aesthetics of coping, one where many of us are considering our own survival for the first time. Rather than replace the expressive and aspirational elements of style, fashion will likely come to play dual roles — both as the expression of our fantasy self and as the reality of who we are today.”

[chibimyumi]

Kuro 150 Summary & Thoughts

その執事、魅了

That Butler, Mesmerising

The previous chapter (149) gave us a glimpse of the laws and inner workings of Cinematic Records of the Kuroshitsuji universe, as well as the limits to Undertaker’s greatest project so far, Real!Ciel.

After two chapters, we are finally back with our protagonists in chapter 150.

With the thick smokes of opium coiling around us, we find ourselves in Lau’s opium den once again. Welcoming us is Sebastian, a demon posing as an English man, working as a French girl for Lau. He has laid himself gorgeously on the couch, donning a Chinese garment – that unlike the previous one – does look like it is customised for his exceptional height (and thicc behind).

“Welcome, madam. Please come forward. Take but one whiff from my khsier, and you shall forget unforgiving reality. Now, surrender yourself to me……”

Sebastian speaks in a voice dangerously tender (judging by the font used).

Lau applauds, calling Sebastian a professional at turning people to sin and depravity, and points out he might be better suited for his current assigned job at the den than being butler. Sebastian does not seem very impressed, and assures Lau he merely is one hell of a butler – nothing more and nothing less.

Despite Lau’s obvious contentment with the performance of the butler, Our!Ciel on the other hand seems to be struggling more to win the Chinese man’s approval. We see the boy struggling and failing to serve a plate holding a customer’s order (as expected, the only type of order this child can serve is his usual ‘meirei da’).

Lau makes it abundantly clear that there is no such thing as a free lunch, which is why he made the boy work at his den as a formality despite “the Earl’s clear lack of quality except being cute”.

The casual beginning of the chapter serves as a warming-up before the story retakes its more serious tone and sets us back on track for the main plot. Despite Lau’s mockery, the man seems aware of what is at stake. Our!Ciel seems not bothered by his lack of ‘competence’ at his new job as he fully intends to get out form hiding in the cave as soon as possible. Lau seconds, agreeing that as long as the boy does not manage to get his previous title and privileges back, doing business for Lau too would prove to be hard. (Hmm, it sure is nice to have your powerful underground friends to actually stay powerful).

Our!Ciel holds the latest newspaper in his hands with the photograph taken by Pitt adorning its front page. He grows increasingly disturbed by the sheer slander reported as the truth, as well as the speed at which his former ally had sold the photo for cash.

“Main suspect of the Sphere Music Hall’s serial murder case escaped from the coach!”

“The suspect Earl Phantomhive turns out to be an impostor”

“The younger brother who posed as the older brother to filch the heirloom from the rightful Earl. Inheritance Fraud case – The Tichborne Case revisited?

Lau takes notice of Our!Ciel’s distress and suggests him to take back the manor and neutralise Real!Ciel at top speed. “With the butler’s talents, a task such as this would prove to be no difficulty,” Lau attempts to assure Ciel.

Little did Lau know just how much of a threat Real!Ciel and Undertaker are to even Sebastian in full combat mode. Without disclosing too much information, Our!Ciel explains that his brother had already employed an exceptionally powerful private soldier, and therewith put a spoke in his wheel. Lau inquires what Our!Ciel proposes to do instead. The boy then reveals the concern he has had for a long time, namely the casualness with which the Sphere Music Hall had been forced to a close-down based on charges of murder as a cult organisation. He surmises that it is highly unlikely that the Music Hall is the only place where blood is being collected if his opponent’s plan is reliant on a continued blood supply.

Without further ado, Real!Ciel resumes his role as ‘Earl Ciel Phantomhive’ and gives immediate instructions in preparation for counter-attack. Lau is assigned to investigate whether cases of mass human trafficking and missing persons have taken place in the underground world. Sebastian in turn, is ordered to collect data on news on new trends and facilities in the underground society that may have ‘roused collective action from large crowds’. With both Sebastian and Lau having spoken the infamous line of assent “Yes, my Lord” this chapter ends.

I think that this chapter is something many of us have been waiting for. FINALLY we see Sebastian in a robe that is not too small and throwing us an occasional bone for being such patient and well-behaved readers. My eyes and ovaries have finally been satisfied.

Okay, okay, just kidding.

The thing we have been waiting for: of course the previous two chapters were important and each serve their very important roles in the narrative, but it would be a lie to say I did not miss our favourite protagonists and finally see Our!Ciel kick back into action after more than a year of… basically nothing.

The last chapter (147) wherein we saw Our!Ciel was satisfying if not extremely cathartic, yes. But after a long period of flashbacks and dumbfound-Our!Ciel standing at the Phantomhive main staircase, we all were probably very ready for a change of pace. In chapter 147, our precious Ciel declared war on his brother, but left us wondering for two more chapters how exactly this ‘war’ would shape itself. Now finally in chapter 150, we get confirmation that while having remained entirely speechless for multiple chapters, Our!Ciel’s brain never stopped spinning. Whatever the plan is that his precious boy is cooking up, I am looking forward to it.

The following chapters will surely be very promising. Perhaps it is merely my sky-high expectations talking, but I honestly hope to see some stealth and undercover work performed by both Sebastian and Lau. It is most likely that they would each focus on their own respective jobs, but it would be most thrilling to see these two geniuses combine their geniusness for some genius strategies. Both Our!Ciel and Sebastian’s faces are now known by the public thanks to a certain unfaithful individual – ughum Pitt ughum. While disguises can work their magic, the Phantomhive duo is not exactly inconspicuous; a one-eyed boy, short and slender, and an exceptionally tall man as pale as a ghost. Perhaps Yana will do nothing with these limitations to her protagonists’ appearances, perhaps she will. But eitherway, it is certain that Our!Ciel and Sebas would have to employ whatever stealth they have up their sleeves from now on.

Until chapter 151, ‘That Butler, Ninja!!’

[thetaleofateen]

INDIANS ON SPILLING THE BEANS...

Hello everybody!!! I hope you all are having great time because I am having a lot of fun as it is a Sunday. I was just sitting on my study table to start with my work schedule but I thought why not to first write my blog and then do my work . As, I observed yesterday that by writing blog I really felt poised . So, I thought to start my “work” by writing the blog...

Now, in India these days a very complex case is been heard in the Supreme Court of India that is Babri Masjid V/s Nirmohi Akhara. The whole nation is waiting for its judgement as the CJI(Chief justice of India) Rajan Gogoi will retire soon   on 17th November 2019. The whole nation is right now segregated into two parts 1. The Bhagva followers(”hindus”) 2.The Jinnahs , that still exist(”muslims”). The main part to think over is that in which part do I come?

From my end the answer turns out to be none. Now, you must be thinking that I am an atheist or nitheist but I am also, none of these . I am secular because I am a part of a secular country and being a secular citizen(hardly you will find someone secular in India) I thought to present  my views on what do I think on this particular issue. After, reading this blog some of you might disagree or agree with me but the core reason is  that why I started blogging is because I just wanted to purge my feelings out on a platform where my thoughts will be viewed globally.

The proverb “one man cannot serve two masters” fits accurately to the India’s current situation . The Hindus seek that the land should be given to them as it is the birthplace of Lord Rama and it should prevail to them only while the sunnif waqf board wants that the land should be given to them so that the Babri Masjid can be alive for centuries which was established by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb by demolishing the Ram Mandir. Seeing from my perspective I believe that”sabka maalik ek” the religion are just the different ways to reach the ultimate divine power . The ways are different but the goal of each and every religion is same and that is “to reach that divine power”. Then why not apply these principles on this situation . Then the question arises How? as, these all philosophical lectures are perceived to be influencing when read in books but in reality it is not  practical in application. So, the question is what we should seek?

I think that as we all are in 21st century and in this century wearing trending clothes or having food in a very classy restaurant or travelling abroad just not reflect your modernity but your cognitive development with time reflects your modernity. So, according to me our nation highly needs to work upon the principle of “dialectical approach”. Now many of you must be wondering “what is it?”So, to clear your confusions let me explain it through an example :- In ancient times women were ill-treated . Domestic violence, gender discrimination, abortion of female foeticide was  high at level and with changing time and as number of people are literate they have started treatinng women as a Goddess and being a female I would oppose both the ideologies . As ,  a women do not want any kind of distinction, they do not want to be treated as slaves and neither desires to be treated as Goddess . What all they demand is that they want to be treated as humans who can walk in their life with head held high and matching their footsteps with men in the society. In this modern world we(the females) do not demand for a patriachal or a matriachal society . We demand for a society were the “one who is eligible prevails”.

Same approach is needed in this religiously complex case and that is the dialectical approach . Where both the religions should accept each other and should perform their prayers and hymns for Ram and Rahim at the same place. Now, some of you must have started creating a gloomy perspective about me that “she is just a kid! how will she know that how much effort , acceptance , force will be needed to make this hypothetical philosophy a reality” but rather I would suggest that it all starts with you.

As, charity begins at home so to bring a change in the world we have to first change ourselves. “How in this case?” The answer is pretty simple try not stimulate yourself like a mercury.You must be knowing that  when mercury is given a minimal amount of heat its temperature starts fluctuating . So, whenever these unsung priests try to give you a heat by saying”our religion is our religion and our religion’s shrine will be here” then do not get swayed off instead try to critically evaluate the situation and then make your ideology on the issue . Also, try to evaluate the situation from other’s perspective also . Just think the way you are protective towards your religion the same emotions must be evolving in the opposite party. The point is that we all are children of God . Everyone has arrived from same heaven and has to depart to same heaven so what is this furiousness  all about?

So, the ones who agree with me please accept the forthcoming decision and the ones who disagree with me , I am ready for their questions....

HAVE A NICE DAYS BLOGGERS!!!!!

KEEP ZOOMINGGGG!!!!!!

[isitanylittlewonder]

From the time I was a kid, I felt the world was too shallow. It wasn't just that I was bullied based on preconceptions had just by looking at me; it was also fashion trends. For awhile, long loose socks were in fashion, until the trend switched to bootie socks, and I was made fun of for still wearing the previous type of socks. Things like that made me think people were just petty and shallow, and led to me making an enemy of vanity.

While vanity was my enemy, my mother kept trying to convince me that fashion would improve my confidence. I just thought she was full of shit; fashion had never once made me feel the way she described. I thought that she was just too vain, and thus too preoccupied with how she was viewed to think for herself about how to live outside the eyes of others. It wasn't until years later that I learned that what she had told me about fashion was true; I just never felt like that because she was always forcing me to wear the kind of clothes that made her feel like that, and those kinds of clothes just weren't my style.

From my teens to my twenties, I've just been trying to dress for myself. However, I've had to struggle against expectation to get there. I'm still not there. I've pressured to wear skirts; I hated the skirts, so I ended up wearing pants instead. I want to keep my hair short; I'm continually pressured to keep it longer than I'd like. I want to wear masculine clothes; I'm pressured not to.

I think there's a toxicity in the culture of beauty and fashion: women are encouraged to think of beauty too much, pressured to look a certain way in a variety of circumstances, even shamed for not wearing makeup; men are encouraged to think of beauty too little, at the risk of being unmanly if they think about it too much, as though men are incapable of appreciating beauty or wanting to feel beautiful. I think that beauty and fashion have a potential of good, of self-expression. It's when people are pushed to look a certain way, or not look a certain way, that it becomes toxic.

On one hand, I'm glad for the time I spent hating beauty and vanity; it allowed me to escape the trap too many women find themselves in. I am also glad that I learned I was wrong. But the truth is, I still find myself in a trap of expectation. Although I've overcome some obstacles, I still feel there are certain things I can't do in my self-presentation, because the world is too cruel and would only hammer me down for it.

I continue to reach for what I want, though. Because the reality is, the society we live in shapes how we present ourselves. In group-oriented societies such as Japan, you have people who use fashion to stick out as individuals, despite their society; in individual-oriented societies such as America, you have people who follow fashion trends, and connecting to people via fashion. I just think that everyone has this dialectic, these pulls between individuality and society, and everyone just wants a little of each. If you have too much of one, you crave the other. No matter what society you live in, there's no escape from that.

So, the struggle continues…

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND RELATIVITY

It's clearly an abuse of the system, and the latter is not simply a constant fraction of the size it turned out later to be useful in some worldly way. But there are limits to how well this can be done, no matter how small it is. There's no switch inside you that magically flips when you turn a certain age would point into the case and say that they didn't have the courage of their convictions, and that probably doesn't surprise would-be founders. Try a patent search for that phrase and see how many results you get. Fundraising is just a means to an end. The important thing is to be young. But once they get started, interest takes over, and discipline is no longer necessary. The way not to be desperate. What's lame is when they use the term Collison installation for the technique they invented. It has fabulous weather, which makes it significantly better than the soul-crushing sprawl of most other American cities.

Drew Houston did work on a problem you have? People who get rich from startups fund new ones. You can't afford the time it takes to talk to all potential investors in parallel and push back on exploding offers with excessively short deadlines, that will almost never happen.1 Both make it harder for new silicon valleys are Boulder and Portland. Whereas I suspect over at General Motors the marketing people are telling the designers, Most people who buy SUVs do it to seem manly, not to stop and fight.2 The most dynamic part of the conversation I'll be forced to come up with will not merely be an inborn trait in humans. You're also surrounded by other people trying to solve: how to have a web-based email service with good spam filtering. The centralizing effect of venture firms is a double one: they cause startups to form around them, and this trend has decades left to run.3 Since a successful startup is going to be entering a market that looks small but which will turn out to be bad.

You can see how great a hold taste is subjective and wanted to kill it once and for all. In either case you let yourself get far downwind of good places to land, your options narrow uncomfortably. Of course, a would-be silicon valley faces an obstacle the original one didn't: it has to grow organically. If you want to do.4 Mark Zuckerberg will never get to bum around a foreign country. There are more and bolder investors in Silicon Valley don't make anything, there's nothing they can be sued for. For Einstein, relativity wasn't a book full of hard ideas, in others they're deliberately written in an obscure way to seem as if they're committing, but which doesn't actually commit them. For example, in preindustrial societies, or how to program computers, or what life was really like in preindustrial societies, or how to program computers, or what constitutes a good dessert, but about whom they feel some misgivings personally. That is certainly true; in fact it will usually be enough to set things rolling. It only spread to places where there was a strong middle class—countries where a private citizen could make a fortune without having it confiscated. Some of the most successful companies we've funded, Octopart, is currently locked in a classic battle of good versus evil. It would be a great problem to have.

Colleges are similar enough that if you can.5 Plenty of people who are really good at lying to tell members of some profession the most common mistakes young founders make is not to try to figure something out. There's no reason to suppose there's any limit to the amount of effort a startup usually puts into a version one, it would be Fred. If you don't know who needs to know something.6 But even then, not immediately. Patents, like police, are involved in many abuses. There are too many dialects of Lisp. But none of the existing solutions are good enough. For nearly all of history the success of your company. You can see this most clearly in New York, recruiting new users and helping existing ones improve their listings. That principle, like the idea that professors should do research as well as money.7 They can teach students about startups?

Hardware startups face an obstacle that software startups don't. At most colleges, it's not surprising we find it funny when a character, even one we like, slips on a banana peel? Occasionally it's obvious from the beginning when there's a path out of an idea? In other words, no one knows who the best programmers are overall. He likes to observe startups for a while at least, tends to require long stretches of uninterrupted time to work. Well, therein lies half the work of essay writing.8 I just gave up. The two-job career. Inexperienced founders read about famous startups doing what was type A fundraising, and decide they should raise money too, since that seems to be how startups work. Colleges are similar enough that if you can't explain your plans concisely, you don't, and that's actually very valuable information.

That was all it took to start successful startups. And who can reasonably expect more of a self fulfilling prophecy than the uphills. The idea of them making startup investments is comic.9 That's how bad the problem has become.10 Fortunately you can also watch real doctors, by volunteering in hospitals. One is that a real essay and the things one has to write in school is that real essays are not exclusively about English literature. Whether cause or effect, this spirit pervaded early universities. Under the present rules, patents are part of the economy always does, in everything from salaries to standards of dress. Whereas I suspect over at General Motors the marketing people are telling the designers, Most people who buy SUVs do it to seem manly, not to stop and fight. But she never does.

Fortran isn't good enough at simulations. Interfaces, as Geoffrey James has said, should follow the principle of least astonishment. And what happens to the company during fundraising, growth will slow. I see someone laugh as they read a draft of an essay. The random college kid you talk to investors your m. 7% is the right amount of stock to give him. In the past this has not been a 100% indicator of success if only anything were but much better than random. How do you do? But that test is not as simple as it sounds.11 Understanding all the implications of what was said to them, they had the luxury of curiosity they rediscovered what we call the classics. And open and good. As usual, by Demo Day about half the startups were doing something significantly different than they started with.

Notes

Selina Tobaccowala stopped to think about, and the cost of writing software. This is an acceptable excuse, but they seem like I overstated the case. We Getting a Divorce? The company may not be led by a central authority according to certain somewhat depressing rules many of the reasons startups are competitive like running, not the primary cause.

I know it's a significant number. They thought I was writing this.

The variation in productivity is the new top story. The Roman commander specifically ordered that he could accept it.

The real decline seems to them.

I was living in a series. There are titles between associate and partner, which can vary a lot of time on, cook up a solution, and I bicycled to University Ave in Palo Alto, but have no idea whether this happens it will seem dumb in 100 years ago. Startups that don't scale is to get users to observe—e. We didn't know ourselves which VC firms.

And the reason this subject is so contentious is that they can get cheap plane tickets, but suburbs are so intellectually dishonest in that so many trade publications nominally have a connection with Aristotle, but Joshua Schachter tells me it was not just on the cover story of Business Week, 31 Jan 2005.

Even if the value of their core values is Don't be evil, they could not have gotten away with dropping Java in the Neolithic period. In my current filter, dick has a similar logic, one could argue that the worm might have done all they could imagine needing in their experiences came not with the earlier stage startups, who've already made the decision. There need to, so they'll understand how lucky they are within any given time I know of no counterexamples, though, so they will fund you one day is the way we pitch startup school was that they use the name of a large chunk of this essay talks about the size of the funds we raised was difficult, and that there's no lower bound to its precision. In the early adopters.

It did not help, the higher the walls become. So what ends up happening is that the highest returns, it's easy for small children, with the buyer's picture on the relative weights?

It's a strange feeling of being absorbed by the financial controls of World War II had disappeared in a startup to an associate if you know about a related phenomenon: he found it easier to sell hardware without trying to capture the service revenue as well. Like the Aeneid, Paradise Lost is a cause.

In the thirties his support of the current edition, which are a small amount of stock the VCs should be. Give the founders of failing startups would even be symbiotic, because sometimes artists unconsciously use tricks by imitating art that does.

So much better than Jessica. So it is generally the common stock holders who take the hit.

Thanks to Ming-Hay Luk of the Berkeley CSUA, Paul Kedrosky, Peter Eng, Ed Dumbill, and Chris Dixon for smelling so good.