#I also have new exams the first days of April and the program is pretty heavy and wide. On top of following courses. I'll see what I can d

[umichenginabroad]

Abhi in Paris

Week 16: Catching up with friends, trying new Parisian experiences, & radical changes

Welcome everyone! I can’t’ believe it, but we’re at week 16 already! Nowadays, I walk into French apartment in the 1éme of Parus and think of it as home. I’ve gotten used to having to take extra effort to communicate with people, enjoy the charms & detriments of Paris, and everything else that comes along with living in Europe.

You know the first time you do something new & exciting? There’s a certain adrenaline and excitement that goes along with it. But if you do it 50 times over, it starts to just become another thing you do…that’s how I’m starting to feel now. And I’m starting to wonder what it’s going to be like to go back to the U.S. and have to reverse back all the changes & adjustments I’ve made. That’s the great thing about studying abroad—you overwhelmingly become more adaptive.

Anyway, this week held an interesting mix of things for me. With a heavier class load, I spent my fair share of time in class & lab this week. I also spent quite a bit of time hanging out with friends and using the time to visit Paris monuments that I’ve skipped in the past. Finally, this week was a whirlwind with a quick decision I made leading to a complete change in the rest of my abroad experience.

Monday, April 29th & Tuesday, April 30th – As always, these days, Mondays & Tuesday are normally filled with routine & class. I had classes & labs for Communication Systems, Power Engineering, French, and Signals. And this deep into the semester, let me tell you, It’s still quite enjoyable. The pace of the classes and level of teacher engagement on labs just makes tough content so much easier to grasp. I’d probably be dying with final exams & not understanding anything back at Michigan, but here things are a little different.

After class on Monday, I managed to make use of the amazing weather to enjoy a great 7.5k run down the Seine. It’s an amazing place to run, walk, hang out with friends, and grab some drinks.

On Tuesdays, I get back from class pretty late, so I just had time to make some dinner from scratch and watch a movie before I was super tired.

Wednesday, May 1st & Thursday, May 2nd –Wednesday, I had no class! So, I took the chance to walk over to 2A Barbers, a small barber shop near Les Halles in the 1éme just a few minutes’ walk for me. They’ve got the cheapest haircut in Paris at 17 euros. Let me tell you, over the past few months I’ve been to places with haircuts as expensive as 58 euros, so this is a welcome reprieve. My man at 2A Barbers set me up, and I was back home soon.

As I headed out to my usual spot for grocery shopping, I learned that the reason I don’t have class today is that today is French Labor Day! So, I had to say bye to grocery shopping. Instead, I had seen an advertisement for buy 1 get 1 on milkshakes, and I really enjoyed a vanilla & Oreo shake in the evening.

Thursday was quite the opposite—so much to do. I started my morning early with a run (all in preparation for a run I registered for on Sunday). Then, I had to run to school to go to a pancake party that the International Programs office at ENSEA was hosting. And the coolest part was, they created a set and recorded each of answering questions about the program separately. After that, I had to attend a 4 hour lab, and then finally, it was time to head back to Paris. After school, I had an awesome time hanging out in Bastille in the east of Paris with some of my friends from ENSEA.

Friday, May 3rd – Friday was a pretty chill day. After a fun morning class on French Culture, I grabbed Chipotle for lunch. Paris & France is great, but as someone who loves spice, I will say, I’ve found France to be sorely lacking in that regard. I asked them to add a double dose of hot sauce in my burrito, and it hit the spot.

Afterwards, I got the chance to explore Rue de Montmarte, which is full of “kilo” shops. These thrift shops tag clothes based on a price per kg & get the total based on weight at the end. It was such a cool vibe and an amazing chance to explore Parisian clothing. After that, I took a long walk to Le Marais in the 2éme & 3éme of Paris. There’s lots of amazing boutique Ateliers lining the streets filled with the latest fashion trends, where I made plenty of holes in my wallet.

Then, after a quick break and recharge back home, I headed to Delhi Bazar, a new Indian restaurant in 11éme, to try their modern take on Indian food. It was some amazing food!! Once again, hit the spot with the spice craving.

Saturday, May 4th & Sunday, May 5th – The weekend was a lot of the same. Firstly though, there’s some big news I’ve gotta share. I’ll be visiting India for the next two weeks – exploring several cities in the south and attending my classes remotely! After talking to my professors at ENSEA, I got the okay to attend a little bit of my classes remotely to spend some time in India with my grandparents. And the crazy thing is—I leave next Wednesday!! It’s such a short time frame, and I’m so stressed.

I decided to spend most of the weekend doing some packing & seeing everything that I had missed in Paris the past few months. I visited Champs Elysées & Arc de Triomphe and spent time on Sunday walking and shopping in the area. Every first Sunday of the month, the municipal government of Paris actually stops traffic on the street so pedestrians can walk up and down the whole things. It was a hectic & fun weekend overall!

A plus tard,

Abhi Athreya

University of Michigan, Aerospace Engineering 2025

ENSEA in Cergy, France

[kyotakumrau]

2020.05.29 ROCK AND READ 090 – interview with YUCHI – translation part 1/2

profile & information

born April 2nd. Blood type B. Plays on bass in sukekiyo, a project started by Kyo from DIR EN GREY in 2013, but also works as a support musician in several places. Other sukekiyo members are Takumi (g, pf), utA (g), Mika (ds). The footage from their last show in June last year in Nakano Sunplaza is included on the newest video and sound compilation 'LIQUEFACIO' available now.

future

Started as a solo project by Kyo from DIR EN GREY, but having fixed members, sukekiyo functions totally as a band. YUCHI plays on bass. The position of his bass is high, his playing overflows with grooves, he's a bassist with a sense of present. Although right now they are not active we talk about his role in kannivalism as Yuuchi (* 裕地 ), about his work as a support for MIYAVI and so on, his musical path including his early life/childhood, things he gained from sukekiyo and his prospects/outlook from now on.

text : Yukinobu Hasegawa photos: Yosuke Komatsu (ODD JOB LTD.)

translation; kyotaku (pls let me know if you see any mistakes or typos)

――As a bassist you deploy a phrase approach and have a strong presence, but I also feel a sense uncharacteristic for a Japanese there. I just feel like in sukekiyo you have shown your true abilities. What got you interested in music originally?

　　It's hard to say when I started to listen to music exactly, but it was in the beginning of junior high that I started to listen consciously. Like thinking, let's buy a CD. In elementary school I liked to watch music programs on TV, but it didn't end up with me buying CDs. I have older and younger sisters, two of them liked music. The 2nd older sister had LUNA SEA's 'MOTHER'. So when she went out like to go to her part time job and so on, I sneaked into her room and listened to 'MOTHER' (laughing).

――Why did you get so crazy about ‘MOTHER’ to even enter the path of crime?

　　I got it when I was a 1st year jh student. And because it was a new release even the CD shop in the boonies had a LUNA SEA corner. And that way I got it. I think that I’ve been a bit perverse(nonconformist) even since then. At that time, I felt in my child’s heart there were many light/moderate artists. LUNA SEA was of course very popular, but they seemed so manly. So it was like, I wanted to be a person listening to the bands like that. And my sis had LUNA SEA’s ‘MOTHER’. I think it’s another reason I was listening to it. And, kuroyume’s ‘FAKESTAR,～I‘M JUST A JAPANESEFAKE ROCKER～ ‘ came out around the same time as ‘STYLE’, so I also got it. And a bit later X-JAPAN's ‘DAHLIA’. I think all of those came out the same year. Thinking about it now 1996 brought us amazing crops. It was great time to start listening to music.

――But you got into all of the rock bands. Were bands also popular among your friends?

　　Nah, not really. [I lived in] Funabashi in Chiba, so even in the city it was like a countryside. There were no shops with CDs in my town. No convenience stores even (laughing). That’s why to buy CDs I had to go to the nearby town, the basic train fare was 300 yen one way. A lot of money for a jh school student. I remember riding my bicycle to buy CDs. With ‘STYLE’ and ‘MOTHER’ I was listening to them like every day. When I was in the 2nd year, there was a visual kei boom in the world, it became a pop/popular thing. And I think since then I could also talk about music with my friends. But I found that boring. Because in the end I also ended up listening to pop artists.

――Did you always wanted to be a minority?

　　I was twisted a bit, somewhere. Looking back now, I wanted to go into more and more extreme direction, that time. I knew special CD stores from music magazines, also about indies and so on. I started digging deeper and deeper.

――Any special titles or bands that left an impression that you’ve encountered back then?

　　If it’s about leaving a strong impression, then definitely X’s past works. I started to listen to more indie bands from that time, but listening and watching old stuff from X was really impactful. When I started digging into indie music X-JAPAN has disbanded. The history and more of X was featured a lot in music magazines, it was interesting to read that. And with that I felt I wanted to be in a band.

――A band similar to X?

　　I think then it was like that. As long as I could be in the band I didn’t care about the position. All band members in X were cool, guitar was cool, bass was cool, drums were cool, so if I could be in a band any would be fine. Although I thought that singing would be impossible. To be honest I bought a music instrument around jh 1st year. 30,000 yen IBANEZ bass. Even as I didn’t know the roles of the bass and the guitar (laughing). Later I realized that the sound I wanted to play was the guitar.

――A mix up from the very first step (laughing).

　　Yup, and like that I continued with the bass (laughing).

――Isn't that the best? (laughing) doesn't the excitement go up with the first instrument?

　　Yeah, it does. But even as I bought a bass I didn't really understand it. It took me about a year to learn how to use the tuner (laughing). The first score I got was X-JAPAN's 'DAHLIA', and there was an instruction to lower the tuning by a half-tone. But I didn't even understand the regular tuning not even mentioning the half-tones. And at that time, there was a person who died electrocuted by the electric guitar. I think he was called Yamada Kamachi. So being afraid of getting electrocuted I put on working gloves and played with the wrong tuning (laughing). But I had a vague feeling of wanting to become a professional musician. If I do it I should do it properly until the end, I was thinking like a child would. On the contrary, I didn’t have any other interests. So like a child would, I got happy that I finally found something I could really get into.

――And after that you devoted all your energy and curiosity into playing the bass?

　　Yup. But it didn't matter it was a bass (laughing). As long as I could play music and be in a band I was happy. I wasn't that interested in the instruments themselves, so I got into writing songs. I started that around 2nd year of jh.

――All of a sudden original songs?!

　　Thinking about it now, it was all copying the songs from the score books I bought. Imitations of the songs of the bands I was listening to then, simply saying I was 'borrowing' the cool parts (laughing). I was connecting the parts I liked from LUNA SEA and X-JAPAN into a songs. Pretty much, all were [borrowed] parts. I think there was a software/game to do that.

――When you are young you can easily start using programs for writing and composing music.

　　Ah, no, it wasn't DTM or anything like that (DTM=Computer Music). There was a game like that on PlayStation. You could choose each part and write the score with a controller. And after writing all parts in the score you could just play it like that on PlayStation. But you couldn't record it. At the beginning I just entered all music notes as they were written in the score. And with that I got 'ah, so song goes on like that' or 'chords move like that' and 'the chords are composed like that' and so on. I wasn't planning to be learning through this, but as I was playing with this program as a result I've learnt a lot.

――You must've experienced the fun and thrill of the band ensemble.

　　Yup. And that's why I liked all the parts in the band.

――By the way do you remember the title of the first song you composed?

　　No, not at all. I think it must've been something embarrassing (laughing). It was a song similar to 'BLUE BLOOD' by X. I made my friends listen to it. But they were just confused (laughing). But it roughly had the right composition, A melody, B melody, chorus. In the end, the know how I got from this got very useful later.

――Was the high school time when you got to start a band the moment when the revolution happened for you?

　　Yeah. My elementary school was in a small town, so there weren’t that many students. But upon entering high school suddenly the number of students was high. And at that time many bands were popular so there were many people playing on instruments. So I invited my friends to play at the live house (small music club). It was fun. I’ve realized my dream to play in a band. But ever since the 1st year of jr I wanted to play in a band professionally so I had this weird uncomfortable feeling. Friends who created a band with me at school weren’t really interested in becoming professional musicians, I think they were just doing it for fun. Playing in a band at school sure has its limits huh, I felt. I didn't wish for the same story as SUGIZO and Shinya from LUNA SEA , but it seems they were childhood friends and started a band at school and continued until professional level like that. I realized that in reality there are more cases that don't end like that. And then I realized that I have to start a band with people who were very serious about music. Thus around the second year I quit high school (laughing).

――Woah, wait. I will act as a parent here for a bit. 'What do you think school is for, punk?'

　　I went to high school to join a band.

――You're being serious!? That's the first time I, your dad, have heard that!

　　Hahaha. Thinking about it now it sounds like a joke, but at the time I was serious about that. Also when reading the interviews with musicians I liked, they said things like 'we started the band at high school' and that you meet band members at school. So thinking that's the way, you start a band at high school and aim at becoming a professional like that. But reality is different. Well, duh (laughing). But as it was a school focusing on preparing for university entrance exams it was different. I caused a lot of trouble for my parents and teachers.

――They must have been worried about your future and talked to you many times.

　　I think so. They tried persuading me. They told me that I can start a band after graduating. That is true. You can also play in a band after classes while still going to school. I was 13 when I first thought about starting a band, at 17 only 4 years have passed. It would be fine not to decide everything in those 4 years. I wouldn't quit school if I was deciding now (laughing). But then, I was serious, it felt wrong to continue going to school. I thought I will miss my chance at the goal of my life. I thought I have to quit school and pursue band properly. Then I wanted to spend time doing that.

――You had a lot of enthusiasm but didn't know how professional musicians did things and worked.

　　Mostly that, yeah. For example I went to a clothes store in Harajuku to [check] the handwritten ads by people looking for band members. By calling so many people from all of those ads I gathered members. Among the people I got to know there were some who had an experience with being in a band or performing live. And this way my circle gradually kept expanding. But around the 17 year old me everyone was older. But among people I have met later were Ryo and Kei who are doing BAROQUE now. They were around 15 or 17 then. It was unusual to have someone that young so I remember that we met because of that.

――Was kannivalism the band born then?

　　Yes. Ryo and Kei were playing together in a band for over a year already, so  they had quite some experience and also some fans. When they were starting a new band I got invited. I really wanted to do a band with someone in the same age, we understood each other well. I remember that we started with working on the songs, experimenting what sounds are good in the studio. Kei came in with some original songs, we listened to them in the studio and I added the bass then and there. DTM was still not common then, it still wasn’t the time when most of band musicians have computers. That’s why I remember we all gathered in the studio and worked on the songs saying this is not it, that is not it, creating a song from scratch.

――Do you remember talking about what kind of band you want to create before it all started?

　　I think we didn’t really have a talk like this. But we wanted to do something  no other bands did. At the time, the visual kei boom I’ve seen when I was in junior high was on the decline, it was a period with the number of bands steadily decreasing. And with things going on like this there weren’t any visual bands that felt new. That’s why we wanted to do a band that no one seen yet, no one done yet. But we didn’t have a concrete model what the band should be like.

――Did all of the band members aim at becoming professional musicians already from the time you started the band?

　　Instead of thinking to become professional we thought starting the band we already are that (laughing). Quite a big misunderstanding (laughing). But there are some good things that can result from such misunderstandings. It can spread into various things like possibilities or the momentum. We continued doing some things then that now I would be scared to try.

――When kannivalism came out, everyone was talking about the birth of a young band with a good sense.

　　If that’s [how it was received] it makes me happy. Band activities and everything else, all felt fresh to me. Both Ryo and Kei had done bands before, so their way of thinking was a bit more mature. But then, before I noticed kannivalism was also over (wry laugh). In the small world of visual kei the word about the new band kannivalism has spread also to some more senior band musicians and Ryo got headhunted by the more senior band. And like that we disbanded in less than a year.

――Was the break up of the band wrapped in dreams really the answer?

　　it was, but the headhunted member will usually start activities in the new band very soon, right? It was like that, and myself, I wanted to do a band that will kreep going properly so I soon looked for new band members and started another band.

――You're talking about k@mikaze?

　　You know well. Not even a month after kannivalism disbanded we had the k@mikaze's first concert. In k@mikaze I wrote some songs. But there was quite an age difference between band members, I was the youngest, and there was a 7 year difference between me and the oldest band member. It is also quite different how quickly 18 yo and 25yo people absorb and perceive things. I was watching and listening to various things, my attitude was to try add what I found interesting. And somehow there was a gap between [the younger me] and the 24 or 25 yo people. When I think about it now, I remember that they were desperately responding to the things I wanted to do, but the me then was not satisfied. And like that k@mikaze too disbanded after about a year and half.

part 2/2 will come soon ;)

[olivershen]

Congrats on your graduation, babe! Not sure what advice you need from me lol I might not be the best person to ask but I shall try my best!

Divided into four parts under the cut - 1. Resume, 2. Cover Letter, 3. Interview, and 4. Practical Fucking Advice-

I - RESUME

1. Header: The usual - Name, Email Address, and Contact No. Depending on what country you’re in, you can write down your mailing address. But nobody snail mails stuff where I’m from so I just put down my email ad.

Depending on where you’re from, you may or may not put a photo in you resume. If you’re in the US, DON’T. Not clear on the legality, but as far as I know, they CANNOT require you to send in a photo. My personal take is you shouldn’t put a photo. Ain’t nobody’s business what I look like as long as I can get the job done.

2. If you’re gunning for a profession which requires a license, put your license first. If you’re not licensed yet but already took the licensure exam and passed, then indicate when you passed.

3. University, Degree, Honors. If you’re a new grad, you put this first. If you’ve been working a few years, it gets put last in the resume. If you’ve been working for more than a decade, it could be eliminated entirely if you feel it’s no longer relevant.

4. Here’s the tricky part. You’ve just graduated, so what work experience do you put? Basically, everything that will show you’ll be a good worker for a company. Internship? Yes, put that first. Tutoring side job? Yes. Were you part of a college organization? Put it there and indicate what events / projects you handled.

I follow this format: <ROLE>, <PROJECT>, <ORGANIZATION> (Month Year)

Then below that, a short bullet point on the role. Focus on the results.

Here’s an example:

Lead Organizer, University Job Fair (April 2019)

- Led a team of twenty individuals in organizing a university-wide three-day job fair which gathered over one hundred companies and one thousand student participants.

Etc, etc.

No big project? That’s fine. Did you raise money for a charity as part of a school project? Put that in. Did you organize regular study sessions for your class? Spin that.

5. Other Data. Don’t put proficient in Microsoft, please. EVERYONE is proficient in microsoft. But if you know how to code or use advanced macro in excel? Put that in. Attended any seminars or trainings? Put it. Are you fluent in another language other than the dominant language? Put it, even better if you’re certified.

II - COVER LETTER

I absolutely hate this part, so here’s something I found online that’s pretty useful:

Here’s a good source. Don’t just copy and paste what you put in your resume. Use this to highlight a particular achievement you’re proud of and you think would best show that you’re a good fit for the role you’re applying for.

Side note: If you’re gonna mention the company somewhere in the body of the letter, make sure you don’t accidentally mention a DIFFERENT company you’re also applying for. This happens a lot.

III - INTERVIEW

Familiarize yourself with the STAR Interview Resonse technique.

Here’s how it works. When the interviewer asks you a question, say “Do you have any experience working with a diverse group of people?” - don’t just say yes. Use the STAR method:

S - Describe the situation or event you were in. [e.g. As head liaison for X event, I was in charge of coordinating with the different student organization participating.]

T - Explain the task you had to complete. Basically the hurdle you had to jump. [e.g. As liaison, you had to manage the contradicting demands of the participants.]

A - Action. Describe the specific actions you took to accomplish the task. [e.g. maybe you organized a roundtable discussion to encourage the participants to find a common ground. Maybe you found a way to meet everybody’s needs.]

R - Results [e.g. Was the result of your action successful? Best to describe in terms of concrete results. Maybe the post-event evaluation was a resounding success with overwhelmingly good feedback. Maybe you received a recommendation from one of the participants.

You get the idea. Here’s the key though - when you’re sitting there in front of the interviewer, you WILL NOT remember anything you’ve done in your life EVER. SO here’s the most important part - write it all down BEFOREHAND. Then practice.

Search for common questions and write down a Scenario/STAR response/Experience that might go with it. THen practice it.

I used to have little index cards with my experiences and I’d mix and match based on possible questions as I practiced.

IV - Practical Advice

1. Update your LinkedIn, seriously. Unless you’re in a creative profession, then maybe a website with your portfolio would be better.

2. Reach out to your weak links. Maybe a friend of a friend is looking for someone to hire for X role? Send out feelers that you’re searching. Bring it up casually to friends and acquaintances. Most jobs are not posted online.

3. Find out if any of your college classmates / senior friends are working in companies you would like to work for and find out if they have a job referral program. This is how most of the people I know get jobs. Plus, the person who referred you might get a bonus if you get hired.

Those online portals where you submit your resume and then type it out again in the next page are fucking bogus. If you can get your resume in via a REAL person, your chances are already higher than most.

Lastly, job searching is a full time job in itself. Don’t forget to give yourself a break. We’re in the middle of a freaking pandemic so nobody will fault you if you’d like to take a little longer figuring stuff out.

Use this time to experiment and figure out what makes you happy, and not just what pays the bills (if you can afford to experiment). You’ll be much happier down the line.

You have time, babe. You’re gonna be alright.

[punksarahreese]

Okay but I need to know more about your new au tho 👀👀

Ooh heck yeah <3 chekker time babey 😌🌸

***

So Ava was always a good student and person like she never talked back and was always punctual

She did a bunch of extracurriculars and tutoring (and she was in a band with her friends, she plays guitar 🥰)

She was in accelerated classes all through school and was planning on graduating early so she could perfect her application essays and entrance exams for med school

But then in the first quarter of her senior year her parents suddenly announced they were moving to the USA

Ava’s mum had gotten a job working for Cornelius Rhodes and it was an offer they couldn’t pass up :/

Ava hated this because it meant she would have to redo senior year because her graduation wouldn’t be for another few months and her parents wouldn’t let her stay in South Africa

Also American med school is so different so it would put her about five years back in terms of training and stuff :/

So it felt like her parents were throwing away her future and all she’d worked specifically for for the past 4+ years

She was pissed and hated that she had to leave her friends and her band and all her plans for the future behind

So she rebelled

And now she makes it her goal to piss off her parents <3

Which includes being disruptive in class, getting into things she shouldn’t, making out with girls in the school hallway (her parents “don’t support this gay phase”), swearing at teachers, etc

She still does all her school work and gets good grades but she’s also a little shit 😌🌸

Her partners in gay crime include April and Crockett, who are also pretty well known for being “bad” (they just like to test the boundaries but yknow teachers hate that) and April’s girlfriend Sarah <3

(Sarah’s not one for being too rebellious but she goes wherever April and Crockett do and her and Ava get along well!!)

So one day Ava gets in Deep Shit and has to decide between one month of detention or community service within the school

Not wanting to lose her freedom too much she begrudgingly chooses the community service, which happens to be working with the drama club for their semester production

Robin is the school’s resident actress basically

Y’know that one theatre kid who did years of musicals and plays in every local company and school program imaginable and has written her own screenplays and seen Broadway shows a billion times?

Yeah that’s Robin

She’s not stuck up like those kids stereotypically are though, she’s actually a sweetheart but anyway

Her best friends are Connor and Sam !! They’ve acted together in a lot of shows and have been friends since elementary school

So Robin’s the star of this production and the co-director

And she’s hell bent on making it her best performance yet because it’s her senior one and she knows reps from universities and agencies will be there

She hopes to get a (very deserved) scholarship from her dream arts university <3

So when her teacher brings in the South African transfer student who’s nothing but trouble and says she’ll be working with them for the semester

Robin is like :///

Ava notices immediately and she decides, like the lesbian gremlin she is, to pester her especially

There’s no way she’s letting Ava ruin her big show so she’s >:((( at first

But Ava is really charming and her laugh is cute and Robin can’t help but find it kind of endearing that she starts immediately coming over to her during rehearsals to see how she can help

Because she could go to the teacher, the other director, who is supervising her community service

But she decides to ask Robin instead <3

But also there’s tension between Connor and Ava because her mum works for his dad and she hates that because that’s why she’s here

And Robin’s friends don’t trust Ava

So everyone is very wary about each other for a while

And yeah this AU follows that 😌🌸

[pivitor]

I’ve been really frustrated lately.

One thing quarantine has hammered home to me is how much I hate my current job. I just...don’t want to go back. I hate being there. I don’t get any satisfaction from it. I’m not going to act like I’m special for hating my job or anything, but when I was still going in every day I thought it was at least something I could handle in the long term, I think I played down to myself how much I actually disliked it. I don’t think I can keep doing that.

Atop from normal job related things, my boss screwed me over with my taxes this year and I didn’t realize it until right when i stopped going into work this year. My office has had three employees at the most the entire time I’ve worked there, so the office has never had its own payroll; I was always included on the payroll of the restaurant we operated. Once we sold that, my boss told me he was shutting down the payroll altogether and would just be paying me by cutting me checks and giving me a 1099 at the end of the year, and told me that I’d still be paying the same amount of taxes, just as a lump sum at the end of the year instead of having some deducted from my paycheck every week. I didn’t really feel like I had much of a choice. But, hey, when I had my taxes done this year, it turns out that’s hella illegal! 1099s are for self-employed independent contractors, and I am neither! My tax person told me that I wouldn’t get into trouble, but that my employer could definitely get in trouble with the IRS for swapping an employee over to being an independent contractor like that when they’re still working the same position for the same amount of money. It also cost me extra in taxes, because every paycheck the employer pays a bit of taxes, but as a “self-employed person” I’m expected to pay that portion. So a little chunk of my taxes I’m paying this year is money my employer used to pay/was supposed to pay. I’m pissed about that.

Those two things put together mean I really want to get a new job. This lands me pretty much exactly where I was a year ago, when I was looking for a new job, then eventually stopped because my boss offered me a couple of promotions within the company in regards to the real estate company and coaching company he was starting, both of which really had only just barely started to come together when quarantine started. So now I have the added joy of essentially having wasted a year, and starting to look for a new job in a much worse economy than last year’s. Fun!

The coaching thing sucks. My boss is starting a company to teach food safety classes for the local food safety programs all restaurants need to be certified in. I’ve taught one so far and I was proud of myself for it, but none of the students passed, even with us stretching the eight hour outline given us to close to twelve. The pay isn’t what we originally agreed to and, frankly, isn’t worth the time you have to put into it. The idea of me teaching these was supplemental income, but if I were to teach one during the week instead of doing my desk job, I wouldn’t really be making enough money to justify it. With the extra time, I’d really be making less. It’s such a headache. 

I really should see through the real estate. At one point I thought I’d get a new day job but maybe still help my current boss with the real estate on the side, but even if I don’t, I’ve already invested over 80 hours into this, I should really finish it. I’m 99% done with the program and just have to pass the final exams, but I started in November and honestly don’t remember a lot of the information. I’ve done nothing with it over quarantine, partially because I thought I couldn’t take my final exams during that time, but it turns out I could have all along. The course was going to expire at the end of May so I spent my own money to renew it thinking it would motivate me to finally finish it, but I haven’t. I can’t tell if I don’t actually want to do real estate, or if I’m just being lazy, or if it’s the fact that I honestly just don’t know how to study. I don’t think I can pass the test right now and I really don’t know what to do about it. 

I also didn’t know I could apply for unemployment until, like, the end of April/beginning of May. I technically still had a job, right? Nope, even with me just being temporarily out of work, I could still apply. So I’m frustrated on myself at missing out on a month’s worth of unemployment payments for no reason other than my own stupidity. 

My boss called me Wednesday and I panicked and didn’t answer, but he said they’re going to open back up soon. I don’t want to come in, but if I refuse or quit, I could lose my unemployment. Ugh. And THAT’S frustrating because going back to work, I’ll be losing money. I was making more money on unemployment than I was going to work, while spending less. I haven’t put gas in my car since March. March! Less money+more gas=suck. I send my boss and his wife an email tonight detailing the tax situation. I guess I’ll give them a call tomorrow.

I’ve been lucky to have been well-taken care of throughout this pandemic, and to have been able to pay off quite a bit of my debt -- for the first time in a few years now, I have more money in savings in the bank than I do in credit card debt. But the extra $600 in unemployment goes through the end of July, and I was hoping to be able to continue cashing in on that for a few more weeks and actually add a bit of money to my savings. I know I’m going to need it in the future.

So I’m frustrated, I think, because I basically have no direction, and feel like I wasted so much time. Even in quarantine, I applied to a few jobs and even had an interview, but I wasn’t serious about job searching, and now I feel like I didn’t take advantage of all that time I had. I need to get out of my parents house so badly, I need to be able to finish breaking away from their fucking cult bullshit SO BADLY, I’m having such a hard time seeing the path forward. And it’s such an awful time to be job hunting or, god forbid, moving right now. I think I really screwed up, and while I think there’s not much to do but start applying to jobs again, I’m frustrated and, honestly, a little bit scared about my future.

[sweaterkittensahoy]

The story of Britton Bean started with finding her photo on the Humane Society website. It was April. We weren’t supposed to get a dog until July. 

But. Those ears. 

And she met all the requirements we had for a dog: Small (apartment management requires dogs under 20 pounds); female (to hopefully make it easier to become friends with the bestie’s dog; a rescue. 

So, I posted this tweet, then frantically texted @whatsmyappeal​, who was at work. Basically trying to talk myself out of going and meeting this dog. Because I knew. I just <em>knew</em>.

I mean. Those <em>ears</em>.

Here’s the thing about adopting a dog in PDX: If you adopt through the Humane Society, you have to move fast. Dogs and cats get adopted fantastically quickly in PDX. On average, dogs who pass behavioral tests and physical exams can be put up for adoption on Tuesday and gone by Wednesday. PDX is such a busy place for the Humane Society, that they take in a LOT of animals from neighboring states. It’s called the Second Chance Program. Animals from neighboring states who pass health and behavioral tests are sent to PDX so that shelters near-capacity can keep space open for animals that need more specialized care or simply more animals in general. 

We’ll circle back to this in a second.

So, here’s this adorable, scared little girl up for adoption, and I’m trying desperately not to run out and grab her. We’re traveling in June and July; which is why we decided to wait until late July to even consider adoption. I had been looking at listings just to get a sense of how often small dogs came into the shelter. This was not the moment to adopt. 

But. I knew she was ours. I just knew it. 

I ended up calling the husband and laying out a plan. We’ll go and meet her. He gets final say in if we take her home. If she doesn’t feel like a good fit to him, we’ll wait. It’s important that we both want this dog. 

We go. We fill out paperwork. We wait an hour. We go into the meeting room, and here she comes. She’s scared and nervy. Incredibly quiet. We find out she’s had a very, very exhausting week. 

On Monday, she’d been found on the streets of Fresno. 

On Tuesday, they’d put her on a truck to bring her to PDX.

On Wednesday, she’d been spayed. 

And it was now Thursday, and we were meeting her.

Sean and I took a few minutes to discuss pros and cons: We couldn’t get a real sense of her overall personality at the moment because she was clearly terrified and exhausted. But we’ve always planned to adopt a rescue, so we’re well aware of issues we may have to overcome. What we had seen was promising. She was sweet and curious, if a bit shaky. 

We took her home. On the drive there, we changed her name from Butterfly (named by the shelter) to Britton Bean. ‘Bean’ because she’s small and ‘Britton’ after my great-grandparents. They’d always been dog lovers and no one in the family had used the name elsewhere, and I think they’d have been delighted to find out our pup had their name. 

We got her home, and put her inside, and she sniffed around for a couple of minutes, then spotted the couch and LEAPED onto it, rolling around and digging at it in clear excitement. 

That answered our first question: She knew what a couch was. She probably hadn’t always been a stray. 

A couple of hours later, we had answers to other questions: She knew how to walk on a leash. She liked belly rubs. I had no doubt that before she’d been found in Fresno, she’d been somebody’s pet. 

For the next two weeks, she basically slept. Can’t say I blame her.

When she wasn’t sleeping, she was on watch. A few days after we got her, we took her for a car ride. She climbed right into Sean’s lap in the driver’s seat and stared out the window. She knew what a sweater was and liked to wear them. She knew to flop over to get her harness put on. 

When they’d found her in Fresno, she’d clearly recently had puppies. But she was found alone, and the guess was that the puppies had been weaned, and she had been dumped. Frenso’s got a bad habit of that. 

It didn’t make sense to me. She was two years old. If they’d only been using her for breeding, it seemed unlikely she’d be so good on a lease or want lap sits or know how to ride in a car. And while she was a bit skinny when we got her, she only had to put on a pound and a half to get back up to a good weight. Strays who have puppies tend to need to recover a lot more than that when they’re picked up by rescues. And if they’re lifelong strays, they don’t know how to walk on a leash or what lap sits are. 

Looking at our girl and knowing what I knew of backyard breeders, I did some research, and I came to a conclusion. Our deer-headed, big-eared, long-bodied baby was a Chiweenie. 

A Chiweenie is a “designer breed,” which is the nice way of saying someone got it into their head they had to further cute-ify dogs to their exact liking, and so they took a Dachshund and a Chihuahua and had them make babies. Now, where I come from, we’d call that a mutt, and there’d be an ad in the paper for free puppies. But since someone did it on purpose and gave it a cutesy nickname, puppies can cost up to $500 each. The fact that Bean was found on the streets with clear signs she’d had puppies but wasn’t skeletal? I’m pretty sure someone bred her specifically to sell her pups, and then dumped her when the pups were weaned. 

But prior to that? I think she was someone’s beloved dog. Like I said, she knew what a couch was. She could walk on a leash. She was housebroken. She knew how to signal to go out. She knew what sweaters were and how to ride in the car. 

I have a whole backstory of guesses of how she ended up at the Humane Society to come home with us, but I’ll skip that. Because what’s important isn’t where she was, it’s where she is, and that’s with us.

She is not without her challenges. She barks at nearly everything. She has separation anxiety (RIP living room blinds). We’re working on it. She crates well, thankfully, so we can keep her safe if we need to leave her alone, but we also have a dogsitter and try to take her with us on errands whenever possible. 

What’s good is that while these things are issues, they’re improving. The barking is toning down in a lot of places, and her separation anxiety is getting less prominent. I work from home now, so when I leave the house, she seems to think I’ll never return. If Sean leaves for work, she’s fine. If he comes home after work, then leaves again, she gets a bit moody but does all right overall. 

Even better is that the things we’re working on are changing. First, it was getting her to stop barking at every little thing. Now, it’s focusing on getting her to ignore other dogs walking by and getting her to stop threatening people dropping off mail and packages. But there’s a new twist: She barks for attention now. If we’re not giving her enough attention by her standards, she’ll come right up and bark at us. It is very, <em>very</em> annoying. But it’s also a good sign. She’s getting more comfortable, so she’s pushing boundaries to see what we do. 

We do what we always do: We work with her, then praise her when she acts appropriately. She had to go one-on-one for training, but she did great. She loved it. The trainer thinks that she’ll never be super buddy-buddy with other dogs in general, but it’s a real possibility she’ll learn to ignore dogs on walks and maybe even be able to make a friend or two over time. We’re seeing her ability to ignore other dogs already, and that’s damn good for less than a year’s work. 

She hates the cold, so we got her a warming stone for her couch nest, and the heating pad lives on her bed in front of the entertainment center. Her sweater collection grows almost every week, and she has three pairs of pajamas so far. She’s figured out that being out in the cold with the sun out is perfectly fine for a walk, but we’re still working on her accepting being out in the rain. She absolutely loathes the rain, but she’s a PNW girl now, so she has to deal. We don’t make her stay out longer than she needs to go to the bathroom if she doesn’t want to, and she has a little, fake grass patch on the porch so she can pee there in the middle of the night. 

She’s clever as hell. You put a hunting dog and a rat-catcher in the same body, it’ll happen. It’s led to pooping in the house in the middle of the night because she’s discovered if she doesn’t shake off before she does it, we don’t wake up to see if she needs out. 

She’s sweet as can be and loves treats. She also loves people once she’s gotten used to them, though she’ll still decide she needs to bark for five minutes when they visit. We took her to someone else’s house for Thanksgiving, and while she was overwhelmed at times, she mellowed during the night and was playing with her toy by the end of things. 

She gets a Puppacino once a week and knows when it’s happening. Her tiny claws are stabby knives of death, but we can’t trim them super often because her quicks are so long. She plays with her toys for about ten minutes at a time, and if she really wants your attention, she’ll get in your lap, stand on her hind legs, and lick your nose. 

She is a very good girl, and will likely live well into her teens. Right now, she’s curled on my lap to warm up her feet because we went for a walk. In a couple of hours, she’ll wake up and shake off and move back to the couch or come in and stare at me until I turn on the heating pad on her bed. If she doesn’t get her pill pocket at four, she’ll come and lick my nose.

[kekekentyuh]

The Quirks and Qualms of Online Class

The global pandemic terrorizing us as of the moment has taken so much of our lives when limited social contact was introduced. Preventing the virus from spreading further has reduced our lives to crumbs, robbing a lot of us of the chance to create a better life for ourselves in the outside world, forcing us to powerlessly retreat within the walls of our homes. And sadly, to say the very least, even the education system wasn’t safe from the Corona effect.

Remote learning seems to be the next logical step that most academic institutions can come up with because of the whole social distancing thing. For a while, it was a step so many dreaded to take because of how evident it was that it was just a disaster begging to take place — the countless government officials continuously campaigning to push through with the academic year weren’t of good help either — although it eventually arrived to a point where it was the only thing they could think of. Some have already opted to use this means of providing as early as April to finish off the previous school year, or summer semesters in some university constituents, all in little steps, but in general, we all know how it is: this type of learning is new to most of us, especially for those of us who are used to face to face learning, and we’re all learning to adjust to it while we’re still contained indoors.

The university I attend already had us undergo the whole process of online learning during our Midyear semester last June, where we took a couple of subjects that we were supposed to enroll in for the summer had the world not gone batshit crazy, opting only to open the possibility of attending that midyear semester for those who are required to do so in their respective course program curricula. We held synchronous online sessions via Zoom, where meetings were recorded for everyone's access, making for more accessible resources for note-taking, and used the online learning platform Canvas as pilot testers (both accounts provided by the university itself along with our emails) that we utilized for transfer of information, like learning materials and paperless, digital submissions, generally, and it all seemed to work, for a term that lasted a month maximum. But even before it began, I had a lot of qualms and reservations, particularly on how it’s all going to play out, and how it’s going to affect my performance and my academic standing, because up to that point, I’ve never taken any class or required academic sessions within virtual online learning platforms (not that I was happy while I was taking it, anyway; it’s a hellhole waiting to burst like a pimple). And that was just for a Midyear semester, which was four weeks at most; given how they’re planning to have this coming regularly-paced semester (shortened for the purpose of everyone’s convenience, although I’m pretty sure that’s going to do more harm than benefit, especially for students) purely on remote learning accords, we have no idea how we’re all going to take it on, not with major subjects and a lot of skill-based outputs being asked of us, which are probably much, much heavier than the countless submissions we had to do previously. 

But you know what the boomers think: it’s all better than letting the school year just fly away, they didn’t have access to privileges like this so we’d better put up with it. Go now, plan later; and to that, I say one thing — you can’t stop a runaway train.

Even though one month of putting up with this mess is probably just a rough estimate of just how grueling an entire semester online is going to be, I would like to share a few of the things that I’ve noticed about remote learning that are not so great, and, to be completely unbiased, fine by my own judgment. I’m going to use the experiences me and my fellow Biology majors had whilst taking them to truly evaluate how effective it is for university students here in the Philippines, all with the company of you, my dear readers. This is, however, limited to the things we’ve experienced, and may vary for different situations, like from the point of view of a faculty member or a student of a different school, so please, take all of this with a grain of salt. We have no idea if things are going to play out exactly like they did previously, but it’s good to know a few things to prepare ourselves, right? Consider this as sort of a primer — from one lousy college student to another. If we’re going to deal with this bullshit, we’re going to look at it together. 

For starters, remote learning is kind of energy efficient — and when I say that, I don’t mean chill. God, no; it’s anything but. The main thing I really like about learning from home is that it saves us a lot more time and physical energy than how much we usually need to attend face to face classes. It’s a very striking point, and I’m sure some may see it beneficial, especially those who still need to put up with the commute to go on campus. We don’t have to worry more about budgeting our time between classes and activities outside, like what time we’d have to wake up so we can have more time to get ready for our day ahead, or where to eat and what to wear to go out. We can wear home clothes while attending classes (not like your clothes even matter, anyway; at least not in UP) and don’t have to deal with the headaches and heartburns you get when you try commuting in the Metro, since we’re all just indoors. And let’s not forget, for someone who attends a university situated in the middle of a bustling city with people of all shapes and sizes that you can never trust, being confined to our homes means we are in a much safer environment, where we wouldn’t have to worry about being robbed every fifteen seconds or won’t have to look twice so every passing vehicle gets a lesser chance of ejecting us off the street. We’re all sitting within the walls of our homes, so we have lesser things to worry about logistically, so to speak. Besides, stepping outside is even more of a risk now than ever, and making available materials to access at home may reduce the probability of that risk getting the best of us, so at least that’s out of the way, like it’s supposed to be.

One thing that also struck me about remote learning is how it’s heavily dependent on how you pace your studies and work. Since your learning environment consists mostly of you and the digital materials, apart from the synchronous classes some professors require, a lot of the time, the way you’re going to deal with this is mainly on how you decide to work on it and how your pace with regards to taking everything on would be, and since there are scheduled deadlines and exams, and you can’t afford to lose any of your precious time monkeying around, albeit the hard way, you’ll definitely learn to manage your time on your own. It’s not completely individual, as there were still group tasks and outputs to be submitted as a unit, but since you’re all alone in your workspace, it’ll all depend on how well you manage to properly do these requirements. Time management is a key factor in college, or in any school level setting really, a skill better than any studying technique you will ever come across, since it helps a student tackle the countless loads of work being tossed their way without it stacking up to immediate doom, and remote learning prompts one to find the method that allows one to work with the flow the easiest — kind of like the perfect key to crank up an engine.

But the thing about remote learning is, for a whole student system not entirely prepared and properly equipped for it, the cons outweigh the pros — by about a mile.

To put it simply, limited contact is much more stressful in the parts of those who are actually involved in the setup, which are, primarily, the student and the teacher. Home environments, right up the first bullet, are not all conducive learning environments. This is entirely dependent on various factors, which may range from more personal ones, like unfavorable familial setups or various distractions at home, or more logistical ones, like the location of the home itself, all contributing to numbers and numbers of disruptive tendencies, none of which are under the child’s control, which may result to their lack of focus or increased anxiety. Home environments are not made for learning, unlike schools and universities where students are free to study without any distractions, and this may hold back the smooth process of their learning if continuous and entirely destructive — and there’s nothing the students nor the instructors can do about it but stress out. The number one most notorious culprit of them all, undeniably, would be the alarmingly appalling mediocrity of the Internet connection the majority has access to, which, on particularly bad days, may result to unfavorable situations almost unexpectedly, like constantly being cut off from the session and unclear instructions from professors, mostly, who have unfavorable access to the Internet themselves. The constant unannounced power cutoffs in some parts of the country (which is, personally, my biggest qualm and pet peeve that I have developed during quarantine) would come in at a close second, especially since a lot of these blackouts have no given range, much to the dismay of the consumers. On top of these are some unexpected inconveniences, like glitchy learning environments and faulty instructor-to-student communication, brought by lack of time synchronization, mostly, that may not seem like much, but can make this whole experience a whole lot shittier than it actually is. 

And what’s even more stressful is the few solutions to these problems can all but do so much; mobile data as a substitute for WiFi connections can only give us so much with promos and the money it costs, but in the end, it’s still no match for the data requirements synchronous meeting platforms like Zoom or Google Meet require, so it’s best to just skip the class than waste your time and data trying to reconnect. Instructor-prepared course packs, which contain all materials needed for the subject, definitely designed to cater to students who lack the resources to make it to online classes, may work, but there’s still a lot of considerations that need to be made for their evaluations, which, preferably, need to match with the rest of the class they’re in. I know — no one wins here, except probably only the officials of our crappy Internet providers, happy that they still have a lot of people to leech out of.

The curriculum of the various degree programs students are enrolled in are at stake, because so much adjustments need to be done in order for them to be suitable for the online setting that they all, well, don’t feel like genuine learning methods anymore. Skill-based programs, like mine in Biology, for example, are particularly affected by these changes, since the materials and the opportunities for us to learn the skills we need for our degree are out there: at the labs, at the campus, out at the world. The pertinence of the development of methods to teach these practical courses with limited contact cannot be denied, but actually fulfilling those requirements physically and learning them with your own experience is something with much more impact, and that can’t be denied, too. The limits imposed on learning these necessarily skills will also limit the students to what they’re being given; if they’re given half the materials to make a bun of bread, they’ll only come up with half of that bun, because they’re given so limited resources. We don’t even know how lab classes will take place — how are we supposed to be sure we’re going to learn from them? Not only that, but the curriculum coming to play is at stake, too; take synchronous evaluation procedures, for instance. Does anyone want to take a quiz or an exam with relentlessly flopping Internet, with electrical power that plays Russian Roulette every single day of the year? Of course not, because you want to do as well as you possibly can in this exam. Do you want to wake up to a blaring, incomplete grade because the assignment file you’ve busted your ass for just didn’t make it through the portal, although you swore to your underwear drawer that you did? Of course not, and that’s why checking the submission box three times is almost nothing. So much of the learning process is being compromised and limited by a lot of factors outside of our control, it’s almost impossible to bounce back into the much-favored learning headspace we all desire to be in. We’re spending so much time worrying about not being able to learn because of so many things around us glitching that we lose, albeit gradually, our focus on actually learning.

These factors all narrow down to one big boulder about to trample one smacking detail within us: our mental health. It’s already bad enough that we’re dealing with the health crisis erupting everywhere around us, a health crisis that doesn’t seem to want to tone down anytime soon, and hearing and seeing so much of the tragedy it’s bringing to our country continuously, but we have to also constantly worry about whether or not we’re learning the right things or submitting the right things on time and still making sure we’re doing our best despite all of it. Imagine the constant anxiety and the rigid schedule of a regular semester multiplied thrice, all dumped online — with a few adjustments here and a few tweaks there, but almost inaccessible to some, and too much for many. You're not even sure, at any given point within the months-long span of supposed learning, if you're doing it to actually absorb the knowledge, or just fulfilling it because it's a requirement, and just hurriedly making sure everything is taken care of because you don't have any more energy to drag it on longer. That’s how mentally draining it is. And I get that I might be exaggerating (I have an underlying tendency to do so; forgive me, my bad) but who’s to say that it may not ring true for some? If you’re anything like me, who finds comfort in the company of peers, in the little things like building a routine and sticking to it, distracting yourself with new, uncharted things every day, and managing your stress outside the confinements of a house, then it’s probably taking a huge toll on you, too. 

But all that’s nothing compared to those directly affected by the pandemic, like the family members of healthcare workers, those whose main modes of making a living were laid off due to contact protocols, and, most importantly, those who lost so many people dear to them because of a virus no one can contain. I can’t explain how much my heart cracks in my chest when I see a student looking to social media to ask for a means to fund his schooling, or when a person I rarely know is knocking to ask for a few pesos to get their ailing family members through. Remote learning, online classes, really, would work just fine — if you belong above that margin. If you have access to resources without going scathed, have nothing else to do but focus on what’s important for you, and leave the rest of the world outside your door. The exclusivity of remote learning is striking, and it’s extremely absurd how much people want to push through with it despite so many consequences for so many unwilling benefactors  — six million children, to be exact — left behind. Children should never have to beg, lose themselves, or destroy themselves to be able to learn, because it’s their right to be given a chance to be the best they can by pursuing this education to the fullest extent. Apparently many people disagree.

Let me call remote learning for what it really is — a temporary aid, unsustainable way of dragging the students to uncharted waters. It’s a band-aid solution, meant to temporarily do what needs to be done while the future is still unknown. So many calls to stop the year from coming up have been put out there, as well as so much postponing and halting of the flow of inconcrete plans, promising to improve, but time and time again, to nothing; and amid so many calls for help, just within the education sector, there has been no reliable answer. Academic Freeze, which aims to halt the school year altogether, is not a plausible way of resolving this, as it is only student centered; although it may be beneficial for us, a lot of employees in the education system may lose their modes of income as well, which may lead to a shortcoming in their part. But given that, we also cannot turn our backs from the fact that so much of the student population, almost six million, will not be able to enroll, because education is a right that every child must be given, and if one child deserves to go on studying, they all deserve to. And postponing the opening of the academic year and delaying what is to come can only do so much.

Contain the pandemic — that’s the answer. If this administration, particularly the department concerned with this issue, truly cares about the rights of every Filipino to quality, equitable, culture-based and complete basic education, then they’ll take the necessary steps to put an end to this and protect not only those rights, but, to the administration itself, the welfare of their people.

Delaying the problem isn’t putting an end to it, because what’s only slowing down is going to gain momentum later on.

So many thoughts and so many words! What did you think about these experiences? And if your’re from the Philippines, what do you think about the Department of Education’s response to this rising concern? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Let me know by reaching me through the Inquiries page, or through my social media here I'd love to hear from anybody!

Like always, I wish everyone is doing well, being safe and secure, and in good health! I hope everyone is taking care of themselves by sanitizing and garnering a healthy lifestyle! It means a lot to me that you're here reading. Thanks for staying, and I’ll see you on the next one!

[inkofamethyst]

April 17, 2020

Other than the ridiculous stress that came with having three exams this week, I had a really good week, I think.

Day 109 of the cute campaign: Not today, I’m afraid.  It was a pyjamas day which means that I’ve got to take a shower tomorrow.  Yesterday was a really cute day though.

Day 37 of quarantine: As I’ve said before, school online sucks, but one good thing did come out of it yesterday.

Alright, Thursday was a really good day for me.  I had my math quiz cancelled, I played TheWikiGame with my friends for 45 minutes (I couldn’t stay long because I had to study/prepare), and I had, like, two advising sessions that I was actually looking forward to.  First was the advising for my humanities program with the incoming director, and that was really just a casual 20-minute Zoom chat about how the transition was going and also I told him that I was planning to switch from biochem to bio/anth.  You know what he did?  Later that afternoon he sent me an advertisement he saw for an online discussion panel with anthropology professors from different universities!  How awesome was that?!  So that’s what I’ll be doing with my Monday evening!  

About two hours later I went to the Zoom version of an event that got cancelled which was basically supposed to be a gathering event for black girls in the honors college.  I had been really excited about it when I was on campus, and I was thrilled to receive the invitation to the Zoom meeting.  And guess what?  I was only one of three people there: Me, the associate director for the honors college (a black woman, in case you weren’t sure), and the rising senior who organized the event.  Now, you might be thinking along the same lines as my parents: “That’s awful!”  Well!  You’d be absolutely incorrect!  Because I was the newcomer, I got waaaayyyy more personal attention than if I had been one of, oh, a dozen or so others.  And you know what that’s done for me?  The Associate Director of the Honors College told be that I could absolutely come to her for a letter of recommendation.  Oh, and honey, that’s not all.  I also told her about my plans to change my major (she sounded really excited about the combination I’d chosen and the reasons why I’d chosen it) and demonstrated that I had been putting a lot of my time toward this idea of getting involved in something I’d never done before, and she a) told me she’d recommend me a contact at the university (which she did later that day, and I’ll be emailing him tomorrow probably), b) told me that she’d look into recommending me as a driven student for a new university task force that was in the works (I won’t say much about it here, but it sounds really cool), and c) told me she’d see if she could get in touch with a student in a similar situation to mine to meet!  I got so much more out of that experience than I had ever anticipated, and the only thing I could have done to “be more prepared” was have a list of faculty in the bio/anth departments in whose research I was interested (of course, that would’ve required a ridiculous amount of foresight, and I’m sure the offer to help me make contacts still stands).  And I got some wisdom out of the student, an info sci/journalism double major herself, as well.  She told me that I should use my uniquely combined majors as a selling point.  They demonstrate my drive and passion, and could even make up for being a little unqualified for a job/internship/opportunity.

So yeah!  Thursday was great!  I also think that I’m going to take an anthropology class over the summer to lighten my eventual load, allow me to take classes I’m really interested in during future semesters, and earn some gen-ed credits that I need.

And you know what?  Today was a pretty good day too!  Took my orgo exam and got a ninety on it which brought my lecture grade up to an 85% (meaning that a B+ isn’t out of reach).  Just finished up my anatomy practical and I think I’ve gotten somewhere in the realm of an A, though I know I lost a few points on spelling in some places.  Found out that the girl I was thinking about rooming with is planning to get an apartment instead which... okay.  Wasn’t meant to be; I don’t really mind.  Also, there are still a decent number of spaces left in all of the sections for classes that I want to take.  I’ll be up at 8 am 3 days a week (one of them for a lab, mid you), but I don’t think that my days will feel crazy long, so that’s positive.  By the way, I was right about the anthropology class with the 8 am lab filling up much slower than the others.  I’ll keep checking back to see if I can switch to the section I prefer, but two hours of class on Mondays is pretty appealing, I won’t lie, so I won’t sweat it if nothing changes.  Waitlists are already forming for those sections anyway, so I’m not expecting much.  The literature class that I want to take (as opposed to the dance one which has been a really popular section for my humanities program over the past few years) seems like it’ll be really fun, and I’m ready to get back into reading good books again!  Also the professor is an anthropologist, so I can totally pick her brain on the subject.  Orgo and bio are... well, orgo and bio.  The bio class is technically a freshman level one, so it shouldn’t be too much of a challenge at all.  ~And then I’ll be able to declare my maaaaajoooorrr~ (or at least apply for it, anyway).

Well, folks, that’s been today (and yesterday, though technically two days ago from the time I published this).

Today I’m thankful for my Orgo Exam grade!!!!  My exam average has been an 82% so far, so a 90% really is a big improvement!  I definitely still need to work on the study habits, but they’re improving little by little.

[humansofjcuhealth]

Rowing from Rocky to Rio

Presented at the Maggie Grant Guest Speaker Night - Shooting for the stars, if you missed it you can catch up on all the action from the night below.

“How would it feel, to spend 10 years of your life, preparing to get in to the degree of your dreams, and then you get in? Pretty good right? And once you were in that degree, how would it feel to study for 4 years without having to sit a single assessment? Awesome! But what if there was just one exam at the end, and you could be examined on anything from the prior 4 years? Starting to feel a bit nervous? And what if that exam was only 6 minutes long? A little more nervous? And what if only the top 3 from the class graduate, and everyone else had to go back to first year? Nope, I’m out!

This is a very real situation faced by many elite rowers across the world, and a situation I found myself in, in 2016. I was sitting on the start line of the Olympic final for the men’s quad scull, my 6-minute exam.

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I want to outline a few simple things about rowing. Rowing is NOT, Kayaking, Canoeing, Dragon Boating, Outrigging, Sailing or Stand up paddle boarding. Rowing IS the only boat in which you race facing backwards, races are always held over 2000m and the sport is split in to sculling (single, double, quad) where each rower has 2 oars, and sweeping (pair, four, eight) where each rower has 1 oar. In 2016, I raced in the Australian Men’s Quad scull.

Now as a rower, I like to break things down in to quarters.

-       Every year is one quarter of an Olympic cycle

-       500m is one quarter of a (2000m) race

-       I’m almost 2 quarters of my way through medical school (I suppose that’s just ½?)

-       My life up until Rio was 4 quarters, each 7.5 years long.

So, considering that I like quarters, I want to take you through my Olympic final (my 6-minute exam) one quarter at a time, and to talk about the lessons I learned in the 4 quarters of my life (up until that point in time) on my journey from Rocky to Rio.

In the first 500m, you’re sitting on the start line feeling nervous, excited, it’s quiet and you’re reassuring yourself and your crewmates that ‘you got this’. In the first 10 strokes, your adrenaline is through the roof and there’s heaps of noise because you’ve got 24 pairs of oars clashing along at a high stroke rate. At the 250m mark, your lungs start working hard and the body begins to adjust to the new work load. At the 500m mark, you’re finally starting to settle in to race pace.

It was in this first quarter of the race that I drew on a lesson I learned in the first quarter of my life. ‘Just keep running’ was my mantra that led me to success in my pre-school cross country, a mantra that my sport psychologist at the time, Mum, told me to recite. She said no matter how much you want to stop, or how tired you get ‘just keep running’. In the wild conditions in Rio, where waves were threatening to knock my oars out of my hands, and my lungs were screaming for more oxygen, I thought ‘just keep rowing, just keep rowing, just keep rowing’.

In the second 500m of a rowing race, you’re thinking about maintaining the pressure and intensity you set up in the first 500m. It’s a test of wills – to see which crew can flirt with the anaerobic/ aerobic threshold without pushing themselves so hard that they ‘blow up’.

In the second 500m of the race in Rio, I tapped in to something I learned in my early days of rowing at high school. It was a mental toughness that I cultivated while training in Rockhampton, not knowing what my fellow competitors were doing down south. Every time I got on the water, in the gym, on the bike, or on the hill out the front of school, where we’d do hill sprints, I would think to myself, ‘I’m going to hurt myself more than the guys down south are willing to hurt themselves. I’m going to push myself harder, and for longer than they’re willing to push.’ And whenever I’d doubt myself, or consider taking the foot off the gas, I would think ‘who is the hardest? This mentality got me through the second 500 in Rio, when the body really started to scream.

Photo credit: Rowing Australia.

The third 500m of a rowing race is where efficiency is key. It’s all about maintaining speed, and the way you do that is through quality technical rowing. Quality rowing is the result of thousands of hours of quality training, and quality over quantity was a lesson I learned in early adulthood (the third quarter of my life in the lead up to Rio), while I was living in Townsville for the first time.

In 2008, as a 17 year old, I got in to the university degree of my dreams; JCU medicine. Though happy to be in the degree of my dreams, I didn’t quite feel ready to study. I was keen to have a gap year, but specifically a gap year filled with boat races (not that kind of boat race). I knew that I was on the cusp of cracking the Australian Junior Rowing Team, and selection trials were in late April. I’d left my coach and training partners back in rocky, and I was now in Townsville on my own. After hitting one too many crocs on the Ross at 6 in the morning, by myself on the river, my original training program went out the window and I decided to keep rowing to a minimum. Instead, I would do the bulk of my physical conditioning on the land, particularly up Castle Hill. I’d run repeats up the goat track, not allowing myself to stop running. It would take me just under 10 minutes to go from the car park to the summit, numbers I’m still yet to repeat, but this was perfect training for rowing, as races typically last 6-7 minutes. At the selection trials, just before my 18th birthday, I was selected into my first Australian Rowing Team. My short stint of 3 months in Townsville showed me that quality of training is far more important than the quantity of training, and this mentality helped my crew and I move through the field in the third 500m of the Rio Olympic Final.

The final quarter of a rowing race is where you throw everything at your opposition. You only have to suffer for 90 more seconds, so you might as well bury yourself. The final quarter of my life in the lead up to Rio taught me that you’ve got to take advantage of each opportunity you’re presented, because it could be your last.

The day before I flew out for Rio, my Dad had a stroke. This immediately put my rowing situation into perspective, and after living in the rowing bubble and neglecting my family for 4 years, I was reminded that there are more important things in life than going to the Olympics. This gave me a new found clarity and freedom during the race, and I feel that I was able to enjoy it much more than I otherwise would have. My Dad’s situation also made me realise that competing at the Olympics might be a once in a lifetime opportunity. This might be my ‘one shot’ at an Olympic medal, so I’d better make the most of it!

In the last 500m, we threw everything and the kitchen sink at the Germans – every 100m we’d lift, and by the end, there was nothing more we could give. We crossed the line second, just 2 meters behind Germany, and initially we were disappointed. We’d come to Rio to win, we came in to the regatta as favourites, we’d qualified fastest for the final and came second. That being said, once the lactate had cleared and we reflected on what we’d achieved in our 6 months together we began to realise just how special the moment was. It was only 6 months earlier that we got together as a crew, having never raced together before. We had one guy from Queensland, one from New South Wales, one from Victoria, one from South Australia and our coach from Tasmania. We met in the middle, in Canberra, to prepare for the Olympics and committed to a common goal. We did everything in our power to ensure we reached that goal, and along the way we had many challenges thrown at us. In the end, we were able to come out the other side as second best in the world and to share that achievement with our family and friends at the end of what was an incredible journey was one of the most special moments of my life.”

- Alexander Belonogoff,  3rd Year JCU Medicine student  

[sailor-cresselia]

The Great Ex-Aid Rewatch: Ex-Aid & Ghost, Part One

:grabs the popcorn:

This is gonna be hard, because I wanted to try and do this without in-movie spoilers. I mean, I’ve seen the entire show at this point, and if you’re reading my liveblogs, I’m basically assuming that so have you, so not touching on plot points is a little impossible, especially with my overbearing love for going into meta and theories.

Also, it’s going to be in multiple parts. This first post covers about twenty minutes of run-time over the course of several hours of real-time, and nine pages.

Whoops.

(links to the other parts will go here)

–––

Okay, so. In the first two minutes, we have Dr. Pac-man’s three assistants start shooting up the GenmCorp lobby, and I’m pretty sure that the muscle guy broke a guards neck. And then they go after Kuroto, with a very… glitchy Dr. Pac-Man alongside.

We’re talking ‘pre-bugvisor Graphite’ visual glitching, here. As though he doesn’t quite have enough… I dunno, cohesion to stay intact on his own.

Thing is, Kuroto seems genuinely… if not scared, then at least shocked to see him. The dude’s supposed to be very dead, after all.

And seriously, why do people keep jamming proto-gashats into their bodies?! No! Don’t do that! Stop it! I don’t care if you’re a bugster or not, it doesn’t actually help you at all, it’s just going to make you physically unstable!

–––

And here we have Tougo, victim of the day. I have to say, I’ve never liked him much. He’s… annoying. Also, I’m aware that the choice of color for his school uniform is most likely ‘because Pac-Man’, but that doesn’t change the fact that’s it’s ugly. The girls jacket is a nice dark tan, but the boys have this gaim-awful mustard.

And then the Pac-Viruses attack.

–––

Emu’s such a good guy, helping one of his young patients out in both work and as a sort of mentor-friend. Pity we’re still very early in Ex-Aid, and he’s still a horrible klutz. There’s no time to be tripping over your feet, Emu! We’ve got people to save!

–––

…oh no… It never quite clicked before, but I think Takeru had to repeat a year! He was clearly planning on going to university, if only because he and Akari are/were in the same year of school, and she’d never let him live it down if he didn’t. And here? His teacher, who’s practically mocking him for being six months behind, is asking whether he’s serious about his entry exams or not.

So. Since it’s December now, and it was early April when he came back, Takeru missed the entire last half of what was supposed to be his senior year of high school. So here, he’s probably about three months into what he missed before.

Akari, Onari, please don’t disrupt the class like this, they probably all think Takeru’s weird enough as is without him getting called out for superhero business.

–––

You know, Akari reminding Takeru to be careful, because he’s got a regular body now, implies that he hasn’t been careful. Maybe not as Ghost, but… you know, in regular exertion stuff. (And as Ghost, because there’s probably a number of times he’s had to help Alain with. Like. Less-than-satisfied court members or something over in the Ganma world.)

So, both teams are here at the outbreak site. Team Ghost, consisting of Takeru, Akari, and Onari, and team Ex-Aid, consisting of Emu and Asuna. Both of the lads put on their drivers, and simultaneously notice the other one there.

They didn’t meet outside of the suits in Ghost’s final episode, which was an epilogue to his story and a Bonus Sneak Preview Of The New Challenger, so it makes sense that the drivers – both of which are very distinct – would be how they recognize each other.

–––

Of course, that gets us into the slight issue of ‘when does Ghost ep 50 take place.’

See, it’s implied in-show that it’s not long after Takeru comes back to life, which puts it in early to mid-April. He has a line about ‘are we really going to celebrate my birthday twice from now on?’, to which the answer was a definitive yes, so it makes logical sense for it to not be on his original birthday in October.

Except for how Emu couldn’t show up for his Big Damn Heroes moment if it were in April, because he didn’t put on the Gamer Driver until October.

So, when Emu comes to try and get the Shakariki Sports gashat from Ayumu, it isn’t quite chronologically possible… unless you take into account who Ayumu is.

He’s Takeru’s son. From the future. Meaning he time-traveled to get there.

It’s not even unprecedented for the season – Takeru’s father opened the portals that brought Takeru and Shinnosuke back and forth from 2005 in the Ghost & Drive movie, after all. So, it stands to reason that the portal ability, which Ayumu also shows, is a familial power.

What I’m positing is that Emu traveled back in time, and probably didn’t even know it.

He goes to the game worlds and battle stages fairly often, and since suddenly being in a different location isn’t exactly new to him… it would only makes sense for him to not realize that he’s in a different month, too. Especially when one of the stages looks just like the forest behind Daitenkuu Temple, and he has all sorts of flashy light effects going on all the time. An eye-shaped portal could totally just be another one of the standard special effects.

Yup, nothing unusual here.

–––

Okay, that aside, nobody actually gets to transform just yet, because the whole group is swarmed by Pac-Viruses before either of them can activate their drivers, with the viruses quickly singling Takeru out and chewing into him.

He doesn’t get hit with the literal fever that everyone else they’ve done this to are suffering from. No, in Takeru’s case… the Ghost Driver disappears. He pulls out his eyecon to try again… and it clicks uselessly.

Onari suspects it might be because he ‘hasn’t transformed lately’, adding more credence to his and Emu’s encounter being more than two months ago.

Since nobody else here can… time for Ex-Aid to make an appearance.

In level one.

Cue Opening Credits.

–––

So, Emu can’t so much as dent the Pac-Viruses, and then two of Zaizen’s lackeys show up. The man, apparently named Kazushige Ryuzaki, uses the Drago Knight Hunter Z proto-gashat to turn into… (quick search of the wiki) the Doral Bugster. Since I don’t feel like typing out his name, and it’s never said in show anyway, I’m just gonna be calling him Doral from here on. Similarly with the woman, Ageha Takeda, who uses Giri Giri Chambara to become the Giril Bugster.

So, you know, of course the one with a sword is the one Takeru faces off against. Why not? Not like he’s probably got some incredibly justified trauma relating to them. Not like it’s not actually incredibly ironic that his first heroic Eyecon arms him with a sword. Why not re-open some old less-than-metaphorical wounds right off the bat?

Doral basically corners Emu into the parking garage that Takeru and the others tried to bring Tougo through. Oh, yeah, they were trying to get that guy out of the area when he collapsed. I didn’t mention it because he’s not a good character, and exists primarily to guilt-trip Emu. So, yeah. Doral and Giril knock both our heroes down, breaking Emu’s level two transformation in the process, and here comes Dr. Pac-Man, being all ominous and glitchy, saying that he’s doing this for ‘revenge on humanity’.

Suuuure, that’s how you wanna spin it. Humanity in general. It’s totally not against a few very specific humans, one of whom you’ve recently had held at machine-gun point, and the other who has no idea what’s going on.

–––

They use the scene of bringing Tougo into CR for a brief exposition dump – which is fair, both in-universe and out. Takeru’s team wouldn’t know what’s going on, and it helps just in case the parents in the audience haven’t been following what their kids have been watching. It just gives us that little bit of elaboration on the bugster virus, enough so that people aren’t completely lost.

Tougo’s – oh, wow, his ‘infection ratio’ is already at 63%. Usually when they get someone in here, they’re only in the 30% range. But, of course, there isn’t any data to define what’s going on, because this isn’t one of the normal bugsters. There’d be no reason for Pac-Man to be programmed into a Genm Corp system.

(Which actually raises the question of how they were able to see an icon for Burgermon in episode 17, since he wasn’t supposed to be a Bugster, either. Then again, he is from a game Genm Corp was developing. But I digress.)

Anyway, Emu’s justifiably confused as to why Takeru doesn’t seem to be having any of the usual symptoms of an infection. Oh, sweetie, if you only knew- :ahem: sorry, distracted.

Takeru says that no, he’s not feeling any sort of fever, he’s doing fine.

Onari reminds him that ‘he’ll only get hurt if he pushes himself’, and Akari feels his forehead to make sure he’s telling the truth.

Once again, we’re getting the implication that Takeru has developed a habit of going too far.

–––

upstairs, we’ve got a conference call with Secretary Hinata, the Official CR team, and the Ghost team. Onari bursts out laughing at Poppy’s last name – and freaks out when she hops out of the arcade cabinet.

Both of these are understandable reactions, but maybe don’t immediately declare this a supernatural phenomenon? You know, since a government official was the one to first address her.

I will always be frustrated at the reverb effect they gave Poppy’s voice in this movie. There was no reason for Toei to do that, it’s just excessive, and it’s not like they did it in any of the promo materials or shorts, to say nothing of the show itself. Actually…

–––

I wonder if some parts of this movie draw from early planning stages of Ex-Aid? Like, there’s no explaining the voice thing otherwise, and Emu was pretty close to freezing up for a long time in here… despite the setting for it being explicitly between episodes 10 and 11, at which point they’ve already faced an approaching pandemic, with what Graphite pulled in episodes 9 and 10. So, either the team just didn’t think of that, or there were aspects that got… left over.

I mean, it’s not nearly as inexplicably different as the entirety of the OOO section of OOO & W, but it’s not exactly fitting with where Emu would be even just in the first few episodes.

And yes, I’m aware that OOO & W was made when they had one whole episode of OOO to go off of, but that’s why I think there might be artifact plot elements in here.

–––

Okay, back to the film itself. Again. Emu – Genius Gamer M – uses his genre savvy to realize why he couldn’t damage the Pac-Viruses. If, like some of the other bugsters, they’re operating on the logic of their game, then the only weakness they would have would be ghosts. AKA, instead of infecting Takeru, they burned out his ability to transform into Ghost, thus removing their biggest threat.

I mean, only some bugsters use their games that heavily. Motors, for one, the bugster from Bakusou Bike, is ‘prone’ to racing, and technically speaking, Emu and Kiriya cleared the game before destroying him, by beating him in a race. And the Doremifa Beat Collabos bugster was using music just like it would have been in the game itself – if you miss the notes, you get punished. In game, that’d just be a bad score. In the real world… painful explosions. Poppy, the actual bugster from Doremifa Beat, can’t sing without a backing track. And then there’s Burgermon, who was cleared in the same method as beating a level in his game – making a burger for him.

So, yeah, the Pac-Viruses might be in that class of bugster.

Anyway, enter Dan Kuroto and Hanaya Taiga.

Taiga’s all “No, I’m totally not here to help you guys, I’m just not letting these freaks run loose.”

Kuroto tells the ensemble that they stole the ‘heavily guarded’ proto gashats.

If by ‘heavily guarded’ you mean you were clearly reading their data out in the open, in your office. Again. And by ‘stole’ you mean “They had two machine guns pointed at me, and a sword, and I’m not immortal just yet! What was I supposed to do?! Just not hand them over?!”

…Yeah, he may be an evil bastard, but he didn’t exactly have a choice even if he wasn’t trying to keep up his ‘benevolent CEO’ facade.

Taiga’s comment of ‘those gashats are very dangerous’ is not only an understatement, but also… it’s foreshadowing. We know that Kuroto’s been using Proto Mighty Action X, and that it’s slowly wearing him down – Parad told us as much in episode 8 or 9. We know that Drago Knight was actually hurting Graphite, and he’s from there.

And, although we haven’t seen it yet, Taiga also has experience using them. Proto Bang Bang Shooting is what he originally used as Snipe, back in 2011. But we don’t know that even outside of the show just yet.

This movie came out in theaters in December 2016. We found out that the proto-gashats were involved during the Snipe Episode ZERO specials… the first of which wasn’t released until April 2017.

So… here, have some foreshadowing, I guess!

Emu asks if Kuroto has any idea who the culprits could be… and Kuroto pauses before saying he doesn’t. There’s a… not a scare chord, but a ‘you should be really, really suspicious right now’ sound effect when he says that.

I can’t tell if Emu looks disappointed or suspicious.

…Disappointed. He didn’t believe Kuroto could be evil until he revealed himself, so… yeah.

–––

At the totally not sketchy base, Dr. Pac-Man and his lackies are planning something. They’re waiting for Tougo’s symptoms to break out – he was the one they were targeting, after all. I think the Pac-Viruses went after Takeru on their own. They’re also working on something called the ‘genome graph’.

Complete with a diagram of a human gene… that starts off normal, and then becomes blocky… pixellated, almost.

So that’s not sketchy at all.

–––

…oh what the heck. The next scene is the next day. How can I tell? Everyone is in different outfits. It’s not just how Takeru is noticeably no longer in his school uniform, and back to his normal wardrobe. Akari and Onari are in different outfits, too, and Emu was wearing his yellow binary shirt, but now he’s on one of his dark blue ones.

How long does this movie take place over?

(No wonder Haruto was able to show up out of the blue! It’s been at least a day, so he’s had time to find out about this!)

Anyway, Tougo (finally) wakes up, and Emu and Takeru both start questioning him as to why the people in white were after him. Well, Emu’s telling him to go lay back down, because he can barely stand for more than a few seconds without wobbling, and Takeru’s asking questions.

Tougo cares not for your platitudes and worrying about his health, he’s got school and game development to do! Both Emu and Takeru take incredibly personal offense to this attitude.

Casual reminder, both of them were 18, the same age as Tougo, when things went wrong. Well, went wrong a second time in Emu’s case, when he went and decided that he needed to focus on his studies after… well, as we find out later, doing almost exactly what Tougo’s doing. Neglecting his own well being in order to do what he loves – games.

…ohhh no Emu is same hatting really hard with this guy.

(Listen, Tougo, as long as you don’t start identifying with the primary game designer in this show, we’re set. Just accept the fanmail gracefully, and everything will go much smoother.)

But, as Hiiro points out, they technically can’t force treatment on him. But also… well. There are some pretty nasty folks after Tougo.

–––

On the roof, Takeru and Emu have a little chat. They’re both basically going ‘how on earth are you handling the Rider thing?’ to each other’s situations.

Pulling out the Ex-Aid Eyecon, Takeru says that he couldn’t have imagined that the rider that gave it to him is a doctor. He was just so incredibly neon. But the fact that ‘Doctor Emu’ is saving lives as both a doctor and as a Kamen Rider… that really impresses him.

(Please note that Takeru consistently uses “Emu-sensei” to refer to Emu both here, and in HeiGen Final. No, there’s no hero worship going on here, what are you talking about? That’s silly!)

Similarly, Emu’s incredibly impressed by Takeru’s resolve to have kept fighting after dying, and speaking as a doctor, can’t even begin to imagine what that takes.

And then here comes Kuroto, asking to see Takeru’s Ghost Eyecon to analyze it, so they can make something that will effect the Pac-Viruses.

Since Takeru agrees, it means that he’s not tied to it the way he was in the series. It’s probably a different Eyecon completely – seeing as in-show, the Ore eyecon was literally him. Technically, the Takeru we saw was almost a projection – his tangibility depended heavily on his emotional state.

(There’s a reason I occasionally joke about Ghost’s Eyecons being ‘Soul Gem Two: Spooky Boogaloo.’)

(Also, Yurusen shares a VA with Madoka, and that just drove the joke home. Turns out Meduka Meguca is the cat, after all!)

–––

Hatesate Puzzle is an Android game – you can tell, because the list of files includes four different .apk files. Also, it’s up to version 7.21.

But the programming screen? Uses the same stupid block of text that all of the programming screens use in this show. Like, it’s even more egregious this time, because it’s shown very clearly, in decent lighting, unlike in Kuroto’s assorted lairs. Also, it talks about game physics such as collision detection for the ground.

This is a match three game.

Anyway, turns out Hiiro’s idea was to allow Tougo to leave the hospital, as long as he was still being observed. There’s a hundred thousand people infected right now, and the people who did it want him. So… Tougo is bait.

Needs of the many, blah blah blah you could have at least run this by someone, Hiiro. I get not telling Emu. But Asuna should have been informed, at least.

Almost immediately after Hiiro takes his leave, letting Emu take over, we hear static as Tougo staggers backward in his seat and passes out.

–––

We come to a busy office – a busy police barracks. Team Ghost waits anxiously on a visitors couch.

“I’m glad to see you’re back.”

Enter Officer Tomari Shinnosuke: Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (active duty); Kamen Rider Drive (inactive).

Takeru and co had called in a favor, and Shinnosuke was only all to willing to help cover this case. Not only is it rider business now, but they’re threatening the city. Not to mention the police squad they destroyed yesterday – handily confirming that a day has, in fact, gone by – means Shinnosuke really wants in.

Turns out the three they’ve seen the faces of were all researchers into genetic therapy with the Next Genome Institute. Doctor Pac-Man is ‘most likely’ their boss, Zaizen Michihiko. Unfortunately…

They’re all supposed to be very, very dead. They died six years ago, as a matter of fact.

Most of the institute’s data was destroyed when the facility was sealed, but there’s a bit of closed circuit footage remaining of the event. Only a few seconds, but it’s enough to show them standing over an operating table, as orange lights encase and dissolve them, squares of light patterning the floor and walls.

Squares of light eerily similar to what they just say the other day, when people were activating Gashats.

Bugster work isn’t the only sketchy thing they’ve done – there were rumors of the institute working with cloning, creating mutants… basically, as Akari says, mad scientists.

(Anyone want to place odds on them being funded by Foundation X? No? Just me? Okay then.)

–––

Emu and Asuna are with Tougo as he wakes on a bench. THey’d moved him somewhere out of the sun, and he’s… An asshole about it. He never asked for their help, and he’ll die when it’s time, anyway, so why are they bothering?

Doctor Pac-Man, still very glitchy, strolls up. “He’s right. None of you are needed here. Why not just hand him over?”

Running time!

–––

Back at the precinct, Shinnosuke promises that he’ll let team Ghost know as soon as they find where the Next Genome researchers are hiding.

Y’know, except for that part where he’s too late, and they’re already going after Tougo, and by extension, Emu.

Shinnsouke’s fired up and ready to go after them.

Y’know, except for the part where Krim locked all of the Drive tech in his depression garage the Drive Pit at the end of the season, and Shinnosuke can’t transform, which Takeru points out, saying that it’s too dangerous for Officer Tomari to go.

Of course, Onari, logically, tries to point out that Takeru’s in the same boat right now, to which Takeru hurriedly shushes him.

Takeru and his team run off to deal with the situation.

Sad music plays as Shinnosuke laments his lack of belt.

–––

And here’s where I decided I had to cut the liveblog for now! Because again, twenty-some minutes, and nine pages of text. This is going to take a while.

See you next game

[x4f0wrcg-blog]

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[doodledialogue]

Interview series - What after B.arch? #9

Interviewee: Soujanya Krishnappa Post-graduation: M.S. Architecture, Urban and Regional Design (MAURD) | New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), New York, USA

How did you hear about the University/program? Why did you decide to take it up?

I decided to pursue a Masters during my internship days. I was exposed to the practice and the roles that Architects/contractors/clients and engineers played in shaping a project during that time. This helped me get a better understanding of how I wanted to contribute and most importantly what nature of projects I wanted to contribute to. Once this was clear to me, I started researching on courses that would feed my interest. I carefully studied the curriculum to make sure I knew what I was getting into because the way I looked at it, this was an investment I was making for my career and a lot of my time and money was going to be at stake.

What about the University/program appealed to you?

During my undergrad, I enjoyed working on the Urban Design Housing project; the scale of the project, the ability to define your own scope and design along with other disciplines excited me, the following year I chose to explore more in this realm with my thesis. When I graduated, I knew I was all about UD and was considering studying further.

I chose the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) for a Master’s program in Architecture, Urban and Regional Design (MAURD) in 2015. I was impressed by what the curriculum had to offer but when I had a phone interview with the Dean of the program I was sure I was making the right choice. The premise of the program was to use New York as an urban laboratory to test the theories of Urban Design and develop new ones for today’s day and age. How exciting is that! And in a city like New York where opportunities are endless, it seemed like a good deal to me.

How was the experience at the University?

The program was intense from Day 1 of school, but it was the good kind of intense. The kind of intensity needed to push my boundaries and explore more. Along with regular studios, we were constantly attending meetings all over the city, networking with influential people, taking our proposals to the city authorities and endless panel discussions with eminent Architects was the drill. It was nothing like undergrad, no exams to study for, but reading was constant, no design submissions, but presenting design was the routine. To add to all this, I was also working part-time as a Store manager to cover for my living expenses. The hustle was hard but the rewards were worth it.

How was your program/University different from the others?

My program had faculty teaching in Columbia, NYU and Pratt and because of that, we had access to seminars and workshops in their universities too. This got me understanding their programs and in my opinion, the experience of a similar program in any university is not very different. What course you take, makes the difference along with certain benefits from the university, size of campus etc.

To give you an example, a person studying the same course as mine in Pratt, had same visiting faculty, attended same events as I did and worked on similar projects because the core of the program was same. But if it was somebody studying Architecture and green energy, they would have different faculty, attend different events and work on different projects. Although I think this happened because it was in a city like New York. I’m sure, this is not the case with every city.

Which semester did you attend? How did you plan the entrance exams?

I started school in the Fall of 2015. The first thing I did was to prepare for TOEFL and GRE, which took about 4-5 months. After that, I started preparing my portfolio and resume which took another month or so. I applied in December of 2014 and received my acceptance in April I think. From then on, it was all about visa, arranging documents, finance etc. I quit my job the following month and spent the next two months making sure I had everything I needed. A month later I left for New York and started school that same week.

How did you manage the finances? Did you acquire a scholarship/fee waiver?

I did receive an academic scholarship from NYIT which was a little less than half of my tuition fee per semester. I had an education loan that covered the rest and part of my living expenses until I found an on-campus job.

How is teaching at your university?

There was no teaching per se. A typical studio would begin with an agenda for the day/week, setting goals for the studio for that particular task/week. We would then have 2-3 hour roundtable/presentation/panel discussion about the topic which we would further split into teams and tackle parts of a topic. End of the day/week we gather again and put the parts together just like solving a puzzle. During this whole time, there is so much production, be it research, coming up with a design solution, modelling a mock-up, making a movie or whichever media you choose to communicate your idea with. The point is to develop a strong narrative for your case. Each studio was different though, electives were lighter and never on campus. One time, our elective was about art and it was in the MoMa and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Can it really get any better? Another compelling factor was the studio environment, both physically and intellectually. Physically because, my studio was on the 11th floor on Columbus circle looking straight down into Central Park thinning into Manhattan madness, so often we would walk the studio from class into the park and finish the day at the Beer Garden. Intellectually because my batch count was 14 and very diverse. My colleagues came from different educational and cultural backgrounds, making discussions all the more interesting. In my opinion, the understanding of culture and context is the key to great and successful projects.

Tell us about the mentors at NYIT.

Jeffery Raven is the Dean of the program and a graduate from Columbia University who also taught there for a good number of years before starting MAURD at NYIT. He is very passionate about Urban Design. He is also the Head of Planning committee and board of directors at AIA (American Institute of Architects) and has many awards and publications to his name. Because of him, I got involved in the AIA and I am now, an Associate. We attended the United Nations Settlement Programme -Cities for all: inclusive implementation & monitoring at the UN headquarters, where I first met Ar. Daniel Libeskind. This was all a huge deal for me, but then on, I was constantly meeting and dining with eminent architects who we learnt about in undergrad or in our own research. Jeffery has inspired me immensely and continues to do so. The other professors were equally strong and supportive. In total the environment at school was truly inventive.

Is there any particular incident/anecdote of your time abroad that you wish to share?

There was one time before my final jury, I was making a model in the lab at 3 in the morning living off on just coffee that whole night because I hadn’t slept in two days, I wasn’t sure if I really was awake at all because otherwise, I would have seen the fire that caught on the CNC machine next to my model. The details of what happened next are faintly registered in my head and the lab was burnt down in the next 20 mins even before the fire crew came on board! The next afternoon, my team and I pinned up the sheets and our interview with the local newspaper about last night with pictures of my school on fire! We didn’t have a model, but that might have been my best jury ever. Something about the line of events in those past 48 hours changed us as a team and we were nailing the jury’s questions and I was determined not to leave the stage until my project was thoroughly vetted. Not sure if this is what you wanted, but looking back, this incident stands out when it comes to school.

Did your program have any research opportunities?

NYIT has 4 campuses around the world and there were research opportunities in all except mine because our campus was in the heart of Manhattan focused on courses that could use studio space for classes. I think they focused on developing state of art infrastructure for those kinds of courses. Research needs extensive use of all kinds of laboratories, which the midtown campus did not have the space for. The main campus was in Long Island occupying half a city and I’m pretty sure they had the supporting infrastructure.

Did you work a part-time job while studying?

I worked as an on-campus research assistant at the Laser machine lab which did not pay but reimbursed in tuition fee, but I needed money to pay my bills and rent, so I took up an Off-Campus job as a Store Manager at a Boutique for handicrafts in downtown Manhattan. It was good money and on the weekends, it was raining bills because of tourists.

Did you have post-masters plans in mind when you went to do masters? Or did you go with the flow?

When I was doing my masters, I was starting to feel positive about continuing my stay in the US. I was not ready to come back to India for two reasons. One, I had invested a lot of money in my program and it was time I started getting the returns, plus the kind of work I was getting here was very lucrative. If at that time, I had to move back to India, I had to start all over again in a junior position and work my way to Urban Design and it was going to take forever to repay my student loans that way. I don’t know what the future holds, but if I have to go back to India, I will be happy to do so.

Did you travel while/after studying?

Because my program was very intense, I seldom had time to travel and most importantly resources. I was mostly homesick and visited India a lot. But with what I had, I did visit a few places where I had friends. I got familiar with the east coast for sure but never made it to the west coast. It’s very different now, my job requires me to travel all over the country and I have been able to see a lot many places since my school years.

What message would you like to give to future students of Post-graduate studies/B.arch students?

Everybody’s journey is different, but the opportunities available are similar. My advice is

1.        Make sure you know what you want – keep your end goal clear and work backwards from where you are now.

2.        Choose wisely – no school or university can make you an Einstein if you are not committed to it. Know what your best and worst skills are and find a school that can provide a platform to tune your best skills. Everybody is not a design genius, you know who you are, so pick what will help you in your field of interest and not just because somebody said it’s a good university.

3.        Plan ahead of Masters – I know I didn’t. I had clarity only towards the end of the program. What I mean is that, if you know you want to stay back and build your career here or whatever it is that you want, think of ways you can work towards it while still in school. For example, getting an internship or working on a paper that might help you beyond master’s. If you know you want to go back to your hometown, then work on getting things in order for you to start there.

How is your master’s degree helping you in what you are doing right now?

I am currently working with AECOM as an Architectural and Urban Designer on Airports and transit hub facilities and I attribute this to an internship I did over the summer which I got because of the program that I was enrolled in. I am basically putting all the theories we were testing in studios to practice at work and I am extremely fortunate that I can do so. With the program, I have learnt to curate my research better, communicate across disciplines efficiently and approach design problems differently. Today I am able to think critically about design beyond sketches. I find myself asking decisive questions to stakeholders and constantly improving the narrative of the project.

How different was it(/will it be) coming back to India and working here in Indian scenario? What difficulties did you face(/do you foresee)?

I think coming back to India will open doors to interesting opportunities and the challenges of projects will shift drastically on so many levels which is something I have to learn to cope with but the good thing is the familiarity of practice. I follow the work of some people and firms that I admire and that helps me to be in touch with the scene in India.

Tell us more about your current work and future plans.

I am currently working on a very important project for the US National railroad passenger corporation, also known as Amtrak. We won the bid last year to revision their headquarters in Washington D.C, the project evolves in many phases, the first being redesigning their historic station that was built in 1907 and is a very significant architectural establishment in the U.S, next is developing the rail yards next to the station. The air rights were sold a few years ago for $10 Million to accommodate business, leisure and other facilities including Amtrak’s expansion towards high speed rail connecting some of the most important cities of the country in the northeast corridor from Boston to Washington D.C, via New York and Philadelphia among others, which now takes about close to 7 hours is estimated to reduce to 2.5 hours with the high speed rail. The project is very ambitious and is estimated close to $3 Billion. Because of the scale of the project, there is a constant partnership with other design firms and by this way, I have been able to network quite a lot with folks from Grimshaw, HOK, SOM among many others.

This aside, because my domain is transit hubs, most projects that come my way are airports, unfortunately, I cannot provide more details on that front because of my confidentiality contract with the client. Lastly, I also play the role of a contractor for Amtrak for their federal grant program to make all train stations in the country accessible for physically handicapped.

Outside Harvard, Massachusetts during the second winter break. The campus of Harvard and MIT felt like shrines of knowledge.

At Met Museum before our meeting with Kurt Behrendt, the curator of ancient art who was giving the studio a tour of Met for an elective research.  Kurt is always updating the latest additions to his department on Instagram, you can find him with the name, Kurt.behrendt

Bjarke Ingles lecture presentation after the completion of his project West 57.

This is a meeting our studio had with Bruce Fowle, the founder of FX FOWLE inside the Crystal Palace designed by James Ingo Freed of I.M Pei. Our studio was working on the same project as Bruce’s firm and the media had gotten the attention of this over months, so we arranged for a press meet discussion.

This was a stakeholder meeting Jeffery had organised with a community board to talk about our project.

At the UN headquarters for the Global meet on ‘Cities for all’. I was amazed to have made it inside the UN despite all the security craze which is 3 fold more than an airport screening amidst all the protestors right outside. This was also where I first met my celebrity Architect – Daniel Libeskind.

My team at an outreach program on reimagining safe public spaces. We had interviewed at least 50 people that night.

Model prototypes

Studio picnic on the first day of spring

The day of the final jury, last day at school

My jury panel

Finally, Thank you for this opportunity to share my story with everyone, I wish I had access to a forum like this 5 years back. I appreciate all the work you guys are doing in putting together stories of people who choose to do masters. This apart, I see you guys are doing so well, going places and following your passion, my best to you and your team.

[newagesispage]

                                                  APRIL                      2019

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***** The Rolling Stones have cancelled their North American tour. Mick Jagger apologized for cancelling due to undisclosed medical treatments.  Oh Baby, Get Well Soon!!!!

***** Mick and his squeeze, Melanie Hamrick have put together a ballet set to Stones music called Porte Rouge. After premiering in Russia it will come to NY on April 18 for an opening night charity event to benefit Youth America Grand Prix.  Tickets start at $600.

***** Tina Fey and Carol Burnett  are working on a movie about Carol’s book, Carrie and me: A Mother –Daughter love story.

***** When I hear Bernie Sanders going on, I can’t help but think of Jimmy Carter. He was pushing many of these messages in the seventies. He tried to get us to have more respect for the land and to save energy and the greedy wrote him off as boring and the era of greed took over. Will we listen this time?

***** The Mueller report was finally turned over to Attorney General William Barr. This has started a whole new set of problems. Barr gives us a summary that is like springtime for Trump. He jumps right in to those that done him wrong and FISA warrants. Should congress get a look at the full report? Everyone is talking over each other and don’t seem to hear what the other is saying. Everybody piles on Adam Schiff because they think he isn’t accepting the report like a good Dem should. If they would listen, he makes it very clear that he respects the findings but they need to see the report. How dare they ask HIM to resign as Intel committee chair. It was heartwarming to see his backbone. They must quit backing down. We still don’t have the whole story but he still free to say that he thinks the actions we already know of were wrong. What the hell is wrong with that? Barr is supposed to release the heavily redacted report in mid- April. No collusion? Perhaps, Scary Clown 45 would probably not get his hands dirty. Obstruction? We’ll see. ** Tyler Mcgaughey, William Barrs son in law will now advise Trump and the White House staff. ** I am really sick of listening to the old white man POV.

***** Dow chemical has donated a mil to Trump’s campaign. Strange that Trump has blocked a report  that took years of research and shows proof of Dow toxic pesticides which jeopardizes over 1,200 endangered species.

***** US from Jordan Peele opened to 70.3 mil. Just like his last movie, critics tell us to watch it twice. How great for the bottom line.

***** John McCarty, a dead man is running for village President in Spring Bay, Il.

***** Look out for the new film, The Kid, directed by Vincent D’onofrio. The western stars Ethan Hawke, Chris Pratt, Hawk , D’onofrio , MorningStar Angeline and Leila George.

***** Did you ever see the reunion movie ‘Return to Green Acres? ‘  They tried to warn us of who Trump was a long time ago. How strange that it came full circle with that ridic Emmy Green Acres thing he did.

***** Shaq has become a deputy sheriff and has also been added to the board of directors of Papa John’s where he is an investor.

***** In sexual harassment news, Lucy Flores, a former Nevada assemblywoman has accused Joe Biden of unwanted touching and kissing at a 2014 campaign event.

***** Mark Hamill will voice the Chucky doll in the new Child’s Play.

***** Law and Order will get its 21st season.

***** The daytime Emmy noms have been announced and Days got the most this year. WOO HOO! The soap was nominated for drama, writing, costume, music, casting, art direction and oh, just everything. In the acting category the lead noms are Marci Miller, Tyler Christopher and Billy Flynn.  Kate Mansi was noticed for a guest spot as Abigail so 2 actresses are up for Emmys in the same role. Other guest noms went to Thaao Penghlis and Philip Anthony Rodriguez. Kassie Depaiva, Linsey Godfrey (really?), Martha Madison, Greg Rikaart and Eric Martsolf were all nominated.  Younger actor nods went to Olivia Rose Keegan, Lucas Adams, Victoria Konefal and Kyler Pettis.  C’mon , why nothing for Lauren Koslow, Greg Vaughan, Casey Moss, Susan Seaforth Hayes and Robert Scott Wilson?? I think I would switch a few of these around but it is still great to see Days so blessed.  I was also happy to see Max Gail from GH get noticed. CBS led the networks in noms. Hooray for Wayne Brady for game show host and Mark Hamill, Ruth Negga and Steve Buscemi in animated programs. Watch for the Daytime Emmys on May 5 which will not be on television again.

***** General Robert Neller has told the Pentagon that funds diverted to the wall are keeping Marines from rebuilding hurricane hit bases.

***** Devin Nunes is suing Twitter for the parody accounts, Devin Nunes Mom and Dvin Nunes cow which is pretty funny.

***** The EU is banning straw, cotton swabs and plastic cutlery by 2021.

***** Jenny McCarthy has a book out that slams The View.

***** Roseanne is thinking about suing ABC and has said some rather nasty stuff about Sara Gilbert.

***** Michael Avenatti was arrested for trying to extort $20 mil from Nike in NY. He claims he was just doing some lawyering.  California has him on bank fraud charges.  Why is there so much shadiness in this world? Let’s start rewarding the people doing good in this world and quit talking these headlines everyday.

***** Why did this Jussie Smollett thing go away?

***** Wal Mart is walking back this getting rid of the elderly and handicapped greeter thing.

***** Tracy Morgan and Will Forte are to star in the new animated Scooby Doo movie.

***** Johnny Depp has sued ex Amber Heard over the abuse allegations.

***** Martha Stewart is diving into the Marijuana product industry.

***** New York charges Manafort with 16 crimes. Perhaps he won’t get off as lightly with the state crimes.

***** Season 9 of American Horror Story has no premiere date yet. Emma Roberts is confirmed to return. It looks like it will also include Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters and silver medalist Gus Kenworthy.

***** New California Gov. Gavin Newsom has halted executions for now.

***** Dems will hold their convention in Milwaukee. And if I hear again that Hillary didn’t go to these sorts of places, I am gonna puke. She went! She went! Just not so much at the end.

***** Howard Stern will release his first book in 20 years this May.

***** Ok, so glad to see Whoopie Goldberg is starting to get back to work but it is just so unbelievable in this day and age and access to info that she seemed shocked that the insurance companies decide people’s fate. Of course, that is if you are lucky enough to have insurance.

***** Sandy Hook families can take lawsuits against the gun companies to court now.** Three suicides have recently come from survivors and a parent of Parkland and Sandy Hook. The pain goes on.

***** The Senate voted 59-41 to terminate the emergency declaration. VETO

***** Rick Singer, founder if a college prep business had pled guilty to money laundering, obstruction of justice and racketeering. The nationwide college entrance exam scandal involves about 50 people including Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin that dates back to 2011. People paid millions to use ringers to take or fix their children’s exams and sometimes faked photos with coaches to include them in sports they were never involved in. The U.S. attorney does not believe the schools themselves were involved. **Lawsuits have already begun from those claiming they could not get into a good college because those spots were taken by these alleged cheaters.

***** Jennifer Hudson will play Aretha Franklin in the biopic.

***** Experts say a recession is on the horizon.

***** Two Sacramento police officers will face no charges for their overkill of the unarmed Stephon Clark. Oh Big surprise!!

***** White supremacist groups on line are growing faster than ISIS. ** I never get it, if white supremacists are so supreme, so wonderful, wouldn’t they rise to the top naturally? Why do they need to rid the world of others or keep minorities down?? If they think others are so inferior, those they hate or fear should not be a problem .

***** Jeanine Pirro was pulled off Fox news after a racist rant about Muslims. ** And where is Rudy? The lawyer hasn’t been seen on the air since January. ** Is this true? Did Ivanka and Jared really try to resign? Did Scary Clown 45 try to push them into it and then not accept those resignations?

***** This can’t be true. Only 5 states have laws requiring patient consent for medical students to do vaginal exams on women under sedation.

***** I rarely think about Jay Leno but he was right about the late night comics all doing different versions of the same joke.  But, who is he to talk? I mean how many different things did you do on OJ and Clinton?? At least these guys are funny.

***** The talk that people stay in their bubble becomes crystal clear when you see the poll asking if the President is truthful: Fox viewers : 84%, MSNBC viewers : 21% and CNN viewers: 1%. Whoa!

***** Word is that Scary Clown ordered economic advisor Gary Cohn to pressure the Justice Department to file a lawsuit to block the Att-Time Warner merger to retaliate against CNN.

***** At least 250 power plants across the country are leaking toxic chemicals into nearby water.

***** Jay Inslee is running for president! I think Stacey Abrams and Jay Inslee would be a nice ticket>

***** Beta O’Rourke is running for President! The psychedelic warlord!

***** Kristen Gillibrand is running for President!

***** Conor McGregor was arrested and charged with felony strong armed robbery and criminal mischief in Miami.

***** The process is in the works to get Trumps tax returns.** The house Judiciary committee has requested 81 documents.** This can’t be true. Trump was signing Bibles for volunteers and survivors in Alabama??

***** Just when it can’t get any weirder: Li Yang and her hubby, Zubin Gong run a string of massage parlors with questionable reputations. Until recently they ran the one that Robert Kraft was busted in. They also had a web site that seemed to sell access to their buddy, Donald Trump with Chinese business contacts. As soon as the story broke, the sites for an international consulting firm, text only in Chinese and no prices for the meets came down. Li Yang and her associates are in pictures at the inauguration, the White House, Mar A Lago and Trump’s super bowl party with the Pres, his sons and other Trump family members. We should have seen this coming. The old adage that always holds true with this administration seems true here. They always blame others for what they are really guilty of, this explains the Pizzagate garbage. This could be bigger than we ever dreamed. Even stories that we may have thought a bit out there need to be looked at closer. Can we connect the sex trafficking, the White House, the money? It is time to quit fucking around with the sellers and customers of those exploited in the sex trade. I don’t get it, all these men from Trump to R Kelly have the power over the women they supposedly use and abuse and yet they are always so angry. Perhaps they wouldn’t be losing their power if you treated others with respect and dignity. They always want all the power for themselves. And c’mon media, stop talking your heads off about the Omar story and give this Li Yang story a closer look.

***** The story of the fall of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes is a sad one. It does show that greed and massive fraud are not just for the men of this world. When I first heard of her plans for the blood testing, I was so impressed with what she was accomplishing at her age. Yes, she was another poor little rich girl whose family fortune was quite diminished by the time it got to her. Even without the Fleischman yeast money, she did seem to have advantages. I can see how some of us were fooled but what about the big investors, the stalwart statesmen?  Do they not remember that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is? How can all the hype, the press, the marketing snowball before there is any proof that something is what is actually supposed to be?? I always assumed that by the time I am hearing about it, things are about ready to go. Seeing all these stories like Trump and Deutsche bank, light sentences for Manafort and now Holmes and her partner in crime seeming to get off lightly, there is not much hope for the little guy. WHY can’t we hold those involved in big money crimes really responsible??

***** It’s true, rich people cause socialism – Neal Brennan.

***** Even in 1692 the rich were different. –Stacy Schiff- The Witches.

***** FEMA released the personal data of 2.3 million victims.

***** They have dug up old words from Fox’s Tucker Carlson. Big surprise that he seemed to empathize with Warren Jeffs, thought women should just shut up and called a woman “cunty.”  The women who lap up the words of these men must not think much of themselves.

***** Why are we letting the banks finance detention centers and prisoners? It’s more than immigration or punishing criminals. Why is this big business?? I can’t believe this is still going on. Wake up!!! When will the children be free?  C’mon House and Senate, Pass the Shut Down child prison camps bill.

***** Somebody has to pay for this President’s folly: The scary clown new budget cuts:$ 1.5 trillion from Medicaid/ $845 billion from Medicare/ &25 billion from Social Security.

***** About 1 rural hospital a month is shutting down due to lack of support and lack of funds.

***** Globalization seems to be spreading a pathogen killing the olive trees in Italy.

***** A fake Melania?? WTF? UGH!

***** Matthew Whitaker is out! Bill Shine is out!

***** When will we ever be able to buy the boxed set of Late Night with Dave?? Hurry so the next generation can see the genius they may have missed.

***** Pete Davidson and Kate Beckinsale??

***** Hey Bill Maher, way to go with your PETA message about the terrible treatment of the geese used to make Canada Goose down jackets.  I will stay away!!

***** J Lo and A Rod are engaged.

***** Bette Midler and Judith Light will join the cast of The Politician.

***** Jussie Smollett has been indicted on 16 felony counts.

***** HBO’s Crashing was cancelled. Pete Holmes was great in this but I never really saw much promotion for it. I hate it when good stuff falls thru the cracks.

***** Kathy Griffin has a new film about the ridiculous Trump head, nearly career ending, Government harassment crap in her life. Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a story. Make that lemonade!! A girl has to take care of herself. It premiered at SXSW.** Speaking of SXSW, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez drew great crowds while she was there.

***** R Kelly lives in Trump tower in Chicago. Well, of course he does.  Why is it ok for the rest of us to put up with these arrogant, abusive males in this society? Everyone is giving kudos to Gayle King for her calm demeanor in her interview. Yes, how professional of her but why should she be subject to that disrespect??  She is in her workplace. Would R Kelly have liked his Mother or daughter to be treated that way?

***** So, word is that Isaiah 45 is a Trump thing with the evangelicals. This scripture refers to Cyrus , the anointed one. OY!

***** Days alert: Robin Strasser is coming OH BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!** Judith Chapman and her old style soap acting just too much. ** C’mon Chloe and Rex!!** More Nurse Shelly!! ** Is Johnny Dimera on his way to town? ** I was so glad to see Tony, one of the best characters ever anywhere, even if it was part of an out of body experience.

***** Why do we have to keep talking about George and Kelly Ann Conway?? Are they just covering their bases? With one on each side of the Trump argument, they win no matter what happens right?

***** So now we know that about 400 Catholic clergy have been accused of sexual  misconduct in Illinois. It never ends.

***** End the electoral college!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

***** S

***** Fox has hired Donna Brazile. People seem to finally be taking Bill Maher’s advice and telling their point of view to the other side. How else will sanity prevail if we don’t find common ground? We cannot look to this administration for guidance in this world, we have to figure these things out for ourselves, which we should be able to do anyway.

***** Suicide is the second leading cause of death for 15-24 year olds.  We have to find our self- worth.  

R.I.P. Andy Anderson, Katherine Helmond, Nathaniel Taylor, Luke Perry, Alabama tornado victims, Jan Michael Vincent,  the Ethiopian airlines disaster victims, Hal Blaine, victims of the New Zealand Mosque shootings, Sydney Aiello, the Ogossogou village attack victims, Denise DuBarry, Larry Cohen, Jeremy Richman, Ray Sawyer, Tania Mallet and Nipsey Hussle.

[humansofhds]

George Vicente, MDiv '24

“I went to my cell, got on my knees, and made the decision to give my life to Jesus Christ. I said to him, ‘this day forward, I'm going to follow you.’ And I did. Before that moment, I gambled in the prison, and I drank alcohol. But after, I cut off everything. It was like night and day.”

George Vicente is an alum of the HDS Diversity and Explorations Program and an incoming student at HDS for fall 2021, planning to study New Testament philosophy. The child of Cape Verdean immigrants, Vicente is originally from Brockton, MA.

A Good Kid

I grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts. My parents are a Cape Verdean, and I grew up in a Cape Verdean household with my mother and my siblings. I didn't grow up with my father. 

Growing up, my mother was – and still is – a Catholic. I never went to church with her, but she had statues of Mary all over the house and a big mural of Jesus in her bedroom. She used to scare us with God. If we were misbehaving, she would say, “Jesus, you see what they're doing, right?” We would get scared and jump under the covers. I had a 100% belief in God. It didn’t matter that I didn’t go to church. I believed he existed and that he made all things. It was just natural to me. 

I was a good kid. I did good in school, I cared, and I was sympathetic. As I got older, I started to see that the older family members were involved in the street life. At first, when I looked at what they were doing, I was against it. 

But I guess, being in that environment, it slowly creeps up on you. By late elementary school, I started to emulate them in the way I walked and talked. I thought that was what a man was supposed to be – somebody who, like them, was tough, somebody who didn't take any type of disrespect. 

Over time, I grew into that identity. I would get into fights here and there. Even when I wanted to, I felt like I couldn't back down because of what I thought I had to be. 

One day, at the Brockton fair, my friends and I got into a fight with another group of kids, and we got jumped. After the fight, I started thinking that they got the best of me. In my head, they were somewhere looking down on me. My pride was hurt, and I was upset. I wanted to do something to get back at them. 

There was somebody in my area who had a firearm. When he showed it to me, I thought of it as an opportunity to do something back. I was 17 years old. In my head, it didn't matter if anybody got shot. I was focused on me. I wanted to scare them or have them run away. 

Unfortunately, what ended up happening was a 16-year-old got shot. I shot him. In his lower back. The bullet traveled, and he ended up dying. 

When I found out the next day that he had died, I was petrified. I couldn’t understand it – I had just done the biggest crime, the biggest thing you can do in the world. I didn't know how to deal with those emotions and that thought, so I suppressed the realization of what I had done. 

I mean, it was never my intention to do that – I didn’t even think it was a possibility. You would think that if you have a firearm, and you point at somebody and shoot, that you know harm or death can occur. But I didn't realize that. My whole intention had been to just do something to show them I was tough. 

There were witnesses, so the next day I was arrested. I was sent to Plymouth County Correctional Facility and charged with first degree murder. When I was there, I had this realization: I don't know who I really am. All I knew was that I had put on a front for the last four or five years. I had tried to be this image, this person I thought I was supposed to be. But I wasn’t that person. I was lost. 

Finding Hope Through Faith 

For the first year and a half of my incarceration, I still tried to live up to that tough image. I got in fights, spent time in solitary confinement. When I was around 20 years old, I stepped back and took a look at I was doing. I realized I didn’t want to do it anymore. I was done. 

I started, here and there, to go to church. I had always believed in God, but I hadn’t always obeyed him or done him good. He became more real to me in prison because I felt like I now needed him for survival and freedom. I tried to obey him, and I felt that he would be faithful to my efforts. I struggled, and sometimes I failed, but I still believed. 

Meanwhile, at trial, I was found guilty of second-degree murder. My sentence was 15 years to life. I was sent to a maximum security prison, and I was afraid. The maximum security prison was a dangerous place. When I walked into it, I could feel violence in the air – in the atmosphere. But I decided to stay out of any conflict. I knew it would be hard to do, but I was committed. 

Six or seven months in, an older Cape Verdean man in my unit came to speak to me. For two weeks, he spoke to me about God and all that God had done in his life. I saw his faith, and I wanted it. I wanted to see God in my life, like he did. 

One day, after talking to him, I went to my cell, got on my knees, and made the decision to give my life to Jesus Christ. I said to him, “this day forward, I'm going to follow you.” And I did. Before that moment, I gambled in the prison, and I drank alcohol. But after, I cut off everything. It was like night and day. 

My faith gave me the strength to stay out of conflict. And eventually, it gave me the opportunity to leave that prison. I had started getting more involved in the Bible. I would read the Bible for a few hours in the morning, a few hours in the afternoon, and few hours in the night. In between I would pray and go to Bible studies. I was surrounding myself with Christians. This led to me being transferred to Norfolk State Prison, where there were a lot more opportunities to grow.

In that prison, Boston University offered a degree program. When I got there, I decided I wanted to do it. I took the exams and interviewed with the professors. I got into Boston University, and I ended up graduating with a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary studies. My whole life was changed. I had faith, and I had hope for a future. I didn't know exactly what my future was going to look like, but I believed – I still believe – that God is in control of my life. He had a plan and a purpose for me beyond the walls. 

Project “Get George into Harvard”

Before that point, I never thought about having a career. I just thought, when I get out, I'm going to go the church, and God is going to use me. I don't know how, but I believe he's going to. I had a purpose – why did I need a career? 

That’s what I thought, until one night, I had a dream where I was asking the prison GED professor, “how do you become a professor?” When I woke up, I knew that that was God speaking to me. He was telling me what he wanted me to do with my life. 

That day, I went to the GED professor and spoke to her about how to become a professor. She asked, “what do you want to teach?” I didn’t really know, until she asked a second question: “what are you passionate about?” 

As soon as she said that, it clicked. I told her, “Christianity.” And she was like, there you go. 

I knew from speaking with her that my next step was to get a Master’s of Divinity. I figured I would go somewhere practical, reasonable, and affordable – until my professor suggested Harvard. She said it with such conviction, like it was possible. Instantly, I just – I believed. I thought, if this dream is of God and this path is of God, then anything is possible – I can't give him limits. So we started project “Get George into Harvard.” 

At first, I didn't think I was smart enough for Harvard. I also didn’t think I had the money for it. I spoke to the prison chaplain about it. He had doubts at first too, not because he thought I couldn’t get in, but because Harvard is a liberal school and my faith is conservative. He didn’t how that would fit. I kind of felt the same way. But I told him that God is leading me in that direction. Later, when I realized why I was supposed to go to Harvard, put that into words, and told him, he was all for it.    

Flash forward to April of 2020, when I was released. I had been in prison since 2002 – 18 years. I hit the ground running. I took the GRE and I connected with an HDS graduate through a reverend I met in prison. She coached me through the application process and let me know what Harvard was like. I also got help writing my personal statement from a journalist friend of mine. It was with through their support that I was able to put words around my desire to go to Harvard. 

I wrote my application essay about my faith. I explained that mine is a real world faith – I believe that Jesus and God are real in this world. And so, since I believe they are real in this world, then they must stand firm in the face of philosophical questions, arguments, and debates. I want to be in the classroom, having those conversations, seeing my faith provide reasonable and intelligible answers to challenges. 

So why not Harvard Divinity School? It's actually the best place to go to because that's where all the theological and philosophical questions, ideas, and viewpoints that represent the face of the world are going to be. There's no better place. 

I submitted an application in January of this year. When I got my acceptance letter, I realized I wouldn’t have to pay for my degree – I got a full ride. And, yeah – now I'm in. 

Looking Forward 

I took New Testament Greek through the Summer Language Program this summer. We had our last class yesterday. I got hundreds on my midterms, and I think I did pretty well on my final. I've learned the foundation of this new language. Now I feel ready for the fall, ready to start the next part of my journey towards what God has for me. 

I'm most looking forward to learning different aspects of my faith and becoming more refined in it through God’s grace. If the professors are anything like the professor I had from my summer language program, I mean, that's awesome. That makes the class. 

My goal is to become a professor of Christian Philosophy at a university. I want to teach of God and Jesus Christ in a non-dogmatic way, through reason and logic to students from many different religious and non-religious backgrounds.

Right now, I’m also looking at classes that are different from my faith. I'm excited to be in those classes so I can hear and engage with new ideas. I have faith that God is going to show up in me in those classes. He's going to show me some things. I'm excited about what's going to happen.

Interview by Gianna Cacciatore; photos courtesy of George Vicente

[thesewomenrulemyworld]

best stocks for options trading 2018 Arkansas

Key Principles

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trading options research high probability Arkansas I sold a put option for March 6 expiry at $140 and received $100 of premium/income.

stock options trading strategies Arkansas I spent a few months reading up on it to understand some basic concepts.

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best options trading course review Arkansas After the usual formalities and a beer in, I asked him.

who has the best options trading advisory service Arkansas Investing the cash pile accumulated from selling the insuranceAnd this is precisely what an options trader does.

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put options trading subscription service Arkansas The downside in a bull call spread is protected when both options expire worthless, but the premium gained from the written options helps to reduce the loss from the premium paid for the purchased options.

9% for idle USD in the account, so I was quite happy leaving it. However, that�s obviously not the case anymore, with interest rates at zero. But I could allocate that money into some safe dividend stocks and boost my returns that way. Which is somewhat the approach I�m taking. My Path ForwardTrading options may sound sexy, but it�s pretty tedious. I�ve entered over a thousand executions into my spreadsheet this past year, which is something I LOVE doing.

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bottarelli research options auto trading Arkansas Just a month earlier, that number would have been in negative territory as the index was lower.

The closer the strike price is to the current price, the more you�ll earn in premiums. Setting out a further expiration date also increases your premiums. The only catch is that you cap your short-term gains. While you can�t lose money with this strategy unless the value of the underlying stock decreases (same scenario as someone who buys and holds without selling covered calls), you do cap your upside. If you set a strike price of $20 and the stock goes up to $25, you have to sell your shares at $20 each rather than at $25 each. If you bought at $15, you still get some considerable upside, but you can miss out on additional gains. There isn�t a chance of losing all of your money with a covered call strategy if you use the strategy on good stocks. That�s why I recommend starting here. Covered calls give you a deeper perspective of what can happen to the value of options. In a single day, a call or put can go down over 80%. Similarly, they can quintuple in a single day depending on what happens to the company.

options trading fidelity Arkansas I can best illustrate this with a real trade I recently closed (obviously cherry-picked):On Feb 12th this year, a week before the market started it�s COVID-19 free fall, the SMH Vaneck Semiconductor ETF was trading at $150.

I even wore a necktie once in a while to feel important while doing it. Not surprisingly, I GOT SICK of pushing the damn buttons. And I fantasized about making money from home instead. I read success stories of people starting a side hustle that allowed them to quit their job. I even knew a couple. But I couldn�t figure out what my side hustle superpower could be until I stumbled upon options trading. Trading options was something I considered for people with insane levels of intelligence. And unfortunately, that isn�t me. When I took the GMAT exams to apply for grad school, I scored in the top ten percentile for verbal (Yaaaay English Lit Class!) but the bottom ten for math. People were shocked when they found I worked in finance. Not surprisingly, I didn�t end up applying for grad school�But I said f*ck it.

ira options trading Arkansas My only activity was rolling existing positions further out in time.

If stocks are two dimensional with just a simple bid and offer, trading options was like entering the fourth dimension. There were bids and offers for each specific price point, each at varying expiration dates. Like most things in life, it�s daunting at first, but then you get the hang of it. And it even becomes fun. What surprised me was how much I loved hitting the freakin buttons again! And making money from home was surreal after being shackled to an office for the last decade. Grasping Options TradingOptions trading makes me think of the magnetic toy blocks my kids play with. You can arrange them in any which way, depending on what you�re trying to achieve. What I mean is, there are endless combinations of strategies you can set up depending on your view of the market. If you think the market is trending higher, you�ll use one set of strategies. If you�re unsure of which way the stock will move, but think there�ll be a decent move in either direction, there are strategies for that. And if you think the market is in a downtrend, just use those strategies! And these strategies have some pretty cool names: iron condor, bull call spread, calendar straddle, and iron butterfly. Okay, so that all sounds fancy pancy, but what is an actual stock option?�Simply put, a stock option contract gives the holder the right to buy or sell a set number of shares for a pre-determined price over a defined time frame. �Investopedia. comIt�s pretty straight forward. You can think of it as an insurance policy. If you�re a portfolio manager, managing someone�s retirement money, then you may think its a good idea to protect your portfolio against a significant drop. If the S&P 500 is trading at around 3,000, then perhaps you�ll want to protect against a decline of more than 20%. This protection can be achieved by purchasing options contracts at the price of 2,400 (20% below the current market). What�s remarkable is that you or I can be the one selling the options contract in that example. All we need to do is place a sell order on an options exchange. What threw me off initially was learning how trading options for income is no different from being an insurance salesman. Many options traders consider themselves to be in the insurance industry. I was in awe as I read the book: The Option Traders Hedge Fund. The central premise from the author is how an options trader is a one-person insurance company, operating a solo business. The insurance business is summed up in a few bullet points:Calculating the risk for insurance policies soldReceiving adequate premiums for those insurance policiesPurchasing �re-insurance� to protect against tail-end risks like natural disasters, e. g. , flooding. Investing the cash pile accumulated from selling the insuranceAnd this is precisely what an options trader does. So let�s get into the weeds. Diving Into the DetailsOptions, like insurance policies, have a contract period. They can range anywhere from a week to multiple years until the policy expires.

jim l s put options trading subscription service Arkansas Man, was it was exciting.

StrangleA strangle options strategy is similar to a straddle, but it uses the simultaneous purchase of call options and put options at different strike prices.

the best advisory service for swing trading options Arkansas comIt�s pretty straight forward.

In this case they are able to gain the premium from writing the call options with the security of owning the shares in case that the options expire in the money.

trading options in an ira Arkansas I then use a small portion of that premium received to buy a re-insurance policy for myself to sell out of those shares at an even lower price.

As the pandemic spread, the stock price took a nosedive along with the rest of the market. But it was quick to recover and even hit new highs as the world needed more semiconductors to keep pace with their newfound love of gaming and tiger king. I�ve put on similar trades repeatedly over the year and so let�s dive into the results. Here�s My ScorecardOne year after starting, with over a thousand executions, lots of late nights trading the US market from Asia, and endless hours of studying, I�ve logged a total profit of $29,753. Below is the breakdown per month. April and May of this year are write-offs because I was inactive. I hid under the blanket as the market was in free fall. I was pretty crafty in March, trading bearish strategies, but I put on only a single trade in April that was buying a put option on the S&P in case the market tanked further. We know that didn�t happen and so I lost that money. And in May, I didn�t put any new trades. My only activity was rolling existing positions further out in time.

options trading analysis Arkansas Not surprisingly, I didn�t end up applying for grad school�But I said f*ck it.

If the share price of Nike falls below $95 during this period, he can sell his shares to me at the agreed price of $95. In this example, he has paid me $1 for this insurance. I might then go out and buy a re-insurance policy for $0. 2 and protect myself at $90 (10% below the market). This way, if the share price tanks 20%, then I had to buy the shares at $95. BUT my downside is protected as I can sell out of the same stocks at $90. After the two weeks, if the insurance policies all expire worthless because the Nike share price is still above $95, then I�ve made 80cents ($1 I received initially, minus the $0. 2 I paid for re-insurance). Unlike trading stocks where you need the price to go up to profit, I make money if the stock price rises, stays the same, or goes lower by not too much. If you put on ten such trades, each with a 90% probability of profit, then you can expect nine of them to close profitably with just one being unprofitable. The icing on the cake is that it�s not the end of the story for that one trade that didn�t work out.

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[firefighterkingdom]

#13 Oklahoma Smoke Divers – Elite FireFighter Training & Why It Matters

Oklahoma Smoke Divers! These guys are not only bada**es but are helping to take firefighter training to the next level. Our guests are Chad Miller and Bryan Lloyd of the Oklahoma Smoke Diver Association. Both are District Chiefs for Tulsa Fire Department (TFD).

The organization conducts advanced firefighter training known as the Oklahoma Smoke Diver course. The association allows Smoke Diver instructors a philanthropic platform to improve the fire service.

Robert Sanchez: So what’s up? Hey, this is Robert Sanchez, host of FireFighter Kingdom. We’re back with my co-host Vince Trujillo and producer. Vince is the guy who makes everything look nice. You see all the graphics on our Facebook and our social media, and thanks to Vince Trujillo for all that. He always gets off on our community segment, starts talking. But we’re fortunate today to have two of Tulsa’s greatest, Bryan Lloyd and Chad Miller.

Chad Miller: That’s debatable.

Robert Sanchez: I’m actually extremely honored to have teached with Chad Miller in the PEP instructor program through the IAFF. Thanks Chad, you’re a great instructor I’ve taught with, and I won’t say that ever again so don’t tell the other PEP instructors, man. How are you doing, Chad?

Chad Miller: Good.

Robert Sanchez: How are you doing Mr. Lloyd?

Bryan Lloyd: Good. Great, man.

Robert Sanchez: Let’s get started here. I just wanted to talk. I was interested, I just started hearing about this smoke diver program. I’ve heard about it just across the country, there’s been teaching and just hearing about it more and more and I was interested and I said, “I’m going to give Chad a call,” and see if you guys would come on and talk about your program and so I’m glad to have you guys. We’re lucky. The FireFighter Kingdom is lucky to have you guys and the rest of the United States or the world, in some cases. We actually have people who download throughout the world and listen to this podcast, so we’re lucky for that.

So let’s just get started. So both of you gentlemen are District Chiefs there in Tulsa District�� Correct me if I’m not saying the correct rank structure, but…

Chad Miller: That’s correct.

Robert Sanchez: Okay, so District Chiefs in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And you guys are also the top elders of the Oklahoma Smoke Divers Association, is that correct?

Bryan Lloyd: Yes sir.

Chad Miller: Yes.

Robert Sanchez: Nice. So, Chad, tell me a little bit about yourself, man, the fire career and how’d you get started in the smoke diver program and your career there in Tulsa?

Chad Miller: Man, I’m a third-generation firefighter. So I grew up as a little boy, watching my grandpa and my uncle in the fire service. My dad had a 20-year career as a volunteer in the town that we grew up in, so I got interested in it pretty quickly after school, started as a volunteer firefighter, moved to a paid department in a small town next door in a suburb community of Tulsa, and then Brian and I got hired in the same class, 20 years ago this past April. So we both came to Tulsa at the same time and have just progressed up the ranks.

Just I’m the newest promoted District Chief in our department, as of about a week ago, and, like you said, I’ve done some teaching. Teach with the International Association of Firefighters, I’ve done a little bit of union work for my local. And then teach a lot, also just around the state for various fire service organizations.

Robert Sanchez: Nice, congratulations on the promotion, brother.

Chad Miller: Thank you.

Bryan Lloyd: So, like Chad said, I came on in 2000, and we came on together. I was never around the fire service. I didn’t know any firefighters. How I got into it was, I grew up wanting to be in the military. I knew from age 10, I had the army stuff on my walls, and joined the military. I did six years active duty, I did one deployment, and then I was just at a slow time. There was nothing going on, and I was getting ready to do a third enlistment, and I thought, “Man, if I’m in this one more time I’m going to make this a career.”

Bryan Lloyd: And my uncle was actually a cop in Tulsa and he kept telling me, “Man, I wish I had been a firefighter.” And he’s like, “All these guys are always hanging out.” And anyway I was home on leave, and he’s like, “Man, you need to go check it out. Go talk to them, because you’d be perfect. You’re used to being in a group, being in the military.”

I went down and talked to some of the guys and I said, “You know what?” There was a test coming up, an entrance exam, and I just said, “If I do good on this entrance exam I’m going to get out and if I don’t I’m going to stay in the army.” I did good. They’re like, “Yeah man, you did great. We’ll probably see you in the next class.” So I get out of the army and then I didn’t get hired. So, welcome to the fire service.

But anyway, I just got some job, got hired my second time. And Chad and I had pretty similar careers. We both came out of the academy, we were both on the rescue team, the rescue taskforce. Both of us were different stations, but always liked the training. So our careers always gravitated by each other. The smoke diver thing, how it got going was, in 2003, I was working out at our headquarters gym, and a chief came in. And he goes, “Hey man, you want to go to the most challenging training that I’ve ever been to?”

And he’d just come back from Mississippi’s program. And I said, “Yeah.” I’m 27 at the time, I think I can do anything. I’m like, “Yeah, bring it man, let’s go.” So me and another dude went down there and I completed Mississippi’s program, and loved it. At the time there was three or four guys in Tulsa that had been through. I was still a firefighter in the back of the truck, and I was still learning the job. I just shelved it. Like, “Man, this training would be cool to deliver some day.”

And fast forward 20 years, fast forward about 17, 18 years, I was promoted to District Chief. And I thought I was going out to a district and they came to my station and said, “Hey, congrats, you’re promoted. As of today, you’re the new Training Chief.” So I got in there, started learning that job and I thought, “Man, I got the platform to get ahold of my old contacts and maybe we can bring this program to Tulsa.” A lot of guys were interested in it, and it just took off from there, man.

Robert Sanchez: Nice. So good thing you passed your firefighter test a second time or you’d be a cop, probably, because that’s what always happens.

Bryan Lloyd: Man, I don’t know. I joke around, I agree. I don’t know how old you are, man, you’re a lot younger than me, but I grew up watching Miami Vice. They had the fast cars and the boats and everything, and I thought that was being a cop. Once I realized that that’s not it at all, I’m like, “I’m out man, give me the firefighting gig.”

Robert Sanchez: Right, right. Yeah, that’s what I tell all the cops around here, man. There’s some friends of mine, I say, “You couldn’t pass the firefighter exam, so you’re cops now, so you’re stuck with it. Look at this dream now,” that’s what I tell them. No, they’re really good friends of mine.

So I’m sure everybody watches, or used to watch Live P.D., man. Tulsa, there’s some crazy things that happen down there. I didn’t realize that.

Bryan Lloyd: Yeah, man. We’re friends with a bunch of those cops, and yeah, it’s crazy. It’s not that big of a city, but for whatever reason a lot of crazy stuff happens here, so [crosstalk 00:06:54] …

Robert Sanchez: Well, it’s like Albuquerque. I’m sure you hear about them. Breaking Bad and everything else, but.

Bryan Lloyd: Oh yeah, I’m an addict.

Robert Sanchez: Yeah, so I mean, over here it’s crazy with this COVID thing. I mean, I don’t know, is it as crazy down there as it is over here? How is it in the fire station?

Bryan Lloyd: That’s what he’s doing right now is the COVID response and all that.

Chad Miller: We’re like everybody else, man. At one point in team, we had literally 15% of our field personnel off on quarantine at the beginning. And we’ve been monitoring that since the beginning. I had a unit up there that is… We track all of our people that are sick or in quarantine. And we’ve gotten a lot better. Over the last few months, we’ve made some changes to putting people off versus putting them on a monitored schedule, so they just watch their self for two weeks.

And it’s really helped our numbers a lot. But it’s crazy, man. We went from, “Hey, you can’t go anywhere,” to now you go into a restaurant, you got to have a mask on when you walk in, but as soon as you sit down, apparently, at the table, it’s good, you can take

Bryan Lloyd: You’re safe. You’re safe at the table.

Chad Miller: You’re safe.

Robert Sanchez: Right.

Chad Miller: So none of it makes sense. But we’re just getting by like everybody else.

Robert Sanchez: Right. Yeah, same here, man. It seems like most of the fire houses and fire stations across the United States are dealing with the same stuff. Like you said, at first, it was, “Everybody wear them,” constantly. And now it’s… I shouldn’t say “lax,” because it’s still a requirement here in New Mexico. I mean, you can’t go anywhere without wearing a mask. But like you said, in a restaurant, as soon as you sit down to eat, you don’t have COVID no more, I guess. Or there’s no chance of spreading it.

But anyways, yeah, I was just curious on that. So with the smoke diver program, so how many states… I just noticed there’s some in Georgia, correct? Did you say Minnesota, Oklahoma, how many states actually have a program?

Chad Miller: Like Brian said, Mississippi has a program that runs on its own. I believe Florida was actually the first smoke diver program in the country. Georgia, Indiana, and Oklahoma. All three of our programs are… Georgia was the first one. So back in the late ’70s, some Georgia guys went to the Florida program, and then came back and started the Georgia Smoke Diver’s program. And then off of that program, Indiana’s program and our program, we’re… I don’t know if subsidiaries is the right word, but those two states based their program off of the Georgie Smoke Diver model.

Bryan Lloyd: I think Alabama. There’s five or six states that have them. Florida, Indiana, Georgia and Oklahoma are all our six-day programs. Mississippi’s is five. I think it’s Alabama that has a four-day. So maybe six, seven states. But then there’s no copyright or trademark. So if you Google search it, you could pull up 30. Anyone could use the name, “Smoke Diver.” There might be a one-day smoke diver course in this state. But as far as week-long programs, there’s five to seven states that have a program.

Robert Sanchez: Okay. So the five states that have them here in the United States. Is the curriculum similar through all the states or does every state change it up a little bit, or is it different?

Bryan Lloyd: So, that’s a great question. And pretty much Georgia, Indiana and Oklahoma are all… Georgia, they started it. But they all joke, say, “Hey, we’re taking over the world.” And then we do the Doctor Evil laugh. But it’s pretty much, they have the outline. And then each state, Indiana and us, we follow their outline, but they also encourage us, if we want to change an evolution… Because the premise of the program, it’s taking line-of-duty deaths and then recreating those scenarios and putting firefighters in those scenarios and then showing them how to successfully mitigate the incident.

Bryan Lloyd: So when we were in Georgia last year, they just had a collapsed incident, where luckily the firefighter, they got him out just in time. But they were building a scenario for that. So Georgia and Indiana, we always talk back and forth. So hey, if you have something come up that happens in Tulsa, we have a core number of scenarios that we want to run every class. But maybe if something happens three months ago that we feel like we need to, It’s plug-and-play is what I’m saying. We have the same seven or eight we do every class, but if something happens and we want to change them, there’s no hard, fast rule that says you have to.

Mississippi’s I only know because I went through theirs years ago. It’s a little different. It’s run by the state fire school. And so they have dedicated instructors there that, these five guys are in smoke diver, these five guys are rescue, these five hazmat. So theirs is the same, it never changes. And it’s pretty similar. It’s pretty similar, same premise, taking bad scenarios and showing guys how to get out of them. Theirs is a little more stuff using ropes. You have to be able to tie a Swiss Seat.

So there’s some rappelling stuff. Nothing crazy like that rescue that FDNY did [crosstalk 00:12:35] …

Robert Sanchez: That was crazy, huh? That’s a true rescue right there [crosstalk 00:12:36].

Bryan Lloyd: Yeah, and those guys train all the time for that kind of stuff. But the different on Mississippi’s is, there’s a little more of that kind of stuff like rappelling down. So yeah, but they’re all pretty similar for the most part.

Robert Sanchez: Right. So tell me a little bit about the program. Because I mean, I’m amazed watching the videos and going through firefighter training, obviously, myself. And you know how hard it is and how tired you get. I mean, I don’t think the general public really knows, having the gear on. I mean, we’ve all been there, feeling the heat and all that stuff. And just watching some of the videos and talking to your chat a little bit, and just some other firefighters around the country that I’ve talked to that’ve been through the smoke diver programs. I mean, I wouldn’t argue that you guys are some of the elite, right? I mean, it’s a tough program to get through. And tell me a little bit [crosstalk 00:13:33] … I’m sorry, go ahead.

Chad Miller: Elite, I don’t know that I would put that word. I mean, at the end of the day, man, we’re like everybody else. It is, by far, probably, at least ours, the six-day structured programs, physically and mentally it’s going to be the hardest thing most of our people have ever done unless they’ve been in the military or some other type of service like that.

But our programs are built to Oklahoma, Georgia, Indiana. There’s a PT component built-in the front end of ours each day, and the PT’s not to get you physically fit. It’s not to punish you. It’s to make you tired, both mentally and physically. And then we teach the first half of our class or teaching day. So we teach you skills and then the last half of that class, we’re going to put you into scenarios and we’re going to test the skills that we taught you.

And like Brian said, the goal is to take line-of-duty deaths and give our firefighters the skills they need to be adaptable to get out of those situations. At the same time, you’re developing critical decision-making in as high-stress of an environment as you can get in a training scenario. All of our evolutions are 1403-compliant where we use the live fire and those types of things. So everything is still within the standard.

So we’re trying to make it as stressful as we can. And we’ll use the PT in the day. You do PT like that for six days straight. At the end of day six, you’re whooped. And so, lot of times, you know Robert, as well as we do in the fire service. Bad things don’t happen the minute you get off the truck. It’s after you’ve been there and you’ve worked through two bottles and you’re tired. That’s when the bad stuff happens, and so we have to train that way.

Robert Sanchez: Right. So what’s the main goal? So you go through your program, and not everybody makes it, and I could see why. What’s the main goal? When you have participants come out of your program, what do you want? What’s your goal? What do you want them to have? What tools or training do you want them to have when they get out of your program?

Bryan Lloyd: So that’s a great question. And backing up to the last one you asked is, we came in. Georgia’s program has been around, like Chad said, since the late ’70s and they spearheaded Florida and Georgia. They spearheaded this whole thing. And the motto on the logo, it’s, “The elite few, strong in mind and body.” And for me, it’s hard to wrap my head around that because I’m just some regular dude and I’m like any other firefighter. I don’t think I’m anything special. But I am proud of the accomplishment that I was able to make it through the program.

And if you ask 10 guys what they think it’s about, you’d probably get 10 different answers. But for me, there’s a couple things as the chief elder of the program that I want guys to take away from it, and girls. I went through… In Georgia, there’s a female. [Melissa Russell 00:16:54]. She was the first female that had come through in 30 years. And made it about halfway through the week and went out on a scenario. Well, she came back and made it through with Chad in his class.

So it’s male and female. But what I want guys to bring out of it is, like Chad said, unless you’ve been in the military or played sports at a high level, or done… I don’t know where else, but most guys don’t know what they’re capable of mentally. And the Navy SEALs re-popularized that 40% rule. The militaries use that. I heard it when I was in the military 20 years ago, 25 years ago. It is, when you think you’re done you’ve got so much more left in the tank. But most guys are not ever put in that position. They don’t ever get that kind of adversity. They don’t even know what they’re going to do when they get there.

And that’s what the program, to me, it’s, we want to train guys. It’s like Chad said earlier. Most stuff happens when you breathe down that second air bottle and you’re so tired, you just want to lay down. We get firefighters, we train them to that point and then we put them in these intense scenarios on the fire ground, and we’re just showing them that. We’re teaching them that, to dig down and persevere. The program to me, 50% of it’s teaching men and women mental toughness.

And we always joke. We were teaching class the other day, some subfloor rescue, and we said, “Well, what would you do here?” Like, “I don’t know.” Well, there’s no one else coming. When you call 911 it’s us, man, and you know that, Robert. And we’re trying to teach them. We’re trying to train people to just be able to unlock the potential they have inside of them, okay? And to teach them that when something bad goes wrong, I can stay calm.

And it’s like the military. I was in six years in active duty. And they would put us in this really intense training to show you that, when you’re here in real life, you can reach back in there and say, “Hey, I’ve been here before. I know what to do here.” That’s the smoke diver program broke down to the bare essences. We’re going to take men and women, put them through these horrible scenarios. The first three days, we’re going to give them the tools to be successful, and then we’re going to put them back there. High heat, zero visibility. And we’re going to show them that by relying on your training, by staying calm, you’re going to be able to successfully mitigate this scenario.

But then from there, once they successfully pass that class, we want them to go back. The military calls it a force multiplier. And what that means, they call the special operations, force multipliers. So they will drop a special forces team of 12 men in and then those 12 men will train hundreds. And the reality is, not everyone that comes through the training is going to make it. But myself, Chad, seven or eight other guys from Tulsa made it, and then we were able to come back and take that training, whether everybody can make it through or even wants to make it through, we can still take that training back to our departments and deliver it to the men and women.

And we’ve been teaching classes for a couple years now, from what we learned that one week. So I could go on all day, but in a nutshell, it’s mental toughness and then it’s teaching servant leadership. That’s the two things you hear all week, is that you are nothing special because you had this training, that your goal, your expectation, is to take this training back to your department, back to your community, be a humble public servant. And then give it to the men and women in your community and help them be successful.

It’s not about, “Hey, I’m some bad*** because I’ve been through this program.” Because just like when we referenced that rescue in New York the other day. Those guys have probably forgotten more than we’ve ever learned. All we are is a couple dudes in Oklahoma that are trying to… That saying in the fire service. “We’re trying to leave it better than we found it. We are not the experts but we’re trying to make a difference.” And that’s it, man.

Robert Sanchez: Right. And it hits hard there at home, and I’ve actually had the honor of teaching our fire academy for a year back in 2011. But I mean, when you say firefighters are trapped or if they’re in trouble, like you said, man, you’re not calling 911 because we are 911. There’s no one you’re going to call to help, so you better calm down and help yourself. There’s nobody out there that’s going to come and help you.

So that hits hard. I would say it’s a prestigious honor to be a smoke diver. I mean, just all the training they go through. I mean, I was even just researching and just, like I said, the firefighters I’ve had the good opportunity to talk to in the fire service, but there’s even some smoke diver programs that even have a pool aspect where they throw the firefighters in a pool in full bunker gear and SCBAs. Do you guys do that in your program?

Chad Miller: So we just had our first class back in March, and that is definitely… It wasn’t part of our curriculum in March, because logistically, we couldn’t find a facility to do it. But the Georgia program does it. I believe Indiana does it as well. It’ll be incorporated in our program as we get our logistics worked out. You and I have talked before that… So we had a bad winter storm come through here back in 2007, and one of the fires I went to that night, we’re in the back of this house in a pretty nice neighborhood and one of my guys literally steps off into a pool. I mean, it’s right there at the back door.

And so, you think about, “I’m never going to wind up in water in my gear.” Well yeah, you could. My wife’s family members have a house that has a pool inside the house. So it’s not uncommon to be in situations where we could get into a water scenario. Basements, elevator shafts, in all of your gear. So the purpose of all that is to literally teach our guys that, hey, stay calm, here’s a technique to get out of that gear. You can breathe, that SCBA, that apparatus will breathe underwater, even though it’s not designed to do that.

And if you stay calm and use that air that’s trapped in your gear, you’ll float. As heavy as all that stuff is when it gets wet, if you don’t panic and remain calm, you’ll stay above the water, you can keep your mask on, and you can slowly disassemble your firefighter clothing and then get yourself out of that situation.

Robert Sanchez: Yeah, when I was watching and just talking to you, Chad, I mean, it’s true. I mean, sometimes the things that you think aren’t going to happen, they happen. Like you said, if they have swimming pools in their homes and it’s dark and smokey, we all know what it’s like to be in that situation, it’s hot. And you’re crawling and you fall into a swimming pool. I mean, sometimes firefighters don’t think about that. I know the public don’t think about it. It’s just another danger that we have to be cautioned with in the fire service when you’re doing search or suppression or [crosstalk 00:24:25] …

Chad Miller: Brian and I worked the last year in the same district. And one of the buildings we have, and we actually went and did a survey, is an old hotel that’s been boarded up and the homeless people have gotten in it. And it still, to this day, has a pool on one side in the corner of the building that’s full of water. So you roll off in that thing, making a fire, pitch-black dark and you could make the wrong turn or take the wrong step, you’re neck-deep in that stuff. So it can happen. I mean, it’s a reality, a possibility, more than we probably think.

Robert Sanchez: Right.

Bryan Lloyd: Especially here in Oklahoma, Robert. I don’t know about New Mexico, but we have real bad flooding here. The weather in Oklahoma, tornadoes, every year I ask myself, “Why do I live in Oklahoma, man?” Because the weather’s just crazy. But we have real bad flooding. And then we had a line-of-duty death a few years ago. Chad was actually friends with the guy, and a drowning. So it can happen. And it’s something… Is it a one-in-a-million deal? Probably. But hey, we got a couple extra hours during the class, it’s awesome training. The military does a similar training, they call it drown-proofing. So yeah, it’s definitely… Maybe it’s one-in-a-million, maybe it helps somebody. But it’s also pretty fun too. It’s pretty cool.

Robert Sanchez: Right. Well, I mean, just watching videos sometimes or just watching the news, sometimes these small departments in the United States, it seems like, when they’re ice rescues or even river rescues, it seems like some of these departments are still wearing bunker gear. And so I mean, that training could come hand-in-hand with a department that still wears bunker gear. I’m not sure it’s the wisest thing to do, but, you still seem them out in boats or rafts in their bunker gear in the middle of a lake or whatever the case may be. So I guess that’s a situation where that training could also come in handy.

Chad Miller: Yeah, it absolutely good.

Bryan Lloyd: I mean, when we teach the… Because that’s something that we’ve actually thought, some departments around here, they were interested. And the first thing we say is, “This is not the uniform for flooding or around water.” You don’t want to be… We’re not showing you this so you can wear the gear around water. In Tulsa it’s like, PFD helmet, and then our shorts and a T-shirt. That’s what we wear on water stuff.

But yeah, like I said, we taught it around, and it’s just that one-in-a-million bad day. It’s just another tool in the toolbox. If it happens, here you go.

Robert Sanchez: Right. Absolutely. And just going back to what you said, Brian, about that New York firefighter, that rescue, I mean, that’s going to be huge news. Those guys are definitely great firefighters. We know they’re in New York, and just watching them, I mean, doing a rope rescue from the rooftop. I mean, we’ve all done rappelling and rope rescue but I mean, doing it with fire, having the chance for the rope to burn. I mean, that’s a great rescue.

Bryan Lloyd: That’s the thing about firefighters and soldiers, athletes. The regular person sees that and they’re like, “Oh, that’s horrible.” I guarantee those dudes, without even knowing them, they’re like, “Oh, hell yeah, this is awesome.” You’re waiting for that your whole career. So we love… You know what I mean? Those dudes were probably… I read a article that said one of the dudes, I think it was the guy that was hanging out. I think his name was Brian something. But he said they’d literally been practicing that technique a few hours before, that day at the station.

So is that something that we’re going to practice in Oklahoma? Yeah, actually, I mean, we do. There’s actually a little component in the smoke diver where it’s bailing out or lowering yourself down. But I promise, when I lived in New York City and I was surrounded by high rises. You know those dudes are practicing that stuff all the time. So I bet those guys were so pumped.

Robert Sanchez: Absolutely.

Bryan Lloyd: Awesome, man.

Robert Sanchez: You know that’s not their first time. I mean, you know they’ve trained a lot, quite a bit and you could tell. So those guys are definitely [crosstalk 00:28:44] …

Chad Miller: Yeah, they made it look easy, man.

Bryan Lloyd: Awesome.

Robert Sanchez: They do. It was great, man. I don’t know, I put it on record, I just watched it a couple times and it was great. So in your guys’ program, what does a firefighter need? How should they prepare to go through your guys’ program and the smoke diver program there in Oklahoma? I mean, obviously you have to be in good shape or you’re not going to pass a program. I mean, what do you suggest? Just quite a bit of running, cardio, upper-body strength?

Chad Miller: Man, so when we started our program, so we’ve trained, in about a three-year time period, Robert, we’ve taken over 20 Tulsa firefighters to Georgia. And so the first time it was me and Brian and six other guys. And we train. The one thing I can tell you, above anything else, is you have to train in your gear. Because you’re going to be in… Everything we’re going to ask you to do, including PT, you’re going to do in your gear.

So there’s a big difference between training in shorts and tennis shoes and training in bunker gear. It’s a game-changer. But our philosophy… And so, if you went and asked a Georgia guy, I think the answer would be, “Hey, find another smoke diver and they’ll tell you what you need to do.” We took a little different approach because we are a new program, and we want our… The program is hard enough all by itself. You don’t have to add any adversity to it. So we actually train… If we’re taking Tulsa guys to Georgia, we have a 17-week program. And it’s crawl, walk, run. And so we build up capacity just in regular PT gear, and then we transition to bunker gear and we break that and we go back. And then we build capacity up in our program.

But we’ve posted all of our stuff online. If you go to our Facebook page, Oklahoma Smoke Diver’s Facebook page, our 17-week program is there for anybody to see. It’s exactly what he and I both done and what we’ve trained other people to do, to go there. And all it’s going to do is physically prepare you for the course. If you show up there thinking that PT is going to get you ready, you won’t make it past the first 10 minutes. Because our PT sessions, they’re created for a purpose. They’re hard. They are difficult. And other than just about every day that you do PT, you’re going to do it in bunker gear with a pack on your back.

Bryan Lloyd: But like Chad said, the PT… And there’s all kinds of stuff out there about this program or that program, and it’s been perceived by some people that the PT is to punish people. So I can say, the one difference between Mississippi and then our program or Georgia’s or Indiana’s is, Mississippi, there’s not PT but you’re doing a lot more evolutions in the day. Mississippi’s program, which it’s awesome. There’s no teaching component. You show up, day one, you do the PT test, you hit the ground running. You’re doing eight evolutions a day. You pass or fail.

Where our programs are… So the point is, by the end of the first day, you’re in full gear, mask on all day doing all this. You’re getting tired by the end of the first day. Where our program, it’s teaching. You’re teaching more the first three days. So we had to figure out a way to get guys tired like Mississippi does, so by the day four, when we’re putting the guys through the scenarios, they’re tired. I can tell you that, I don’t know… Well, actually I do know who runs Indiana’s. Georgia and ours, we’ve got almost every guy that’s on the PT field are ex-military. We had a guy that was army ranger. Got a couple guys that were marines.

So it’s run very professionally. It’s not punishment. It’s just to get the guys fatigued, do it for about an hour, move on, we start the training. So, like Chad said, the 17-week program. But if guys get on the Facebook, what they’ll also see is it’s not all just physical fitness. We might have a day where we say, “Easy three-mile run, practice the Denver Drill.” Or practice forcible entry. We’re still incorporating skills into the training.

But the thing is, once we get past the first month or two, almost everything’s in gear. And we use the analogy of, in Oklahoma, football is the sport in Oklahoma. Almost everyone played football here. And so every group we start training, we’re like, “Hey, when you played football you started off in shorts, and then you went to pads, and then you were training in full gear in preparation for the season.” So, so many firefighters, they don’t train in their gear. They train over here, but then they show up to a house fire and they got all this stuff on and it’s a total game-changer. And you guys know this.

Just putting the gear on and your heart rate, your adrenaline. By the time you walk to the house, you’re at 110 beats per minute if you’re in shape. So if you’re not practicing and all that… It’s like the military used to say, train like you fight. That’s one of our mottoes.

Robert Sanchez: It is.

Bryan Lloyd: Now obviously, we’re wearing clean gear. We’re fortunate that we had about 50 sets donated to us that were out of date. So we’re not saying, train your frontline gear. That’s ridiculous. But we’re fortunate that we have the gear that we can let the guys wear through the training.

Robert Sanchez: Very nice. So for all the firefighters out there listening in FireFighter Kingdom, how do they apply or is there a prerequisite? How do they get into your program for those that are interested?

Chad Miller: So if they just go to our website, which is www.oklahomasmokediver.com, there’s a contact. It looks like most websites. On the top right is a contact tab, and then Brian and I’s email information is both on there and they can send either one of us an email that just says, “Hey, we’re interested in your program.” We’ll send them back a little link so they can fill out some information for us, and then we keep their info and then the next time we are getting ready to do qualification tests for a class, we’ll send them an email.

The other thing is, really, just follow us. Either on our Facebook page or our Instagram, and our links are there on our website as well. Because we put out a lot of information. Even right now, our next class won’t be until March of 2021, but we’re still putting out, “Hey, this is what we did for training today,” or, “This is something we’re doing.” So we kick a lot of information out via our social media platforms.

Robert Sanchez: Okay, great. So we have, my co-host Vince Trujillo, we have a community statement here. And sometimes when you gentlemen and I are talking firefighter stuff, and we use some lingo that maybe the public don’t understand. So we have Vince Trujillo here, he has a few questions for you guys. And so what’s going on Vince? How you doing, brother?

Vince Trujillo: All right, yeah, thanks Robert. And thanks for having you guys on, too. This has been just amazing. I loved hearing about this. So from the public perspective, I’m not going to rehash some of what Robert’s already gone through, but it sounds like this is a program that we really need nationwide for some of these firefighter areas and giving firefighters an advanced sharpening so that they can… As you were saying, you go to this advanced training, you go to this elite training, you get trained in scenarios, in your school anyways, that were maybe, you said where people had died in, firefighters had died in. And then they can take that training back to where their local fire stations.

I’m wondering, why isn’t this accredited or maybe this is supported in training because it sounds like something that would be very, very useful? I know that would have to have somebody come up with a program that everyone accepts, or… I mean, what do you think is the best use of this if you wanted to grow it?

Bryan Lloyd: So, that’s a great question. And I’m going to be a politically correct as I can, here. So Georgia, back in the day, they did it through the state, their state fire college. And the short version is, once you get it in through an accredited agency and start pushing out of the state fire college, they weren’t happy with the pass rate. And people are paying to take this course. It’s not like every fire course you go to, where everyone gets their certificate at the end. And without getting too involved with what happened to them, they want to control their program. They wanted to be able to say, “This is what we’re going to focus on.” They just wanted control of it.

So they stepped away from the college and they started a 501(c). And that’s exactly what we did. $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee, but pretty much why it’s not… We want to keep control of it. We want to be able to say, “These are the things that we’re going to train on.” And the reality is, some people don’t like that everyone doesn’t pass. And that’s a real point of contention with a lot of departments. They don’t want to pay the money and send their firefighters to the training if they’re not going to pass or get a certificate.

But the interesting thing about this program is that… And we’re new. But Georgia’s kept a lot of data. And I want to say, and Chad, correct me if I’m wrong, but over 50% of people that don’t pass, they come back. Because even the guys that were just there for a couple days, you’re learning so much that they’re coming back. So without talking all day, it’s something that could definitely benefit every state, but it’s just hard to get a collegiate, to get a college and this program maybe on the same page. They’re looking at, students are paying and they’re giving them their hours. We’re not worried about that. We’re worried about teaching firefighters things that are going to save their life.

So in a perfect world, we could marry them together. And we’re actually in a unique situation here in Tulsa where we have a partnership with the community college. And that conversation has been had of, “Hey, could we offer this?” They’re still interested in it, but once I told them the pass rate, they balked a little bit at it. So that’s the hangup right there, to answer your question.

Robert Sanchez: Well, let’s be honest. So we’ve been firefighters for awhile, right, Brian and Chad? So there’s a way sometimes that you train, and then there’s a way sometimes that you do it on the job. Sometimes that happens. And I think my research with you guys’ program, I think you guys basically are training the way you play. You know what I mean? You’re training the way you actually go out and do the job in the field. And I see that’s the way your program rolls.

Chad Miller: And then the other, probably, part of your question is this. And Brian and I have been… He’s been the chief of training, I was one of his training officers. There’s no knock on fire departments. Every fire department is going to train their new hires coming in, and they train to a standard. This training is not for everybody by any means. And it’s not a knock. Because we fight that a lot. When we were beginning this program we were going to donors. We got that question asked of us a lot. “Why isn’t this just normal training for our firefighters?”

It’s a hire level, like you said, maybe. I don’t know that I would use advanced, but when you break it down at the end of the day it’s very basic skills. We’re not teaching anyone skills that aren’t taught to them in most of your basic cadet academies. The difference that we’re applying is the physical and mental fatigue that’s being applied to them. And like I said, all of our scenarios are 1403-compliant, but we’re trying to make that learning environment as stressful as we possibly can, to recreate that stress and get them to develop some critical decision-making skills.

So what we hope is like Brian said in the beginning, is, everybody that comes through our program is going to go back home to their department and they’re going to share. And that’s how you make the impact around. Brian joked about, we’re taking the world over. That’s what we want. We want smoke divers in every state, in every department and we want them to go back and teach. But we want them to do it humbly and with the servants. Servant leadership is a big staple of our programs and…

Vince Trujillo: Go ahead.

Chad Miller: Go ahead.

Vince Trujillo: So it just sounds like that would be ideal if you could get into more states, and I guess that would just be interesting to see how that could happen. And I think you are, maybe not advanced or elite and you want to be humble about it, I think the line-of-duty training is exceptional way of, let’s look at the biggest mistakes or maybe some of the biggest scenarios we’ve heard from, and then you train people up on that. That sounds just like a great thing to do, and I think that would just be very beneficial if you had that in more states. Do you have any plans on how to get that in more states, or do you have some kind of outline of that?

Chad Miller: So our program, if you look at the United States, we’re obviously the furthest west. We’re calling it the Midwestern Division, if you will. But luckily, when we had our first class, we had candidates from six states come to our qualification. Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Mississippi, or Missouri, and Arkansas. And when we graduated our class in March, we put the first smoke diver in Missouri. We put the first smoke diver in Arkansas. We added smoke divers in Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma.

So we’re slowly moving our way across the country. And anyone from the U.S. can come to our program. Like I said, Georgia has guys from Idaho, Oklahoma, Indiana. We’ve got a guy from Wisconsin. We’re spread out everywhere. So the goal is just to keep pushing and maybe somebody comes through our program from New Mexico and goes back and says, “Hey, I want to start a smoke diver program.” That’s the way it expands.

Vince Trujillo: Okay, that sounds great. So last question, thanks for everything you all do and the training that you have been going through, and trying to grow this. I think it’s an exceptional program, I’d like to hear more. So I made a mistake, actually. I actually talk to these guys and I called them smoke jumpers, and they said, “We’re not smoke jumpers.” So this is the stuff when I’m working with Robert now, I make mistakes like that. I don’t want to mess up someone’s rank or anything, but I do that all the time. So for those listening out there, smoke divers, that’s particular to your program or the group of states that you have? They all call themselves smoke divers?

Bryan Lloyd: Yeah. So, whenever I went through the program in 2003… I’m a big research nerd. I like to read, so I tried to track down, “Okay, why smoke divers?” Because at the time, my dad was living in Montana. They have the smoke jumpers there. So I have a smoke diver shirt, and everyone would assume I jump out of planes. Now so many people ask I just say, “Yeah, I jump out of planes.”

But basically, I heard from some older guys that have been through it, was firefighters used to just dive off into the smoke when they rolled up to a fire. Dive off into it. Jump off into it, dive off into it. Smoke divers. That’s how it was explained to me. So yeah, man. But yeah, I’ve been asked probably 100 times if I jump out of planes and now I just say, “Yep.” It’s easier than going into a half-hour explanation [crosstalk 00:45:49] firefighter.

Robert Sanchez: Exactly. It’s better. Especially if you don’t have time, just say, “Yeah, I jump out of planes.”

Vince Trujillo: Hey, thanks so much for having you guys on. I appreciate that. So, if people want to know how… So some of the firefighters listen, like Robert said. You had the website. Who should apply and how does that help you expand it into your state? So someone should apply who not only wants to test themselves, go through the rigor of it, have a challenge, but also have a servant attitude and someone who may want to bring that school to their own state? Is that who should be applying right now? What’s your pitch to some of these people listening?

Bryan Lloyd: Initially, Georgia, their informal policy was they wanted guys with, I think they used to say, two to three years on. But we want guys and girls that have been on long enough that learned how to be a firefighter. Would it help you coming straight from cadet school? Yeah, you’re still going to learn. But have a year or two or three years. Have a couple years on and get in the groove. You need to learn your job first, focus on that.

And then it’s really all of the things that you said, Vince. If you just want to tighten up your game or if you’ve got a servant’s heart and you want to go and bring this stuff back. Or maybe you’ve got a dream of bringing the program to your state. I can tell you this. I joke with the guys in Georgia that had we known how much work was involved, I don’t know that we would have done it. But once we started, it was like most firemen. It’s the challenge. “Oh, okay, you think I can’t do it? Well, watch this.”

But this program, it’s been a labor of love. No one gets paid. That’s another cool thing. I want to give props to our first class. We had, I don’t know, 80 instructors from Georgia, somewhere around there. We had instructors from Texas, all over the place. They all came into Tulsa for free. The Georgia guys, again, they compile data. It actually cost all the Georgia guys, I don’t know, I think it was 50 grand or something in all the time they took off and shift trades and getting covered. They all came on their own. No one’s getting paid.

That’s what’s so awesome about this program and why I love it so much, is we’re around like-minded people that… We’re here because we want to make the fire service better. So if that sounds interesting, or you want to just challenge yourself. All of the above, Vince. It’s anyone and everyone. You can benefit from this program.

Vince Trujillo: All right, yeah. Thank you all for being on so much. If everyone needs to get some information give us the website one more time.

Chad Miller: It’s https://ift.tt/3kmgbp6.

Vince Trujillo: All right, thanks so much guys. I’m going to turn it over to Robert now. I appreciate you on.

Robert Sanchez: So, all right, Chad and Brian. Well hey, it was an honor to have you guys on, man, and it was a treat for sure just to have you guys on. And I enjoy talking to firefighters all across the United States and that’s why I enjoyed being a PEP instructor also with Chad and just learning about things that are out there. Sometimes I think firefighters just don’t know everything that’s out there, and there’s a lot of things to learn. And your program seems like a good program.

One thing I think’s going to sell your guys’ program is just being that you teach your students to be humble when they go back to their community. And you encourage them to train the other firefighters on the techniques that you guys provide in your program, so I think that’s great. So again, thank you very much. Share us on your Facebook and we’ll put you guys in the FireFighter Kingdom Facebook also. And we’ll go from there. And again, Brian and Chad, thank you. It’s been a great time and some good information to share with the firefighters in the United States.

Bryan Lloyd: Thanks for having us on, man [crosstalk 00:49:45].

Chad Miller: Thanks for having us, man. It’s going to help our program and the more exposure we get, who knows? Maybe we’ll have four or five dudes from New Mexico in the next one. Because that’d be awesome.

Robert Sanchez: Absolutely. And yeah, when I’m next time in Oklahoma, man, I’ll meet up with you and Chad and we’ll have a cold one [crosstalk 00:49:57].

Bryan Lloyd: Oh yeah, for sure man.

Robert Sanchez: Me and Chad know what that’s like, right Chad?

Chad Miller: For sure.

Bryan Lloyd: All right, thanks again, bro [crosstalk 00:50:02].

Robert Sanchez: Have a good one, man. Thank you guys.

Bryan Lloyd: All right, later man.

Robert Sanchez: All right. Signing off from FireFighter Kingdom, Robert Sanchez, your host, and my cohost, producer Vince Trujillo. We’ll see you until next time.

Vince Trujillo: Hey, and everybody who’s listening right now, make sure you go to Apple Podcast, Spotify, you can also go to www.FireFighterKingdom.com. Check out our Facebook page too, FireFighter Kingdom, and we’ll see you on the next episode.

Robert Sanchez: Thank you.

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