#Before I start my university course where I will end up with a B1 of German

[eky11]

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"In constant fear, huh?"

@eky11

[danwhobrowses]

Star Wars Visions - Review

So I finally finished watching all of Visions, the ambitious anime project set in a Star Wars loose if at all canon, and I truly had a good time with it, as a fan of anime and Star Wars I was curious how they would deliver.

Spoilers for Visions, watch it then come back here to read what I thought about it. Reminder: This is my own personal opinion

So as I said, really enjoyed this experiment Disney decided to take, the 9 episodes weren't all flawless but they weren't awful either, so I'm gonna go through what I liked and disliked about it.

We'll start with the negatives, since they're few, picky and it gets it out of the way.

What Wasn't Great

Runtime A veiled negative has to be many episode's runtimes being too short, some only lasting 10-15 minutes. Before watching I was expecting all to be at least 30 minutes, so it was a shame that none lasted that long.

Episode 2: Glorified Music Video I think Episode 2 was perhaps the weakest episode of the nine for me, because it was all building up to a song. I think it probably leaned a bit too much on existing characters like Jabba and Boba, as well as Tatooine, to carry interest, so it was a bit of a low point.

Episode 3: Studio Trigger keep their balls away from the wall Episode 3's The Twins wasn't bad, it just lingered a bit too much on the less fun things. Studio Trigger had made a name for themselves for striking visuals and absolutely batshit crazy fight scenes that ignore all manner of physics with the likes of Promare, Kill La Kill and Darling of the Franxx (and kinda Gurren Lagann, the company was made as a result of that so it's like a Studio Ghibli thing with Nausicaa) but The Twins didn't have enough of the major fight scene for my liking, given how most of what we saw was in the trailer. Maybe it's the fault of the trailer, but it did feel like you could just watch the trailer rather than the episode, which is a bad thing.

Episode 7 too, but it also lacks bravery The Elder was also a good episode, but it too lacked in the final fight, the ending being very abrupt. The Elder also had a problem in that they wasted their good characters, but also failed in stakes. Had the padawan been killed instead of simply being wounded by a lightsaber slash to the belly it probably would've worked more, since we were shown that the Elder is precise in his cutting and it would've served to increase the urgency of the master fighting him too. The fight was short and out of the characters we lost it was the most important character that bit the dust.

The Episode Order could've been Better My final criticism has to be that the order of the episodes felt like it could've been better. Starting with The Duel was right but following it up with Tatooine Rhapsody brought the mood down, likewise putting The Elder after T0-B1 was perhaps too jarring a theme switch. The bigger sin was probably ending with Akakiri. Akakiri was good, but it was a downer and you don't really finish a Season 1 on a downer because you want people to feel excited for more rather than feeling bleak about it; with the options of Lop & Ocho, The Elder, The Village Bride and The Ninth Jedi (which would've been my pick for episode 9) it was an odd choice to pace the episodes in such a way - even when knowing that people would binge in this order. FYI if you wanted to know how I would've ordered the episodes it would've been The Duel -> The Elder -> The Twins -> Lop & Ocho -> Tatooine Rhapsody -> T0-B1 -> The Village Bride -> Akakiri -> The Ninth Jedi

This way we start strong with Sith-heavy episodes that grip with combat, we have the Duel to set us off, we show off the Elder to sell the Dark Side's strength, which blends into the Twins and that sibling relationship blends into Lop & Ocho, we use Tatooine Rhapsody as an intermission of sorts but then carry the lighter theme with T0-B1, whose artistic elements and worldbuilding leans into the Village Bride. We make Akakiri the penultimate since we show the Jedi succumb to the Dark for love in contrast to the Elder where the Jedi succeeds by steeling emotions, before finishing strong with Ninth Jedi.

What Was Great

Anime is perfect for Star Wars Star Wars has of course delved into animation before; Clone Wars (both), Rebels, Resistance and Bad Batch, but never like Anime. So Visions was allowed to shine by showing off everything anime can offer which more realistic CGI and live action could not. Bright colour grading, physics-defying movement, as well as unique character and lightsaber shapes.

(Mostly) Not Wasting Time While I have criticized some episodes for not making the most of things, and not having enough time, but many episodes would last 12-15 minutes and still feel like they had a coherent storylines with no gaps in getting to know the brand new characters or a lack of important information and investment. It is a testament to the good writing of the episodes that episodes got so much from such little time.

We're Left Wanting More In spite many episodes' brevity, the good writing also provided us stories with great potential to be fleshed out. Who wouldn't want to learn more about these new characters? See most of their adventures? The franchise potential from certain stories' one episode makes the experiment an unequivocal success.

The different styles add to the story Using a different anime studio for each story allowed each episode to stand out in their own way, and lean on different areas of importance. The Duel for instance applied a Kurosawa aesthetic which made the audience anticipate samurai themes. As much as the animation will get props for its visuals, environments and character design we should also give a hat-tip to the amazing music, especially in The Village Bride, and the voice acting from both JP and EN. We had some recognizable faces on both sides with EN having Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Harbour, George Takei, Neil Patrick Harris, Allison Brie, Simu Liu, Karen Fukuhara, Lucy Liu and Taemura Morrison reprising as Boba, while on the JP side we had names familiar with One Piece (Zoro - why you gotta be a sith Zoro!, Brook, Tama, Kiku), DBZ (Goku), Naruto (Hidan, Tayuya and if you count Boruto; Chocho and Kawaki), Jujitsu Kaisen (Itadori, Megumi, Nobara) and more. The different styles also allowed a greater freedom to lore between studios, I know the lightsaber colour thing was done in High Republic but I did like how in the Ninth Jedi Kara's lightsaber started out translucent (I actually preferred it that way), while not diverting too far away from the canon.

The Samurai style episodes were the strongest While some episodes leaned on other elements of Star Wars, the best of the bunch kept true with the correlation force users had with samurai. The Duel, Village Bride and Ninth Jedi - alongside Akakiri, Elder and kinda T0-B1 - had strong showings by maintaining their force user characters as samurai or samura-esque, which only added to the themes of the episodes too.

Its success will hopefully entice more Studios and Directors A positive for the future is the fact that there is a future. Visions has plenty of mileage as both a series of one-off stories or stories that can be expanded upon, and its success will mean that more will be on the cards. Imagine now what other studios may want to try their hand at their own story in this universe? And what it does not only for the franchise but also the animation studios themselves, because this in itself becomes a bridge for fans on either side to be introduced to the other; new anime fans, new star wars fans, everybody wins.

Conclusion

Visions provides an alternative in Star Wars media outside of live action but also away from the CGI tv shows, but it has started off strongly almost as well as The Mandalorian and in my opinion better than the Bad Batch did. My favourite episode was probably the Ninth Jedi, but Village Bride and the Duel are close runners up, soon followed by Lop & Ocho, I hope very much that the stories these ones started especially can be fleshed out and maybe even greenlit for their own series, while also curious about what more Star Wars can deliver.

All in all, good job for everyone, they took a risk and it paid off.

[ravenlesslangblr]

hello!! i am currently studying french at university (it's my second major) and i believe i am at a2/b1. after having been taught french for the past 13 weeks, i am afraid that i forgot how to teach myself. of course, sometimes, i'll "study" by watching a french film or tv show but i was hoping you could recommend to me other ways of studying a language? also is it normal to get "sick" of a langauge? and is that a sign you should take a break? like i feel like i should but i dont want to lose it

Hello, thanks so much for the ask! It always brightens my day :)  I definitely think that watching something or listening to music are some of the best ways you can learn a language. Youtube is also pretty good, I’m pretty sure that if you look through my French tag you’ll be able to find some suggestions, I reblog things every now and then and I definitely reblogged Youtuber suggestions before, including descriptions! As for French specifically, around the A2/B1 level, I’d definitely make use of the wide range of resources for French! Look up DELF topics and vocab lists and grammar summaries. I would try to utilise all of them at the same time by writing little essays on the topics, use the vocab and some of the new grammar, just to get the hang of it. I’m pretty sure you’d be able to find some prompts too! They don’t have to be proper essays or anything, I wouldn’t do anything too long or too challenging. Just get the word list and the topic, pick one grammar point and write about 150-200 words, utilising as many words and the grammar point at least two or three times in different forms. Maybe like as a little exercise at the end of the day.  Long post so I put it under read more :)

You can also definitely find French books for this level and there is quite a few podcasts, like the one by Duolingo. CoffeeBreak French is also good, but it can be challenging for a lower intermediate learner. (However, good as a challenge to get you into the deep end, even just understanding a few words always counts! They’re about 20 minutes, so I’d definitely divide them up into two segments)  Also, you’re at the right stage to really tailor down your usage of the language. Try to collect as much vocab and phrases on the topics that you are interested in and that you want to talk about. You can talk to yourself, or once again try the little essays or diary entries. Make sure that you know a lot on topics that you’re familiar with and that you can somewhat comfortably talk/write about them. There’s no need for fluency or anything, just feeling comfortable. So that you know the word for ‘lens’ if you like photography or the word for ‘paintbrush’ if you like art and that you can effortlessly build a few sentences.  B2 and C1 is really where you start branching out from this comfort zone, so I think you should have this comfort zone first.  Hope this helps, I just thought that I would type up a few suggestions of what I think is good to know or useful at this stage (depending on how you learn and what you want to achieve, of course!!). No need to be fluent and no need to be putting a lot of pressure on yourself, but at this stage, you should start feeling comfortable with the language, especially when it comes to familiar topics. As for getting ‘sick’ of a language. Very normal and very valid!! Doesn’t necessarily need to be a sign to take a break, but perhaps you should review how you’re learning and which methods you find fun and which ones are most efficient and change up the method a little. If it still continues then yes, might be time for a break...or you just need to find something motivating again.  Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, friend, et bonne chance! 

[marshmallowprotection]

ANOTHER MC! YES I KNOW SO MANY OOF LOL. 

Match up as usual.

I honestly had trouble coming up with her personality- Like…making someone whose mature and older sisterly and whose also a idol for some reason is hard??? idk oof. Less sad MC this time but still with a bit of tragedy. But she’s not unable to move on like Marina, or manipulated by Rika into Mint Eye through Rika by making her trust her like Sayaka, so yeah.

No drawing this time, I have to do my math and science finals after this so oof.

Full Name: Yeona Mae

International Age: 25 (AS) 26 (OS)

Korean Age: 26 (AS) 27 (OS)

Nicknames: N/A

Blood Type: O+

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Marital Status: Single; Has Had 3 Previous Serious Relationships, the third of which would have resulted in marriage had her fiancee not passed away.

Ethnicity: Korean

Nationality: South Korea

Religion: Catholic

Birthdate: September 14th, 1990

Zodiac: Virgo

Height: 5′5 ft (165 cm)

Weight: 130 lbs (58 kgs)

*Status: Alive (All Routes Except Certain Endings)

Cleansed (V’s B1, and all of Ray’s bad endings) 

*In the secret ending, if she is not the MC, Yeona is kidnapped by Unknown by order of Rika (due to her extreme amount of influence and connections) and was about to go through her cleansing ceremony before the whole fiasco with V’s death. 

Yeona is also kidnapped in Another Story regardless of route if she is not the MC, and her fate differs based on the ending. If on V’s route and Bad Ending 1 occurs, she is cleansed and becomes part of Mint Eye since she was not able to escape with V, the MC, and Seven (and Myung if she exists in the timeline. Remember, there are multiple different timelines in the world of SV’s (short for SerendipitousValkeria) version of the Mystic Messenger universe.). Yeona escapes in all of V’s other endings. 

In Ray’s route she escapes alone after Ray manages to help her escape before he hurries to help the MC of the route; note only if Ray’s Bad Ending 3 has not had it’s required conditions fulfilled will she be able to escape, so if she does not that would become a sign that your at the point of no return to Ray’s B3. she also does not escape in any of the other bad endings Ray has. 

Occupation: Second child of the CEO of a company similar in size to C&R, one of the most popular Idols in South Korea.

Hobbies: Singing, Working Out (Not As Much As Zen Does, Though), Swimming, Visiting Her Fiancée’s Grave

Likes: The Ocean, Swimming, Playing Tennis, Taking Long Walks On Beaches, The Smell of Lavender, Listening To Music, Musicals, Watching Zen’s Musicals, Concerts

Dislikes: Echo Girl, Spiders, Alcohol, Her Mother, People Liking Her Only For Her Beauty, People Who Tell Her To “Just Get Over Your Fiancée Already!”

Affiliations: RFA 

Mint Eye (V’s B1, Ray’s B1, B2, and B3) 

Relatives: Father

Mother

Older Brother (2 years older)

Younger Brother (3 years younger)

Younger Sister (5 years younger) 

Unnamed Fiancée (Deceased)

Background: Yeona Mae is the second child of the CEO of a successful company which specializes in a variety of things. Her entire life she has mostly been pampered like a princess almost, however, she was always taken care of by people other than her parents, who were busy running the company, leading to her basically having to raise herself. She was also jealous of her older brother a lot due to him being the “favorite” since he was the heir to the company and was constantly fawned over by her parents, who ignored her and her younger brother and sister. She ended up also having to raise her younger siblings since they were also ignored by her parents. When she was 5 she went to her first concert, which caused her interest in music and singing. As time went on she started taking singing lessons. When she decided to start her career as a idol when she was 19, she explicitly told her parents she was going to start from scratch and build up her career on her own without their money or help, which they respected and haven’t in anyway influenced her career as a idol since. Her career started to really kick off when she was 21, with the release of her 10th song, “What Is Love?”, which was conceptualized with the question of “What is love, really?” as Yeona had no real concept of what love was since her parents were quite obviously in a loveless relationship, having more kids for the sake of having extra heirs in case of Yeona’s older brother being unable to take over the company when her father dies. Yeona’s first relationship was the first time she had ever really known what love was like, and despite the relationship not working out in the end, her and her first love are still friends. Yeona’s second relationship was with a fellow idol, but again, it didn’t work out. Yeona’s third relationship did end up working out as her third lover ended up proposing to her, and she said yes. However, tragically, her fiancée died in a car accident due to his friend being drunk and driving without him knowing and they both died in the crash. Yeona was devastated and put her idol career on hold to mourn. Because of the loss, Yeona ended up believing she could never love someone like that again because she was so lost in what to do, since her future with her fiancée was now gone and she didn’t know what to do with herself. However, eventually, she managed to move on somewhat and started back up her idol career with the song “Hearts Separated By Death”, then followed by it’s sequel, “Mended Heart”. Yeona got into swimming a little bit after her fiancée’s death as something to distract herself from everything and keep her mind off things.

Yeona could be described as a big sisterly sort of person, caring very much for those around her due to the fact she had to raise herself and her two younger siblings. Yeona overall lives in the present, especially after her fiancée died, preferring not to plan because things could go to shit very quickly. She enjoys every second and like to savor happy little moments and just not think about everything else. She also can be a bit absent minded, getting lost in her own world sometimes because of a desire to go to a world where everything can last forever- of course, she knows it’s a stupid fantasy that can never come true. Yeona also is very good at reading people, and it’s very hard to hard to hide what your feeling from her. It’s also hard to lie to her, though someone like Rika could still manage to deceive her. Yeona also has a smart mouth and can be very sassy and sarcastic when she wants to be. Yeona always heavily enjoys teasing people. 

Trivia:

1. Yeona has red hair (a little different than Saeyoung’s and Saeran’s) and green eyes.

2. Yeona’s most popular song is a song about her experience when her third boyfriend (and former fiancée) died in a car accident, called “Hearts Separated By Death”, created 7 months after he died.

3. Yeona’s favorite color is teal. 

4. Yeona despises Echo Girl but pretends to be “completely neutral” toward her.

5. Yeona is a fan of Zen and has met him before. She has often praised his work in public and in private. Their casual friends. 

6. Yeona has often had to debunk rumors about her and Zen being in a secret relationship because everyone wants to see the “prettiest idol around” and the “handsomest actor around” get together. She has stated she is still not in any position to get into another relationship (considering her fiancee died only 2 months before Rika “died”, so 20 months (or a year and 6 months) ago in CS and DS and 3 months ago in AS). 

7. Since she comes from a wealthy family, Yeona had the resources to learn multiple languages, and so besides Korean and Korean Sign Language, Yeona is also fluent in: English, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese, as well as their forms of sign language, which has been useful due to her little brother (who is 3 years younger) being born mute. — Submission

I match with you... 

V! 

You’re the kind of person that cares about everyone around you. It’s never really been about you. It’s been about everyone else in the room and it’s hard for you to accept that you can be selfish sometimes. It’s unfortunate, but it happens far more often than it should to many people. Still, you don’t let it get you down as much as it might, but it’s hurting your heart whether you want to open up about this fact or not. It makes it hard for you to reach out to others when you do find yourself catching feelings because how does one open up when they’re not sure what love should feel like? 

Gonna go out on a limb and say that you need the kind of partner that understands what you’re going through and won’t force you to rush and do anything. You and V are both the type that needs to be friends before you rush headstrong into something. There’s a lot that you could learn from each other on the front of opening up about what hurt you in the first place. So, you’re the types to exchange letters, texts, and late night phone calls as friends before romance ever hits. 

He may be the quiet type but he is supportive, he admires that you have the confidence to do what you wanted even if it made someone upset. He wishes that he would have had that gall when he was younger. No changing the past but he’s happy to spend his future with you. He can be a bit-scattered himself so you both need to be on top of each other when it comes to times and dates. 

[masteringtheartof-france]

part two : why Paris ?

I grew up in Michigan, and started my undergrad as a fashion merchandising student. I quickly realized it wasn't for me, and transferred to the University of Michigan, where I studied art history and French. 

I went abroad for the first time a year before I started at Michigan, in 2012, when I was 18. My grandmother, who grew up in northern France, wanted to take my mom and I to visit her family still living there. We went for a month, spending most of our time in Brittany between Le Pouliguen, La Baule and Guérande, and in the north in Tourcoing. I was promised a trip to Paris if I went (as I was so terrified of the flight and of being so far away from home) and so my mom and I spent a week in Paris with my cousin, who was living there at the time. I remember being overwhelmed by how beautiful everything was, and I told my mom that Paris was where I knew I wanted to live at some point in my life. 

Paris was really my first big-city experience — I had not yet been to NYC, and had only been to Chicago twice for day trips in elementary school. We went to Detroit for the Thanksgiving Parade when I was young, but it wasn't until Paris that I really felt that bustling city vibe, took the metro, was able to explore and soak it in. I fell in love that first week, and haven't looked back. 

The summer after my sophomore year of college, I studied abroad in Paris for six weeks. It took a lot of convincing – although I knew I loved Paris, I was still terrified of being so far away from home for so long. The program, Arts in Paris through the University of Michigan, was truly incredible. There were 25 of us, and we had a three-hour, intensive French class every morning at the Institute Catholique de Paris. Then we had lunch and would meet our professor, the head of the art history department at U of M, at a different museum, park, monument, or cemetery for an afternoon lecture on the history of Paris through its art. If I wasn't sold on art history before that summer, I was 100% completely  in love with it after. The chance to live in Paris and really get to know the city was amazing, and I fell deeply in love with it. I knew it was only the beginning. 

My very last semester, almost finished with my double major in Art History and French, I decided to go back to Paris. I enrolled in the Advanced French Language program through Middlebury College in Vermont, which had a partnership with U of M's study abroad center. If anyone has done a Middlebury program, you know just how intense it is — Middlebury has one of the top language programs. We had to take a language pledge when we got to Paris, stating that we would only communicate in French for the duration of the program. (Of course, there was some cheating — it was hard to speak French with the students I already knew from Michigan, and the bigger the group, the more inclination to speak English together. But a few of my friends from Middlebury and I spoke only French together for months, becoming friends in French before we ever spoke English together.) We also took the TCF (Test de connaissance du français) the first week, in January, to gauge our French level, and took it again at the end of the program to see how much we had improved. (I went from a B1 to a C1!)

I took three art history classes at Université Paris 1 : Panthéon-Sorbonne, and two classes (art history and French) at Middlebury College (they have a tiny building near Madeleine!). Honestly, I wasn't a huge fan of the French school system. We were direct-enrolled at the Sorbonne, and the first day of class was a bit of a shock — the teacher passed around a sign up sheet for our exposés, and I went up to her after class, saying that as I was an international student, I was pretty sure I didn't have to do the presentation (because, seriously, the moment I heard presentation, I practically had a panic attack). Oh how wrong I was... Our grades in each class consisted of our exposé (yes, that means a 20 minute presentation, IN FRENCH, in front of a class full of French students, about an assigned topic), and our final, written exam. That was it. No homework, no assigned reading. Just an entirely too long, unabridged bibliography on every book ever written (or so it seemed) on the class topic, that I never bothered to read, as it was just too daunting (plus, they were all in French, and checking books out of the library isn't really a thing). My saving grace was that my grades came through to Michigan as pass/fail. My Middlebury friends didn't have it quite so easy, and many tears were shed by all as exam season rolled around. Needless to say, this was not the jet-off-to-Europe-on-study-abroad-and-visit-a-different-country-every-weekend kind of experience that most people have. I got a few weekend trips in to see family, but I had to wait until the semester was over to do the big trips. 

However, it was this semester of disciplined, full immersion that really helped me get fluent and comfortable in French. The exposés were horrible at the time, but I got more comfortable with speaking and presenting. Once you've presented in front of a room full of native speakers, in a language you're not quite comfortable in, a presentation in your own language is suddenly so easy. 

I moved back home after my semester abroad (after a month-long Eurail trip around Europe with my best friend) and tried to find a job, and figure what was next. I ended up back in my retail job in Ann Arbor, hating my lack of prospects and wanting to be anywhere else — but mostly just back in Paris. I got in a few little weekend trips with my boyfriend, but was really just miserable. Eventually, I got a job working retail in NYC, and made the big move — but my boyfriend wasn't ready to move, and I was making next to nothing, trying to support myself in the city. I loved NYC but knew that it just wasn't the right time, that I needed to have a real career if I was going to move there and be able to make it. So after my third move to a new sublet in two months, I decided to head back to the midwest and figure out my life. 

to be continued..

[blaperile]

Homestuck Epilogue(s) - Prologue (page 2)

Live reactions to page 2 of the Epilogue beneath the Read More!

[abundantchewtoys]

Homestuck Epilogues: Prologue, reaction post part 1

So me and Blaperile have decided to start reading it now. I kind of hope the format & art style stays true to form, but then again, change could be interesting. In any case, if this epilogue were to include the already posted snaps, that would be a break from format in image size (not including the credits, of course).

I guess if there is immediately an [S] page, it'll be the second one, not the first, to give use aheads up in the command.

Okay, so the first is a title page.

The link to the next page says... homestuck.com/epilogues/proglogue. Andrew, NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

(Yeah okay, so it has begun. Again.)

I could see the snaps being the prologue, since they kind of set the stage for what's to come. Jane taking control over The Felt being a major development, for one. Also, the noted absence of Davepetasprite^2 & Arquiusprite on Earth C. Or, perhaps rather, the noted presence of all the other sprites, they didn't stop being spirit guides after the game ended. And in the credits of course, there was John's being aggravated by Caliborn to the point this all would lead presumably to the clay doll scene Caliborn showed us, taking place further into the future than any of us had business viewing at the time.

---

> Start

AAAAAAHHHHH, Homestuck's a fanfic now!!! Yes, this is the Archive of Our Own format, including tags and... Andrew is no longer sole author of this story!!!

We have achieved MAXIMUM FANDOM (or should I say FANON).

Characters: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-h... Barack Obama?! :P I guess maybe John switched to a Baracktop in light of out-of-story events, plus of course Dave's idolization of the man. :P And Aranea returns!! And Davepeta too, cool! ... Wait, there's gonna be new OCs?? :P ... In before Joey & Jude & troll friends join the Homestuck madness. Well, if we can rely on this list of course. This IS Andrew Hussie we're talking about, of course.

Hmmm, Blaperile has a good point that Davepeta & Arquius are mentioned but not their component A2 trolls, since the "main" versions of them (post-retcon) are inside the sprites! And that all these characters except maybe for Caliborn (pre-LE, I mean) MIGHT just end up in the Furthest Ring together to do... whatever there needs to be done with the black hole aftermath of the standoff between Vriska & LE. And Calliope seems to be joining them, which is a nice thing to look forward too, main Calliope doing a plot thing. ... No mention of carapaces, but again, that doesn't have to mean anything.

Caliborn's entry seems to me to imply we might see the claydoll fight animated (or at least drawn) properly! :D

Barack is probably an Easter Egg just, nothing more. Which is funny because Easter is coming.

Content warnings: ... All these things (well not all of them, but) just refer to things mentioned in Homestuck proper. :P Quite the list we racked up, eh? Also, Gamzee hath invaded the list: clowns, honk... Hahah. Surprised "horses" didn't make it on here. And puppets. So I know I was saying I don't really believe these tags to truthfully warn about things to come in this epic, but I'm kind of scared by the mention of Trickster Mode. :P ... Oh yeah, hahah, that WAS something that happened at the wedding, didn't it, Calliope bringing the sucker & transforming John & the B2 kids? So that thing survived the end of the session we know.

Another thing making me uncomfortable is all the illicit subjects the warnings are about, but yeah, that's what a lot of fanfics contain.

Summary: ... Ooooh, so John DIDN'T immediately take off to fight Caliborn! That's... I actually had wagered the epilogue to start on April 13th, 2019 thinking about it over the weekend. It would just seem so fitting, but I thought it might have been so that the B2 kids would have aged a relative 2 years during the time the B1 kids were stuck in the house. So that they could go back to filling that big brother/sister relationship that was kind of always there, first & foremost shown in the Strider Bros, later when we didn't know yet that the kids would be the same age when they'd meet up, during Act 6 Act 1.

Blaperile has a good point, this means Terezi has been exploring the Furthest Ring for 7 years (or almost 4 sweeps).

Contents: This looks like it could grow into a list. Since, well, this is the prologue just yet for the epilogue hahah. Then again, maybe we 'return' to this page after the prologue is done, only for the list to have grown with the next... "act".

> Prologue

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH WALL OF TEXT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH HOMESTUCK IS A FANFIC NOWWWWWWWWWWWWW for real. ... Oh dear god.

Well, it's definitely a medium Andrew didn't touch on yet, the "picture this for yourselves" type of fiction. Kind of incentive for people to draw this for themselves.

And then Homestuck became a serialized novel. :D

Okay that entire first sentence. I'm definitely on the same page here as everyone when I say this must be about the Furthest Ring cracking. ... I think Andrew's propensity for dragging out a story comes over quite well in fanfic prose form.

Hmm... So, "eternity" is being filled by the black hole, and continuity is buckling up? Seems like the entirety of Homestuck proper might be at risk of being undone in something more damaging than a mere retcon.

Wow, nice vivid description of the dreambubbles being shattered. "Hypothetical futures", does that suggest that the ghosts of alternate timelines were more like... mirages? That's a harsh thing to swallow, and not something any of them would have been happy hearing stated as fact. Well, except the Aradiabots, maybe. "Double-death" mention!

... So there's a symphony at the center of the black hole. Does that mean Alternate Calliope still lives (or well, "exists"), as the conductor of the havoc? It's super black at the center, apparently. Like, Vantablack?

Wait, "> Wake up"? Did John dream about the Furthest Ring? ... What DO the kids dream, after they won the game? Or rather, where do they dream?

"You've been dreaming in anime again." Ah yes, there's the first real meme of the evening. So, John rejects this dramatic dream and will rather substitute his own fantasies? :P

"> Look outside just to make absolutely sure the world is not ending." --> Why does it feel like we've started this adventure anew? Why are command prompts working out so well in this format?

'The only sound you can hear for miles is the wind skimming the hollows of your neighbors’ pipe homes.' Well, if that isn't a reference to his atmospheric page! And oh yeah, that was his new neighbourhood! Or, after 7 years, not 'new' anymore, I guess.

'It’s a normal day in the salamander village, which you refer to as Salamander Village because the damned salamanders never bothered to give this village a name, you guess.' Perfection. So, it appears the consort species remain the same, no matter how many millenia may pass. I wouldn't like to be a mail person in the Consort Kingdom, if all packages are to be delivered at Salamander Village. Then again, the Breeze might still be on mail duty on Earth C.

'Beside your pillow, your phone is vibrating. Rose is calling. The screen of your phone reads 9:30 a.m. April 13, and also the number forty-six, which is how many text messages your friend left you while you were sleeping. A bit excessive, even for her.' Ahahahah, so even in texts Rose is wordy!! Good to see they kept in contact, then. Not as much in-person contact, seeing the credits, but then again, the kids always used to live apart, didn't they? (I can still call them 'the kids', even if we're no longer a decade apart in age. Get of my lawn!)

"> Answer the phone." Yessssss, coloured text logs!! In the absence of drawings, it would've really sucked a little and be bland if we'd lacked this.

Aww, April 13th is still a solemn day for John. :/ Rose is calling it "April Thirteenth" as if it's a holiday, which it might just be. Blaperile has a good point that John has called Rose directly, and isn't texting. The immediate assumption for what Rose said, was that they don't talk a lot, but maybe they don't CALL each other a lot, just trade messages!

"You wander to the window and watch the salamanders go about their day. All over the neighborhood, the little dad-salamanders are putting on their little rumpled hats and picking up their little suitcases and kissing their little families goodbye for the day. You’ve always been confused about what, exactly, they contribute to the global economy. But it’s pretty cute how much they love playing at being suburban businessmen."

Pfff, the rumple hats are still a thing, guess the kids really did shape this universe in much the same way as the session! (Okay yeah, so, consorts came over from the session too, so the fact that the custom remains to the current day might just be another showcase for the status quo that consorts live under when not interacting with PCs...) Of course, this is going to sting for John, all this dadly business going around.

"The silence over the phone is growing awkward. You’ve stalled long enough. You decide to just come out and say it.

JOHN: i’ve been dreaming in anime again lately."

Aaaaaand meme number two is here. Blaperile mentioned Act 7, and yeah, John DID dream about the Furthest Ring & the blackhole, both centerpice in the Act 7 animated video. :P

"ROSE: i see." Therapist mode, engaged. Next, ask him how he feels about the dream, Rose.

"JOHN: whenever i have these dreams, everything’s breaking apart.

JOHN: millions of people are screaming and dying." Huh, is it that John didn't recognize the ghosts (being the oblivous bloke he is), or is there something more to the danger of the black hole? After all, after all of the Furthest Rings is swallowed, what's left is sessions and the universes they spawned...

"A couple yards over, a salamander blows an astounding spit bubble. Truly one for the books." Meanwhile...

"ROSE: I don’t have the slightest idea what it means that you’ve been dreaming in anime, John.

ROSE: To be honest, I...

You wait for Rose to finish her thought. She doesn’t, which is troubling because you have never known Rose to leave a thought unfinished in over ten years of acquaintance." ... Did she have a Light vision, or is someone pulling her sleeve about this or other with the troll grubs? It just hit me, we might be in for some new venues in the relationships between the humans & trolls, since yeah, they're all adults now.

"JOHN: rose... are you ok?

ROSE: Not exactly.

JOHN: what’s wrong?

ROSE: I think my condition’s been getting worse lately.

JOHN: condition?

ROSE: It’s why my message probably sounded urgent.

JOHN: you left 46 messages.

ROSE: Yes. They were all urgent.

JOHN: oh.

ROSE: I don’t think I can wait much longer before telling you."

So, Blaperile was theorizing Kanaya or Rose might be pregnant based on her trailing off. I dismissed it out of hand, but now... It would be just something for Rose to designate a pregnancy as a "condition". ... And to see contractions as a worsening of that condition. If John just talked about anime over Rose trying to tell him the baby is coming, I might just scream. And it's on HIS birthday, too!

"ROSE: I held out for as long as I could. I figured your birthday was as good a time as any to let you know.

JOHN: let me know what?

ROSE: It’s crept up on me, these last couple of years.

ROSE: Gradually enough to ignore as it was happening, but I can’t anymore." Okay, so this seems to dismiss that. I'm actually somewhere halfway between "Rose is suffering from some sort of aspect-driven migraine/dementia due to the black hole", or secondly "Rose is realizing she loves John (platonically)". I mean, the latter would be standard-issue Lalonde fuckery.

"ROSE: Lately the visions have been overwhelming.

JOHN: visions??

ROSE: John, I have terrible headaches these days. Talking on the phone doesn’t help at all.

ROSE: Would you mind flying to my apartment, so we can continue this in person?

JOHN: oh, yeah. you mean...

JOHN: now?

ROSE: Yes, now is the time.

ROSE: I’ve put it off long enough." ... Oh. So, I guess Rose was ignoring these visions because she was like "fuck you, multiverse, I earned my happy ending", which I get, but... What visions does she have, do they match what John was describing? (I don't think she wants to get him over for a surprise birthday party, in any case.)

Wow, okay, so whatever drove them to go fight Caliborn, it wasn't just John convincing the rest of them. Should've known, he was never that kind of leader.

"As you hang up the phone, a familiar feeling settles over you. A feeling of...standing? Standing, and being alone. In your bedroom. As a young man. On your birthday. You swear you’ve felt this feeling before. It’s almost like...

A young man stands alone in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, is this young man’s birthday. Though it was twenty-three years ago when he was given life, and ten years ago when he was given a name, it feels like it is only today that he will begin to understand what all that means.

That young man is YOU, John Egbert.

What will you do?"

Oh HELL yes. That first shoutout was glorious, but the actual word for word callback? Priceless. And the fact that the narration gives John the initiative for what happens now? Glorious. Because it sure as hell ain't gonna be US giving him prompts, this time around. And what in the high hills is there for John to find out about what it all means! I mean, is he going to discover the nature of his existence as a fictional character? Because that might just crush his widdle brains.

Okay, this is as good a place as any to cut off this liveblog. Since I'm not sure how long this prologue might continue after this!

Cooooool though, we've started this journey anew. For however long it's going to last. Which, given the fact the epilogues get their own entry on the Homestuck site... Might be a very, very long time. It's three years since the ending of Homestuck, and I wonder how reading up is going to be. For now, everything kind of fell back into the old pattern between me and Blaperile. We'll see what we'll do next.

I'm equal parts exhilarated and anxious about getting on Mr. Hussie's wild rollercoaster again, so I'm going to try and quarantine the anxious part and cultivate the exhilarated part.

[hugee0715]

2018

January

2 weeks into the year I cut my hair, probably like 80% of it. Which I quickly regretted. It just seems like every year starts with me doing something to myself, except this one. This January there'll be no surprise, promise.

I also had to decide what schools and courses I wanted to apply to until the 15th. So being the person that I am, at 23:20 on the 14th I submitted all the forms. Earth science, civil engineering or software engineering? I had another 6 month to find out which path my life would take.

February

This photo was taken at around 6 in the morning when I was on my way to a nearby city to take a language certification exam. I was so nervous because I was going into the C1 level right away, basically blindly with no exam experience whatsoever. I remember arriving and meeting 3 other girls who were there for the exam too. We started chatting and they all said that they took the B1 level previously because their teacher advised them. One has already failed, this was her second time. One was there with a whole book of exercises. They all looked so prepared and for a moment I panicked. If I were to fail that day, I'd have had 40 less points for my university application. And a lost bet with my girlfriend. But I didn't fail neither of those.

I also got my girl into MBTI that month, which quickly became the new astrology of our relationship. ENFP-INTP pairing. Cute, huh?

March

This was the month where I kind of chilled down for a moment. It was totally unjustifiable but I still did, thinking I've got plenty of time still till exams would start. I was going to school, doing some small preparations but nothing major.

April

Now this was the month where I regretted all the laziness back in March. My days were counted and I know that makes it sound like I was about to be executed but that's exactly how I felt.

On top of that, in the middle of the month my mum got hospitalized suddenly. It was supposed to be just a check but they didn't let her leave after it. My days were spent with visiting her instead of going to school. She scared us shitless but slowly she started getting better with each day and by the second week she was already coming home.

May

Oh May. I had graduation right at the beginning of the month and 2 days later my week of exams started. A peaceful image of my table right before maths exam. 20 minutes later it wasn't as peaceful anymore.

School ended for good and we had a monthish time before the second part of it all, which are the oral exams.

June

So many papers, hundreds of pages littered everywhere. Stress, overthinking, contemplating why I even applied for software engineering when I was so sure I'd fail the comsci exam, procrastinating, some self pity and over all panic.

One of the exceptions was this day, my mum's work did a little event. They work with old people, helping handicapped elders. A school building full of people who long left the classrooms, doing all kinds of crafts, little games and even some shooting outside. We sat around painting on glass, doing things we probably haven't done together in like a decade.

29 out of 50 so be careful, sharp shooter right here.

July

The 25th came around and at 20:00 sharp the point limits went live. The website instantly crashed by the tens of thousands of people and my blood was loudly rushing inside my head. Once it finally let me in I was scanning through the names of the different universities, then different faculties and lastly the different courses. Earth science. 290. Less than the previous years. A lot less actually. I got into the place I wanted to so badly. I got in by a ridiculous amount of points.

August

An accidental snapshot of my feet while I am having a mediocre melt down in the middle of a bridge over the Danube. The morning started horrendously, I left my student ID at home but I only realized it on the train. Which meant I couldn't buy discounted tickets but I didn't have enough money for the full price ones. So I called mum who called a friend who has a car that they have to come to the city with my ID within 20 minutes because if I miss the train I'll be late and won't be able to enroll to uni. That got solved last minute when they arrived 4 minutes before the train left, which then arrived to Budapest an hour late, the tram was out of service so I took one of the replacement busses but they only went till the Pest end of Petőfi bridge. Which meant I had to walk over when I was already running late so we could very well say that I was done at this point with life and everything.

September

With this picture we can confirm that I wasn't late for enrollment. This is the place most of my days are spent at. The days leading up to me having to move were filled with a weird type of anxiety. It wasn't the kind I was familiar with, it wasn't as scary. As consuming, as toxic. It was kind of exciting, like the feeling you get before getting on a roller coaster. My girl made it feel like that, the security of having her. If there's one good thing about LDR then it's the fact that I can literally have her anywhere with me and it feels like not much has changed. The calmness that this gave me was beyond understandable. I still had her, so there was no need to panic.

Of course it was still a little challenging, the whole change in our schedules and although it sometimes got a little frustrating, she was understanding and I need to thank her for being my safe spot, for making me so brave when I used to be so scared. Without her I would have never been able to do this and she knows that.

October

This is my view everyday when I go to work and back home. A city of so much magic and beauty and also a city that I can't wait to share with my love.

We had our first anniversary. A whole year of being together. I got off of work just in time before it turned midnight in the Philippines. I had a bag of cookies I made the previous day to show, cute, heart shaped ones. Maybe it wasn't the most ideal way or how I imagined it but the meaning behind it is still the same. A year of loving eachother, slowly changing, slowly realizing who we truly are as a team.

November

I made that! My job's description would most likely be miscellaneous. I stand at the counter, make coffee, help customers, sometimes clean or go to the post office, I'm responsible for the paper bags and cups, but on the weekends, I bake. I spend all my Sundays there quietly doing my job. Cookies, pies and as it was getting closer to Christmas gingerbread as well. I had the most tiring days, one time I spent 12 hours there building 6 of these trees and around another 400 of normal figures. My hands got inflamed by the end of the night because of all the icing I had to squeeze out. But nonetheless this is a good first job. I get to learn around really nice and helpful people. Not even mentioning all the free food I get.

December

A happy girl living a more challenging life than ever but still enjoying it like it's nothing.

Decembers are nice. I think back to all the things that happened this year and how different they were compared to last year. I was whining for 66.66666% of the 2017 post. And for the 2018 one all I can think about are the good good things that happened. None of the bad matters. I had one of the worst and one of the best years of my life after one another. No doubt about that.

So yeah,

2018 was a year that will truly be missed. I loved it. But no need to mourn anything because 2019 will give me even more things to write about at the beggining of 2020. Not to even mention 2021. This is far from the end.

[livinginlavender]

Monsieur Rock, meet Mademoiselle Hard Place

Have you ever heard the expression, “Stuck between a rock and a hard place?” Generally, it means that you’re caught between two options that both suck, or maybe two options that you don’t like. You end up feeling like you have to choose between the lesser of two evils, trying to figure out which one is going to end up being less detrimental in the long-run.

I graduated from college in May of 2017 with a B.S. in Marketing, as I’ve mentioned on this blog before. I had (stupidly) decided not to follow in my sister’s footsteps in regards to applying for jobs long before I graduated because… I guess I didn’t think I needed to. It was so easy for her to find a job, why should it be any different for me?

It was different. Very different.

She graduated with a double-major in Marketing and Supply Chain Management, and the latter degree was what got her a job right out of school. I hadn’t given myself that option, deciding to focus on marketing because I was good at it and it came easily to me. What I was really doing, however unknowingly, was limiting my options.

So I graduated and eagerly entered the job hunt, sure that someone would see my resume, call me in for an interview, experience my sharp wit and bubbly personality, and decide to hire me soon thereafter. After all, I have the degree, some experience, and I’ll quickly pick up the rest, right?

Rose-tinted glasses don’t suit me very well, I’ve found.

I searched and searched all summer, applying for any and every job I could. I continually modified my resume, tailored my cover letter, trying to find somewhere that would hire me and allow me to use my sparkling new degree. A couple companies talked with me, but it ultimately came down to one thing: they wanted a candidate with more experience.

How am I supposed to get experience if no one will hire me?

I spread out my search even more. I started applying for temporary positions and internships, even ones that didn’t pay very well. Most of the temp positions never even got back to me, and the internships didn’t want to bring on non-students, which I now was. The rose-tinted glasses faded to clear, and I felt myself begin to panic.

I temporarily moved in with some friends in Michigan in hopes that being in the state would help me more easily find a job. I’d be closer to interview or apply in person, I thought, but I never made it past the resume screenings.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my mom spontaneously got me a job at a Curves in Michigan. It was loosely marketing-based, but I only worked for maybe 20 hours a week. The job challenged me, but not in a way that would help me grow; I began to deeply doubt my abilities and self-worth. I was severely depressed, but I stuck it out for four months before deciding it would be more detrimental if I stayed, and so I left.

I moved back home. My dad started reaching out to his connections. I realized I didn’t really have any, which was a huge part of my problem. I kept applying for jobs, gaining and losing hope a lot more quickly than I did before. And that’s mostly what has led to my current rock-and-hard-place situation.

It’s like a deadline has been slowly approaching and the last year of my life has been wasted; there will be oceans of new graduates in the next month-and-a-half to two months, and I’ll be left in the dust. Who wants a college graduate with only four months of working in the entire year since they graduated? Who wants to hire someone who looks to have been sitting on their butt doing nothing, despite all of their unsuccessful efforts to get a job in that time?

It boils down to this: my rock (the need to get a job before new students graduate) and my hard place (going back to school once this month and a half is up) have the potential to be very positive depending on how I view them.

If I go with the rock (which is my personal preference), I’ll have a job, be gaining experience, and be working with people. But that, of course, is assuming there’s someone out there willing to take a chance on me; just because I know who I am and what I’m capable of doesn’t mean that anyone else can see it by looking at a piece of paper detailing my achievements.

If I go with the hard place, I’ll be furthering my education (which I planned to do anyway), and I’ll potentially set myself up for a great job in the future. But my parents saved up and paid for my undergraduate degree with the agreement that any further education I’d want would be out of my own pocket. Without a job that has a reimbursement program, I have no way to pay for furthering my education without taking out loans, and…well. With it getting harder for students to pay back loans (hello, interest rates), and the cost of higher education inexplicably increasing year by year, it may not be my most plausible option, even if it’s all I have.

I always expected that life was like a flow chart: if you do A, it takes you to B. If you do B1, you’ll get to box C. If you do B2, you’ll get to box D. But sometimes, you do A, and magically pop up at box Q. Or you skip A, but somehow find your way to D. There isn’t one way to go through life, or be successful, or get to where you ultimately want to go.

That can be frustrating for a structure-loving planner.

So here I am, caught between two options with entirely different sets of pros and cons, wobbling back and forth in an attempt to decide which to fully commit to. There’s technically no right or wrong answer, but the pressure to make the “correct” choice is weighing me down like a ton of bricks. Or feathers. Really, just a ton of any solid object that seems to be subtly suffocating me with the way gravity is pulling on it.

If you’re a current college student, or even if you’re currently advising college students, this is what I hope you take away from my experience: I spent a great deal of time in college focusing on classes and grades, which is good. But the four most important factors to getting a job after college are these:

1. Do internships. Do as many internships as you can. I don’t care if your university tells you that one is enough, or if they don’t require an internship at all; take any opportunity you can to get formal experience.

2. Make connections. Stay in touch with the people you intern with, join clubs on campus, join organizations off campus, whatever. Get in contact with people, stay in contact with people, and utilize those peoples’ connections to expand your network.

3. Get some “leadership” experience. That doesn’t mean, “Go be the president of six different clubs!” You can head fundraising and event committees. Be an intramural sport team captain. Be the treasurer for a club on campus. Get that informal experience!

4. Keep a portfolio of ALL of your work, good and bad. You can always weed through it later, but you can only weed through the work you decided to keep, so keep all of it!

If you’re currently in a similar situation to mine, I have something to say to you too: keep your chin up. It’s incredibly easy to put yourself down and beat yourself up over the extra mile you could have gone, or the decision you “should” have made. Channel your inner Elsa and let it go; THE PAST IS IN THE PAAAAAAST!

But seriously. Chin up. Eyes forward. You can’t change your past decisions, but the future is in your hands. Start a blog (like me!), make an Etsy shop (also...like me…), or get into freelancing (which...I’m trying to do, I guess?). It’s easy to sit on your butt and apply for jobs day in and day out. In the meantime, work on yourself, personally and professionally. Find your focus, hunker down, and hone your skills.

We’ll get there. We always do.

[lattetudes]

hey!!! i was wondering, how come you study in france? i'm fairly new to your blog and i love your posts, i would like to hear more about your experience regarding studying in france in your situation!! and if you have any anecdotes about that that you would like to share!!

hi! firstly, thank you so much! it really means a lot to me. (seriously, i have the biggest smile on my face). i’m so sorry for the late response, i was moving (: 

send me another ask if you’d like to know more! this is a little long - 

the how 

french has been in my life for a long time. i think i was first enrolled in an international program (where they taught it) when i was twelve - not even a couple months later, i left to visit france for the first time to visit my mom.

she went to france (in 2011) to get her master’s degree in linguistics. 

my brother (2013) and sister (2011) went with her. (i, however, didn’t join her until the the summer before what would have been my freshman year. was that something i regret? yes.) 

so for three years, i visited them (and when i wasn’t, i lived alone with my dad, who worked a lot to support an apartment in france and in the united states).

 when i fourteen, i visited paris for two weeks with my class as part of an exchange program. 

it was chic, it was this entirely new universe i’d never seen before. i’d never felt more different, and i think that was a good thing. the cafés, the music, the pathways where hemingway walked -  it’s this sort of unconquerable way of living that makes up Paris’s charm – something that cannot be calculated into a ranking. 

it’s truly beautiful. and when i was asked if i wanted to go to poitiers, three hours away from paris (my last chance) for freshman year, i took it. i made the mistake of staying for friends - i couldn’t go through life wondering what if. i didn’t want to regret anything, you know? i knew i wasn’t going to be at the top of the class, not at first. 

only, it didn’t end up being one year. i would end up staying there for my entire career as a lycéenne. 

the apartments the apartments my family stays in are very small, with exception to our last one 

our first one was the size of a shoebox. i’m not kidding when the kitchen and the bedroom were in the same space. (the bed was a fold out couch). 

i don’t remember our second apartment very well. i think it was next to an indian restaurant - it did have two bedrooms, making it easier to stay in when i visited my family. 

the third was located in a small complex with a small parking space. 

the fourth, i don’t remember at all (: 

the fifth apartment is located above a sephora, about two minutes from the central square. we spent about three-four years here (renting), and it even had a loft space on the third floor. an artist, an attorney, and many other people with different stories lived there with us. i remember when the police showed up, twice. another story for another time (: i’ve got so many memories here, which makes it even harder to leave. it means a lot to me. i love it here: it’s empty now, save for a computer (the one i’m writing on right now), a desk, wifi, and a printer. our lease is up by the end of the month (: 

the sixth, next to a park and a café, where the neighbors play their music just a little too loud (: it’s different for sure. we just moved here, the rooms are fill with boxes and nothing is unpacked yet - hopefully, it will feel like home soon.

i spend christmas and the summers in the united states, in the house where i grew up until i was fourteen. 

since i live in a small city, i walk by almost all the apartments i’ve visited / lived in everyday. it’s surreal for sure - i get to see where i’ve started and where i’m going to be. 

france! 

i live in a city where you know everyone, and everyone knows you. 

there’s music almost always playing in the street. 

some people will judge you because of your nationality: it’s okay and you learn to deal with it. 

a lot of people like to do manifestations (they like to protest) here.

shops are everywhere - all of them are small town french stores and they’re super chic and very inexpensive. 

the cafés are great, very lovely and the food is above average

breakfast isn’t a big deal. croissants, orange juice, little bread and cheese, coffee..

i don’t like croissants (: or i didn’t, i’ve started to like them after four years. 

bacon isn’t bacon. 

in central square, they’ll have parties / an event in correspondance with the season

at christmas, central square is transformed into santa’s village: skating, hot cocoa, waffles, churros, cute scarves and hats, hazelnut coffee, that type of thing (:

most restaurants close at 2pm and re-open around seven. 

the bagel shop knows me and my order because i go there everyday. 

the quiches are amazing, if you like quiches. 

cobblestone streets.

sundays are quiet, almost everything is closed. 

where i live, it’s true: the french dress to impress. 

smoking is a thing - it’s not unusual, and everyone does it (not me), teachers included. 

i once saw one of the social economics teachers smoking with his students and taking instagram photos.

he was one of the newer professors. he left to get some life experience 

the language: studying in french

freshman year, it was hard. i didn’t have many friends, i was just learning the language, and most of all: i was lonely. 

everyone spoke so fast. i was completely out of my depth. to make matters more difficult, i suffer from social anxiety: which made talking a struggle i have to live with. 

by the end of my first year, my comprehension of french was excellent. 

when studying in another language, it may get a little bit overwhelming, but you have to really acknowledge what you don’t understand: is it the concept, the idea, or vocabulary?

there is a trick to learning languages that can shorten the journey to fluency from decades to mere months. there’s also something most teachers won’t even tell students for fear they would never start, but in fact, is vital that you know. hint: complete linguistic immersion is everything (:

4% of students embarking on language courses in schools achieve a basic level of fluency after three years. this is what happened to me, and i realized this as soon as i got here: basic was a generous way of describing my level back then. 

one of the biggest reasons cited for abandoning is that students don’t feel any sense of progression. a student with an A* will visit france and find they can’t even have a basic conversation. (me, my first year)

i felt like giving up becuase i had the wrong expectations set. 

it takes 600+ hours of study & practice to reach fluency in french

from february (which is way too late to start studying for the bac), i studied for a minimum of three - four hours every single day. 

be realistic about what you can achieve so you won’t get demotivated.

immersing yourself as deeply as possible in the subject allows you to rack up the hours as quickly as possible. 

memory fades unless it’s the language is used.

low-intensity studies (high school french) are ineffective because their intensity is so low that you end up forgetting a large percentage of what you learn. 

it’s not until B1/B2 that the light comes out and it starts to feel really good speaking French.

i took the B1 in tenth grade, my second year. i passed with like an 85 percent. it does get better. 

It’s really worth while registering to take DELF exams - tests that mesure  your linguistic ‘level’. 

i hadn’t heard of the DELF until i got to lycée. don’t be me!

i felt lost for the better part of a year. 

repetition is vital to learning. 

sleep is vital to memory. i still have problems with this, given the fact it still takes me a while to complete all my work. 

my lycée, or high school

is amazing. it’s made out of glass, shaped like a pyramid, and is relatively new compared to most of my city. 

we have french, spanish, russian, and chinese students (i’m the only american) who study here!

it’s right next to this mall, auchan, where everyone goes when they don’t have class.

a mini-café is managed by the MDL (student council) on the first floor.

you can get coffee, tea, cookies, chocolate, or crèpes there (on some days). it seriously helps with the long hours in the library

we have soundproof music rooms: pianos, music, drums.. 

on sunny days, groups of us will sit outside on the grass and just talk. we form circles and listen to people play music and sing. 

a lot of people smoke / hang out near the observatory (which is shaped like a flower). hasn’t been used in years. 

for the most part, the teachers are very good. 

for our last history class, we cried because the professor was leaving.

he baked us brownies and brought some drinks and it was one of the saddest moments of première (eleventh grade).

last year, we visited paris for two days. one night, the whole class united in a hotel room - we told ghost stories until 2am.

in spring, we host a festival: dancing, handball, singing contests, etc.

one day, my class dressed up as the x - men. 

french literature class is one of the hardest classes i’ve ever had to take. 

international week (where every student comes from around the globe to visit): i went to a party with some romanian students and drank beer for the very first time.

i can drink legally, now that i’m eighteen. 

drinking isn’t a big deal here, not where i live.

on tuesdays and wednesdays, my classes end at 12pm. 

three days out of a school week, i go to school at nine thirty in the morning.

mondays and fridays, i end at five thirty.

i have to take the bus for forty five minutes everyday.

ACFs on thursdays: classes created by students which are validated by a jury at the end of the year. i did fashion couture class this year and dance class last year.

if you guys have any more asks about my lycée, i’d love to answer them! 

[seoulfulcity]

July 18, 2018: Singapore Nights - Feeding Into Our Gluttonous Tendencies

"Korea University is only hosting an event for Singaporeans and no other country - that's how special you are to us". I love being Singaporean.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018: All I knew was the event had a buffet set up and Wendelyn supported my decision on crashing Singapore Night, an all-Singaporean event hosted by the university since half of the KU ISC attendees are from Singapore, even though I am not Singaporean at all. Maybe I look Malay and that's probably the closest to being Singaporean that I will ever be.

"Just don't talk or they'll hear your American accent". I guess I will be mute for the entire dinner.

Singapore Night started right after my Korean class at 6:30 at the Alumni Hall B1. I walked towards the Central Plaza and saw a group of well-dressed people, one of them was Clement, who I know was Singaporean; so I followed the group.

I was dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, so I'm probably easily recognized as someone who did not get the Singapore Night email.

I entered the Media Hall with no problem, though, since they weren't check for IDs or signing anyone up. I saw Wendelyn and Florence and sat with them in table 16. They say they invited close to 250 Singaporeans to the event, and the hall was massive, holding 25 round tables fitting about 10 people each.

The stage had a banner hanging across saying "2018 KU ISC Singapore Night" with the flags of South Korea and Singapore on both ends of the stage.

Before coming to South Korea, I had never heard a Singaporean accent and Tracy told us about how unique and recognizable their accent is during our trip to Hong Kong.

I was four weeks into the summer program, and I was surrounded mostly by Singaporeans - I have not only picked up their accent, but I've picked up so much of their culture, their mannerisms, and their las and lors.

You get me, la? I'm basically Singaporean.

Since they were in their natural environment, my Singaporean friends did not bother to slow down their speaking and fix their accents for us Americans - Florence started speaking in her heaviest Singaporean accent (she usually impresses her fellow-Singaporeans with how easily she can switch accents and dialects depending on who she's talking to) and Wendelyn spoke faster than how she usually spoke. Mind you, Singaporean accent was very hard to decipher the first few days I was around them and it took quite a bit of exposure to get used to it, but the natural speed of their accents is so much more difficult to understand.

Joyce, John, and Simi's roommate, Edan, joined our table while Pong, Lina, and Jon (Jonathan) sat in table 17. When Jon arrived at the venue, he was so surprised to see me across the room and started mouthing: you're not even Singaporean! Captain Obvious, of course I'm not Singaporean.

The event started with speeches from the KU ISC director, the Singaporean ambassador to Seoul, and a Singaporean student, who Wendelyn made fun of for giving a speech in casual clothes.

His Singaporean accent and slang were also very heavy that Florence would tap my shoulder every once in a while to ask me if I needed translation.

Yes, Florence. I actually did need translation.

After the speeches, it was buffet time - but the tables were dismissed chronologically, so Florence and I were upset at the person who chose to sit at table 16. We were looking for people we knew on other tables where we can crash just so we can get food earlier.

The buffet had five long tables - one table for meat (bulgogi, chicken, pork), one for fruits (watermelon, peach, orange), one for desserts (different types of mousse and cakes), one for raw fish (raw salmon salad and different kinds of sushi and sashimi), and one for noodles and salad (pasta salads, japchae, buckwheat, different kinds of salad).

And as the true Singaporean that I was, I filled up two plates, dropped them off to my table and came back to fill up two more plates. Then, we feasted.

Thai and Hyunjic-oppa (현직오빠) wanted to join in and we tried convincing them to, but Thai was not confident enough that he could pass up as a Singaporean; not Hyunjic-oppa (현직오빠) though, he wanted food and he will get food.

A second round of food was delivered and all five of the long tables were filled up once again. We told Hyunjic-oppa (현직오빠) to hurry before people finish the food and he arrived in no time. He sat with us and also feasted.

Then, we were asked to do a group picture and Hyunjic-oppa (현직오빠) and I were forced to sit at the very front, knowing that we both don't look Singaporean at all.

That was it. This was the story on how Hyunjic-oppa (현직오빠) and I became Singaporeans.

See the official Korea University Singapore Night video here: 2018 ISC Singapore Night

Before separating for the night, we stopped by a nearby clothing store and went eye shopping (look at me picking up some Korean slang).

Salli and I met up right after and we wanted to go drinking with Jon, Lina, and Pong. They told us to meet at the barbeque place we ate at after orientation, but upon getting there, we found out that the barbeque place closed down!

I was very disappointed because the ahjumma (아줌마) serving the place knew who I was and the meat was actually very delicious - plus it holds a special place since that was the first restaurant our friend circle ate at as a group.

So, Salli and I went to Chunja (춘자) and drank there instead. We talked about boys, especially the one who I met at the airport when I landed in Seoul to start the program - Minjae (민재). Salli has a huge crush on Minjae (민재) and we wanted to drink with him that night, so I invited him over.

He said he was with his club at that moment but he will stop by in a bit.

We excitedly ordered another bottle of soju and maekju (beer/맥주). Joyce stopped by for a few minutes to chug half a bottle and was interested in seeing Minjae (민재), but it was already past midnight so she left.

Right after Joyce left, Minjae (민재) came over to have a drink with us and asked where Joyce went. Ha! The irony.

Minjae (민재) brought his club mates down to Chunja (춘자) and sat a few tables across from me and Salli. They both exchanged Kakao IDs before Minjae (민재) went back to his table and Salli and I headed out to a coin noraebang (코인 노래방) to sing Korean songs and changing the words "you" and "baby" to Minjae's (민재의) name.

Thursday, July 19, 2018: It was graduation night for the four-weekers and Sophie would not give me any details because she was scared we would do something stupid. She wasn't wrong though.

Early in the morning, basically around noon, Sophie needed a body wash so I had to meet up with her in my pajamas and my bed hair to give it to her - with my luck, Ian and Carolina joined and had a conversation with us. Ian mentioned how he was visiting Seodaemun Prison later today and I wanted to go, but I had a class from 4:50 PM, which makes it impossible to stay and explore the prison long enough for me to appreciate its history. So, I passed up on that one.

It was already midday and I haven't eaten yet so I asked Matt to come with me to the Chicken Steak place so he could try it, which he agreed to. After the bibimbap (비빔밥) incident, he had been very wary of the spicy food he was eating, but it was unavoidable. Matt got the spiciest chicken in the menu, while I got the good 'ole chicken steak with barbeque sauce.

Sophie joined in later, but she couldn't eat any of our food since they were both spicy.

After Chicken Steak, I got a haircut at the usual place called I'Hair, which is just a few minutes walk from the Frontier stairs. The booze cruise was going to be tomorrow and my hair is becoming long - long enough that it takes more than five minutes for it to dry. I'Hair is out go-to haircut place since there's an English-speaking worker from 10 AM to 5 PM, and all of the hairdressers are very young, hip, and stylish.

By young, hip, and stylish - I mean it in Korean terms because their talent revolves around making Korean hair look good. I am not Korean, so we might be facing a problem here.

My hairdresser was confused when I asked him to spike up the front of my hair, since my hairline does not let me do any other haircut. He was asking me which side I want my hair to be combed over - typical Korean look - but I kept telling him, via Google translate, to do it as the way I described it to him earlier. Poor guy, he was probably very scared of the English interaction.

The English-speaking worker who was responsible for Valentino's haircut was busy, and I would glance at her every so often to see when she finishes with her client. She asked Valentino if he was interested in getting a new haircut, rather than the usual "short on the side and trim the top of my hair" haircut; since Valentino was up for it, she gave him a perm.

During class, our Korean professor noticed Darren (Minho/민호) and I got a haircut and we actually found out we both got it cut in I'Hair - we just missed each other. After class, I messaged Ian for the graduation information to surprise Sophie and he gave me the time and location.

Woodang Hall, sixth floor - the same lecture hall where we did our Korean placement exam at. Thai and I met up and headed to the sixth floor and were greeted by four long tables of food - madeleines, sandwiches, kimbap, mousse, etc. I dove right in.

Thai texted the group chat to come over since there were free food, and both Wendelyn and Florence (who were already on the way to see Sophie’s graduation) arrived.

Surprisingly, Minjae (민재) was the one overseeing the food when we arrived so we had a small talk before going into the lecture hall, just in time for the graduates to toss their graduation cap into the air.

It makes me emotional how the four-weekers were already graduating, knowing that we six-weekers only had two more weeks until we take our flights back to our home countries and be separated from each other.

We formed an amazing bond the last few weeks, and I really wished that we would have stayed just a little bit longer, but life just didn't work that way. We have responsibilities to go back to and life is stagnant and stress-free while we are here in Seoul.

After the graduation, everybody went outside the lecture hall to take pictures and snack on the food prepared. Sophie did not want to take pictures with us because she was embarrassed, so we decided to have her, the graduate, take our picture.

I met Thai's roommate Shannon for the first time that day, and I got so angry that Thai didn't introduce me to him earlier. He was very handsome.

Matt arrived at the lecture hall for the free food, but we were all about to leave to meet with Davy at a barbeque place by McDonald's called Migak (미가가) but since I was already full from the graduation food, I decided to just tag along and socialize.

On our way there, we found Jon eating at a restaurant and tried to get his attention, but we didn't see Joyce was actually in front of the place and she thought we were waving at her.

Thai sent me the pictures I took of him and Shannon to apologize for not introducing us to each other earlier, but I was still upset. He was leaving back to Singapore on Saturday, so my chances of getting to know him were basically gone.

After the barbeque, Sophie went back to the dorm and we met with Valentino, Cara, Leonard, Minki-hyung (민기형), Hyunki-hyung (형기형) and Erin and wanted to drink at Chunja (춘자), but the bar was already very packed and could not accommodate 12 people.

Salli and Carolina's group also had to find a different bar since their group was big enough to not be accommodated at the same bar.

So, Valentino and Cara led us to Y Beer and Grill (Youngcheol Burger/영철버거), just across the closed-down barbeque place Salli and I went to the night before. Minki-hyung (민기형) actually just came back from his trip to Hong Kong. He arrived during Sophie's graduation, but it takes about two hours to get from Incheon International Airport to Anam, so he didn't join us until 11 PM.

Nobody was up to drink soju that night, but I was craving my nightly dose of the alcohol, so I met up with Darren, Angela, Peter, and Cindy at Osaka Blues and had a few shots of soju before sending a drunk-Cindy back to Anam Global House. Thai messaged me while I was still at Osaka Blues that he was at the CU store down CJ International having cup ramen with Shannon, and I wanted to sprint up the steep CJ International hill. Too bad I was in the middle of Anam, a good 10-15-minute walk to the CU store, so I had to pass up on the opportunity.

After we dropped Cindy at her dorm, we ended up getting ice cream at the same CU store where Thai and Shannon were, but the tables in the convenience store were already empty. Darren was sweet enough to pay for my ice cream since I helped him walk Peter up that one night - it was not necessary but I appreciated the nice gesture.

After the quick snack, Darren, Angela, Peter, and I went back to Anam to go to a coin noraebang (코인 노래방) and stayed there for three hours, until 5 AM, before we headed back to the same CU store to munch on kimbap for breakfast.

We bid farewell to each other and agreed to meet at 3 PM later in the day for the booze cruise. The booze cruise on Friday is on a separate blog.

Saturday, July 21, 2018: We didn't get home until around 6 AM on Friday so I slept in the whole day. My phone cord was so bent from the cruise so it wasn't working anymore, and now both my phone and portable charger were dying - I had to make a stop at Daiso to buy an emergency cord quickly.

I woke up at 3 PM, just to be greeted by a 101-degree heat outside according to my weather app.

Thai messaged me that his roommate, Shannon, already packed up and left and he had an entire room to himself for the rest of the summer. Hyunjic-oppa (현직오빠) was planning to move in with Thai on Tuesday, and Thai was still trying to apologize for not introducing me to Shannon earlier in the summer so he was offering me his bed to sleep in.

Oh, Thai, you're a special human

Valentino, Sophie, Jordan, Florence, Wendelyn, Matt, and Joyce were at an Italian restaurant near Gong Cha in Anam called Moirita (모이리타); it had been more than two months since I had pasta, so I got spaghetti alla carbonara and enjoyed it until the last noodle.

After the Italian meal, we stopped by at Sulbing (설빙), the same Korean dessert we had just a week ago. Minki-hyung (민기형) joined me, Sophie, Jordan, and Valentino and had three showflakes: melon, Oreo, and chocolate cereal.

Thai went hiking up the Bukhansan from 8 am to about 8 PM and he got lost. He was actually deciding to sleep in the mountains until daylight; but a good Korean man found him and drove him back to Anam with little English spoken.

So, Joyce and I met up with him at McDonald's to see if he was okay and went out to a nearby barbeque place to eat.

Minki-hyung (민기형) was out drunk, spamming all three group chats (drinking chat, ISC Group 3 chat, and the cruise chat) asking who wanted to drink more soju and go clubbing with him. He agreed to meet with Joyce, Thai, and me.

Before Minki-hyung (민기형) arrived, the three of us settled with a barbeque place, which was written in all Korean and each meat fed only one person with a price ranging ₩17,000 to ₩20,000. We wanted to leave but the owners already set up all the side dishes (banchan/반찬) for us; so, we waited until Minki-hyung (민기형) arrived and got us out from the place.

"Don't go there, it's expensive", he said with his thicker-than-normal-Korean-accent-that-seemed-to-get-worse-whenever-he's-drunk.

He brought us to an all-you-can-eat buffet with unlimited samgyeopsal (삼겹살) for ₩10,000 and unlimited alcohol for ₩5,000.

Matt, Florence, and Sophie joined in after. Joyce needed to ask the workers for extra plates for Matt, Florence, and Sophie so she asked us what was the Korean word for plate (jeobshi/접시), but I jokingly and confidently told her it was plateu, plate in a Korean accent.

Joyce once went to a milk tea shop with her friend and wanted to order a banana milk tea, so she said it in her casual Singaporean accent - the worker taking her order did not understand what she saying, despite multiple attempts of saying it as clearly as possible.

Her friend stepped in and said banana milkeu tea in a Korean accent, which the worker understood perfectly. That was then, when Joyce realized to accommodate the pronunciation of English words in Korean so communication would be easier.

So, Joyce went up to the worker to ask for the extra plates.

“Plateu juseyo” (Plates, please), she attempted to speak with a Korean accent with the worker, which she was greeted with mere confusion. Joyce repeated the phrase I taught her, but to no avail. The worker did not understand she was asking for plates.

I started laughing so loudly at Joyce from across the table when she finally realized I was pranking her, so she went up to Minki-hyung (민기형) and had him communicate her needs for extra plates.

I never let this moment die down for the rest of our program. Poor Joyce.

I left the dinner early and met up at Makgeolli House (막걸리딥) just down the street from the unlimited samgyeopsal (삼겹살) with Darren, Peter, and Angela. Darren had to leave home early because he was getting a headache from not having enough sleep recently. Sophie, Florence, Matt, and Minki-hyung (민기형) caught up with us right when we were about to leave. Peter, Matt, and I had another round of soju at the 7/11 next to Makgeolli House (막걸리집) and decided to go to a noraebang (노래방) and continue the night. I told Florence that Peter could be her competition since both of them are amazing karaoke singers. Minki-hyung (민기형) called it a night and went back to his place.

On our way to the coin noraebang (코인노래방) we frequent, we bumped into Jon and Lina who were smoking outside the coin noraebang (코인노래방) next to us, just under Bangkok Express.

So, Sophie, Peter, Angela, Florence, Wendelyn, Matt, and I sang until 2:30 AM. Since Sophie just moved out of her dorm, she needed to leave early to take a taxi to her hotel by Bomun Station, just a station away from Anam Station, or a five-minute taxi ride. Angela followed Sophie and went back to the dorm.

We decided to crash Jon and Lina's noraebang (노래방) and had Pong and two other Singaporeans in the room; we realized with the ten people in the room, seven were Singaporean and three of us (Matt, Peter, and I) were Americans. The Singaporeans sang their national anthem, Majulah Singapura, then recited the Singapore National Pledge, and then yelled out Kit Chan's Home, which was the first song released in the yearly Singapore's National Day Parade. Each year during the parade, Singapore releases a national song for the year, and Home is the most iconic and celebrated on.

Of course, the Americans fought back and ended the night with Miley Cyrus's Party in the USA.

Side note: once again, there are so many Singaporeans. Every night out is basically Singapore Night for me here.

We left the karaoke and still did not want to go to sleep, so we bought four sojus and climbed up the Frontier stairs with cicadas songs echoing through the night.

The cicadas just came out of nowhere recently, and coming from Los Angeles where all we have are bees and crickets, the cicada songs sound terrifying.

Matt, Peter, Wendelyn, Florence, Jon, Lina, Pong, and I played card games outside Frontier House and munched on chips. Valentino came down for a brief moment to chug some soju and went back to bed. The loser of the game was asked to buy more sojus and snacks, which ended up being Matt.

By the time the sun was already rising, we had ten soju bottles rolling around the floor. Someone from Anam Hall, the building across Frontier House, came down to tell us to be quiet since we were getting loud in Korean.

We stayed outside until 5:30 and I walked Peter back to his room so I could see his roommate, Grant, since I have a small crush on him. Peter agreed that I could get him drunk just so I could keep walking him back and interact with Grant. My friends are good people.

That was it for week four! I am currently in week five and I could already taste the crisp Los Angeles air (no, I don't miss Los Angeles at all). Sophie is flying back to Austria on Saturday, which I will be in Busan so I will miss dropping her off at the airport.

Our circle is slowly ending, and it's heartbreaking.

But since the four-weekers are leaving, my friends' roommates are also leaving (e.g. Thai and Matt’s), so we have more sleepover opportunities these last few days! How exciting! Until then!

고마워요, Chris 「크리스」

P.S. I flew to Seoul to experience Korean culture, but I believe I'm leaving the city as a Singaporean.

[erynstraveldiary]

going away to college

Summary: Exam Week, Returning Home, and Top 10 Tips  1)    Be prepared to not get the classes you want. The UH school system allows you to generally pick your courses, pick when you want your courses, and pick the teacher you want your courses to be with. At NUS, things won’t be the same. The process to apply for business courses also differs from that of other majors. There is a bidding process and then an additional add/drop period which happens during the first couple of weeks of school, which means new people might be moving in and out of the classes and there might be readjustments to your time schedule. 2)    There’s WIFI virtually everywhere. I strongly recommend getting a carrier in the US that has a good international plan (T-Mobile gave me unlimited data everywhere except Macao and Vietnam) as this will aid you in traveling and you won’t have to buy a sim card everywhere you go. However, in Singapore, you will generally find WIFI in most places that you need it, and the university just extended its coverage for internet into the individual resident hall rooms now so you no longer need to purchase a router. 3)    Dress for the heat. South East Asia is hot. If you’re going to be traveling around other countries, it’s a good idea to bring some modest, comfortable clothes for the heat. Singapore isn’t strict on dress, but most students do dress nicer even in terms of the heat. Clothing can easily be bought in Singapore malls or nearby markets. You also have the option to select AC or NON-AC dorm rooms (you have to pay for the AC per usage). Spring is also the country’s rainy season, so make sure to pack or buy a lightweight rain jacket or an umbrella. 4)    Cashless is the way to go.  NUS is trying to become a cashless campus by the next academic year. This poses a couple of challenges for the exchange student because this means that you probably will have to open a bank account while you are there. Although I didn’t have to, I know a lot of people who had bank accounts and said that they did have limited or no fees and you can keep them open indefinitely. Mobile apps like Paylah (Singapore’s version of Venmo/Paypal) are also popular and accepted at most food chains in NUS.  Some vendors, like my favorite boba place Gong Cha, are 100% cashless already, meaning that you have to use your EZ-card or NETS Flash Pay card in order to purchase drinks or food items. 5)    Getting around. As of 8 May, 2018, Uber went offline as Grab completed its Southeast Asian acquisition of the company. However, other countries in Asia might still use the Uber app, so it might be helpful to keep it on your phone. Another helpful application for getting around is the NUS NextBus app which states the shuttle times. The shuttle starts working at 7 AM and takes you all across campus. From University Town to the Biz School, you can take the D1, D2, or B1 shuttle. 6)    Study…. Everywhere. The NUS community has a lot of places to study, and you’ll quickly learn that the best way to make friends and hang out with local students is by studying with them. Take advantage of Singapore’s largest Starbucks open 24/7, conveniently located in University Town, various libraries (including a business library), or other open spaces where students frequent to study. 7)    Learn some Singlish. It was a little confusing at first to understand what my local friends were talking about as they switched between English and the Singaporean “Singlish” language. You’ll easily be able to pick up some quick phrases like “jio” for an invitation or “lah” which is a tag at the end of a sentence used for emphasis or confirmation. 8)    Leave the bulky items at home. One of the most convenient things about NUS is its proximity to other places. I was able to find all of my bedding items at a nearby IKEA which was around a 15 to 20 minute cab ride away, as well as all of my electronics, including a router and outlet adapters, at Clementi Mall, a one mile walk or short bus ride away. When I went home, I was able to leave a lot of my stuff in our lounge area for others on my floor to use, or NUS provides a donation box outside the dorms to get rid of other bulky items. 9)    Singapore is generally safe, but take caution. Singapore has a reputation for being safe, and you can tell that people know that in the way that local students leave their stuff on tables to save their seat while they go elsewhere or how people on my floor frequently left their door open. However, even with how safe Singapore’s reputation is, there are countless signs that tell students to take caution with their stuff and to take their things with them when they leave. 10) Try new things! NUS offer so many diverse activities for students to take part in, and my biggest tip is to be open to trying new activities, especially at the start of the school year. There are various sports, dance, arts, and more events that often offer a free trial if you normally have to pay for the course that you can take advantage of. NUS also boasts various academic opportunities and speakers that come to talk to students which exchange students can participate in as well.

My final exams for my finance courses were a mix of multiple choice and free response, making them different than my only multiple choice midterms but just as difficult and tricky. My BSP 2001 had a multiple choice exam with 50 questions instead of 40 this time, and my MKT 1705X course had a 100 MCQ final. Both of my finance courses had their finals before reading week. NUS’ exam week stretches over 2 weeks, so I had my BSP final on the first Thursday and my MKT final on the following Monday.  I left for home the day after my last exams. A lot of exchange students opted to travel after the semester instead; however, I would just caution the logistical practicalities including where you would keep your luggage and if you would go back to Singapore to finalize everything before you head home. I flew on Jetstar from Singapore to Taiwan and then Taiwan to Osaka, and then met up with my parents to fly back from Osaka to Honolulu on Hawaiian Airlines. The Jetstar flight cost a little over USD $300, including 40 kg of luggage. It was nice to see my parents again after four and a half months, and in typically fashion, they greeted me by screaming in the middle of the airport while my mom ran up to me and hugged me. It was a nice time. I have been home for two days, have found comfort in how Hawaii seems to be a little cooler temperature wise than South East Asia ever could be, and am figuring out the best way to process this entire four and a half months and reflect on what this experience has truly meant to me. Stay tuned for a final reflection post from me!  going away to college // blink-182 

[learnspanishfans]

How I Learnt Spanish, Italian and Portuguese for the Price of a Beer

I sat in the sunshine in a cafe in my new adopted city of Seville, chatting to a Spanish friend about life in Andalusia. We talked about southern Spanish traditions, the prospects for young people and of course, the fiestas of the month that we would attend. And I did this all in Spanish. A few months previously, I would stutter on even the simplest Spanish phrases, having studied the language for years but never really practiced with native speakers.

After Years of Spanish Study, I Still Mixed Up “Gracias” and “Hola”

Before moving to Spain I had been learning Spanish on and off for around six years. I decided that this would be the year I finally became fluent. From my studies, I’d worked up to a B1 level in Spanish. But my Spanish skills had receded, after having lived in Rome for one year and learning Italian. My Spanish conversational level was still a strong A2, functional but basic. That said, at the start of my trip, I walked into a bakery and said "gracias" instead of "hola"! Though I had a solid base in Spanish, I still found it difficult to hold conversations with native speakers. What’s more, I was living in Andalusia, a region renowned for having one of the hardest Spanish accents for learners. As I sat chatting with my friend in the cafe, listening to my friend speak Spanish, I realised my Spanish was getting better and stronger. Even my friend had noticed. "Wow! You speak a lot better than last time," he said sounding quite perplexed. I had only been in Seville a few weeks; how could I be more fluent than I was last week? Wasn't learning a language supposed to take years instead of weeks?

My Language Learning “Formula”: Beer and Facebook

I used the same formula to learn Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. With each language I learned, the time it took to reach fluency decreased. This was partly because I recycled the techniques that worked and partly because they're all Latin languages, so a lot of the vocabulary and grammar is shared. In fact, after becoming fluent in Spanish and Italian, all it took was a language-learning CD and a few weeks in Porto, Portugal to get to a conversational level of Portuguese. I had the same routine for each language I learned: meeting up with native speakers in cafes for a “language exchange” arranged on Facebook. Each exchange only cost me the price of the beer, coffee or sangria from the cafe and a few hours of my time. The language exchanges I organised were always free for both of us, as we would spend half the time speaking Spanish and half the time speaking English, so we both benefitted. Any free time I had was devoted to improving my Spanish. Some of my friends balked at this, saying that it must be exhausting doing so many language exchanges per day, but what's exhausting about meeting new people, learning, eating tapas and going for drinks? It was incredible fun and in six months living in Barcelona, Cadiz, Granada and Seville, I had done over one hundred language exchanges, made new friends and memories and of course, significantly improved my Spanish.

It’s Easier than You Might Think to Find Work Overseas

Facebook and beer were my main tools for improving my Spanish, that and a willingness to make mistakes all day long and meet new people everyday. But to make the most of these tools, I needed to move to the country whose language I planned to learn. Now, it's true that you don't need to move to the country to learn a language, for me, immersion has always been a fun way of learning a language. You get to live in a new culture, travel, make new friends and learn the language in context. How did I manage to live and work overseas? Using Workaway, I searched for work-exchanges in hostels. Hostels are a great way of moving to a country to learn a language: you have an instant social life with the other workers, access to staff who are probably from the area, free rent, an awesome central location, a flexible work schedule and sometimes food and pocket money are included. As an alternative, au pairing can work well, but your schedule will be more restricted, your hours longer and sometimes you will be employed only to speak English to the children. That said, you will likely earn more as an au pair compared to doing a work-exchange in a hostel. I worked around twenty hours per week in hostels and relied on savings as the placements were not all paid. But with beer as cheap as €0.33 for a caña (a very petite Spanish beer) and food included, I barely had any expenses. And I made some extra money by teaching English on the side, which helped keep me afloat financially. This was my foundation from which I learned a language and organised language exchanges for myself.

Here’s How I Used Facebook to Arrange Language Exchanges

As soon as I settled into my hostel, I used Facebook to find native Spanish/Italian/Portuguese speakers. Using Facebook's search bar, I would type: [Name of city] + [Language exchange] And: [Name of city in target language] + [translation of the word for "exchange" in target language] So, for example, when I lived in Granada I would search:

Granada Language Exchange

Granada Learn English

Granada Intercambios (translation: Granada Exchanges)

Granada English

Granada Inglés (translation: Granada English)

Granada idiomas (translation: Granada Languages)

It's important to use lots of different combinations in both English and your target language because you want to find as many groups as possible. Make sure to include the name of your city in English and your target language and to type the above search terms in both languages, with as many relevant words as you can think of. Add yourself to every single group you find. I normally added myself to at least ten groups per city. In each group would post the same message. Here’s the exact script I used:

Hola! Soy una chica Inglesa y estoy buscando españoles para hacer intercambios de idioma. Si alguien quiere mejorar su Ingles y tomar algo, estaría encantada! Cualquier cosa, hablame por privado. Muchas gracias.

Translation: "Hi! I'm English and looking for Spanish people to do language exchanges with. If anyone wants to improve their English and grab a coffee or beer then send me a private message, thank you." I always wrote this message in the target language and would copy and paste this onto the wall of all the Facebook groups I joined. Most language groups had hundreds, if not thousands of people on the page, so the post would get a lot of traction and I sometimes got as many as sixty requests in one city. One by one I would respond to each message inviting them for a coffee or a caña and arranging a day to meet through private messages. I tested a few different approaches and found that it's better if you ask people to message you in private as they tend to tell you more about who they are and where they're from, rather than just letting people comment on the post, as the most they'll say is "I'm interested!" People are also more likely to respond to a private message than a long trail of comments on a single post. I always tried to make plans quickly with the other person - ideally in the next couple of days. Otherwise it's too easy to lose momentum. Some people would be a bit surprised and asked if I wanted to chat a bit online first, but you can't really waste time getting bogged down in endless online chat. I often needed to learn the language in a few months, so met up with every single person who responded!

More Hints and Tips on Arranging Language Exchanges

Tip 1: Speaking English Gives You a Big Advantage

If you’re a native English speaker you will be at an advantage, as in countries like Spain and Italy the level of English is low and many youngsters are keen to learn it for work and potentially moving abroad, so you will be flooded with requests for an exchange. On the flip side, my approach doesn’t work as well in countries where the level of English is high. In Portugal, for example, the level of English is high and more on par with Germany than Spain and Italy, so the only responses to my language exchange requests came from a few Brazilians living in Portugal.

Tip 2: Keep it Local: Small Cities are Better than Big Cities (Smaller cities are better than bigger cities?)

Living in smaller cities accelerated my language learning and I recommend places like Cadiz over bigger cities like Barcelona. Though I only spent three weeks in Cadiz, I met so many people and made a lot of friends. In Barcelona, it was harder to meet people and the logistics of doing language exchanges were a nightmare, simply because it took a lot of time (and money) to get from one side of the city to the other.

Tip 3: Connect with International Students

Smaller cities with a university typically have a strong Erasmus community, which can be a boon if you want to practice other European languages. As I spoke Italian and Spanish, Erasmus and other international student groups were fantastic exposure and Erasmus students are a friendly bunch.

Tip 4: Carry a Notebook to All Your Language Exchanges

As you are doing so many language exchanges, it's important to establish best practices, as you don't want to waste those hours. I always carried a notebook with me and got my language exchange partners to jot down useful words and phrases, which I would then upload as flashcards on my phone, using Anki. I then tried to ensure that I used them in conversation in the next few days.

Tip 5: You Don’t Have to Drink Beer!

My method also works for non-drinkers! I only drank beer in the language exchanges because at €0.33 for a caña it ended up being cheaper than coffee and even water. I would try and ensure that my language exchanges were at least one hour in English and one hour in Spanish, so that even if I had three in one day, I would spend around €0.99 for three drinks, six hours of socialising and meeting Spanish people and three hours of actually speaking Spanish. So, this ended up being far cheaper than doing classes and a much more effective way of getting speaking practice.

What Level Did I Reach in Spanish?

I ended up with so much speaking practice that I reached a strong B2 level after 3 months. I probably could have reached this goal sooner, but all my friends working in the hostel with me were Italian, so I spoke Italian inside the hostel and Spanish outside of it. Initially it was hard switching between the two languages, but it ended up being fantastic practice because by the end, each language was a separate beast and my Italian went from B2 to C1. Incidentally, the same thing happened in Portugal, where everyone working in my hostel was Spanish and a lot of our guests were Italian, so I got to practice those while also doing Portuguese language exchanges. The hundreds of language exchanges I did in Spain, Portugal, Italy were amazing and the best memories I have of living abroad and learning a new language. So, if you want to live abroad, get to know a new culture and learn a language cheaply (or for free) whilst making new friends, make sure to organise your own one-on-one language exchanges, it'll be the most fun you have abroad!

The post How I Learnt Spanish, Italian and Portuguese for the Price of a Beer appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

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Lending Club Reviews For Investors And Borrowers

After I got my first taste of P2P investing I realized I had to do a Lending Club review. Lending Club has been sweeping the investment world and the borrowing universe at the same time. And why not? It's an amazing service!

Who wouldn’t be interested in a financial institution that enables investors to earn more than the going rate on their money while borrowers pay less? To help you get a better picture I put together this Lending Club review for investors and borrowers.

I'll start off this Lending Club review by explaining what it is and how it works for investors and borrowers. Later, I'll walk you though an example of how you can invest in Lending Club by investing some of my own hard-earned dollars whether that be how to invest 20000 in Lending Club or more.

Additionally, I'll cover what you might expect to earn from Lending Club as well as fees for both borrowers and investors. It's important to understand how Lending Club defaults work, so I'll cover that as well. Let's begin!

What is It? and Is Lending Club Legit?

Lending Club is an online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform that takes the banker out of banking. Investors lend money directly to borrowers through the website, enabling both to benefit from the rate of interest established for each loan.

And just as important, the entire transaction happens online, eliminating the need for sometimes embarrassing face-to-face meetings common with bank loans. It’s a win-win as both the investor and the borrower benefit from the Lending Club process. Read more information here on getting a loan!

As of December 31st, 2015, Lending Club has facilitated loans totaling well in excess of $15 billion. This includes more than $2.5 billion issued in just the last quarter.

Lending club is legit for both investors and borrowers. This Lending Club review, unlike some others, will review the service from both sides of the deal. Make sure to read about my experience below before you invest or borrow with Lending Club. Check out other great ways to invest by reading our Motif Investing Review as well.

Investing Through Lending Club Review

With interest rates on safe, fixed income investments sitting generally at below 1%, Lending Club offers a real opportunity to get dramatically higher returns. In fact, you can get average returns of between 5.06% and 8.74% (do I have your attention now?).

Those are attractive rates, but just so we’re clear, there are more risks with Lending Club investments than there are with bank certificates of deposit. Plus, there are certain requirements you have to meet as an investor. Remember, the higher the potential reward, the higher the risk.

Investor Requirements

Notes are not available in all states. As of this initial writing, they are not available to residents of Kansas, Maryland, Ohio, Oregon and the District of Columbia.

Depending on which state you live in, there are income requirements to invest in Lending Club. In most states it’s a minimum of $70,000 per year, though it may be higher in some states. Generally, the income requirement does not apply if you have a minimum net worth of $250,000. The platform also requires you invest no more than 10% of your net worth in Lending Club notes.

The minimum opening account with Lending Club is $25, which is also the minimum requirement to invest in any single note.

Lending Club IRA

You can also hold Lending Club investments as part of an individual retirement account (IRA). You can do this through a Lending Club self-directed IRA. Lending Club will pay the annual IRA fee if you open the account with a minimum of $5,000 and keep that balance level for a minimum of 12 months.

After the first year, they will continue to pay the fee as long as you maintain a minimum invested balance of $10,000 in Lending Club notes.

Lending Club IRAs come in two flavors, Traditional IRA or Roth IRA. As you know, I'm a big fan of the Roth IRA. This is just one more way you can invest in your future. But, I wouldn't keep all of your retirement money there. Roth IRAs aren't for everyone, so be sure to speak with a financial adviser before you sign up for this specific type of investment. Learn more about Roth IRA contribution limits here.

Choosing Notes to Invest In

There are two ways to invest with Lending Club. Manual investing is where you browse available loans and choose which ones you’ll invest in one at a time. But you can also use automated investing in which you set investment criteria, and notes are selected automatically based on that criteria.

While you can invest in individual loans, it’s generally best to buy them in fractions (which are referred to as notes). You can purchase notes in increments of $25. At the very least, you can purchase a fractional interest in 200 loans with a total investment of $5,000. This will enable you to minimize the risk involved in investing in any single loan.

Collecting Investment Returns

It’s important to understand the notes you're investing in are not like certificates of deposit. Each note represents a loan which will be repaid to you over the term of the loan. These payments will include both interest and principal.

That means at the end of the loan term, the loan will be completely extinguished (including 100% of your original principal invested). For this reason, you will need to reinvest payments received on a continuous basis as you receive payments.

Lending Club Loan Types and Loan Grading

Loan terms are either 36 months or 60 months, and are fixed-rate. More than 80% of the Lending Club loans are taken to refinance existing loans and credit card balances. Borrowers are evaluated – and loans are priced – based on credit and credit scores, debt-to-income ratios (DTI), the length of your credit history, and your recent credit activity.

Each loan is assigned a loan grade, ranging from “A” (the highest) to “G” (the lowest). The higher the grade, the lower the rate. For example, when initially checked, a A-grade loans had an average rate of 7.51% while G-grade loans had an average rate of 25.13%.

Within each letter grade, Lending Club also assigns a numerical rank of between 1 and 5 (A1, A2, A3, A4, A5). These numeric sub-grades adjust for other factors, such as loan size and loan term. For example, a loan amount of $5,000 would be seen as low risk, and actually result in an improvement in the sub-grade. By contrast, the maximum loan of $35,000 is a higher risk, and could turn a B1 grade into a B4 or B5 grade, resulting in a slightly higher interest rate.

Buying and Selling Notes Before they Mature

Lending Club offers their Note Trading Platform through Folio Investing where you can sell the remaining portion of a note under certain circumstances. This is a marketplace where investors can buy and sell Lending Club notes to one another.

In order to participate in this marketplace, you must also open a Folio Investing trading account through Lending Club. There are no fees if you buy notes on the trading platform, but there is a 1% fee charged if you sell a note.

Risks

It’s important to realize investments held through Lending Club are not bank assets, and as such they are not insured by the FDIC. Individual loans can go into default, and if they do, you will lose that portion of your investment.

In addition, a missed payment by a borrower means you will not get the payment on that loan in that particular month. Lending Club does use “best practices” to collect payments from delinquent borrowers, but some will default nonetheless.

When a payment is past due, you as an investor will pay a collection fee of 18% if the loan is at least 16 days past due but no litigation is involved. If litigation is required, you will be required to pay 30% of an attorney’s hourly fees, plus attorney costs.

If collection efforts fail, and it is apparent the borrower cannot repay the loan, the loan will be charged off once it is 150 days past due. When that happens, the remaining principal balance of the note will be deducted from the investor's account balance. Any funds subsequently recovered on the defaulted loans will be returned to the investors on a pro-rata basis.  This is a known risk if you invest in Lending Club, and you rarely see it come up in any complaints that people have about the site.

Minimizing Investment Risks

Just as is the case when you’re investing in a portfolio of stocks and bonds, there are ways you can invest in Lending Club that will reduce your overall risk. The most obvious strategy, of course, is to spread your investment over many different loans – hundreds if you’re in a position to do so.

You can minimize your risk by setting certain loan requirements. For example, you may decide to set a credit score that is some number higher than what is required by Lending Club (currently 660). You can also emphasize loans in which borrowers are refinancing existing debt, rather than taking on new debt. Employment stability is also a factor. A person who has been employed in their field for a number of years is likely to be more employable than one who is just starting out.

A low DTI is also a positive factor. For example, you can make sure the borrowers whose loans you invest in have a DTI of less than, say, 30%. This means their fixed monthly expenses, including their housing expense, the new loan payment, and any other fixed payments do not exceed 30% of their total gross monthly income.

Investor Fees

There are fees charged to investors with Lending Club. However, the fees are collected only when you receive a payment from a borrower. For example, there is a 1% service fee collected on each payment received.

Investing through Lending Club can provide you with excellent high income diversification in a fixed income portfolio. Just by investing a portion of your fixed income allocation in Lending Club notes can increase the overall yield on your fixed income investments.

Open an Investment Account with Lending Club

Review of Lending Club for Borrowers

Not only can you invest with Lending Club, you can borrow with Lending Club as well! Truly, whatever your needs are, you can get a fantastic deal through Lending Club.

You can typically get lower interest rates on loans through Lending Club than you can at a bank. You can also apply for a loan without ever leaving your home. Everything is done online through the website, virtually eliminating the need for an uncomfortable face-to-face meeting at the bank offices. And if your loan is approved, your funds will arrive within a few days.

How the Lending Club Loan Process Works

This is a simple multi-step process that looks something like this:

Complete an application on LendingClub.com.

Your application is evaluated and your credit score is pulled (this is a “soft inquiry” that will not have a negative impact on your credit score).

As described in the preceding section, you are assigned a risk grade of somewhere between A1 (highest grade, lowest rate) and G5 (lowest grade, highest rate). Once again, this grade is based on a combination of your credit score and credit history, employment, income, and your debt-to-income ratio (DTI).

Your loan is given an interest rate based on your risk grade.

You are presented with a variety of loan offers.

Investors will review your criteria and loan grade and decide if they want to invest in it.

Once all parties agree to the transaction, the loan goes through and your funds are available within a few short days.

If

If you’re concerned about privacy during the application process, you don’t need to be. Lending Club investors will never know your identity so you'll be able to borrow on a completely anonymous basis. The site also promises it will never sell, rent, or distribute your information to third party websites for marketing purposes.

Profile of Lending Club Borrowers

The Lending Club screens borrowers and businesses with their credit screening process.  That being said the decision to fund the loans is made by individual investors.

You will be required to have a minimum of a 600 credit score to even be considered.  You will not find this information posted anywhere on LendingClub.com because they do not openly share their lending criteria.  You can be assured that if you have a decent credit score, a credit history of several years and a debt to income ratio that is reasonable that you will get approved for a loan.

Per the most recent data available the average borrower with Lending Club had:

Credit Sore – 699

Income – $74,414

Credit History – 16.2 Years

Non-Mortgage Debt to Income Ratio – 17.9%

Remember that there are a lot of small business borrowers with Lending Club so if you don't meet these averages it should not dissuade you from applying.

What Kinds of Loans Does Lending Club Make?

Most P2P lending sites make either personal loans or business loans, but very few make both. Lending Club has both business and personal loans, and they also make specially designed medical loans too.

Here is a rundown of the types of loans that are offered through Lending Club.

Personal Loans

Lending Club's personal loans can be used for just about any purpose. This includes credit card refinancing, debt consolidation, home improvement, major purchases, home buying, car financing, green loans, loans for business purposes, vacations, and moving and relocation. You can even take a personal loan to have a swimming pool installed in your backyard.

Credit card refinancing is perhaps most interesting of the personal loan offerings. When you consolidate several credit card balances into a single personal loan, it usually results in an increase your credit score. This is because the payoff of the credit card balances results in both a lower credit utilization ratio, and a smaller number of debts with open account balances. Both outcomes have a positive impact on how the credit bureaus calculate your credit scores.

Most other P2P lending sites cap their personal loan amounts at $35,000; Lending Club recently increased their limit to $40,000. What's more, all personal loans made through Lending Club require no collateral. That even includes personal loans used to purchase automobiles.

All loans made through the platform are installment loans, that are fixed rate with fixed payments, and fully paid by the end of the loan term. Those terms can be two years, three years, or five years.

Business Loans

Many P2P lenders offer business loans, but what they really are is personal loans that can be used for business purposes. Lending Club has an actual business loan program. In fact, it's not just business loans, but also business lines of credit.

Business loans are fixed rate, fixed monthly payment loans with terms of between one year and five years. The business line of credit works similar to a credit card or a home equity line of credit, and that you are granted a line of credit which you can access as needed. Interest is charged only on the amount of the outstanding balance. And as you pay down the balance, you free up the line for future borrowing purposes.

These loans and lines are available in amounts up to $300,000. Lending Club does not ask for business plans or projections, or for appraisals and title insurance. If you have ever taken a business loan from a bank, you know that those requirements are virtually industry standards.

What's more, for loans and lines taken for less than $100,000, no collateral is required. For higher loan amounts, collateral is usually provided by a general lien on the business, as well as personal guarantees from the owners of the business.

The purpose of loans and lines are almost unlimited. You can use them for debt consolidation, to refinance existing debt, purchase inventory, acquire equipment, set up a new business location, remodel your business, or pay for marketing expenses.

Medical Loans

This is a loan type whose time has truly come!

Given that health insurance deductibles and co-insurance provisions are increasing, Lending Club Personal Solutions gives you an option to finance uncovered medical expenses. And here’s something even more interesting: the loan can even be used for procedures such as hair restoration, weight loss surgery, fertility, and dental – procedures that are typically excluded under most health insurance plans.

Lending Club offers two types of loans for this purpose:

Extended Plans – These are installment loans that are used to pay for medical procedures that are generally not covered by health insurance. This includes dental procedures, fertility treatment, hair restoration and weight loss surgery.Extended plans are installment loans that include fixed rate, fixed monthly payments, that will be paid in full by the end of the term. These loans are available in terms of 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, or 84 months. You can borrow from a minimum of $2,000 to a maximum of $50,000.

True No-Interest Plans – This loan program offers 0% APR for terms of 6-, 12-, 18-, or 24-months, and for loan amounts ranging from as little as $499 up to $32,000. After the no-interest term expires, a variable rate of 22.98% APR applies on the remaining balance (this arrangement is similar to the one offered by CareCredit, but at a lower rate of interest after the initial 0% interest period). And if you can pay off the loan within the 0% interest term, you can get funds for medical procedures without having to add interest to the cost of an already expensive operation.

Lending Club works with thousands of healthcare providers who accept financing arrangements through the platform. It's always important to be sure that a provider is one of those participants before having any procedures..

Loan Terms and Pricing

You can borrow any amount up to $35,000, and while the loans are typically used for refinancing debt or debt consolidation, you can also borrow for other purposes, such as unsecured home improvement loans. Current terms are fixed-rate loans of either 36 months or 60 months.

Exactly how much you will pay in interest rates and fees depends upon the type of loan that you are looking for, as well as your loan grade..

Personal Loans. As noted above, your interest rate will be based on your credit grade, which can run between a high of A1 and a low of G5. A1 has a best rate of 5.99% APR. The highest interest rate currently possible is 35.96% for a G5 loan with a 36 month term.

Lending Club does not have an application fee, but it does have an origination fee, which is typical for P2P lenders. Lending Club's origination fee ranges between 1% and 5% of the loan amount. The fee is deducted from the loan proceeds, therefore it will only be charged if you actually take the loan.

Lending club does not charge a prepayment penalty on any of its loans.

Business Loans. These loans carry an entirely different pricing structure. Depending upon your credit grade and the financial strength of your business, interest rates on business loans range between 8.00% APR and 32.00% APR. For business lines of credit, available interest rates range between 6.25% and 21.60%, which is of course a variable rate, subject to change.

Business loans and lines of credit also require an origination fee. This ranges between 0.99% and 6.99% of the loan amount. And once again, there are no prepayment penalties on business loans and lines of credit.

Patient Solutions Loans. Since there are two types of loans available under Patient Solutions, there are also two types of pricing.

For Extended Plans, which are fixed rate loans ranging in term from 24 to 84 months, the APR can range between 3.99% and 24.99%.

For True No-Interest loans – which are interest-free for the initial term of six, 12, 18, or 24 months – interest is charged only on the outstanding balance that remains at the end of that term. At that point, a rate of 22.98% APR is charged on the outstanding balance. It's important to understand that this APR is a variable rate that will depend on the applicable rate at the time that the 0% interest term ends. The APR can also change even after you begin making payments.

In order to keep interest rates as low as possible, Lending Club sets up your loan with automatic draft payments from your bank account. In the event you need to pay by check, they will charge a $15 check processing fee per check.

Best of all, there are no prepayment penalties should you decide to pay off your loan early.

The Lending Club Loan Application Process

You start the loan application process by checking your rate. This requires providing just general information, and should take no more than a few minutes. This step will have no impact on your credit score.

If you meet the loan criteria, you will be presented with multiple loan offers. You can then select the offer that best meet your needs.

You then submit your application, and your loan is then listed for review by investors. This is the process where investors decide to fund your loan. Your personal identity is protected during this process. Your name and other personally identifying information does not appear on your listing.

Once your loan is fully funded by investors, the verification process will take place (see below), the loan will undergo a final review, and then loan documents will be prepared.

The loan application process typically takes about seven days, however that will depend upon the amount of documentation required and how quickly you can submit it. Funding will take a few more days, but that will largely depend upon how quickly your bank accepts electronic funds.

Verification process. Lending Club will require documentation in order to verify your income and employment. Income documentation may require pay stubs, bank statements, W-2s, pension awards, 1099s for investment income, or income tax returns. In order to verify employment, Lending Club may contact your employer.

As is the case with most lenders, P2P or traditional, they will typically require copies of documents for identification purposes in order to comply with federal law.

All documentation can be provided by uploading it to the Lending Club platform.

Multiple Lending Club Loans. Lending Club will allow you to have two active personal loans at the same time. You will have to have made 12 months of on-time payments on your existing Lending Club loan, and you must meet current credit criteria for the second loan.

Loan Repayment methods. Lending Club sets up your payments to be automatically deducted from your bank account – you will receive a reminder a few days ahead of time by email. You can make your payments by paper check, but you'll be charged a processing fee of $7 for each such payment.

Open an Borrower Account or Business Borrower Account with Lending Club

How I'm Investing Using Lending Club

What I really want to do today is walk you through how I am investing with Lending Club. While we've already covered details on how to invest and borrow with Lending Club, I thought I'd show you a little bit of my personal experience with investing using the peer-to-peer lender.

I have been investing with Lending Club for a few years now. I don't have a whole lot invested, and you'll actually see that here in a minute because I really didn't understand it and I wanted test it out first. I wanted to test-drive it before 1) I put more money into it and 2) before I recommended people take a look at it.

Below, you'll see a screenshot of the website. I went ahead and logged in so you can see where I'm at right now. Right now, I have invested a total of $2,200, so not a big investment by any means.

My net annualized return is 10.83%, so right off the cuff you can see I'm already making more than the average investor at Lending Club is making – almost a full percentage point more. That's not because I am a uniquely great investor. I'm actually very passive in the way I choose my notes, which I'll show you here in a minute.

I currently have $525 sitting in cash in my Lending Club account that I need to invest, and that's exactly what I'm going to use today to show you how to invest.

I love Lending Club because they keep things simple. For the people who don't like to spend a lot of time doing research, they make it very, very simple in that you can choose option one, option two, or option three. Let's just assume you have a high tolerance for risk and you are looking at the 17% figure. You look at that number. You're drooling over it. You want it. That's how much you want to make.

By quickly clicking that option, they will show you where you are investing your notes (the agreements you have with people you're lending your money to). They're ranked similarly to that of a report card or a bond.

Initially, you'll notice by going the more aggressive direction you do not have any of the A- or B-type investors. These are your higher credit score people. They are less likely to default on their loan, so this is definitely more of a high-yield approach when it comes to peer-to-peer lending.

Of that $525 I have to invest, $100 is going into C notes, $200 is going to D notes, $150 going to E, and $75 going to F. Immediately, Lending Club breaks it down for you automatically. And I can't tell you how much I love that! That's actually my strategy. I don't select the third option. I typically select option one, but immediately they break down the notes for you.

They also show you your average interest rate on that is 17.9% (in this example), but because some of those folks are going to default on their loans, they are estimating you'll lose 4.42% based on default.

Then there is Lending Club's charge of 0.52%, so your projected return after it's all said and done is going to be approximately 12.25%. And that's approximately. Maybe all of those people do pay you back where you're all good and you actually make more, but that should just give you an idea.

Lending Club Notes

Let's just go to the next step real quick. Here is another area where you can start seeing what some of these loans are used for. For example, you might see listed: credit cards, debt consolidation loans, small business loans, and more. You can actually see what these notes are.

Note: You should know I'm going through this process in real time, so I can make sure to show you my thought process along the way and you get a real Lending Club review as I move from screen to screen.

The amount left is how much more that person needs to borrow to take care of the debt. If you want to take it one step further you now can see more about the individual, their gross income per month, if they're a homeowner or not, their length of employment, their current employer, where they are located, their debt-to-income, and their credit score range. It just gives you a lot more details about the borrower.

Even more, if you want you can ask them questions if you're not confident or just need some reassurance. Here's an example of an asked question:

“What type of business are you starting?”

They said:

“We are purchasing an existing flight school and looking for help with a short-term loan to assist with the down payment.”

Lending Club actually gives you some direct questions to ask. They did change that a little bit over the past few years (I think because of a privacy act), but they give you a lot of the good basic questions to ask.

One thing I didn't mention is that of the $525 I have to invest, typically only $25 of that is going toward each individual note, so that's where the diversification comes into play where you're not putting all your eggs in one basket.

I am going to try option one. I'm much more comfortable with that option. My projected rate of return is going to be lower, but as you can see I'm actually doing better than what was predicted. I think I might have done some high-risk investing in the beginning, but typically I have stuck with option one. You can see I have a lot more of the B borrowers and none on the F and G side. I'm not much on the high yield. I like to be a little bit more conservative with this aspect. Immediately they break it down and it looks like I'm doing some overlap of my last entry so let's see if we can get that straightened out.

Note: Lending Club's minimum investment is only $25. That's it.

The other thing too is you could actually choose the term of the note. Lending Club initially just started out with a 36-month, three-year note. They now offer a 60-month note so that's actually a little bit more of a return on that one, but you are locked into your own money. You can also sell these notes too, so if you are not wanting to hold it for the maturity you can find a buyer – just like selling stock on the open market.

Choosing Note Options

All right, let's see if I can finally get this figured out. I just want to invest. I should've started with the option one to begin with. Let's start over. Sorry about that.

Let's go with option one. I can actually go in there and select notes by themselves. I can add more money to one note, take some money away from another note, etc. You have that ability! You also have the ability to build your own portfolios from scratch, so if you want to go through all of the different available notes, you can do that as well. I personally don't have interest in that so I don't. So, with $525 I'm going to invest into 21 different notes and my average rate of return will be approximately 9.58%. A quick look at the notes and we are going to place the order.

You can then give your portfolio a name. I haven't done a very good job of managing this so I'm just going to assign it to “portfolio 10” and we can go from there. I will soon get a confirmation.

One notable thing is that I've just invested $525 into 21 individual notes. Most likely, not all of those notes will get the entire funding. In some cases you won't get the investment you initially were after. In that case, you would get a refund. From there, you can go out and find some new notes. It most likely will happen, just so you know.

That is it as far as how to invest with Lending Club. It's so simple! As far as who I would recommend this to – this is not a savings account replacement. This is not a certificate of deposit replacement. Even though you can get a three-year or five-year note you might think of that as a three-year or five-year CD.

There is definitely more risk involved with investing this way so do not make this an apples-to-apples comparison.

How Lending Club Fits in My Overall Portfolio

How do I view Lending Club in my overall investment portfolio? Well, we already have our emergency fund and we have our savings account – this is just something to complement what I'm doing in my stocks. Like I said, I only have a small investment now, but after doing my initial Lending Club review we are planning on shifting some more money there.

We were building a house, had some other improvements we were doing, were having a third child, so we wanted to have more in cash then we probably should, but we just felt more comfortable doing that. Now that we have some of those things out of the way I am definitely a lot more comfortable moving some more cash into Lending Club and start making some more interest.

I should also say I have never had any notes default on Lending Club up to this point. I've been doing it for just over two years, and I believe and have not had a default yet. I'm not saying I won't, but I haven't had one yet. If I do I will definitely report it.

If you have any more questions let me know. You'll find an affiliate link, so if you do click and open an account I do earn a bit of money for you doing that. You can also go to LendingClub.com directly. I won't get the commission and that's fine by me as well.

If you have more questions on my Lending Club review or if you have any experiences, please share. I'd love to hear more about it as this becomes more of a mainstream investing approach for a lot of people.

What Makes Lending Club Different

Having become the most successful of the P2P sites, Lending Club has some features that set it apart from the other lenders.

The CEO of Lending Club, Scott Sanborn, has told us that LC is constantly using the data in its system to evaluate investor and borrower behavior.  They use this data to improve the loan marketplace and make it better for both borrowers and lenders.  Two good examples:

Lending club has a standard minimum rate of 5.99% for regular loans.  In 2014 they created a special loan for people who have ridiculously awesome credit profiles.  This loan has a rate of 4.99%.

In the third quarter of 2015, Lending Club added joint loan applications to making it easier for couples to get approved for loans.  This was a smart move because married couples tend to be better at paying off debt than individuals.

This dedication to technology and data allows them to continue to improve and will add flexibility over time.

Lending Club Alternatives

There are other P2P lending platforms popping up all over the web. But Lending Club has become the gold standard for the entire industry. Whether you are an investor looking for an above average rate of return, or a borrower looking for more affordable loan programs, you'll find what you’re looking for at Lending Club.

This company has continued to grow and prosper over the years. We can expect even better things from Lending Club going forward. And it’s probably not an exaggeration to say that Lending Club just might be the banking platform of the future.

While you can always invest using a more traditional investment platform or borrow money through a bank or credit card, there are only a few other options in the peer-to-peer lending world. The most prominent competitor to Lending Club is Prosper.

These two are the heavyweights in the peer-to-peer lending marketplace – so much so that we put together an in-depth Prosper vs. Lending Club comparison. You can learn more about all the features on Prosper with our Prosper review.

Check out everything Lending Club has to offer, and see if you can’t get a better investment – or a better loan – than what your bank is offering you.

Hey, by the way, if you're looking for a way to invest your money for the short-term and you're not really sure if Lending Club is right for you, be sure to read my article: The 11 Best Short-Term Investments for Your Money. It's packed full of information on how you can invest your money with little risk to swallow.

Remember, only you can make the determination of what's right for you when it comes to peer-to-peer lending. I wouldn't recommend putting all your eggs in the Lending Club basket, but it's certainly an appropriate choice for well-established investors or borrowers needing some money.

The Bottom Line for Our Lending Club Review

Lending club is really geared for borrowers with good to great credit scores.  Their loans are a real boon to small business owners and others who have been affected by the banks tightening all their lending criteria.

The size of the company and the now several years of experience as a lending marketplace allow both borrowers and investors to know they are working with a solid entity.  While the approval process takes a little longer than with some of the other P2P lenders, this is because they are dedicated to allowing individuals pick the loans they want to invest in rather than keeping a large pool of money from investors.

Take a look at Lending Club today and see if it's right for you!

Please note: This article contains affiliate links that may result in providing me with a commission for you signing up for the services listed. Still, my opinions are my own and I wouldn't steer you wrong.

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The post Lending Club Reviews For Investors And Borrowers appeared first on Good Financial Cents.

from All About Insurance http://www.goodfinancialcents.com/lending-club-review-for-investors-and-borrowers/

[abundantchewtoys]

HS Epi 2: Meat p9 reaction

Let's see what Rose is up to. :P No, seriously, this might just happen. Just for us to switch back immediately afterwards to John.

The events of the Masterpiece are so important, though, I'd thought they'd happen near the climax to the epilogues. Unless the epilogues are shorter than I'd thought of course. There's still Homestuck 2, and wouldn't it just be something, for the part of Meat that takes place on Earth C to build up to that.

---

OOooh, this counts as the start of Epilogue 2, huh? So... I suppose that means Mean encompasses several epilogues, even if the chapter count keeps incrementing. If this were Homestuck proper, the Epilogues & Prologue would have had separate titles, too.

Prologue : yeah, i had a feeling that was going to come up again someday. Epilogue 1 : Rumble in the Pumpkin Patch Epilogue 2 : MY MASTERPIECE.

"If you were one of the haters and fools who saw Lord English’s masterpiece circulating through the black veins of the dark web," So, from starting the first sentence I get the idea that we won't be changing perspective just yet. But John hasn't seen the masterpiece, so he wouldn't be impressed.

"and were rendered agog by its majesty, then you probably have a pretty good sense of what happened next." ... Hah! Yeah, but Andrew won't be pulling a Hivebent on us here... will he? I'd really like some more succulent details.

"You probably also wouldn’t be rendered that much additionally agog if you were told it didn’t happen precisely as conveyed by the young Lord’s expertly produced claymation theater." OOoooooOOOOHhhhh, interesting yes. ... Well, unless the narration will now drily inform us that the events did not happen to clay figures but actual people. That much, we already could guess.

... Ya know, I wonder. The sprites squared never featured in Act 7 because back when he wrote and produced the animation, they weren't part of the story yet. Could this mean that Andrew worked out the events of the Masterpiece beforehand, and only later thought of things like Arquiusprite emerging from Lil Seb, and Gamzee being dissected? ... It would be a grand psyche if Lord English turns out NOT to contain the soul sludge from Dirk, Equius and Gamzee, but uh, yeah, that probably won't be the case. We (the MSPA Reader) already had a mental breakdown about this.

"Would it be that surprising if the first four heroes weren’t immediately captured in the juju," ... YES. YES THAT WOULD BE SURPRISING. ... THEY DIDN'T GO IN WILLINGLY DID THEY? ... Did they exchange pleasantries (or unpleasantries) before Caliborn captured them. ... This can't have been a joint plan they worked out to 'save' Caliborn from becoming a mindless mobster kingpin chained by providence into doing Paradox Space's dirty work.

"Would it raise any eyebrows if the action turned out to be a bit sloppier than that?" Sloppier as in... less coordinated? Well, these are the same kids who went Game Over in another timeline, I can see how. Unless the narration means, sloppier action as in, more stilted, broken up by banter and revelations being exchanged.

"A bloody"- ... Bloody? They weren't killed first, were they??

"-nose here." Ah. "A stray wedgie there. Someone trips on a cape." So, more like school yard scuffles instead of boss battles then. Like Caliborn & John's first stand off.

"stray honks from the sidelines." Useless minions are a pain, eh, Caliborn?

"Would it rock anyone’s world to discover the stop-motion feature did not treat this battle royale with the utmost fidelity?" Not if THIS is the extent of the differences, no, that's more expansion than contradiction, after all. It would just mean Caliborn's version was more succinct, akin to Doc Scratch' white lies.

"No one who witnessed the spectacle online would react to these discrepancies with much surprise. But you are not such a witness. You are still John Egbert," Narration, I don't think you quite understand what POV means. :P Really would like to see later on that Andrew's ghost is, well, ghost writing all of this in the dreambubbles.

"and you had no idea what sort of raucous teen pandemonium to expect when you zapped into the lair of your nemesis to throw down. Which is why you were completely blindsided when, upon feeling overwhelmed by the melee, Caliborn sprung his gambit on you and your three best friends to even the odds." You were completely blown away by this stunning revelation. Really, the juju, really? :P Rose didn't tell you about THIS, did she, and you should use a moment to contemplate that. You know, as you are sucked into oblivion until it's time to emerge from the other end. Guess his/our perspective will be ending here, then, after he's finished getting sucked into the juju? And only when they team back up with the B2 kids later, will he learn that his attempt to stop LE before he became that very monster, caused it in the first place.

"He opened his little red chest, and out came his white, house-shaped juju, levitating there, threatening to behave as the weapon many treasure hunters throughout history have described it to be." Ah, but do the descriptions do it justice, does it really do what Caliborn claimed in his claymation.

"Upon a second look, it’s not quite white though. It’s colorless, null. A house-shaped hole in your confining reality. A hole that insists on being filled." Until I read the "being filled", I thought that maybe they'd actually end up in blankspace somehow. Then again... The juju that John got his retcon powers from should've chronologically already been filled, and it was still see-through.

"You tried to resist its overwhelming pull, but to no avail." Okay, so yeah, this is still happening.

"Not negating your powers, your strength to resist, so much as it seemed to overwrite them." It's basically retconning his powers, where retconning is used in the same context as the effect he has when he zaps to an earlier moment on the timeline: he overwrites what happened before.

"You landed in the abstract prison it contains face-first, alone, and with a force that made you flip over a few times and skid along by the flat of your chin." Oh wow. Okay, they're actually going to be spending at least SOME conscious moments in the juju. ... So, might that be also how John got granted his powers then, a conscious decision made by the four individuals trapped in the juju? It's been theorized before that John's retcon powers are a combination of the 4 B1 kids' aspects: he travels through Time and Space, creates new alpha timelines (new Light, as in fortune)... Also, free as the Breeze (Breath) something something.

I'm pretty sure how he landed was akin to Vriska's slides at the hands (fists) of Kanaya & John.

Blaperile has a good point - would John still have his powers after past John got his? Or were they an ontological paradox to begin with? That would suck, though he might still find a way to travel back to Universe C regardless. For one, there's the possibility to travel through the Furthest Ring and reach the old B2 session.

"You groped for your glasses instinctively, finding them in two cracked halves. You cradled their remains as you looked up." Wow, his glasses were broken?? Eesh, another childhood treasured heirloom lost. Guess we now find out if godhood grants 20/20 eyesight regardless of eyewear. ... Maybe he needs to reach his next god tier first. I'm reminded of Jake getting his 'eyes' knocked off during [S] Dirk: Rise Up.

"The blurry, distorted face of your laughing nemesis" Nay on the 20/20 part then. Though the distortion might be due to Caliborn grinning maniacally.

"was the last thing you saw before the chest door slammed shut and plunged you into textual obsolescence." Oh, so John can 'see' outside the juju then.

"And here, you are now stuck." Stuck in a house-shaped object. A home, if you will.

"You will not emerge from this holding cell, from an outside perspective, for quadrillions of years." Implying, then, that that is Lord English' own age? Or perhaps, the span covered by the Green Sun's influence?

"It is not long at all until you begin to wish you had brought something to read." Pfffff. Guess John's sylladex contents were pretty bare bone, or he had no access to it. Also, it would seem he's separate from the other kids, damn. If he could've talked with them, he could've at least apologized for his (and post-retcon Rose's) mistake in person, before they started their prison sentence.