#all of the academic stuff is compounding with personal life stuff and i am about to scream.

[acridblood]

They should exterminate the inventor of AP classes and weekend homework. Anyways rant in the tags bye.

[donnerpartyofone]

Man when I asked for a subgenre ID for the trope of "needy dingbat ignores the fact that his constant presence is ruining your life", I was kind of kidding. I mean I was hopefully open to discovering some insidery container name I never heard before, but I accepted that my request was kind of like asking for a German compound word for some absurdly specific personal experience that most people wouldn't need shorthand for. But, now I've gone and stepped in it, because when I posted this elsewhere, it caught the attention of my one friend who teaches theater and its history, and now he won't stop telling me about centuries' worth of theoretical superstructures that led to the development of, you know, Pepe Le Pew falling so deeply in love with a cat who he has mistaken for a skunk that he is oblivious to her protests. My friend goes, "You're not going to like this, but..." as if he thinks he's about to shatter my film bro-ette dreams by revealing that Quentin Tarantino didn't invent dramaturgy, and he's showing his ignorant friend here some tough love by explaining all about la commedia dell'arte. Which to be honest was kind of rude, like of course I know that modern entertainment Comes From Somewhere and I know about archetypes and allegories and the Trojan Horse-ing of political criticism in satire etc. That's not what I'm asking about, and if I were I'd be on the wrong track because it wouldn't solve my problem of needing a quick and easy word or phrase that instantly conveys my specific meaning in casual conversation. And my poor dear friend knows this, because when I press him ala "You really think the 16th century form of 'intrigue comedy' best describes the Pepe Le Pew scenario?", he replies "Yes, but that's not a common plot line for intrigue comedy." Then why are you insisting on this? Like how can I make it more obvious that I am specifically wondering if there's a name for the plotline of which I speak? It's like if I were asking what you call those vehicles that are a car in front and a truck in back, and instead of addressing the existence of the El Camino, you take me all the way back to before the birth of the motorized vehicle to explain the needs and desires and context behind the idea of human travel. Like yes its lovely that you know all this stuff, it's important for humanity to maintain a historical understanding of itself, but actually you're just being a knowitall and you maybe didn't really hear the question. You're basically just changing the subject to whatever you'd rather talk about (and putting primacy on your own area of specialization over others, even where it isn't directly relevant).

I actually don't think this particular friend, who I do enjoy, is trying to be such a blowhard. I think he's just falling back on his academic programming, and he's also being a little preemptively defensive ("you're not gonna like this, BUT") because he's probably seen a lot of eyes glaze over when he starts spontaneously expounding on performance modes of the 1500s. But academic programming can be a real problem; I've seen this a lot, where someone has so much training in a certain area that they can't function organically in that area anymore, or communicate effectively outside their professional sphere. I've had this experience where I ask my graphic designer friends how to do something extremely simple, like cut and paste one image onto another as a gag for my stupid blog, and then I watch while they spend 10 minutes going through this complicated routine using all these obscure operations and nested settings as, after about minute 2, I've remembered "Oh yeah, all I need to do is X," but I don't wanna act ungrateful so I let them finish. Or sometimes I DO try to stop them, and they go "Gimme a sec, I just wanna see if..." while they spend several more minutes concluding their experimental investigation. What they're doing is totally appropriate for like, editing assets from a glossy high fashion ad campaign that's going to wind up in a magazine or on a billboard, but it's a huge waste of time and motion for the dumb little thing I'm trying to do. And it's apparent to me that they just can't do it any other way anymore, all their high level trade indoctrination has made it impossible to approach even the most basic regular-jagoff task outside the framework of industry standards and best practices. There's this thing in Resident Evil 4 where Leon the elite police soldier is escorting Ashley the stupid little girl through a corridor of precariously balanced suits of armor that can fall and chop them up; each time one of the suits falls, Leon does this like triple backflip to evade his inanimate enemy while Ashley literally just squats right in place. It's as if Leon's elite training is causing him to do something wildly inefficient, while Ashley's natural regular-jagoff reaction gets the same result with almost no effort, making it the obviously superior choice despite its lack of finesse and tradition. Just because something appears harder/smarter/more esoteric, doesn't mean that it can't also be the worse choice for some situations.

Anyway I finally just looked up WHAT ABOUT BOB? on TV tropes dot com and discovered that what I'm trying to describe is probably just called the Cat Came Back trope, whose meaning is simple and accessible to anybody participating in western popular culture. Of course the Cat Came Back still doesn't have the emotional content I'm looking for. Like my theater professor friend kept trying to describe comedies that function on complex interpersonal schemes and machinations, but the only motivation in my scenario is emotional: One person wants to be left alone, the other person wants that person's constant company and is also deaf and blind to rejection. Another relevant trope from the aforementioned website is referred to as Asshole Victim where, in the case of WHAT ABOUT BOB?, we know that it's really unfair for Bill Murray to impose himself on Richard Dreyfuss, but the movie portrays Dreyfuss as sort of a dick and therefore implicitly deserving of whatever affectionate doofus Murray does to him. And there's a message buried in these movies that says something like, the human condition is all about love and attention and contact and that's what makes us the wonderful little creatures we are, so by the same token anyone who enjoys solitude and privacy is INhuman and needs to be involuntarily humanized through some hideous form of exposure therapy. I have yet to hear a trope name that includes this moralizing emotional content--certainly not one that I could drop in casual conversation and make myself immediately understood--but I'm sort of getting there.

Anyway GROWN-UPS is about a pair of newlyweds who endure a series of judgments and impositions on their new life from their supposed friends and family, especially from the woman's sister in an ASTONISHING performance from Brenda Blethyn. I'm oversimplifying a bit, there are multiple layers of unwanted intimacy and emotional tyranny going on in this movie, but when the couple finally stands up to the sister and the shit really hits the fan, GROWN-UPS transforms into a harrowing ordeal that makes me feel like I'm burning in hell. It's funny and also extremely frightening to me personally, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. That's another trope I don't have a name for yet, but I want one: the thing where a character develops the courage to do what he have all been brought up to believe is the Right Thing, like being honest about something you did or how you really feel, and it leads to unmitigated disaster. See also: SLEEPING DOGS LIE.

Is there a subgeneric name for that type of black comedy about someone with zero personal boundaries who can only be repelled through abject cruelty (if at all)? Movies like WHAT ABOUT BOB? and THE CABLE GUY may come to mind, but Mike Leigh's GROWN-UPS is way more intense than either of those. I might also appreciate it more because in the standard version of this kind of narrative, the interloper is portrayed as intrusive yet basically sort of innocent, whereas the person defending themselves and their territory is shown to be curmudgeonly and uptight, and deserving of a hard lesson about love or something. This is totally maddening to me as someone who needs a lot of personal space, who doesn't like to be touched, and who enjoys her own company. People who like a lot of contact just can't imagine this, and often when I tell someone not to hug me, they insist on it anyway like they're doing me a big favor, as if I just don't know what's good for me or I'm too shy to ask for what I truly want (which is for someone to mash their body all over me while grunting and sighing obviously). Anyway, GROWN-UPS is a movie that makes a hilarious and terrifying ordeal out of the need to defend your own boundaries, without insinuating that you should just give in and let people do whatever they hell they want to you because cherishing your own privacy is somehow the same as rejecting other people.

I got a similar charge out of THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN, although that movie is a little more ambiguous on the subject. But don't even get me started on movies like THE STATION AGENT, where someone who is perfectly happy in their solitude has their privacy violated over and over again until they're bullied into submission by extroverts who think everyone should be just like them. Shiver.

[empressofdiamonds]

hi, any tips how to level up as a college student? im like broke :(( all these levelling up tips i read needed some cash or something especially if i wanted to improve my appearance etc

I have some tips

BEAUTY&HEALTH

If you don't workout, start by doing that. There's YouTube playlists with whole workouts, from yoga to HIIT. You can do workouts on bare ground, it's gonna be uncomfortable sometimes tho.

Adopt healthy habits while on campus, skip the coffee unless necessary, skip the sugar crap, drink your water, take the stairs instead of the elevator et cetera. Small changes seem meaningless but they compound.

Instead of ramen go for potatoes. Better nutriment content and way less salt, potatoes are very cheap and can be prepped lots of ways. Salt in heavy amounts is gonna make you feel like crap then look like crap.

Focus on REGULARITY in your skincare and beauty routine. No need to buy the expensive 100$ retinols, it can be later, right now focus on doing your moisturizer everyday. And your washing routine as well!

Body massages are free. Do them yourself with your usual body moisturizer or bare hands. Olive oil can do in a pitch but you gotta shower afterwards.

Look at free group ativities your school offers. Can be yoga, Zumba, hikes, etc. Socialization is also gonna be really helpful for wellbeing.

WELLBEING

Therapy is fucking EXPENSIVE and that's understandably not accessible for your average student. Often campuses offer free or low-cost mental health resources, sometimes you gotta search for it.

Just don't do drugs. Not weed, either. You are broke, why wanna make yourself even more broke? They fuck with your academic performance too.

Focus on ROUTINE. Laundry Sundays, Chill Fridays, everyday you tidy up a bit, you fold away clothes while you listen to YouTube lectures, you meal prep good meals. I am not asking you to emulate the "THAT girl" routine but have something that's REGULAR and consistent so you get some structure around your life. It sounds real stupid but us humans LOVE structure and we thrive with it.

If you don't have classes that day, planify some fixed time activity. NEVER have planless days! For the why, see previous point.

For procrastination, see my posts about procrastination. TLDR: Save yourself future anxiety that's gonna handicap you even more, a shitty work is better than no work, the teachers have seen all kinds of crap and yours is probably gonna be better than the worst.

Socialization is like the most easy stupid médecine. If you feel uneasy or in the gutter call someone or text someone. Not necessarily to dump your stresses on them but just to talk about whatever. Distraction + the other person will be happy to know about you. Go talk to friends during breaks instead of scrolling on Tiktok, check out clubs, go to teacher's desk hours to ask questions then add a lil bit of conversation.

Doing the best you legitimately can give at that moment is amazing. It is way better than nothing. So even if you don't feel at your full potential, do your best, that's it. Just that.

Free ebooks. B-ok(dot)cc is totally illegal. Pick books based on what uneases you're feeling. Reading about others experiences is gonna be helpful, making you feel less lonely.

NETWORKING

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. The best book for women abt network, adresses common mistakes women do. Read it. .

Friendships ARE networking. Some people think that networking is like this intimidating thing but IT IS JUST MAKING FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTACES. Just go to people to just fucking talk about stuff then the networking aspect comes later when you need it. When you approach people with SOLE idea if networking people gonna be put off by you. Just go socialize and have fun and that's it. Jeez.

Social media is a good way to track your network but the work starts in the ground, not online. Go meet people, just small talk, have fun, ask questions, etc. Friend requests on Facebook then radio silence is NOT networking.

For the love of God, go find yourself some clubs! It's gonna be beneficial for your health, it's easy, you make friends, you have fun. Then see previous points.

[libsterslobsters]

I'm Gonna Crawl: Post 2

Post 1

Summary: Five years. That's how long the reader and Bucky have been apart (although for him, it was only five minutes) Now with Thanos defeated and both of them taking up the mantle of Avengers, can their relationship return to what it was? Or will they have to discover a new normal?

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x fem! enhanced! super-soldier! Reader (Reader can see pieces of the future in visions as well as speak every language)

Warnings: Angst, fluff, language, smut (IF YOU ARE UNDER EIGHTEEN, DON'T READ!!!)

*************************************************

One of the perks of being “enhanced” or in this case, a super soldier, is that you heal quickly. Within seventy-two hours, the bullet wound in his leg (not to mention the cut and black eye he sustained from several sharp blows to the face) and her matching one in the shoulder are almost completely healed, only a vague pink mark to show they were ever injured. The downside is-

“Do you want to punch sandbags until they fly off the hook, or run thirty miles around the compound first? I’ll start with whichever you don’t pick.” -they’re back to training as well.

He almost answers that he really doesn’t want to do either, it’s Sunday morning, for fuck’s sake, but it’s not like this is her first choice for what she could be doing this morning either, so he goes with-

“Punching things first. Think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, so I’d best get it out of my system.” She nods and, squeezing his arm, takes off at a jog.

“See you on the other side.”

His instinct is to tell her to take it easy, she lost a lot of blood the other day and who knows if there’s been some bone or muscular damage that hasn’t quite fixed itself yet, but again, he swallows it down and focuses on the task at hand. Namely, taking out his bad mood on a punching bag.

Usually, when his body is in motion, his mind is at least somewhat at rest, but this time around, the exertion is just adding fuel to the flames. He’s too pissed off to just zone out and concentrate on hitting the target, still too busy trying to process what the hell happened three nights ago.

It was their first mission together. She’s been on a few separate from him, and he and Sam get called out together on the regular. Stupidly, he assumed that, since her specialty is translating or gathering intel, maybe being the little voice in someone’s ear to direct them through a maze of assailants and twisting corridors her visions had allowed her a glimpse of ahead of time, she’d be out of the line of fire. At the very least, most of the attention would be on him and Sam. But no, she was the bogey. She drew fire while he waltzed through a military fortress, recapturing stolen tech. When Rhodey so much as mentioned that possibility, he should’ve told him no, hard no. If anyone’s drawing fire, it’s him. Still, in his arrogance, he assumed it wouldn’t come to that extreme. Sam’s good at his job, and as much as he hates the reason behind it, so is he. They should’ve been able to hold the line without her painting a target on her back.

That, of course leads to yet another issue. He’s also pissed at himself for instinctively seeing her as more fragile, something that needs to be protected. Even before the same chemicals running through his veins infected her, she’d proven that she’s a damn capable person. He knows that she’s smart, both strategically and academically. Add onto that the fact that she’s fast and strong, not to mention she has visions (less than helpful ones most of the time, but they have their moments), and she’s a powerful ally. He certainly wouldn’t want to be on her bad side. And yet, when he saw that she’d been hit, his mind completely emptied. He wouldn’t have been able to remember which end of a gun to use if his life depended on it, because all he could think was, “Oh god. She’s hurt.” It’s old-fashioned, outdated. He should be past this mindset, at least when it comes to work. Out there, she’s his fellow soldier, not the woman he lies awake next to in bed, sometimes for hours, just to listen to her breath and know he’s not alone. Did Steve ever put Peggy in that box, he wonders? No, of course not, because Steve’s a better man than he ever was or will ever be. So yeah, he’s pissed off at himself.

And finally, although he can barely admit it to his own mind, he’s pissed off at her. Logically he knows it’s mostly fear, some primal instinct to protect what’s his, but every time he imagines her being shot, having a bullet pass by her lungs and arteries by a very narrow margin, and then telling Sam not to let him know that she was hit, it irks him. Did she think he’d come unhinged? Screw up? Or is she stuck in the mindset she seems to have adopted as a response to the last five years of “Screw looking after myself. It doesn’t matter.” A small part of him realizes that he didn’t call in either when he took a bullet, but that’s him! And, now he’s circling back to guilt for treating her like she’s weak.

All in all, he’s so damn furious that he doesn’t realize he’s no longer alone until she grabs hold of his arm just as he goes to swing again.

“Jesus, Bucky. I know you’re grouchy, but don’t you think destroying five punching bags in thirty minutes is enough? Save some aggression for the run.”

He looks up to tell her something (I’m sorry? Damn right I’m grouchy? Let me take you home and wrap you in blankets so that nothing will ever hurt you again?) and catches sight of her sweat-soaked face. He hates how far she takes things with the running. It’s like she’s trying to see what the limits are, how much she can punish her body before it gives out and she drops. That’s what it was in the very beginning after the snap. She’s told him that. Now he wonders if she’s really as recovered from everything that’s happened as she claims.

“Have you had anything to drink? Water, or-” She groans and reaches to detach the punching bag (there’s a decent sized rip in it where he was hitting it over and over), making her shirt ride up. Her clothes were already so tight that just seeing her out of the corner of his eye was making it hard to think, but now they’re completely adhered to her in a way that’s nearly obscene thanks to all the sweat. Dammit. Think about something else. He needs to think about something else.

“Yes, I’m on my second water bottle, thank you Barnes. I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Just self-destructive.” It slips out before he can stuff it down. Her mouth falls open in shock momentarily, but then she squares her shoulders and looks him directly in the eyes.

“You’re one to talk. Always running straight towards the fire instead of putting it out first.”

“That’s my job.”

“It’s your hangup.” She laughs bitterly. “Bucky Barnes, the big, bad Winter Soldier. You’ve decided you’re so fucked up that the only way you can make amends is to run headlong towards whatever’s trying to kill you, without backup I might add, and keep to your mission no matter what your personal damage is.”

“Says the woman who took a bullet and stopped Sam from announcing that you’re hit.” They’re teetering closer and closer to a fight with every nearly snarled word, but he’s powerless to stop it. In fact, he’s ready to go. Have it out. But not right now, because-

“Hey.” He catches her arm just as she starts to hoist another punching bag onto the hook. “Be careful! You’re still healing.” -she’s hellbent on hurting herself. Again.

She whirls around as if he’s slapped her.

“Oh my god. You have to stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop treating me like I’m going to break!” Her voice is shrill, rising higher and higher with each syllable. “I love you, but you are driving me insane. I am not your child-”

“No, you’re the person I want to marry!” He takes a deep breath, preparing to follow up with, “-and you keep acting like you have a death wish”, but before he can-

“You won’t even fuck me anymore!” Immediately, her eyes go wide and she slaps a hand over her mouth.

If her declaration surprised her, it absolutely stunned him so, not quite sure what else to do, he takes a few steps back and sits down. A few seconds pass before she approaches and, with a heavy sigh, sinks down next to him.

“Bucky, I am so sorry. I don’t know where any of this is coming from-”

“I think you do, Doll.” Her eyes dart nervously between his face and the floor. On instinct, he reaches over and takes her hand. “And so do I.” He takes a few moments to rearrange his thoughts before pushing ahead. “A lot has changed since-”

“The world ended. We lost. And then we won.” He nods.

“Yeah, and I don’t think either of us have quite wrapped our heads around it. I know I haven’t.”

It’s silent for a moment, and then, voice trembling, she tells him,

“After you went away, I was completely lost. Didn’t know why I had to stay. What kind of cruel trick is it, just when everything was starting to go right-” He finally had the poison of HYDRA sucked out of him, she’d found a safe place where she didn’t have to run and hide because of something she was born with, he’d worked up the nerve to ask her if she’d maybe one day be his wife. “-and then it’s wiped out? You finally went somewhere I couldn’t follow.” He still can’t imagine what those five years must’ve been like, not just for her, but everyone else who survived the snap. “I didn’t want to keep going. But I had to.” She chuckles. “Steve wouldn’t let me throw in the towel.”

A smile forms on his own face. “Yeah, he had a habit of doing that.”

“I guess…” She sighs. “I don’t know. I got harder, rougher around the edges. I thought I could just go back to normal once everyone came back-”

“But old habits die hard.” It’s not a question, but she nods.

“Yeah, and as much as I chip away at it, I’m not sure I’ll ever get back to who I was before.”

“You won’t.” She peers up at him, eyes wide in shock, maybe a hint of sadness. “I can tell you that right now from experience. You won’t go back, but-” He’s had a lot of time to consider this, so he can say it and absolutely believe it. “-I love the girl that’s here now. She’s pretty amazing, rough edges and all.”

She’s sitting so close. He could pull her into his lap, just hold her for a minute. So, that’s what he does, and just like the first time, they fit together perfectly, like she was made to fit in his arms, or maybe he was made to hold her. Either way, it leaves no doubt in his mind that they belong together.

“You changed. Everyone does. You got stronger and tougher, because that’s who you had to be. And I wasn’t there to change with you.” He can feel her shoulders shake, and even though she’s facing away from him, he knows she’s fighting back tears. “But I’m gonna catch up. It’s just taking me a while to get it through my thick skull that my girl’s a badass, and I need to ease off the bodyguard routine a little.” There. That’s more like it. A laugh, even if it’s a small one. “I just worry about you, is all. I don’t know how to stop it, and I’m not sure I can, but I’m working on it.”

“I worry about you too, you know.” She sniffs, swiping at her nose with her hand. “I’m fucking terrified because, now that I’m like you, I know what your limits are. I’m scared you’ll forget them, or you’ll ignore them because you’re trying to be a good man.” She cranes her head, meeting his gaze. “But you are a good man, Bucky Barnes. You never stopped being one, no matter what you think.”

“I think your picture of me might be more flattering than who I really am.”

“Shut up.” She presses her palm over his mouth. “I have visions, so seeing is never my problem. And it’s not the way I’m picturing you. We’ve known each other long enough for the shine to wear off.” Never. It’ll never be possible for him to know her so long that she’s not absolutely golden from where he’s standing. “It’s who you’ve shown me you are. And if the rest of the world doesn’t see it, that’s their problem. Not yours.”

He’s not sure if he buys all that, but it’s enough that she does. She sees him as that man, so he’ll try every day of his life to be just that.

“Come on.” Gently pushing her off of him, he stands and offers her his hand. “That’s enough training for today. We’re still wounded.”

She chuckles. “Is that your excuse for calling it early?”

He nods, barely suppressing a grin. “That, and you’ve gotta change into something that doesn’t fit you like a second skin before my brain permanently short-circuits.”

“Showers, then?”

“Showers.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

The compound sustained heavy damage thanks to Thanos crashing a ship into it, but in the past few months (helped along by Pepper’s billions and the entire galaxy’s appreciation towards the Avengers in equal parts), enough repairs have been done to make it partially usable. In this case, the locker room. Just the one, though. Which, of course means co-ed showers.

She won’t admit it, but she’s particularly appreciative of that little detail today. As she circled the compound on her last lap, she saw that the only two cars there are hers and Barnes. They’re the only two people here, and she fully intends to use that to her advantage.

“Join me? I don’t want to overextend my shoulder trying to wash my hair or back.” It’s a blatant lie, and from his expression, she can tell that he knows it too. But, he nods.

“Yeah, doll. I can do that.” Part one of the plan has been executed beautifully. Onward to part two.

She purposely leaves the travel sized bottles of shampoo and body wash on the floor so that, after rinsing off for far longer than is really necessary, she has to bend over to retrieve them. If it weren’t for her enhanced hearing, she’d completely miss the sharp intake of breath in response to her little show, but she catches it and can’t help grinning to herself. Part two: get him as worked up as she is. So far, so good.

The feeling of his fingers massaging her scalp, working the shampoo through her hair, is almost enough to make her forget that she’s a woman on a mission. Almost. As soon as she’s rinsed the soap out of her face, she turns to him.

“Your turn. Bend.” It’s not the first time they’ve done this, and as always, she has to fight back a laugh as he inclines his head towards her, the entirety of his hair falling forward to cover his face. “This used to take a lot longer before you decided to chop it all off.” He chuckles, eyes closed against the soap.

“What can I say? Seventy-three years without a haircut is my limit.” She can’t blame him, and although it was a shock at first, she’s come to like this new look. It makes him look…younger, somehow. More boyish. Like his life hasn’t contained as many horrors as they both know full well it has.

“You checking for lice or something?”

“Huh?” That jerks her out of her sentimental daze. “Looks like you’re clear.”

There’s no way to put it politely. She’s straight up ogling him as he rinses off. Five damn years…

“Ready to get your back?” And, she just got caught staring.

“Sure.”

His hands are gentle, putting as little pressure on her injured shoulder as possible, growing firmer as they work down her back. She holds her breath as she feels his palms ghost over the swell of her ass, but then he’s back to safer territory. At least, that’s what she thinks until the metal arm snakes around her chest, just below her breasts, holding her in place. His free hand runs down from her sternum to her middle, stopping just above her hips, then- fuck. Nothing. He’s backing away.

“Do you need help with your legs?” No, what she needs help with is located between them. Suddenly, the shower feels far too hot, and she’s desperate to cool off.

“That’s okay.” Her voice is shaky, and she mentally berates herself as she steps under the spray, rinsing away the soap.

She’s not at all sure that her excuse for leaving the shower and going to towel off made any sense, but with a few feet between them, she’s able to breath again. Alright, scratch the whole “shower seduction” idea. It wasn’t that great to begin with. She gets him as hot and bothered as she is, and then what? Shower sex is a slippery affair, and plus there’s the height difference… in the steamed up mirror, she catches sight of him climbing out of the shower and toweling off. Fuck it. What does she have to lose?

“Come here.” As he turns around, she hops up on the counter top (thank fuck Stark went all out and got the sinks that can easily hold the weight of an adult), allowing her towel to slip further down her chest.

She doesn’t miss the way his eyes flit down to her cleavage before settling back on her face as he stands in front of her.

“Yeah, Doll?”

“Let me get your hair. You’ll never get it dry yourself.” She’s really running low on excuses, but if she plays her cards right, she won’t have to keep up this ruse for much longer.

“You know-” She murmurs against his ear as she starts working a towel over his tousled locks, “-if you don’t take me right now, I’m gonna be really offended.”

His head snaps up, and she nearly drops the towel.

“Well, I can’t let that happen, can I?”

She has a smart-ass remark all planned out, but then his lips are pressed against hers, hard, insistent, and her brain completely empties of anything other than pure need. She’s not completely sure how, but somehow the towel wrapped around her torso (it’s so short, it didn’t even cover her ass sitting down) disappears, leaving them chest to chest, both still slightly damp from the shower. On instinct, her legs wrap around his back, bringing them so close together she can feel his cock twitch against her thigh.

“The floor, or-” It’s murmured against her ear between nibbles.

“No. Here.” It’s all she can do to hold back a moan as his whole body rumbles with quiet laughter.

“Someone’s eager.”

She leans back far enough to peer into his eyes.

“And you’re not?” The response is a thumb against her clit, and she has to bite down hard on his shoulder to muffle a yelp.

“If I’d known you were ready, you wouldn’t have gotten any sleep for the past two months.” That would’ve been a very small price to pay.

Five years is a long time, and her body tenses up at the intrusion of his finger inside of her, but she immediately forces her muscles to relax, and within seconds, it’s all she can do not to writhe against him.

“That’s it. Relax. I’ll take care of you.” It’s a lost cause. This is going to be noisy. She hazily thinks to herself that it’s all his fault.

He’s always been one for foreplay, making sure she’ll be comfortable once they actually get around to the main event, but finally enough is enough and, reaching between them, she stills his wrist.

“Get inside me.”

“Are you sure? You’re still tight-” Disentangling one of her arms from around his neck, she gives his hair a sharp tug.

“I’m like you now, remember? You’re not going to break me.”

He pulls back from her, hesitating, eyes darting between her face and the door.

“What?”

“I don’t have-” Oh. She quickly runs the calculations in her head. Given which day of the month it is, the likelihood would be-

“It’ll be fine. Just pull out.” To her relief, he doesn’t argue.

Her breath catches as he pushes inside of her, and if the panting against her neck is anything to judge from, she’s not the only one affected.

“It’s been too damn long.” Despite the situation (or perhaps because of it), she laughs breathlessly.

“You think it’s been too long? Try five fucking years!” His laugh tickles her neck.

“You’re never gonna stop using that one, are you?”

“Nope. I think I’ve earned the right.” After all, he constantly reminds her that he had to wait 98 years to meet the love of his life, so fair is fair.

“Then I guess I’ll just have to make it up to you.”

“Sounds like you just set yourself a challenge.”

“Guess I’d better get to work then.” As he says it, he pulls nearly all the way out only to slam back in again.

It’s primal, the way their bodies move together, desperate for a connection that’s been missing for so long. There’s no room or need for words to be spoken; their gasped breaths and strangled moans say it all. His hand sneaks between them, toying with her nub, and that’s what sends her over the edge. It’s the tipping point for him too because, muffling his cries against her shoulder, he pulls out just in time.

“We shoulda done that before the shower.” She’s still gasping for breath, but it forces a laugh from her. He follows suit, offering her a spare towel to clean herself up.

“You’ve been holding out on me, Barnes.” He shoots her a questioning look as she hops down on shaky legs. “I thought it was good before, but damn.”

He laughs, pulling on his jeans. “I didn’t want to risk breaking the bed. I’m a gentleman like that.” She knows the real concern was her safety, but if she concentrates on that too hard, she’ll start going mushy, and in this instance, crying after sex seems like it would kill the mood.

“You know-” She pulls her t shirt over her head, not bothering with a bra. “-I never really liked the bed I have now anyway.” It’s also really too small for two full-grown adults to share comfortably.

Sliding his duffle bag over his shoulder, he takes her hand. “Then maybe we should go home? Give you an excuse to get a new one?” Before she can answer-

“Go home. Please, I’m begging you, for the love of god, go.” Her eyes dart towards the source of the noise. The door, or more specifically, the other side of it. “Hearing you and the bionic man fucking once was enough. I’m gonna shoot you both and then myself if I have to listen to round two.”

Bucky catches her eye and mouths “Oops!”, sending her into a fit of giggles.

“You know Sam, you could’ve just walked away. You didn’t have to wait outside the door like a creep.” She has to bite her fist to keep from laughing out loud.

“Yeah, trust me. I could hear you from all the way down the hall.”

“Sorry.” She gasps it out between bouts of laughter, and she must be pulling a funny face, because he snickers to.

“No, you’re not.” No, she really isn’t. Just that they got caught.

“We’re heading out. You’ve got the place to yourself.” Giving his hand a tug, she pulls open the door, revealing a flustered Sam.

“I hope you remembered to wipe down the counter, you nasties!”

As they make their way down the corridor, Bucky calls out,

“See you Monday?”

“Yeah. And you’d better be wearing pants!”

[writing-whimsical-worlds]

Lab Rat

Eventual Peter Parker x Stark! Reader

Summary: English enthusiast and art-minded y/n feels like she is disappointing her father, and Peter Parker’s newfound presence in Tony’s heart does nothing to quell her fears.

A/N: This is basically a set up for a series if there is any interest. Let me know!

“I just don’t understand how you can have such a gifted brain in sciences and mathematics and yet you refuse to utilize it. Make it make sense!”

“Dad, come on. Is it so hard to believe that maybe I want to pursue my actual interests instead of doing what is expected of me? I’m a good writer and I just want to see where I can go with that.”

This whole “what is y/n’s future?” conversation has been going on for months because Tony, for some reason, thinks he can change my mind about my future endeavors. Yes, I do have over a 98% average in all of my honors and advanced placement science and math classes, but that does not mean I enjoy it. I loathe every second of them but I’ll be damned if I get a less-than-outstanding grade in ANY course. He raised a perfectionist, what can I say?

“I just need you to recognize your potential, y/n. You’re a Stark! You have so many opportunities right at you fingertips! Write as a hobby, I don’t care. But I will not allow you to waste the talent and intelligence that you clearly have,” Tony continues.

“I don’t want to. I will be miserable! And my intelligence is not being wasted; I want to pursue further education in English, maybe some foreign languages. I can and will be successful doing so.” I stand up from the kitchen bar-stool ready to leave the room. This conversation never ends until one of us gives up and leaves, so I guess I’ll be the one to call it.

“No no no, you aren’t leaving right now, y/n. This is important-”

I keep walking towards the door but he doesn’t quit.

“You know I just want what’s best for you. I’m thinking of your future!” He has to shout that last part a little since I’m already halfway down the hall.

I know it seems a little bitchy to walk away from a parent like that, but sometimes it’s necessary to stay sane in this household. And by household, I mean the Avengers compound - since nothing in my life can ever be simple. 

I slow from a fast stride to a stroll, nearing my quarters where I can finally get away from my dad and our endless bickering. I love him to death, but I need a break. 

To my dismay, I happen to pass by the last person I want to see right now, Peter Parker. He’s my dad’s newest addition around here and all I ever do is hear about it. “Peter is so smart, y/n, you should really learn from him. Peter is so great, y/n, why can’t you be more like him?” God, I have nothing against the guy, but after hearing his name come out of my fathers mouth so much, I was just about fed up.

“Hey y/n, you coming down to the lab later to help work on my suit? Your dad and I are making a ton of progress,” he says, practically buzzing with excitement. I do admit that his boyish charm is a little hard to resist. I still have no interest in his proposal, however.

“No thanks, definitely don’t want any part in that,” I roll my eyes. 

“Is everything okay? Your dad told me you you haven’t been... working as hard lately...” I can tell he’s nervous saying that, and he sure as hell should be.

“Excuse me? Just because I don’t spend my entire life in the lab doesn’t mean I’m not ‘working hard.’ I can do other things! Other valid things with my life that don’t involve astrophysics or whatever the hell he wants me to be doing.” Maybe it’s unfair to take this out on Peter, but he’s the one who brought it up.

He holds his hands up in placating surrender. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. But you really shouldn’t take this stuff for granted, y/n. You’re a Stark.”

You’re a Stark. 

Yeah, no shit. 

I ignore him and head to my room to change into workout clothes rather than the lounge wear I was planning on wearing. I’m too worked up to finish the editorial I was working on. I may not be into the science part of my legacy, but I loved my affinity for kicking ass. I could train for hours in the gym and, hopefully, my favorite sparring partner would be down there.

Luckily, he was. 

“Hey Buck.” I can tell he already knows what’s coming. My recent blowouts with my father have not been very subtle around here.

“Here to blow off some steam, y/n/n? Bet Tony never knew what hit him.”

“Actually, I’m sure he thinks he won this one,” I grimaced. “It’s like running in circles with that man.”

“No comment,” he laughs. It’s no secret that he and my father don’t really have the best relationship either. However, we don’t have to dwell on it. One thing I love about him is he doesn’t pry, and he can tell when I’m not here to talk things out. He can also tell, though, when I want to beat the shit out of something. What better than a super soldier?

Of course, this is said loosely considering I am merely a teenage girl with mediocre fighting skills. I have been getting a lot better, though, with Bucky as my teacher. He’s hard on me, but I learn a lot. 

Between hits and dodges, I huff my most recent grievances through labored breathing.

“He.... never... listens to me! I see him... with... that spider kid... and it’s like... just adopt him already!” We come to a standstill and I can tell Bucky doesn’t really know what to say to that. “I’m sorry, Buck. I just feel like if I’m such a disappointment, at least he has Peter, ya know? He already acts more like a dad to him than he ever has to me.”

It was harsh, but wasn’t entirely false. My father, while caring for me deeply, was really hard on me throughout my life. He’s always been so judgmental, and I can’t help but feel like he’s unhappy with me constantly.

Bucky gives me a look that tells me he thinks I’m being a little over dramatic. “Come on, kid. You know how important you are to him. Peter is just... a lot less stubborn,” he adds with a grin. 

I roll my eyes and punch him in the shoulder playfully. He continues, “Oh, come on. You know you don’t exactly make things easy on him. It also doesn’t help that you guys are so different. I mean, aside from the mutual bull-headedness, you guys are like day and night. Go easy on him, doll.”

He’s right, and it pisses me off. I do really care for my father and feel a little guilty about how I stormed off earlier. It’s probably due to my strenuous workout, but I felt a lot less inclined to argue and sought to make peace with my dad. I guess I’ll head over to my room to shower and get changed. After that, reluctantly, I’ll go apologize to Tony. 

-

Walking into the lab did nothing to brighten my mood as I see Peter and my dad working together amicably. It differed greatly than the way my dad and I worked together - it usually ended up with various items flung across the room as frustrations rose and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Hey, he raised me.

“Hey, uh. Can I talk to you, dad?”

Tony raised his head from his work, surprised to see me standing there. Mostly because he hadn’t expected me to come back and talk to him for the rest of the day, and also because he didn’t hear me walk up to him, too engrossed in whatever he was working on.

“Hey, princess.” He’s hesitant. I know he doesn’t enjoy arguing with me, and the truth is, I don’t enjoy it either. Lately, it’s just been inevitable. “Uh, I really want to get this done as soon as possible and Peter can’t make it over tomorrow, so it has to be tonight. I’ll probably be up late, too, so... maybe we can talk tomorrow?” 

I could see he really was busy, and knew for a fact that Peter had academic decathlon meetings every Wednesday afternoon, but I couldn’t help but take offense at his dismissive tone. For once, I took the high road, and he can’t even tear his eyes away from Peter’s stupid spider suit long enough to hear me out. 

It all comes back to Peter, doesn’t it? We’ll see about that...

[sciencelings-writes]

Heart of Gold-Titanium Alloy Chapter 4: Mandatory Revelation

Peter woke up in his bed. It wouldn’t have been odd if he actually remembered going to bed. He distinctly remembered falling asleep on the couch while watching Star Wars. He assumed that he had been woken up and was too tired to remember going to bed. He looked to his phone and realized that he had woken up only a few minutes before his alarm. He groaned and tried to pretend to sleep for two minutes before loud music exploded from his phone.

Living far away from his preferred school meant that he had to get ready much earlier than normal. It sucked but Peter would much rather be going to Midtown with his friends than some eccentric science school that was closer to the compound. Maybe he could convince Tony to get an apartment in manhattan…

Peter trudged out of bed and took probably too long fixing and gelling his hair down. He yawned every five minutes as Tony made him eat breakfast. He actually had to eat enough with the whole enhanced metabolism thing.

Harley just had coffee and surprisingly looked worse than Peter did. Of course, Pepper was up and perfectly put together as she too had to work before the sun came up. Tony was closer to the Harley on the spectrum of morning person. He did not look like he wanted to be awake or alive.

They were rushed into one of Tony’s Auti’s because he apparently wanted to make sure that the school had made all of the changes in person. Like no one was going to notice Tony Stark chilling out at a nerd school. Peter prepared to hear about the rumor at school and pretended that he wouldn’t be a part of it.

It was faster than Happy driving them and then taking the subway. By probably too long. They were at least forty-five minutes early and they gained a few stares after walking out of a fancy car and even more stares when Tony parked and got out of said fancy car.

Peter would’ve pretended not to acknowledge the famous Tony Stark™ but before he could, the billionaire did the half hug thing with him and Harley as if he were claiming them. It was kind of awkward and Peter knew that people were taking pictures. He knew even before Ned texted him with several emojis and a WTF dude. Apparently a picture had made it to the academic decathlon group chat.  Peter said that he would explain everything when he comes to school. That was going to be an exciting conversation.’My last relative died then I went into foster care before my actual hero said fuck it and adopted me and my friend brother.’ After everything he’s been through starting with the spider bite, this wouldn’t be as ridiculous as it would’ve once been.

Peter decided to accept his fate and Harley still wasn’t awake enough to give a shit. Tony led them to the main office, needing only a little directional help from Peter. Tony confronted a stuttering secretary who helped him with the whole updated records problem. The whole process was pretty calm and no one else was freaking out so Peter felt pretty pathetic.

When he thought that it was over and Tony was starting to leave, Peter’s spider sense went off. It never went off for no reason but it wasn’t violent enough for immediate action. It just made him generally uneasy. Like he was being watched. He did the stupid thing and ignored it. He attributed it to the premunition of Flash approaching them. His spider-sense usually didn’t go off just when Flash was walking to him. He was just a little on edge.

“Hey Penis!” Flash shouted, obviously not seeing Tony only a dozen feet away. Harley managed to look less tired and more grumpy when Flash walked up to them.

“Flash I don’t want to do this right now…” Peter muttered as he instinctively backed away. It wasn’t that he was afraid of Flash, it was just instinct after being beaten up for years. He was more afraid of falling buildings than a kid that was shorter and more aggressive than him.

“Well that’s too fucking bad isn’t it! One of you little shits ratted me out so I have detention for the rest of the month!” Flash growled. This was when Tony heard and started walking calmly back as if he was waiting for the situation to escalate enough for him to be allowed to punch a child.

More people entered and more teenagers realized that Tony Fucking Stark was just chilling in a STEM high school. A few confident students walked up to him and he switched to the whole charming public persona thing. Tony did seem to keep a discreet eye on Peter though.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…” Peter said carefully. He knew that he and Harley avoided telling anyone and he really doubted that MJ had, Peter didn’t think she cared enough or that she was aware that no action was likely to be done. Ned probably didn’t tell as this has already happened so much that he knew that no one would listen or do anything about it.

“Don’t act stupid Parker, one of the losers in your group got the idiots that run this place to believe you this time.” Flash hissed furiously.

“Actually I did.” Suddenly, behind Peter, Tony snuck up on them and rested his elbow on Peters shoulder. He jumped a little. Jesus Christ, the guy was like fifty and he was still somehow able to sneak up on Spider-Man. When Tony came into view, Flash froze and could barely talk for a full thirty seconds.

Peter noticed Tony and Harley struggling not to smirk in satisfaction. But Peter’s spider-sense was still making him uneasy. Something bad was going to happen. Peter fingered the folded web-shooters in his jean pockets in an attempt to ease his anxieties. No one seemed to notice his distress so he hoped that he was just over reacting over nothing.

“Y-you’re… You’re Tony Stark.” Flash managed to stutter out in his shock.

“Yeah, nice observation short stuff.” Tony raised his eyebrows. “I am a lot of things and that is definitely one of them.”

“I- uh-I-” Flash tried to speak before Peter’s spider-sense started to peak.

“Tony, something’s wrong…” Peter muttered before a bit of strange movement caught his eye. It would’ve easily been mistaken for a fly. It was tiny and almost metallically black. But something about it was off. It was either it’s non-erratic flying or it’s complete lack of wings or legs. Either way, it was not a fly and it was setting off Peter’s spider-sense like crazy.

The bug landed on the ceiling where Peter noticed more of them start to configure. They were too small for anyone besides him to see and he didn’t even know what they were. They may not even be dangerous. They could just be weird cameras or drones.

Peter realized that he wouldn’t be that lucky when his enhanced hearing caught steady beeping coming from the bugs. In the movies that means they were going to blow up. Apparently, that’s what it meant in real life too. Peter took a fraction of a second to guess where the safest places would be then he realized that the tiny bombs were placed very specifically in the most important parts of the buildings structure. They were trying to bring the roof down completely.

Peter was glad that they were early enough for there not to be too many people at the school in the first place. Not just because of the imminent destruction but also because it was going to be hard to keep a secret identity.  

The image of the building collapsing on them made Peter’s anxiety appear, One time was enough and now it was almost certainly going to happen again. Oh joy. For a moment Peter found it hard to breathe, A split second of his ribs being crushed and the phantom weight of a dozen tons of concrete piled up on his back. Peter motionlessly shook off the feeling. He didn’t have time to have a panic attack.

“Kid… You okay?” Peter was ripped out of his thoughts as Tony noticed him space out. Harley and Flash were staring at him weirdly while Tony seemed to have an idea about what was up. Tony was the only one who knew about the whole spider thing. Not everything though. He hasn’t had the chance to explain everything or even find out for himself.

“Uh, did you bring one of your suits?” Peter asked, hoping that the distant beeping of the tiny bombs would refrain from speeding up.

“I’m not going to bring a fully weaponized suit to visit a school… Why, what’s wrong.” Tony calmly demanded while reaching towards his watch that if Peter remembered correctly, turned into a simple iron man gauntlet.

“They’re going to try to bring the roof down…” Peter muttered as he noticed the pulsing noise speed up. They had seconds, if that. He didn’t have time to evacuate or warn anyone. So he did the best thing that he could think of. He yelled.

“HOLY FUCK THE CEILING IS FALLING!” He managed to scream immediately before the bombs went off. The blasts weren’t actually that impressive but it was easily going to bring the building down.

Tony pulled Harley and Flash to the floor as Peter slapped the web-shooters onto his wrists at the speed of light. A large chunk of concrete ceiling fell in slow motion at the small group and Harley was able to find the time to scream Peter’s name before he thought they would be squished.

Fortunately that didn’t happen. Peter managed to catch the debris and he only fell to one knee from the impact. There was a moment of stunned silence while Peter got back up on his feet and carefully placed the concrete away from them instead of taking the dramatic route and using the piece of ceiling as a frisbee.

“Are you guys okay?” Peter broke the silence and Tony was the first one to recover.

“We aren’t the ones who took the full force of the second floor kid. Are you okay?” His mentor asked while hiding his own marveling. The kid didn’t look even remotely hurt from the impact. Tony knew he was strong but holy shit…

“I’ve had worse.” Peter said carefully. Tony immediately knew that he was trying to hide something. Not because he was particularly good at identifying lies, but mostly because Peter was pretty shit at telling them.

“What the fuck Pete.” Harley spoke up. Flash seemed to agree.

“Not everyone can meet Tony Stark when he fakes his death and sneaks into your garage.” Peter sighed.  “You have to be kinda special. My special thing just happened to be superpowers and non-violent tendencies.” He shrugged.

“You- You’re-” Flash stuttered, which was unusual for him. But being in a collapsing building, pissing off a superhero and finding out the main kid you bully is also a superhero was pretty unusual for him too.

“I’m Spider-Man.” Peter finished for him. “Surprise… I think there are more important things than my identity though. I mean someone just deliberately tried to murder us.”

“Yeah good point kid, was there anyone else in the foyer? It looks like this is where all of the explosions were… Not even the main office looks damaged.” Tony looked around.

“It was pretty empty…” Peter began to check under the biggest chucks of ceiling for anyone but was relieved to not find any bodies.

“Are we not going to talk about what the hell just happened…” Harley took Tony’s hand before the billionaire helped him and Flash up to their feet.

“Nope. Superhero karma. We could totally get attacked again as we seem to be in one piece.” Peter shrugged. “I’m guessing Friday already called the police?”

“Let me check, probably. It’s too bad my latest suit was in the car…” Tony sighed and put on a pair of glasses with the AI casually featured. “Hey Fri, did you call emergency services?”

“Of course. The authorities were notified as soon as the explosion went off.” Peter heard the quiet voice of the AI going into Tony’s ear.

“Good, you see any heat signatures in the debris?” Tony asked Friday while Flash sat on the chunk of concrete that had almost fallen on him. Harley walked up to Peter who was checking for trapped kids a few dozen feet away.

“So… Someone needs to stand up for Spider-Man huh.” Harley leaned on the chunk of concrete that Peter was lifting up.

“Well, I’m glad that it’s you. And Tony, and MJ, and Ned…” Peter chuckled. “What can I say, I’m a bit of a wuss. Even though I can bench press the Hulk with one hand, I seem to attract people who feel the need to protect me.” Peter was fully aware and usually enjoyed it when people cared enough to get protective of him. But it could get annoying as he felt like they didn’t think that he could take care of himself.

“That’s because you look pathetic and have puppy eyes. When you look sad, the world will want to hug you.” Harley snorted. “I guess that’s why you have a mask, you are as non-threatening as it gets.”

“I do not!” Peter dropped the slab of ceiling which made Harley tumble a little bit. The blonde asshole still grinned.

“Only Tony can get away with being that short. He has armor that can make him as tall as he wants and he wears lifts on the daily.” Harley grinned as Tony heard his name.

“You take that back you monster! I am not as short as the Spiderling!” Tony yelled from his position.

“You’re only one inch taller than me!” Peter shouted exasperatedly. “Are we really doing this now?”

“Isn’t the subject of height a normal family argument?” Harley genuinely asked. Both Tony and Peter stopped what they were doing and shrugged. None of them had much experience with family stuff. Or at least, normal family stuff.

This was when paramedics arrived and Flash’s mother got out of her car and launched herself at her son. Policemen walked up to Tony as Harley and Peter were rushed to an ambulance to check if they were okay. Peter was a little bruised on his back but he was fine. Harley just seemed shaken up so they gave him one of those panic blankets.

“Do either of you have parents that we need to notify?” A policeman asked both of the teenagers who both pointed at Tony without hesitation.

“We might need to call Pepper though.” Harley shrugged casually. Thankfully the police guy just went up to the billionaire instead of immediately doubting their situation. It took about fifteen minutes for the school staff to be saved from the wreckage, most of them were stuck in their rooms or offices and none of them were severely hurt. There was an english teacher with a broken arm though and Peter felt bad for her.

“I’ll do it, Tony looks busy…” Peter looked at his new dad and shrugged before taking out his remarkably intact phone. He saw that Pepper had already tried to call but his phone was on silent. He didn’t hesitate to call her back. She was probably worried out of her mind.

“Oh my god Peter, Are you guys okay? Friday told me what happened but I haven’t been able to get a hold of Tony yet.” Pepper answered urgently.

“I promise we’re okay, Tony is just busy dealing with the police. I think Friday is just offline or Tony’s glasses broke.” Peter reassured her. “I guess we get to miss school huh…”

“Jesus Christ now there are three boys ready to give me a heart attack. Can you give the phone to Tony when he’s not busy?” She sounded anxious and laughed nervously.

“We’ll make it up to you I promise. And I’ll try, but it could either take ten seconds or ten hours depending on Tony’s patience.” Peter said gently like he was trying to calm her down long distance.

“I bet ten seconds. He’ll want to get back to you two as soon as possible. Are you guys hurt at all? Even if it’s just a scratch I want to know.” She ordered.

“We’re fine, I caught the debris before it could squash us. Bruising will heal up in a few hours. I don’t think anyone got too seriously injured.” Peter started to think about the situation. The bombs could’ve been after Tony, then it would make sense for the people behind it not factoring in Peter’s super-strength, the bombs were mobile so they could’ve been following them for a while… On the other hand they would’ve been more effective if they had just gotten closer to the heroes. But making the ceiling fall was deliberate so it was probably someone going after Peter and not doing very well.

“I want to hear his voice… just please. Take the phone to him for a second.” Pepper said quietly.

“No problem. I’ll see if I can pull him away for a second.” Peter promised as he strolled over to Tony and prepared to be interrogated in his place. He threaded in between a handful of police who told him to be careful and he got close enough to hand Tony the phone.

“Tony, It’s Pepper.” Peter hissed as he passed his phone to his father.

“Jesus, Sorry boys, gotta console the girlfriend, you know? Hey Honey...” Tony said sweetly into the receiver of the cell phone. Peter decided to tune out Pepper’s relieved yelling.

“Kid, can you tell us what happened?” One of the cops approached him.

“Yeah, so We just got out of the main office so that Tony could finalize our documents, and these little bug things were on the ceiling which I thought was weird. They were black and super metallic and they flew but had no wings. They must’ve had some sort of miniaturized hover technology and they placed themselves at the strongest points of the building to bring it down.” Peter stated calmly.

“So they were probably the work of some villain with a personal agenda with Mr. Stark over there.” The cop motioned toward Tony who was talking in a very animated way to his worried fiance.

“That would make sense.” Peter shrugged and kept his mouth shut over suspecting it being his fault. Someone was after Spider-Man and they knew who he was. Tony being there was just an extra bonus. Probably.

“How did you manage to avoid the rubble completely?” Peter froze.  He recovered as quickly as he could as he answered.

“I don’t know, we were lucky I guess.” He shrugged and glanced over at Harley. He gave his brother a look that tried to convey ‘save me’ and it seemed to work. Harley rolled his eyes and walked over.

“A building just dropped on us. We are traumatized.” Harley grabbed Peters shirt and dragged him away. Well, that was one way to get him out of the situation.

“Whatever…” The policeman reminded Peter why he was still a vigilante. New York just didn’t have people who gave a shit.

“Children of mine!” Tony yelled with his hand on the phone receiver.”We’re going home to recover from trauma, do you guys want Pizza or chinese takeout for lunch?”

This was when Peter realized how much time had past. They had literally just chilled there for hours while Tony had been talking to the police and Pepper.

“I don’t care as long as there is a lot of it. Trauma makes me hungry.” Harley said while Peter nodded. He had a feeling that he would be grilled during lunch anyway. He did just accidentally reveal his whole superhero thing.

Hopefully this time, they won’t be followed.

[realtalk-princeton]

Can someone tell me more about what it's like being an FLI at Princeton and their life experiences in general? I am trying to be more understanding and helpful to my friends who are FLI, but they would never open up to me as much as they do to their other FLI friends.

Response from Kore:

I would like to preface this by saying that there is no "universal" FLI experience so what I say might not apply for everyone but that others might share similar aspects.

I think the biggest thing for me is that it's not just academics that we're juggling. Princeton does a wonderful job with financial aid in most cases and that means most FLI students are able to live comfortably on campus but that doesn't mean that their family can. Often times, this means that a lot of FLI peeps are juggling multiple jobs not because they want the extra $$, but because they feel like they have to (whether out of guilt or necessity). I distinctly remember trying to work 3 jobs at one point in freshman year because I felt like I should try to get some extra income so I could be financially independent/not burden parents if I had the opportunity to do so. So you're lowkey looking at roughly 10-20 hours of job stuff on top of academics and general guilt if you're not working. There's a weird paradox where sometimes you feel like you're weighing short term income over academics/long term income.

This is of course ignoring other non-financially related family problems. A disproportionally amount of the FLI community is BIPOC and a lot of our parents don't speak English. Ergo, we continue playing translator/legal representative/general communication staff for our families even while we're at school. Problems back home often spillover to day-to-day campus life.

The imposter syndrome is also realllyyyyy bad I think within the FLI community. There's a general narrative that a lot of us tell ourselves (often in a joking way) where we're like "oh we only got in bc we're x race" or "princeton saw my sob story and had to take me" etc which I hope we can all agree is not true. Whether it's joking/true or not, I think the fact that this is a narrative that we perpetuate often makes it feel real for a lot of the FLI community, where we feel like charity cases and ill-fit for the university. This is then further compounded by the fact that a lot of us came from high schools in low-income areas that were frankly not very well-equipped. The levels of education we received often seems insufficient when we arrive on campus and we're sort of stuck floundering/catching up with our peers.

I think it's also just the differences in experiences/opportunities that makes it hard for FLI people to open up? Like, for instance, my family was never able to really afford me the opportunity to learn things like music, dance, sports, etc. I remember going to my first sit-down restaurant (I think it was Apple Bees?) as a high school senior and just floundering because like I literally did not remember a time where my family indulged in something like that and I had no clue how tip/paying worked in such a case.

My parents were also certainly no help with college or school in general. I think a general sentiment I've heard among FLI peeps is the idea that there's really no one to fall back on except yourself. You, yourself, have to figure out your shit if things hit the fan because your parents certainly can't help you (in fact, they're waiting for you to grow up so you can help them).

^ I am sorry for this shitshow of an incoherent ramble. Please take with a grain of salt. Happy that you're trying to be more understanding/helpful to your FLI friends but also please, please don't take it personally if they have trouble opening up. It's not a you issue--I think it's honestly just easier to not explain so we just stick within FLI circles unconsciously.

[thelifetimechannel]

[gethealthy18-blog]

325: Hashimoto’s Update: How I Got to Remission & What I Do to Maintain

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325: Hashimoto’s Update: How I Got to Remission & What I Do to Maintain

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

This episode is sponsored by Four Sigmatic, the reason I’m on shrooms (the legal kind) every day. They make a wide variety of superfood mushroom infused products from coffees and teas to elixirs and even chocolate that is infused with ten mushrooms! I have a shelf in my pantry just for four sigmatic products and keep pretty much all of them on hand. Some current favorites… my kids love the reishi infused cocoa, and I love that it helps them sleep! I also really enjoy their 10 mushroom blend which contains all of my favorites like chaga, cordyceps, reishi and even meshima. I add this to coffee, tea, or smoothies to get a daily dose of shrooms. As a listener of this podcast, you can save 15% by going to foursigmatic.com/wellnessmama and using the code “wellnessmama”

This episode is brought to you by Beekeeper’s Naturals, superfood products from the hive that help support your family’s health. Right now, Propolis has been a lifesaver with all of the sniffles and coughs going around where we live. Propolis is a resinous mixture that bees make in the hive and contains over 300 compounds including polyphenols and compounds that are antibacterial and a compound called pinocembrin that acts as an antifungal. Some studies have shown that propolis can speed wound healing. It’s natural antibacterial and antifungal properties also make it great for fighting the sniffles. At first sign of any sniffles, sore throat or coughing, I spray propolis in the throat and it almost always helps us bounce back quickly. I also use propolis before flying to avoid picking up anything on the plane. You can save 15% on propolis and all Beekeeper’s Naturals products at beekeepersnaturals.com/wellnessmama with the code wellnessmama

Katie: Hello and welcome to the ”Wellness Mama” podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and wellnesse.com, my new personal care line that you can check out. And today I’m gonna give an update on my journey with Hashimoto’s and from beginning to end all of the steps I tried, what worked and what didn’t work, and where I currently am with that because I get quite a few questions about this, especially when I mentioned being in remission and it was very much a decade-long journey for me.

I’m hopeful that some of you can benefit from maybe some of the things I’ve tried. I will say before we jump in that if I’ve learned anything through this whole process, it is just how personalized and individualized health is and especially when you’re dealing with something as intricate as autoimmune disease. I do think a lot of these things, in general, can be helpful in some way to people with lots of different autoimmune disease, but I don’t mean them to be diagnostic or prescriptive. What worked for me, ultimately, was trying a lot of different things and finding the things that worked for me by tracking.

So as I go through all of these different things that worked, I will also say that I have kept a relatively detailed health journal that’s now in digital form actually through… It’s been at some points notes on my phone in Evernote and now lives in Google docs so that I always have it with me and I track things very carefully, including my labs using Heads Up Health, which is a health dashboard.

Anytime I’m trying something new, I’m definitely looking at the empirical data of what’s happening in my body. And I also keep notes on any changes in exercise, in general and dietary stuff, and also sleep and use my Oura Ring as well so that I can see what’s actually working and what’s not. I think that that’s a really important step for all of us, whatever we’re trying to work through in a health perspective, not that we need to be obsessive about it, but just to be able to see trends over time. It’s really helpful to have all of the data in one place.

So starting from the beginning or as much as in the beginning as possible without being too long-winded, years ago about, gosh, almost 14 years, more than 14 years ago now, I was pregnant with my first child. And I had recently finished college and had been in an extremely stressful academic environment. I loved it, but I was pushing myself incredibly hard. I wasn’t sleeping very much. I took 28 hours my final semester while I was pregnant and while I was working on a lot of other projects, so I was extremely stressed. I was not eating much food. And then when I did eat I was not eating very well and I was pregnant. So lots of potential factors all hitting at one time.

And I’ve joked before that if you want to create autoimmune disease, my recipe seems to be don’t sleep, eat really bad food, and be stressed all the time. And that’s enough too, if you’ve got a genetic predisposition, to kind of trigger something. And I think, based on my research at least, a lot of factors can go into it. It can be toxicity from certain things. It can be deficiencies of certain nutrients. It can be stress. Like, stress alone can trigger autoimmune disease from many of the stories I’ve heard from you guys and from my research.

So I think there’s a lot of factors that go in. I’ve explained this almost as like a bathtub concept that if you have a bathtub you can put a lot of different things in it. You could put rocks. You could put kids’ toys, which are usually what are in my bathtub. You could put sand. You could put golf balls. You could put water, Kool-Aid, whatever. You can put a lot of stuff in. But when it reaches the top, no matter what you put in, something is going to overflow. And that’s kind of how I think of health problems and autoimmune disease. And I think some of us maybe have genetically bigger bathtubs and more leeway than others based on genetics. But everybody has that point at which health problems will start.

And so I think there’s a lot of different factors that can go into this. And I think there’s also a lot of different factors that can help clean out the bathtub and reset things. So this was my journey of finding what those things were. At this time in my life, that was where I was health-wise. I was very young. I wasn’t thinking about health problems. I was certainly not thinking about what I ate or what impact it might have on my health. I wish I had thought more about what impact it would have on my child and I wish I had known now all of the things I know to take and to do when pregnant. But at that point, I was pregnant with my first, extremely busy, extremely stressed, and had a tough birth with him, and then was adjusting to life as a mom, which is a relatively large life adjustment to begin with, as well as adjusting to a move and to still being a newlywed. And a lot, and it was just a lot of things that happened at once.

And so, in the beginning, I didn’t fully realize that I was in a health crisis until it got pretty bad because I wrote off a lot of the things that were happening as, “Oh, that’s just because of the pregnancy,” or, “That’s just because of having a new baby,” or, “That’s just because I’m not sleeping,” or all of those different things. But when my oldest son was six weeks old, I was sitting in the doctor’s office waiting for the doctor for my followup appointment. And he was running late because he was delivering another baby. And I read through pretty much every magazine in that waiting room. And one of the last ones I picked up, I believe it was “Time” magazine. And it said that for the first time in two centuries, the current generation of American children would have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

And that just…it was such a stark contrast. You might’ve heard that part of the story before because it was so, so pivotal for me that day. But to hear that and to think about and read through all these statistics in that article about how they were gonna face such high rates of cancer, diabetes, and autoimmune disease, and heart disease and how everything was drastically on the rise, and looking back mathematically, it didn’t even make sense that in such a short period of time, in such few generations, we could see such drastic changes. And reading that while holding this tiny baby who I was just overwhelmed with love for, it made me so mad that I wasn’t just not okay with that as a new mom with so many hormones. I was not okay with the idea that that was the future for my child or for all of our children.

So something, a ball started rolling that day. Something clicked in my head and I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to or how, but I was determined that I wanted to help change that statistic. I wanted to help change it, certainly for my own children, but hopefully also, for lots of other children because I wanted better than that for our kids. And around the same time, I started just, like I said, noticing some symptoms but largely writing them off as, “Oh, maybe that’s just post-pregnancy,” or, “Maybe it just is harder to lose weight after having a baby,” or, “Maybe it’s normal to be cold when you’re nursing,” or, “Of course, your hair’s supposed to fall out after pregnancy,” and, “Of course, I’m tired because I’m not sleeping.”

And so I just kind of kept writing those things off. But I did have like all of those symptoms. I had trouble losing the weight after my son and then got pregnant with my daughter less than a year later. And so the whole process kind of started again. And in hindsight, I can see almost kind of a snowball effect, having now had six kids within a nine-year period, just how difficult that was on my body, but also how I was able to ignore so many of the symptoms that would line up with Hashimoto’s because they also line up with things like pregnancy and breastfeeding and lack of sleep with being a new mom.

But over the course of having my next couple of children, there were these persistent symptoms and I wasn’t able to lose weight. And I kept thinking, “I wonder if something else is going on.” I would read things in my research about thyroid disease and I kept wondering if that’s what it was. And through my self-research, I think I probably actually made the problem worse in the beginning because at first, I would ask my doctor when I was pregnant to test me for any thyroid issues.

And they do some routine thyroid tests, typically, most doctors during pregnancy, but they were just testing a couple of the hormones. Usually, it was just T3 or sometimes TSH, but nothing else. They were just testing a couple of things. And then if those were normal, they wouldn’t go any deeper. So I was asking for tests and I was being told everything was fine. And increasingly, I kept thinking like, “I don’t think everything is fine,” but I couldn’t get a doctor to help me figure out why. And so then I started taking different supplements that were labeled for thyroid. In hindsight, this probably made things worse because a lot of those supplements are iodine-based. And if you have certain thyroid issues, iodine can be a little bit complicated, to say the least. And so I was taking iodine that probably actually, now understanding my version, made things worse.

And I’ll try to explain a little bit of why. I definitely, again, I’m not trying to give medical advice on this. I think if you even suspect that you have a thyroid issue or any kind of autoimmune disease, it is very, very important to work with a doctor who knows about that condition and who can know your full medical history. I’m just sharing what worked for me. If you do need to find a functional medicine doctor, I use a company called SteadyMD and I will link to them in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. They have been phenomenal. I worked with Dr. Lauren Jefferis who is highly experienced in this, but I’m back to the iodine note.

So iodine is often recommended if you have thyroid problems because there’s this idea that an iodine deficiency can lead to hypothyroidism or there’s a correlation between low iodine and hypothyroidism. And so a lot of people end up taking iodine, but in some cases it can do more harm than good. And I didn’t learn this for a lot of years. I’ll explain how I learned it in a little while. But basically it depends whether or not… Like, iodine can be both good or bad for the thyroid. And there’s a lot of factors that come into play.

So when the term thyroid problems is a pretty broad category and there’s a lot of actual medical conditions that can fall into that and they all need to be handled differently. So like I said, I found this out the hard way. And after all my initial research and a chiropractor said I needed to start taking iodine. So I did. I took these supplements with iodine and I started feeling a lot worse. And I kind of wrote it off thinking, “Oh, maybe it’s an adjustment reaction.” And I continued taking it, but I eventually had to stop taking it because I didn’t feel any better.

And now I’m seeing research and my own experience that really verify that. So there’s data from a lot of countries that can really kind of speak to the whole iodine thing because a lot of countries started adding iodine to salt to combat hypothyroidism. But then on the flip side of that, they would see rising rates of autoimmune thyroid problems. And so Chris Kresser talks about this. He has a great post. You can Google Chris Kresser in pretty much anything and great articles will come up.

But there’s countries like Sri Lanka, Brazil, Greece, China, and I think others that saw an increase in autoimmune thyroid issues after increasing iodine. And this is because increased intake of iodine, especially in supplement form, they think can increase the potential of an autoimmune attack on the thyroid. And one reason from what I understand might be that iodine reduces the activity of an enzyme called thyroid peroxidase or TPO, which is something that is required for proper hormone production and something that they measure. I’ll talk more about that soon.

But there’s also a confounding factor. So my own treatment plan, I now avoid any supplemental iodine whatsoever. And there is evidence that shows that those with autoimmune thyroid disease can see a benefit from just from avoiding iodine. But on the other hand, those with the iodine deficiency-induced hypothyroidism can benefit from very careful supplementation. But again, it’s that very careful balance and why you’d wanna work with a doctor who knows what they’re doing.

Another researcher I really admire is Dr. Paul J M Annette [SP]. And he talks about another factor that might come into play with the iodine autoimmune relationship. And that’s selenium. So he says that excess intake like of iodine can cause autoimmune thyroid problems that bears all the characteristics of Hashimoto’s but might not actually clinically the Hashimoto’s. And he found that an animal studies this occurs only if the animal is deficient or has an excess of selenium, which is another one we need to get in very careful amounts.

And also in animal studies, very high intake can make a preexisting autoimmune condition worse. But again, only if selenium isn’t too high or too low. So he found that if you’re selenium levels are correct, then your thyroid follicles are healthy, people don’t have goiter in those scenarios, and autoimmune markers go into normal levels. So it seems that there is a really important and very carefully-balanced thing that comes into play with optimizing selenium. And I’ll talk more about that when I talk about supplements I now take. But the bottom line is I think actually made my own thyroid problems worse in the beginning by taking way too much iodine.

So for the next several years, I went through a variety of different doctors that I would try to find locally and asked them to test different thyroid markers or help me try to figure out what was wrong and largely with no beneficial results because they would test the same things. They would tell me everything was normal and that all of the symptoms, the fatigue, the hair loss, the cold, the tired, etc, those were all just normal with being a mom and they’re not. And so if you’re listening, no matter what you think you might be dealing with, I would say don’t settle for being told those things are normal. And unfortunately, sometimes we do have to be very strong advocates in our own health. That is a lesson I’ve learned over and over and all of this that when it comes to actually finding our own health answers, we can find incredible doctors and practitioners who can be amazing partners, but we can never outsource the responsibility because health is so personalized.

And at the end of the day, our best-case scenario is going to require us being patients and n equals, one, and experimenting on ourselves. I went through many, many doctors. I think it was eight by the time I finally started to get answers. And when my fourth child was young, I actually traveled to a health conference with her and had my mom there to help babysit. I was still tired. I still couldn’t lose weight. I was feeling all the emotions of feeling like a fraud at a health conference because I couldn’t figure out how to get the weight off and not being able to get a diagnosis. And I was talking to someone there who said she had had a diagnosis of thyroid problems and it had taken her a long time. And I was like, “Who did you finally see? How did you finally get answers?” And she recommended her doctor, who is now a doctor I’ve worked with and a very close friend, Dr. Alan Christianson. And I will link to his website also in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. He has incredible resources that you can read and find for free. And he has books on this topic.

But she told me, “I worked with Dr. Alan Christianson. He was able to diagnose me immediately and my entire life changed. I felt so much better.” And for the first time and a really long time, I had this glimmer of hope and it was like, ”Can you please send me his info? I’m willing to work with him. I’ll go anywhere.” And she’s like, ”Oh no, he’s here at the conference.” And I ran into him later that day and I started barely just talking about my symptoms. And before I could even finish explaining all this stuff, he looked at me, he reached out, he actually felt my thyroid, and he said that he would…he wanted to run some labs. But he was pretty sure just based on that that I had Hashimoto’s and that like he could tell that my thyroid was a little bit enlarged. There were likely nodules and based on symptoms he said, “They probably aren’t testing the correct labs. They probably haven’t tested your antibodies,” which was true and, “They probably haven’t identified, but I would…” He said, “I would be willing to bet that you likely have Hashimoto’s.”

And while for some people hearing that might be a bad thing, I was so overwhelmingly excited to just have potentially a glimmer of hope of knowing what it might be and then having a way to try to research and figure out how to get over it that I actually hugged him. I didn’t just want to hug him. I did. And over the next year, he worked with me through lab testing, through all kinds of different methods that I’ll talk about. And I started to see improvement in my symptoms and also in my labs. And he’s now become a very close friend. I absolutely love him.

Like I said, I recommend his books very highly. I recommend his website and his work and he’s also just one of the most fascinating people I have ever met just as a person to hang out with. He’s incredibly smart. He read the encyclopedias before he was five and he now is…he competitively unicycles up mountains. So an incredibly interesting human being, and incredibly smart, and I am forever grateful to him for starting me on this journey to recovery.

So at that point through lab testing, it showed elevated TSH, elevated antibodies, and an ultrasound of my thyroid revealed nodules. So all of those things lined up and led to an official diagnosis of Hashimoto’s. At that point, I started to really wanna understand for the first time autoimmune disease in general, what was going on within my body. I’ll link to a lot of the resources I used to start understanding it in the show notes. I read all of Dr. Christianson’s work. I read a lot from Dr. Tom O’Bryan, some from Dr. Sarah Valentine, Dr. Isabella Wentz. There are so many incredible researchers who have written and shared incredible information about this. And there are differences based on the different types of autoimmune disease, but there’s a lot great resources as a starting point.

In the beginning of treatment, the things that Dr. Christianson and I did together were basically developed a plan based on diet, lifestyle, and careful supplementation and medication for a while. I think that’s an important part to talk about in this story to be able to let my body come back to baseline and recover. In general, I typically try to avoid medication when I can, but I also think that there is a time and a place for certain things. And I don’t ever want to like exclude traditional medical treatment, as I do think there’s a time and a place for that. And I talk about cases, just like for instance, the birth of my third child. I would be dead and so would he without a C-section and without medical care because I had placenta previa.

I think there’s absolutely time and place for conventional medicine. And for me, this meant that I took in the very beginning something called WP Thyroid, which is a natural thyroid supplement. Now, it’s very difficult to get. So I take Nature Throid. And the logic here was that taking that would help give my body a break because my TSH was high. And when your TSH is high, which is a stimulating hormone, those nodules were more likely to grow as well. So in order to hopefully shrink the nodules, I wanted to keep TSH low for awhile. And so I was taking WP Thyroid and now Nature Throid at the end to give my body a break to keep TSH low so that I’d be able to shrink the nodules. And I was using a lot of things like in conjunction with this with a focus on reducing inflammation and trying to figure out the root causes.

Dr. Isabella Wentz has multiple books on this and her website is full of great information on finding your own root causes. I think this part is extremely individualized. So I’m not even going to go deep on what ended up working for me other than the dietary side because I think there are some commonalities there. But things that can potentially be root causes or at least root triggers of these kinds of things are chemicals or toxicities in the body from any variety of different factors, things like an underlying undiagnosed virus. Epstein-Barr is apparently very common and in conjunction, people may not even know they have it and they might have a latent version of some virus in the body that is keeping the body from being able to come back to homeostasis and to recover from something like this.

And so I started really researching and experimenting and delving into all of the things I could do to lower inflammation, to give my body a break, and to let it recover. And I tried a lot of things over the last 10 years to finally get this to happen. And I think that it would be very difficult to say even a number of things that were the actual causes that let me fully recover. But I think there were some contributing factors that were really helpful. I think the common factor is inflammation. So for people who are struggling with this, again, I think it’s very important to find a doctor who you can work with to figure out what are your own root causes and then what do you need to do to address them.

So for me, there was a combination of diet and lifestyle factors. And I’ll talk about some that I mentioned a little bit in past podcast episodes. But it was also really important to note that for me, I had to address all of these factors and be very patient with my body and let all of these things come back into normal, get my hormones in normal range, support my body nutritionally, keep inflammation low, and I was not able to lose weight easily during that entire process. It was not until my body recovered and really came back to baseline that I was able to lose weight. And at that point it was incredibly easy. And I’ve also shared in a recent podcast episode the emotional side of that and how I think really dealing with our stress and emotions is a huge key.

So I’m not gonna go back through that, but listen to episode 309 of this podcast if you want to understand that whole side. In this one, I’m just gonna focus on the medical and nutritional and lifestyle things I did. So one thing Dr. Christianson recommended right away, he said that you know, hormones all work together almost like a symphony and you won’t just have one out of place. They all depend on each other.

So when you end up with something like a thyroid issue or hormones that are not where they should be, you want to make sure you’re supporting it across the board. And one thing he is a big fan of is getting sunlight in the morning. It doesn’t have to be on your skin. You don’t have to get a suntan or a sunburn. In fact, you won’t early in the morning typically anyway. But being outside in natural light as soon as possible after waking up, and I’ve mentioned this before, but I wanna reiterate because it really does make a difference. It’s easy to ignore because you think it won’t make a very big difference just getting outside. But there’s a cascade of hormones in our body that depends on light.

And light has a very important signaling purpose in things like melatonin production, cortisol production, and keeping those things in proper ranges. And if your cortisol is messed up or you’re not making melatonin or you’re not sleeping well because you’re not making melatonin, you are going to have a difficult time getting inflammation down in the body and letting your body recover from something like, for me, Hashimoto’s. So his advice was to spend 30 minutes in the sun. For me, it’s on my porch in the morning as soon as possible after waking up and I often do this sipping tea or having coffee some days.

And so sitting outside with my family in the sun every morning, that is an easy, super simple free thing that we can all do that has, I noticed, measurable changes in my hormone levels from doing. So my cortisol was…actually, when he first tested me, it was the exact opposite of what it was supposed to be. So cortisol is supposed to spike at certain times and fall at others and that signals that your stress levels are in the correct ranges. And mine was doing the exact opposite. And getting sunlight in the morning along with some of these other methods, helped correct that for me.

Another thing that he recommended for me was broccoli sprouts, eating broccoli sprouts every day. And some of these things, at first I doubted like, “Is this actually gonna be beneficial? Like the sunlight, is that actually gonna be helpful?” And I will say I still do these things to this day because I do feel like they make a difference. But he also recommended broccoli sprouts regularly. And the reason for this is broccoli sprouts are high in a substance called sulforaphane. If you have never heard of this, I have a couple of posts on it that I will link to in the show notes. Dr. Rhonda Patrick also has some great posts and podcasts about this. But it’s found in cruciferous vegetables, especially in broccoli sprouts.

There are studies that show that sulforaphane can be anticancer, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, which is why I was using it. And there are even studies looking at it to help fight aging and diabetes. And the great thing is this is something inexpensive that you can make at home. I have a tutorial on wellnessmama.com that’ll be linked in the show notes on wellnessmama.fm. But if you haven’t heard of this compound before, I’ll try not to keep this or I’ll try to keep this from being too boring. But so sulforaphane is the name for this cancer-fighting compound that’s found in cruciferous vegetables and especially sprouts.

If you care about the science, sulforaphane is created when the enzyme myrosinase transforms the glucoraphanin into sulforaphane. Hopefully, I pronounced all that correctly. Since myrosinase and glucoraphanin are found in different parts of the plants, this change actually happens when the plant is damaged. So when you chew it or blend it up, then these two compounds mixed together and react and young sprouts or broccoli or particularly good sources of glucoraphanin. And more specifically, sulforaphane is part of a group of plant-based compounds, phytochemicals called isothiocyanates, which in the body, this stimulates the production of important enzymes that fight free radicals. You’ve probably heard of those for their effect on aging in the body.

So inflammation and free radicals are also, they get the blame for a lot of types of cancer. So this is a big deal and there’s a lot of cool research right now happening about these particular phytochemicals and protection against cancer. And since I had nodules on my thyroid, I was very cautious to make sure that those weren’t gonna turn cancerous. And so like I said, sulforaphane is found in all cruciferous vegetables, but much higher in broccoli sprouts and other sprouts.

And these are things you can grow easily at home. There’re studies, like I said, showing that this can boost brain health. It can help with detoxification, which is another factor that’s often present with autoimmune disease. Taking sulforaphane can help increase gludethyon as an NRF-2 activator and also slowing aging. There’s a lot of studies about this, so, and again, it’s an easy thing that he recommended adding in. You can grow them in your own kitchen. I’ve got tutorials in the show notes.

But I also think before I move on, it’s important to talk about cruciferous vegetables because just like the iodine thing, there’s, you know, the conception that you should take iodine if you have thyroid problems. There is also some advice if you start reading into the research on thyroid issues, in general, that you should not eat cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, etc. if you have thyroid problems. And again, the answer to this is a little bit more complicated and nuanced than just whether you should or shouldn’t.

As I started really digging into this, I found that some sources claim that all cruciferous vegetables should be avoided if you have thyroid issues while others say it’s fine to eat them if they’re cooked. You just don’t want to eat them raw. And then I also read, some sources that said, if you’re gonna eat cruciferous vegetables, you need to take iodine. Again, that didn’t work for me, but there was a lot of conflicting information about this. So I asked Dr. Christianson when I first started this and he explained that it’s perfectly safe to consume cruciferous vegetables regularly if you have Hashimoto’s. And here’s why.

He said cruciferous vegetables are, they basically belong to the mustard family and cruciferous vegetables is a broad term for this whole group of things that everything could include bok choy, arugula, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, horseradish, mustard greens, radishes, turnips, watercress, etc. And, in general, there’s a lot of benefits to these kinds of vegetables. They contain a lot of phytochemicals and important things. But a lot of people with thyroid issues are hesitant to consume them, especially in large amounts because of some conflicting opinions online.

So in my opinion, like I said, they can be extremely healthy. They contain folate, Vitamin C, E, K, and a lot of phytochemicals that can reduce inflammation. So there’s potential reasons to consume them. The reason people say you might not wanna eat them if you have thyroid issues is that they also contain goitrogens, which are substances that affect the thyroid in certain ways. And goitrogens can interfere with the thyroid’s ability to take in iodine. So that’s also why people say you might wanna take iodine if you’re consuming a lot of those because your body needs that to produce thyroid hormone.

So people are worried about the goitrogenic activity of these. So they say if you have thyroid issues, you should not consume cruciferous vegetables. Before we move on, it’s also important to note that the cruciferous vegetables are not the only foods that contain goitrogens. So if you’re considering avoiding cruciferous vegetables, you also wanna avoid things like peaches, peanuts, red wine, soy, strawberries, sweet potatoes, teas, etc. But for people with Hashimoto’s, goitrogens aren’t exactly necessarily where we should be looking at for problems.

I think that personally, and based on what Dr. Christianson said, I find that the benefits of eating cruciferous vegetables, especially things like broccoli sprouts, outweigh the negatives, even for those with Hashimoto’s. Again, work with a doctor. But from what Dr, Christianson explained to me, you would have to eat an enormous amount of cruciferous vegetables to affect the thyroid negatively. And not too many of us have the problem of overeating vegetables. That’s statistically not what is happening in the U.S.

In fact, there’s only been one case study where someone actually harmed their thyroid by eating too many cruciferous vegetables. And that was an 88-year-old woman from what I remember who developed hypothyroidism, but she was eating several pounds of raw bok choy every day for several months. She probably would have avoided the problem had she just cooked that. Unless you were eating pounds and pounds of raw cruciferous vegetables every day, probably not an issue if you have Hashimoto’s.

I already talked about the iodine side. I also wouldn’t consider taking supplemental iodine without very specific testing and working with a doctor who understands that. But I personally do consume cruciferous vegetables including broccoli sprouts relatively regularly. If you are worried, some ways you can reduce the goitrogen activity while still consuming these, ferment your veggies, cook them, those both deactivate a lot of them ahead of time.

If you’re putting things like kale or spinach into a smoothie, you can blanch them ahead of time and freeze them. The heat will kill most of the goitrogens and then they’re ready to go when you wanna blend them. Again, selenium comes into play. So for me, finding the right amount of selenium and taking it made a big difference and I minimize the iodine as well. So a little bit of a tangent there into cruciferous vegetables and broccoli sprouts. But that did make a big difference for me and I still consume broccoli sprouts regularly. There’s also now a sulforaphane supplement you can take. Historically, it’s extremely hard to isolate sulforaphane into a supplement form. And I have finally found a supplement that does that, so I’ll link to that in the show notes as well.

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I also found that I needed to do very specific exercise. So for me, that meant I only stick to now high-intensity exercise and things like lifting weights. I don’t do any long-form cardio, so I’m not just running miles or on the elliptical. My body and hormones personally respond best to high-intensity training. I use the CAR.O.L bike, which I will link in the show notes, and I’ve done a podcast with the founder of CAR.O.L. And then I do very heavy weight lifting and I’m lifting above my body weight now in most categories. And I feel the best on that.

Sleep was also a huge component of this for me. So I know in early motherhood this was something that probably made it worse, but it was unavoidable, which was not getting enough sleep. If it’s possible to get enough sleep for anyone with autoimmune disease or any kind of health condition, I think that’s a definite place to start. And I’ve written a lot about this before, so I’m not gonna go deep on the sleep issue today, but I will make sure some of the posts are linked in the show notes if you feel like that’s an issue for you.

And then also the dietary side. So without going too, too deep on this, I’ll link in the show notes to a more detailed description of what I did. But for a while after my diagnosis, I went on a very strict autoimmune protocol diet that removed… Basically, the theory is removing a lot of the foods that can be inflammatory and giving the body time to rest and then introducing carefully so you can kind of gauge if you’re responding to different kinds of foods.

It is important to note, like I said in the beginning, based on lab results and lack of nodules on my thyroid, I am considered fully in remission for Hashimoto’s and I do not follow this diet anymore. In fact, I will say this past year, now having worked through the emotional stuff and really found homeostasis, I eat more food than I’ve ever eaten as an adult. I am less restrictive. I still eat very clean at home, but I’m able to eat occasionally things like gluten, sugar. I do eat dairy and none of those both me. I do still have to avoid eggs based on some IgG testing and based on how I feel. But that’s really the only food that I’m not eating at all right now. I think there’s…this is very personalized as well. I’ll link to the test I used to figure out and to constantly monitor that. But in the two years after my diagnosis, I did eat an extremely regimented, very clean diet to give my body time to rest and recover. And I focused on really nourishing it, supporting it with certain supplements based on testing, and just making sure I was flooding my body with nutrients. And it took years for my body to fully recover from that. And like I said, I was not able to lose weight during that time.

Once my body reached balance and once I dealt with everything else and then I dealt with the emotions, the weight loss part became extremely easy. And so I think it’s important to address all of these factors and not expect change to happen overnight. That said, from a broad level, kind of what the diet I did that I think let my body rest, was considered the autoimmune protocol and I’ll link to my post on that topic and also to some books that are really helpful. But basically from my understanding, if the body has an autoimmune reaction, it can sometimes be necessary to removal certain inflammatory foods and inputs for a while so that you can then reintroduce and test the response.

This idea is similar to the theory behind the gaps protocol, which we also did with my son to help with his dairy allergy, but it’s geared towards autoimmunity instead. And basically, from what I understand of this with autoimmune disease, the body’s in a state of increased immune response. So removing these foods can help it not have to fight for a little while and can kind of reduce the autoimmune reaction. I should also say that technically, clinically, an autoimmune disease cannot be cured, which is why I use the word remission instead.

At this point, after my diagnosis, I switched to an autoimmune protocol. And I was pretty amazed at how quickly it helped. So within the first week, I saw my bloating go away, my thyroid felt less swollen, and I had more energy even after the first couple of days. And then I saw skin improvements and energy improvements, and then eventually my hair improved. And this helped me realize which foods were problematic. And like I said, I’ve now been able to reintroduce almost all of these foods, everything but eggs.

So I think it’s…I wanna say that before I tell you just how restricted this protocol is. It’s not usually forever or at least not all parts of it are forever. The general idea is that you’re, like I said, you’re removing any inflammatory foods. If this is new for you, some things that I find helpful, I’ll link in the show notes. The Paleo Mom has a website and also a book, ”The Paleo Approach.” There’s an autoimmune cookbook by Mickey Trescott and her website is Autoimmune Paleo. Those are both really good. I’ll link to those in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. Basically, a very broad description. On an AIP protocol, you’re avoiding grains, legumes, eggs, dairy, seeds, even seed-based spices and oils, nightshades, so things like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, etc., nuts, alcohol, and then any other reactive foods.

So for me that included coconut even though that’s not typically on the list. Instead, you’re eating very clean sources of proteins like meats, organ meats, broth, vegetables, except for nightshades, fresh or dried herbs that are not nuts or seeds, certain fruits, nonseed-based spices, lots of healthy fats. I focused on olive oil and then dairy-free fermented foods like sauerkraut. So I have a food list in my post. You can find that in the show notes. It does seem very overwhelming. It is extremely restrictive, but I knew that it was aimed at healing and so I was able to stick to it.

For me, a typical day would be, breakfast would be a scramble of vegetables, some kind of protein, and a cup of bone broth and then supplements. Lunch was almost always a salad with some kind of protein, a little bit of fruit and then bone broth. And dinner, the same thing, some kind of stir fry with protein and a lot of vegetables and then some kind of healthy starch like winter squash, pumpkin, etc.

Another tip from Dr. Christianson is if you’re going to consume carbs to consume them at night because that also…food is another big signaling mechanism in circadian rhythm. So consuming the carbs at night helps signal the body when all the right hormones are supposed to kick in. It also seems to help my sleep. When I first started this I felt like I couldn’t eat anything and I felt constantly deprived. And so it took me about 30 days to really get in the swing of this. I also focused on what I could eat versus what I couldn’t and I consumed a ton of vegetables, especially in that first six months.

And this was also based on the research of Dr. Terry Wahls, who I also really respect. She has a book called ”The Wahls Protocol.” Her focus was on MS, which was what she recovered from. But she talks about the importance of consuming at least nine cups of vegetables a day, which is a ton, three of brightly-colored vegetables, three of leafy greens and three of onions and garlic. And I did that. I actually followed that for about probably four months and I had noticed a difference in my nutrient levels and, and my energy levels as I did that. Like I said, I also think sleep and stress really come into play here and I was taking a very specific group of supplements. This is extremely individualized so I will you what I took over. It is not prescriptive. Please don’t just go take this. Work with someone like SteadyMD to find out what you specifically need.

But for me at this point I was taking, like I said, WP Thyroid medication. I ended up needing to take HCL, betaine HCL with any meals that contain protein because I found I had low stomach acid during that time. So I took HCL anytime and I still take it in smaller amounts. I have weaned down as my stomach acid has naturally improved. I took probiotics. The one I take is Just Thrive. I’ll link to that in the show notes along with the discount. That’s the one I now take. It’s spore-based. So it’s dairy-free, it’s vegan, it’s autoimmune safe, and it reaches the small intestine. It has a higher survivability and you can also open the capsules and even bake with them, put them in a smoothie, etc. to give them to kids because they can survive at temperature.

I make sure to get enough Omega-3s through things like salmon. And then Vitamin D is a big one here as well. There’s a lot of research and Dr. Christianson tested me for this almost immediately, my Vitamin D levels because there’s a strong correlation with low Vitamin D and a lot of health problems including autoimmune disease. So it’s something I test and I also tested my family and my kids and make sure that our Vitamin D levels are not just in safe ranges but optimized. So I actually keep mine about 80. When I first tested it was 17, so it was well below even the conventional low-level Vitamin D. And I think that probably also made a huge difference because while we call it a vitamin, Vitamin D is actually a pre-hormone. So if you don’t have enough Vitamin D, all of your hormones can be off.

Magnesium was also big for me and I used both transdermal magnesium oil and took magnesium supplements and I still do. MagSRT is the supplement I take and I use magnesium oil. I have a recipe for that. On the blog, I’ll make sure those are linked as well. I also took…I made sure to get enough protein and amino acids from things like bone broth and I took a lot of Vitamin C. Zinc and selenium were also important. And like I said, those are ones you want to consume only the right amount, so you don’t wanna just take a ton. More is not better. But I will link to the ones that I take. Again, I would recommend working with someone like SteadyMD or a functional medicine doctor from SteadyMD to really know what you’re doing before you just start taking those and certainly before taking Vitamin D because you can get too much Vitamin D.

I also took a supplement called L tyrosine. Again, not one you want to just start taking just because, but those were all things that were helpful to me. Again, I will link to more detail about all of those things, but these were all factors that for me seemed to make a difference over time. I also avoid very carefully fluoride and chlorine. I have found that both of those are triggers for me and that it’s very hard to get my levels better if I’m exposed to those. I don’t think that’s necessarily the same for everyone, but we have a whole house filter on our house that makes sure that I’m not exposed to those and there’s not fluoride in our water where I live anyway, but I have to be careful about avoiding both of those.

So long roundabout way of saying I used a whole lot of different factors and had to consistently stick with them for a period of years to start seeing changes. I felt an immediate difference in my energy levels and my sleep when I started implementing these things. And that was really encouraging. And also it felt so good just to not feel so bad, but really seeing the full recovery and now being in remission and having my labs reflect that took a very long time.

So I will say like, based on my experience, this is a marathon, not a sprint, and I don’t recommend long-term cardio, but it’s a marathon. So stick with it. Build the habits that let you stick with it and track so that you can see if what you’re doing is having a positive effect. I don’t know that it would be the same for everyone, but for me, I had to get all of these things right before I was able to see the weight loss, before my hair came back normally, before I had all the unlimited energy. And it was a slow process and it also required shifting my mindset, like I talked about in episode 309, from fighting my body to supporting my body because I had reached a point… I was so mad at my body. I felt like it had betrayed me and I realized it had protected me and it was keeping me safe and it was keeping my baby safe while I was pregnant with them. But I needed to be more supportive of my body.

So those are the things that I did. I am now clinically in remission. All of my thyroid levels test normal. I don’t need to take medication. I do still take supplements and I do still follow a lot of these things that I talked about. And at home, I eat probably still very close to that autoimmune diet when we’re home. But if we’re out somewhere or we’re at an event, I’m much, much less strict than I ever, than I used to be. And I’m able to get away with eating a wide variety of foods and not being as restrictive as long as I support my body, make sure I have my sleep and my stress and all of those factors in order.

There’s probably questions I’m not thinking to answer. If you have any, please leave them in the comments at wellnessmama.fm under this podcast and I will try to respond to you directly. And all of the things I’ve mentioned. I have blog posts about all of these, so head over to wellnessmama.fm. If you want to read more about any of these or check out the episodes with Dr. Christianson, Dr. Isabella Wentz, Dr. Terry Wahls, or with my SteadyMD doctor, those all have really helpful resources for autoimmune disease, but I wanted to just share you with you guys an update since I can now officially say that I am in remission and share with how I got there.

I do think it’s a very personalized thing. I hope that some of these will be helpful if you’re in the same place to you and finding the things that are gonna work for you, but I don’t think it’s prescriptive, so I hope that you’re able to pull some beneficial things from that.

And, of course, as always, I am so grateful to you for being here today, for listening to this podcast, and for being part of that change that I talked about at the beginning of hopefully shifting those statistics so that our kids are not living a shorter life expectancy than their parents. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for listening. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the ”Wellness Mama” podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/hashimotos-update/

[rhinointherain]

10-8-2020

(After drinking warm baltimore city tap water) I can feel the cell membranes exerting more energy to keep out other compounds besides H2O out

Later thought relating to this: I have a youtube video on in the background while writing this and could feel how it is preventing me from concentrating

That change in my fundamental person I felt to have taken place during and after like ages 20-21 in me—that was the same “coming-of-age” that a lot of people describe feeling in their lives, and you can observe the effects of it in your observation of the way people act—most easily identified as the moment that, with someone who you were close friends with in earlier life and kept some occasional contact with, the friendship (or like, your bond with the person you perceive them to be) has somehow severed fully, a thing which is contingent on the transformation of the actual person they are into something no longer sufficiently resembling the person you perceive them to be. Probably like 98-99% of people experience this earlier in life than I did, not all though. And it can happen more than once/on multiple levels—like going from best friend to friend, and then again from friend to acquaintance

The stuff I wrote down last time was well-communicated and helped me a lot for sober me to understand what I’m feeling now, but it will need some refinement in order to truly and effectively convey the entire sensation of what I’m thinking and feeling. The math terms were definitely the wrong way to go hahaha because I naively assumed that the type of relationship my brain meant to represent with them was actually that exact math formula, and not just similar in the way that like some verbal and visual concepts are. Not the exact details of the math equation (which you do not even fully remember) but that the phenomenon describes a relationship similar to the relationship between the “ideas”/variable in the math concept. I can’t tell whether high me keeps trying to repeat and reiterate everything so many times because I am trying to indicate the importance of subtle differences that are hard for the sober mind to dwell on without special attention to doing it, or because it is just generally slower and dumber. Maybe i should spend less time trying to meticulously describe the concepts so that I can have as much help as possible in conceiving of their relationships, and more time on trying to describe the relationships themselves.((Is there actually a difference in between these two things, or is a “relationship” just an infinitely expanding chain of concepts?)) !My style of academic analytical writing has relied on this strategy (describing concepts more than relationships) so far and it has worked pretty well, but will I also need to implement that change here eventually in order for my academic writing to succeed in the long run?

At this moment I am convinced that high me earnestly just wants to effectively communicate what high me thinks like—possibly this is due to what aria was saying about high people having an inherent (and false) conviction that what they are thinking has important significance? Im interesting in learning more about why science thinks that is. Also think that high me should be more critical of whether the things I’m saying are even correct, rather than just assuming they are correct and then questioning only their significance.

I like how (probably the majority of) humans kind of conceive of “science” as a singular authority on the way things are, in the same way they would consider like, their mom or their dad as an authority. I think the key to getting more people to “believe in science” so to speak would be to get them to understand that “science” is not an authority figure, but rather something that the authority of authority figures can be based on. Its a source of currency not an institution/holder of currency.

A question I should be asking is- what are the differences between how I think while sober vs how i think when high, and where do they stem from?

Definitely start journaling on paper so you can bring in visual representations! Your verbal representation skills, again, are not so bad, but are definitely a long way from perfect

The “levels” are the more abstract and broader neural sequences, or complex thoughts down to the most basic association between two neurons

Getting high feels like its allowing me to “zoom in and out” ie more easily-understanding how these associations relate on more or less abstract levels.

Every “concept” that we have is just a human approximation of some degree (along an axis) and the point in [time x space x every other dimension] in which we exist is our coordinates along all these axes

This time while journalling I can sort of feel myself filtering my thoughts and choosing to communicate them in a way that incorporates elements of the way I communicate when I am expecting to be communicating with other people. Is this “corrupting” my representation of my “pure” conception of these ideas? Or is it making these thoughts more refined and better communicated to a sober state of mind? Maybe consider formally deciding with yourself not to share any of this with other people in order to prevent that.

Thinking more about the relationships between words in a phrase, and phrases within a sentence and so on

I think you should consider that thing youve been wanting to try being high is not scary at all now that you know how to navigate it you will be fine so long as you do sufficient research beforehand and know what you are getting into etc

[oovitus]

Learning how to self advocate for wellness and career advancement

I've recently been meditating on personal and professional development and in a lot of ways, maintenance. Part of it aligns with recently discussed concepts of wellness and work-life balance. Part of it also has to do with this intrinsic unsettled feeling I'm experiencing with work. I attended an academic conference recently which I believe was clarifying and is helping me to frame my approach. Health This all started with a dive into self care, specifically, trying to make sure that I was taking better care of this 41 year old body of mine. I had not been to a dentist in 15 years. Yes. You read that correctly. I had not seen a dentist since before medical school. Part of it was because I'm irrationally terrified of the dentist... part of this fear probably came from all those times my mother forced me to sit with her and hold her hand through many root canals and extractions while she squirmed, wiggled and held a vice grip on my hand. The other part of it was the silly thought, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The final factor was the disease of busy. I flossed. I brushed. I have a nice smile. I'm fine. It wasn't until my little one bravely sat through the first couple of dental appointments during which we found out he had multiple cavities between all of the molars, necessitating 8 crowns, a failed attempt at in office nitrous and subsequent trip to same day oral surgery center with a pediatric anesthesiologist that I finally made an appointment. So I did it. I had a couple of cavities, needed scaling (which is a special kind or torture) and am now getting teed up for a root canal. I suppose it's not bad for 15 years. At least I'm keeping all of my teeth, for now. Let's move on to fitness. I'd topped off the scale at 5 pounds over my full term pregnancy weight. I hated what I saw in the mirror. Inside I was happy. My outside didn't match my insides... maybe I wasn't happy. Regardless, I've spent the last year trying to make sure to make time to do tedious things like plan healthy and nutritious meals and get some exercise. I found a colleague and now friend who was an online health coach. I found a supportive environment of other busy, professional women who found time and prioritized this portion of self care and found that they ended up being happier, more patient and feeling more fulfilled all around. I found tools which were easy to implement (albeit requiring some behavior change), accountability partners and fun exercise options. I enjoyed it so much that I myself became a coach. With everything we give to our patients, our learners and our hospitals, we absolutely must prioritize ourselves in there somewhere. Working out may not be your thing, but you have to identify what it is that recharges you and make time for it. Put it on your schedule or it will not happen. It will ebb and flow, but you've got to take care of you before you can take care of anyone else. I still need to schedule that Pap and Mammo... I'm a work in progress. Personal Development Part of the company's philosophy is ensuring that you spend some time each day on your own personal development. This created an opportunity for me to read some personal development books (the former four letter "self-help" category). Below you will find the books I've gone through over the last 6 months (good grief, whoever created audiobooks is literally the best because I become narcoleptic while reading). I've read (or listened to in audiobooks) "You are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life" by Jen Sincero. She's not a physician, but she's been through some things and many of her struggles and insecurities resonated with me. She is also remarkably sarcastic and funny and I had many a laugh while listening to her book. I followed that with "The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success" written by Darren Hardy. This dude for all intents and purposes is a self made gazillionaire and did it all with hard work and discipline, specifically with small changes every day. He had an authoritarian for a father, so we have that in common. It focuses more on the business world, however if I ever consider entrepreneurship, I'll probably revisit it. I followed that with bits and pieces of several books from Brene Brown... "Rising Strong" and "The Gifts of Imperfection," both of which hit chords with me. Let's figure out how to pick ourselves up after we fail at something because that is what bravery truly is. It takes no energy to stay down after you take a hit. Facing the day, reflecting on how you may have been responsible for whatever you've experienced is an important lesson. Reading her book is like sitting in a therapist's office, without the $200 price tag. She's a shame researcher and she hits the nail on the head when she discusses the mountains of self imposed guilt we shoulder unnecessarily. She's also witty and sarcastic from time to time. Next was "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson. Now, if you can move past the fact that this guy is a bit like a frat boy in his use of language, there are some important lessons to be learned. Some things just don't deserve our energy. Seriously. My latest read is "Feminist Fight Club: A Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace" by Jessica Bennett. I came upon this book on my way to the aforementioned conference. I knew I was specifically attending a workshop designed to appeal to women interested in leadership in academic medicine. I was looking for something which would light my fire and help me think outside the box a bit. Jessica Bennett is a journalist who specifically writes about issues of gender, sexuality and culture. In her book, she highlights the research which discusses not only how institutions may unknowingly or overtly be preventing growth of their female professionals, but also behaviors we may be demonstrating which hinder our own progress. I take each of these books with a respective grain of salt, but it's really kind of opened my eyes to some self reflection and highlighted some things I may want to work on within myself. When we spend so much of ourselves in tending to other's needs, our own needs and need for growth can get lost in the mix. Professional development So, I'm an academic. I teach medical students, PA students, residents, fellows, faculty. I have sought opportunities to develop my educational niche, my ability to provide feedback, teach a skill, develop a curriculum, pitch an idea to my department chair. I teach a lot of things... probably too many things, which is why I find myself feeling stale and unfulfilled here. I feel like I've spread myself so thin that I'm doing an ordinary job at all of the things for which I'd prefer to be doing an extraordinary job. I feel like an octopus juggling knives which are on fire. Is this imposter syndrome creeping in? Perhaps, but I know I could do better with my time and efforts if I peeled away from some things. I officially mentor some and unofficially mentor others. I've not received any training per se in mentoring, save observation of folks I hope to emulate. I don't know what the steps are. I don't know what skills to hone. It's kind of like teaching, but also very different from teaching. There should be a program for mentoring the junior mentor. There probably is, but I've not yet had the bandwidth to seek out or discover it, but it is something I need. What I found most interesting in the sessions at this conference was the focus on not necessarily seeking out the most sage mentor. Sometimes peer mentors are actually better for you as you navigate different challenges in your career. I've been at this academic gig for 6 years now. At the conference I attended, many of the female leaders commented on "cycles" and feeling unsettled after a certain amount of time doing each of the jobs they did. That hit home for me. I feel unsettled. I want to do what I'm doing differently and I need to advance my position from my current title to the next. As such, I've been meeting with my closest mentors, having heartfelt talks about what I thought I wanted when I started, what I've done and where I see it going. I see now that I've invested a tremendous amount of time and emotional capital in one path. It was my hope that by working hard and contributing, I'd be rewarded with position. Boom!!! Words from all of the books came to mind and highlighted for me that I in fact cannot do it all and I should be asking for compensation in some way for what I am doing. You will not get 100% of the things you DO NOT ask for. I must focus my efforts on those things which are most meaningful to me in my professional life. I need a new goal. I need a promotion. So, I'm going to spend the next couple of months working on my dossier, writing papers, reviewing and revising the curricula that I am responsible for and pouring the energy freed up by letting go of tasks held by one of my octopus tentacles. It's exciting and anxiety provoking to have this new approach and challenging in that I've never before created a dossier or gone up for academic promotion. Why didn't someone tell me about all of the stuff that goes into this? Why didn't someone tell me to keep better track of all of the lectures I taught, programs I developed, mentees I invested in, meetings I attended, evaluations I received??? This wasn't part of orientation when I became faculty. It was discussed as an afterthought in my annual meetings "You should be ready for promotion in a couple of years." After reading my most recent book, I wonder if the experience is the same for my XY colleagues. Is the assumption that because I'm a single mother, I must not be interested in promotion or advancement, so I don't really need the guidance or personal investment? To adapt a quote from Jessica's book, "No one gets shit done like a mom." I'm trying to figure out what my professional and personal mission statement is. What are my values? What do I hold dearest to me? Do my actions align with my values and my mission? How do I parlay these reflections into actions moving forward and be sure I'm looking out for my own professional interests, professional development and advancement? Learning how to self advocate for wellness and career advancement published first on https://storeseapharmacy.tumblr.com

[melindarowens]

Weekend Reads: El Capitan, Everest, and Peak Performance

It has been an epic week. And I don’t use that adjective lightly.

At 31 years of age, Alex Honnold became the first person to “free-solo” to the top of El Capitan, the 3,000-foot-tall granite wall in Yosemite National Park.

Just so we are clear: He did so without ropes or safety gear, just a small bag of chalk. And he made it to the top in under four hours. To further put it into perspective, in January 2015, Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell became the first to free-climb the Dawn Wall, one of the routes up the face of El Capitan. It took them 19 days. And unlike Honnold, they used harnesses and ropes for safety.

The day after Honnold’s remarkable feat, more than 21,000 runners took to the road for the annual Comrades Marathon, a grueling 86.73-kilometer race between the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. It is the world’s largest and oldest ultramarathon race. Runner’s World describes it as: “Fifty-five brutal miles. Five torturous climbs. A ruthless clock.”

On Monday, four Arab states — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain — took the extraordinary step of severing diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar, a US military partner.

The following day (6 June) marked the 73rd anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II. John Authers of the Financial Times writes that it was “one of the bloodiest and most important days of warfare in human history.” Here’s a look at a remarkable set of colorized photos of the D-Day landings.

All of this was before former FBI Director James Comey’s riveting testimony to the US Senate Intelligence Committee and the general election in the United Kingdom, which saw campaigning suspended over the weekend due to the London Bridge terrorist attacks.

If I were to pick a theme or two for this week, it might well be endurance and resilience.

Here are some good reads and one TED Talk in case you missed them:

I recently had the opportunity to watch Meru, which documents the efforts of three climbers — Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk — to conquer the “Shark’s Fin” route on “Meru, a 21,000-foot-plus mountain in the Garhwal Himalayas in northern India.” The Shark’s Fin is a 1,500-foot vertical rock wall at the very top that is regarded as one of the toughest climbs in the world. Meru won the 2015 Sundance Film Festival’s prestigious Audience Award. It is a remarkable feat of camerawork and a tale of resilience and human endurance. To undertake climbing Meru, “You can’t just be a good ice climber,” says Jon Krakauer, the bestselling author of Into Thin Air, “You can’t just be good at altitude. You can’t just be a good rock climber. It’s defeated so many good climbers and maybe will defeat everybody for all time. Meru isn’t Everest. On Everest, you can hire Sherpas to take most of the risks. This is a whole different kind of climbing.” As David Ferry explains, Chin filmed much of the climb while tacked to the Shark’s Fin rock wall, the final section of the 21,850-foot Meru Peak. If you’re curious about what drives people to scale seemingly insurmountable peaks, and the mental and physical strength needed to survive the conditions and setbacks, this one is for you. (NPR, Outside)

Meru made me think of Kilian Jornet Burgada, the Spanish ultra runner-turned-alpinist who summited Mount Everest twice in one week without oxygen or fixed ropes. He was the subject of a 2013 profile I included once before and am doing again: “Becoming the All-Terrain Human.” According to Jay Bouchard, “Burgada set a new record for the fastest known alpine ascent of the world’s highest peak in the early hours of Monday morning, having climbed 11,429 feet to the top of Everest in a mere 26 hours.” Outside profiled him in 2014. “You need to be humble. This sport is about improving, not winning,” he told the magazine. “You never learn from victory.” (Kilian Jornet, The New York Times, Outside, Himalayan Times )

It is easy to get bogged down in negativity these days, which is why I appreciated a recent The Science of Work article suggesting the best self-help advice may be to focus not on self-esteem but on “other-esteem.”  It was a good reminder to ask: “How can I start seeing more of the good in people, more often?” (Fast Company)

Brad Stulberg, a columnist for Outside magazine and co-author of the new book Peak Performance, writes that so much of performance focuses on the individual but that that only tells half  the story: “What sets the best apart from the rest isn’t cutting-edge technology, or ritzy facilities, or even great individual athletes or coaches,” he says. “It’s the supportive community and culture; when the athletes and coaches are all dedicated to getting better and supporting each other in doing so. This kind of culture makes doing the hard thing just a little easier, whether the ‘hard thing’ is a specific task, keeping a positive attitude amongst a string of setbacks, or gritting out a tedious stretch of work.” While a positive environment and great leaders can have a positive effect on a group, negativity may be a more powerful force. He cites a 2010 study of US Air Force Academy cadets in which psychologists from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) tracked a cohort of cadets over four years: “Even though all the squadrons trained and recovered in exactly the same manner, some squadrons showed vast increases in fitness over four years whereas others did not. It turns out the determining factor as to whether the 30 cadets within a squadron improved was the motivation of the least fit person in the group. If the least fit person was motivated to improve, then his enthusiasm spread and everyone improved. If, on the other hand, the least fit person was apathetic or, worse, negative, he dragged everyone down. Just like diseases easily spread through tight-knit groups, so does motivation. And it’s quite contagious.” If you’re feeling demotivated, ask yourself: Who is in my squadron? Whose motivation is rubbing off on me? (The Mission)

Stulberg’s article reminded me of a recent tweet by Stanford University professor Bob Sutton: “The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.” Sutton is the author of a book with the mildly obscene title: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t. He wrote an article explaining why he had used “such a bold (and to some, offensive) title.” (Harvard Business Review )

Speaking of leadership, the late Warren Bennis was “an eminent scholar and author who advised presidents and business executives on his academic specialty, the essence of successful leadership — a commodity he found in short supply in recent decades.” When he died in 2014, his obituary noted that Bennis “believed in the adage that great leaders are not born but made, insisting that ‘the process of becoming a leader is similar, if not identical, to becoming a fully integrated human being.’ . . . Both, he said, were grounded in self-discovery.” His daughter, Kate Bennis, recently wrote about what her father might have made of this moment in history. (The New York Times, Kate Bennis Coaching)

I love walking and really enjoyed this wonderful essay on the relationship between walking, thinking, and writing. (The New Yorker)

From walking, my thinking leads me to driving, or more specifically, not driving, and what a future with driverless or self-driving cars looks like. RethinkX, an independent think tank that analyzes and forecasts the speed and scale of technology-driven disruption and its implications across society, released a report, “Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030,” and notes “we are on the cusp of one of the fastest, deepest, most consequential disruptions of transportation in history.”

Does .999 . . . = 1? Mathematician Steven Strogratz describes the blog post,”0.999 . . . It Just Keeps On Going” as “a careful discussion, both mathematically and psychologically, of why .999 . . . = 1 and why many people don’t believe it.” (Shiny Pebbles and Other Stuff)

If you’re an arachnophobe, this next article probably isn’t for you. “The Thoughts of a Spiderweb“ is a fascinating exploration of spiders apparently offloading cognitive tasks to their webs. (Quanta Magazine)

Morgan Housel recently penned a thoughtful post on the difference between expiring knowledge and long-term knowledge and why it’s important to shift the balance to the latter: “Expiring knowledge tells you what happened; long-term knowledge tells you why something happened and is likely to happen again. That ‘why’ can translate and interact with stuff you know about other topics, which is where the compounding comes in.” (The Collaborative Fund)

This echoes a recent column by Andrew Hill about the real return on reading novels, or “brain food.” (Financial Times)

And finally, architecture critic Justin Davidson recently made his TED debut with a wonderful talk on “Why Glass Towers are Bad for City Life — and What We Need Instead.” (TED)

If you liked this post, don’t forget to subscribe to the Enterprising Investor.

All posts are the opinion of the author. As such, they should not be construed as investment advice, nor do the opinions expressed necessarily reflect the views of CFA Institute or the author’s employer.

Image credit: ©Getty Images/Ray Kachatorian

Lauren Foster

Lauren Foster is managing editor of Enterprising Investor and co-lead of CFA Institute’s Women in Investment Management initiative. Previously, she worked as a freelance writer for Barron’s and the Financial Times. Prior to her freelance work, Foster spent nearly a decade on staff at the FT as a reporter and editor based in the New York bureau. Foster holds a BA in political science from the University of Cape Town, and an MS in journalism from Columbia University.

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[everettwilkinson]

Weekend Reads: El Capitan, Everest, and Peak Performance

It has been an epic week. And I don’t use that adjective lightly.

At 31 years of age, Alex Honnold became the first person to “free-solo” to the top of El Capitan, the 3,000-foot-tall granite wall in Yosemite National Park.

Just so we are clear: He did so without ropes or safety gear, just a small bag of chalk. And he made it to the top in under four hours. To further put it into perspective, in January 2015, Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell became the first to free-climb the Dawn Wall, one of the routes up the face of El Capitan. It took them 19 days. And unlike Honnold, they used harnesses and ropes for safety.

The day after Honnold’s remarkable feat, more than 21,000 runners took to the road for the annual Comrades Marathon, a grueling 86.73-kilometer race between the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. It is the world’s largest and oldest ultramarathon race. Runner’s World describes it as: “Fifty-five brutal miles. Five torturous climbs. A ruthless clock.”

On Monday, four Arab states — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain — took the extraordinary step of severing diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar, a US military partner.

The following day (6 June) marked the 73rd anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II. John Authers of the Financial Times writes that it was “one of the bloodiest and most important days of warfare in human history.” Here’s a look at a remarkable set of colorized photos of the D-Day landings.

All of this was before former FBI Director James Comey’s riveting testimony to the US Senate Intelligence Committee and the general election in the United Kingdom, which saw campaigning suspended over the weekend due to the London Bridge terrorist attacks.

If I were to pick a theme or two for this week, it might well be endurance and resilience.

Here are some good reads and one TED Talk in case you missed them:

I recently had the opportunity to watch Meru, which documents the efforts of three climbers — Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk — to conquer the “Shark’s Fin” route on “Meru, a 21,000-foot-plus mountain in the Garhwal Himalayas in northern India.” The Shark’s Fin is a 1,500-foot vertical rock wall at the very top that is regarded as one of the toughest climbs in the world. Meru won the 2015 Sundance Film Festival’s prestigious Audience Award. It is a remarkable feat of camerawork and a tale of resilience and human endurance. To undertake climbing Meru, “You can’t just be a good ice climber,” says Jon Krakauer, the bestselling author of Into Thin Air, “You can’t just be good at altitude. You can’t just be a good rock climber. It’s defeated so many good climbers and maybe will defeat everybody for all time. Meru isn’t Everest. On Everest, you can hire Sherpas to take most of the risks. This is a whole different kind of climbing.” As David Ferry explains, Chin filmed much of the climb while tacked to the Shark’s Fin rock wall, the final section of the 21,850-foot Meru Peak. If you’re curious about what drives people to scale seemingly insurmountable peaks, and the mental and physical strength needed to survive the conditions and setbacks, this one is for you. (NPR, Outside)

Meru made me think of Kilian Jornet Burgada, the Spanish ultra runner-turned-alpinist who summited Mount Everest twice in one week without oxygen or fixed ropes. He was the subject of a 2013 profile I included once before and am doing again: “Becoming the All-Terrain Human.” According to Jay Bouchard, “Burgada set a new record for the fastest known alpine ascent of the world’s highest peak in the early hours of Monday morning, having climbed 11,429 feet to the top of Everest in a mere 26 hours.” Outside profiled him in 2014. “You need to be humble. This sport is about improving, not winning,” he told the magazine. “You never learn from victory.” (Kilian Jornet, The New York Times, Outside, Himalayan Times )

It is easy to get bogged down in negativity these days, which is why I appreciated a recent The Science of Work article suggesting the best self-help advice may be to focus not on self-esteem but on “other-esteem.”  It was a good reminder to ask: “How can I start seeing more of the good in people, more often?” (Fast Company)

Brad Stulberg, a columnist for Outside magazine and co-author of the new book Peak Performance, writes that so much of performance focuses on the individual but that that only tells half  the story: “What sets the best apart from the rest isn’t cutting-edge technology, or ritzy facilities, or even great individual athletes or coaches,” he says. “It’s the supportive community and culture; when the athletes and coaches are all dedicated to getting better and supporting each other in doing so. This kind of culture makes doing the hard thing just a little easier, whether the ‘hard thing’ is a specific task, keeping a positive attitude amongst a string of setbacks, or gritting out a tedious stretch of work.” While a positive environment and great leaders can have a positive effect on a group, negativity may be a more powerful force. He cites a 2010 study of US Air Force Academy cadets in which psychologists from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) tracked a cohort of cadets over four years: “Even though all the squadrons trained and recovered in exactly the same manner, some squadrons showed vast increases in fitness over four years whereas others did not. It turns out the determining factor as to whether the 30 cadets within a squadron improved was the motivation of the least fit person in the group. If the least fit person was motivated to improve, then his enthusiasm spread and everyone improved. If, on the other hand, the least fit person was apathetic or, worse, negative, he dragged everyone down. Just like diseases easily spread through tight-knit groups, so does motivation. And it’s quite contagious.” If you’re feeling demotivated, ask yourself: Who is in my squadron? Whose motivation is rubbing off on me? (The Mission)

Stulberg’s article reminded me of a recent tweet by Stanford University professor Bob Sutton: “The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.” Sutton is the author of a book with the mildly obscene title: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t. He wrote an article explaining why he had used “such a bold (and to some, offensive) title.” (Harvard Business Review )

Speaking of leadership, the late Warren Bennis was “an eminent scholar and author who advised presidents and business executives on his academic specialty, the essence of successful leadership — a commodity he found in short supply in recent decades.” When he died in 2014, his obituary noted that Bennis “believed in the adage that great leaders are not born but made, insisting that ‘the process of becoming a leader is similar, if not identical, to becoming a fully integrated human being.’ . . . Both, he said, were grounded in self-discovery.” His daughter, Kate Bennis, recently wrote about what her father might have made of this moment in history. (The New York Times, Kate Bennis Coaching)

I love walking and really enjoyed this wonderful essay on the relationship between walking, thinking, and writing. (The New Yorker)

From walking, my thinking leads me to driving, or more specifically, not driving, and what a future with driverless or self-driving cars looks like. RethinkX, an independent think tank that analyzes and forecasts the speed and scale of technology-driven disruption and its implications across society, released a report, “Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030,” and notes “we are on the cusp of one of the fastest, deepest, most consequential disruptions of transportation in history.”

Does .999 . . . = 1? Mathematician Steven Strogratz describes the blog post,”0.999 . . . It Just Keeps On Going” as “a careful discussion, both mathematically and psychologically, of why .999 . . . = 1 and why many people don’t believe it.” (Shiny Pebbles and Other Stuff)

If you’re an arachnophobe, this next article probably isn’t for you. “The Thoughts of a Spiderweb“ is a fascinating exploration of spiders apparently offloading cognitive tasks to their webs. (Quanta Magazine)

Morgan Housel recently penned a thoughtful post on the difference between expiring knowledge and long-term knowledge and why it’s important to shift the balance to the latter: “Expiring knowledge tells you what happened; long-term knowledge tells you why something happened and is likely to happen again. That ‘why’ can translate and interact with stuff you know about other topics, which is where the compounding comes in.” (The Collaborative Fund)

This echoes a recent column by Andrew Hill about the real return on reading novels, or “brain food.” (Financial Times)

And finally, architecture critic Justin Davidson recently made his TED debut with a wonderful talk on “Why Glass Towers are Bad for City Life — and What We Need Instead.” (TED)

If you liked this post, don’t forget to subscribe to the Enterprising Investor.

All posts are the opinion of the author. As such, they should not be construed as investment advice, nor do the opinions expressed necessarily reflect the views of CFA Institute or the author’s employer.

Image credit: ©Getty Images/Ray Kachatorian

Lauren Foster

Lauren Foster is managing editor of Enterprising Investor and co-lead of CFA Institute’s Women in Investment Management initiative. Previously, she worked as a freelance writer for Barron’s and the Financial Times. Prior to her freelance work, Foster spent nearly a decade on staff at the FT as a reporter and editor based in the New York bureau. Foster holds a BA in political science from the University of Cape Town, and an MS in journalism from Columbia University.

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[tiparium]

Leander Taurius Brie Character Chart (Because I felt like it. It’s long.)

Appearance

Five feet tall

Avian

Auburn/brown hair

Freckles

Light skin

Hazel green eyes

Grey feathers around face and on neck

Usually wears

Blue beanie

Green leather jacket

Leanto industries T-shirt

Blue or grey jeans

Combat boots

Personality

Explorative

Sarcastic

Somewhat hot headed

A loyal, albeit paranoid friend

Easily distracted

Creative inventor type

A little too trusting

Quick to laugh or grin

Role in the story (As far as the story he’s in now)

Main character

Operates as the main technological advisor to Aegis

Rarely participates in actual combat, but is always close on hand

Thinks of himself as a soldier even though until late game he really isn’t

Somewhat comedic

Eventually revives Prometheus

His final plot arc yaaaay

Childhood

Grew up on Hesser

Father left when he was seven, declared dead two years later

Had few friends up to fourteen

Left for Tochk at fourteen

For academic purposes

Immediately befriended Taylor Perry, another Avian on Tochk for school

Went to Insten academy until the age of twenty

Unemployed, looking for consulting and contract work from then until accidental involvement with Sourcists at age of twenty one.

Family and Friends

Parents:

Stanis Arcturus Brie

Avian

Left when Leander was seven to work the Dust branch of ARC industries

Killed two years later in a tunnel collapse

Gruff, argumentative, but ultimately loving

Ivaline Brie

Avian

Somewhat dysfunctional parent

Caring, but not particularly helpful

Decided to send Leander to Tochk for his own developmental sake

Imprisoned for forging a visa to the Stack

Friends:

Taylor Perry

Avian

More explosive than Leander

Unlike Lee, he’ll actually pick a fight

Larger and stronger than Leander physically, but still only five three.

Two years older than Leander

Like Lee, went to Insten academy of Engineering and Applied Sciences

More feathered than Leander

Face is almost fully feathered

Conagher Mott

Turen

Leander’s pseudo father/grandfather figure

Owns a small business in the Stack, and operates as a secret informer for Aegis

Good tempered, jovial, Santa sort of dude.

Regen Sovelfin

Mage

Sort of love hate relationship

Operates as her personal weapons designer

Very short temper

Very loyal to those she trusts

Can and will rip you in half if you threaten her

One of the heads of Aegis, and their primary propaganda figure

Homeworld

Hesser

Born and raised until fourteen

Hesser is a fairly distant planet in the Trans Universal Union

Based out of realm Avia

Small planet, fairly lush and largely undeveloped other than small outposts.

Very thick atmosphere

Heavy water content results in fairly generous amounts of rainfall

Tochk

From fourteen to twenty one

An almost completely desolate planet

Home to several prestigious schools, all focused on various fields of science.

Primary world in its realm.

The realm Tochk is named for the world which has it’s main Trans Universal portal, Tochk

Very little culture outside academia and the scientific community

Where’d he come from?

Leander Brie has been a character I’ve thrown around for a long time. He was originally created as a general self insertion sort of character, his personality largely being based off my own. He has gradually become his own person however, and eventually I repurposed him as the main character and narrator of my own story, Stack.

Introvert or Extrovert

Though he does need alone time, he is very much a social and outgoing character, sometimes to the point of irritating those around him.

If he gets particularly sad, angry, or scared, he’ll either seek out Taylor, or stay on his own for several hours to cool down.

Greatest Fear

Probably his largest fear is that he’ll disappoint the people he cares about, and that he knows care about him.

A big part of his personality hinges on the fact that he needs to feel useful and helpful, and if people see him as a problem, a hindrance, or really any sort of roadblock, he takes it hard.

Sense of humor

Lee is a sort of self deprecating, immature goofball when it comes to humor. Lots of vulgarity and jokes at his own expense.

He loves puns. So many puns.

What kinda books and movies does he like

He loves campy stuff, because he’s living during a major war and needs a good laugh

Detective noir and cheesy race flicks would be totally down his alley

Music!?

I briefly had him in a band called reflector that played electronica, so let's put that in here

I can see him liking/playing guitar

Perfect Spouse

He needs someone who realizes that his constant stream of self deprecating humor is actually a plea for validation. He also needs humor from their side or he will die.

Not literally but it’s a must.

What is something he would say?

So you may be wondering why it’s taken so long to update, but that’s because I AM NOW WRITING FROM EVYTH CITY. BOOYAH. Okay details, details. Honestly it was so out of the blue, I still can’t really believe it’s happening.

You don’t travel between the realms unless you’re a serious big shot, or you work for an even bigger company. Or both. Actually usually both.

This is a transcription of old notes, and memory, as at the original moment of drafting this journal entry, I didn’t have access to my PDA, or any other equipment. Why you ask? Well, I was duped. Bad. I’m okay, sort of. But my situation at the moment isn’t exactly ideal.

Do you ever take a step back from your life and just think “What the hell have I been doing?” I’ve been doing that a lot lately.

Largest Regret

Probably becoming involved with the Sourcists in the first place

This wasn’t his fault, and he really couldn’t have seen it coming, but he still considers it his fault since it was his own actions that got him involved

Morality

He believes in second chances, but never third.

His philosophy on harm is he’ll never do something to someone that they wouldn’t do to him, so he won’t hurt someone unless they clearly want to hurt him, and he won’t kill unless he’s fighting someone who would kill him without hesitating.

He doesn’t like killing, and at first he’s super against it, but once Aegis and the Sourcists really start going at each other’s throats, he accepts it.

Where would he live?

Ideally he’d live in some really isolated small town, in the middle of a forest.

He never really gets that though, and lives on various military compounds almost his whole life, until moving his whole operation to Skrattle, and taking a lot of Aegis with him.

Who would play him?

Originally I thought Thomas Brodie-Sangster would match him, but his look has changed lately.

Just doing a quick search through actors, I think Rupert Grint would work. He’d have to darken his hair and do a Canadian accent though.

Sex and gender

Cis

What I have sometimes describes as pendulum bi

He’ll go for girls or boys, but he swings one way, stays that way for a while, then swings back. Never both at the same time.

Why’d I make him

Well like I said, he sort of started out as a self insertion character, then evolved into his own distinct thing.

A think a big part of it was because I could, and I wanted a sort of alter ego who could just do whatever the hell he wanted in his own little world. He’s become a lot more than that though.

What’s his RPG class

Definitely something quick.

I don’t know RPG classes, but he’s very small, and light on his feet. Something fast and stealthy.

He won the lottery!

Being an inventor, he always needs high end tools and equipment. He’d definitely buy whatever he’d need for whatever project he was currently working on, and probably set aside a large amount of cash for future projects. He’d also buy himself whatever the newest in space craft tech is, since that’s one of the things he’s most curious about from competitors, even though he also designs his own.

Game show

I’ve never really watched game shows, so I can’t give a really definitive answer to this, but I can see him forming alliances quickly with other smart people, and doing his best to talk his allies into splitting whatever pot they end up winning between them. If he ended up winning, he’d give everyone a fair cut based on how they performed.

If we met, what would he do?

I think that’s kind of an odd question, since if we’re talking him as a character, I’d just be another face to him.

If he knew who I was to him, he’d probably pick my brain about what I was thinking and what decisions lead to him being the way he is.

Personality tests

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

Apparently he is a debater

Animal?

http://www.quizony.com/animalPersonality/1.html?qisrc=start-1&qdevice=desktop

Apparently he’s a beaver

Aight.

And his bird is a parakeet.

Okay.

Videogame fighting style

I really can’t see him being in a brawling game, but if he’s stuck in a fight, he goes for a quick, low damage but rapid hitting style.

He always carries two batons with hidden blades for lethal and non lethal close combat, but they rarely see use.

Quirks?

Whenever he’s confused, there’s always a short burst of gibberish while he thinks

“Ah eh… uh hmmm guhhh hmmmm. Neh? Gehhhh.”

That would all be said in about a second.

Whenever he is shown a new thing, he has to pick it up and inspect it. This can be a problem sometimes.

When he’s thinking and someone tries to talk to him, he will always put his finger over their lips and glare at them.

How would he deal with another series world?

Harry Potter

Being familiar with magic, though not of the HP variety, he would very quickly try to integrate into wizarding society and try to start a business selling tech disguised as magic to them.

He would definitely have a deep interest in the dark arts, but for academic, not nefarious purposes.

Star Trek

He’d almost certainly enlist in Starfleet, and try to work his way up through the ranks of those who actually build Starships, and try to integrate his own designs.

Can he sing?

Short answer:

Yes he can sing.

Longer answer:

Being avian, he has a massive lung capacity in respect to his size, and a naturally clear and high voice. He’d definitely be a tenor, as almost no aves have the size to allow them to sing low notes. How often he actually does sing is fairly limited, as there is little to no reason to in the time he lives in. Even if he wasn’t living in a time of conflict, just because almost all Aves can sing, doesn’t mean they do.

What would his ideal meal be?

Not all Aves avoid eating birds, but Lee is definitely among those that do, so chicken is out and so is turkey. He’s not vegetarian however. In terms of meat, his favorite is fish, really of any kind but catfish in particular. Some kind of salad with a large serving of catfish on the side would easily get his attention.

http://flavornc.com/2013/09/blackened-catfish-salad/

What does he do when he’s bored?

Lee has a few habits that can be quite destructive if he doesn't keep them in check.

If he has nothing else to do, he’ll begin tinkering with whatever is in his immediate vicinity. When he’s in his own space this is fine, but it can result in him inadvertently destroying things of importance because he needs them for whatever mindless project he’s working on.

At one point he “borrowed” Regen’s personal sidearm because he needed focusing crystals from it for a laser pointer he was absent mindedly building.

Sometimes he’ll also just start making weird noises, and eventually everyone in the room will be annoyed at him.

How does he express his affection?

Lee is a total cuddler, and will gladly platonically cuddle with just about anyone he likes.

For friends he (and the rest of the Aves for that matter) do a forehead touch where most people would give a kiss on the cheek or shake hands.

[realtalk-princeton]

@maybach how did you adjust so well to college? I feel like in a lot of ways I’ve had the opposite experience, I was a really committed student in hs, got a 2400 sat, 15 perfect app test scores, all A’s, I even literally did lab work multiple summers at prestigious universities lol. I never really did much socially in hs, few friends, no SO, not much life experience in general outside academics. But now that I’m here, I’ve found it so hard to adapt. I actually took a gap year before starting,

but I’ve struggled so much here. I’m actually taking a leave because I couldn’t keep up. I guess part of this is not prioritizing academics enough cause I still feel like I need a ton to make up for lost time” from all the stuff I missed (even after taking a gap year). Honestly, it’s hard to even motivate myself to do academics at all, I mean I could always drop to an easier school or even just not go to college. I don’t even really like having “intellectual conversations” and all that, I’d rather just be around ppl who are more “shallow” (but is anything really “shallow” in the first place, I mean it’s really just about how you look at the world) but I digress. I don’t even care that much about honing critical thinking skills, and anyway, you don’t even need college to do that. it seems like the main justifications for the existence of liberal arts education, and really maybe even college in general (except for ppl going to grad school cause they are actually putting (Jesus this is turning into an op-ed) tangible knowledge they are directly using in their career, or ppl not going to grad school who are going into tech/engineering (also chemistry/biology?) and last I checked, not a huge number of students here go to grad school right out of college. I worked my ass off in hs to get here and now I’m really starting to regret it. so to tie it all back together, how did you even get into the mindset you’ve talked about to this place (not trying to be confrontational or anything, just genuinely curious) much less go from your hs experience to doing really well here? Or maybe I really should leave honestly. My parents didn’t even pressure me that much academically, it was a lot of self-motivation. Lol sorry for the screed

Response from Maybach:

No problem anon! I read the whole thing, but just needed sufficient time to build up to my answer. Also, there are a lot of components obviously lol, but I’ll mainly focus on your actual question for brevity sake. Even I’m getting tired of my long responses haha.

Let me first respond to some of your assertions and share my thoughts. I was kind of confused when you wrote, “it seems like the main justifications for the existence of liberal arts education…y are actually putting (Jesus this is turning into an op-ed) tangible knowledge they are directly using in their career, or ppl not going to grad school who are going into tech/engineering (also chemistry/biology?)” What are the main justifications you are referring to? Are you saying that college is to develop knowledge directly for a career? But anyway, I think college is really important at is the core for two things: time for maturing and learning how to learn. Nothing we learn for most of is will be directly related to a job, but it becomes vitally important and sets us apart from the vast majority of people. For the first thing, most kids are just not ready to enter the workforce after HS. They need to actually start growing up, taking responsibility more for their actions, going through life experiences. Can you imagine what it would be like for the average college-aged kid to go through a breakup in the post-graduation world for the first time lol (just an example)? Most people need time to mature so they’re ready for life after. As for learning how to learn. This is very important as well and Princeton EXCELS at this. I don’t care what anyone says, this is pretty much indisputable in my mind. I learned how to speak a language at a near-professional level within 1 year, I learned about centuries of detailed American economic history, etc. and none of this ever came up for a job. What is great about this and important for life is that I can now quickly learn new things in very different topics in a rigorous manner and adapt to situations in an efficient manner. I am constantly exposed to new and diverse ways of thinking and analyzing issues, which allows me to become a more efficient producer of ideas. When I interned in auditing, I was the only sophomore in my intern group and the only non-accounting major with only 1 semester of financial accounting coursework. Of course, they were way ahead of me at the beginning, but after only 2 weeks, I had caught up and mostly surpassed them in the speed and quality of my output. The only other sophomores in my group were a kid of the COO and a kid from U Chicago. My education was a big reason I was able to do this. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know to do accounting that well before because it’s not like the accounting majors even remembered that much stuff from their classes anyway. What I could do is synthesize complex information quickly and creatively innovate new ways of processing that were more original and not based out of a book. Princeton does this in an excellent manner no matter your major. You can’t do well here just by memorizing a couple formulas, reading a book all the time, etc. You are forced to approach complex large new problems all the time by using newly learned information. This is what makes our student so successful in many situations later in life and the earlier one starts to develop these skills, the better due to compounding interest (if you’re familiar with that concept). When you say “I don’t care about critical thinking skills” and “I’d rather be around “shallow” minded people” and “who cares about having intellectual conversations?” All of those points are totally fair and if you feel that way, there’s nothing wrong with that. I think you’re kind of missing the point though. It’s not like I’m proud of Princeton because we have more deep intellectual conversations. Rather, this is evidence that we are able to apply a rigorous analytical mindset to new situations and problems and come up with meaningful solutions on an unparalleled level. I’d rather trust the average Princeton student to construct a public policy that the average Brown student any day. Who’s the person who’s more likely to independently look a the situation and not just one-to-one apply what they read in a book? Who’s more likely to know how to work hard under that pressure? I’ve had to write 50-page essays in 1-2 weeks on highly complex issues. So of course, when I had to do a large client-project with hundreds of thousands of dollars actually on the line, I was more than ready to do it. Guess what student from which university wasn’t able to be organized enough to get their responsibilities done? 

There’s literally nothing wrong with not caring about developing these things or becoming a stronger critical thinker who approaches the world and absorbs information better than 99% of the population. In many ways, just taking it easier and just growing up slowly is better. Honestly, you really seem to me like you might have enjoyed a less stressful college more. You’re super smart, but you were so burned out from HS and didn’t have time to actually be a kid that long, to just enjoy yourself and life in an immature manner. If you were already so burnt out from HS, Princeton is just so hard because you’re already on the verge of not being able to do much more difficult thinking and you don’t have the time to develop the experience and coping mechanisms to deal with high-stress. For Brown, I am glad I didn’t choose it and go down that path for many reasons, but perhaps very important are the two reasons I talked about earlier. 1. maturity and 2. learning how to learn. 1. is debatable on who is better on average, but I’ve literally had a student there tell me they needed to do college first so they had time “to be an immature, reckless, and selfish asshole” before entering the workforce and having real responsibility. It feels like Brown at times is just for severely immature kids to mellow out before they have real responsibility at a slow rate. You can spend hours smoking weed without having to commit to real activities with actual value at stake. What do you think is going to happen in real life? What’s going to happen when they want to go beyond simple casual sex relationships? For me, spending all that money, I would rather go to a place that allows me to grow further and actually take more responsibility. As for 2. all that stuff about “shallowness” and “intellectual conversations” is related to this. If I’m going to college, spending all this time and money, I want to actually become a better thinker and learner not just for a job, but for life in general. People at Brown consistently just take classes to reaffirm their own extreme beliefs, are not exposed to that many new ideas that disagree with their opinions, and they aren’t forced as often to actually have rigorous learning experiences that force them into situations where absorbing difficult material is required. Thus, they aren’t actually learning that much, which is precisely one of the main points of college! I know this sounds harsh, but it doesn’t apply to everyone there. I just would be disappointed if I was one of many people there who didn’t grow up that much after college and was still puerile. I would be disappointed if I spent time in a degree where I’m no better an expert on it than the average Princeton student who read a book on my subject. And I would be disappointed that I didn’t have to challenge my previous beliefs and develop better-thinking skills. And once again, I want to say that I really hope I’m not being too antagonistic towards them. I really respect the university, but it’s clear that in my previous attempt to be extra considerate, that I spurred regret with some people and also did not accentuate the differences well enough.

Finally, as for adapting to college fast. I’ve always been an independent person. My parents sent me to France alone for several months when I was 16. I had to go camping in a forest for 1 month with just a few other people and no electricity.  I think this was helpful for college because, with increased independence, I was able to be even more efficient than in HS where my freedom was limited. I stay organized, I strategically plan classes, and I know when to ask for help when I need it. This is all more important to doing well academically rather than pure intellect. My procrastination is super low due to discipline and good habits. THIS IS ALSO HUGE. Also, let’s face it. There’s luck involved too. I plan my schedules well, but I’ve never had to take 2 midterms on the same day and that helped A LOT. I also prioritized relationships and health to ensure that I am in optimal fighting form. Honestly, I don’t want to play internet psychologist, but your descriptions of lack of motivations and your HS experience are all reminiscent of depression descriptions from some of my friends. If you had little social life in HS and had few life experiences outside of academics, that’s certainly not a formula for optimal mental health. Plus, you stated that you have serious motivations problems now, which is another sign. Let me just say that you could be twice as smart as me and still do worse academically if you had a mental health concern prior to starting college, which is the worst situation you can be in for Princeton, which unfortunately does not acclimate these students well compared to say Brown (there a positive lol!). I know very high functioning depressives, but they have to work 3 times as hard as me to do well. If they were in good condition they could study a topic in 1 hour and have it down, but due to mental health and focus and motivations problems, it now takes them 3 hours to do the same task. Therefore, if you asked me how I adapted well, another big thing is maintaining good health. Finally, I have a good support group composed of friends, family, and faculty that always has my best interest of mine and provide invaluable advice for academics, which helps a lot. If you have an upperclassman friend who took a class before you and will help teach you and give you tips, of course, you’re going to do better. But more importantly, this support group also helps with life issues and general and like I said before if someone gives you advice on how to study more efficiently in general, that’s super helpful to ALL your classes. So, I would say that I adapted “well” because the increased freedom and free time of college did not result in me procrastinating and being irresponsible. On the contrary, I was able to use the extra time to be even more productive and efficient. I also strategically planned my classes well. Secondly, I stay as healthy as possible, which is critically important. Lastly, I have a good support group.

Hope that helps answer as much of your post as possible. Honestly, anon, you seem super burned out and were just not in the best shape to enter college because you didn’t have enough non-academic experiences in HS. I suggest that you work on your health and motivation problems and also don’t be ashamed of transferring based on your statements. Obviously, I’m speculating, but if you don’t care that much about being surrounded by intellectuals and having a rigorous learning experience that maximizes your thinking horsepower, then maybe Princeton isn’t the best for you. People who thrive here are super ambitious and motivated to constantly improve and learn new things, but that may not apply to you. If you just want to get your degree and have a relaxing time, no questions asked, this isn’t an environment that fosters that easily. Obviously, though, consult more resources before making more decisions. Or even feel free to ask us again haha. Hope things look up for you though in the future.