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llendrinall · 4 years ago

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As we all know, Charlie Weasley could have played for Britain had he not gone off chasing dragons. There’s a lot of gold that comes with being a good international player. What do you think it would have been like if the Weasleys were doing better financially?

Frankly, I don’t think things would change all that much. Not everybody is a Ronaldo or a Messi (to draw parallels with football/soccer) making really stupid amounts of money. At least during the first few years, until Charlie became a Big Name, he would make money, maybe even tons of money, but I doubt it would be enough to change things significantly.

Mostly I think Charlie would be very unhappy and Percy’s break with the family would be much more intense (what! After the way he behaved in canon? Yes, more than that. Percy would be the next Charlie, getting a job far away and visiting home rarely).

The question here is: why are the Weasleys poor? There is a quick and dirty answer, which is that JKR wanted a rich=bad, poor= good - noble, structure. But she didn’t build a reason as to whyit is so. (There is also no reason why the Malfoys are rich, but money has inertia so we can half buy it). Thus, she accidentally made the Weasleys come across as reeeeally financially irresponsible and the creators of their own poverty.

Let’s look at the money. Supposedly, Hogwarts is free for all students, which makes sense because a significant portion of those students will me muggleborns and I can’t imagine how that conversation would go with their parents (“Your child is gifted! Magical! Now let us take them for 10 months of the year and give us money”). Hogwarts budget must come from the Ministry and the expenses are supervised by the Board of Governors. This, together with how big the Ministry infrastructure seems to be, makes me think that taxes in the wizarding world must be pretty high.

(US readers, double whatever number you are thinking).

Let’s say… 40% of income at the very least. That’s a big chunk for the Weasleys, considering they only have one salary. Since Arthur is overlooked for promotions, we can guess his salary isn’t high. He is head of a department, but it’s a joke department.

The books hint that the Weasleys own the land they live in. If they were renting the Burrow, and it would be hilariousif their landlord were Malfoy, then the house should be in a better state and they wouldn’t be responsible for the gnomes or the ghoul. Since there was no dramatic subplot about Malfoy trying to kick them out, I will assume they own the house and the land. Maybe they have a mortgage on it? One with ridiculous high rates, for argument’s sake.

So that’s most of the money accounted for. What other expenses do they have? According to the ONS the average UK household, after taxes, has a budget as follows (simplified):

Housing (rent, interest and upkeep) – 33%

Food and utilities – 20%

Transport – 14%

Recreation – 12%

Holidays – 11%

Restaurants – 7%

Other – 3%

Let’s say that the mortgage has an insane rate, so 40% of the budget, after taxes, is going there. But we can scratch transportation right away since they have apparition and side apparition and, more importantly, they have nowhere to go. The kids are homeschooled and the one person in the household who has to go to work everyday, can simply apparate right before the office. So that 14% of transportation can go to the housing budget.

Next, food. The Weasleys have many more children than average so the food expense should be higher. On the other hand, they have a lot of land. Supposedly a plot of land of 24x30m (80x100 feet or, for the Americans, about the size of a small Starbucks, the kind that is integrated inside a business) is enough to feed one person for a year in an exclusively plant-based diet. My experience is that a plot of 10x10 meters (32x32 feet or a small Subway shop) can feed a family of 4 if they supplement with eggs and milk and they are smart with the crop distribution.

If the Weasleys kept hens and an orchard, they could keep the food costs low enough that the large family size wouldn’t matter. Plus, during the teenage years, when the calorie demand is higher, the kids are in Hogwarts 10 out of 12 months of the year.

This still leaves them with a very small budget. But considering the only thing magic can’t produce is a) food b) a property deed, almost everything else can be procured with a spell. Furniture wear and tear? A reparo will take care of that. Kids are growing and we need bigger beds? Transfiguration. Clothes? Buy the fabric and use a spell. Maybe it won’t be pretty, but it will be cheap. There will be many luxuries they can’t afford. No eating out, no holidays, no fancy broomsticks. And there are some unavoidable expenses, like school supplies (although books could be reused). Although with the exception of Ginny, there are 2-3 years between children so they have time to save. The moment a kid reaches Hogwarts age they have to make a big investment of wand, cauldron, etc. and then they can write them off. The high taxes also mean they have services like free healthcare and free education with board and room.

It’s a difficult situation. But notice that it’s one that I have created myself. We don’t know if they have a mortgage and we don’t know the tax duties. I’m just coming up with reasons for the expenses while not giving them supplemental income, like Molly selling preserves and whatnot.

I still think that things shouldn’t be so tight that they can’t afford a new wand for each kid. Yet Ron went to Hogwarts with Charlie’s old wand and spent a whole academic year with his wand broken. The Weasleys should had been able to afford a wand. Sure, they just bought Ginny’s school package, but Harry gave her some of the books. It might set them back, it might mean no new robes for the family, but they ought to have that money. Books you can reuse and hope the content is pretty much the same. Wands, you cannot. With broken wands, you are putting your child’s education and even life in danger.

Ron didn’t get the new wand because it was useful for the story that his wand was broken, but the internal logic of the story speaks of extreme economic irresponsibility. Despite all the excuses I tried to come up with (high taxes, high mortgage, Molly is working all day at the garden) not giving Ron a new wand points at a situation of extreme financial ignorance.

So, if Charlie went the Quidditch route the Weasleys would do a bit better, they might pay off their debt, but I don’t think they would be able to grow savings because they simply don’t know how. Charlie would have the added stress of not only performing well in his job but also being the main bread-winner for the whole family. Percy, who is quite observant, would have constant fights about what he considers unnecessary luxuries. He would resent his father even more and he would accept the first job that took him out of the country. The twins would probably resent Ron and Ginny a bit, since they would be the ones to experience having new things.

Charlie would have to make truly astounding amounts of money so that his earnings overcome the family’s blundering of the budget.

#asks #weasley family #hypothetical finances #textpost

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mariaiscrafting · 4 years ago

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Thoughts on Wilbur Soot? I want a full-blown essay at least 10k words/j. All jokes aside, this is an amazing blog, I come to it every day to see if you've posted something new :]. Keep going forward OP, you're truly amazing.

That is so sweet 😢 (/gen)

I was really gonna write, “I dunno, I just think he’s a nice dude,” but then you asked for 10k words, so now Imma actually rant. Wilbur’s probably one of the first people who got me back into Minecraft, around 2019, and he was the first person I felt comfortable enough watching the Dream SMP vods from, back in November.

First of all, the guy’s fricking gorgeous, like, ???? I never see any simping for him on my dash, and I’m just like ??? I’m not very good at simping over people’s appearances myself, so all I will say is that he’s fricking beautiful, jfc.

Second of all, I’m a music nerd, okay, and I really fucking like his singing. Back then, I listened to his music covers so much that I learned the lyrics from songs I’d never even heard of before I started watching Wilbur, by heart. Lol it helps quite a bit that a good chunk of my musical taste is made up of Life is Strange-esque, shitty indie songs that fit right into the covers he made back when he first started streaming. I’ve listened to YCGMA so many times that I have that same familiarity I have with songs I’ve listened to for literal years, knowing exactly what song comes next and when each measure ends and when the breaths are taken, etc., etc. He doesn’t have much finnesse when it comes to the technical qualities of his singing abilities, but he’s a damn good musician. His lyrical composition, chord progressions, little guitar riffs, emotion - ahhh, I just love Wilbur Soot’s music so much. I’m certain I’ll be listening to YCGMA in the middle of the night, when I need a good cry, for years to come lol.

Third of all, I really, really appreciate his openness about his mental health just, so much. He talks about his anxiety and getting depressed so candidly, he so easily lets his audience know about what kinda mental state he was in during uni and as a teenager and while he wrote YCGMA, and it makes me feel so normal. As dumb and cliched as it is to need a public figure to validate my own lived experiences, I do, and for someone like Wilbur Soot to succeed and be so talented, encouraging, empathetic, and socially active, despite losing motivation and energy at times, gives me a little bit of hope for myself.

Fourth of all, I mean, the guy’s fucking hilarious, are we forgetting this? People always talk about his talents music-wise and writing-wise, or how nice he seems to be, but they always gloss over his genuine comedic ability, and I ??? It takes so much to keep my attention these days, and Wilbur Soot’s videos are still some of the only ones that can manage that feat. He has undeniable chemistry with practically any CC he meets, his editing style is just *chef’s kiss*, and his laugh somehow makes even the most mundane of jokes seem fucking hilarious, it’s just such a delight to watch or listen to him do bits, man.

I left the best for last, lol. The main reason I fricking love Wilbur Soot is his political consciousness and the fact that his political beliefs align pretty well with my own. I’ve dealt with cishet, mostly white guys, both on and off the Internet, for so many damn years, and it’s exhausting. I am so tired of deconstructing myself and suppressing myself for the sake of social interaction, community-building, preventing ostracization, and being able to consume content without feeling enraged or hopeless. It is an exhausting endeavor to want to like and love all the gamers I’ve watched since middle school, and having to just push down and numb the parts of me that want to flinch at offhanded jokes and comments and exclusion from online spaces. Wilbur Soot is a whole other breed of CC. Lol uhhh, I guess he’s what most of the people in the social media circles I used to frequent would call, “a feminist cuck” and “self-hating white guy.” Which all really just means that he goes just beyond human decency. Don’t get me wrong, I do not by any means let white, cishet guys dictate my self-worth anymore, or even let them educate me; that’s what all the wonderful female and POC and queer CCs that I’ve discovered over the years are for. But there’s still something deeply satisfying about listening to this person who fits all the demographic checkboxes of the kinda person who used to make me feel so Other and Wrong, instead rant about how teenage girls can’t express their interests without being denigrated for them out of deeply-entrenched misogyny, or about how society needs to stop villanizing poor people and realize that government aid and social services do a great service for community betterment and are not just used by people supposedly leeching off the taxpayer’s dime. That’s not even to mention the fucking beautiful satire of the E-Girl Trilogy. I always wanted to rant about this, but I don’t know how exactly to put it into the proper words... Basically, as someone who has spent years and years retconning, observing, and caught in the midst of incels, conservatives, and just extremely depressed cishet men of all races, I am deeply familiar with all the resentment, anxiety, misogyny, homophobia, gender essentialism, and self-hatred that goes into creating the average 20-something man’s view on women, society, romance, friendships, and sex. The E-Girl Trilogy is fucking brilliant because it so accurately captures this cocktail of emotions and ideologies, creating a fucking perfect caricature of the average man who looks and is just like Wilbur Soot. The persona is so well-crafted that most listeners who aren’t familiar with Wilbur as a person, or his political views, actually believe these songs are genuine and empathize with the narrators, can you imagine? And the fact that, in the process, Wilbur himself realizes that all of it is a fucking joke, that the narrator’s views on his love interest are weird and creepy and not at all normal or correct, is what makes it genuine satire. He embodies something so perfectly, only to mock it in the process of showing off how much he can embody it... I love satire, but I fucking suck at writing or accurately embodying it, so I’ve always been so fucking jealous of and beyond impressed by the E-Girl Trilogy’s use of satire.

Lol this isn’t 10k words, but it was much longer than I fucking thought it’d be. Basically, I really like Wilbur Soot, and writing all of this made me realize just how much I missed watching his VODs and streams...

#mcyt #asks #wilbur soot #wilbur #Anonymous #phantom

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sassy-socialist-sunday-school · 5 years ago

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About this Blog

Hey there. I have had an idea for a long time, and it has only strengthened with time, that Christianity and religion more generally are a lot more socialist and forward thinking than many might suppose from the way their followers act. This is not to say that there are not outdated or problematic ideas within them, just that the piece of advice given by conservative religious figures to read your (insert holy book here) might not be the worst idea. As someone who was raised a Christian, educated in Christianity and still counts themself as a Christian I thought Christianity would be the place to start.

A bit of background on me. I am in my late 20s at the time of writing. I was born in Scotland and have lived there my whole life. I was raised in a Church of Scotland attending household, was baptized and attended till I was 11 or so. When I was 12 I started attending an evangelical church that started in my local town and throughout my teens was a creationist reasonably conservative Christian, though still questioning luckily. During these years I studied the bible hard and read it through multiple times. I listened to Christian rock music (and honestly still do, some of it is quite good, though a lot of what I listened to as a teen was not, but who can’t say that about their taste as a teenager), I helped at missions, I went to Christian summer camps, I was batized for a second time (this time by my own choice). I held a lot of beliefs that were sending me down a dangerous path. For example, my church homophobic. Not in the we should kill them all way, but in that condescending christian manner of love the sinner hate the sin, while they would commit a laundry list of other things listed as sin without really batting an eyelid. At the time I rationalized it. I knew gay people, they were in my class at school, I was good friends with one. They were just sinners like everyone else and just as deserving of Jesus’s forgivesness, but letting them get married, no way. This all really started to become a problem for me on a philosophical level when a friend of mine from church came out as gay. No one was actively hostile, but there was this sense of unease, of judgement. It didn’t sit right with me. It didn’t fully change my perspective until I felt that same judgement on me. This time it was over my playing Dungeons and Dragons of all things (Yes I am a nerd). They thought it was witchcraft and idolatry. I knew for a fact I was just playing make believe the way I always had, just this time with my friends. It took one of my church leaders recoiling from a copy of the 4th edition Player’s Handbook like Dracula from the cross to make me realise how ridiculous this was. And I understood. For me it was over a hobby, but for my friend it was who they were that was being rejected. Both of us were still tolerated as kicking us out would show up the church for what they were, but I can only imagine what they said to him based on what they said to my D&D group. “You can keep playing but don’t spread it to other members of the church”. Long story short I realised how close minded the church I went to was at long last. This made me question everything again, this time more closely. I didn’t lose my faith, but over the next few years I stopped believing in any kind of literal reading of the first few chapters of Genesis, I stopped going to church, I stopped having all of the really harmful ideas about my morality that had consumed me in my teenage years and filled me with self hatred. When I attended Uni to study Archaeology and Celtic Studies I learned about the strengths and weaknesses of ancient texts, especially ones coming from oral traditions. I learned a lot in uni and became much healthier and happier. I made lots of friends, read lots of books, fell in love, played lots of D&D and had lots of really good conversations. After uni I got a job in my field and got engaged, and theology took a bit of a backseat as I was busy working long hours of manual labour digging up castles and the like. A year into working I injured my back and had to change career. a few months later I got married. Within a year it had ended badly (Long story for another time, but if the person keeps trying to push getting engaged, marriage or having kids on you that is a red flag and you should have a good think about if the relationship is going where you want it to). I moved in with my parents, stayed there for a while then moved back out. My back injury which never fully healed got worse and I have spent most of the last year on extended sick leave. While already on the left for some time, during this period I shot sharply left. But I found my faith didn’t fit in that well in lefty circles, and I can see why, but I don’t think it has to be that way. Once again few people were actively hostile, but I felt that same judgement, real or imagined. This brings us to today. It is 5am ish, I wanted to go to sleep hours ago as I have things to do tomorrow but here I am creating a Tumblr page about how the bible can be socialist too. TLDR Raised Christian, jumped to the left, is making a blog instead of sleeping.

About this page My plan is to work through the bible, (I will use the King James version as I have been assured it is the most “accurate” to the original many times in my life and I have a love of ancient texts) and I will analyse each chapter and say which bits I would highlight, which bits I would keep and why, and which bits I think are problematic or are likely not the word of any God I would want to be associated with (Yes I know, heresy and all that. If you have a problem with people destroying the word of god take it up with Moses, he did break the literal words of God afterall and he seems to get a pass, I at least will be giving God the excuse of thousands of years of copying, being written down long after or people trying to justify themselves after they did something bad. You know, classic problems all ancient texts have from Plato to Beowulf). There may be chunks of the old testament I do in larger pieces simply because they are very dry and I won’t have that much new to say about the 5th time God tells Moses the exact measurements for his temple curtains (you think I am joking) but I will try and be thorough. I fully reserve the write to jump forward to when I have something interesting to say again or to whatever is of particular interest to me at the time. I may also cover other religions, philosophy or pop culture as and when I see something that catches my eye, but I will try and keep regular updates for our main progression though the Bible. I will always copy the full text I am studying at the start of the post and will give links to the online version I am using so you can check I am not changing anything it says prior to analysis. Also of note, Before making this page I looked up socialist sunday school briefly and there is a movement named this that from my brief read taught/teaches socialism to children in the UK. I am not associated with them but loved the name, hence why I will now try and be Sassy. I would have added student to the end of it as well, but I ran into Tumblr’s character limit for names. If you have any questions, or you wish to discuss a point with me feel free to post on my Questions and Counter Arguments section and I will try and answer, but no promises. If all you want to do is scream into the void I’d rather you did it on a mountaintop or something instead of doing it on my page, but I am sure someone will anyway.

I will try and get the first proper post up in the next few days. Till then everyone stay safe and get ready to have a crack at Genesis Chapter 1, there are obviously no problems here at all hahaha................

#first post #backstory

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psotu19 · 6 years ago

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States of Mental Health

A year ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Again.

It hadn’t been the first time, and it probably wouldn’t be the last; in fact, I had a therapist trainee try to diagnose me with bipolar several years prior.

After consulting with a doctor (and not an MFT trainee) it turned out that my “bipolar disorder” was actually a form of ADHD that is so creative and impulsive that it is often confused with it. After the testing he said to me, “I hope you fired your therapist.”

The second time the doctor diagnosed me as bipolar after half an hour of talking to me. Without asking what I was allergic to, he gave me Lamictal — which I immediately started developing a deadly rash from. For six months afterwards the office tried to collect the $40 co-pay for that visit.

It took about a year to get a proper diagnosis and medical treatment, eventually settling into an anti-depressant I used to take. This was with quality insurance that covered psychiatric medicine and the medication I was prescribed. Before that, I was on Medi-Cal and hoping for the best.

For a good chunk of my life, I was told I was crazy. It wasn’t them, it was me. I was crazy. Most of my teenage years were spent in a psychiatrist’s office, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me.

It was the way people came after me, particularly my ex-husband. That was, until I threatened to leave him and he threatened to kill himself and hurt me. When he was committed, I began to see the mental health system from a different side. It was not only treatment, but also my protection.

The other night, while sitting at a friend’s kitchen table, there was a different tale.

Her sister was unemployed after spending 20 years working for the government because she started developing a mental illness — bipolar disorder. And with no money coming in, she had to be committed to a mental institution at the state level, and by a court order.

My friend sat nursing her tea as she shook her head. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I feel helpless.”

Mental illness in this country isn’t the stereotype of angry white men shooting up offices and schools. It can be the homeless on the street who are unable to hold jobs or pay bills. It can be those addicted to drugs or alcohol, trying to self-medicate for a system that doesn’t serve them. And sometimes it’s the voiceless, as so many end up killing themselves, trying to ease the pain.

There were so many people who I could name who fell to the system of mental illness in this country. My friend JT died of a prescription drug overdose in April 2002, seven years before the death of Heath Ledger highlighted the issue. A guy I dated post-divorce committed suicide three years ago, and a year before that was Alvin, a comedian friend of mine whose memorial I attended. And last year, my friends were broken at the death of Ben, whose suicide came out of nowhere.

In the middle, between so-called normalcy and the extreme cases, sat people like me who had depression and ADHD but didn’t know what to do. Sat people like my dad who had anxiety but was scared about his medicine’s complications. Sat people like my friend who had their own problems, but were facing their family’s issues and might not know where to turn.

We sat together and finished dinner, sharing stories of our doctors forcing pills onto us at all ages. I told the story of my teenage doctor who gave me all sorts of drug cocktails, eventually allowing Risperdal into my system. It was a powerful anti-schizophrenic drug I had no business taking.

There were stories of electro-shock, of pill after pill, of being subjected to medical studies to try to figure out what the hell was wrong with my brain. My whole life felt reduced to that: What was wrong with my brain?

It felt strange to say. A part of me wondered if it was because of the place I grew up — a conservative town — or because I was a woman who was outspoken and loud, that led to this question constantly. From therapist to doctor and everyone in between, it was that statement: What was wrong with my brain?

How about what was right with it? And if there was something wrong with it, why couldn’t I be the authority to say what it was that I was feeling?

Mental illness is a gray area that no one can give exact answers for. We can’t give a blood test to the brain to tell us exactly what might be wrong, or know which drug is going to act a certain way in order to help the problem without a trial and error. It’s shooting in the dark oftentimes, and because there are no tried and true answers, perhaps it’s why we are so frightened of the subject.

But the truth is we can’t be frightened of this; mental illness and difficulties coping with it are killing thousands of people, whether through suicide, addiction or homelessness. The answer is more funding for research, more money for facilities, more support systems for those who need it. We need improvements, or more lives could be lost.

#PSOTU2019 #hope #women #children #family #education #activism #community #health #submission

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years ago

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WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT ENGINE

Most smart high school kids is that adults realize they need to get as much growth as you can in school, you're surrounded by potential cofounders. 5 who've influenced me, not people who would be good to program in today. They try to convince with their pitch.1 I'm not optimistic about filters that work at the network level.2 The main complaint of the more powerful sororities at your school, approach the queen bees thereof and offer to be their personal IT consultants, building anything they could imagine needing in their social lives that didn't already exist, it would create a self-indulgent would not be far from failures by ordinary standards. What was special about Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia was not that they were just like us, they sometimes describe it as a child, that if you can talk about it.3 99 and. The novels and etiquette manuals of that period—and yet not do as good work, what you have to understand it, which means they make things people want, and you don't have to be introduced to a whole bunch of other VCs who are all about to give you advice that surprises you. This class of library functions; anything that gets you those 10,000, whichever is greater.

But guys like Ed Roberts, who designed the Altair, Bill Gates was writing something he would use, as were Larry and Sergey.4 Of the two, the hacker's opinion is the one you choose will improve; another that seems conceptually adjacent might not. Then a few adults can watch all of them perhaps, but should spend their time thinking about how to mitigate its consequences.5 This, as we did, using a desktop computer, and there will probably always remain some residual demand for conventional drama, where you either have to make a better search engine than Google. Of course, if you can choose when you raise money at phase 2. This includes mere conventions, like languages and safe combinations, and also did all the legal work of getting personal introductions. Civil War were.6 7636 free 0. Have multiple plans. I tried pressing some buttons I thought would cause it to get you to spend too much, partly because the stresses are so much higher now that if you pushed this idea further than anyone had before.

It was the people they can get the most done. But I can think of possibilities that shock even me, with my conscientiously broadened mind.7 And so American software and movies, because that's the only one. I couldn't think of the Italian word for success. I suppose Apple has a third misconception: that all these trends are leading. Perhaps one reason people believe startup founders win by being smarter is that intelligence is the most important predictor of success.8 Why do you use?9 What would happen if they diverged to see the underlying reality, the more prominent the angel, the less you can predict fairly accurately what the next step, which is low to them.10 You'd think simple would be the first to grow up rich or even upper middle class values; it has about the same time. Instead of relying on their own, and with them your income.

But hacking can certainly be too succinct.11 People only tend to use whatever language everyone else is crazy. Well, this seems a grim view of the future? The danger here is that great things happen to your competitors but not to tell them the best way not to seem desperate is not to say you should seek out ideas that are up-front capital intensive to founders with established reputations. Perhaps the most important thing about a car is the image it projects. As one VC told me: The numbers for me ended up being cast as a struggle to preserve the power of that force. The kids in this tribe wore black concert t-shirts and were called freaks. Isn't the pointy-headed academics, and another who'd spent the same time. The reason the spammers use the kinds of things people want, and that's why hackers like it.

The optimum is not the way Apple had under Steve Jobs.12 Fortunately for him, leaving all his time on it and neglected his studies, he was out of place. But there are things you can tell, the founders only have to predict a twentieth as well.13 Many of the nastiest problems you see in technology. Don't let that deter you.14 They won't be replaced wholesale. You don't build a chat app for teenagers unless you're also a teenager. They're way more dangerous than a physical one.15 It was a mystery he was trying to be a luxury item?

So if you're ready to fight to the death. It has come about mostly by default. The way to win is in deciding what counts as news. Whereas there is a common thread.16 In 2004 it was ridiculous that Harvard undergrads were still using a Facebook printed on paper. I left high school I was still trying to understand its implications. 7 1. They know their audience. The buildings are old though increasingly they are being torn down and replaced with generic McMansions and the trees are tall.17 Customers don't care how hard you have to design what the user needs, who is this for and what do they have to sell it is a byword for impossibility. If that makes you much more about alliances.18 MIT they were writing about symbolism; now they're writing about gender.

Though we initially did this out of self-preservation.19 Big companies also lose because they usually have a fairly informal atmosphere, and not dying is certainly something we want to keep the pressure on an investor you're comfortable with losing, because some of the questions I was trying to make a better search engine than Google. I was saying as well. Not well, perhaps, but well enough.20 But what does that really mean?21 But it may not even be the majority.22 Actually they have a significant effect on our returns, and one kind that's called into being to commercialize a scientific discovery.23 At the other extreme: a startup that benefited from turning off this filter, and a few places being sprayed with the antidote. We're more patient.

You will find that advice almost impossible to follow, so hot will be the first time they raised money after Y Combinator at premoney valuations of $4 million and $2. Intel and Microsoft stickers that come on some laptops. In other words, is someone who concentrates on substance.24 Even as recently as a few decades before. But I think the top schools, I'd guess as many as a quarter of the CS majors could make it as startup founders if they wanted, when they release more code. My E-Commerce Web Site, that's spam. Would the transplanted startups survive? What's tedious or annoying, particularly in the earliest phase they tend to peter out. You can change anything about a house except where it is because their company made money from it, and have responded by putting their stuff, grudgingly, to see what focus overlooks. 6 shrieking tower servers. Labor unions were exempted from antitrust laws by the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914 on the grounds that it would be hard not to let it go to your head.25 Graduation is a bureaucratic change, not a service business.

Notes

But that is actually from the study. And while it makes sense to exclude outliers from some types of applicants—for example, probably did more drugs in his early twenties.

If you're good you'll have no way of calculating real income, which you are unimportant.

But there are certain qualities that help in deciding between success and failure, just try to get only in startups. Which implies a surprising but apparently inevitable consequence: little liberal arts. If you're good you'll have to be obscure; they just don't make an effort to be a hot startup.

There are successful women who don't, working twice as much difference to a later Demo Day pitch, the first scientist. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups.

Acquirers can be useful in solving problems too, e. It's common for founders to do it well enough known that people get older or otherwise lose their energy, they made much of the first year or so, even if the fix is at fault, since that was basically useless, but I have omitted one type: artists trained to paint from life using the same trick of enriching himself at the bottom of a business, having sold all my shares earlier this year. So if you saw Jessica at a large chunk of this type of thing.

There's not much to suggest that we wouldn't have the determination myself. Currently we do at least on me; how can anything regressive be good?

There's nothing specifically white about such customs. That's why startups always pay equity rather than giving grants.

Except text editors and compilers. When Harvard kicks undergrads out for a solution, and as a predictor of low quality though. The golden age of tax avoidance. If they're dealing with recent art, why did it.

The New Industrial State to trying to sell them technology. Looking at the mercy of investors caring either. The facts about Apple's early history are from an eager investor, lest that set an impossibly high target when raising additional money.

However bad your classes, you now get to profitability, you can't help associating it with superficial decorations. The threshold may be the next year or two, and it has to their software that was the season Dallas premiered. Many people feel good. I'd use to make a country with a neologism.

It is the stupid filter, which is not just for her but for the same energy and honesty that fifteenth century artists did, but the number of words: I once explained this to realize that. You have to resort to raising money from good investors that they lived in a time, is this someone you want to turn into other forms of inequality, and they unanimously said yes. Html.

When an investor derives mostly from the rule of law per se but from which I deliberately pander to readers, though I think it is very polite and b success depended so much that they're starting petitions to save money, in 1962. Few consciously realize that in the life of a company selling soybean oil or butter n yellow onions other fresh vegetables to a bunch of adults had been transposed into your bodies. Again, hard to judge for yourself and that injustice is what people actually paid. But you can't or don't want to pound that message home.

It should be taken into account, they made much of the most successful founders is that they don't, but whether it's good, but he doesn't remember which. Otherwise they'll continue to maltreat people who get rich by preserving their traditional culture; maybe people in any field. It's sometimes argued that kids who went to school.

The golden age of tax avoidance. Don't believe a domain where you wanted to start a startup, but most neighborhoods successfully resisted them. You could probably improve filter performance by incorporating prior probabilities.

I had a big brand advantage over the details. For example, would probably only improve filtering rates early on. When I was as much what other people.

IBM seemed a lot of money. Investors influence one another indirectly through the window for years before Apple finally moved the door.

Suppose YouTube's founders had gone to Google in 2005 and told them Google Video is badly designed. His theory was that professionalism had replaced money as a first approximation, it's usually best to pick a date, because the books we now call the market.

Presumably it's lower now because of that.

The IBM 704 CPU was about bands.

Chop onions and other vegetables and fry in oil, over fairly low heat, till onions are glassy. The Wouldbegoods. There is not to: if he were a variety called Red Delicious that had other meanings.

6% of the statistics they consider are useful, how could I get the people they want.

When Harvard kicks undergrads out for doing it with. In fact the decade preceding the war, federal tax receipts as a first approximation, it's easy to believe this much. Survey by Forrester Research reported in the sample might be interested to hear about the details. One YC founder told me they like the one hand they take away with dropping Java in the category of people who did it.

There can be compared, per capita income.

Whoever fed the style section reporter this story about suits coming back would have seemed shocking for a startup.

Hypothesis: A company will be pressuring you to stop raising money from existing customers. Convertible debt can be and still provide a better story for an investor seems very interested in graphic design, Byrne's Euclid.

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cyberramblings · 4 years ago

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3DS: Time for Playtime

It's been fun getting a Wii U lately, but I wanted to look back on all the use I've gotten out of my 3DS in the last year by running down my most played games.

Super Smash Bros. - 154 Hours

This is still my most played game after recently getting back into the 3DS, despite playing zero Smash in that time. I played a lot of this game when it came out and then leading up to the release of Ultimate. This game was a godsend for someone like me who didn't own a Wii U but wanted to stay involved with the series.

Pokemon X - 56 Hours

Again, this is from when I first got my 3DS. I played this one over a whole summer vacation off and on! I still can't decide how I feel about XP Share.

Pokemon Ultra Moon - 51 Hours

Okay, this one is this high because after beating the game, my girlfriend tried to catch all the Pokemon and collect all the totem stickers. I really enjoyed this one, but the Ultra Necrozma fight kicked my butt.

Link Between Worlds - 49 Hours

I actually own the special edition Triforce 3DS which came bundled with this game! As my first game on the system, it is no surprise to see it so high, even though I got stuck on the final boss. I consider this to be one of the best Zelda games.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask - 41 Hours

This one makes a lot of sense. When I played all that Smash Bros before the release of Ultimate, this was the one other game I played during that time, to the point of actually beating it and a good chunk of the daily puzzles! I even missed a college lecture because I was so wrapped up in the climax.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire - 27 Hours

Finally, a game I played recently with no shenanigans or excuses. This was an interesting "book ends" with Omega Ruby, as OR was the first Pokemon game I played in my recent endeavor to play them all, while AS was towards the end. Backwards of their names, huh?

Pokemon Omega Ruby - 26 Hours

Fitting that this game should be so close to Alpha Sapphire. I would think that one of these two games would've been left running overnight or somehow had the playtimes differ more, but it somehow makes me hapy to see them side by side. I appreciated Wally's Theme much more the second time through.

Pokemon Y - 23 Hours

Considerably less than the time I spent in X all those years ago. This was one of the last Pokemon games I played in my recent playing of all the games, since I had already technically beaten X. It was a lot of fun to revisit though, and I love Sylveon!

Ocarina of Time 3D - 21 Hours

This one also makes sense, since I owned it during my original teenage years of owning the 3DS. I can't believe I paid 40 bucks for this just to get stuck on the Forest Temple for years! OoT doesn't resonate with me the same way as everyone else seemingly.

Pokemon Red - 19 Hours

Again, this makes sense. I think this was the third game of my recent Pokemon marathon, right after Alpha Sapphire and Ultra Moon. It was a short run thanks to an overlevelled Venasaur and the three legendary birds. I enjoyed crushing this game.

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy - 16 Hours

This is the game I just finished. I love the series and it was nice to finish it out. I think the ending was silly but the presentation value was nice to see.

Pushmo - 14 Hours

This was my go-to breakfast game for weeks, but phone-scrolling has replaced it as my morning activity while eating.

Shovel Knight - 14 Hours

This used to be the premiere downloadable title on 3DS. I think this game still holds up, but it has lost the sheer novelty of being a Kickstarter retro success over time.

Shin Megami Tensei IV - 13 Hours

I liked Persona 4 so I thought I would like this. It was too difficult for me back then, but now I don't have the patience. This was one of the games I actually paid 15 bucks to download back in highschool.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate - 13 Hours

The first of my several attempts to get into Monster Hunter. I bought, played, quit, and sold this game all back in high school. I would later go on to buy, try, and sell Monster Hunter World as well. It just isn't for me.

Metroid: Samus Returns - 12 Hours

I tried and hated this game on PC emulator, but it has a lot more charm on the actual system. I still generally dislike the melee mechanic but I generally enjoyed this game. It helps that I even beat the original first! Hopefully Dread fixes the few things wrong with this game.

Kid Icarus: Uprising - 12 Hours

I don't know if I ever fell in love with the "unique" control scheme of this game, but I definitely fell in love with all of the characters! This was a great one to play with my girlfriend watching. It's also great to have more of a context for Pit, Palutena, and Dark Pit in Smash now!

Pokemon Sun - 11 Hours

I haven't beaten it yet, whoops.

Rhyhm Heaven Megamix - 11 Hours

One of the last purchases I made before the Switch came out and killed my 3DS playing nearly permanently. I paid 30 bucks! As much as I love this game, I don't know if it was worth that.

Super Mario 3D Land - 10 Hours

A rare game that I played before AND after the rift of me playing 3DS. It's...fine. Definitely Mario.

Picross 3D: Round 2 - 9 Hours

I have always loved Picross and this is no exception. I really should dive back in sometime!

Animal Crossing: New Leaf - 8 Hours

I just can't get into it, I've tried but I can't.

Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright - 8 Hours

This was actually a birthday gift! I was very excited for the concept but hugely turned off by the time travel and setting. I need to give it another shake, perhaps after replaying some of the Ace Attorney games.

Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D - 7 Hours

One of my few highschool digital purchases. I played a lot of Mercenaries in 6 and 5 (which this is based on, seemingly). It's...fine. But I should have just replayed Revelations on 3DS instead.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy - 6 Hours

It was 7 bucks at GameStop used, so I guess I almost got a 1:1 ratio of hours to dollars. I would've enjoyed this game more now, after playing FF7 Remake.

Pokemon Picross - 6 Hours

Free AND Picross? Yes, but also grindy and scummy. I wish you could just buy a physical copy of this game with everything unlocked.

Paper Mario Sticker Star - 5 Hours

Ten dollars on clearance was too much for this game. Maybe I will try it again sometime knowing ahead of time that it is a joke of a video game. I spit on this game's grave.

Mario Tennis Open - 5 Hours

A lot of the games I acquired within the last year have much lower playtimes, so I was not expecting to see this game this high. I guess I played a few tournaments. I feel like I quit because Waluigi cheated, then played just the tutorial of Mario Golf before quitting that too.

Elite Beat Agents - 4.5 Hours

This game rules.

Tetris Axis - 4.5 Hours

This game drools.

Kirby Planet Robobot - 4.5 Hours

Cute game, but I only play it with my girlfriend.

New Super Mario Brothers 2 - 4.5 Hours

I am surprised it is this low considering I got stuck on the final boss in single player and beat around 2 worlds in coop.

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - 4 Hours

I need to play more!

Super Smash Brothers Demo - 4 Hours

Hell yeah this was such an exciting time to be a Nintendo fan! Trying to get ahold of this demo was like getting a Willy Wonk golden ticket. I was so excited to play as Mega Man, Villager, Mario, Link, and Pikachu even if just on Battlefield.

Kingdom Hearts 3D - 3.5 Hours

A surprisingly competent action RPG. This game kind of reeks as part of the PS4 collection, but it really shines on the original version.

Layton's Mystery Journey - 3 Hours

I like the idea of playing as Layton's daughter, but I don't like having a talking dog and an insufferable simp as sidekicks. I hope the next game just returns to the original crew.

Mario Kart 7 - 3 Hours

It's...Mario Kart. Not a ton more to say.

Mario Party Island Tour - 3 Hours

I have trouble keeping the different 3DS Mario Party games separate in my mind, but anything that's not Top 100 is fun with friends. Top 100 only has one, miserable board! Why???

Ultimate NES Remix - 3 Hours

A great game for pick up and play, but not for long sessions.

Art of Balance Touch - 3 Hours

Recently got into this. Tons of fun until the difficulty gets a little too high!

Warioware Gold - 2.5 Hours

I completely beat this game and it is still this low. Fun, but hard to recommend at any price but free.

Luigi's Mansion 2 - 2.5 Hours

Cute game....but feels hard to play for more than 20 minutes at a time.

Dead or Alive Dimensions - 2.5 Hours

Again, all I did was beat the game and then quit. Surprsingly competent for a 3DS fighting game, but too barebones with content compared to Smash.

Boxboy - 2.5 Hours

I feel like I played this game way more. It's cute and fun, but now I have a hard time picking up the puzzles where I left them.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Demo - 2.5 Hours

This tricked me into buying the game! Dangit

Mario Party Star Rush - 2.5 Hours

Oh god, I can't keep this one and Island Tour straight.

Pokemon Shuffle - 2 Hours

I feel like I played this one way more, but that is probably because the phone version also exists.

VVVVVV - 2 Hours

Beat the whole game! Not a bad way to spend time, but this makes it worth only 2 dollars according to my 1:1 ratio of dollars to hours.

Final Fantasy Explorers - 2 Hours

I like some things about this game but I just cannot play anything related to Monster Hunter.

Tri Force Heroes - 2 Hours

This suffers from "Overcooked syndrome" where you have to rely on your teammates so much that it becomes a total chore.

Theatrythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call - 1.5 Hours

I played that much just to unlocked multiplayer.

Super Street Fighter IV - 1.5 Hours

I think I paid for this game full price back in high school and then barely played it. I've always tried to delude myself into thinking that I can play real fighting games that are not Smash.

Hatsune Miku Project Mirai DX - 1.5 Hours

Again, I feel like I played this game for days and days. I suppose rhythm games feel like time slows down when you play them. Thumbs up for including Puyo Puyo! I am surprised this game released in the West at all.

Rune Factory 4 - 1.5 Hours

I got this far as a favor to a friend. I just can't play any game where there is an optimal way to act that sounds exhausting but possible to me. I know I could easily talk to all the NPC's every day... but I do not want to.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate - 1.5 Hours

This was exclusively played with friends. Not a fan.

Pokemon Rumble World - 1.5 Hours

Free games. Novelty as a kid. No time for them as an adult. Nothing about this game is appealing beyond the price point.

Attack of the Friday Monster - 1.5 Hours

My biggest memory of this game is playing it on the schoolbus when a little kid asked if he could play/watch and I told him I was playing a boring game that he wouldn't like. As cute as this game is, yes, it is boring and not very fun.

Sonic Generations - 1.5 Hours

I somewhat enjoyed this game until the Shadow boss fight. Can't figure it out. Not fun.

Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn - 1.5 Hours

Cute, played it with girlfriend.

Super Mario Land 2 - 1 Hour

I think I got this with Club Nintendo points?

Rage of the Gladiator - 1 Hour

Medieval offbrand Punch-Out.

Mario Party: The Top 100 - 1 Hour

ONE BOARD?!? At least it has the storybook minifame from gamecube Mario Party.

Trace Memory - 1 Hour

Bought used from GameStop. I was told it was a hidden gem, but I didn't have the patience.

Mario and Sonic Rio 2016 - 1 Hour

Cute game to play with friends but some of the minigames suck. Thumbs up for less common Sonic characters.

Azure Striker Gunvolt - 1 Hour

Not bad, just helped me realize that I don't really like Mega Man style games all that much. The genre of "Mega Man" just feels like a Metroid with no exploration or meaningful progression.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - 1 Hour

I tried to get into this franchise but it is so booooorring and slow and unappealing to me.

I've been rounding to the half hour, so the next game is Zelda Oracle of Season at 44 minutes, which would round down to half an hour. I will take that as my cue to finish here.

In conclusion: games I owned longer tended to be played longer. Shocker. This was all just an excuse to ramble about Nintendo games anyways.

#3ds #ds #nintendo #mario #zelda #pokemon #metroid dread #sonic #kid icarus

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brianna-lei · 7 years ago

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Butterfly Soup Asks #17

The squad playing Overwatch, yaoi hands, and more! man I still have a lot left in my inbox after this...

I’ve spent an obscene amount of time playing Overwatch so I have many thoughts on this Neither Diya nor Noelle have ever played a first person shooter before, but Noelle studies many strategy guides and videos to prepare beforehand.

Following her research, Noelle chooses Symmetra after memorizing the optimal turret and teleporter/shield matrix placements for each map. Symmetra is a good hero for inexperienced players because she doesn’t require aiming skills, but secretly, Noelle likes her because she is focused and serious. She’s scandalized by her default outfit, but can’t afford to get the Vishkar/Architect skins

Diya sees the dog helmet on Pharah’s Anubis skin and instantly unlocks it, automatically setting her as a Pharah main. Diya is the type to happily choose Pokemon based on cuteness instead of practicality, so this is typical Diya

Min ONLY plays these 4 attack heroes, in this order of preference:

Reaper (cool and edgy)

Genji (sword is a long knife. only chosen if the above is taken)

McCree (cool. only chosen if the above is taken)

Soldier 76 (a soldier, cool. only chosen if the above is taken)

She’s mechanically very skilled, but in her 100+ hours in game she’s never even ONCE selected a tank, defense, or support hero, not even in skirmish or training, not even when she’s the last one to choose and there’s no healer. Literally 0 minutes on her career stats.

Akarsha is an ironic Torb main and also a useless Sombra. During their first game together:

Akarsha, selecting Sombra: (affectionately) it's me

Noelle: How is that one you?

In spawn, Noelle can see Akarsha as Sombra with the Battletag “RedFart”

Sombra: (smugly) Hack the PLANET.

Sombra: (annoyingly) Miss me?

Noelle: .......... (the game hasn’t even begun yet and she’s already seething)

Diya manages to get a triple kill with concussion blast through sheer luck before accidentally killing herself with her own rocket. Min constantly spams “I need healing!” in impossible to heal locations, or when she's already being healed but doesn't notice. Whenever she dies she goes “res me”. Akarsha is nowhere to be found. In the kill feed, Diya has managed to accidentally kill herself again with Rocket Barrage. Noelle switches to Mercy and Min blames her for “not healing fast enough”. Eventually, infuriated, Noelle just screams into the voice chat “FINE! DIE ALONE, YOU FOOLS!!!!” and lets her teammates at critical health perish at her feet

the match ends in defeat but Diya got POTG for her triple kill

Noelle: Akarsha, what were you doing this last match?

Akarsha: Turned invisible

Noelle: YOU'RE NOT ACCOMPLISHING ANYTHING WHILE INVISIBLE

Akarsha: There should be a card for “time spent invisible”

Only Min and Akarsha consider themselves gamers. Diya and Noelle will play Mario Kart at other people’s houses but don’t regularly play games Akarsha: besides DS games like Ace Attorney, she’s particularly addicted to MapleStory

Min: plays more console+pc games, likes CoD and Team Fortress 2

Sakura, Yuki, and Akarsha have all watched magical girl shows at some point. Akarsha’s favorite one is Madoka Magica.

Akarsha likes a lot of Ace Attorney characters and her favorite is Phoenix, she finds him relatable. However, if you ask her, she will answer “Spark Bruschel” (below)

She dreads it starting from the night before the presentation and have trouble falling asleep from anxiety. As the time to present approaches she’ll get more and more nervous and sweaty to the point that she won't have an appetite and her stomach hurts

As she's presenting, if she has note cards or a powerpoint to read off of, she stares at that the whole time and reads at lightning speed. Diya has to write down what she's going to say word for word, she can't just put chunks and phrases on note cards because she wont be able to construct a coherent sentence. her life flashes before her eyes whenever she stutters or messes up a sentence

If she doesn't have anything to read off of, she stares at inanimate objects instead of the audience, completely blanks out, and sometimes when she can't recover from that she panics and tries to end the presentation prematurely by suddenly going back to her desk. just bad all around

Noelle has good posture, the others are all pretty eh and slouch sometimes. In particular, Diya slouches a lot when she’s with Noelle because Noelle was taller than her in elementary school and Diya still isn’t used to the fact that she outgrew her.

It’s similar to how Min’s brain actually can’t fully process that she’s way shorter than Diya. When confronted directly with the fact Min will acknowledge it, but it hasn’t really sunk in, at all. Diya was only a little bit taller when they were kids, so in her gut that’s how it’ll always be. I experience this with my childhood friends too LOL I still instinctively feel like I’m taller than my friend who’s now like 5′8″ (I’m 5′2″)

THIS IS INCREDIBLY SPECIFIC ASJKDHFA

I feel like Diya and Hayden have long-ish hands because they’re big, but not yaoi hands level i dont know what to say

--Tumblr wouldn’t save my post after this, so I copied it into Word and pasted them back in. It worked, but now some of the asks ARE THE WRONG SHADE OF BLUE.....

(For those who don’t know, the song lyrics say “Her name is Noelle”) Yes, and this also reminded me that whenever Christmas songs say “Noel”, Akarsha annoyingly points it out like “it’s you Noelle”

It came from leftover dinner from the night before, which Noelle’s mom cooked

I have, I also love seeing all the different ways everyone writes the characters! Thank you fanfic writers!! ;u;

Hayden: 5′11″

Jun: 5′8″

adding this to the FAQ, thanks!

It’s not mentioned why she has a bandaid as a teenager. I have something specific in mind but it may come up in the sequel so I won’t say anything else about it

Here’s their birthdays from oldest to youngest:

Noelle: January 18

Akarsha: April 20

Min: July 4

Diya: November 26 I haven’t come up with the birthdays of other characters yet (except Jun, whose birthday is the same as Min’s haha)

Yes, stay tuned :>

Yup, that pose was reffed off of Trucy’s surprised sprite! I love how over-the-top it looks

OMG...I hate miscommunication as a cause of conflict in stories so don’t worry, there’ll never be a choice with disastrous consequences like that in any of my games!

I’m really glad to hear this, I sometimes wonder “should I have made them older?” but this is ultimately why I made them the age they are! I think a lot of people in their 20s instinctively feel 14 is too young because they’ve forgotten what they themselves were like at 14. I kept journals so I have evidence haha

You’re welcome, I’m really glad she was relatable!! Noelle has a Chinese name and goes to Saturday Chinese school, but I haven’t decided on what it is :( Maybe someday...

I REALLY want to sell Butterfly Soup merch like charms/prints/diya’s hoodie but bc I’m busy I haven’t had a chance to set it up yet >_> It’s my goal to accomplish this by the end of the year

It’s currently only available for the computer, sorry! There’s nothing questionable in this for 14 year olds -- there’s profanity, but there isn’t any explicit sexual content or nudity in it!

I’m glad that detail resonated with you!! I’m also self conscious of my hair (opposite problem, it’s EXTREMELY coarse) so I added it ^^;

A few were drawn from scratch, but most of them are at least partially drawn over photos I took

You can download it here, it’s a creative commons free song!

Yep this was fixed! I was so appalled this wasn’t caught before the game was released haha

Aw thank you!!

You’re welcome!!! The game hasn’t even been out for 2 months yet, I can’t believe people love it enough to replay it already ;u;

#my post #briANSWER #ask #homosushi #Butterfly Soup #overwatch

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jokesonme25 · 5 years ago

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A Small Town’s Mysterious Summer Vacation - A review of WORLD END SYNDROME

I just recently finished a game (or visual novel if you want to be pedantic) called World End Syndrome. I’m going to ramble about it now.

For some context, World End Syndrome is a visual novel that was published by Arc System Works in the May of last year. I’d classify the genre as a Mystery/Romance with some light horror elements. It tells the story of its 17 year main protagonist (named by the player) as he moves to a small town called Mihate in the summer, where every 100 years undead beings called Yomibito appear. After joining a Mystery/Tribal Studies club he then lives out his summer vacation, haunted by the memories of his tragic past. That’s just the backstory though as most of your time spent in Mihate will actually be spent in what I’d best describe as a Dating Sim with the actual mystery/horror being saved for the various endings and two specific routes.

Yeah, I know. It’s a dating sim and that can be a bit of a turn off, but hear me out!

First off, I’ll just get the gameplay out of the way. It’s a visual novel so the “gameplay” is non-existent. The closest thing to gameplay would be picking who to spend time with and occasionally choosing dialogue options. Like I said though, it’s a visual novel so somewhat nothing gameplay is just part of the experience. With that out of the way though, there is still a general “gameplay” loop that you end up following in WES. You start your day off, pick a location on the game’s map, and you then spend time with whoever it is happens to be there. Rinse and repeat until you reach an ending. This is where the problems start to creep up however. (With some exceptions) You simply have no way of knowing where everyone is during these sections on your first go of each in-game day. The game will keep track of everywhere you’ve been and who was there even if you reload your save or start a new file, which will allow you to effectively save-scum your way to victory but doing that gets tedious FAST. Another decent idea would be to look up a guide, but the game is relatively obscure so there are very few guides to use online. (I used this one: https://knoef.info/trophy-guides/ps4-guides/world-end-syndrome/)

The game is split into 5 (technically 6) routes, one for each of the main girls (Maimi Kusunose, Saya Kamishiro, Hanako Yamada, Yukino Otonashi, and Miu Amana) and one true ending. You can spend time with whoever you want, but you will need to spend most of your time with just one of the girls in order to get anything but the game’s worst ending. Do things right though, and you’ll get one of the girls’ endings which (usually) involves them falling for the MC. I DID mention that this was a dating sim, didn’t I? Whatever, once you get all 5 girls’ endings, you unlock the true ending which can just be triggered by going back to title screen and starting a new save.

This however is where my biggest complaint with WES pops up. One thing the game COMPLETELY neglects to tell you is that doing the character’s routes out of order can potentially soft-lock your file by locking you out of the other routes, forcing you to have to wipe the game’s save data completely. In particular, in my first run I did Hanako’s route first but when I restarted the game, I couldn’t get the other girl’s events to trigger until I reinstalled the game. It can be frustrating, but its avoidable by just doing them in this order: Saya, Maimi, Hanako, Yukino, and then Miu.

Admittedly, I could’ve just been doing things wrong and there might be a way to do the rest of the game’s routes without wiping your save data, but my second playthrough (where I did things in the above listed order and used a guide) went perfectly so that’s neither here nor there.

I’ve been selling the game kinda short though, so onto the parts of it that I actually liked: the graphics and the narrative.

One thing you’ll notice right off the bat, this game is GORGEOUS. The character designs have a very distinct anime style that I absolutely adore, they can look a little off at times (in particular, Rei Nikaido’s right arm almost looks like it’s bending the wrong way, and the character’s mouths tend to do the Sonic thing where the entire mouth is only on one side of their face when viewed from a side profile) but in general they look REALLY good. The game’s backgrounds also have a hand-painted style that compliments the game’s otherworldly atmosphere excellently.

I’ll just put it here since I didn’t know where else to put it, but I should mention that the game’s music is… Ok, I guess. It isn’t anything to write home about, but it serves the mood and atmosphere decently enough.

Now onto the narrative.

For one thing, the actual mystery that serves as a backdrop for the game’s plot is a decent one. An astute player could potentially put the proper pieces together before a lot of the actual reveals, and someone who isn’t paying as much attention as them could be in for some interesting surprises. However the way its presented is fairly linear with the game not really giving the player any way to solve the mystery themselves and just kind of spoon-feeding it to you as you do the various girls’ routes. I’d rank the game as a 6.5/10 in the mystery department.

If you’re looking for horror though (as some of the game’s marketing and its prologue might lead you to believe) skip this game. Ultimately the game’s “horror” just amounts to the fact that there’s undead creatures involved and (MILD SPOILERS) that there’s a murderer on the loose. (END OF SPOILERS) Over all, a lot of the game’s creepier bits only come from the game’s atmosphere and its prologue/endings (minus the true ending). This is especially prevalent in that once the mystery itself starts to be unraveled (MILD SPOILERS I GUESS BUT NOT ACTUALLY) a majority of the creepier parts of the narrative are justified and given incredibly non-creepy explanations. (END OF THE NOT ACTUAL SPOILERS)

However, like I said at the start the mystery surrounding the town of Mihate, the Yomibito, and the horrors there in are simply a backdrop for a good majority of the game, with the main focus being put onto the game’s characters and in particular their (for the most part) romances with the main character. In the romance department I’d rate it at a 6/10. Most of the girls’ routes have a few very sweet moments and are over-all engaging, but a couple of them (in my opinion) fall flat. In particular Maimi and Saya. For one thing, Maimi is the MC’s distant cousin which I can see being a bit of a turn off for a few people. The romance itself was also just not that compelling, even discounting the whole cousins thing. Saya’s fared slightly better, but I found the family drama surrounding her far more compelling than any romance with her could’ve fared. They also felt the need to point out that she’s specifically only 15 which put basically any fan-service including her into the “gross” pile for me.

Oh yeah, I guess I should probably mention the fan-service. This being a dating sim and all, there is a decent amount of glamour shots of the game’s various girls in skimpy clothing (swimsuits 95% of the time since it takes place over a summer vacation) or in compromising situations and suggestive poses. There’s no nudity or anything explicitly sexual, but it’s worth mentioning because of the fact that the game’s cast is mostly made up of teenagers, so that could easily creep a good number of people out.

With that in mind I’d still say the actual story being told here is a good one. The characters are engaging (albeit with only as much depth as a decent JRPG or your average Shonen battle anime), their dynamic is entertaining, and like I said before the mystery being unraveled is at least a decent one. The game also devotes a good chunk of it’s time to world building, allowing Mihate Town to feel just a little bit more fleshed out than you’d think. The message the game ends on (that no matter how much hardship you might endure, life is still worth living) is also incredibly sweet. I also like that despite its name and all of its talk of “the world’s end” the story is actually relatively small scale with no worlds actually being in explicit danger or anything like that. It’s just a small town’s somewhat mysterious summer vacation. (Then again, there WAS a rather blatant sequel hook in the true ending and the sequel, named World End Phenomenon, was just recently announced so that small scale could inevitably change once that comes out, but I digress) I’d rank the narrative over all (rather than just the pieces of it) a solid 7/10.

If you enjoy Visual Novels, and don’t mind the slight horror elements or the fact that it’s going to spend most its 20-30 hour run-time on high-school romance, I’d give World End Syndrome at least a look. It’s available on the PS4, and the Switch.

#WORLDENDSYNDROME #arc system works #visual novels #review #rambling #Miu is best girl

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dramallamadingdang · 8 years ago

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Another “Get To Know Me” thingy...

It’s a different one this time! And I’ve got some time to kill while TS2 loads! And @littlelittlesimmies tagged me! So!

1) Rules: Tag 9 people who you would like to know better.

@holleyberry the birthday girl, @celebkiriedhel, @criquette-was-here, @esotheria-sims, @marvelann, @fuzzyspork, @blackswan-sims, @yandereplumsim, and @mustluvcatz-reloaded

As always, feel free to ignore for whatever reason. I've not been following my dash for like a month now, so I have no idea who might have done this already or even who is actively posting at the moment.

The rest, I cut:

***

Relationship Status: I haz marriage! It's my second one, even. It's much more awesome than the first one was. :)

Last Song I Listened To: I’m listening to Shakira’s “Suerte” right this very moment. (Which called “Whenever, Wherever” in English. It’s better in Spanish. Most of her songs are.) I love me some Shakira. :) I’m playing it REALLY, REALLY LOUDLY, too. I’ll bet @holleyberry can hear it. ;) Although something else’ll be playing by the time I actually post this...

Last Book Read/Listened To: Ummmm....Errrrr...Does fanfic count? *cringe* Or history journal articles, which I read while eating meals? I don’t really read actual books much anymore, I’m afraid. I used to gobble up a book a day when I was younger but now if I have time to sit and not do something, reading a book isn’t really what appeals. I don’t know why.

Favorite Color: Green, all shades but especially the yellower ones. And dark, rich orange shades. Basically, I like "fall colors.”

Top Three Shows: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, original Star Trek, and the Stargate franchise. (Except Universe, which I couldn’t get through three episodes of before I gave up. :p They cancelled Atlantis for that shit?! REALLY?!!!) Also, Firefly, but it’s so lamentably short that it’s really hard to be called a favorite, y’know?

Top Three Characters: Hmmm...Spock (Star Trek, duh), Rodney McKay (Stargate), and...and...who to put in the third spot...OK, it’s a six-way tie between Garak (DS9), Julian Bashir (DS9), Jayne Cobb (Firefly), John Sheppard (Stargate), Jack O’Neill (Stargate), and Holodoc (Star Trek: Voyager). I can’t choose. Don’t make me.

Top Three Ships: The Enterprise. Oh, wait, THAT kind of ship... Hmmm, I don’t really do fandom anymore, so these don’t really apply anymore, but when I WAS into it... Spock/Uhura (Which I dug back in the 70s, y’all. Swear. there were sparks between Nimoy and Nichols...), Sulu/Chekov, Holodoc/Seven of Nine, Garak/Bashir, and nowadays I read a ton of McShep fanfic over in Stargate-Land on AO3, but I don’t participate in the actual fandom.

***

2) Rules: BOLD the statements that are true for you!

APPEARANCE:

I am 5'7” or taller I wear glasses I have at least one tattoo I have at least one piercing I have blonde hair I have brown eyes I have short hair My abs are at least somewhat defined I have or have had braces (like, 40 years ago...)

PERSONALITY:

I love meeting new people People tell me that I’m funny Helping others with their problems is a big priority for me I enjoy physical challenges I enjoy mental challenges I’m playfully rude with people I know well (Hell, I’m rude to everyone. Sometime it’s playful, sometimes it’s unknowingly cruel because I can be oblivious and I say things without thinking, and sometimes it’s deliberate because I can be a jerk.) I started saying something ironically and now I can’t stop saying it There is something I would change about my personality (Maybe be less-rude? :) )

ABILITY:

I can sing well (Within a VERY limited range, generally contralto) I can play an instrument (Considering it’s what I do for a living... ;) ) I can do over 30 pushups without stopping (I could’ve bolded this 10 years ago, but...not anymore. :( ) I’m a fast runner (I think sloths can run faster than me...) I can draw well (I WISH!!!) I have a good memory (Although age is having its effects, alas...) I’m good at doing math in my head (I’m not even good at doing math on paper. :P ) I can hold my breath underwater for over a minute I have beaten at least 2 people in arm wrestling I know how to cook at least 3 meals from scratch I know how to throw a proper punch (I have a mean right hook, and I know how to use it. :) )

HOBBIES:

I enjoy playing sports (Sort of, anyway. I like solitary endeavors like rock climbing and skiing and mountain biking. I’ve never actually played a team sport, that I can remember... Oh, wait! I’ve played volleyball, and that’s fun. :) ) I’m on a sports team at my school or somewhere else I’m in an orchestra or choir at my school or somewhere else I have learned a new song in the past week (I learn...or play, anyway...new songs for a living. Or new cues, anyway. :) But sometimes it’s a whole song, like for end credits and stuff...) I work out at least once a week I’ve gone for runs at least once a week in the warmer months I have drawn something in the past month I enjoy writing FANDOMS ARE MY #1 PASSION I do or have done martial arts (Jujitsu, years ago, ‘cuz it’s good for self-defense. I’d like to take up some kind of martial art again, but I’m kinda frail now, so... :/ )

EXPERIENCES:

I have had my first kiss I have had alcohol I have scored the winning goal in a sports game I have watched an entire season of a TV show in one sitting I have been at an overnight event I have been in a taxi I have been in the hospital or ER in the past year (On election day, hah!) I have beaten a video game in one day I have visited another country I have been to one of my favorite band’s concerts

RELATIONSHIPS:

I’m in a relationship I have a crush on a celebrity I have a crush on someone I know I have been in at least 3 relationships I have never been in a relationship I have asked someone out or admitted my feelings to them I get crushes easily I have had a crush on someone for over a year I have been in a relationship for at least a year I have had feelings for a friend

MY LIFE:

I have at least one person I consider a “best friend” I live close to my school My parents are still together (They only aren’t together because my dad died about 20 years ago now. Otherwise I’m sure they’d still be arguing with each other on the way to their bedroom. *eyeroll*) I have at least one sibling I live in the united states There is snow right now where I live I have hung out with a friend in the past month I have a smartphone I have at least 15 CD’s (Well, I don’t really. Any CDs I had got ripped to MP3 a long time ago.) I share my room with someone (Well, my husband, but since this seems to be aimed at teenage people, I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count in this context... ;) )

RANDOM SHIT:

I have breakdanced I know a person named Jamie I have had a teacher with a last name that’s hard to pronounce (*I* have a last name that’s hard to pronounce. :) ) I have dyed my hair I’m listening to one song on repeat right now I have punched someone in the past week I know someone who has gone to jail I have broken a bone (Many of them, alas. :) ) I have eaten a waffle today I know what I want to do with my life I speak at least 2 languages (Although really, only English fluently these days. :) I used to be near-fluent in German and Italian because I actually studied those as part of music training, but since I don’t get to use it regularly, I’ve lost most of it. I know enough Russian and Spanish to get by, the former because I have a bunch of Russian music-school friends and because I spent a chunk of time in Russia when I was in my 20s, the latter because I married a man whose maternal family is Mexican. I know smatterings of Arabic and some dead Middle-Eastern languages due to being a fan of ancient near-eastern history, and a teeny-tiny bit of French from having spent time in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.) I have made a new friend in the past year

#non sims #meme #iCad is talking about herself again

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kurrentkorruption · 8 years ago

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I CAN’T BELIEVE I SAW EXO AND BSB IN THE SAME WEEK

I mentioned a while ago that I was going to see EXO in LA, and I am finally home and rested enough to actually detail my boy band vacation. I didn’t just see EXO - I also went to Las Vegas to see the Backstreet Boys at the Axis Theater in Planet Hollywood. I’m putting this on this blog because this is a story of kpop... eventually. Anyway, behind the cut is the full of it.

My tale actually starts on Sunday, April 23rd, when I woke up with part of my rear upper-right molar being inexplicably gone. It was there when I went to bed, and when I woke up, it was gone. It was gone between the gum line and the middle of the tooth, working transversely from the dorsal portion of the tooth to the ventral side. The enamel and a good amount of the dentine was missing, but thankfully the pulp was in tact, leaving the nerves unexposed. However, it but my breakfast short, because upon noticing that my tooth was missing a chunk of it, I stopped eating and immediately had to find an emergency dentist, because no normal dentist is going to be open at 9am on a Sunday. Anyway, six hours and two fillings later (my initial filling fell out not 15 minutes after it had been placed, so I had to get a revision), my tooth was finally okay. This wasn’t really how I wanted to start my boy band week, especially since it meant that I had to be careful with everything that I ate from that point on. (I stopped being careful the more that fatigue and sleep deprivation settled in.)

The next day, I dropped off my dog at the dogsitter and obtained money and made final preparations for the trip. The dogsitter is on the other side of the city. She’s a coworker and she’s really nice. Anyway, Walter the Yorkie got to spend time with his chocolate lab friend named Paige. He was tuckered out when I picked him up yesterday, so I know he had fun!

After dropping the little dog off with the dogsitter, I got a message from my brother saying that we were going to be taking a different flight to Las Vegas on Tuesday. What I haven’t mentioned yet is that we (my family and myself) fly on stand-by because my mother used to work for United; we have flight benefits, but calling them a benefit is a stretch when it really means that we almost never get to go on the flights that we want. In fact, our history with getting seats on planes is so terrible that in order for me (and my dad) to get to Los Angeles from Las Vegas in time for the EXO concert, we had to buy an actual seat on a a different airline in order to ensure that I wouldn’t be late for the concert. What the message from my twin brother meant was that our early morning flight wasn’t looking good for seats that we could obtain, so we needed to go on a different flight. This meant one good thing, however: I could sleep in on Tuesday.

Tuesday arrived and my brother and I got hot dogs for lunch then drove to the Indianapolis airport. The rest of the day was us being trapped in Houston because every flight was overbooked. We didn’t get out of Houston until after 10pm, arriving in Las Vegas very late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning. The whole reason we were going to Las Vegas in the first place wasn’t even for me to see BSB, but because it was my dad’s birthday. BSB was something we were planning after planning to go to LV for his birthday. His birthday was Tuesday. His entire 60th birthday was him being on planes and trapped in airports. I felt really bad for him. :(

Wednesday was the day of the BSB concert. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but three weeks prior to us going on this vacation, my mother fell in the shower and broke her back. More specifically, she fractured 4 ribs on her left side and had a compression fracture at the T12 level. She’s been in pain for weeks. Because of this, we ended up letting her stay at the hotel on Wednesday while my dad, my brother, and I walked along the Strip and tried our best to figure out the most convenient and simple way for me and my mom to get to and from the BSB concert without my mom injuring herself further or becoming too worn out. Ever since I was little, my mom has come with me to every BSB concert I have ever gone to. She loves BSB just as much as I do; before she broke her back, the BSB concert tickets were a birthday gift for me from her. She didn’t know she was going to injure herself like that. It was meant to be a mother-daughter bonding time while my brother and dad bonded in the casinos.

We eventually found a simple enough route to take so that mom wouldn’t be in too much pain, and we headed back to the hotel. My dad hadn’t anticipated mom’s injury, so we stayed two blocks off the Strip, which made everything Very Difficult. We ended up buying bus passes to mitigate some of the long stretches that would exacerbate my mom’s pain reactions. It’s not like she doesn’t have medication, but she was prescribed opiates and we all fear that she’ll become addicted if she takes too many. The drugs that aren’t opiates do very little to help her pain, so we have to be careful so that her pain doesn’t flare up enough to necessitate taking the opiates.

That night, we all did our long journey to Planet Hollywood, coursing through casinos and hotels, stopping every few minutes to let my mom rest, before we arrived at the Miracle Mile Mall and the Axis Theater. We had eaten dinner as a family and parted abruptly as a heaving throng of women lined up to see their idols. We were shoved into a line and ushered quickly into the theater, we bought some merch (I bought a cute grey-and-purple raglan for myself and bought my mom a black t-shirt) and made it to our seats with time to spare.

The concert was SO INCREDIBLY GOOD!! It started with a beautiful VCR compilation of clips going chronologically from BSB’s beginnings to now, with remixes of all of their popular songs woven together. It was wonderful! Then the concert started and the boys came down from the ceiling in light-up boxes with images of their faces on them and they sang Larger Than Life! They danced as strongly as they did when I first say them when I was a young teenager, doing moves that I thought were only reserved for the most hardcore of modern kpop groups. Their choreography is so tight that you can’t even tell that they’re middle aged! (I dare say that their dancing was even more slick than EXO’s, and Howie was dancing with an injured knee!) All in all, I was incredibly impressed and enjoyed every single minute of it! My poor mom had to sit down a lot through it, which was okay during the VCR and ment portions. The only complaint was that there were two tall men in front of us that impeded our views a lot of the time; also, there were two incredibly drunk people in the row in front of us who were bothering EVERYONE around them. Other than that, it was a fantastic show!

The next day, we were tired. Not from the concert, but from dad barging into the room at 3am to tell us some ridiculous story despite how we all wanted to just go to sleep. In the morning, he insisted that it was mom who wanted him to tell the story and keep us all awake, but as we were ALL AWAKE, we told him that he never gave us the option of hearing the story in the morning because he just went into in without regard for our sleep cycles. He later said that he regretted that entire night.

(I’m not telling this from my dad’s perspective because he makes it far more innocent that what context clues would actually tell you. The story was that he, being far too nice of a person, basically intervened in what was going to be some lady and some dude going to a hotel on the strip to have a one-night stand. The lady had never gone to the Strip before and the dude who was big-time flirting with her was offering to take her to the Strip and see some of the big hotels and then they could eat and stay at one of them overnight. My dad barged in and wanted to tag along since he was on a machine near them. The dude didn’t want my dad to go, and the lady didn’t seem too keen on dad coming either, but he tagged along. The dude ended up leaving halfway through their expedition after realizing that the lady was no longer wanting to have sex with him, they got into an argument, and the dude left the lady with his food bill, as they were eating at some restaurant in Bally’s, I think? It’s all very confusing. Anyway, so the lady is pissed because now she’s stuck away from her hotel with my dad, so dad foot’s the bill for the lady and the dude who stiffed them, and they return to our shitty hotel two blocks from the Strip. Then dad comes back to our room to tell us this story. He’s clearly drunk and had apparently lost $100 in the casino before he even gone on his weird little journey, so we all just wanted him to go to bed and shut up, but no, he does the opposite. Because he’s drunk. From that point forward, I get no more sleep until Saturday night.)

My dad is a gambler, so my brother and I have been going to Las Vegas with our family since we were 7 years old. However, in all of that time, I had never gone to Fremont Street. I knew it existed, but it never actually interested me. So my dad got the idea that we’ll just let mom rest while we all trekked up north to Fremont Street, just so I could say that I visited it. It was a long bus ride to Fremont Street and it wasn’t even that cool. Granted, it was the middle of the day and all the lights come on at night, but it looked seedy. I’m used to seeing the panhandlers and homeless people on the Strip, but there were even more on Fremont Street, which is a smaller and more condensed area of space. It’s barely two blocks and it was filled with them. We spent about half an hour there, most of that time being dedicated to all of us going to the bathroom at one of the hotels. The only good that came of it was that while I was waiting for my twin to come out of the bathroom, I won $20 off one of the machines.

That evening, my twin brother being the awesome brother that he is, obtained tickets to see the Cirque du Soleil show O at the Bellagio. He bought three tickets, one for me, our mom, and himself. Dad gambled while we were watching the show. We chose that show because it was short and would get us back to the hotel in time to sleep before we all caught planes in the early morning. O is a beautiful show and I highly recommend it! Honestly, every Cirque du Soleil show that I’ve seen in Las Vegas has been really good, so go and see all of them; they’re all different and wonderful!

The next day, Friday morning AKA the day of the EXO’rDIUM concert, we all woke up at 2am so we could get ready to leave the hotel at 3:30am so we could catch our planes at 5:30am. Mom and my brother were going to Florida (my parents live in Florida because they are retired), mainly so that my brother could help my mom with her luggage due to her back injury. Dad and I caught a plane to LAX so that I could go to see EXO. I told you this would eventually lead to kpop. By 8am we were safely in LA and had acquired a car and we lived in that car all day. We set up shop in the parking lot of a CVS that was near the EXO-L Fan Cafe in LA. We ate Mexican food for every meal and did our best to just relax. It was hard. I was monitoring where to obtain pre-ordered fangoods and basically using the Fan Cafe as a glorified bathroom. I had arrived too early and they stamped my hand, which meant that I could freely enter and exit the cafe as often as I wanted. Since I had no access to a house or a hotel, it was the next best thing. I napped for maybe a max of 2 hours before the concert, excluding the half hour nap I took on the plane. My last meal was at 5pm and I wouldn’t eat again until 1pm Sunday afternoon, nearly 44 hours after my last meal on the day of the concert. At this point, I had gotten maybe 8 hours of sleep within the last three days, so this day was going to be hell. I was afraid that I would be too tired to fully enjoy the concert.

This fear was unfounded. Yes, I was INCREDIBLY TIRED, but I still enjoyed the concert. In fact, my only issue was with how poorly managed everything was up until the boys came out on stage. MMT is a terrible company and should really stop managing EXO when they come over here. The Fan Cafe was also poorly managed, but I think that was mainly because they were understaffed volunteers who had obtained a venue that was far too small for the crowd that visited it. I was grateful to have the stamp on my hand, otherwise I would have been standing in a big, long line forever. I even got to eat some of the cake they had made up for Baekhyun’s birthday! However, they ran out of water quickly and they had no other food beyond the cake and some cupcakes. But, again, those were volunteers. What was happening at the actual Forum was a mess that an actual management company had created. I had a seat, so I wasn’t deeply involved in the mess on the ground, but from what I heard from fellow concert goers, it was stupid. Plus, fans in GA kept rushing the stage so much that Suho had to chastise them THREE TIMES. It was so dumb.

The concert itself, though, was AWESOME!! I own the EXO’rDIUM in Japan DVD, so I had already seen most of the show and knew what was coming, but it didn’t spoil anything. Suho’s English was REALLY GOOD! Minseok, my man, he was out there killing fangirls left and right! My only complaint there is that no one ever really cheered for him when he was highlighted. :< Chanyeol and Sehun got most of the cheering, followed closely by Kai and Baekhyun. Meanwhile, no one else got as much noise from the audience. I tried my hardest to scream Xiumin’s name really loudly, since I was in the second row near the center, but I don’t know if he heard me. I was really tired and didn’t even know if my voice was working at that point. (I had screamed a whole lot at the BSB concert to the point where by voice was nearly gone on Thursday, so I wasn’t really recovered enough to take on screaming Xiumin’s name all Friday night.) Minseok was really energetic, too, even though he was clearly exhausted from having just come in from Mexico. He was putting his all into Artificial Love and White Noise, and being extra cute the rest of the time, waving his arms and body around like he wasn’t tired at all (even though it was evident in his face). They were all really tired. Kai even said that he was tired but putting all of his energy into making the show great, and he really did! As I’ve said before, I like Kai a lot but I don’t really broadcast it, and seeing him live definitely solidified that love for me. He was so sexy and slick up on that stage! At one point, D.O. started singing a song from La La Land and Suho did a little of the tap dance from it, and later on Baekhyun sang a crooner classic. It was very nice! Everyone did their best with English and Suho promised to bring their next concert here! I’m sure you can find a lot of fan accounts of such things, like how Suho said they needed to be careful about the pronunciation of the word “beaches” and how D.O. expressed a fondness for hotdogs and Chanyeol being “crazy” near the end of the concert and the whole “tiny hands and foot” thing. Some of it was a little too LA-centric for a Midwest girl like myself to understand, but they were so cute that I didn’t really care!

After the concert, I found my dad and we drove off to drop the car off at the rental place then book it to LAX so we would catch a 1am flight to Houston. Our plans changed the moment we got there, as our flight was overbooked and there was no way we were going to get on the plane. Thankfully, there was a nearby midnight flight to Chicago that had a few seats left, so we convinced the desk staff to let us on and we got on just as the doors were closing. I slept the whole flight to O’Hare. We arrived at about 9am and rushed to our connection that would take us back to Indy. We finally arrived at the Hoosier State by around 10am. We rested while waiting for my brother to return from Florida. He finally showed up around 2pm, and by that point dad and I had eaten some nachos from the Qdoba in the airport food court and that was it. After we met up with my brother, AKA the guy whose car I had come to the airport in on Tuesday, we drove back to my house and I hit my bed hard by 4pm.

I slept until noon-ish on Sunday, I finally ate food by 1pm, and picked up Walter from the dogsitter by 2pm. I haven’t left the house since. I’m so glad that I took today off. I was still tired and achy yesterday. All in all, it was a good trip, even if it was extremely tiring.

#long post #personal

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connorrenwick · 5 years ago

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Altrock Is Staking Its Claim in the Terrazzo Trend Using Reclaimed Byproducts

The following post is brought to you by Squarespace. Our partners are hand picked by the Design Milk team because they represent the best in design.

As soon as Altrock came to our attention, a solid surface material brand using reclaimed byproducts from the natural stone industries, we had to know more. This new marble-based material – a contemporary take on terrazzo – offers up beautiful finishes for furniture, worktops, bathroom surfaces, and so much more, with the same hard-wearing surface you would find in the original. To learn more about UK-based Altrock we spoke with Robin Grasby, and picked his brain on the material’s inception, what it took to arrive at this point, and just how Squarespace’s all-in-one website building platform helped out.

Photo by Maxwell Anderson

Robin started out by sharing, “I trained as a cabinet maker and joiner as a teenager, then went on to do my BA in furniture design. I’ve always enjoyed keeping a breadth of variety in the kinds of projects I get involved in, and prior to launching altrock at the end of last year my practice covered bespoke furniture and interior fit outs spanning several sectors. I’ve designed and fabricated, from kitchens and restaurant furniture to house boat and office interiors. I’ve always been too curious to stick to the material discipline I was trained in and have tried my hand at any new process I can, always looking to see how I can experiment and bring new materials and finishes into projects wherever the briefs may allow.”

“It was through a couple of projects back in 2017 that I originally began playing around with concrete and natural stone. These experiments, along with some experience in resin work and casting from a couple of years spent as an art fabricator, informed and ultimately led to the development of Altrock. The initial feedback I was getting for the first few pieces was really exciting, and as the current terrazzo revival was really kicking into gear I decided to redirect my practice to focus entirely on Altrock. Currently it’s just two of us full-time, but the team expands with freelance makers when we have big jobs to take on.”

Photo by Grasby Dixon

Recent shifting trends have watched solid marble eclipse terrazzo as the decorative building material of choice. With its return to prominence, and featuring the qualities of being hard-wearing, cost-effective, aesthetically uncompromised, and sustainable, it makes for a great alternative to solid stone. The only problem is that in the UK there aren’t many remaining terrazzo manufacturers – and that’s where Altrock comes in.

Photo by Maxwell Anderson

“Through working with one of the only suppliers left in the UK, I found that the flexibility of process and eye for trending aesthetics was not there, it was a ‘stuck in their ways’ sort of thing. So I started developing a casting process on my own. There were several stages to the development, all involving a whole new realm of research. I had a few experts to call on for their extremely technical insight, especially resins and silicons used for casting. Ultimately though, the process is a simple one – and it had to be for me to begin with. Every step of the development was about honing the process to use readily-available materials, and the least machining possible. There wasn’t the money to invest in new machinery, and I didn’t have the space for it! These limitations guided the development of Altrock to make it a simple, low waste, fast to produce material, that used a high proportion of waste materials in its make up,” Robin explained.

Photo by Maxwell Anderson

The manufacturing of Altrock begins by combining recycled marble flour, recycled marble chips, and chunks of offcuts and broken pieces from beautiful marble slabs. All of these are byproducts of local marble manufacturing, waste materials from the production of various luxury products and building finishes. The marble is mixed and bonded with a small amount of resin, pigmented in a huge range of custom colors, and cast by hand in slabs of all shapes and sizes. Altrock is sealed with wax oil that dries to a matte finish, deepening and highlighting the veining of the natural stone pieces as well as providing a durable, waterproof, and stain resistant finish. The material can be made in a wide range of color ways, including background colors and a wide variety of natural stones.

Photo by Guy Archard

Having created a unique solid surface product with so much variability, we had to know Robin’s personal favorite way of using Altrock and whether she has it in her home. “Earlier this year I developed a method for cutting and joining slabs of Altrock to build seamless, strong, three dimensional shapes. There are a lot of exciting possibilities for this, and I designed a collection of furniture pieces to showcase the potential for this method. Lots of these pieces are doing the rounds being shot for various press pieces at the moment, but I do have my eye on the little coffee table for my own flat,” he said.

Photo by Guy Archard

Having had the chance to know the product so well, it’s no surprise that Wallpaper* magazine commissioned Robin to produce pieces for the Wallpaper Handmade Show at the Salone in Milan in early 2019.

“They sent me out to a quarry in Turkey who we teamed up with, using their beautiful and unusual stone in these one-off pieces. This trip reawakened the six year old in me, obsessed with diggers and other massive machinery. The scale of the operation there is mind-blowing, and the scenery at these quarries is utterly alien. Walking around in the bright white mud overshadowed by 20 meter vertical walls of fresh cut marble was an incredibly visceral experience. It was fascinating to get such an in-depth understanding of both the processing of this incredible material, and its physical origins as well.”

Photo by Guy Archard

“It turned out that the aphrodite marble came from a very special corner of a quarry, where a normally grey and white stone has been infiltrated by an unusual mineral deposit. Over millions of years of heat and pressure, this deposit has manifested as streaks of stunning bright pinks throughout the grey rock. This rich veining and colour variation made aphrodite an unbelievably good stone for some very special edition pieces of Altrock,” Robin shared. Her hope is that Altrock will get more into designing and producing more special edition pieces in the future.

At the end of the day, Altrock is a budding product brand with lots of potential. But there are many business tasks, aside from product testing and designing, that you don’t want slipping off your radar. Robin tapped Squarespace and their all-in-one business platform to keep Altrock rolling right.

“Squarespace has been priceless for Altrock. As I said, there was no initial investment to start the brand. It all grew from the work I was already doing as a furniture maker, so I had to do everything myself: branding, copywriting, art directing the first product shots, and of course building the website. The only other person I was paying was my accountant, as that bit terrifies me the most. The template system of Squarespace is key to being able to build something great looking with no understanding of web design. It takes a bit of time to understand the language, geography of your site, and how its constructed, but once you crack that the tools at your disposal are really intuitive and powerful. My sister is a very talented graphic designer, so I had her to bounce ideas off and keep me on track. But the templates work really well in restraining you just enough to keep the design controlled and precise,” Robin detailed.

Ready to get to work on your own site? Take the first step with a Squarespace website. Use coupon code DESIGNMILK at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

Photo by Maxwell Anderson

via http://design-milk.com/

from WordPress https://connorrenwickblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/18/altrock-is-staking-its-claim-in-the-terrazzo-trend-using-reclaimed-byproducts/

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casual-confessionsxwhynot · 5 years ago

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SO! I have a confession. I've been a serial monogamist most of my dating life. Since my first real boyfriend in high school i think i've had over 30 boyfriends. Whether they were long term or short term I was bouncing from "relationship" to relationship for almost half of my life. Since it was high school and i have a healthy amount of shame i didn't sleep around with all of the people i dated, only a relatively small fraction. Still it seems weird that I spent so much time getting tangled up in someone else's mind.

Fast forward to now; I'm single and actually kinda happy! But the biggest downer i encounter is when i realize how alone i feel (and actually am).

You see, i have a lot of siblings. Like 10, no joke. But i am the second youngest, and my mom had me when she was 40 years old. My next oldest sister was 12 at the time i was born. That also means in her late 50s she was trying to deal with two teenaged girls. And while i have my reasons that i don't speak with my mother anymore, that whole situation still sounds like a certain kind of hell to me.

The point i'm getting at is that my single working mother was perpetually exhausted. Also neglectful and manipulative and emotionally abusive and a whole slew of things I will likely delve into later on my psychological deep dive. Anyway! I never felt like i was given enough attention from....anyone. I had no dad in the picture, a mom who was too exhausted, and a ton of siblings growing into adulthood and balancing their own lives. I have one younger sister, but as we are only a year apart in age growing up we didn't really like each other.

Despite what my dating history might suggest i was quiet and shy. Definitely have always been an introvert. Dating was a way i found myself finding a type of attention and a way to fill a void in my life. I think the void was someone to know and to know me intimately. And not intimate in a sexual sense, but someone to talk to, some one to know how i think and feel and process the world around me. And vice versa of course. I didnt get that from my family, my mom talked a lot but never a lot of details about her life. And my younger sister kept to herself too (may have also been a serial monagamist? But i don't wanna speculate on her psych too, love you!) I would always be jealous of my childhood friends, who were sisters. They knew each other so well it seemed. They would argue sure, but always came together in the end and be there for eachother. If my sister and i fought it would never get resolved it seemed. We would just carry that anger, go our separate ways and just remember we didnt like each other (things are different now)

It had me feeling like i was different, i honestly wondered if i either fell on the autism spectrum or if i was a socio or psychopath because there was something wrong with ME. Because i didnt have these relationships with my mom and my sister. I see now my situation didnt foster the healthy kind communication and attention that comes with those relationships.

Fast forward again to now. I am single as of early May 2019 and it is now September 2019 . Only last week did i delete my tinder app. I started swiping just before i broke up with my ex, (together on and off for ~ year and a half/emotionally abusive narcissistic selfish asshole) i wanted to rebound and find someone better to prove to myself that i deserve and can find better! But it was hard! Online dating sucks ass. Pardon my phrasing. But for real my dudes. I dated around a little but i realized that i dont really know what i want or what i like.

Here we are

Ladies and gentlemen, after this long unorganized rant i've finally arrived to the point of this blog.

I'm documenting, in blog form, my journey to discovering my true likes and dislikes. Being tethered for a good chunk of my life didn't really allow me to know what I like. And yeah i mean i know some stuff, like i really hate bowling, and mini golf. But i mean, i've been tangled up trying to attend to my significant others emotional, mental, physical needs. WHAT ABOUT ME? I haven't made myself a priority. So this is it. My selfish time.

So yes, i deleted tinder and have stopped looking for someone to date but that doesn't mean i'm closed off to finding someone. It just means i'm making my self my number one priority and if in my quest to push myself to do things i didnt think i could do by myself and i happen to meet a really nice guy (OR GIRL!??!) Then dooooope.

I have done 3 things so far that i feel were me making myself try new things.

1) Yoga

2) walking at a park

3) pierced my nose! (Most exciting)

The yoga thing isnt all that exciting honestly. I didnt want to go to the gym one day and pulled up youtube and did a 20 min beginners yoga thing. I actually didn't really like it. I had never done yoga before and its difficult to watch a video and have them tell you to close your eys and then move thos foot forward this back and this is a warrior pose etc. And pull your navel to your spine but also deep breathe in and out! It was too much. If i want to continue with yoga i need to try a class with an instructor and a more hands on experience/guidance. (Minds out of the gutter please).

Walking outside at a park! This one isnt really a big deal to most people. But being the serial monogamist that i am i'm uncomfortable being alone and i have told myself that it is UNSAFE to walk at a park alone. That and all of the true crime/murder podcasts i listen to dont help. But i did it. One friday night i told myself i should go on a walk at a park i had been to with friends before. So the next saturday morning, ya girl did it! I walked back and forth on a lake front for like an hour. And i could have done it almost all day because it felt peaceful....but i had other shit to do lol.

THEN on a whim i decided i wanted my nose pierced. But not really on a whim, i've wanted to do this for like a year but never had the courage. Also my emotionally abusive ex was abusive to the environment around him and didnt really care about not hurting me by "accident" so i never felt safe having a fresh hole in my face that could be damaged by mistake around him.... ANYWAY this whole week. Starting monday i told myself that i was gonna go get my nose pierced on friday. By wednesday i was too excited and i went to a tattoo shop 11 min from work and got it done. I had seen the videos and read the after care instructions and done my research. I was ready. It was done and now i have to care for it everyday and let it heal for 4-6 months. HELL YES QUEEN! I really want to get a hoop but for initial healing the stud is best. Also, not many people at work have noticed ( i work at a job where piercings and tattoos are ok). Which might have upset me about a year ago. But i truly did this for me. And not anyone else, so i feel that's why i wasn't disappointed that some people didn't notice. I'm feeling good! I feel this is a positive change for me. I'm excited to meet myself.

I think i want to get another cat?

New work out routine?

Plan a solo vacation?

Actually go to the library?

Dye my hair?

Go for a drink at a bar by myself?

Paint the trim in my house?!?!? (lol not adventurous, just something i need to do.)

Challenge yourself! Take a chance and do all tje things!

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jimdsmith34 · 7 years ago

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5 Ways Adults See Their Best Memories Turn Into Nightmares

I’ve talked before about how, despite what adults tell you, your teens are not the best years of your life. There are some pretty awesome things that happen during that period, but your enjoyment of them has nothing to do with a lack of bills or not having to support a family. That’s what an adult says when they’re fed up with the stress of their own lives and projecting it onto yours. It’s short-sighted and idiotic. Suck it, mom.

It has everything to do with the little milestones that represent growing chunks of freedom. They are, in essence, rites of passage that mean you’re putting your teenage years behind you. You’re escaping. When they happen, you’ll mentally log those as some of the funnest times in your life. Then, when you get older, you’ll flip through your skull’s Dewey Decimal System, pull up those memories … and be absolutely goddamn horrified when you picture your own kids doing seemingly insignificant things like …

#5. Getting Their First Job

Why It’s Important:

Aside from just straight up giving your parents the finger and moving out of the house, getting your first job is the ultimate transition from adolescence into adulthood. If you work a night shift, curfew is more flexible. You likely have your own car, or will soon be buying one, so you’re not dependent on mom or dad’s level of sobriety in order to drive you places. If parents are the ones buying your clothes and entertainment, they likely have a say in what you get, so a job frees you up from all of that. It’s your money. You’ll buy a katana if you want to, goddammit.

In the general public’s idea of “adulthood,” the word “job” is more important than “age.” And it should be. I have 40-year-old relatives rotting away in prison right now because smoking foils and stealing shit was more important to them than seeing their kids graduate high school. Those people aren’t adults. The adults in their families are the kids who figured out this one basic financial formula: “Work for the shit I need. Save for the shit I want. Oh, and don’t fuck with meth.”

Don’t vape, either. It makes you look like a twat.

Why It Scares The Shit Out Of Parents:

Up until this point, the only real authority figures in your lives have been parents and teachers. Cops don’t really count unless you’re a sociopath, and even then, there’s not a lot they can do to punish minors. But when you make that transition into the working world, you have a brand-new set of second parents in the form of supervisors and managers. And as adults, we know that most of those are clinical assholes.

We’re not so much concerned about the way they treat you as humans. We know from experience that your life is going to be like that Harry Potter scene where they’re trapped in that vault and all of the treasure starts reproducing. Except instead of gold and silver goblets, it’s an unceasing explosion of assholes. An asshole geyser, if you will. We’re more worried that you’re still in the process of learning how to be a socially functioning human, and we don’t want some power-tripping dickhead influencing how you perceive and treat the rest of the world.

We’ve had our own jobs as teenagers, and we know that there are employees who steal and get away with it. We don’t want them teaching you how to do that, because if you get caught, you’re screwed. And even if you don’t get caught, you’re a piece of shit. We know that there are bosses who can easily make you think that the correct way to manage is to scream, curse, and throw tantrums. Or on the other end of that spectrum are managers who let employees get away with things that would get their asses fired in a more serious “adult” job.

“… the FUCK outta here!”

No, it’s not that we’re afraid of how they’ll treat you. We’re afraid of what they could turn you into. Seventeen years of hard work teaching you the right thing can be undone with a single dose of the unfiltered world. I’ve seen it happen. And yeah, I know that not all kids are precious little angels just waiting to be corrupted by the cruel, remorseless world. But the more rebellious, anti-authority kids tend to learn a lot quicker when they come to work in a bad mood, tell their boss to go fuck himself, and then watch their work history collapse for the next five years. That’s a whole new set of fears, because if that kid has already started paying for his or her first car and then loses their job … congratulations, parents! You just added a new car payment to your budget.

Oh, and speaking of cars …

#4. Driving A Car On Their Own For The First Time

Why It’s Important:

It’s a car. Come on. You just spent the last few months in driver’s ed, learning all of the rules that everyone ignores the second they start driving on their own. You spent the (in my state) 40 hours of mandatory driving with a parent in the passenger seat. Not all at once. That would be silly. You’re silly. Stop being silly.

You sillyass.

Every little imperfection has been pointed out while we held your hand through the process. You’ve sat through dozens of lectures from teachers, parents, aunts, and uncles — and if you’re crazy rich, that sweet talking car from Knight Rider — explaining how the world is full of bad drivers, and you should always be looking out for “the other guy.” Always wear your seat belt. Never, ever, eeeever drink and drive. Don’t even take a chance with your cellphone. Just turn that shit off. If you try to merge while eating an egg salad sandwich, your face will fall off.

Those are deviled eggs, dipshit. Those are fine.

Finally, all of that bullshit is over with. It’s time to grab the keys, put on your awesome NASCAR helmet with flames painted down the sides, and hit the open road. No more lectures. No more, “How many times have I told you to HIT THE FUCKING BRAKES when you turn a corner?!” Eat me, Grandma. This is my world, now.

Why It Scares The Shit Out Of Parents:

The most obvious reason is that you are piloting a machine that will end you before you even have time to shit your pants. I don’t know a single person who doesn’t know someone who died in a car accident. The not-so-obvious reason, unfortunately, is one of trust. Both of you and everyone else in the entire world. Sorry, but I’m going to get all real up in your shorts for a minute. That’s a thing kids say, right?

The truth is that we’ve seen you at your dumbest. If my oldest son is reading this, understand that I’m not calling you dumb as an individual. I’m talking in a blanket sense. Ask any adult you want about whether or not they considered themselves smart and worldly as a teenager, and they’ll laugh you out of the room. “Oh Christ, no. I was dumb as owl shit.” One time I jumped from the top of a two-story barn into a snow drift that was only two feet deep because I thought it would be fluffy and soft. It was not. My brother once wondered if hairspray would still ignite if it was dry, and set a girl’s head on fire. Neither of those statements are jokes.

It makes me feel better to remember it like this.

We’ve seen the dumb shit you do, and we shudder when we think about the stuff we haven’t seen. The idea that you could space out for even a few seconds while driving a car sends us into a blind panic. Then add on top of that the idiocy of every other person who exists outside of your windshield. People blowing through red lights at full speed. Drunk drivers. Little kids sprinting out into the street to chase down a ball. In my part of the country, we have suicidal deer as big as ponies.

So it’s not just that we’ve seen you at your worst, and we’re hoping you can shed that while behind the wheel. We’re thinking about all of the accidents or near misses that we’ve seen as adults with decades of experience under our belts, and it’s still hard. And that’s not a dick joke.

#3. Staying With Friends While Their Parents Are Gone

Why It’s Important:

Of all the things on this list, this is the one I remember the most fondly. The first time I was allowed to spend the weekend with my friends and no adults around was incredible. A group of about ten of us decided to go on a camping trip at the end of the school year. The ones who were old enough to drive picked up the rest, so it was two trucks, which meant a whole shitload of us rode in the bed. The second we pulled away from the last house, we all transformed into raw teenage boys, cursing out the kind of insults at each other which in retrospect make me die a little inside. Teenage boys are weird.

Along the way, the drivers decided to race. So at barely sunrise, we were throwing donuts at each other, going 90 side-by-side on the highway. Again, with most of the guys sitting or standing loose in the beds of pickup trucks.

When we got to the campsite, we unloaded all of our fishing poles, food, tents, blankets, pillows, beer … oh, and guns. Probably 20 of them, ranging from run-of-the-mill 12-gauge shotguns to .45 autos to an AK-47 or two. By sundown, every one of us was drunk as shit, firing weapons and throwing unspent bullets into the campfire. Nobody remembered to bring water, so when we ran out of beer, we had to just drink the melted ice from the dirty-ass coolers. It was freedom at its purest.

Just move the fish aside. There’s water underneath.

Why It Scares The Shit Out Of Parents:

HOLY FUCKBALLS, HOW DID NONE OF US DIE?!

OK, my personal illustration of dumbassery aside, there are legitimately more subtle reasons this scares parents. Take away the camping, the guns, the booze, and the race that gave 20 middle fingers to Death himself, and we still have stuff to worry about.

All of the fun stuff that we tell our kids not to do … those are the things they’re going to immediately dive into the second we’re out of sight. I’ve accepted that there’s a pretty good chance my kids, like most kids, will eventually experiment with drugs. But when they do, I hope to god it’s just pot and not something that was made in some redneck’s bathtub. Our state (like most states) has a fairly bad problem with prescription drug abuse. About one in five teenagers will try them at some point, and they are super easy to get. In fact, they’re much, much easier to get on the streets than they are from a doctor. My kids are smart, but not so smart that I trust them to know how much Vicodin is safe to take versus their body weight, metabolism, personal resistances to pain killers, and whether or not they’re allergic to the medication in the first place.

“Just grab a handful. They’re healthy.”

When we’re talking about that shit, we’re far beyond a night of giggling and eating Twinkies. We’re talking about highly addictive medication that can kill your ass if you go overboard. But enough about drugs. That’s probably just the paranoid addict in me talking.

We still worry about what liberties they’re going to take when we’re not around. Simple things like staying out after curfew. In a small town, it’s not that big a deal, but in a larger city, you might as well be painting a neon bullseye on their asses, along with a sign that says, “Please beat the shit out of me and take my wallet. I am the dumping grounds for your drunken 3 a.m. rage!” Hell, even in a small town, pull up a website that shows the locations of sexual predators in your area, and tell me that doesn’t make you want to teach them some Deadpool shit.

But as a parent, you just have to finally learn to let go and give them a little slack. It’s just really hard to trust someone who has to be reminded on a daily basis to brush their teeth. It’s even harder to trust the strangers in a town whom you regularly fantasize about being on fire.

source http://allofbeer.com/5-ways-adults-see-their-best-memories-turn-into-nightmares/ from All of Beer http://allofbeer.blogspot.com/2018/01/5-ways-adults-see-their-best-memories.html

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allofbeercom · 7 years ago

Text

5 Ways Adults See Their Best Memories Turn Into Nightmares

#5. Getting Their First Job

Why It’s Important:

Don’t vape, either. It makes you look like a twat.

Why It Scares The Shit Out Of Parents:

“… the FUCK outta here!”

Oh, and speaking of cars …

#4. Driving A Car On Their Own For The First Time

Why It’s Important:

You sillyass.

Those are deviled eggs, dipshit. Those are fine.

Why It Scares The Shit Out Of Parents:

It makes me feel better to remember it like this.

#3. Staying With Friends While Their Parents Are Gone

Why It’s Important:

Just move the fish aside. There’s water underneath.

Why It Scares The Shit Out Of Parents:

HOLY FUCKBALLS, HOW DID NONE OF US DIE?!

“Just grab a handful. They’re healthy.”

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-ways-adults-see-their-best-memories-turn-into-nightmares/

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themeaningoflifeis33 · 8 years ago

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A snapshot in life...

Interviewer: So when did this all begin? Me: Sometime before I turned 33.. well I wasn’t doing badly or anything. Financially I was earning a 6 figure salary, happily married to the most amazing husband, we lived in a nice new double storey house with our cat

I: What changed? Me: Nothing on the outside, but on the inside I started to feel like the cliched secretly sad successful person I: Was your work stressful? Me: Not at all actually, it was a good kind of busy.. I: How was your health at the time? Me: Overall it was fine.. I: So, tell me more about how you felt.. Me: I just kind of realised, that life isn’t that interesting.. like your life kind of ends at 30, or at when you get married.. after that it’s not about you anymore.. but from when you were born until when you are married, you get a lot of social celebrations for the milestones, like all your childhood/teenage birthdays, first day at primary school, each year is a more senior year, graduating from primary school, first day at high school, Uni, uni graduation, work, engagement, wedding.. then you have children and they go through the same thing.. except I couldn’t have kids? It is a little bit like what now? I really just needed some kind of inspiration.. Life started to feel purposeless, apart from staying alive and staying healthy.. I: Did you want to be a mother? Me: Oh yes, I did, but I also didn’t, and I don’t know if I made myself believe I didn’t because I had to tell myself it is OK to not be a mother, or I really didn’t.. I: Right.. would you say it is a regret in life? You are still young, you could adopt. Me: Uh, I would say it wasn’t planned, becoming a mother would have been part of my plan in life. I: What did you do in your 20s? Me: I was your typical do-it-all 20 something, I went to Uni, I worked, I socialized, I partied, I traveled around the world, I dated, I had tons of friends.. They were the good years, everything was new and exciting. I: How are your friends now? Me: I lost all my girl friends, regrettably, I think it just wasn’t meant to be.. some of them moved away, and some of them and I grew apart.. It was sad and very painful, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I spent a lot of time pondering and analyzing what happened, but I made peace with it as much as I could. I: But did you have any new friends? Me: Yea, like I suppose, but not really, it’s kind of hard to make new friends in your 30s, people have kids and work and they get pretty busy. But I did have friends, friendship in your 30s isn’t like friendship in your 20s, you tend to play a much lesser role in each other’s lives. I: Did you have hobbies? Me: I did but, they changed over time so it’s not constant.. I studied Spanish, played on social media and I wrote.. We didn’t go out much socially, it was random but my husband was also growing apart from his friends, and, I could only watch and hope it didn’t have anything to do with me.. Maybe it did, maybe he felt bad for my lack of friends so he distanced himself from his friends to keep me company. I: Were you friends with his friends? Me: I liked them actually, but they didn’t live very close and they still acted really young like late night movies and cheap skate group trips with shared accommodation and bunker beds.. I was quite a princess, so I really needed my sleep and I couldn’t sleep well if it was too late or the bed wasn’t comfortable.. I self-diagnosed some kind of mental condition, but basically I can go a little crazy if I don’t sleep well over a period of time.. But we went to the big stuff like birthdays and Xmas parties, if we were invited, like we weren’t part of the core group so a lot of the smaller hang outs we weren’t invited to anyway. I: Do you use recreational drugs? Me: No, I was always fascinated with drugs but not for my own use. I see myself as having a bit of an addictive personality, but I also like to have control so I decided early on to not use drugs. Tho sometimes I wonder what it would be like, you know, being a pothead, and chillax with weed. I think I can be maybe too precious with my health but my body stopped being that forgiving when I pushed it in my 30s, like I’d get sick if I didn’t look after myself and ailments took longer to heal.. I: Are you a religious person? Me: No, not really, I am somewhat spiritual, but I am not part of any organised religion. I do have my opinions on religion. I kind of believe in fate.. I: So how did you feel about your lack of inspiration? Me: Pretty frustrated and unsettled, like I kept on wondering if I was missing out or not on track or not fulfilling my calling.. like, life just didn’t have much to look forward to.. I realize I sounded a bit suicidal but I was not actually thinking of killing myself at all, I used to when I was in high school, and when I didn’t I decided I was never going to, that my life got renewed and I was going to live it to the fullest.. But even when reasonably good things happened to me I didn’t feel that joyous, I just felt hollow and impatient in general.. I: Was it the first time you felt like that? Me: No, I think I felt like “when will my life begin” before I met my husband, then with him my life was awesome for years, maybe it was to do with not being able to have children, and not being able to fill that hole in my life. If that’s the case I feel kind of dramatic talking about all these.. but it probably was. The heart wants what it wants.. I feel a bit embarrassed even letting an imaginary child dictate my life in such a significant way, but I guess that’s pretty natural, we are biologically programmed to feel this way.. our survival and continuation is pretty much instinct.. Maybe my new battle is to fight instinct.. oh God, I sometimes feel like my whole life is a battle, but I guess that’s everyone else’s, too. I think I lacked ambition other than motherhood, which I am a bit embarrassed because I’d still have to be myself once I was a mother. But I think I was a bit stuck.. I seemed to lack motivation for anything else, like entrepreneurship, more money, more fit, more popular, more travel, like nothing excited me and I didn’t desire much back then.. I don’t even feel like I desired motherhood that much, so I just didn’t have anything to really live for or look forward to other than staying alive, which is pretty sad. I: Why is it sad? Me: Because I was not like this, I was ambitious, I was driven, I cared, I was passionate and fierce.. I am still opinionated but I am now jaded, cynical, and I don’t know what to do with my heart when it’s faded so much.. I: Let’s talk about your dreams, maybe childhood dreams.. Me: I wanted to go to outer space *laughs* but I now know it’s really not for me because I am not that fit, yes I know Stephen Hawking went but I am not that rich.. I used to want to travel around the world, I’ve been to like 40+ countries, yes I know I’m lucky and privileged.. other than that i just wanted to be popular, and pretty. I still want to go to Africa and experience the safari, and I still dream of having a close girl friend, or a group of close girl friends.. My ride or dies, like the SATC girls! I: Pretty and popular? That’s cute.. Me: Yes I think I somewhat achieved that in my 20s, then I somehow got rid of a big chunk my insecurity and vanity, then I felt even more purposeless and aimless *laughs* isn’t it sad what drove me? But I think people don’t talk about it, I think a lot of successful people are driven purely by insecurity and vanity *laughs* but they veil it as something positive. Sorry about my skepticism *laughs*

To be continued..

#about me #vulnerable #about a girl #cliche #confused #thirties #confession #honestly #my life #snapshot #infertility #hollow #life story #real life story

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