#How can I become assistant professor in DU?

[krazyshoppy]

बिना परीक्षा सरकारी नौकरी पाने का सुनहरा मौका, आवेदन में सिर्फ दो दिन है बाकी

बिना परीक्षा सरकारी नौकरी पाने का सुनहरा मौका, आवेदन में सिर्फ दो दिन है बाकी

दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय ने असिस्टेंट प्रोफेसर के पदों पर भर्तियां निकाली हैं. यह भर्ती श्री गुरु तेग बहादुर खालसा कॉलेज के लिए निकाली गई हैं. आवेदन के लिए सिर्फ दो बचे इच्छुक उम्मीदवार जल्द से जल्द आवेदन कर ले. वहीं आधिकारिक वेबसाइट colrec.du.ac.in पर जाकर ऑनलाइन आवेदन कर सकते हैं. उम्मीदवारों को सलाह दी जाती है कि आधिकारिक नोटिफिकेशन जरूर पढ़ें.  DU Recruitment 2022 के लिए महत्वपूर्ण तिथियांआवेदन…

[pucking-insane]

Nothin’ Like You - Cale Makar

Player: Cale Makar Word Count: 1544 Warnings: Vegetables

Mmm I remember when I first met you Sipping coffee in a corner booth You were twirling your hair And I just had to stare For a minute or two I was laughing at your stack of books Then you shot me that smile Hey beautiful girl, in your own little world And me in it

In a way, you could call Barnes and Noble your home. You loved to read. You read practically anything, from mystery to sci-fi, from fantasy to romance, non-fiction to adventure. 

Today, you were on the hunt for a book for your psych class. You were talking about mindsets in class and you were interested in the topic so you came to find the book your professor recommended.

“Dang.” 

When you located the book on the shelf, it was in the worst possible location. The top shelf. It was just out of your reach and of course there were no step stools around to help you get your book.

“Need a little help?” 

You turned around to see a young guy, no older than 25. He had blonde hair and rosy cheeks. He stood tall, maybe 6 feet.

“Yes please.” A blush creeped onto your face.

“Which one?” He asked you as he looked at the shelf.

“The one with the purple spine, paperback.”

He pulled the book off the shelf with ease, inspected the cover and handed it to you.

“I really enjoyed this one. I’m Cale, by the way.”

“Well, Cale, you into psychology?”

“With my job I kind of needed to know about the different kinds of mindsets. And you’re into psychology?”

“I’m studying at DU to become a child psychologist. I’m Y/N, by the way.”

“You wanna maybe grab a cup of coffee sometime?”

You were taken aback by Cale’s question. Sure he was attractive. And he had this sort of mystery about him. Something that made you want to know more about him.

“I’ll go pay for this and we can grab something from the café?”

“Sounds wonderful.” He gave a smile, stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and walked towards the café.

You got all of my attention And you ain't even trying Yeah, you're my kind of different And I never seen nothin'

“So, Cale,” you said as you both sat down at a table in the cafe. “What do you do for a living?”

He sighed heavily. 

“Don’t laugh.” A blush spread across his already rosy cheeks.

“Why would I laugh?”

“I play professional hockey.” He bit his lower lip, awaiting your response.

“Oh my god.” You covered your face with your hands.

“What?”

“I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you!” You whisper-shouted. “You’re Cale Makar!”

“Hockey fan, eh?” Cale smiled.

“Huge.” It was now your turn to blush. “I grew up in Minnesota so I spent my life on the ice. And I actually played for my high school, leading them to a state championship as a captain senior year.”

“Oh wow.” Cale took a sip of his coffee. “So you don’t play anymore?”

“No. I wasn’t good enough to commit, but I still love the sport. The Avs are my favorite team actually.” A blush spread across your face.

“You should come to a game sometime.” Cale smiled.

“I would love to.” You returned the smile.

Nothin' like you Shades on spinning in a summer rain Dancing in the rain no music Just the right kind of crazy, baby Something about you Rocking that rock 'n roll t-shirt We're at a party dressed up But you just doing your thing Ain't nobody ever seen nothin' like you

Over the next few weeks, you and Cale began to hang out more and more. He took you all over Denver, trying new restaurants, catching movies, or checking out the local museums. You also took Cale to a Broncos game, where you both donned the blue and orange of the football team. 

You had come to have sort of a crush on Cale. His rosy cheeks and killer smile were your downfall. He wasn’t like the hockey players you had known in high school. He was an intellectual. The two of you could have discussions about psychology and how the brain works. Cale would also help you study for your exams, quizzing you on terms and asking you study questions. How hot is a smart guy?

Your friends at school chirped you for the amount of time you spent with Cale.

“Y/N, your ‘I can’t, I have to study’ excuse has turned into ‘I can’t, Cale and I made plans.’” They would tell you. You would just blush and deny it.

One October afternoon, you were relaxing on Cale’s couch. He had just gotten home from morning skate when he invited you over. His hair was still wet and he was wearing a fresh set of sweats and a t-shirt. You were both reading books as you sat in silence. Your head was resting in Cale’s lap, glasses perched on your nose. You held your latest psych book find above your head, brows furrowed in concentration. Cale was reading a book you had recommended to him, and he found his fingers tangling in your hair as he played with it.

To be honest, Cale also had a huge crush on you. His teammates would chirp him for it, but he didn’t care. He wanted to take his time with you, make sure you knew that he cared (of course you did know that he cared about you). 

“Hey, Y/N?” Cale asked, breaking the silence.

“Hm?”

“Tonight’s the home opener, and it would mean the world to me if you came.” Cale said softly, a blush spreading to his cheeks.

“I would love to.” You looked up at Cale with a smile.

When you're wearing them worn out jeans Purple untied shoe strings You're a light in the dark And you're stealing my heart like a gypsy

That night, you found yourself at the will-call ticket office to pick up the ticket Cale had left for you.

“I’m here to pick up a ticket for Y/N.” You said when you got to the window.

“Alright.” You were given your ticket. “I was told to also give you this.”

“Thank you!”

It was an Avalanche jersey. You ran your fingers over the material. Unfolding the jersey, you realized it was Cale’s jersey. He had pinned a note to the material.

Thought you might want a jersey for tonight. I can’t wait to see you after the game. Cale PS come to the glass for warmups

You entered the lower bowl to go to the glass for warmups. Players were hitting the ice with introductions. Soon, they were whizzing around the ice. As soon as Cale caught your eye, he started to wave. He skated over to you.

“I like your jersey.” He mouthed to you with a blush.

“Thanks.” You smiled. “Someone very special gave it to me.”

He blushed again and sent a puck your way.

After warmups, you found your seat, which to your surprise was in one of the boxes. 

“You must be Y/N!” A blonde woman said as you entered the box. “Cale’s girl! I’m Mel by the way.”

You shook Mel’s hand and she introduced you to the other women and families. 

“Landeskog, 92, is my husband. He’s said that Cale never shuts up about you.” Mel explained.

“Oh, um,” You blushed. “Cale and I aren’t together.”

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Mel apologized. “He does like you though.”

“You think?”

“Oh I know. Gabe says he just blushes every time you’re mentioned by a teammate.”

You watched the game intently, eyes always on the lookout for number eight. You cheered so loudly when Mikko scored off of Cale’s assist. Soon enough the game was over and you were going with all the other WAGs down to the dressing room.

“Y/N!” Cale smiled as he saw you when he came out of the dressing room.

“Great game!” You smiled as you hugged him.

“Thank you! You look great in my jersey by the way.” He whispered in your ear.

“Oh really?”

“Of course.” He pulled away from the hug and looked into your eyes. “And I wanted you to be wearing it when I asked you this question.” He took a deep breath. “Will you, Y/F/N Y/L/N, be my girlfriend?”

“I would love to.”

I love the way that you kiss me In front of everybody So baby come and kiss me They ain't ever seen nothin' Nothin like you...

Cale leaned down to kiss you. It was cautious and gentle. Your lips fit together with Cale’s perfectly and they moved in sync. 

The guys all whistled when they saw what was happening between you and your new boyfriend.

“GET SOME CALE!”

“ATTA BOY!”

The ladies, of course, telling their significant others to shut up and let you have your moment, were also happy for the two of you.

“I’ll tell you what.” Cale said as he pulled away from the kiss.

“What?”

“I have never met anyone like you.” He placed one last kiss on your lips before taking your hand and leading you to his car.

[argyrocratie]

Les lascars du LEP électronique

France, 1986, during a periode of wide contestation by students and highschoolers against an education reform: a bunch of stundent of a technical highschool shared a number of tract signed “Les lascars du LEP électronique” making their own radical critic of society and the student movement

(text translated by me from here, more info in french in this video):

___________________________________________________

THEY WANTED TO MAKE US STUPID …… IT FAILLED.

We started to walk out when the noise of the student movement reached us. First of all, we didn't quite get it. What were the students fighting against? We didn't know it. But they were fighting against… .something and we liked it.

We took to the streets to break the monotony of school and because we too were violently against… something! But what ?

When we took to the streets we took everything we liked from the school, our friends, our pals, the fun, the joy and the friendship.

We talked whith each other as we had never talked before, and we really liked it. So high school wasn't the walls, wasn't that the program? IT WAS US! ALL TOGETHER !

Talking, running, thinking, talking quickly, very quickly, we understood a lot.

The students are fighting against the Devaquet law which worsens the selection at the University where we will never go! But the selection we know! We have already given! very early on, “intelligent” people directed us towards short subsidiaries, LEP. making us feel that we weren't able to do anything else and that after school it would be (if we could find a job) even worse. It seems that us, it is the Monory Law that "concerns" us and that it too will be worse.

Worse than what? How? We can't see it very well!

Anyway, we don't need to know this Law to refuse it!

Because we no longer want what we have that is miserable, and it is not to ask for more, nor less. More of what, less of what! What does it change ? Be more profitable for those who will make us work? Thank you !

THAT'S OF NO INTEREST TO US. FIND SOMETHING ELSE!

Our teachers kept us (half-heartedly) under the illusion that our diplomas, provided we were hardworking, punctual, attentive, conscientious, would give us a place, oh not wonderful one, but still a place all the same; that our studies would condition our place in the world of work.

"Rather, it seems to us that this is our future job which already conditions our studies ”.

PROMISING !

We thought we would get away with it, through music, travel, theater, friendship, all that…. ; that we would manage, without really knowing how, to escape it, in the meantime we would keep silent so as not to vex them, upset them ... but also because we could see, deep down, that we were stuck, alone, isolated.

Now we know: it wasn't a personal, individual problem.

This is everyone's problem!

By passively refusing yesterday, actively today, school; it is the work and the stupid life that we have been kindly prepared that we refuse!

We discuss, we reflect, we have a good laugh, BUT WE ARE VERY SERIOUS!

You almost got us, you failed! We saw something else. We're going for it. It’s going down!

(FROM THE LASCARS OF LEP ELECTRONIQUE 1986)

___________________________________________________

Everything that is questionable must be criticized

WE CRITICIZE!

STUDENTS, yesterday we were in the street with you but we might as well tell you right away, the Devaquet reform, we don’t give a fuck? For us the selection has already played out. The University is closed to us, and our diplomas take us straight to the factory after a short trip to the dole.

For us, the  Devaquet law is not needed:

We criticize the University.

We criticize the students.

We criticize school.

We criticize  work.

School gives us the bad places. The University gives you mediocre ones. Together let's criticize them! But don't tell us: we will always need sweepers, workers, or so go ahead guys, these places we will abandoned them to you with a good heart, go ahead!

WE ARE NOT MORE STUPID THAN YOU, WE WILL NOT GO TO THE FACTORY

If you criticize the Devaquet law which only makes a bad situation worse, you haven't got it!

Besides, your situation is not much better than ours. A good part of you (60% it seems) will give up your studies before the second; and these bad students will be entitled to the same menial and poorly paid jobs that are our lot. And as for the good students, let them know that the average places they will have (the good ones it’s not at the university that one finds them) have lost a lot of their prestige and their power. Today a doctor is no longer a SIR, he is a welfare employee. And what is a teacher, a lawyer? There are so many…!

STUDENTS, if you only criticize the Devaquet Law and not the University, you will fight alone and the law will pass suddenly or in little bits, you WILL GET IT IN YOUR ASS! And, if by any chance it didn't pass then everything would be as before and half of you would end up in  offices, your sanitized factories.

STUDENTS it is you who are called to manage this company and we to produceit.

IF YOU MOVE, IF WE MOVE, ANYTHING CAN MOVE.

But if you only want to play the Tapie apprentice, if you only want to manage this society loyally and become inexpensively educators, social workers, animators, labor inspectors, executives, sociologists, psychologists, journalists, personnel directors; to tomorrow educateus, assist us, animate us, inspect us, inform us, direct us, make us work ...

SCREW YOU !!!

But if you want, to begin with, to criticize the school system which excludes and demeans us, if you want to fight, with us, against social segregation, against poverty, yours and ours, then ... BROTHERS (SISTERS) WITH US, WE LOVE YOU!

DES LASCARS DU LEP ELECTRONIQUE December 1986

___________________________________________________

Teachers, you are making us old!

Since the time you wanted us to talk  and we kept silent, this time we're going to talk. We know that for most of you, you just want to help us. Each in your own way, you've tried everything. You have been stern, lax, patient, impatient, considerate or distant; you have reflected, discussed among yourselves, with us, with the administration.

You told us so many things, we said nothing or so little, we were silent, we smiled. You said to us:”here we don't laugh , we work,” or “here we laugh but we work”, or “if you do nothing do not disturb your comrades who themselves ...” or “make an effort!” or “Mr. So-and-so, do you think you might be late when you will have to work?” or “ah it's you go sit down”, or “answer? nobody knows ?” or “in ten years of career I have never seen that!” or “if you have a problem come see me at the end of the course”, or “ask questions!” and also “I have a daughter of your age”, “silence when I speak”, “Gentlemen, take a sheet”, “repeat what I just said”, “go get me a ticket”, “I warn you with me it will not be like with Mr. Thing”.

Well yes! It's the same, you've tried everything it hasn't changed anything. You supported us in the council, you saw our parents, you said to yourself: "what if he was my son", you worked, started again, prepared lessons, visits, internships, presentations, outings, we drank coffee together, you went on strike, you yelled, maybe cried, it didn't change anything.

Year after year, we were swallowed up by the social rolling mill, the students you saved, you wear them like decorations, they are deserved, what a job for each of them! But it's not possible for everyone!

The problem was not us, it was not you, it’s all the rest!

You knew it, of course, but you believed it was inevitable. It is not the academic failure that we reproache you, it is to have accepted too long and tried to make us accept an unacceptable state of affairs, people and relations between people.

We are the problematic guys for you; you pity us in advance as if your life were wonderful! We can see, when you sulk, that you too are bored.

You say: and what have you yourselves done for yourself? Precisely by our current activity we criticize our passivity of yesterday. You say "you are unjust, our lives are not sad, we are not submissive, we want to help you!" Prove it ! Want to talk to us? We do not hear you very well, we are already far away, come closer, otherwise in a week you will not understand anything. Before, our passivity was your excuse. Not anymore.

YOU CAN'T LIKE US: WE TELL THE TRUTH. The one that is at the bottom of your heart, that there are fed up with hierarchical, separate relationships, fed up with narrow lives. You don't dare believe it, you don't dare say it. Yet it is there. Professors, this is the place to jump. If you let go, if you falter, if you betray ... we won't say anything. Our eyes will speak for us. They are relentless, you know that! You will be judged by yourself, you will not get up from it. Come discuss with us on an equal footing.

YOU CAN'T DO NOTHING AGAINST US, WE PREVENT YOU FROM AGING

Des lascars du LEP électronique

[come-to-the-day]

Remember “Les Têtes à Claques”? Well, there’s more to it! 

You see, after Les Têtes à Claques went from a web-series to a television series, the people behind it (or the man behind it - I don’t know exactly how many person are aboard in it. I know that the show as originally created, scripted, made and voiced by only one man, this same man that is still doing all of the voices of the characters today, Michel Beaudet, but I don’t know if more people came to help him with scenarios or the animation through time).

Anyway, another series was created, one that was aiming at a younger audience: “Les Histoires Bizarres du Professeur Zarbi” (The Weird Stories of Professor Zarbi. Note that “Zarbi” is “bizarre” reversed, and is verlan for “weird”. Used to be a modern/popular slang, now is mostly seen as childish). This show keeps the idea behind the original animation of Les Têtes à Claques (real-life eyes and mouths) but the style, drawings and animation in general is much, much smoother and much more natural. 

Anyway, this series is a parody of all the supernatural and horror tropes and stories. The main characters are Professor Zarbi, an old expert on supernatural and paranormal whose job is to investigate, explain (and sometimes fight) all sorts of supernatural threats and occurences, and Benjamin, his young “assistant/sidekick” (that in fact was at first enroled by force by the Professor but then grew to like it). 

Benjamin is the most interesting character for us here. He is many things: he is the “reasonable man” of the duo, he is also the poor sidekick that is at the center of all the jokes, accidents and disasters. He is the one that falls easily to bad influences, he is the caricature of most teenagers and finally - he is a fat glutton. Well... his fatness isn’t brought up much actually, it is just mentionned once in an episode. His gluttony is brought up more often (it isn’t a regular joke as in it doesn’t appear in every episode, but it is a frequent one).

Here is for exemple the first episode of the series, a parody of The Exorcist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxY6aTjc1w8

(Sorry for all of you that don’t understand French :P But I couldn’t find what the English dub of this series is. There must be one, since Les Têtes à Claques got created as a double-language TV series...)

Two jokes are made about Benjamin’s gluttony. The first is when his mother and him are arriving into their new house (they moved away, and that’s how Benjamin met the Professor, by becoming his neighbor). Once all the packages are in the house he asks his mother if they should order “a jumbo-pizza with extra bacon and cheese in the crust”. His mother notes that they ate one just before leaving, and Benjamin, embarrased, explains that moving out and in builds quite an appetite. 

Later, when his mother is possessed by a demon, she starts beating him and throwing him against walls - he thinks she is mad at him and thus tries to find all possibles excuses and promises to make her stop. One of them being “I swear I won’t empty the fridge at night anymore”. I also forgot to mention that we see Benjamin’s underwears at some point - they are all decorated with food motives. One is covered in hot-dogs, another in pizza slices, a third one in hamburgers, a fourth one in ice-cream. 

Now as a last note: this is a TV series before all, which means some episodes will probably be television-only. I had access to it because the official channel of Les Têtes à Claques posts some episodes from time to time. But there are a lot of episodes that aired in Canada that I couldn’t have access to. Look at this promotional picture of a blob mosnter with Benjamin’s head on it: 

It was released on Les Têtes à Claques Facebook last October to announce the diffusion of a blob episode. It hasn’t been shown on Youtube yet, but I am pretty sure it is a remake of the Blob “a la Simpsons”, as in Benjamin will become one alien blob. You can even notice that the blob’s anatomy has remnants of a human one: you can clearly see one big behind here... 

[trivialqueen]

Here’s the next section of that original story. 

As always, I’m neither a doctor, nor British.  I’m just a girl who fancies herself a writer and likes slow burns, smart women, and tall men. 

St. Sebastian’s was a world class hospital with some of the worst aesthetics he’d ever seen. The exterior was in an uninspired brutalist style. The interior had been remolded several times since the early 1960s, but only ever with an eye toward function and technology, never design or comfort. The cardiothoracic ward, known as Harvey, was as bland as the rest of the hospital, but with the extra unattractive feature of ghastly aqua accents throughout. As if that was a substitute for style. Felix leaned against the nurses’ station, feigning interest in a chart. It had been over a week since his introduction as Director of Surgery. In the subsequent ten days his true role in the hospital had spread like, well, gossip in a hospital. He’s the Dread Pirate Roberts here for your jjjoooobbb!! The rumors were absolutely true, but he didn’t want to let that on. To make an accurate assessment of viability and redundancies he needed to see the hospital in action, not performance. Changes were only as good as their usefulness and longevity. So whenever possible he preferred to observe as inconspicuously as a man of his height could. This tended to involve a lot of pretending to read and “sneaking”.

Even if he wasn’t half secretly overseeing a major shakeup in the hospital, being the Director of Surgery meant he bounced from ward to ward far more than his colleagues did. Which was how he found himself on Harvey that afternoon. He appreciated the challenges that this brought, it tested and stretched diagnostic muscles he’d not used since deciding a specialty, but it also ate into his time as a surgeon. He’d accepted a more administrative position as it was the next logical career move, but in his heart, he was a doctor first and foremost, a bureaucrat a distant second. His pantomime reading of one of Paul Elliot’s old transplant cases was interrupted by a sandy haired teen with a strong Belfast accent.

“It’s ma Dad, he needs help.” A quick survey of the room told him two things: one, no one was collapsed on the floor, meaning the Dad in question was already a patient in a bed, and two, none of the CT consultants, or even a registrar, were in the immediate vicinity. The boy was talking to him.

“Who’s his consultant?”

“Ms. Hale.” The boy fairly spat.

“Then I suggest you wait for her.” She was likely doing something maverick and self-righteous, but he had no doubts she’d be back.

“She doesn’t know a damn thing what she’s doing! She’s done like fifteen tests on ma Dad and all she says is ‘wait and see’. Now you tell me to wait! I’m sick of waiting. He’s in pain, real pain.”

“Alright.” He could at least do something about the pain, if nothing else.

Sofia Grace Hale had a scrivener’s hand, surprising for a doctor. It was large, round, looping, and very legible, unlike his own tight, scratchy scrawl. ‘Abdominal pain’ jumped out from the meticulous notes. Most of Mr. Patrick Baxter’s ailments were CT related and not necessarily caused by his MS– the dilated aorta first among them. Ms. Hale was undoubtable chasing all of their causes and symptoms, but the abdominal pain… well he could check on that. It would also make the teen happy, hopefully, if he could even answer one question.

“Mr. Baxter, my name is Felix Magnusson, and I’d like to do a few tests regarding your abdominal pain, I’ll be arranging for your transfer to our general surgery ward, St. Irene’s.”

Ms. Hale’s red tassel earrings matched her lipstick and made her double take particularly dramatic as she passed Mr. Baxter, his son Kevin, and the porter taking them to the third floor.

“Where are you taking Mr. Baxter?”

“Down to Irene.” Her coffee colored eyes widened and that fire he’d seen during their first meeting began to smolder. She had eyes that could lead a man to hell. Perhaps one day she might look at him without an indignant flame in her gaze. But until then he would warm himself by the fire in her eyes.

“What?”

“He needs an ultrasound.”

“Why isn’t he having one here?” She crossed her arms under her breast as she glared up at him. Even in her high heels her head only came to about his shoulders. To keep eye contact she was forced to crane her neck slightly. Which she did, pale throat exposed, creating a lovely long line down her neck to her décolletage, where he resolutely refused to look, no matter how tempting.

“There seems little point in taking up a CT bed when his problem is clearly GS related.”

“Clearly GS related? The worst pain is in his chest, and the echo shows a dilated aorta.”

“I’ve read your notes. He also has severe abdominal pain. So, what’s your diagnosis?”

She wanted to scream. That arrogant bastard. That absolute arschloch. ‘What’s your diagnosis?’ like she was a bloody F1. God, his tone. ‘Was ist deine diagnose?’ It was that same clipped, ‘I don’t think you have this in you’ tone her clinical skills lead at Tübingen had taken with her. Except he was speaking English. And she wasn’t a F1 anymore. She was a consultant, goddamnit.

(The worst part was, of course, the fact she didn’t have a diagnosis. Not yet anyway, and that uncertainty made her feel even more like a bloody first year all over again. ‘Was ist deine diagnose?’ ‘Keine Ahnung.’)

“I’ve ruled out ischemic heart disease but I’m still waiting on his blood pressure.”

“That is not a diagnosis.” Her eyes flamed beautifully. Her temper was quick and exquisite.

“I’m well aware! As I said, I’m waiting on his test results.”

“The patient was admitted thirty-six hours ago, and you don’t have a diagnosis yet. Surly a change of tact can only assist in figuring this out.” He cocked a brow, his supreme confidence in his own ability shining in his eyes, the quirk of his lips. He took a step closer to her, forcing her head back further, as if he wanted to force her to look away. She wouldn’t. She’d hold her ground and his gaze, even if meant he put her in Anuvittasana to do it. She could catch a whiff of his aftershave, something with sandalwood in it. He smelled of it, hospital, fresh laundry, and perhaps faintly, of old books.

“Is it common elsewhere to steal other consultants’ patients? Or is this because you think you know everything?” He stared at her a moment, tongue moistening his thin lips before he spoke.

“We are both consultants, are we not?” He could see her hands flexing at her side, as if she was thinking about strangling him, and he could taste her anger, capsaicin hot.

“Yes.” She spat out from between cayenne colored lips.

“then surly Mr. Baxter can be our patient. Now let me see what I can learn about the GS part of our current problem, hm?” And with that patronizing hum in his throat he left. Left her in the hallway struggling to keep from screaming, her breath coming in choppy, short burst.

She really did not like that man.

He heard her before he saw her, the determined click of spike heels on linoleum making the announcement: Gird your loins. The moment Mr. Baxter was back from his ultrasound she was at his bedside, chart in hand.

“Your blood pressure is constantly going from high to normal-”

“Of course, it is Love, you keep bothering me. Now, I don’t wanna be rude…” His tone suggested otherwise as his gaze raked down her body, coming to rest on her legs with appreciation. “I’ve lived with this condition for fifteen years; you’re not going to tell me anything I don’t already know.” She did have stunning legs, but that did not give the man the right to stare like that. Felix could feel his jaw tighten as he watched patient and consultant converse.

“Right, Jeyne, I’d like to do a blood culture and another echo, please.”

“Love, you’re not listening to me. You’re wasting your time running these bloody tests.” Ms. Hale was very clearly listening to the man, her back was visibly tense from across the room, spine straight and hard as steel. She gave him a curt nod and walked away, his eyes following her with a lascivious grin spreading across his face. He caught her eye as she brushed past him down the hall, for once that burning anger wasn’t directed at him. Once the click-click of her heels was out of earshot he released the breath he’d not realized he’d been holding. The glower he knew he wore, however, remained.

The ward was mostly dark as he made his final rounds for the evening. Meetings had taken up most of his afternoon, bowel resection aside, and had pushed any patient follow ups or paperwork into late in the evening. Most of the residents on the ward were asleep, with a few readings or playing on their devices, providing patches of light throughout the otherwise dim floor. Mr. Baxter was asleep, looking almost peaceful. He snagged the man’s file and retreated to the better lighting of the nurses’ station.

“She said I could sit here.” The voice almost startled him, if he was the sort to be startled. Kevin Baxter sat at the nursing station, text book and papers spread about him in messy piles. Felix felt his fingers twitch, itch to straighten them up, keep them from jumbling together or with anything important still on the desk.

“Who did?”

“Sister Jacobs. Gotta do my homework somewhere.” He held up a battered German language primer.

“Ah! Sprichst du Deutsch?”

“Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof.” He could only smile at his response. There was always something deliciously ironic about complaining that one did not speak the language in idioms of the language.

He’d learned Latin at his father’s knee, and learned it perfectly, for his father would not have settled for anything less. It was both his personality and his profession, as a professor of classics and philologist. English had come quickly in school and become his primary language when at ten he’d been sent to boarding school. He’d learned French first, having tested out of the Latin classes, followed shortly by German. At the time French had been the easier language to pick up, but after quickly realizing that speaking it frequently would require interacting with the French, he’d not pursued it beyond conversational. His mastery of German had been improved tremendously the year he spent in Heidelberg but since his return to the UK it had fallen by the wayside, reading skills aside. He still enjoyed keeping up with his former colleagues’ research. He now also had a stack of publications by S.G. Hale sitting on his desk to peruse.

“Deutsche Sprache, Schwere Sprache.”

“Ja, und ich mag es nicht. Es ist eine mean, hateful Sprache.”

“If you need help, Ms. Hale is a fluent German speaker, she went to school there.” The boy pulled a face. “Do you always work at night?” He was not interested in hearing the boy complain about one of the hospital’s more talented surgeons because his father had a particularly difficult case to diagnose; sifting out preexisting MS symptoms from the new ones, causes still unknown.

“It’s the only time we get any peace, when he’s asleep. Then it’s like everything’s… dunno, normal, I guess, whatever that means.”  He sounded so old for one so young. Felix followed the boy’s eyes as they rested on his father, who was still resting as peacefully as one could in a hospital bed. I could not be easy for either of them, as far as he could tell there was no one else in the Baxter household at the moment except Patrick and Kevin. Being primary caretaker and a teenager was no easy task. “It’s become secondary progressive, hasn’t it?” His jaw clenched.

“What makes you say that?”

“Cuz it’s obvious,” The boy said in that way that only teenagers could. “The migraines, the flashing before his eyes, the coughing like he’s got consumption, the going crazy mad for no reasons.” Felix felt his body tense. This was new information. Important and new. Given how consistently condescending and rude he’d been to Ms. Hale while simultaneously ogling her admittedly very fine legs and even better backside, he’d assumed the man had always had a bad temper. That it was a personality trait, not a symptom.

“He’s not always had a temper?” His mind buzzed with new connections.

“Just lately. Why?”

“Do your homework.” The Baxters might complain about excessive tests but he was fairly confident the next two would provide all the answers they needed.

She was too old for this shit. Sofia Grace did her best to stifle a yawn before going to speak to Mr. Baxter. She’d been up entirely too late trying to figure out his diagnosis, but she’d finally made one. It was a pity that as her vice of choice, she’d developed a tolerance to caffeine so high that the amount necessary to actually keep her awake would also, quite possibly, kill her. But given how Mr. Baxter rankled her with his distain and condescension she knew that her blood would undoubtedly be pumping in now time. Straightening her blouse, she approached his bed, Kevin had already left for school it seemed.

“Good morning, Mr. Baxter. My sincerest apologies for it taking so long, but I think I’ve come up with an explanation for your symptoms.”

“No need, Love, really.” It was a dismissal but not nearly as rude as his usual attitude.

“Sorry?” In fact, he looked rather resigned.

“Catecholamine.” A baritone voice in her ear supplied. Sofia Grace felt herself jump out of her skin. She wheeled around. There, standing in her personal space was Felix Magnusson. Tall as ever, as immovable as a brick wall, and radiating a warmth from his chest that made the rest of the room feel chilly. She’d had no idea he was on the ward, let alone able to stand directly behind her.

“What?”

“I’ve explained it all to Mr. Baxter already,” He continued on, as efficient as ever, pulling out a CT scan from its large brown envelope with flourish. “It accounts for all the symptoms and really, it’s blindingly obvious when you really think about it. I feel a little ashamed for not realizing sooner.” He held the scan out in front of her, he was so close to her back and his arms were so long that she only needed to lean back slightly into his chest to see what he was looking at. “Textbook Pheochromocytoma.” There was indeed a tumor on the adrenal gland and up into the chest cavity, partially around the diaphragm. The pain, headaches, palpitations, elevated heartrate and blood pressure… all the signs and symptoms. The dilated aorta was a problem, but not related to the other symptoms. It really was a general surgery problem, Hurensohn! He lowered his arm but didn’t step back from her.

“So, what do we do now?” It was the first time the man in the bed had looked up at her with anything other than contempt.

“Well,” his MS did complicate things, he wasn’t wrong when he’d asserted that. They’d have to determine if he was fit for surgery, speak with the neuro and physio specialists, get a theatre slot if he was determined fit or wait longer if he wasn’t.

“There’s a procedure. We have a slot in theatre this morning.” She did step away from him then. They needed to have a discussion, now. And it couldn’t be in front of Patrick Baxter. Her fingers itched to grab him by the tie (burgundy silk against a pale blue shirt and navy suit) and tow him away from the bed.

“Mr. Magnusson, could I have a word?” Keeping her tone light and professional was a challenge. They’d only worked together for two weeks and Sofia Grace wasn’t entirely certain she hadn’t developed a twitch in that time.

“Just a moment, Ms. Hale.” He didn’t quite hand wave her away, but it was close. God grant me the strength to deal with condescending men. “There’s a theatre slot this morning; would you like us to call your son?” Magnusson was hard to read, but this look was particularly inscrutable.

“No, not till after. If that’s possible. He’s got a maths test today and doesn’t need more worry than he’s already got.” Ever so slightly the lines around his eyes and mouth relaxed as he studied the man in the bed.

“Mr. Magnusson, if you don’t mind?” It took some effort to steer him away, mostly with herself to keep from grabbing him by the tie to do it. Instead a firm hand on his elbow did the trick, only making her feel slightly like a tiny tugboat, although instead of bringing a Nordic cruise ship out to sea, she was dragging a Swedish surgeon over to the light box.

           “You’re just assuming he’s fit for surgery!” She hissed.

           “The Neuro and Physio specialists seem to agree with me.” He hung the scan on the viewer, turned it on, and then reached into his breast pocket for his glasses. Resolutely not looking at her.

“So, let me get this straight,” Sabrina had suggested that he wasn't awful, but she’d just let him get under her skin. And then he did shit like this. “You talked to Stewart and Noah before you talked to me about our patient?” He ignored her. Outright.

“If you’re still concerned, let’s get a second opinion.” He turned and spotted Griffin Richards walking across the ward, cup of coffee in one hand, a stack of files in the other. Sofia liked Griffin; he was an excellent GS surgeon with a flair for the upper GI. He was committed to helping people and passionate about the NHS. Patients came first and she’d only ever seen him play politics to that end. He was a good colleague, even if his personal life was a bit of a shambles. Discreetly she peeked at his hands, no wedding band this morning. So, he was on the outs with his wife this week.

“Ah, Mr. Richards, would you be so kind as to act as arbitrator?” He waved Griffin over politely.

“For what?” He asked, giving Magnusson a wary look but gifting her with a warm smile. He was a handsome and charming man; it was easy to see how he got his wife. It was only a shame that it didn’t seem like he was able to keep her.

“Pheochromocytoma on the adrenal gland that has attached itself to the diaphragm.” Magnusson used the ear piece of his glasses to point to the tumor.

“Mr. Magnusson seems keen to slice and dice, despite the fact the patient has MS.”

“And you would do what exactly, Ms. Hale? Key hole through the chest?” It was a valid option, but he said it as if he might have said, “Try crystal healing?” Griffin put on his own glasses and studied the scan quietly for a moment, sipping his coffee.

“Well if it were my patient, given the position of the tumor, I would suggest you and I operate together.” Another smile, this one less charming as he’d just sold her out. Magnusson was smiling as well, thin lipped and smug as hell.

“And there’s our answer,” he tapped the scan with his glasses, “a CT/GS collaboration, as I was saying. Thank you, Mr. Richards. I’ll see you on the ice, Ms. Hale.” And with that he walked off. Just like that. Sofia knew she was gawping, but she couldn’t help it, the arrogance of the man left her speechless.

Dieser Arschgesicht!

Well, perhaps not entirely…

Ms. Hale was already at the sink when he arrived for surgery. She was in pale blue scrubs today, unlike the wine-colored ones he’d first met her in, her dark curls covered by her floral cap. She didn’t look up at him as she scrubbed her hands but gave him a slight nod as he took the faucet next to her to begin his own cleansing ritual.

“I have reasons for wanting to do a keyhole procedure on Mr. Baxter, it’s not just a ‘CT’ thing or whatever you seem to think. If we do keyhole-”

“We’re doing this open procedure, Ms. Hale.”

“But there’s a risk of-”

“The theatre is set up.” Her cayenne lips pursed into a stubborn line. Her face was already so expressive, but with her mouth painted bright red it was impossible not to look at her lips. They were full, with a cupid’s bow, and clearly holding back several things she’d like to say. Her eyes said them for her, sparking as she gave him a last look before heading off to get her gown and gloves on. If she was half as dynamic of a surgeon as she was as a woman this was going to be quite the operation.

Perhaps it was because she had a scalpel in her hands, but Magnusson was at least inclined to follow her instructions while they were in theatre. He retracted when asked, clamped where she needed him to clamp and generally stayed out of her way as she dealt with Mr. Baxter’s diaphragm. She also didn’t need to look up from her work to know that he was watching her every move with a critical eye.

“Enjoying your foray into Cardiothoracics?” He’d declined the suggestion of background music, leaving nothing to fill the silence except for either one’s thoughts or small talk. And Sofia Grace never much liked being alone with her own thoughts.

“Believe it or not, I was not considering my life lacking in any way for not spending time playing with people’s hearts. What is it about CT surgeons thinking the heart is the only organ in the body?” She’d meant it as small talk, a reference to the fact he was currently assisting her. But nope, he was gunna be an ass about this too. Jesus H. Christ and a windmill full of corpses what is his problem?!

“To be fair, it is kinda important.” He didn’t look up and neither did she as she finished off the last stitch she needed, and they could transition from the more CT oriented to GS oriented surgery.

“It likes to think that, certainly.” He said, picking up a scalpel. “Whereas the kidneys just get on with their job, filtering toxins out and letting the body function. Efficient, beautiful, and secure enough in themselves that they don’t need to shout about it.” Normally she would argue that picking a favorite or most important body part was a stupid endeavor. Most of the organs in the body were necessary and linked together in ways that pulling one out of the system without compensating for it would lead to problems in a variety of other areas. There was no one organ that was better than any other body part, there was only what needed to be dealt with immediately or later to ensure quality of life.

This being said, if he was just going to talk shit because he had some weird hang-up about CT surgeons, she’d double down for the heart. (It was her favorite organ, even if picking favorites was stupid).

“So indispensable you can lose one and still survive.”

“Hack a piece of kidney off and it’ll just grow back,” He picked up a scalpel, “the minute the heart breaks it becomes a useless piece of tissue. And then of course there’s the fact we can now replace a faulty heart with a machine the size of a cigarette packet.” He shot her a look over the top of his glasses before he started cutting, she could almost see the smug smirk behind his surgical mask.

“And in some cases, Mr. Magnusson, it seems as if people can survive without any heart at all.” She met his eye steadily, arching one brow defiantly. He stared at her for a moment. Somewhere behind her, someone sounding a lot like Dan Flannery whispered, “Ooo burn.”

“We need to keep moving.” He muttered awkwardly, getting back to the task at hand.

A hit, a very palpable hit.

They worked in silence after that, only the beeps and pings of the machines and occasional request breaking up the quiet.

“BP is plummeting.” Magnusson reported calmly. This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted to do open surgery in the first place.

“If we had gone with the keyhole procedure-”

Which we did not so I fail to see the usefulness of that comment.” He snapped, voice cold and quick and sharp.  Brooking no retort.

“We did not go with the keyhole procedure because you decided that we shouldn’t, not because we mutually agreed this method. You decided what was best for this procedure, without listening to my reasons, I might add.”

“I am trying to concentrate, Ms. Hale, if you don’t mind?” Out of respect for Mr. Baxter she bit back the rest of what she wanted to say. At least for the moment.

“It’s funny that of all the words to get lost in translation, partners, seems to mean nothing to you.” Mr. Baxter was now Pheochromocytoma free and on his way back to bed for his recovery.

“What?” Magnusson looked at her sideways as she began washing her hands beside him at the sink. Thoroughly washing her hands gave her something to focus on while she tried to find the right words. There were so many things she wanted to say. Most of them rude. But as therapeutic she’d find it to smash his face in and curse him out, it wouldn’t change what she needed to have changed. Word on the street was he would be staying at Saint Seb’s for the foreseeable future, she needed to play the long game, not for immediate gratification.

“In addition to unilaterally deciding on the method of today’s surgery without consulting me, your CT specialist for this surgery and Co-consultant. You also figured out some significant information about our shared patient and did not tell me.” He stopped washing his hands to stare at her, hands raised slightly, allowing the soap and water to drip down his long forearms to the floor. “No, instead, you went straight to the patient himself and explained everything, leaving me in the dark, and then looking like a complete ass with my dick in the wind trying to discuss his condition without the full picture. To compound this, you swoop in and make me look even more stupid in front of our patient. A patient who already had limited regard for my expertise and position as a Doctor.” She turned the faucet off with her elbow and flicked the excess water from her hands into the sink with a flourish before turning to face him. He was staring at her intently, square jaw working but his mouth wisely closed.

“You complain that I make arrogant, rash decisions and that surgeons who make decisions for their own ends are a menace. Next time you work with me, you either keep me in the loop and treat me as an equal or find someone else to handle your heart.” She didn’t wait for his response, instead she grabbed a towel from beside him and brushed past, leaving him alone in the scrub room.

[gdelgiproducer]

DOTV AU: An Exercise in Alternate History (Part V)

Parts I, II, III, and IV offer more detailed context. (To briefly sum up why these posts are happening: alt history – as in sci fi, not “alternative facts” – buff, one day got the idea that DOTV could have turned out hella different if Jim Steinman looked for a star lead in other places, decided to reason out how that might work.) This is still getting a good response, so I’m gonna keep the train rolling.

Parts of the AU timeline established so far: instead of stopping at recording two songs from Whistle Down the Wind on a greatest hits compilation, Meat Loaf wound up taking more of an interest in Steinman’s new theater work than he did in our timeline, and through a series of circumstances found himself volunteering to play Krolock in the impending DOTV when Jim poured out his woes to him about needing to find some sort of star to attract investors. At a loss for any better ideas, Jim accepted Meat’s impulsive proposal, but not without resistance from his manager, David Sonenberg, who proposed Michael Crawford as an alternate candidate. Through quick thinking on Meat’s part, and inspiration on Jim’s, Crawford left the room accepting an entirely different role than he walked in hoping to get, leaving Krolock still open for Meat. There was a brief speed bump, when Meat disliked Jim’s English script for the show, but after meeting with the original German author Michael Kunze and convincing Jim to compromise, things were on the road to being back on track... at least until 9/11 occurred. Following a brief hiatus, everyone involved is meeting to re-assess their options.

Continuing the alternate DOTV timeline:

February 2002: After completing the Night of the Proms tour and taking a holiday break, Meat Loaf requests a meeting with co-star Michael Crawford, composer Jim Steinman, co-author Michael Kunze, and the other creatives on DOTV to assess where things are at. Obviously, people have other commitments, so the creative team may not shape up exactly the same as initially planned, but at least they’ll see who’s still coming along for the ride and get a bead on where the show is at. A dinner is planned at Café Carlyle, a cabaret space housed within the hotel of the same name, on the Upper East Side of NYC.

The dinner begins as any dinner involving Jim begins: with Steinman’s ordering disorder on display, and his manager, David Sonenberg, smiting his own forehead so hard it turns purple. Imagine the headwaiter’s surprise when he takes everyone’s order and hears Jim say, “For starters, we’ll have the entire left half, plus two each of the chicken hash, Dover sole, and seafood salad.” “Excuse me, sir... the entire left half of the menu?” “That’s correct. And for the second course, I’ll have another order of the roasted halibut and the filet mignon. What looks good to you guys?” Meat is not at all surprised; with Jim, you get everything and then everything else. “And for dessert, sir?” says the headwaiter, anticipating the massive tip. “Well, why don’t you bring us some New York cheesecake. And, heck, how about an order of the chocolate opera cake? And profiteroles. For everyone to share.” Meat can only laugh at the incredulous expressions of everyone who doesn’t already know Jim. He  orders the table a round of fifty dollar Côtes du Rhône. This’ll be a long one. 

First order of business: is the new script ready? “Not quite,” says Jim without even missing a bite. Meat rolls his eyes; typical Jim. His method is seduction. Jim has ideas for new stuff; he doesn’t always have the results to back them up. If he can talk you into it, he can do it -- eventually. “Don’t roll your eyes at me, it’s a cut and paste job anyway. I do have a synopsis so everyone can see what the show will be like. Rest assured, everything’s back the way you want it.” Steinman gestures to Sonenberg, who passes pages around the table.

We now pause to read said synopsis:

ACT ONE

Some time in the late 19th century, Professor Abronsius, a rather intensely wacky vampire killer, stands trial before the Governors of the University of Heidelberg. He has made a mockery of the school’s good name with his “ridiculous writings and insane theories,” insisting that he can prove vampires (and other supernatural creatures) actually do exist. For this “crime against science,” he is sent packing by his colleagues. His assistant Alfred, handsome if sweetly dim, with an ardent and Byronic underbelly, resolutely stands by his mentor and guide. Now gifted with -- however unwelcome -- free time, they set off on an excursion, hoping to prove the professor’s theory correct, and become lost in a blinding snowstorm (Overture).

We are now in a dark forest, three nights before Halloween, near a remote Transylvanian village somewhere in the Carpathians. Sarah, the beautiful teenage daughter of the local innkeeper, is out picking mushrooms with her easily frightened friends when they come upon an abandoned graveyard in a clearing. To reassure them all is well, she says a prayer (Angels Arise). Suddenly, a pack of very cool young vampires appears out of the mist, dancing with rapturous abandon (God Has Left the Building). Sarah is entranced as a coffin rises from the ground containing the mesmerizing and extremely cool Count Von Krolock, an immortal suitor whose call she finds strangely irresistible. The Count introduces himself to Sarah in a most charming way, sings to her seductively telling her of another world (Original Sin), and promises to return for her at the total eclipse of the moon. The lure of the night is strong, as is the promised deliverance from the mundane world she knows.

Back in the village, at the inn, we meet Sarah’s father, Chagal, his long suffering wife, Rebecca, and his beautiful voluptuous chambermaid, Magda, whom he spends most of his free time lusting after, much to Rebecca's disdain. Together with the local villagers, they demonstrate that nothing perks up men like wine, women and song -- and Garlic. Into the midst of the hustle and bustle burst two strangers, the first in twenty years: Abronsius and Alfred, who have nearly frozen to death in the nearby woods. Although the villagers deny any knowledge of vampires in the proximity, the professor cannot be fooled and becomes increasingly suspicious.

After exploring the rooms upstairs in which they are staying, Alfred meets Sarah. He is instantly smitten by her and vice versa, but having noticed the attraction between them, Chagal, very protective of his child, literally boards-up the door separating them (Don’t Leave Daddy). Since the budding passion of the young is highly flammable his solution proves to be as effective as spit on a forest fire. Unable to sleep, Alfred and Sarah sing of their newly awakened desire for each other (There’s Never Been a Night Like This), but they are not alone in their yearning: Chagal sneaks away from Rebecca -- who swiftly knocks Abronsius on the noggin in a case of mistaken identity -- to pay an unwelcome visit to Magda, and the Count returns to invite Sarah to a grand ball at his castle, offering her a chance to make her wildest dreams a reality, an opportunity to quench her thirst for more (The Invitation). How can any small-time girl resist?

The next day, the idyll of a winter mid-afternoon (Everything’s Fair) is broken when Abronsius witnesses a small business exchange between Chagal and Koukol, a hideous hunchback who lives somewhere in the woods. He inquires about the odd fellow, but Chagal refuses to discuss the matter. This does not deter the professor (Logic). For every question there is an answer and no truth that defies understanding -- or so he believes.

But no law rules the human heart and desire is quite an immeasurable emotion. Alfred also offers Sarah a way out: he begs her to run off and make a new start with him (Braver Than We Are). Too little, too late. Unbeknownst to Alfred, Krolock has sent a gift for Sarah -- a pair of red boots and a vision. Alfred leaves Sarah alone outside for a moment and she puts on the boots; she has a fantastic reverie about dancing with vampires (Red Boots Ballet) and can no longer control herself, try though she might (Say a Prayer). Torn between Alfred and the Count, Sarah runs off to Krolock’s castle, pursued by Chagal, who is in turn pursued by Rebecca and Magda who are concerned for his safety, who are in turn followed by Alfred and Abronsius, reasoning that they will be shown the way to the Count’s lair.

At the giant castle in the woods, they are greeted by watchful eyes in the darkness (Something to Kill (Our Time)), and by the mysterious Krolock and his flamboyant son, Herbert, who is instantly attracted to Alfred (Bless the Night). In the same breath, Krolock taunts Alfred and invites the two men into his domain (Come With Me) and the two reluctantly accept his invitation.

ACT TWO

In the great hall of the castle, Sarah reconciles what was once just a fantasy with her new reality, seduced by and embracing her inevitable indoctrination to this family (Vampires in Love (Total Eclipse of the Heart)). Sarah is entranced as Krolock makes his way down the staircase toward her. What has long been just a notion inside her is now a man before her. She willingly offers him her throat, although he resists the urge to bite her there and then.

Meanwhile, given a room, Abronsius sleeps soundly while Alfred is tormented by a nightmare (Carpe Noctem) that is a peculiar reflection of reality. In the dream he is a creature of the night. The following morning Alfred bravely swears that above fear and beyond doubt he will stay there in the hope of saving her (For Sarah).

But Abronsius is more concerned with capturing the Count and his son as specimens to prove his theory. Alfred and the professor make their way to the crypt, hoping to locate the two vampires, but instead they encounter the freshly dead Chagal. Before Abronsius can think of something else, Alfred hears what he believes to be Sarah singing and the hapless duo flee the crypt just as Rebecca and Magda arrive. Encountering Chagal's bitten body, Rebecca grieves while Magda gloats (Death Is Such an Odd Thing). In death she finds him to be far more bearable than in life. Chagal wakes-up and bites them both.

Truly, love is in the air. As Chagal cements his eternity with the women he loves in tow, Alfred has a close encounter with Herbert, who has set his sights on him. The smitten Herbert waltzes with an unwilling Alfred singing a song of love and longing (When Love Is Inside You). Herbert’s attempt to draw blood from the young man is thwarted by quick thinking, but to add insult to injury, Alfred then finds Sarah bathing in preparation of that evening’s ball. He begs her to flee with him, but his plea falls on deaf ears -- she is dying to go.

Meanwhile, Abronsius’ search through the castle has taken him to the library, which he enthusiastically discovers is stocked with every book ever written (Books, Books). The Count, who initially pretends admiration for the professor and offers him eternal life, confronts him, taking the opportunity to boast that the the battle for Alfred’s soul is already complete and that he is the victor.

To his horror, Abronsius, joined by Alfred, watches as, in throngs, the vampires crawl from their coffins, cursing the redundancy of their existence and eager to devour (Eternity). At the same moment, stung by Abronsius’ rejection, Count Von Krolock laments the truth of his being (Confession of a Vampire) and makes a bleak prediction: before the turn of the next millennium mankind, overcome by greed, will know only one god -- the god of appetite.

Speaking of appetite, the moment has arrived! The Count and his brethren are eager to proceed (The Ball: Never Be Enough). Sarah is presented while a disguised professor and Alfred wait for an opportunity to rescue her -- a chance that unfortunately comes only after she is willfully and gloriously bitten. In the midst of the climactic vampire dance (The Minuet), they take hold of Sarah and run.

Stopping in the woods to rest, Alfred once more professes his love to Sarah and the two lovers embrace, singing of their born-again freedom (Braver Than We Are (Reprise)). He believes all is well until the second she sinks her teeth into his neck. Once bitten the couple takes off to begin a life that will know no end. Meanwhile, oblivious to what is happening around him, Professor Abronsius revels over the information he has unearthed about the existence of vampires, unaware that their numbers have grown. As the Reign of the Undead begins, everybody somehow manages to find happiness... Transylvania-style (The Dance of the Vampires).

Back to our regularly scheduled program:

Meat is forced to admit Jim’s right. Based solely on this synopsis, it would be a cut-and-paste job, and it does answer all of the objections he had. Moving the Heidelberg scene to the top of the show reorients things just enough so that at least the focus is shared between Alfred and Sarah. On top of that, every song is where it should be, “Is Nothing Sacred” has been cut from Act II (it appeared in both earlier versions as a duet between Alfred and Sarah lamenting the loss of their love, but for once everyone was in agreement that it slowed the show down and there was no way to make it work), and no climactic shape-shifting transformation to be found (Jim has never been one to hide spoilers). As soon as the actual script is put together, this could be a working product.

Crawford is momentarily rattled by the Alfred-and-Abronsius prologue. “Bit like Phantom to start with foreshadowing and then plunge in?” he mutters under his breath. But Meat counters, with a grin: “I think it’s more like the opening of Psycho, wouldn’t ya say, Jim?” Meat, of course, knows what’s coming. Jim has seen Psycho 23 times; he thinks that if you’re learning about film, you don’t have to go beyond Psycho, because you can watch it a thousand times and find something new each time. All he has to do is settle in and let Jim talk Crawford’s ear off: “Psycho begins, if you watch it, with a long shot of Arizona, a satellite view of the whole state of Arizona, or at least the city of Phoenix. Long shot of the whole city. And then, the camera goes into one area. Then one block, and then one building, and then through the window of that building, to Janet Leigh and John Gavin in bed, nude, having sex. You start at an extreme distance, and it keeps getting closer and closer until it ends up where the story begins.”

Crawford is flummoxed. “...but... how is that...” Before he can get another word in edgewise, Jim is off on a stream-of-conscious flight of fancy: “Lost inside a blinding snowstorm, an innocent boy and a man of science... an unspoken certainty -- where something is shattered, something is breaking through... then their suspicions are proven correct... the wilds of Transylvania... the shadow of a dark knight looms large... you set up the hero first, and then right at the beginning, you need the big horror scene, like when the shark attacks the girl in Jaws, and then in the next scene everything is fine and you go on to tell the story.” Twenty minutes of free association from film to film later, his head spinning, Crawford stops Jim: “Jim, I, uh... I think I get it. Sounds grand. Let’s move on, shall we?” Meat, with a grin: “Waiter? More Côtes du Rhône for my English friend here.”

It’s Sonenberg’s turn to speak about the financial picture, and unfortunately, he is pretty much the bearer of bad news: “We’ve got nothing.” “What about your share of the investment?” Jim shoots back. “I raised my share, but that’s all I raised! Andrew Braunsberg threw in his share, too, but ours combined won’t bring you this show! This is gonna cost at least 12 million, it’s not like either of us has a small fortune tucked away! Do you know how much it will cost for that fucking coffin to rocket out the floor? And let’s say we keep the designs from Europe, which -- by the way -- we can’t afford to do even if we get investors, who’s paying for the six-ton graveyard to come down from fifty feet in the air? Shows cost four times as much on Broadway as they do in Europe! And this is before we get into the fact that we had readings and workshops that didn’t come cheap, even though we had other people shouldering the burden with us. When they walked...” “When they walked, I did what you said! You said we needed stars to boost the box office -- we have two of them! You said we needed the show to have more of a balance between horror and comedy -- we’re nearly there! We’ve done readings, we’ve done workshops, there should be a list of interested investors by now! You’re telling me I followed every instruction you gave me and we couldn’t attract producers?!” “Jim, that happens. The odds of failure in any show biz endeavor are astronomical. You know this. I have this conversation with you time and time again.” “So basically you called this meeting to raise our hopes and then tell us it’s a wash, is that it?!”

Meat can’t bear to see Jim like this. He never could. Jim is always within steps of achieving his dream and never quite getting there, and it’s usually due to Sonenberg’s interference. “Guys, guys, before things get too heated and we say stuff we might regret... look at who is at this table. We’ve got a major arena rocker, two Grammy-winning songwriters, we’ve got the biggest box office star in musical theater, we have a music manager with a list of clients as big as my ass. We know promoters, theater owners, rich people with cash to burn, we make more contacts shaking hands at industry parties than we know what to do with. Between all of us, we’ve got to be able to rustle up some investment coin!”

Meat turns to Crawford. “Michael, I know you were up for my part for, like, twenty seconds. Were you bringing any investors to the table for that?” “Now that you mention it, yes, there were a handful.” “Call them. Explain the situation. Tell them we’re looking to cut costs and bring this show in tight, so they can look at our numbers, offer suggestions for a way forward.”

He swivels in his seat to the other Michael at the table. “Mr. Kunze, was there any interest from other American producers before the show started on this path?” “We had this husband-and-wife couple who were major producers book tickets to opening night in Vienna, but they canceled last minute.” “Any chance you remember who they are?” Sonenberg cuts in: “Barry and Fran Weissler, but...” “The Weisslers? As in the Weisslers who did Chicago? The license-to-print-money Weisslers? We need a meeting with them ASAP.”

Meat now focuses on Sonenberg. “Look, Jim is pissed at you right now, and understandably so, but we need all hands on deck. David, is there anybody you can think of that might come to the table?” “Well... I am about to have lunch with Jerry Weintraub about a film project. You win an Oscar, they all come knocking.” “I remember Jerry, he started in talent management and concert promotion. Theater is a good way for him to combine those interests. He may not bite, but bring up the project anyway.”

Jim weakly tosses in, his engines beginning to rev again: “I could talk to Leonard Soloway. He’s never been major on Broadway, mainly a house or company manager, but he’s produced before, and he’s been looking to move back into that sector. He was very interested in this at the reading last April. He called it a gem.” “The worst that he can say is no, and we’re already starting a list to go down, so give him a buzz,” Meat says. 

“As for me, I’m gonna talk to Michael Cohl.” Sonenberg is skeptical: “The concert promoter?” “He’s handled packages as big as this, you know who he’s worked with, it’s practically an encyclopedia of the business. Maybe he wants to move into producing.” “He also wants to put his hand in the till. He’s a chiseler. A bunch of managers complained about him a few years back; he was working this scheme where he told their clients playing this festival in Toronto that there was a sales tax that was coming out of their pay, and a gate charge reflected in the ticket price. Festival’s exempt from that tax and the organization that runs it has no gate charge. He was putting hundreds of thousands in his pocket.” “So,” interrupts Jim, “you’re saying he has money to spend, and he knows how to cut corners and get more.” “Oh sure, Jim, because we want to line up with a whiff of anything illegal on a high risk investment. I’m just saying, if we bring him on, there have to be stringent safeguards. We’ll need to double- and triple-check every transaction that comes through him.” “Well,” says Meat, momentarily unable to check his inner self-control, “he can’t do any worse than the advice I was getting in 1981.” “Oh sure, dig up that dead horse and start beating it again!” Sonenberg fires back.

Before the conversation can get out of control, Meat somehow manages to rein himself in: “Alright, look, let’s not get off the subject at hand here. We thought things were hopeless only moments ago, but now we have a list of... Michael, how many investors were interested again?” “Three.” “Okay, and that plus Cohl, Jerry, Leonard, and the Weisslers -- not to mention Braunsberg and David -- puts us at 10, if everyone signs on. Even if some of them say no, we should still be farther ahead than we were on the producing front. This project is not dead.”

“It might as well be,” Sonenberg grouses. “John Caird’s off attending to other commitments, Ezralow’s doing a Josh Groban TV special, and we need a new set of designs. You tell me where we’re gonna find a whole new creative team.” “David, I don’t have the highest opinion of you, but I know you’re not stupid. You’re not seriously implying that this production only looked into one person for each position, right? Surely we can look around at a few people and get some opinions.” “Besides,” Jim chimes in, “the director problem is already solved. I was co-directing, now all I have to do is call Barry [Keating, Jim’s right-hand man and a Tony-nominated composer in his own right] in to be my assistant and we’ll whip this into shape.”

A deathly silence descends upon the table. Meat is brave enough to be the first to speak: “Actually, I think we need to interview some directors, too.” “Why go to the trouble? I have it under control.” For once, Sonenberg agrees with Meat and says so: “You think you have it under control. Things have been pretty serious in this conversation so far, let’s be real right now: you’ve never directed a musical this big in your life. You and Barry are fine for a workshop, but this is a spectacular with a lot of moving elements.” “I can’t believe I’m hearing this! Half the show in Vienna I had to talk Polanski into doing. Or did it behind his back. A lot! He had a totally different vision.” “Jim, giving notes and making contributions that people agree with is not the same thing as directing.” “I’ve directed music videos!” “You’ve story-boarded music videos.” “What about that one I directed for Bonnie that was nominated for seven Billboard Video Awards?” “Did it win any?!” Meat once again has to halt the argument brewing: “Look, Jim, we need to be serious about this if you want it to work. It can’t hurt to just talk to a few other people. We’re not committing to them.” Steinman is momentarily silenced, but his sour expression betrays he’s still displeased with the present turn of events.

“Now, as for the choreographer...” Meat says. Jim perks up again: “Barry could...” Sonenberg slams his fist on the table: “You shut up or you lose a toe! Go on, Meat.” “Alright, we’re not opening till October, and that means we’re not starting in earnest until August. That’s after the Tony Awards. Let’s see if any real talent emerges this season, and if worse comes to worst, we’ll just hire whoever won.” “That doesn’t solve our problem with the design team, though. Even if we get them signed by June or July, that’s not nearly enough time to design, approve, and execute a whole show.” “Well, we can start talking to people now, and maybe they’ll even give us some clues about a choreographer or director, if there’s someone they’ve worked with who they really liked.” At a loss for any other way to proceed, Sonenberg nods gravely.

At meeting’s end, everyone is in concurrence on the next course of action: actually finish the script, schmooze with potential investors or producers, and put together a new creative team. Preferably not all at the same time, but with the crunch on, they’ll do whatever needs to be done.

Didn’t expect this to be so short or focus on one event, but our heroes have lots of ground to cover. Catch you next time!

[beowulfs-booty-call]

Professor Willow for that character challenge

Me, currently about to go writing another field journal report: Plz don’t judge me Arceus. You MADE him like this.

Sexuality Headcanon: Honestly all professors are gay end of story. waioesjdfi I’m gonna say gay. Simply because there isn’t anything straight about him too like have you seen the way he dressed himself? Literally gay athlete who douses himself with the sports bottle he carries with him.

Gender Headcanon: Male. Just your average guy who dedicated himself to Pokemon and has been traveling the world to stretch his research internationally. (Probably was a Gen 1 fan at first seeing as Oak is his mentor) What an icon™

A ship I have with said character:

Willow and the GO™ trainer (Aka all of us awfesdg)

Willow and his star field researcher! (I have yet to, but I’m gonna be drawing up a series of like one shots between me and him because Y E S)

A BROTP I have with said character:

Oak / Willow = “Wow dad you’re so old.” “Look in the mirror smartass” The two are... Well, one may be the teacher, but both are rivals in the way they’ve studied Pokemon. I’d say Willow is more than eager to surpass his old teacher and learn more, but Oak’s still on the cusp of teaching him that knowledge and wisdom comes with both age and experience, not just talent.

Willow / Sycamore = Sycamore teaches him how to flirt but all he can say in French is Omelette du fromage. Sycamore just gives him a thumbs up and nods. Also likes to talk to Willow about his thoughts on Lysandre and other presumptions of Mega evolution. Currently, the professor has been researching it with me!

Willow / Kukui = Nut Oil 

The two are super super close in terms of being pretty darn compatible! One likes to trek the world, the other likes to TAKE Pokemon moves front and forward. I’d say they’d both pull up at the gym to compare research before getting down to it (Don’t think like that, ya nasties. Unless you DM about it so I can die with you on it.)

I’d say because they’re the most newest professors to be “here”, they’re more than eager to prove their work, but once the Professor told me that he’s worked in Alola for a short while to get a better understanding of Z moves... I wonder if he has a Z ring..? I heard those are WAY special, even for a regular guy like me!

Willow / Juniper = Can you imagine if Willow like, had a past with her / knew her when he was younger and they had a “thing”? Like, maybe not BF / GF but like, openly flirting with each other but neither actually taking a step. They’re close friends regardless and do like to chat when free... But I think internally, Juniper’s greatest “regret” would be similar to Agatha: She never really had time for romance or for being “a simple person” since she’s always gonna be Professor Juniper: Woman extraordinaire. And I don’t mean this in a bad way at all, what I’m getting at is: Juniper is the pillar of stability for Unova as a professor, so, she doesn’t have time devoted to being anything else but that. I like to think that she and willow have that in common; The desire to be unique, yet... Also the desire to be a normal person too. 

In reality, it’s probably Willow who reminds her that everyone can be that too: Self care’s important as if you don’t take care of yourself... How the hell you gonna take care of anybody else can I get an amen?

It’s that reasoning that causes Juniper to take Bianca as her assistant: not just to give her help round the lab but to help Bianca form her identity like she wanted to with the help of the BW protagonist as we see in her Dreamlink battle.

Willow / Elm = He... Doesn’t know Elm much since Elm’s more than happy to take time to simply work on Pokemon breeding and abilities, but the two get along alright. In reality, Elm was the one who gave Willow advice / basics of Pokemon eggs and helps him develop theorems based on what eggs can hatch what Pokemon we have now! TBH, I’d say if given the chance, Willow is literally the “Cool guy” at the party and Elm is the “Hey I’m just here for the dog” dude. They both bond over Candela’s growlithe who was hatched out an egg and had ice fang as a move.

Willow / Masked Royal = Willow keeps a poster of him in his lab! (I had to REALLY get him to get me one too, god, so lucky!) He’s a fave of the professor and even Willow has been “trying” to wrestle! Tho, given how much he’s had to be bandaged afterwards, and Kukui prolly told him how he once got guillotined by a Vikavolt I don’t think it’s a good idea... That said one time the professor showed up to alola to see a match and the Masked Royal invited him to fight against him and boy oh boy I STILL wanna hear what happened! Supposedly the joint said it was one of their biggest events yet! The headliner? 

“Rag-tag wannabe Wrestler sizes up the comp. with the Masked Royal! Blow to blow and and Pokemon to Pokemon, there is no competition without motivation!”

Willow and the other assistants = 

Spark: “Thanks so much for Mcdonalds dad!”

“Dad?”All three, eating a McFlurry in summer ‘17: “Dad.”

Honestly Willow trusts them a great deal and it’s obvious he’s the guiding hand to their exploits and understandings of their own journeys. Blanche learns about the power of emotion and trusting in others, Candela learns about taking things easier and letting go, and Spark understands the essence of both knowledge and power: He still walks the middle path.

He sees aspects of himself in each of them, but I’d say that’s his favorite thing about them: it reminds him he’s still growing and journeying on his own too!

A NOTP I have with said character:

Child characters as a whole

A random headcanon: Willow once tried out to be a Pokemon ranger, but in regions and times where Rangers aren’t “very well used” globally aside from Fiore and certain other places, Willow dedicated himself instead to research as he was more so interested with reading his Styler’s bestiary rather than to simply befriend Pokemon alone.

Because of this, he can still USE a capture styler, and he’s a fairly good ranger, but in spite of the effort to BE a ranger, he’s much more better and tossing curve balls and getting an “Excellent” on a jigglypuff!

General Opinion over said character:

Daddy of my ass

And the coolest professor thus far! There’s a lot of things unsaid about him but man... I’m totally here for him! And not JUST because he’s cute as fuck. He’s always a caring character who watches your trainer grow and motivates you to keep on going forward! 

It’s hard not to like that when you’re playing the game and incorporating that in your daily life! 

I think unconsciously I also still have that big dad issues thing where that when I have a father figure in life, I WANNA do things to make them proud because of the little to no relationship with my own father. I’ve done that with my high school teacher, and I’ve cried when I saw that in Lisa’s Substitute from the Simpsons. It reaches into that for Willow to be so welcoming and a breath of fresh air, it’s turned into a “I wanna do this not JUST to be praised for it. I wanna do it because it’s for ME.” instead. I mean, I’ve grown from the person I was, but there’s still the need for wanting to make someone proud and to see that Willow is pretty big now on measuring your journey now with these daily tasks, I think that sorta makes me idk more grateful for a character like that?

My feelings for the dude as a whole started out as thirst, but it’s become more of a psychoanalysis of my own relationships with men and my “types” as a whole. I quite like that, since he isn’t so “detailed” as it stands. It gives me more of a chance to make him out to be instead something I want to be, rather than what I just find ideal.

Pfftt, sorry, it sounds rather complicated, but really saying? Willow is kinda like the new beginning I wanna start for myself for a long time. I’ve reached it, but it’s the fact that he’s such a cool character that it’s really just me projecting wanting to be that cool on a character that COULD really be amazing. I’d say I’ve reached that coolness now, being myself. So, only thirst remains.

[ingridgabriela87]

#MiercolesDeMigrantes & #Parnership

This is my report of my participation in Multi-year Expert Meeting on Investment, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship for Productive Capacity-building and Sustainable Development, seventh session. - from the 17 to the 19 of july in Palais des Nations, Geneva Room XXVI.

Summary : During two and half days, various experts from different regions across the globe, attended to the invitation from the Entrepreneurship Section, Enterprise Branch, Division on Investment and Enterprise, the aim of the meeting was around Responsible and Sustainable Business Practices and Corporate Social Responsibility and Enterprise Development.

In general, the contributions from the experts focused mainly on the following points. New partnership is much need in order to empower entrepreneurs., Women's, Childers, migrants ,and minorities still need more efforts from public-private partnerships., Global dialogues about trade and supporting entrepreneurs need more accountability in international platforms., A legal framework with update definitions of inclusive business need to be provided by the UN and Member states are aware that budgets, incentives, and funding are highly needed to achieve the SDG’s.

Overall the meeting was an excellent platform to keep the dialogue open and keep improvements update. Experts and member states shared their experiences and suggestions.

Meeting Opening remarks by Ms. Isabelle Durant, Deputy Secretary-General of UNCTAD Introduction by Mr. James Zhan, Director, Division on Investment and Enterprise, UNCTAD. After the opening remark, the Director of Investment and enterprise Mr. James Zhan. asked to the Experts to answer the following questions. ● What concrete policy initiatives have proven effective in your country in breaking new ground and creating a more conducive environment for inclusive business and entrepreneurship? What are the key lessons learned in this regard? ● What are good practices that could be considered for the further promotion of responsible and inclusive businesses at all levels? ● How can the entrepreneurship policy framework of UNCTAD be adapted to meet the needs of underrepresented entrepreneurial groups? 

Adding to those questions he present tow contributions: ● How much you would say that strong and big state, like the USA or China, or Russia is engaging in this type of initiative to encourage, minority entrepreneurs? ● I will go further, the evidence doesn’t only suggest, but it shows that migrants are a key to a grow economy, therefor the inclusion of migrants in the host country must be accepted. this type of action can be applied to integrational programs.

Informal session.1 - Responsible and sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility and enterprise development. Mr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, Senior Vice-president World Bank. - Governments are not going to achieve the SDG, they are not prioritizing them in their agendas. - Beyond NGO and non-profit, we need social media to keep empower society. - Fintech - regulation need to be achieved with high standards and sophisticated framework. - The government is responsible to provide the adequate environment to handle big data - creating an ecosystem to exists - society needs to know the best practices and what to do to benefit from in and the risk from it. - Corporate social responsibility - is limited to charity, social relation and minimum effort. - partnership with World bank, the long term investment has to be taking more seriously. Bring the community with media and enterprises. Mr. Markus Dietrich - Inclusive Busines Action Network Germany. - Triple impact on SDG’s. with the program - ASEAN IB Policy Development. - Inclusive business should promote sustainable development in all its dimensions – economic, social and environmental. - UN ESCAP Landscape at the local level and for the policymakers. - There is no need to create a new silo, but instate incorporate silos. - Public-Private Policy and set the minimum table to start a Dialogue.

Ms. Felicitas Agoncillo-Reyes, Assistant Secretary, Board of Investments, Philippines . - Philippine Board of Investments (BOI), the country’s lead industry promotions agency (IPA) recently conducted a roundtable meeting with representatives from Swiss-based Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH) along with government and private stakeholders from the coconut, forestry, chemical, furniture, footwear, tannery, and construction industries, to discuss the potential commercialization of cocoboard (fiberboards made of coco coir) and tannin products and its key role in further boosting agricultural output in the country. - Inclusive business, by mentoring is a solution to start a change. - tax incentives - innovation, (5 years for fiscal and no fiscal investment), and reach & debt. focus on local communities. - direct contact with the beneficiaries. Mainstream the policy and the programs through advocacy. Ms. Jessy Petit-Frere- Haití. Research professor and coordinator entrepreneurship Program, Université Publique du Sud au Caye, Haïti. - building policy capacity is growing to poverty. Mr. Crispin Conroy, Permanent Observer to the UN at Geneva International Chambet of Commerce . - Paris- declaration of social issues , refers that states should make more efforts to make a trade system inclusive for small enterprises and create a policy framework to assure no one it's left behind.

Mr. Michele Clara. Senior Industrial Development Officer, UN Industrial Development Organization. - Program FOR COUNTRY PARTNERSHIP - six countries, with implementation advancing in Ethiopia, Peru and Senegal, with programming finalized in Morocco and ongoing in Cambodia and Kyrgyzstan. - New business ideas need to keep coming, especially with innovation. - Global cooperation is highly need it, the agenda requires communication beyond silos. - Elements of inclusiveness more industrialize and more operational and practice. - Evaluating and supporting to empower minorities or marginalized groups. to make more inclusive.

Informal session 2 - Creating a supportive environment for youth entrepreneurship Ms. Cristiana Benedetti Fasil, Head and Co-founder, Social Venture Africa, Belgium. - They are a nonprofit organization registered in Sweden that promotes women empowerment, renewable energy and entrepreneurship in Africa. - Renewable energy competence center trains marginalized youth as electricians and solar power specialists. - Stated should focus on environment trusting more on the partnership with the private sector. - high-quality level for entrepreneurs - empower repower for the women

Mr. Mika Valitalo. Señior Specialist on Innovation, Digital DEvelopment and Transparency, Plan International Finland. - Plan International is an independent non-profit development and humanitarian organization that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. - We believe in the power and potential of every child. But this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. And it is girls who are most affected. - supporting the environment in order for the youth to feel safe. - From the beginning is to empower them with trust and feeling valuable. eventually, they become mentors. - Little girls needs more inclusion and being taking into account in the technologies field.

Mr. Charles Ocici, Director, Enterprise Uganda. - Law of entry - the solution needs to meet the buyer standard. meet the demands of the seller. In order to remind them, they need to create the environment for them to grow.

Ms.Victoria Peace, Director, Nyeri-Toolpoultry from, Uganda. - innovation and practice for those who are experimented with.

Mr. GIlbert Ewehmeh, Managing Director, The youth Employment service in Canada - Entrepreneurship education is one of the keys to intent impose a challenge Ms. EmmanuLa Benini, Senior adviser, youth issues agency for development cooperation . - Children and women are the main groups that must be empower directly by member states. - as Experts we need also to work on the redefinition of words for a more inclusive entrepreneurship system.

Informal Session 3. - Empowering Women Entrepreneurs . Ms. Charlotte Aspeheim-Scmidt, Europe, Middle East and Africa Program Manager, Dell for Entrepreneurs , Dell, Denmark. ● Mentorship program ● investor for womans. ● Policy for opening up the markets and think big. ● Offering to manage data. Mr. Peter Bamkloe, Enterprise Development Center, Nigeria. ● Create safe space for women to network. ● Programs for funding. ● Acceptance for the middle force is managed by women. ● Rule model and mentor for other women. ● Religion and traditional culture are a challenge in the area.

Ms. Christine Low, Director, Laison Office Geneva, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, Switzerland. ● Women only program is more perfectly to reach women. ● persuade companies to empower women. ● Facilitates women to skills and technologies.

Ms. Lama Sha’sha’a, and Chair, International Robotics Academy, Jordan . ● private institution that specializes in Robotics & STEM Education. ● committed to constantly improving the educational process in the MENA region through close partnerships with private schools, informational seminars, training programs, ad-hoc scholastic STEM curricula, as well as extra-curricular activities. ● Youth Women and migrants - awareness on the community level. ● engage stakeholders, access to new education models. ● Expert programs that focus on creating Tech, social impact and more.

Mr. Arif Zaman, Executive Director, Commonwealth Businesswomen’s Network, UK. - Works with women in business by connecting Governments and the private sector to encourage and enable women’s economic empowerment. - Systematic barriers. equal participation in developed and promote. break gender barriers and create opportunities for women to trained international. - From the government, if no budget with the specific label, then no action is really taking into action. - Develop new curricula. the type of context also is a challenge.

Ms. Yolanda Gibb, Research Lab, Women’s Economic Imperative , U.K - We are no trying to find equality but equity. - Context matters in every single case and you definitely need sate holders to engage in the informal and formal mechanism. - Redefinition of terms and the specific social contract. hunting. - Empower means to feel it also.

Ms. Dina Nziku, Lecturer, the University of the West of the Scotland United Republic of Tanzania.

Informal Session 4 - #MigrantEntrepreneurs: Accelerating integration and economic development. Ms. Janette Uhlmann, Senior Operations Officer, World Bank/ Centre for Mediterranean Migration. France. - Entrepreneurs in the Middle East, specific in the good of the people who have there. - they dedicate to researching organic building and developing skills. - Syrian Refugee Crisis, it is still an ongoing situation. the highest number is in Turkey and Lebanon. - 74% are in municipalities, they are middle-income countries with not a lot of resources. - Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Irak, and turkey have a municipality network (29) that works together. - The last survey showed a more positive vision. they focus on assets in the region to demonstrated and be replicable. - Private sector partnership is a must to engage with the local government. - Municipal Leadership should be encouraged to generate changes. - create a better understanding of inclusion and integration.

Mr. Jerry Allen, Professor, and Director for Entrepreneurship, University College London, Innovation, and Enterprise. University College London, UK. - Strategic planning needs to be fit when we are empowering entrepreneurs. - the funding to Universities is not aggression to encourage entrepreneurs. and should be education and business. - accountability to university plans and funding. - Entrepreneur refugees network in London. women and families. - pilots to bring them together, technologies have to be more engage in blending learning.

Mr. Giordano Neuenschwander, Head of Office, Singa Geneva , Switzerland. - Improve support from the private sector to migrants. - buffer period is a basic but not put a stop on it. - impact evaluation and accountability. Ms. Elisa Pasquali, Founder, Arcadia Blockchain Tech and Arcadia Blockchain for Refugees, Switzerland. - Regularization to population and the financial transaction with the government. Ms. Martina Venzo, Humanitarian Programme Officer, Help Code , Italy. - In Africa and Asia are working with migration. - Database on cellphone information and web, GPS in case of emergency, natural disaster, or conflict. - https://helpcode.org/en/projects/towards-a-sustainable-migration - Public-private partnerships are one of the best allies. martina.venzo@helpcode.org

Ms. Maria Elo. Associate Professor, the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. - not a lot of information about the reason why people are migrating. Pre-migration. - Long transition periods are affecting the children in the IDP’s and Migrants. - Low tech and not quality skills are only a short term solution, we need more long term solutions for entrepreneurs. - Less bureaucracy and simplification in transactional activities. - The neutral platform that is beyond silos.

Informal Session 5 - Growing inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems in the digital world.

Mr. Antoine Fatio, Director, Fondetec , Switzerland. - They give and promote funding for entrepreneurs.

Ms. Fatou Ndiaye, Co-founder of The Gate Village , France. - Drive or dream? - Academy of entrepreneurs - Brazil

Mr. Coline Lee. Chief Execitive, Cemvo Scotlan , UK. - Starting new companies reducing inequalities. - Social enterprises.

Mr. Alistair Munro, Director Avocet Natura l Capital UK. - The agricultural sector and the use of goods and utilities. - Renovation of disruptive full, with raw material - Local and regional levels and help for the communities.

Ms. Raveig Strom, Entrepreneurship. Development Officer, European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland. - programs for entrepreneurship, especially woman - external funding is needed. - partnership.

Informal session 6. - Moving beyond corporate social responsibility towards corporate social engagement. Mr. Philipp Aerni, Director, Center for Corporate Responsibility - Inclusive economy, and sustainability creating an economic ecosystem in developing countries. - more investment and high risk its as fact and implicit bias. - an inclusive culture and local business need to collaborate, between big and small companies need to be included - local business benefits need to receive something in the back.

Mr. Jonathan Normand, Founder, and Executive Director B Lab . Switzerland. - Is a tool that helps the companies to invest in the region, - Create social value and stakeholders. engaging the community. - B. pact provides an assessment tool that generates a social free platform, - Swiss triple impact by 2019.

Ms. Caroline Seow, Head of Sustainability, Family Business, New York International, B. Market Builder, Singapore. - business and companies need from one to another. - Bel Group France, Pacari Ecuador, Chopard Switzerland - they dedicate to challenge the stereotypes, going beyond profits,

Mr. Antonio Carrillo, Lafarge Holcim Group , Switzerland. - the construction company, are not a long term solution for new entrepreneur severalized in the bottom - Social engagement have to be developed from the municipality of the community.

Ms. Vanina Farber, Professor, International Institute for Management Development, Switzerland. - Innovation we need redefinition of the term and plenty of others. Mr. Abdullah Mohammed Al Mahruki, Chief Executive Officer, Industrial Innovation

Center, Rusayl Industrial Estate, Oman - Disproportionality in policy making, funding and government, they are working in their own silos without any type of structure.

Informal Session 7 - Harnessing impact investment. Ms. Nataly Alejandra Ortiz Cárdenas, Director of Investment Policy Ecuador . - The prioritized sector in the new budgets is the private sector and accountability. - Institute to support exports.

Ms. Karen Wilson, Senior Consultant, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development . Ms. Taynaah Reis, Founder, and Chief Executive Officer, Moeda, Brazil. - Microcredit and accelerator program. - labor the cooperation and creating hubs for export products, the partnership with the government is crucial. - working in silos is a big problem, especially for lesson learns.

Ms. Kali Tylor, Programme Officer, Sustainable Development Goals Lab, UN Geneva . - is regular to find the lack of sources for the entrepreneurs. - Microcredit works but not enough. - Concrete partnership for international development. - is about to bring more SDG’s to finance - blind center for financial markets and structure with the new ones. investment - pipeline build education

Ms. Monica Mariño. Technical Officer, Social Finance Programme, International Labour Organization.

- inclusion, impacting insurance and sustainable investment ecosystem. - A decent job it refers to quality, income, social protection, and freedom, health, guaranteed equal opportunities and safe. - potential in creating works along with capacity building and involving local experts towards education.

Mr. Dawid Jarosz, Lectire, Sustainable Development Goal Investing Graduate Institute of International Development Studies. - Regulation and retail rute. - overspecified in defining what an investment is.

Informal Session 8 - Balancing risk and opportunities: The Future of entrepreneurship policies.

Ms. Angelique Antat, Principal Secretary, Department of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development, Seychelles. - Mitigation to economies, promoting research and incentive to the financial center, a knowledge base business. blue economy. - MSME's medium, small, micro enterprises. - Youth, civil society and government must work together. - The partnership is key.

Ms. Paola Albé, Director, Empretec Uruguay. - They work with designers and the population incarcerated. - the population should be treated as partners, not as patients. - innovation need to include population since the beginning. - open better space and designed better strategies. - the challenge is the population who adapted and the population who want to adapt, and the dialogue needs to be open, just to start the conversation. - admin bureaucracy is always a challenge. - changing the system from the inside. - budget is always a challenge. - an inclusive project with the intention from the beginning, then the fact that they agree with and the impact that wants to be achieved, then the actual, in the position of a decision they need to keep open the dialogue. Ms. Monica Canafoglia, Legal Officer, United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, Austria. - only 60 member states are part of it. - the decision is only achieved by consensus. - simplify the legal form, for MSME’s for the informal environment. - Traditional models are partnerships and have many required with bureaucracy and expensive. most of the time they don’t provide protection with the entrepreneur. - the new proposals have good faith in the partnership. - Formation and information for the startup and the new business. (geographic location and name of the manager, that must of the time are the owners of the business. - the business is responsible for what the business does, nor the directly limited liability. - No minimum capital required to start the business. - No formal contribution in the setup, is only with what the partners are willing to contribute. - Default law, for illiterate owners and protection for investors. - individual and Small businesses in the informal environment. - a small business that wants to grow with good strategies, products and service and they want to scale up. - young entrepreneurs the startup. - this provides you a legal identity and you join a global value chain, possible to higher your own staff, social security. - simple and with an easy language, you don’t need a special lawyer for it, take into account technologies.

Mr. Paul Dembinski, Professor, The University of Fribourg, Switzerland. International strategies and competition.

- Cocouses- Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. - time matches the statistics with the necessity to update definitions. - The majority of entrepreneurs are survivors.

Ms. Lore Vanderwall, Professor Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies .

- The gender gap has an impact on entrepreneurs from men and from women. - Civil law and social norms need also to update especially in entrepreneurs. - Education and preparation for women, need to spread more. Women business and the world -

Ms. Loson - Argentina bank.

- inclusion is not only a minimum of social aid. - financial inclusion is to prepare the youth and believe in them, microcredit is a solution but try to be out of the box and stop asking a grantee. - start the dialogue.

[jordannamatlon]

By TRESSIE McMILLAN COTTOM

It was over a plate of ribs at my aunt’s dining room table when I learned that being a woman is about what men are allowed to do to you. I was 15 years old. Mike Tyson was the most famous boxer in the world.

For the black people I knew, he was the pinnacle of the black sports elite. He had been born poor and worked his way to riches and fame. But it was 1992 and he had just been found guilty of raping an 18-year-old named Desiree Washington in a hotel.

“Y’all act like she’s a woman,” my cousin said. “She is — excuse me, Auntie — a ho.”

That’s what I remember most, next to the ribs. My cousin was defending a convicted rapist to a room full of black women, all but one related to him. The elder women shook their heads. The elder men left the room, knowing a fool’s errand when they saw one unfolding.

My cousin was feeling himself. Young and approaching fatherhood, he stood his ground. Desiree Washington was a ho, bringing down a black man who had made it.

“What was she doing in the hotel room?” he asked.

“She could have been butt naked in that room and it shouldn’t matter,” I replied.

He explained how I was different from Ms. Washington mainly by telling me that she was a ho, and implying that I was not a ho by what he left unsaid. There are hoes and then there are women. As a teenager I could go either way. But as a relative I could go only one way: I would not be a ho.

I was not angry, but I was hurt. “What if your girlfriend is pregnant right now with your daughter?” I asked. “A girl?”

“No daughter of mine would be raised to go to a hotel room. I ain’t raising no ho.”

It was then that I learned black girls like me can never truly be victims of sexual predators. And also that the men in my life were also men in the world. Men can be your cousin, men can be Mike Tyson, and men can be both of them at the same time.

That resonated with me recently as new accusations against the R&B singer R. Kelly emerged. For decades, he has faced allegations of child molesting, sexual violence and abuse (in 2008 in Chicago, for instance, he was found not guilty of child pornography charges). This month, the families of two young women have accused Mr. Kelly of holding their daughters against their will, which one of the women has denied.

Whether or not the accusations are true, Mr. Kelly’s history with women is still soul-crushing: He surreptitiously married the singer Aaliyah when she was 15. He admitted to having had sexual relations with young women whose age he cannot or will not verify. And he has portrayed himself as a Svengali too likable to be a sexual predator. As we once did around our big family table, millions of his fans colluded in that portrayal.

I was older when R. Kelly became the sexual predator du jour. Still, I heard the stories. I lived in Chicago for a year in the early 2000s, and the rumors were everywhere. I heard about the McDonald’s near a middle school where he supposedly liked to troll for young women who could go either way.

I remember the stories about Aaliyah. That was before the internet when we had to work much harder to spread salacious innuendo. And I fought with friends, men who I adored and respected, when videotapes of R. Kelly having sex with what appeared to be an underage girl were being peddled on street corners.

At a house party, the men laughed when I announced I didn’t want us to watch the video, but they finally acquiesced when I displayed the telltale signs of female rage. It was as if a “crazy woman” was a fair reason not to watch child pornography, but my request was not. I still remember the one guy whose comment about the girl on the cover of the videotape cut through the nervous laughter.

“Look at that body. She almost ready,” he said.

Almost ready.

That’s the kind of comment I have heard hundreds, if not thousands, of times, from men and women, to excuse violence against black women and girls. If one is “ready” for what a man wants from her, then by merely existing she has consented to his treatment of her. Puberty becomes permission.

All women in our culture are subject to this kind of symbolic violence, when people judge their bodies to decide if they deserve abuse. But for black women and girls that treatment is refracted through history and today’s context.

New research corroborates what black women have long known: People across gender and race see black girls as more adultlike than their white peers. In her book “Pushout,” Monique W. Morris shows that teachers and administrators don’t give black girls the care and protection they need. Left to navigate school by themselves because they are “grown,” these girls are easily manipulated by men.

This cycle of neglect and abuse is mostly ignored in social and education policy because the violence is often sexual and it happens to girls whom society views as disposable. We rarely focus on how programs are failing black women and girls, or how we could intervene to help.

When President Barack Obama created a task force for young black men in 2014, it took months of demands by black women for a similar task force to be created for young black women. Even then, the girls’ task force did not receive equal attention or funding.

Watching men I love turn a girl into a woman and a woman into a ho has never left me. That conversation at my aunt’s dinner table was not the first time I felt deeply afraid, but it left a cut that will never heal. It’s the kind of wound that keeps you alert to every potential doorway through which you might enter as a friend, sister or woman, but leave as a bitch or a ho.

People of color are similarly hypervigilant when we navigate a white social world. We screen our jokes, our laughter, our emotions and our baggage. We constantly manage complex social interactions so we aren’t fired, isolated, misunderstood, miscast or murdered. We can come home, if you’re lucky enough to have a home, and turn off that setting.

But for black girls, home is both refuge and where your most intimate betrayals happen. You cannot turn off that setting. It is the dining room at your family’s house, served with a side of your uncle’s famous ribs. Home is where they love you until you’re a ho.

Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd), an assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, is the author of “Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy.”

[bodyalive]

L'église Saint-Etienne de Bar-le-Du, France, 2005 - by Jacques Mossot, French

*

Everywhere in your body is tissue called fascia. Scientists are unlocking its secrets.

By Rachel Damiani and Ted Spiker 

Jan. 26, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. EST

Americans, who spend about $8 billion a year in massage and chiropractic treatments to relieve pain, may have no idea that they’re all probably experiencing the same thing — a manipulation of their fascia, a three-tiered layer of tissue that encases tissues and organs.

Although some people who are kneaded, stretched, or cracked may have a vague notion that fascia exists, they probably don’t know much about their fascia — or understand why it even matters.

Some in the scientific and medical communities think the same way.

They cannot agree on what fascia is. They don’t know what fascia does. They may not even know it when they see it. (One scientist, when asked about fascia, had to look it up to try to define it. And a scientific group, the Fascia Nomenclature Committee, has devoted itself to resolving this language confusion.)

But this is what they suspect: As the only tissue that modifies its consistency when under stress (it’s your body’s shape-shifter, of sorts), fascia is a part of the body that inspires equal parts confusion and optimism in research circles.

It’s everywhere in the body, so it could affect just about everything. That leaves researchers wrestling with an intriguing dilemma: If fascia is everywhere, then how do you isolate its impact on the body?

Early research suggests it may have relevance in areas one wouldn’t normally think of fascia playing a role, such as digestive conditions and cancer.

“Fascia is what holds us together. There are very few diseases that don’t have a fascia component,” said Frederick Grinnell, a professor of cell biology at the UT Southwestern Medical School.

In an article in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, researchers make the point that this web throughout our body has the potential to influence everything.

“Fascia is involved almost everywhere in the body,” said Andreas Haas, the founder of the Manus Training Center and the Manus Fascia Center in Austria who has been a manual therapist for 30 years and looking at fascia for two decades. “Each organ, each muscle, each artery, each vein, each nerve — there is not one single structure in the whole body that is not connected with fascia or not enveloped by fascia.”

What is fascia?

Best known by murky metaphors (a glove, net or web), fascia — in lay terms — appears differently throughout the body. There is the fascia that almost mimics a muscle with thick tissues, such as the fascia that makes up the plantar fascia in the foot or the iliotibial band along the side of the leg; the IT band is a structure that is unique to humans, and the fascia probably developed as an adaptation to bipedal movement, said Neil Roach, a lecturer in the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University.

There is also the fascia that appears all over and acts like a casing — a biological Spanx of sorts. “This fascia throughout the body holds muscles and organs in place to make sure they don’t jostle around,” Roach said.

The characteristic of fascia that is at the forefront of discussion in terms of health implications is its elasticity — that is, higher elasticity of the fascia allows organs and tissues to function better, while stiffer fascia decreases performance. (But that is not completely agreed upon, either; in some areas of the body — the joints, for example — it may be advantageous to have stiff fascia to provide support for anatomical structures, Haas said.)

Carla Stecco, an orthopedic surgeon and professor of human anatomy and movement sciences at the University of Padova in Italy whose father wrote books on fascia, is working to provide clarity to the confusion. She has conducted more than 100 human dissections with the goal of better understanding fascia’s anatomy.

When looking at fascia in a cadaver, fascia rests beneath the skin like mist on a lake. Thin and almost translucent, fascia looks like “white paper,” Stecco said. Past the fat cells, another fascia level — called deep fascia — rests beneath the superficial layer. Even deeper, a third layer called epimysial fascia rests on top of muscles. Out of the body and under the microscope, fascia is composed of a variety of different collagen types, elastin and multiple cell types, including telocytes and fasciocytes.

Scientists are still working to understand what characterizes one fascia layer from the next and distinguishes fascia from other connective tissue. Stecco said she believes this knowledge is vital to understanding fascia’s clinical implications.

“Without correct knowledge about fascia,” she said, “we really can’t think about pathology.”

What is known about fascia is that these three fascial layers are not isolated. Rather, they’re bound to one another in a 3-D matrix that gives the body structure and helps it function in an “integrated manner,” according to the definition put forward from the Fascia Nomenclature Committee.

Long thought of as just the support structure, fascia may have more influence on health than as a passive container.

“I think that understanding about the science of fascia is really important for people who are investigating different ways of being healthy other than surgery or drugs,” said Grinnell, a scientist who was initially skeptical about his research related to fascia.

Why does it matter?

Antonio Stecco, the brother of Carla Stecco, and a proud member of the first family of fascia, is a research assistant professor at New York University in physical medicine and rehabilitation who describes fascia’s main functions as helping coordinate the body’s movements (i.e., biomechanics), position in space (i.e., proprioception) and fluid flow throughout the body.

Related to these functions, research has indicated that structural integration (a type of body work thought to release stiff fascia) has improved balance in patients with chronic fatigue, range of motion in patients with neck pain, and reduced eye spasms in patients with muscular dystonia.

Beyond movement conditions, fascia may also be involved in a variety of unexpected health conditions and diseases, including cancer, lymphedema, and gastrointestinal distress — and many more areas to study, said Antonio Stecco, who reviewed many of fascia’s potential clinical implications in a 2016 review paper in the PM&R Journal.

In this paper, Stecco posits a link between fascia and swelling of the arms in the legs (lymphedema). He suggests that stiff fascia decreases lymphatic fluid flow and can contribute to swelling in the limbs.

By releasing fascia through bodywork, it could be possible that fascia becomes more pliable, lymphatic fluid flow increases and swelling goes down. Similarly, releasing fascia could help reduce gastrointestinal distress, including constipation, bloating and acid reflux.

Antonio Stecco hypothesizes that stiff visceral fascia, which Carla Stecco describes as a fourth type of fascia that is related to the internal organs, may decrease the motility of organs, resulting in distress. Bodywork could make stiff fascia more pliable, facilitate organ functioning and reduce these unpleasant GI symptoms.

Fascia and cancer

One potential role of fascia could be for cancer research. Thomas Findley, an expert on fascia and a professor of physical medicine at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, is fighting prostate cancer. He says he performs a series of exercises every day that he hopes may stall the progression of his cancer by releasing his fascia.

Findley said that exercise may slow down development of cancer and that some research suggests that physical activity (which would include weight training) may improve longevity in people once they’re diagnosed. But the reason is unclear.

One hypothesis: Fascia, as part of the extracellular matrix, could surround the tumor like a net around a crab. When the collagen in the fascia around the tumor becomes stiff, Findley thinks cancer cells could use it as a direct line out of the net (envision a tumor escaping the area on stiff fascia, like a playground slide). But when the fascia is pliable, the tumor can’t escape (envision it being trapped in quicksand with no easy escape route).

A recent study published in Scientific Reports and led by a group of researchers at Harvard Medical School, including Helene Langevin, director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, indicated that stretching reduced tumor growth in mice. Future studies are necessary to better understand fascia’s role in cancer development, however.

The frontier of fascia

The study of fascia is marked by both uncertainty and promise.

“We’re really at the nascent phase of identifying fascia,” Findley said.

And in these beginning stages, scientists have not yet reached consensus on fascia’s potential to affect the body.

Part of this confusion in the medical community could stem from fascia straddling both modern and traditional medicine: two perspectives that are often portrayed as starkly different from one another. Fascia knowledge is generated by both scientists using modern techniques and body practitioners who use alternative medicine techniques, such as yoga and massage.

Grinnell said that while many researchers and body practitioners such as chiropractors focus on fascia, other scientists are less enthusiastic about its potential.

“If you talk to most surgeons, they would think of it as ‘what you cut through,’ ” said Grinnell. “Within the medical community, there are widely diverse opinions about the importance of fascia.”

The world’s experts have been gathering regularly in their efforts to figure out the potential of fascia. The Fifth International Fascia Congress met in November in Berlin and another event is planned for 2021.

“The more we know, the more I realize there’s more to learn. Every time you answer a question, it generates more questions,” Findley said. “That’s kind of the fun part.”

[zipgrowth]

How One Master Educator Uses Visuals and Tech to Make Dracula a Must-Take Course

When Stanley Stepanic was growing up in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, he lived in a house built in 1823. “Back then,” he says, “it was always cool to say, ‘I live in a haunted house. There’s a ghost here, and she committed suicide during the Civil War.’”

“I was obsessed with ghosts and skeletons,” he says, “and Halloween was always my favorite holiday.”

When he was five or six years old, Stepanic told his mother he wanted a Halloween-themed birthday party. “I had a cake with a skeleton,” he says, “and I dressed as Dracula.”

It was destiny.

You have to envision yourself as basically an entertainer.

Decades later, Stepanic teaches a standing-room-only class at the University of Virginia entitled—cue up the spooky organ music—Dracula. The course is one of the school’s most popular, with a waitlist that once swelled to 1600; it was included in a roundup of “Top 10 Must Take Classes at UVA.”

An associate professor in UVA’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Stepanic earned the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Teacher of the Year Award in 2012. He has also been selected as a Master Educator by the education technology company Course Hero, which produced a ten-minute film that features Stepanic and his crowd-pleasing class.

With Halloween upon us, we chatted with Stepanic about what his course addresses, how it became so popular, and why Bram Stoker’s Dracula is not a required read.

EdSurge: Can you give us a little background on the history of the Dracula course?

Stanley Stepanic: When I first came to UVA in 2005 to study for my master’s and my PhD, I was a teaching assistant to the course and was mentored by Professor Jan Perkowski. He had originally taught the class under the title of Vampires of the Slavs. He later changed the name of the course to Dracula. When I came here in 2005, the course had been taught for at least two decades.

When Perkowski retired, the department wanted to keep the course because it was their biggest in terms of enrollment. Since I was the last person who had taught it and knew anything about the subject at all, they asked if I wanted to do the course myself.

So I said, “Sure, but I’m going to do it entirely different. I am going to rework the course from the ground up. It’s going to be nothing like how it originally was, other than that title. I’ll keep the title.”

Master Educator Stanley Stepanic discusses his course, Dracula; video source: Course Hero

Professor Stanley Stepanic

What do you cover in your course?

The title, Dracula, is actually just symbolic. Basically, I track the development of human experience and human history, using the vampire as the frame to make it fun. We talk about anthropology. We talk about diseases, issues of racial identity, homosexuality—things you wouldn’t expect. Students usually are amazed when they take it.

We talk about the prehistory, the Slavs, Eastern Europe, then we go all the way to the modern day. Then we see what is a vampire, in the original folklore what does it mean, and then from there we see how that thing was adapted and assimilated and appropriated by Western culture and gets into literature. And then we go from literature to theater and then films and then pop culture in general.

The big takeaway is that the vampire is an expression of the human species itself. It has over time become a mirror for what we are, or for things we strive to be and haven’t achieved.

How do you teach a class called Dracula and not require students to read Stoker?

I used to have Dracula as one of the core texts. But students didn’t like it; they hated the book. Typical complaints are that it’s too confusing at some points; there are plot holes in it; and the characters are fake, I can’t connect with them. I don’t like the book personally. So I just took it out.

It’s really interesting to me that most people actually have not read the book. But they know that name and they think it’s the most famous work in horror literature ever written.

. . . you just can’t keep teaching the same notes with coffee stains from the 1950s on them.

How do you keep your students engaged?

This is one of the big changes I implemented. If you’re not entertaining students enough, they’re not going to pay attention to you. Professors will often ask me, “Why are you so good? What do you do that’s different?” I always say the same thing: You have to envision yourself as basically an entertainer.

Even though you’re teaching them, you have to entertain them at the same time. Otherwise 1) they’re not going to pay attention, and 2) they’re not going to learn. If you entertain them while they learn, they’re going to learn a lot more. I’ve always loved public speaking, so that was easy. But I realized early on, students are more and more visually oriented. So, if I’m talking about a film, I’ll show some of the original film posters or perhaps a clip or a trailer. It gives you a visual perspective of that time period.

How do you leverage technology in your course?

I’ve automated the grading for my essay test, which I was finally able to do with the help of a friend who programmed me a special little system this past year that I call Alucarda. [Editor’s note: What is alucarda spelled backward?] That’s made grading a lot faster and easier. I can do 30 exams in 15 minutes, which used to take me three days.

There’s one other thing I should mention about why the class has become so popular. I’ve always tried to keep up-to-date with the way the technology is advancing. So now I’ll use Google maps, archive.org, YouTube, the Internet and other sources students use.

Resources to Inspire Your Course Design

Professor Stanley Stepanic’s Dracula course file, with links to notes, quizzes, and study guides

Bram Stoker’s Dracula comprehensive study guide, featuring character maps, plot summaries, helpful context, and more

Bram Stoker’s Dracula infographic, highlighting characters, themes, symbols, and biographical information about the author

“Why do we associate vampires with sex?” — Course Hero Master Class by Professor Stanley Stepanic

“How did Dracula become the world's most famous vampire?” — TEDEd Lesson by Professor Stanley Stepanic

How do you pump new blood into your course?

Every semester I’m like, “I don’t like this slide. I need a clearer picture of this. I don’t like the way the text appears.” Every once in awhile, I’ll come across something new like a video. “Ooh, I could use this for this lecture.” I download them to save for later. So there are always things that I’m changing. Every semester it’s going to be a different course. The other thing we’ve got going is, of course, the vampire’s not going anywhere. It’s going to be in the media probably until the human race is extinct. Because the vampire represents problems we have yet to solve, and until we solve those problems, it will be one of the methods we use to symbolize them in order to cope with our lack of understanding.

As a friend of mine once said, as a professor these days, you just can’t keep teaching the same notes with coffee stains from the 1950s on them. You’ve got to be updating. You’ve got to be looking at what students are doing. So who knows how lectures will be taught 20 years from now. Whatever it is, I’ll be teaching that way. Maybe we’ll have some new social media app and we’ll be plugged into computers in our brains and you can experience Dracula through your eyeballs.

Whatever is going to happen, I’m going to have to adapt to it. You have to make yourself as relevant as possible every single year.

The Good Words

Here are six of Professor Stepanic’s go-to books for research on vampires:

1. The New Annotated Dracula, by Bram Stoker and Leslie S. Klinger

2. Bram Stoker: A Biography of the Author of Dracula, by Barbara Belford

3. Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality, by Paul Barber

4. The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to True Blood (Fourth Edition), by Alain Silver and James Ursini

5. Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula, by Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller

6. Dracula (Norton Critical Edition), by Bram Stoker, edited by Nina Auerbach

Vamping for the Camera

The vampire has been a cinematic stock-in-trade since the French short "Le Manoir Du Diable" was released in 1896, a year before Stoker’s Dracula was published. Here are five vampire films and one anime series recommended by Professor Stepanic:

1. "Hellsing Ultimate" (2006–2008, 2012, 2014; created by Kohta Hirano)

2. "Blade" (1998; directed by Stephen Norrington)

3. "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992; directed by Francis Ford Coppola)

4. "Dead of Night" [aka, Deathdream] (1974; directed by Bob Clark)

5. "Dracula’s Daughter" (1936; directed by Lambert Hillyer)

6. "Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles" (1994; directed by Neil Jordan)

How One Master Educator Uses Visuals and Tech to Make Dracula a Must-Take Course published first on http://ift.tt/2x05DG9

[cyberstabbing]

Historical

Under the Hide of Me - Prohibition in New Jersey means mob bosses and bootleggers running hooch up and down the shore and into the city. Gerard Way, his brother, and their friend Ray are running an operation for the Capo Maranzano. Rival factions are trying to take over the business, and Frank Iero, from a prominent Mob family, is sent to them as their new driver.

But the Ways and Ray are hiding two secrets: their own still on a farm in the Pine Barrens, and something darker yet. They’re werewolves. 18k

King and Country - Today, they’d woken up and Gerard was King of Illyria.

Frank hasn’t really been a stable boy since he ended up in the archduke’s bed, but now Gerard’s exile is over and he’s king. Frank has to survive court, politics, and scheming nobles to figure out exactly what he is now. 52k

The Babble Machine - The Royal Court of Illyria attends the Great Exhibition of 1862 in London. Shenanigans. (A sequel to King and Country) 4k

Creep In Like a Whisper - Gerard and Mikey are wealthy land-owners, and Frank is a newly-attained slave with trust issues. They show him they’re not like typical masters. 15k

Trees Have Roots And I Have You - "There’s a legend saying that if you’re at Saint Etienne du Mont church at midnight, a car or a vehicle or something comes for you and takes you to the Paris you want to visit the most.”And that’s how Gerard Way ends up in the twenties. 27k

Beautiful !! Go read !!

The Majesty of Choice - Gerard’s life conforms around a curse that orders his obedience. He soon finds himself thrust into the position of protecting the Prince, a well-meaning man named Frank, who just so happens to be falling in love with Gerard. 100k

Can Never Wrong This Right - It’s 1949 and Dr. Way is a professor of Archeology and Frank is his constantly exasperated (and secretly pining) assistant. When their latest trek takes them to South America to locate the fabled Blood Stone, however, they both find more than they bargained for. 23k

I thought I would never find this fic again!! Was re reading Strange Steps and then looked at the author’s other works and found this fic. Also, the same person wrote Becoming Joan !! And a bunch of other awesome stuff. What a legend.

This Tornado Loves You - 1933. Frank’s been on the run a long time and he’s forced to stop in his old hometown. At first things are about what he expects - old friends, unpleasant memories, and a less-than-desirable home life. Everything changes one night when he stumbles on an old hedge maze hidden in the woods. It’s not the hedge maze that intrigues him the most, though, but the secrets of the house hidden inside. 43k

Against the Wind - Frank is the tutor for the two young children of Michael and Alicia Way. He has always been sickly, but when he begins to fall seriously ill he tries to hide it from his employers, terrified he will lose his position and have nothing. When Michael’s older brother Gerard unexpectedly returns from the continent, however, his problems only grow. 20k

Smokeless Flame of Fire - Frank blinked. "What kind of name for a genie is Gerard?" 21k

all time fave. i love the genie world building! 

Public Enemy - In 1932, Gerard Way has been making a name for himself robbing banks up and down New Jersey. Frank Iero, analyst for J. Edgar Hoover’s Division of Investigation, is determined to catch him. 21k

I probably failed my math test today bc of this fic. I just stayed up reading this instead of studying. Whoops.

Keep You Safe Tonight - Frank is a werewolf. He’s out running in the woods one night when he’s shot by a hunter with a silver bullet, and ends up collapsing on the grounds of Sir Way, who takes him in to care for him. The silver poisoning has a weird effect on him, and Frank - who has never known finery OR or someone quite like Lord Way - doesn’t know what makes his head spin more. 11k

Shadows Fall Behind - Just before the turn of the twentieth century, the Iero household experiences it’s second devastating loss. When Edward Iero, world renowned architect, replaces the recently deceased and much loved head of staff, Donald, with his eldest son, Gerard, no one knows if anything will work out.Frank is a book loving recluse who rarely sees the outside of his study, but when Gerard enters his house and his life, he gets a love story all of his own. 38k

I could picture everything perfectly. Amazingly written.

A World So Small - When Frank, a sickly young man, is advised by his doctors to leave London for the country, he makes arrangements to stay with his friend Michael, who just so happens to be in possession of a large, old, and somewhat creepy manor house. What Frank has no idea of at the time is that Michael has an older brother, whose presence in the house he conceals. Gerard is an eccentric recluse who spends most of his time hiding in the attic and avoiding any kind of interaction with people, but he finds himself fascinated with Frank, who in turn realizes that the house has secrets, and becomes determined to uncover them. When he finally does discover Gerard, their first meeting is only the beginning of their story. 31k

I FINALLY FOUND IT!! there is a god. hallelujah.

Don’t Even Take This Bet - Being a vampire tends to automatically mean immortality, so Gerard had come to terms with the fact that relationships probably wouldn’t work out very well for him. But what if, somehow, he manages to keep meeting the same guy (or sometimes girl) over and over again, through different lives? Gerard will keep falling in love with Frank over and over again, meeting all these different versions of him, none of them remembering him, and seeing him die more times than he’d like. He spends decades after each death searching for him, so when he can’t find him for nearly 70 years, he starts to lose hope. That is, until it reappears again, suddenly and completely unexpected, in the form of a cute guy screaming on a stage. 61k

ever just the same (ever a surprise) - As the only charm weaver in his small village, Gerard has lead a quiet but productive life. All of that changes when he crosses the path of a dark fae with royal ambitions. A fairy tale with wicked witches, magic, and (of course) true love. 20k

Kiss Me, Deadly - It’s the 70s, and Frank’s in London with his band, on the London punk scene. At at show, he meets someone who seems slightly out of place, and ends up having a night he never expected. 5k

well. shit. - an asshole!mcr ficlet disguised as a desolation row au….. it’s just an excuse to write the boys as jerks. 0.7k

No slash in this.

A Lovely Apparition - Michael didn’t seem particularly shocked when Gerard approached him with the idea, but then, Gerard had never seen his younger brother look particularly shocked at anything. He merely looked at Gerard, blinked once or twice, and repeated in a flat tone, “You want me to help you dress up like a woman.”

“It’s the stays in particular I think I’ll need help with,” Gerard told him. “Well, and buttoning the dress, and perhaps the wig.” 21k

godspeed us to sea - (AO3 link) His first thought is oh Jesus, it’s over already. He wonders if Gerard will even bother to bury him. 15k

Mob! AU. I cried. Not that much gore tbh.

Untitled - 4k

a not!fic. Mikey disappears, but leaves a note behind for Gerard, explaining how to reach him through his dreams. And so Gerard finds himself in a world so very different from his own, with magic and princes (and Frank). + cool art!

The Fall and Rise of The Black Parade - “I used to think this was Hell. I mean, I always figured that’s where I was headed, if there was any afterlife. And then when I got here…there were no lakes of fire, or anything, but I was stuck on my own in a place where nothing grows or changes, so I figured, okay, Hell’s just a little different than I always thought it would be. But then, after a while…it wasn’t so bad. I found a place where I could kind of belong, and I met Toro and Brian and Bob and Mikey…and you. And I figure…if I was in Hell, falling in love shouldn’t really be in the cards, should it?

So after that, I started thinking—okay, maybe this place isn’t anything I ever heard about in school or church. But then again, maybe it is. Maybe this is Purgatory. And I always had the idea that Purgatory was kind of like prison, y’know, you gotta serve your sentence and the only thing that’s gonna get you out quicker is good behavior or having friends in high places. But maybe—maybe you don’t have to just sit around waiting for someone to tell you your sentence is up. Maybe Purgatory ends when you get yourself out of it.” 52k

The author only has 12 out of their 52 frank/gerard fics up on AO3, so here’s a link to all of them (LJ).

The Light from Our Bodies Precedes Us (NASAverse) - The second basement of Building Six at the Kennedy Space Center is not, Frank reminds himself, straightening his shoulders and stepping out of the elevator, one of the more intimidating offices in the NASA compound. It is, in fact, just one workshop out of many, where fabricators test out designs that come from the engineers upstairs--where Frank works. 18k

Part 1 of NASAverse.

60′s spacedorks with some angst. If anyone knows of some fanart for this, hmu!!

Variations on a Fugue - Frank Iero is a young nobleman currently living with his parents in the Lake District, where he plans on leading a quiet life away from London and its temptations. However, temptation moves into his neighbourhood in the face of one Gerard Way. (Early Edwardian AU.) 36k 

I Was Your Silver Lining + historical backstory - “So what do you do?” “I wait.” “You wait? Like, what, tables?” “I wait for you.” Werewolves, Gypsy magic, soul mates, reincarnation and Gerard being a creeper. 52k and 1k

Forgot to add this fic in the historical section. Whoops.

24 Frames Per Second - The Belleville Fright Night Experiment of 1984 - The 1984-Movie!AU: 1984: With new multiplexes opening up all over America, the run-down Belleville Film Palace is probably the least exciting place to work at for a teenager. Except if you’re a movie nut like projectionist Gerard and his closely knit circle of loser friends. When cocky and confident Frank joins their team as an usher, Gerard really doesn't think he'll stick around. Besides, there's something about Frank that just rubs Gerard the wrong way. 

Then an unforeseen event threatens the future of the movie theater and Gerard starts to questions things he's always taken for granted... 53k

I put of reading this fic for months, but finally read it, and found that once i started, i couldn’t stop. 

Like a Horse and Carriage - Frank was raised wild, on a merchant vessel that sailed all around the world. When he returns home, an orphan, he is wed to a man with money and name that he has never met. A Victorian AU. 8k

The Midnight Council - Gerard, the child of a forbidden love between vampire and werewolf, ascends the throne of werewolf clan Wajdra at the tender age of eleven. The political situation between the dwindling numbers of the werewolves and their ancient enemies, the vampires, is precarious at best, and when his vampire mother and brother retreat to Transylvania, the only one Gerard can truly trust is Frank, the little werewolf cub who swore himself Gerard's liegeman the very day that they met. Gerard and Frank are raised side-by-side in the castle in a political tinderbox, but as Gerard's coming-of-age approaches, a war between vampires and werewolves looms ever nearer, while humans encroaching on their territory threaten both with extinction. 42k

You know those fics that are so well-written, with so much care for detail and research put into them, that if you had to choose one fic as proof of how incredible fanfiction is to those who claim it’s all trash, that fic would be it? Well, this is a prime example of that. The amount of research the author must have put into this shows itself again and again in the text, and never once did I find a part of it to be lacking in any way. 

It’s written all old-timey, which I normally have some trouble with, but other than having to look up a word now and then, it was fine. Adding to that, I think the fic overall would’t have worked as well in its historical setting had the author not used the language that they did.  

Unfortunately, The Midnight Council is an abandoned WIP. I knew this going in, and while I felt sad at the end, I don’t regret reading it at all. Honestly, I just feel thankful for getting a glimpse of their life in such an amazing setting, and I’m glad it was done so flawlessly. So please, go read. 

Nearly Witches - Frank’s new in town, and his new best friends think it’d be awesome to check out the old Way Cottage on Halloween. Frank thinks it’ll be the best birthday ever. What he gets is two eighteenth century witches and a lot of strange situations. 18k

fanart!

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City - Gerard had every intention of calling out sick today. The last Employee Appreciation Day / Team Building Exercise had pushed him one trust-fall too far, and he'd vowed that was the last team-building activity HR would ever drag him into. Never again. No way.…until this year's activity turned out to be his role-playing kryptonite.

An AU meet-cute at a Murder Mystery Party set in a speakeasy during the Roaring Twenties. 3k

Shook-Up World - Part 1 of the 1930s Dragverse series - Frank is just a kid when he discovers Gerard's secret, and it changes his life. When they meet again by chance years later, Frank's carrying around a few secrets of his own. 5k

On the Getaway Mile - Part 2 of the 1930s Dragverse series - It's the last year of Prohibition, and bootlegger Frank Iero wants to sever his ties to the world of organized crime and go straight, but his mob connections have other plans for him. No one would like to see Frank get away from the mob more than Gerard, but he's got problems of his own--like the fact that he's a cross-dressing cabaret singer constantly struggling to keep his true identity secret from those who can't be trusted. With the help of a devoted brother, a detective who just might be as trustworthy as he claims, and a wealthy, eccentric Scotsman who features prominently in Gerard's past, Frank and Gerard just might be able to get out and start a new life together, but it's not going to be easy.

A tale of gangsters, garter belts, love (hopefully) overcoming all obstacles, and a whole lot of coffee. 40k

Here’s the comment I left - not too spoiler-y I hope: God, this fic needs a fucking movie. Also, I googled '30s halter gown' to better understand what Gerard was wearing and *waves fan* holy shit. No wonder G could jerk off at the thought of dresses. Now I want to re read the whole thing again and google all the outfits! Kudos to you, seriously, the amount of research that must have gone into writing this ... insane.

(not included in the comment) Here’s the dress that shook me to my core. I’m not someone that gets all *waves hands around* about fashion but ... that dress. That fucking dress.

EDIT: I made some fanart heh

A Wish And I'm Gone - Gerard is 17 years old in 1922. Frank is 17 years old in 1984. They both just want to be somewhere else, somewhere better. 2k (still updating!)

In Firmer Chains, Our Hearts Confine - Former musical composer and current writer Gerard Way is a sensation of the musical and literary scenes of 1800s London. But after struggling for ages with his new book, he’s close to giving up. Until he receives an offer from Grant Morrison himself; to go to his manor in Scotland and work on his novel in peace. Gerard seizes upon the chance immediately. Grant, however, has a dark secret he’s desperately trying to keep hidden. And Gerard has a few of his own. 37k

Picture me, casually stumbling upon this fic one late night. Historical? Check. An AU but Gerard’s talents are still appreciated and encouraged, and he makes a name for himself? Double check. Grant Morrison? Check. Gerard and Grant’s dark secrets? CHECK CHECK CHECK CHECK CHECK

Me: *already fucking shaking from excitement, now glancing up at the tags* Enter the tag Alternate Universe - Vampire. Queue foaming at the mouth.

This fic was so fucking awesome in so many ways I don’t even know where to begin. The slow and suspenseful unraveling of secrets and mysteries. The numerous parallels drawn between the AU and real life events of the people in it, and that the author made sure that they all worked within the AU without a hitch. All the actions and ambitions of the people in it that somehow managed to balance masterfully on the fine line between what’s canon and what’s realistic for that time period. 

Fuck, lurkers guys. I’m not sure if my word-vomiting even gets anyone to read fic on my list, but for the sake of this fic (and my ego sdkjlskldhfklf) I ask anyone reading this to p l  e a s e read it. For your own sake. And mine. Because I need to yell about this fic with somebody, STAT. 

Ships: Gerard/Grant, and very, I repeat, VERY low-key Frank/Mikey

Adrift - When successful author Gerard Way is forced to do something drastic to spur on his creativity, he decides to move out of the city. He buys an old villa in the small town of Kellmington and is satisfied with that, until he discovers that it’s already inhabited by one of the former residents: a persistent ghost. To have a dead spirit around is certainly not what he paid for, but Gerard soon learns that the ghost has its own story – a story that might lead him to a life-changing plot twist. 31k

Maaaaan I am I glad I read this. A ghost ... mysteries ... historical flashbacks ... a pinch of horror ... Successful Writer!Gerard ... foreshadowing ... Old creaky houses ... I’m going to come clean. I shed tears over this fic. Dammit, I need some art of that last scene. Maybe I’ll make an attempt once exams are out of the way.

Monsters and Kings - AU where Frank, a member of a werewolf clan, is forced to marry Gerard, the son of the Vampire King. The marriage seals a peace treaty between the two species. Frank expected he would be killed immediately after the wedding, but things are not so simple. He never expected to actually like his new husband, and that makes things far too complicated. 133k

Listen I have so many feelings about this fic. First of all, an A+++ take on werewolves. Secondly... I had no idea it was that long until I finished it. Somehow got it in my head that it was 41k (??) so I was like “‘aight this is the perfect length let’s go” but that number came and went quickly as I read this, and I’m so glad it was way longer (three times as long as I thought!). It couldn’t have been any less than 133k with everything it was packed with. 

This isn’t a fic that was made by dropping the pairing into some rando time and place, oh no. The background stories , culture clashes, creature politics, intricate rituals and traditions, allies, enemies (that antagonist tho) and lovers... the whole shebang. Not to mention that fucking awesome epilogue. Too fucking cute. 

Psst! Make sure to check out 1_800_FRERARD’s comment on the fic lol. BUT ONLY AFTER READING IT BECAUSE IT’S LIKE THE BIGGEST SPOILER OTHERWISE OH MY GOD

Oh, and check out 1_800_FRERARD’s fics as well––they’re awesome.

Out Where The Sand's Turning To Gold - "Last call, last song," the singer says, touching a finger to the microphone and making it pop softly at the crowd. "For all you lovers out there." 5k

Ship: Gerard/Gabe

Lead Me Home - When Grant finds an unconscious young man on the edge of his country estate, he takes him in and nurses him through the fever that develops, only to find when the fever breaks that his guest has completely lost his memories. With only a first name--Gerard--and evidence that he's escaped from some sort of danger, Grant and Gerard begin a search for his identity, all the while finding themselves drawn closer to each other. When they make contact with Gerard's family--including his father's ward, a young man named Frank--their situation becomes even more complicated. 33k

Ships: Frank/Gerard | Grant/Gerard | Frank/Grant/Gerard

Sincerely (Yours) - (Late 19th century AU)Frank is the son of a merchant, with no money, and no title. But he's smart, and he enjoys teaching, so when the opportunity arises for him to help with the two children of a particularly wealthy family, he decides it is worth the risk. The children are precocious, outspoken and they quickly become his favourite students. Their slightly peculiar uncle, however, is the real mystery for him. 33k

So many historical details! The author leaves little nuggets of extra historical facts between chapters so you know whats going on and it is delightful. 

[deniscollins]

A Debate Over Identity and Race Asks, Are African-Americans ‘Black’ or ‘black’?

The acceptable terms in America for identifying black people have evolved over generations, from colored to Negro to black and African-American. Also commonly used is “people of color,” an umbrella term used to include many ethnic minorities. Hundreds of news organizations over the past month -- the Associated Press, but not the New York Times -- have  changed their style to Black in reference to the race of people because “Black” is a proper noun, referring to a specific group of people with a shared political identity, shaped by colonialism and slavery, whereas “black” is a color. If you were an HR manager responsible for communications involving racial issues would you: (1) use a capitalized Black (and do the same for White?), or (2) continue to use “black” with a small “b”? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

It’s the difference between black and Black. A longtime push by African-American scholars and writers to capitalize the word black in the context of race has gained widespread acceptance in recent weeks and unleashed a deep debate over identity, race and power.

Hundreds of news organizations over the past month have changed their style to Black in reference to the race of people, including The Associated Press, long considered an influential arbiter of journalism style. Far more than a typographical change, the move is part of a generations-old struggle over how best to refer to those who trace their ancestry to Africa.

The capitalization of black, which has been pushed for years, strikes at deeper questions over the treatment of people of African descent, who were stripped of their identities and enslaved in centuries past, and whose struggles to become fully accepted as part of the American experience continue to this day.

“Blackness fundamentally shapes any core part of any black person’s life in the U.S. context, and really around the world,” said Brittney Cooper, an associate professor at Rutgers University whose latest book, “Eloquent Rage,” explores black feminism. “In the choice to capitalize, we are paying homage to a history with a very particular kind of political engagement.”

The move toward Black is not embraced by all African-Americans, and two of the country’s major news outlets, The New York Times and The Washington Post, are still wrestling over whether to make the change.

“Black is a color,” said the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, the longtime civil rights leader who popularized the term “African-American” in an effort to highlight the cultural heritage of those with ancestral ties to Africa. “We built the country through the African slave trade. African-American acknowledges that. Any term that emphasizes the color and not the heritage separates us from our heritage.”

There are also concerns that turning black into a proper noun lumps people of the African diaspora into a monolithic group and erases the diversity of their experiences. Some have said it bestows credibility upon a social construct created to oppress black people. Perhaps the most notable concern is what to do about white and brown as racial identifiers.

So far, most news organizations have declined to capitalize white, generally arguing that it is an identifier of skin color, not shared experience, and that white supremacist groups have adopted that convention.

But some scholars say that to write “Black” but not “White” is to give white people a pass on seeing themselves as a race and recognizing all the privileges they get from it.

“Whiteness is not incidental,” the sociologist Eve Ewing wrote on Twitter in arguing to capitalize white as well. She added: “Whiteness is a thing. Whiteness is endowed with social meaning that allows people to move through the world in a way that people who are not white are not able to do.”

At a recent online meeting of Race/Related, a cross-desk team devoted to race coverage at The Times, a discussion of whether to capitalize black or not made clear that there is not universal agreement, even among African-Americans on the staff.

“It has been the subject of a lively and surprising debate,” said Dean Baquet, the Times’s executive editor, who has indicated that he will announce a decision on the issue soon.

The debate over racial vocabulary is unfolding amid growing recognition across society of the need to tackle racism after several high-profile police killings of black people incited mass protests nationwide.

The acceptable terms in America for identifying black people have evolved over generations, from colored to Negro to black and African-American. Also commonly used is “people of color,” an umbrella term used to include many ethnic minorities.

In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, which has unleashed a national conversation on questions of race and racism, many say the country is long overdue to standardize the use of the uppercase B in black, which has been commonly used at black media outlets for a long time.

The New York Amsterdam News, for instance, describes itself as “the oldest Black newspaper in the country that offers the ‘New Black View’ within local, national and international news for the Black community.”

The debate among black people in America over how they should be described has often centered on identity as a political statement.

In her 1904 essay “Do We Need Another Name?” Fannie Barrier Williams, an educator and activist, described a lively discussion unfolding at the time among African-American scholars over whether to shed the label Negro in favor of terms like colored or Afro-American. Colored, she wrote, was a “name that is suggestive of progress toward respectful recognition.”

At the heart of the discussion, she wrote, was whether African-Americans needed a new label divorced from Negro and its connections to slavery, something of a fresh start that indicated their new place in society as free people.

Some, like W.E.B. Du Bois, favored keeping the term Negro and transforming it into something positive — an affirmation of their perseverance as a people and their freedom.

“There are so many Negroes who are not Negroes, so many colored people who are not colored, and so many Afro-Americans who are not Africans that it is simply impossible even to coin a term that will precisely designate and connote all the people who are now included under any one of the terms mentioned,” Barrier Williams wrote.

Negro became the predominant identifier of people of African descent for much of the first half of the 20th century, and even then descendants of enslaved people from Africa waged a yearslong campaign before getting most of society, including The Times, to capitalize it.

With the rise of the Black Power movement in the mid-1960s, the word black, once seen as an insult for many African-Americans, started winning embrace. In just a few years, it became the predominant descriptor of black people as Negro became obsolete. Mr. Jackson’s campaign brought African-American into popular use in the late 1980s, and it is now often used interchangeably with black.

For proponents of capitalizing black, there are grammatical reasons — it is a proper noun, referring to a specific group of people with a shared political identity, shaped by colonialism and slavery. But some see it as a moral issue as well.

It confers a sense of power and respect to black people, who have often been relegated to the lowest rungs of society through racist systems, black scholars say.

“Race as a concept is not real in the biological sense, but it’s very real for our own identities,” said Whitney Pirtle, an assistant professor of sociology specializing in critical race theory at the University of California, Merced. “I think that capitalizing B both sort of puts respect to those identities, but also alludes to the humanities.”

Vilna Bashi Treitler, a professor of black studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said that racial categories were fabricated, created to denigrate people considered to be nonwhite. Black and white are adjectives, not proper nouns to be capitalized, she said, calling a term like “African descendant” a more appropriate way to characterize black people.

“It’s a placeholder for describing the group of people who are perpetually reinserted into the bottom of the racial hierarchy,” Dr. Bashi Treitler, the author of the book “The Ethnic Project,” said of the term black. “I think we can be more revolutionary than to embrace the oppressor’s term for us.”

In her first two books, Crystal M. Fleming, a sociologist and author, lowercased black in part because of academic differences between race and ethnicity. But the more she researched, the more those distinctions became blurred in her mind. She came to see race as a concept that could signify a politically and culturally meaningful identity.

Now Dr. Fleming, a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the author of “How to be Less Stupid About Race,” is writing a book for young people about fighting racism. She has decided to use Black.

Part of the reason, she said, was her desire to honor black experiences and speak with moral clarity about antiracism. Another reason was more basic, born in the urgency of the current moment.

“Frankly,” she said, “because I want to. That’s also something that I think we need to see more of in every field — black people doing what we want to do.”

[ehealthy-diet-plan]

DU Pupil Wins Prestigious Goldwater Scholarship For Dedication To Medication

Why does the disorder exist? And the way can we help those suffering from affliction? Anit Tyagi, a college of Denver sophomore studying chemistry and political science, considers these questions every day. For years, they have got guided him on a steady course towards medical analysis — a route impressed using the pains his grandmother confronted throughout Alzheimer’s and diabetes treatments.

however he’s only midway via his undergraduate profession, Tyagi already has accomplished ample for a brilliant resume. Besides volunteer work and three ongoing analysis tasks, he's co-writer on three scholarly articles, founder of the DU Undergraduate analysis affiliation, and a junior senator for the Undergraduate scholar government. And he’s simply getting begun. “I recognize that analysis is a certainly not-ending commitment to piecing collectively ingredients of a puzzle that you simply might also on no account see the end fabricated from,” he says. “however understanding that you're contributing to whatever a whole lot larger than your self — that’s what truly continues me coming again to research each day.”

Most currently, Tyagi got one of the vital precise accolades for STEM students of his age, when he acquired the Barry Goldwater Scholarship. Tyagi is considered one of 396 sophomore and junior undergraduate students within the u.S. To earn the celebrated scholarship this 12 months. As some of the few sophomore-degree recipients, he'll benefit from the $7,500 fiscal reward this 12 months and subsequent. For Tyagi, the cash, which he says will release funds for future research conferences and materials, is secondary to the validation that he’s on the appropriate route. Struck by way of the “appealing complexity” of medical medicine and their therapeutic uses, Tyagi first got here to medicine via volunteer work at a Veteran’s Affairs (VA) sanatorium. There, he witnessed not simplest the value of medication, however additionally patient care.

“[The Veteran patients] were the most enjoyable people you could talk with, and I realized medicine is a combination of each the science in the back of how we treat disease and the understanding that we are helping human beings,” he says. He has carried that angle through his research, to which he dedicates many hours every week regardless of a heavy path load. Even before starting pre-fitness experiences at DU, Tyagi reached out to researchers and found carrying on with work in two labs at Aurora’s Anschutz Medical Campus.

one of his projects examines Keytruda, an immunotherapy drug used to treat melanoma. Some doctors believe the drug is the way forward for melanoma treatment, however, Tyagi notes that it has led to greater aggressive tumor growth in a small subset of patients. Tyagi works with Dr. Antonio Jimeno on the tuition of Colorado school of drugs to discover why. Tyagi lately offered this analysis at an American affiliation for the advancement of Science e-poster competition in Seattle, the place he becomes awarded 2nd region in the scientific and public fitness category. After commencement, Tyagi plans to pursue an MD or dual MD/Ph.D. program with an emphasis on drug analysis, but meanwhile, he’s learning in a lot of disciplines to help create an outstanding and holistic method to medication.

That’s, partially, why he’s assisting in DU biology professor Anna Sher’s ecosystem restoration lab and working towards minors in mathematics, biology, and medical physics. He’s also because including a fitness minor to the roster.

Tyagi’s stories in political science give a boost to his hobby in fitness care outdoor in the laboratory and medical professional’s office. “In science, there’s an entire concept of the bench to bed, where you’re researching within the lab after which you convey it to the patient’s bedside,” Tyagi explains. “however I consider there’s a bigger point of it, which is coverage making and bringing respectable ideas up to a national scale so that they work far and wide.”

To Nancy Lorenzon, a professor in DU’s faculty of herbal Sciences and arithmetic and the school’s pre-fitness advisor, this attention to the broader fitness landscape units Tyagi apart. “Anit is wholeheartedly dedicated to researching and advancing medicine via research, coverage, and clinical talents,” she says. “He deliberately has sought experiences that will supply him with the strongest foundation one might have in preparation for medical faculty and for being a change leader for drugs sooner or later. Anit will do amazing issues in the future — he has already completed the excellent as an excessive faculty and college scholar.”

[archistudentsufs4]

Reflection 3: urban FLESH deterritorializing URBANITY

RQ: How does an urban development (in other words, a precedent of an urban-SLICE / urban-fragment / urban-corridor / urban-development) accommodate the flesh of the city, human flesh, bodies and embodied social dramas?

The reason for investigating an urban-SLICE (urban-corridor) precedent is to understand how an urban development accommodates the flesh of the city, the human flesh, bodies, and embodied social dramas that manifest within it. The investigation into an urban architectural configuration (building precedent in a complex urban environment)  is to understand how architectural configurations can be open and porous to the urban environment or folding onto the urban environment is accommodating and allowing for lines of flight in the urban environment.

The urban-SLICES which are being investigated are Rue Mouffetard, Paris, France and Fitchardt Street, Bloemfontein, South Africa. This is to investigate market streets of different places of the world and compare them to see how these systems guide movement and interaction of the body within the place and how this in turn speaks to embodies social dramas and how these corridors accommodate and contribute to the surrounding urban flesh.

The buildings being analyzed are those of Mount Royal University Taylor Centre for the Performing Arts by Pfeiffer in Calgary, Canada and the Sand du Plessis Theatre in Bloemfontein, South Africa. This analysis will focus on Performing Arts Institutions and how many of them seem to embrace a porosity within their facades and tend to fold out onto the urban context serving as a paradigm of urban connectivity, bringing together buildings, people and greenery in different ways.  

Kiverstein, an Assistant Professor of Neurophysiology at the University of Amsterdam argues that embodiment can be understood through three definitions, the third of which mostly relates to architecture an that is the understanding of embodiment as what he calls ‘body-enactivism’ where the body is understood as the source of meaning- this articulates the ways in which the body connects or make a situation meaningful to an agent (2012, 741). My interpretation of this is that, a person understands the world through the interaction of the world and their body and it is this interaction which allows a person to draw meaning from the situation they are in. The theme of embodiment carries many term with it which I have interpreted as the following.

Porosity is defined  as “the absence of spatial boundaries and divisions between phenomena, one thing permeating another , the merging of old and new, the interior and the exterior and the diffusion of public and private “(Porter, 2004: 114). I interpret this as the characteristic of architecture that embraces pores or holes within the building which connect the interior and exterior  and allow the urban dweller to figure themselves within the building because of this connection, therefore making the building a component of the greater urban context which entices the urban dweller to dwell within the space.

A folded form in architectural terms is defined as ”a form of construction, including structures derived from elements which form a folded structure by their mutual relationship in space” (Šekularac, Šekularac & Tovarović, 2012: 1). The way in which I understand this in terms of embodiment is how a building uses three dimensional elements  which protrude out into the surrounding urban context to  create depth within the facades and to form a connection between the building and the urban context which invites the public into the building  from the urban context.

Lines of flight: “designates an infinitesimal possibility of escape; it is the elusive moment when change happens, as it was bound to, when a threshold between two paradigms is crossed.” (Fournier, 2014). My interpretation of lines of flight in architecture is creating spontaneous route of disappearance within the design which evokes the dweller to make a sudden choice of going with the expected route through the design or fleeing from it. This doesn’t necessarily need to be a physical path of fleeing but can be an opening, a window to the exterior which allows the mind to escape the space through figured flesh ( the imagining of space differently by understanding a space through placing yourself within it to imagine the possible experiences a body would have within it).

Rue Moufftard, Paris, France

RQ: How does this corridor listen to the narratives and engage the body of the urban dweller?

Rue Moufftard is not only a market street but it is also a street market with the retail spilling and folding into the corridor.Rue Moufftard has become the premier market street of Paris and is always bustling with people getting their treats for the day. 

How does this urban corridor care for  and accommodate (not denominate) the human body, human narratives, memories and the imagination?

1. A purely pedestrian street

This corridor purely aims to please the pedestrian and by creating this street which invites walking, draws urban dwellers in.

2. The narrowness of the street

The fact that the street is so narrow, forces those within it to walk closely to each other and closely to the products being sold, this is a clever tactic used to make sure the urban wanderers see and possibly even feel all the products on display as they meander through the street, increasing the chances of them buying something.

3. Drawing on all the senses of the urban dweller

plays on all the senses of the urban dweller to invite them into the space to buy the products.

4. Embodied social dramas

By creating a space of exploration through the tactics above, this corridor invites the creation of embodied social dramas.

Nooks, Crannies vs. Great Open Spaces

This corridor, because of the protruding and receding of the adjacent buildings, includes many little nooks where the urban dweller can explore and experience.

As the Street Moves, so do You

Rue Moufftard bends as it moves through the urban context, and as the street is so narrow, this urges the urban dweller moving through it to take these bends as well until thy reach the element of hierarchy at the end of the road where the narrow street opens into the square towards the fountain.  even though this is a slight bend on plan, when walking along the corridor, it hides what is to come (the great opening of the space), creating anticipation within the urban dweller.

The Shelter of Canopies

 When walking through the street, the dweller is confronted with the many colourful and decorative hanging canopies above their heads which creates a sense of scale for the urban dweller in the street, separating the residential aspect of the mixed use buildling above you from the street, making it a much more intimate and romantic experience.

Thresholds, Porosity and Lines of Flight

A play with thresholds and porosity of a buildings, creates an interplay between those within the urban context and bodies and objects within the building itself. It’s easy to see the way in which the thresholds are played with by means of windows within the different purposes of the building. Juliet balconies or normal balconies, blurring the threshold between inside and outside inviting these dwellers to become a part of the street.

Figured Flesh within the Corridor

I thought of the figured flesh, of how I could figure and imagine myself within this space to think of the experiences I would have within it. This is a powerful tool of interpretation and understanding of embodiment within a space, especially as under the current lock-down regulations, it is impossible to experience this space in person. 

The Market Street Typology in South Africa: Fitchardt Street Market Corridor, Bloemfontein

Fitchardt Street is Bloemfontein CBD’s main street market which is located from the entrance of the Central Park Mall. Even though this is not upmarket as that of Rue Moufftard, I believe that this street market employs some of the same embodiment strategies within its makeup although not as many as this space was not designed to be a street market but rather a vehicular entrance to the mall. 

When looking at the plan of Fitchardt street, it can be seen that the prefabricated stall table structure splits the market street space in half. This narrows the pathway the dweller has to walk and, just like Rue Moufftard, plays with embodiment but in this case, unfortunately not enough to force the dweller to walk in close proximity to the products being sold, increasing the chances of them buying something.  

The coldness and hardness of the steel and the lack of textures and patterns, unlike Rue Moufftard, does not celebrate the touching body but rather creates a space of movement as the dweller simply moves through the space, not necessarily wondering and exploring it.

Although the canopies and stalls narrow the space that the urban dweller can maneuver through, the market space is still much wider than that of Rue Moufftard. This decreases the interaction between those moving through the space and the market fabric but additional market space is added by other informal traders which make use of the shop-fronts as their market space. This creates more interaction between the bodies within the streets but reinstates a threshold which is blurred by means of the shop front windows and so the connection between the inner flesh of the retail portions of the buildings and the bodies within the streets is somewhat lost.

I find it much harder to be imaginative within this corridor than that of Rue Moufftard.It might just be because this is not a space I would usually find myself within because of the way I have categorized the city but I think it could also be because of the way the corridor is so much wider and colder because of the materials, textures and colours within it. 

Conclusion of Street Markets 

All in all, Fitchardt Street market and the Rue Moufftard Street Market Corridors have similarities in how embodiment plays a role within the spaces but I believe the Fitchardt street market is not as successful in embracing and celebrating the bodies through embodiment because of how the corridor in which it lies was not initially designed for this purpose but rather the system of the locals was imposed on the space because of how the mall does not entirely accommodate for the systems of the local informal traders which is embraced within our country. 

Mount Royal University Taylor Centre for the Performing Arts by Pfeiffer

RQ: How can an architectural configuration be evaluated as open and porous to the urban environment, folding onto the urban environment or accommodating and allowing for lines of flight in the urban environment?

The design process of this Urban Component could be described by Alberti’s ‘Materia’ theory as many elements are derived from the specific natural context around it. The design of the building celebrates the unique characteristics of the area, its topography (as the Western praries and and Eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains meet) and memories embedded within the location of Calgary.  I believe that this is a great example of Weak Architecture in how it compliments the natural flesh within which it stands. 

Having all the different forms superimposed, creates a connection between this urban flesh and that of the urban dweller as it alludes to the hierarchy and inner-functions inside the building, creating anticipation and intrigue within the dweller. This specific superimposition of forms also allows an articulation of the entrance which orientates and invites the urban dweller into the building.

The Building as a Paradigm of Urban Connectivity through Porosity, Openness and Folding

Due to its location, this site experiences long winters with little sunlight and so the design had to optimize natural light which is achieved through a combination of large curtain walls and skylights. This porosity within the facades blurs the threshold between the inside and the outside, and through doing this, the same is done with the threshold separating the buildings flesh with that of the urban context. This connects the urban dweller within the surrounding urban context to the inner-workings of the building, allowing them to figure their flesh within the spaces and allows those within the building to find mental ‘lines of flight’ through the windows to the outside urban context, creating an experience where the body is both inside and outside. 

This building is a good example of how an architectural configuration folds out onto the surrounding urban context as the designer made use of a play with the thresholds of public, semi-public and private using the stairs and ramps and the landscaping, to make is seem as though the building falls out into its surroundings, once again blurring the threshold between the building and the urban context. This use of folding the building, opens the building, especially the entrance, up to the urban dwellers within the university which creates an inviting architecture which draws bodies in. This play with folding and the landscaping also creates an inter- active exterior to the building with many spaces within which the bodies passing by, can associate with and gather within, creating an experience of the building without even being in it.

Celebrating the natural flesh

The interior of the concert hall’s steel structure portrays the expressed steel structures of the prairie barns. The acoustic absorption panels of woven mesh, which adorn the walls, reference the native tee pees and the an abstracted Alberta Rose inspired the design of the acoustic hanging panel which besides the stage, is the focal point of the hall. All of these elements referencing the natural context of the area, as the exterior elements do, celebrates the natural flesh within the flesh of the building, connecting the two.

Embracing the Urban Dweller

The urban dweller is only able to fully understand and interpret other flesh through experiencing it with their body.This is a place of movement, not only for the performers on stage, but also for the urban dwellers which experience the space.

“The balanced play of geometric against organic forms, and the rich, warm finish pallet foster a sense of intimacy for the performers and audience alike” (Archdaily, 2018).

Through the design celebrating the touching body and the sensuality of things by materiality, textures, colours and forms within the building, it evokes touching and makes the building enticing for the body to stay within the building and experience the different spaces.The use of forms upon forms, allows for the creation of nooks and places of associating where the urban dweller is able to figure the possibilities of the body and the complexities and contradictions within the space creates movement variance. Movement is created within this building  through a constant interplay with the narrative of it as the body moves through it,  exploring the building by moving through the time and engaging with the text. 

The Sand Du Plessis Theatre (PACOFS), Bloemfontein, South Africa

This building has many similarities to that of Mont Royal University Taylor Center in terms of its porosity and folding onto the urban context. This building is much more heavy and dominant in it’s monumentality due to materiality,but celebrates the timelessness of ‘monumentality’ and is not dominant within its urban context because of its scale, its celebration of landscaping as an element of the facades, and because of the natural colours used for the roof and ‘platform’ which it stands upon. 

These large expanses of windows, similar to the previous example, are used functionally to get as much natural light into the atrium entrance foyer space as possible but simultaneously, creates intrigue for the urban dweller in the street, connecting them to activities within the building.  Growing up, I always associated the Sand Du Plessis Theatre as the place with the lights. At night, the unique chandelier is put on and all who move through St Andrews Street, see these magnificent glowing orbs floating in the building, connecting their imagined flesh to that of the building and allowing them, like myself, to picture themselves within that romantic space and to form a memory of the building and what my figured flesh experiences within it. 

Folding onto the urban context

The theater celebrates the exterior spaces as part of the building as well as part of the landscaping through integrating their designs and through the large curtain walls which open up to it. 

The terrace balcony allows for those using the building to be separated from the street and vehicular areas below while still connecting them to the views of the surrounding urban context. This gives them an experience of being ‘within’ the building, as it fold out into the terrace, creating intimate experiences within the nooks of the terrace, while giving them ‘lines of flight’ either into the city (if on the south side of it) or into the garden. The circular element of the terrace creates a very interesting experience where the bodies use this space as a viewing deck to experience their surroundings of the city or to experience the fountain which is placed within it.  This terrace also interlinks with the folding out of the Fidel Castro Building as there is a bridge which connects the two terraces, inviting urban dwellers to the spaces and giving them many options for entering the spaces, making it as easy as possible for the architectural configuration to connect with the city goers.  

Conclusion

Through investing the urban slices of Rue Moufftard and Fitchardt Street, I have come to an understanding that even on other sides of the world in very different economic situations and for different reasons, the body is always an element in creating a market street because it is these bodies that need to be drawn into the space and that need to be invited and persuaded for these corridors to be successful in their purpose. Fitchardt street does not celebrate embodiment and the benefits it could have on the overall flesh of the corridor as much s Rue Moufftard but I must say that I am impressed in how some of these elements have already been instigated within the corridor without any education on the subject. The intermingling between the human flesh and the flesh of the urban context, I now realize, is an intuitive instinct that we, as humans have, when composing anything, even a market street.

With regards to the architectural compositions, I believe that both of these precedents are successful in how they embrace porosity, and through this, create an openness to the public and through the way they fold onto the urban environment, invite and entice the public to become part of the space and create experiences within it. By doing this, the compositions play with public, semi-public and private thresholds through ‘lines of flight’, blurring thresholds through windows and embracing the landscaping as an element of the building which needs to be designed, which invite the urban dwellers without sacrificing security for the buildings. The interaction seen within these precedents between the various kinds of flesh within a space, often dictates ether that space is imbued with the gesture of care and hospitality, making both of these performing spaces successful in their ‘weakness’.

I have learned a lot about how the flesh of the body, that of the urban context and that of the natural context, all need to be embraced within a design to make it a truly successful design that makes people want to go explore, celebrate and dwell within these spaces.

REFERENCES:

Arcdaily. 2020. Mount Royal University Taylor Centre for the Performing Arts / Pfeiffer. [online] Available from: https://www. archdaily.com/934899/mount-royal-university-taylor-centre-for-the-performing-arts-pfeiffer/?ad_source=myarchdaily&ad_medium=bookmark-show&ad_content=current-user. [Accessed 21 April 2020].

Avanzino, L., Canepa, E., Chiorri, C., Fassio, A., Lagravinese, G., Scelsi, V., 2019. Atmospheres: Feeling Architecture by Emotions Preliminary Neuroscientific Insights on Atmospheric Perception in Architecture. International Journal of Sensory Environment, Architecture and Urban Space, [Online]. 5. Available from: https://journals.openedition.org/ambiances/2907 [Accessed 14 April 2020].

Bonjour Paris. 2011. Rue Mouffetard in Paris: Latin Quarter Place to Meet, Eat, Drink, Dance and Shop. [online] Available from: https://bonjourparis.com/archives/rue-mouffetard-paris-latin-quarter-eat-drink-shop/. [Accessed 21 April 2020].

Boundas, C. and Tentokali, V., 2018. Architectural and Urban Reflections After Deleuze and Guattari. 1st ed. London: Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd.

Chang, Y., 2014. A Study on 'weak architecture' of Kuma Kengo and Sou Fujimoto. Journal of the architectural institute of Korea planning & design, 30, p. 117-125.

Fournier, M., 2014. Lines of Flight. Transgender Studies Quarterly, [Online]. 4 (1-2), 121-122. Available at: https://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article/1/1-2/121/91705/Lines-of-Flight [Accessed 14 April 2020].

Hays, K., 1998. Architecture Theory since 1968. 1st ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Kiverstein, J., 2012. The Meaning of Embodiment. ⁄ Topics in Cognitive Science, [Online]. 4, 740-758. Available at: : 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01219.x [Accessed 19 May 2020].

Marcelo, G., 2017. Narrative and recognition in the flesh: An interview with Richard Kearney. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 13(8), p. 1-16. PACOFS. 2019. PACOFS Buildings. [online] Available from: http://pacofs.co.za/wp/pacofs-buildings/. [Accessed 21 April 2020].

Philosophy for Change. 2013. Lines of flight: Deleuze and nomadic creativity. [online] Available from: https://philosophyforchange .wordpress.com/2013/06/18/lines-of-flight-deleuze-and-nomadic-creativity/. [Accessed 14 April 2020].

Porter, T., 2004. Archispeak. 1st ed. London: Spon Press.

Project for Public Spaces. 2010. 9 GREAT STREETS AROUND THE WORLD. [online] Available from: https:// zwww.pps.org /article/9-great-streets-around-the-world. [Accessed 14 April 2020].

Project for Public Spaces. 2015. A STREET YOU GO TO, NOT JUST THROUGH: PRINCIPLES FOR FOSTERING STREETS AS PLACES. [online] Available from: https://www.pps.org/article/8-principles-streets-as-places. [Accessed 14 April 2020].

Rue Mouffetard. 2014. Rue Mouffetard Market. [online] Available from: https://www.rue-mouffetard.com/market.html. [Accessed 21 April 2020].

Šekularac, N., Šekularac, J. I., Tovarovic, J., 2012. FOLDED STRUCTURES IN MODERN ARCHITECTURE . Facta universitatis - series Architecture and Civil Engineering, [Online]. 10 (1), 1-16. Available at: 10.2298/FUACE1201001S [Accessed 19 May 2020].

Thornton, E., 2018. On Lines of Flight: A Study of Deleuze and Guattari’s Concept. PhD in Philosophy. London: University of London.

- Gaby Chemaly

[friend-clarity]

Deteriorating academic honesty

https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/students-educators-and-parents-struggling-to-adapt-to-new-learning-dynamic/

Tom Li @itworldca , Published: May 20th, 2020 (extract)

“One of the professors just took out the exam entirely because he thought it was a joke to have a take-home exam,” says Stockwell. “Instead, we had a re-weighing of the syllabus that we could all vote on.”

Deteriorating academic honesty

Students and professors alike are battling to uphold academic integrity. Without proctors supervising the examinees, rampant cheating now dilutes the validity of test scores.

In one email obtained by IT World Canada, a general pathology professor at New York University candidly expressed his disappointment after catching a number of students cheating on a quiz.

“I cannot express how disappointed I am about the amount of cheating on the quiz this week,” wrote the professor who’s been anonymized by the source. “Apparently you seem to think we do not have ways of tracking cheating remotely.

“I am not going to pursue those involved in cheating on this quiz; but I assure you, I will have no hesitation to follow through – bringing any student who cheats on the last exam to the peer review board.”

A wide range of technologies exists to snub cheating. Certain schools use software that monitors background programs running on the students’ devices during exams, while others use locked browsers that prevent an examinee from opening other apps once tests begin. Some schools also complement these measures with remote ID verification, such as requiring the student to take a picture before and after the exam. Even more stringent anti-cheating software records the student on both video and audio throughout the test session.

But tighter rules only create better miscreants. Despite increased enforcement, exploitative students are still trying their luck with using external references during exams. Only the most rigorous anti-cheating software could prevent someone from peeking at paper notes and searching up information on a smartphone.

As professors clamp down on cheating, students are also worried that a dishonest culture would foster a propensity for otherwise honest students to stray in fear of being left behind.

“I know the material well enough that I was comfortable without [cheating],” says Morgan Stockwell, a student taking history courses at the University of Toronto. “But it’s uncomfortable for students to have no idea as to whether the entire class is going to use aids, and then if the class average shoots up to like an 88. If I didn’t use aid and I get a 60, how’s that fair?”

Given the hasty transition to online learning, the implementation of these various technologies swung widely between schools, curriculums, and professors. None of the students interviewed were subjected to strict monitoring rules during their final exams.

The threat of dishonesty has reshaped institutions’ grading policies. Last post-secondary semester saw professors omitting year-end exam scores from the final grade. Sources from George Brown College told the publication it has given students the option to replace their number grade with a simple pass or fail. The University of Toronto and other institutions have also amended their final grade calculations.

“One of the professors just took out the exam entirely because he thought it was a joke to have a take-home exam,” says Stockwell. “Instead, we had a re-weighing of the syllabus that we could all vote on.”

For courses that followed through with a final exam, professors derived the test questions based on their personalized lectures, which made it harder for someone who had not attended the courses to understand.

But certain exams had no supervision at all. According to Daniel Park, a mathematics instructor at the University of Toronto, his students were only required to send a picture of the completed paper exam to him for grading. There was no rigid enforcement of honesty besides a stern warning before the tests.

‘We cannot replace the human connection’

Regardless of how interactive online learning sessions can be, a virtual classroom is no substitute for in-person teaching.

Schools were given a few weeks from the start of mandatory social distancing orders to move their classrooms online. Whereas using learning management systems (LMS) such as D2L and Blackboard was optional before the pandemic, social isolation has rendered them a necessity.

A professor’s proactiveness to adopting them could greatly impact the quality of learning, especially when some educators are onboarding at a laggard pace. Several interviewees pointed out that their unfamiliarity with technology may be to blame.

Google Classroom is a popular way for educators in Canada to teach online. Image source: Google Classroom tutorial

“Most teachers are good with it [LMS], but some just don’t use it at all,” Baziw told IT World Canada that she’s had professors who consistently uploaded video lectures while others only bothered with assignments and reading materials.

“I think you can tell that professors are having trouble adjusting, some of them may not be the most familiar with the tech,” she says.

“We would often hear echo or feedback during sessions, and it would quickly become distracting,” says Nacy Demes, a student at the Université du Québec à Montréal. “Some professors have had more difficulty adapting to online teaching because they’ve never used videoconferencing apps like Zoom.”

The students’ frustrations revealed the problem with such a sudden change; there just wasn’t enough time for everyone to learn the new tools. Remote conferencing apps that once played an assistive role now supersede regular in-person teaching. The tectonic shift is affecting courses that require immediate feedback, like music, the most.

Joy Reeves is a rotary music teacher for the TDSB who now has to manage her music classes online. At times, her class size can grow up to 60 students. To carry out her classes without distracting noise, she requires her students to mute their microphones. Not only is engagement lowered, but it also reduces opportunities for her to correct her students, a critical component to promote information retention.

“We cannot replicate the human connection,” Reeves emphasized, noting the importance of having in-person classes. “When we speak to each other, when we see each other’s eyes when our bodies resonate with the actual vibrations of somebody’s voice, the natural acoustic sounds that are made face to face.”

Communication between teachers and students is key and equally important is communicating to parents their children’s progress. In Ontario, the Ministry of Education has established guidelines for K-12 educators to speak with parents about accessing course material. Teachers have also been collaborating with each other to consolidate information so they’re easily accessible.

“As we proceed into unprecedented territory, the importance of open lines of communication between parents and education staff is critical,” wrote the Ministry of Education in an email to IT World Canada. “We expect teachers, support workers, and board staff to remain in regular contact with parents during this period, as needed.”

“It varies a bit district by district, but this week we had individual phone calls from at least one teacher (one per child) to ask about technology availability etc., in addition to “wellness checks” (i.e. do you have food in the house, are you ok?),” responded Lorraine Baldwin, a mother from Vancouver, when asked recently about her thoughts on remote learning. “Each teacher will be sending out their direction next week (this is our first week back over spring break) but we’ve already been told it won’t be onerous.”