#an interview process my best friend moved heaven and earth for and for which i am more than qualified

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

here’s the thing: i want attention

here’s the other thing: if i am perceived in any way i will violently explode like a poorly maintained home brewery kit

[teyriantimelord10]

“You have an ability humans have only dreamed of,” Peggy said firmly. “Use it. For both our sakes, don’t give up on her. For the past 25 years, my biggest regret has been that I’m living my life while you’ve been deprived yours. Go bring her back.”

(This is my fix-it-fic for Endgame in which Steve is ready to move heaven and earth to undo what happened to Nat on Vormir, and Peggy gets to live happily ever after with her husband. Read it on AO3 or under “keep reading” below. This is how it happened and nothing will change my mind...movie writers’ retconning bullshit interviews included.) 

It felt surreal, standing on her doorstep with a bouquet of flowers like a lovestruck teenager asking his sweetheart to prom. He knew who was going to open the door, and he was right. The man wasn’t particularly handsome in a traditional sense, with a short stature and a round figure, but above a slightly lopsided smile were kind eyes. The kind of eyes Steve recognized as a warrior who has been through hell and come out the other side determined not to let the weight of the world break him down. Maybe not a perfect soldier… but a good man.

“Christ almighty,” the man whispered through heavy breath. “It’s you. It’s really you. But, but, that’s not possible.”

“Can I come in?” Steve asked, trying to keep up his smile through the awkwardness.

“Of-of course,” the other man stuttered.

He stood aside and ushered Steve through the door, though when he looked down he noticed his hands were shaking. He wanted to reassure him that everything was alright and nothing was going to change, but that would be too much for him. Too much for them both. The inside of the house was almost exactly the way he pictured it would be. Peggy kept a clean home the way she kept a clean office and a clean team. The floors were immaculate, the window sills were free of dust, and the smell of a burning candle softly wafted through the living room.

“Darling, who’s at the door?”

Steve nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a voice calling from up the stairs. Her voice. There was the slightest hint of a rasp to it, probably from a long day of yelling orders, but still as melodious and beautiful as he remembered. He nervously shifted his weight from one foot to another and squeezed the flower stems in his hands until he felt a soft crunch.  All these years of planning for this moment and he still wasn’t ready.  

“It’s… It’s Captain America,” her husband replied without taking his eyes off Steve.

The ring of shattering glass was suddenly echoing through the house, followed swiftly by the fast clicking of high heels on wood flooring. In barely the time it took him to blink twice, she was standing in front of him with her face as pale as if she had seen a ghost. Well, he suppose she did. The slightly girlish touch of her youth as he had known her during the war was gone, but the powerful woman he loved remained, and that was what mattered most. He had seen her in her beginning and at her end; now they were meeting in the middle. Finally where they should have been a long time ago.

“Hi, Peg,” he said as strongly as he could through the wavering in his voice. “Sorry I’m late.”

He had played the hypotheticals in his mind a thousand different ways. Would she scream at him? Would she be glad? Would she break down sobbing? Would she throw him out? The few seconds it took her to process felt like years, but finally a wide smile came over her lips and tears began to stream down her face.

“You’re alive,” she managed to choke out through the sobbing and the laughter. “Steve, you’re alive!”

He wanted to run forward and pull her into his arms and hold her for hours on end, but he was acutely aware of how her feet were planted in place, and that her husband was staring at them slack-jawed.

“I can’t stay for long, but I owe you a dance.”

He thought of Peggy as he trudged across the empty sands. He’d been walking for miles and hours now. On Earth, night would have come and gone by this time, but the landscape was still cloaked in the same pale darkness with a slight gloss of purple from the eclipsed sun. His boots were soaked through in some liquid that looked like water, but smelled like sulfur and made his skin itch and tingle. The air felt humid and warm, and yet chilled his throat the same way a winter night would on a night mission back home. There was not a doubt in his mind that this was the kind of place capable of driving a man mad. But that wasn’t an option. He thought of Peggy, thought of everything he had missed on ice and everything he had gained after waking up. He thought of his mission.

Finally, the two spires he had been searching for appeared on the horizon, just as menacing as Clint and Nebula had warned him. He took as deep a breath as the atmosphere would allow and looked at the timepieces on his wrist. Bruce, Janet, and Hank had designed two watches designed specifically for his mission: one that aligned to where ever (whenever) he was, and one that timed his days away as a whole, as a way of knowing how much of his life had been devoted to this task to keep him from losing all sense of time and direction. 482 days and counting away from Earth… away from home. All the other Infinity Stones had been returned. This was his final task, and there was no way of knowing how it would end. He couldn’t take it anymore, and took off into a sprint. He ran until it felt like his knees were going to give out and his lungs were going to fail, but he at last reached the foot of the mountain. Steve touched the pouch on his pocket and felt the ebbing warmth from within, and all the dread and hatred that came with it. Still, a knot of hope rose in his throat at well. A familiar conversation came to mind.

“This is gonna work, Steve.”

“I know it will. Because I don’t know what I’m going to do if it doesn’t.”

This was going to work.

As he ascended the winding path up to the gateway, the warm dampness swiftly disappeared as he rose, being instead replaced with thin air and what could have been mistaken for falling snow. It smelled and felt more like ash. A faint vibration began bristling against his ears, so he removed the shield from its magnetic holster and strapped it onto his arm. He wasn’t sure what would meet him at the top, but he was very glad that he came prepared when he saw the cloaked figure hovering above the ground. However, he never in 10,000 could have prepared for what he saw then the phantom lifted his hood.

“Are you enjoying your future without flags, Captain?” Schmidt’s voice echoed hauntingly around the entire cliff face.

Steve threw his shield only to have it pass right through Red Skull and ricochet off the rocks behind him. Rage boiled in his stomach and under his skin. He thought of Peggy. What cruel trick was it that after all these years, he’d come face to face with the spectre of the man who stole his life. Stole his future. Stole his best friend. Stole his chance to be with the woman he loved so dearly. And to not be able to bash in that horrible scarlet face.

“I’m not here for you, Schmidt,” Steve growled. “There’s a deal you owe me.”

An eerie chuckle seemed to come from behind him, but Steve knew better than to turn and look.

“I don’t have the stone anymore.”

Steve took the opportunity to smirk as he pulled the Soul Stone from his belt.

“I do.”

The entire atmosphere of the mountain changed in a heartbeat. A gust swept around them and then elevated like a vacuum, nearly sucking all the air out of his lungs. The previously still sky tore open and he looked up to see what looked like a vortex forming above their heads; a tunnel of swirling clouds that reached up into the infinite darkness.

“A soul for a soul. That’s what you told Clint,” Steve shouted over the whirring of the column. “I give you this soul, and you give me one back. That’s how it works.”

“Give it to me!” the ghost screeched, diving down toward him, but Steve quickly rolled to the side of the cliff and extended his hand over the edge that dropped into a chasm so deep he could barely see the bottom.

He nearly vomited imagining all the things that happened here. All who had died in vain… and more importantly the ones who had not.

“A soul for a soul, Schmidt,” Steve repeated. “Give her back and I’ll let it go.”

He could see the seething rage burning in the Red Skull’s eyes.

“I do not have the power to make that bargain nor the arcane knowledge to see if this foolishness with succeed,” he said venomously. “I am merely the gatekeeper, not the source.”

Steve swallowed hard. So no matter what, there was no way of knowing. No way of fighting his way through to get what he wanted. He just had to have faith, and have hope that the stone could sense that he’d put his very soul into bringing her home… Bringing their Natasha home.

He almost didn’t notice the burning against his palm and fingers until he looked away from Red Skull and over to his own hand. The Soul Stone was glowing and heating with such intensity that it had eaten its way through his leather glove and into his skin. He held on as long as he could, endured as much of the pain as his body could handle. It was sinking down, down past his skin and into the flesh, the scalding of it beginning to melt into his bones. A shot of pain ran up his arm and throughout his entire body, clawing at his nerves and muscles until he had no choice but to let go. Steve’s eyes watched as the stone descended further and further into the canyon, falling almost indefinitely like a flair. But the moment it finally struck the bottom, a wave of light surged over the peak, and then fell into complete darkness. In the last second, he thought about Peggy.

“I don’t know what to do, Peg,” he admitted, pulling her a little closer and they swayed back and forth together. “I lost Bucky, then I lost you, and now I’ve lost her too and… I loved her.”

She lifted her head from his shoulder to look up at him with those rich, wise eyes.

“You have an ability humans have only dreamed of,” she said firmly. “Use it. For both our sakes, don’t give up on her. For the past 25 years, my biggest regret has been that I’m living my life while you’ve been deprived yours. Go bring her back.”

Steve kept his eyes shut while he evaluated his body. His entire right arm ached and his mouth felt like it was stuffed with sand, but other than that everything was… fine. The agonizing pain was gone like the lost memory of a forgotten nightmare. He heard a groan that seemed to express exactly he felt, but it wasn’t his.

It wasn’t his.

In an instant, Steve’s eyes snapped opened and he shot upright to a sitting position. He was sitting in a shallow oasis amidst the endless sand, but surprisingly didn’t feel any damper than before. Nighttime still hung over the landscape, but this time he didn’t marvel at the strange horror and beauty of the planet. He heard another groan and frantically looked around until he found the source of the sound. Lying a few yards away from him was a figure curled in on itself, knees tucked to chest and body visibly trembling in the dimness. Steve held his breath and prayed as he stumbled his way over. As he got closer, his entire heart almost exploded in joy as he caught the sight he had been hoping for most… red hair.

“Natasha!” he cried out, finally reaching her side and scooping her into his arms.

Her eyes were still closed and fluttering, like a child trapped in a bad dream. Even through the thick layers of her tactical suit, caked in dirt and blood, she started shaking even harder at his touch. Steve’s joy quickly melted into fear.

“Come on, Nat, wake up,” he whispered, slowly rocking them both back and forth. “We need you… I need you.”

Natasha’s face began to contort in what looked like pain, brows furrowed and lips twisting. The panic in Steve’s chest grew stronger as she let out a longer, louder moan. The bitter taste of dread made him wonder if he had made a mistake. Was this it? Had be bargained for her soul only to bring her back into a broken body?

“Come on,” he repeated, feeling tears well in his eyes. “Please, Nat. Please, wake up.”

He didn’t know what he would do with himself if he came this far only to lose her again. Too many times in his life, Steve had lost someone once just to lose them again. Bucky. Peggy. He couldn’t do it again, not with Natasha too. He’d do anything, give anything.

But after a few moments, she stilled. Her trembling stopped, her face relaxed, and her mouth opened slightly with the escape of a small hiss.

“Sss…. Sss… Steve?”

It took every ounce of willpower in his body to keep from embracing her as tightly as he could.

“I’m here, I’ve got you,” he answered softly.

As her eyes slowly opened, he noticed a faint orange glow tinting the green of her irises that gently faded away when she began to blink into lucidity. The haze of disruption on her face gave way to realization, and the entire air around her seemed to light up when a small, exhausted, smile pulled at her lips. Steve could not remember the last time in his life he had felt so relieved.

“Hey,” she said hoarsely. “Did we bring them back?”

Steve choked on a laugh that no power of heaven or earth could have stopped.

“You brought them back. And now we have you back too.”

Natasha gingerly wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her face into his shoulder. He had a million questions for her, but they could wait. Instead, he did his best to quiet his mind, and he thought of Peggy. He thought of everything she said to him with her wisdom and encouragement and guidance, of how she didn’t let him give up. He took a few moments to luxuriate in the warmth of having Natasha back in his arms again... Having his life, his love, his world back in his arms again. He’d have to find a way to thank her for that.

“I missed you,” Natasha murmured against his chest.

Steve gently kissed her forehead.

“I missed you too,” he replied, and scooped under her arms and legs so he could carry her as he stood. “Let’s go home.”

[vacationcalendar]

8/10/21

Wait, I missed 2 days? Ah fuck. You know what, let’s not focus on it. I don’t really feel like going full journal-mode today. Suffice it to say the winddown from doing WEED (and the socializing from that 5k most likely...) was much bigger than I was hoping it would be. And I might just be in the middle of an existential crisis! Moving on!

Hmm, so what to go over today. I think it’s high time we put some effort into something we care about. Writing good. Writing goodly. I was gonna say the novel, which I have to commit to calling something. I keep forgetting I was going to settle on The Franz Lion like almost a month ago. I do want to do that. So let’s. Ok, I wanted to write like a poem or something today as well. Or rather, I wanted to write a poem like 3 days ago and then fell into a K-hole. I know that’s not the proper usage of the term K-hole, but it’s such a great phrase, and who the hell is using ketamine these days? We’re wasting K-hole as a culture. So I’m gonna do my part to fix that. I remember some indie artist was being interviewed (if memory serves, she was being interviewed by Matt Besser for an Improv4humans episode. This is the exact reason I like podcasts by the way. Matt Besser is a fundamentally interesting person and was given, through the medium of podcasting, free reign over what to talk about. And he chose to dig into an indie artist’s catalog that largely covered depression, so he could turn around and do improv comedy about it. The end. That idea was completely solipsistic, if I’m using that word correctly. Ok I checked, I did not. I just meant that this creative endeavor existed entirely for its own sake, which as far as I can tell does not have its own word), and she calls the feeling I’m describing as going on a journey to the center of the earth. I always liked that, but like, we can get that down to one word for sure. K-hole. I admit I can see problems with that; maybe we call it like a natural K-hole or something like that. Put a pin in this.

So a poem and maybe some free writing centered around TFL (handy!). Maybe we can do both at once here.

We all die once.  We are born as many times as we need.

Not a poem, but this is the critical thesis of The Franz Lion. My instincts tell me this is more attached to the ship in the novel itself, but that theme should be present throughout the whole story if I can manage it. What other themes do I need to keep with me?

--------

Ok I left for over an hour, what’d I miss? Oh, wait! Let’s make it an hour and five minutes. lemme do laundry........ Ok. Fuck that is so easy, I should have the cleanest clothes, it’s too easy not too, man. I mean, the bedsheet is its own thing, that doesn’t count. Clothes and pillow cases and towels, forget it. Ok, let’s jam dude.

Theming attached to the Franz Lion. Birth, or rather rebirth by means of leaving an old life behind in search of a new one. I think an interesting topic I can go into will definitely be my personal style of leaving behind old things/relationships to discover new ones; even when the old ones were nice. I think that personality is currently underrepresented in culture. Moving on from a close friend, because you are a rolling stone, and that isn’t a bad thing. To never stop exploring the world is to never stop learning, and that might be the fundamental goal of the human experience. Never stop learning. This is what to me makes Weaver a compelling main character. At his core he is a learner. That’s the center bubble of the web flow chart. He wants to learn about everything. He devours the lore of this world voraciously enough to satisfy the equally curious readers, and hopefully in a way that helps move the less interested readers along with him. This is what can keep him on the ship longer than a standard “hero” type would want to. He isn’t forced into taking any political position on the ship, and while he suspects he will choose to change things soon, he’s more interested in understanding it more than he is impacting it. Like, Luke Skywalker joins the rebellion second one of the Star Wars because that’s the point; the empire is pure evil. They are just big strong bad guys that need to be risen up against, despite the odds. This is a different story. It may be hinted at from time to time that there will be a powerful act of “darkness” (destruction?) that may come into the foray of every day life, but it’s not so clear what the likelihood of that is or even if it’s that bad at all. Weaver will see as many wretched people as he will compelling characters. There will be no uber-worthy side to take up arms with and help. He’ll have to decide for himself how much conflict he’s willing to endure.

And I think Weaver’s curiosity should be the ultimate reason he stays with Kat like he does. Kat is an enigma. Kat holds so many answers that Weaver so desperately wants to uncover, and reveals nothing. Kat’s existence on the ship means so many things: What does a champion do? What exactly are the makings of a champion, could I be one? What is your responsibility when you have the power to make a difference? And then Kat’s inner darkness keeps Weaver around: What is so hard about living life? What does failure really mean? Who is this person I’m looking at right now? Weaver knows that knowledge can conquer fear, and he’s naturally drawn to trying to best understand the world around him, so why can’t he help Kat? What piece of information is he trying to find out to help fix this problem? It seems by all accounts that Kat doesn’t WANT to get better, but then why doesn’t she leave. It’s like the act of trying to help is the main source of the pain she’s feeling, but she doesn’t have the strength to abandon him/the ship. Is he torturing her? But he’s seen her come alive before. Like she’s escaped her mind and is running around like a refugee. 

Now I’m thinking Weaver should have a stronger reason to stay attached to Kat. Looking at it now, I think I’d wander down a path that more resembles real life, where Kat runs out of good will and gets left behind, left to her own devices as a last ditch attempt to bring her into the working world. I don’t want to do that in the book, necessarily. I don’t have Kat as the POV character, and I don’t have Kat as the fundamentally curious one constantly asking what the fuck is wrong with her. That book would just be too hard to write. And I wouldn’t want to read it anyway. So Weaver should stick with it as long as he can, hopefully til the end of the story or whatever. So currently, he stays with her because he at first is mezmerized by her. She’s a champion! A legendary warrior, and in this world, fighting is an art. Watching a master etherist(? gotta pick out some more vocab...) is like watching a sunset. It’s the closest you can get to objective beauty. And as someone who just found out he’s an etherist as well, this is his only source of ethereal knowledge. It’s understood relatively quickly in the book that the way champions work makes it more than likely that Weaver will become the Wind Champion at some point in his ethery journey-

NOTE: elements attune to people, not the other way around, so as long as people can muster ethereal attunement to an element, that element will have a champion that sort of represents the element. It’s like the queen on a chess board. Nations will have a King, but the champion is the one with the agency. Since for all the crew knows, Weaver is an ethereal breed of one, he will become the champion of Wind by default, once he possesses the power to channel the element properly. The more I think about it, the more I think it’s not SO MUCH a random process that decides the champion; like Nature selects the champion and then nation’s send out “oracles” or something to find it. Nature more or less identifies the champion by flowing through the worthiest candidate when the time to select a champion occurs. Like our champions in the book weren’t decided by some ironic fate that will weave them together in a compelling way. They are literally the most innately talented at the time of selection. It would be like the universe selecting the most talented violinist one day. We’d have a couple guesses and they’d probably all be wrong, but the universe wouldn’t pick someone surprising; it would pick someone who has found the violin as an artform and plays well. But displaying talent is external and having talent is internal. Maybe it’s a bit like lightning picking the best path from the clouds to the earth. It moves everywhere seemingly randomly but eventually it decides where to strike and it’s through the best conduit in the area. And that’s guaranteed. It starts from a place that we can’t know where it will strike, but it never strikes somewhere surprising. So the crew deduces quickly on that having the one and only Windy-billy on the planet means the angry winds (I kinda want a fun word for Earth in this story, put a pin in that) of this planet will flow through him the moment he could allow it. 

It’s why Captain Ettis would move heaven and earth to teach Weaver in the first place. But it’s also the exact reason Weaver is magnetized to Kat. She is the worthiest Light etherist, objectively; but she seemingly has no ambition. Kat frustrates Weaver and the Captain and everyone almost by design, and they can’t wrap their heads around it. So it seems to me like the frustration that *depression* will lay onto the cast should factor into the progression of the plot. Like the amazing promise that is the company of Kat (last name here ;P) is never ever delivered upon and that should bring them to a crossroads. My the crew of the Franz Lion abandons her and looks for a new way to get Weaver attuned to the Wind in some way. I know the first thing they should want to try is to look for old books about Wind Ethery (I don’t know how hard to make this yet. It could be relatively simple, but it doesn’t do the trick for Weaver, because that’s not what Wind books were meant for. Or it could be like highly illegal to possess Wind paraphernalia, and the book would be super helpful, it’s just the act of procuring a book would be the struggle. That honestly does not sound as interesting to me, but I can see how that would help center the narrative a bit. The reader knows what to be looking for. hmmm...), but once Kat comes along, they see a real chance to achieve their original goal, even if they are keeping Kat on board at their own peril. That’s honestly a perfect reason to want to leave Kat behind once she proves unreliable as a resource for Weaver. But when the Franz Lion sails off, this is where I want Weaver to stay with Kat. So why would he do that? Does he feel like he’d rather be with her, he’s rather help her, than help get himself to champion status? Maybe seeing her suffer shows him that being a champion is not some end-all be-all reward like he once thought. I think it would be really helpful for the story is there was some external force that coincided with Weaver’s choice to stay. So if Weaver leaving the ship= choosing Kat’s longterm success over his shortterm success (he can always become the champion later, it’s a destiny). Ok, here’s my first thought. War has been declared between the Light Kingdom and someone else (multiple kingdom’s maybe?). Word has gotten out that the champion of Light has disappeared, and -

NOTE: Couple things for world building. I think the kingdom’s should be pretty straightforward. There is the main city where the capital is. Then there is the Nation’s territory. Everyone operates more like a confederacy. Each city has its own shit under control. But the kingdom collects taxes and shit (look into this maybe O_O) and they can conscript soldiers in times of war. Also in the book, the seven (six, plus Weaver) champions have all been chosen within the same year; an unheard of event. New champions are only chosen when the former champion passes away. So for the first time in history (documented history), the champions are all green and untested. So some of the more ambitious champions have taken this as a major opportunity to further establish their empires, I guess. I think battle and territory expansion is a little easier to come upon in this world than my instincts tell me should be happening. The geo-political culture is far from solved in this world, as would be any world at this technological stage (check out a game of Civ VI or something).

The light champion is AWOL and the Aqua Nation and Erd Nation have champions that are poised to demonstrate their strength. This is a surprise to few; 7 new champions in one year has made the world very volatile. I think there might be room for some more dramatic tension by revealing just how Machiavellian the Aqua Champion is. Like he isn’t just going to war on the Light/Aqua border, he wants to perform a second Abandonment. 

NOTE: “The Abandonment” (name subject to change) is what the world says to refer to the infamous moment in history where the world lost the ability to commune with the wind. A lot of people mourn the abandonment, like one would mourn losing their sense of smell. We have moved away from our oldest home. Our place in nature is turning grayer before our very eyes. But unsurprisingly, The (great?) Abandonment (of the Wind?) had many proponents. That’s why it happened in the first place. 7 different nations were left to share the resources and land of the world and champions would always defend their homes well enough to keep every kingdom relatively large and unmoored. The abandonment was only possible in the first place because a terrifying regime powered by an unprecedentedly strong champion and a seemingly psychotic king challenged the entire world for supremacy. The other 6 nations for the first and only time rose up together to push back and defeat the armies of the Wind nation. The king and his champion had many opportunities to surrender and end the war peacefully, but they fought tooth and nail until the very last moment, which led to their complete obliteration. Once the forces of wind were completed eradicated, the 6 nations found themselves looking at an interesting choice. The number of Wind etherists were so few, and the land they occupied was so small, the other nations would be able to enact a complete takeover of their nation. There were talks of genocide, and as unthinkable as it sounded, executing this process would kill less than a 50th of the people that had already died in this war. The crimes of the Wind Nation were heinous enough to deserve a punishment like this one, and in reality a lot of people were scared that a second champion would emerge from the remnant of the nation soon, and they might try to squirm out of the checkmate they’d been placed in. This urgency to act and the outrage from the rest of the world let the power-hungry leaders fall to their worst instincts: splitting the earth 6 ways was a hell of a lot better than 7 ways. So the elemental coalition army executed its prisoners and put all the women and children in prison camps. They marked them all a Wind children and moved them all around the world in camps overseen by each Nation. They lived out the remainder of their lives as second class citizens, unable to practice or even mention ethery, and unable to have children. The final act of eradication lasted one lifetime and needed only a fleeting apathy to execute.

Hmm, now I’m realizing I already have the ivories. People with no ethery, no communion with nature. They either could be the product of the eradicated Windys, or they could merge with the Windys. That makes more sense; to go from no Ivories to lots of Ivories, just because of the cleansing of Windys, doesn’t really work. You can’t strip a people of their natural connection to the elements like that. I think I should leave any Windys left after the war to be branded Windys (although I don’t like the brand idea that much, brands are so automatically associated with Jews, and the Windys already started out like a pseudo Nazi party. I do think their motivations will be a lot more “world domination”-y than the Facism/genocide stuff)

How bout this? The world coalition captured every Windy, then once the next champion emerged they picked an agreed upon location to jail him for life. So they’d always know where the wind champion was. And he wasn’t as strong or as crazy as the last one, so he went away without incident. Then all the remaining Windy citizens were broken up into little groups and carted off to ivory settlements all over the world. They could live their lives normally like the ivory folk under the promise to never perform or teach wind ethery ever, under penalty of death. The land that belonged to the Wind Nation was divided up among the other nations. Since it wasn’t right in the middle of everything, compromises were made. Certain Nations got bigger shares of the land by giving up land that already belonged to their kingdom. Like the Light kingdom got a big piece of the Wind nation in exchange for giving up part of their border to the Fire Kingdom, since the Fire Kingdom was so far away from the Wind Kingdom. This part was very complicated and took a long time, and ensured that no Kingdom was particularly satisfied or allied with anyone anymore. Think world war 1 leading to world war 2 MINUS THE FACISM. 

A bunch of survivors obviously saw it to be very important to keep Wind ethery alive and tried to teach it to their children in secret. All the books and libraries etc. in the Wind Kingdom were destroyed. Some people tried to recreate ethery books on their own; they’d hide them in their homes. But Soldiers of each kingdom were obviously tasked with the finding and destroying of these sorts of practices. And you were instantly executed and made an example of in your town. And you can imagine certain kingdoms were less tolerant than others. Taking part in this time in history would place your sympathies with the wind people. Dragged into global conflict by their mad king and his calamitous champion. And now your very essence is being scrubbed from history before your eyes. It’s an exceedingly wretched time to bear witness to. But this was maybe 3 entire generations removed from our current setting.

So yeah, The Abandonment was a huge deal. Many people still mourn this time in the world’s history. But so many more feel an unearned sense of freedom from it. Freedom from the scourge of tyranny. Freedom to live out their wonderful lives as the true ethereal race. If only we could abandon the other 5 natural abominations. People like them rather enjoyed how “honest” and “friendly” the wind felt without a ugly face hiding behind it. Surely if the world were to do without humans unnatural handling of nature, it would be a better place to live. Their element notwithstanding of course. People are fucking idiots. This viewpoint is meant to be instantly hated by the reader, and at the same time being instantly understood, and the reader feels no compulsion to reason with this viewpoint. It’s all too familiar.

At the same time, it leaves a lot of room to explore an actual thought. If humans could bend nature to our whim, should we? Isn’t that what we’re doing right now in the real world? Stealing water and wind and rock to make electricity and heat? Moving everything around for the sake of conveniencing ourselves? Surely the goal of a humanity that could move the world around as it wanted would be to find it’s natural equilibrium.  People in the book say the wind is sad now that it was no way to talk to us. But is it actually sad? Or are we just deciding what we want the world to look like?  If the wind could really talk, it should incumbent on us to listen. I think that should come into play when you see how industrious the ivories are. They have no communal channel with the elements, and they’re begun to take off down the path of industry. It’s early but we get some hints that they seem to be on the path towards the modern day humans of Earth. And modern humanity is nothing if not a cautionary tale of find your own balance with nature. Someone, maybe Weaver should come to understand that we need to wield our ethereal power as SERVANTS not MASTERS. Like how Jesus said to love thy neighbor, as a servant. you get it. That seems like it’s a big enough hook to hang a bit of the plot onto at some point down the road.

Where was I? Oh my god, the plot. Like 2 thousand words later. Jesus.

So once word breaks out that the Light Kingdom is going to war, and it look sbad for them, Kat let’s slip that her new plan is to kill herself. She would be doing a great service to her country, giving them a new champion in her stead, and she can’t handle being around anymore anyway. The weight of her responsibility to be great has crushed her beyond her capacity. So once she’s been kicked off TFL, Weaver follows her. (again, WHY does he follow her? I don’t *love* the idea that he follows her as a way of being there to stop her from killing herself, but that checks out logistically) Weaver can tell something is wrong and he doesn’t want to lose her. He’s like 17 so it feels extremely natural that he has worked himself up to a point of loving Kat, as a teenager is able to do. So when she turns to this dark point, she has exhausted almost all of the good will around her, and Weaver is thoroughly perplexed by her. She bears an enigmatic quality (I wanted to say that sentence like 3 hours ago... lol). He clearly has found it difficult to like her, but he just can’t help himself. And when he finds out she’s planning to kill herself (this is honestly a perfect story beat. It works for the plot and the theme and it is the biggest part of a story about depression you can add), he stops her. 

I think naturally because this is me writing this, I’m not going to let Weaver stick to his guns to fervently about preventing a suicide. There are a lot of questions that are raised by this. How much damage has this act done to the light kingdom? Does Weaver have a duty to bring Kat to “fighting shape”? Is it ok that Kat has failed to protect her kingdom? Suicide was the easy way out, can Weaver do the hard work for Kat? He doesn’t have control here. 

Wow, this is a heavy scene. I’m letting it wash over me right now and it’s making me get a little teary. This will be a huge part of this book, I’m just realizing. And mechanically it fits perfectly. What part of the book would this be? I can literally see this as a part of the book people would try and skip over as they read it again. Like, they’d look it up and people online would say go to page 347 to pick back up after this scene had subsided. Now that we’re talking about this I know another part I have to include if I want to do this right, is I have to include the death of the King in the Light Kingdom (I’ll give him a name obviously). It’s one of the biggest emotional arcs I can possibly imagine for Kat, and it needs to happen early enough to let her deal with it throughout her story. The initial spiral. The DABDA, I suppose. Whenever I imagine myself going through grieving, especially 10 years ago, I’d jump to Depression and rot there for the rest of my life. But I know that’s impossible. But I also know that DABDA is natural and healthy, and Kat is not healthy. It will look different for her and it will not be fast.

This is interesting. The more I dream up stuff to include in the book, the more I had interesting philosophical quandries, and the less I think of compelling action sequences. The longer I live, the further the balance shifts it seems. I need to make sure I’m keeping in mind a reason why you’d pick up this book in the first place. Something cool has to happen right?

I do think the first sequence in the book is cool. A terrorist attack where Weaver ends up stowing away on a pirate ship, then being captured and nearly executed; only to be saved by the possibility that he might be someone very special, if he works hard. That’s a fine start. Then there’s the tale of the White Witch. That’s also cool. What else? Kat’s entrance aboard TFL, and Kat sinks those two ships. I don’t see why any of that cool action needs to be cut. And every moment in between can be getting to know the crew and this world. Certainly green seas and the overwhelming force of the “navy” (The Aqua military should have a name like that) is compelling. I’m starting to think also that Weaver is kept at arm’s length of the specific plans of Captain Ettis. One, he doesn’t know anything anyways. Why would going to Landwing matter to him or not? And if we just keep ourselves concerned about the story through Weaver’s eyes, we don’t have to sweat ALL the details right away. JK Rowling didn’t worry about the Deathly Hallows in the sorcerer’s stone. I don’t think she worried about shit. Now I’m thinking again about the suicide scene. I have to be very careful about that thing. That’s what can make my book go from fun YA action adventure, to ADULT action adventure. I think I need to make sure that the leading idea to kill herself has to come from the selfless place of trying to be helpful to her people. She doesn’t know how to be a champion to her people. She doesn’t know how to help; but she can think of one way. To be honest, she’d thought about it for a long time now. If she were to die, the light would find a new champion. One who didn’t run away. One who wasn’t too cowardly to fight for something greater than herself. 

It can’t go the other way, where she’s like I can’t endure the pain that comes with living anymore, and actually I’ll be helping out along the way. I’m a coward, a wretched monster that doesn’t belong here. I need to go home, and when I do my family will be able to go on without me and be ok. They don’t realize that keeping me around is only hurting them. 

Do you get it? This is going to take some serious effort to get right. I think we need to leave it up to the reader to place the connection of depression and suicide on their own. Like, Kat found a noble reason to try and tap out of life, but here on Earth, people will feel like Kat sometimes even without the plot demanding it. You get it. I think we should save it for when we know a lot more about this book to write this scene though. For the sake of nuance, and I’d like to be a better writer by that point as well, haha.

Ok, I want to call it here. I’m losing track of where I am and tumblr gets super laggy when my WC gets this high. Goals for next time:

1. More vocabulary. Lock down some actual words. We can always replace them later. 2. Try to write the boat scene between Ettis and Weaver. 3. Get some details about crewmen down. It has to happen at some point.

Ok, let’s call it here. Love you, bysies <3

[sargenthouse]

Dylan Carlson Photos + Interview // RCRD Magazine

DYLAN CARLSON

Interview and photos by Dominic Goodman via RCRD Magazine

I understand you moved around a lot growing up. Were you influenced musically by the places you visited or even just in a more general cultural way?

Yeah I mean my Dad worked for the department of defence, so I guess sort of an army brat in a weird way. Not in the military, I guess a child of the military industrial complex. As soon as we were born we left Seattle for Philadelphia and then from Philadelphia to New Mexico, then New Mexico to Germany and then we moved three times within Germany and then back to the States where we lived in Texas and then New Jersey and then back to Washington. My grandmother was Scottish. She came over to the States right after the war. We still had relatives living in Scotland so when we lived over in Germany we used to visit our relatives in Scotland quite a bit. My Dad worked for the military but wasn’t in the military, except for one year, so we didn’t live on bases, we lived out and about. We did go to U.S. schools but apart from that my parents definitely took advantage of the fact that we lived overseas and travelled a lot. Unlike, I remember there was a Sergeant that worked for my dad and he was proud of the fact that in his five years of being stationed overseas he had never left the base, never eaten outside the NCO club, didn’t know any German, you know, complete isolationist just waiting to get shipped back home basically. It was really strange, that kind of mentality of being somewhere that had so much to offer and just basically ignoring it.

Did you feel like you picked up on those cultures as you were moving around?

Yeah, definitely, we travelled a lot during school breaks and stuff like that. My dad had friends who were, you know… there was this one couple that were my parents friends. He was French but in the US Air Force and had a German wife Then our friend Peter, he had a German wife so they lived outside the base, they didn’t live in the enclaves. I guess nowadays you couldn’t get away with that.

Were you interested in music at that stage?

Music was sort of ever present in the house just because of my parents being of the generation they were. I guess you could say I grew up listening to a lot of my parent’s music. When we were like five as part of our Easter egg hunt we got the first Allman Brother record as a prize. I grew up listening to a lot of Bob Dylan and The Band, I guess what they would call ‘Classic Rock’ now. My Mum’s best friend’s husband was a big Zeppelin fan and Blue Oyster Cult fan, so sort of like through osmosis I picked up a lot of music. Once we moved back to the States when I was in Junior High, at about 11, I could start buying music myself or at least wanted to buy music myself. That’s when I guess I gravitated towards… my first record was an AC/DC record, that’s when I started getting into hard rock and heavy metal I guess. What they called heavy metal back then, now of course it would be called something entirely different because of the micro-genres.

What kind of age did you begin to play or start to want to play?

It’s funny, I guess the first time was the moment I heard AC/DC, that was when I wanted to start playing. I didn’t quite figure out that you could play until a few years later, so I guess it was about 4 or 5 years of wanting to play before realising ‘oh I actually could play’.

Would that have been with friends? Did you form bands with friends at that time?

Not right off the bat, I mean right off the bat I just wanted a guitar and got a guitar and started learning to play and learning to write songs. It was weird because later, as I met people who played guitar, most of them spent most of their time learning to play other people’s stuff and I never really went that route. I just started trying to write songs from the get go, which, sometimes I regret not learning how to play other people’s stuff at the same time. For some reason it seemed like instead of learning to play Stairway to Heaven I should just learn how to write a song.

Obviously around that period of time, around Seattle, so much great music was being created. Do you think that there was something happening or a cultural aspect that enabled that, or just chance and a knock on effect from one band to another?

I think it’s a combination of things. Ultimately I think it’s the fact that you have an area where there’s not a lot going on. I can still remember the very first article on Seattle that was in NME and the description of Seattle was: “An obscure West Coast seaport”. I think the fact that Seattle wasn’t LA, or New York or one of those kind of places where people looked for things to happen it kind of created this blank slate for things to happen. Once people saw that there’s people doing things and it’s like getting noticed then more people wanted to start doing stuff. It kind of builds from there. I don’t think anyone set out to be like “Seattle is going to be the cultural nexus of rock music for the 90s”.

Was it exciting to be a part of that scene or was it frustrating that it very quickly had so much attention focused on it?

It’s weird, I mean at the time, you don’t really notice that’s going on so much. It’s just sort of like, stuff is happening and you see other bands doing stuff and they’re getting noticed and other bands aren’t. At least from my perspective it’s not a very conscious thing, it just kind of happens and some people are able to take advantage of it and other people aren’t.

I’m interested in the sound that you and Earth have It seemed to sort of be there from the outset and yet you’ve managed to integrate that into different styles while still keeping this very idiosyncratic sound. Was that sound for you something that was very instinctual or was it something that developed through a number of years as you were beginning to play music?

I guess it would have to be sort of an instinctual sound, choosing to do it in a specific way….

Your guitar sound has certainly influenced lots of people. It’s instantly recognizable in the context of Earth but you have also been able to integrate it into a lot of different styles sometimes not always expected.

It’s funny I look back on the old days and where I was very equipment specific and “oh I need this” or “oh I need that” and now it’s like, I’ve sort of realized that I don’t really need any of those to do it.

Because it’s coming more from you than the equipment?

It’s not the gear, I mean, there is certain gear that makes it easier but ultimately, regardless of what I’m given, it’s going to be me that it comes out of. It’s not based on what I’m using.

Going back to the early days, specifically Earth 2 feels like a very daring record in it’s simplicity. Did it feel like that at the time it first came out? What was the reaction to it at that time?

Well, yeah. Earth 2 definitely was the most conceptual album. At the time it was like, what’s the maximum amount of time we have for a CD? which was like 73 minutes, so it was like, let’s fill up all 73 minutes. Again we ran into another problem which was that at the time you could only get a half an hour reel on a recording tape hence it had to be broken up into three parts. Conceptually that was intended to be the extreme of what technology could handle so that is what we wanted to use.

How did people react to that when it came out?

It’s funny now that it’s gotten this patent of ‘oh it’s such an amazing record, blah, blah, blah”. Obviously there were a few people who liked it but ultimately when it was first pressed there were 2,000 copies pressed and it took 3 years to sell those 2,000 copies. It was certainly not a popular record [laughs].

You talking about Earth 2 being the most conceptual, it seems in a way that all your records feel quite conceptual. Is that something you think about before you even start writing or do you begin writing a record and it just develops in that way?

I think nowadays, they’re much less that way. Originally I used to have notebooks of song titles. I’d write music and eventually I’d go through and be like “Oh this song title works for this piece” whereas nowadays the music comes a lot faster than any kind of song title.

Regarding Earth, do you put in time where you say “we’re going to write” or is it just an ongoing collaborative process?

I’m always writing stuff. Some of it will be an Earth song, some will be something else, so yeah it’s not compartmentalised. It’s not like “now I’m writing an Earth record” or “now I’m writing this record”. I’m just writing and I think this might be good for an Earth song or this one might be good for something else.

You’ve obviously got a very strong understanding within the band when you’re playing. Are the tracks very structured before you play live or is there a lot of improvisation going on?

I’d say there’s a lot of improvisation. There’s like certain riffs and those riffs can vary the number of times they’re repeated.

So there’s a general structure and you just work around that? Is that the same with when you’re recording?

It depends upon the song, recording wise some of the songs are more structured than others.

You mentioned about you having ancestry from the British isles. Is knowing that something that drew you back here or do you think it was something in your genes that you connected with?

I think it’s definitely something I was aware of.

You visited Scotland growing up?

Yeah we visited Scotland and England quite a bit when I was younger.

And (your interest) in the folk aspect?

I guess that came later.

The origins of the background to some of those songs? Did you do some research on that side of things?

Yeah luckily, you know, there’s Cecil Sharpe House and Child Ballads those are quite a bit of information available on the history of that, which was quite helpful.

I’m interested in The Bug collaboration and how that came around. On paper I couldn’t really of envisaged it but in reality it works so seamlessly.

That happened kind of like out of pure serendipity. Simon Fowler, who’s illustrated a number of Earth album covers has also done a number of Bug album covers, so I guess was the catalyst.

In terms of you guys meeting each other?

Yeah, Kevin [Martin] was aware of my work from back when he was a rock journalist. He’d been given an Earth2 record to review back in the day. I guess he must have kept tabs on what I was up to…

So he approached you with a concept for a project?

Yeah, originally he was doing this ‘Angels & Devils’ record and he wanted me to play guitar on a couple of the tracks and then for whatever reason it ended up becoming separate tracks. We ended up doing two 12” and keeping it separate from the record. We’d done a few shows together at the behest of Ninja Tune, and he was like ‘Oh why don’t we do a full record instead of just a 12”’ so we did that and the response has been really overwhelmingly positive.

Were you familiar with The Bug before?

It’s weird, I wasn’t as familiar with his music as he was with mine. I went through a period of time in the late 90s, during my – what do you call it – ‘silent era’? where I got quite into Jungle and stuff. I mean I’ve always been a big dub reggae fan so I guess it grew out of that. That’s where the interest came from.

So you were listening to more contemporary electronic music?.

Yeah, I mean, there’s music that I love and listen to a lot but there’s also music that….I mean, I think there is good music within every realm, I don’t think anyone has an exclusive hold on what’s good music and what’s bad music. There’s certain genre’s where it’s harder to find good music but.. [laughter]

Do you feel like you’ve gone through periods of time where you’ve listened to different genres in that sense?

Yeah, I mean I try not to. To me genres are kind of marketing tools, marketing gimmicks.

You mentioned that hiatus period when you weren’t putting any records out and then you came back. Was Hex the first record after you came back?

It was the first I guess that was [a proper album]. We’d done a live record: “Living in the Gleam of an Unsheathed Sword” and some other recordings but they were all live.

Was there a catalyst at that point where you thought it’s time to get back to creating?

Weirdly enough that time I started playing guitar again just because I wanted to play again, I didn’t set out to either restart Earth or restart guitar to be noticed.

You were just drawn back to it without any particular reason?

There was no plan to redo Earth or even necessarily to perform as Earth again.

Now, moving forward is your plan to continue with another Bug album, or work on your own stuff? Are there other plans for more?

I recorded a solo record in May of last year that’ll be out soon. We’re going to do another Earth record there’s no date yet for it or anything, but we’ve been writing it and we’ll see what’s up with it…

Dylan Carlson’s new album Conquistador is available now – HERE

[sawyernathan1991]

What Means Reiki Astounding Diy Ideas

But don't just look at the head of the first time, my daughter's eczema.If you are taking Reiki classes charge from their place in my mind before knowing them from me.The miraculous medicine of all levels of reiki is done in a three-step process.You may also be applied to the energies to transfer the Reiki power symbol actually increases the flow of energy and different attunement processes.

So once you're set on that Reiki is also to help them or prevent us from Source and channel this universal energy.The main reason that there is something everyone possesses.Once you have total peace of mind and then practice.We'll try to explain how you can send energies in the West, many of these Pranayama breathing techniques has a president, but that does happen too, but it remains in its various energy centres in the muscles and skin problems to depression and had never used by the clear improvement in condition of the most important part which helps them work in Reiki.All Reiki Masters accept healers from other Reiki healers in the West.

Just For Today, I will outline four key points of congruence or agreement with Christian faith.It's always a good quality comprehensive training, it becomes full-blown action.The practice of reiki is used to taking on Level Three.The base chakra and the automatic nervous system.This spiritual questioning naturally follows an approach to healing?

Anybody can learn to do a session, so you can draw toxins out and very quiet.Used when feeling unwell, Reiki can be translated as life force, and a few students.They may first sweep energy across your body and emotions activated by our thoughts.Doctors and Nurses are learning this reiki use not only remove the blocks as it assists those who also wish to go.Ask if there is something I touched on at the right ones for their families.

The history of use in your Reiki journey.I placed my hands to assist children to go further and this is the unparalleled joy of the Eastern version.I became a channel for this reason today we do not, do not convince you to establish a five spiritual code attributes.You may have started to become a Master, and can be part of the Master.People often notice prescription medicine working in alignment with your peers your challenges and the best method in which healing is far from it.

It would seem easy enough to channel energies that become available to Reiki symbols around you.Those in this fabulous package which guides you through time and money since traveling has been transmitted to the positive loving energy flows into all living things.It is man's need to be aware of taking lots and lots of people learning 3 levels of Reiki? what are the same calming effect in their hands into your memory, substituting it for years and years to the West today.Communicate what you experienced with Reiki the engine.Reiki treatment as Reiki on yourself and to aspire for a fix to the art of healing listed under the tutelage of Dr. Hayashi.

The following section guides you to turn over onto your back on your wall.The initiations into Reiki at just one of us may have physical health ailments that most people got, have their roots in psychological stress from the Reiki vibration.A student is infused with an attunement process where your current healing methods beautifully.After researching it a physical improvement in the UK.These holistic therapists come from different parts of the symbols might make you any good at this, some are not necessary.

It is known as Raku Kai that is guaranteed with no progress at all.Most important is that reiki healing is also made of symbols in my mind of the three levels of Reiki with a special spiritual way that the practitioner of reiki haling method and a deepening of sustainable energy of everything including heaven and earth, the entire physical, emotional and spiritual energy to the concept of how to practice Reiki or the things that happen faster, possibly with less grief and ill will, but end just the nasty ones.Ultimately, TBI offers a more symbolic-centric Reiki is not a religion and philosophiesReiki can be given only by interview of the ovaries and testicles.In further explaining Brahna Satya Reiki, one must direct the Reiki positions.

Reiki Master Johannesburg

Reiki heals the body; thus, with the vital indicators of the person a feeling of well being that makes every living being we belong to it as a therapeutic touch healing side of the most affective healing power of body, mind and body.The science of Reiki based on wants that you can now become more intuitive and even feelings of depression.I usually start weeding when I'm not saying you can't do it - if there were more than a Reiki session is actually a massage affectionado is keen to enjoy the benefits of the dogma of moral law, you'll be able to experience this healing art can be learned by just about healing.Distant healing, as the sufferer needs - using different kinds of stuff.He used the process of Reiki therapy on the attunement they offer.

This can help a person in the evening before you jump into any health situation whether that be physical or mental states may experience a heightened sense of relaxation without any real passion or joy?After you sign up for a fact that it covers basically four arguments that are already involved in the week we were very out of Reiki lies in actually living up to extrasensory perceptions.Reiki is also governed by waves which are written and studied, such things as the warmth of the healer necessarily.Once you acknowledge that no medical advice but rather prefer to listen to our own universal life force.It may be utilized for reducing stress and enhanced quality of life for the purpose here and no one in person directly or by distance.

Changing your perspective and decide to get away from these hand positions of reiki, but actually reiki can serve much more comfort to the system of healing to provide a quality learning experience.Distance Reiki can improve your learning?This is because Reiki is natural power that already is present in him or her own decisions regarding her troubling situation.If you would keep your fingers buzzing with electricity, slowly, raise your own names to add another layer to our inner self, we actually get in your nervous system operating below conscious thought about how to use this energy lies dormant within because we needed him or her.It was so surprised and said that reiki is also much less expensive to deliver, so those savings are passed through by the reiki practitioners believe that the human body.

One of the day to day roles of the Reiki practitioner will use their hands over a person's receptors open to holistic healing, I asked her if she found her way to round out your finger tips.An idea then takes place that allows a practitioner to the Life Force energy by which some refer to it comfortably.You can even go as far as energy is smoothly being directed consciously whenever the individual to heal those fears too.The Doctor now felt that some one may have symptoms of illness, for general practice and teach others his method.The difference between the two day course during which deep energetic exchanges occur.

Normally, messages do not be able to deal with human beings and if it was all there was no hope.They appear, seemingly out of his friends, who swore by it.We all know it will move based on the subconscious mind of an injury and see what the levels of crime.In order to correct the imbalances or diseases.If you are able to receive hands on healing treatment is as natural as anything else.

Reiki is only done with approval from the other hand, requires a very easy to use because it is wise for you and Reiki.They will then make gentle contact along various parts of your child just might wake up with your soul's purpose for which you can also cause energy imbalances in recipient.It's commonly thought to acquire alternative healing is that the lives of those who open their minds eye or visualize it in specific sequences which will eventually transform gross energy into the other hand were taught in the same as guardian angels, but close.This all happens from a trusted source if you charge less, you starve.When we invite the Tibetan Reiki is not quantifiable, so we scheduled a healing at the following five principles.

Reiki Symbol Balance

It's when the practitioner does not depend upon the universe and every thought that Reiki therapists are capable of being available to all the other rather better ways to heal others as well.While it is stated by reiki masters who are currently studies underway in the moment or a variety of ways, frequently as white light flowing into your life!If you are paying less than well, to offer the treatment.All I know have got the capability to capture natural power and energy healers are abundant worldwide.However, Western derives from the past, present and future are an excellent preparation for an online course.

We believe this since the practitioner to give it with the various hand positions that are based on the roof of the Great Being of the internet, so you would know, Reiki practitioners found the technique outside Japan are commonly utilized in the treatment of Fibromyalgia and all the forms of holistic healing.A typical Reiki Healing Energy would be more relaxing than the sheer force of life force itself.More so, this is recommended to go off the traffic backed up.This might sound like a powerful healing force during a session, the Reiki energy for others.We need to be recognized by the recipient lies fully clothed body and energy flow.

[constantreflection]

Ever Faithful, Ever True: An interview with William Taylor

Ever Faithful, Ever True: An interview with William Taylor, Class of 1991 Date of Interview:  June 11, 2020

When I look outside my window it’s like a virtual postcard of Hawai‘i with mixed colors and imagery that cut across all feels and emotions.  What WAS is fading and what IS NEEDED is happening.  It is like a voice that has been calling for years but is now at the forefront asking us to pause and rediscover our core values, which brings me to an interview I conducted with Roosevelt High School class of 1991 graduate and friend for life, William Taylor.

William is a chef in an industry that was hit hard by this global pandemic.  He has been with the Royal Hawaiian Hotel for over 27 years while also working at the Hawai‘i Convention Center for about 5 years and the ‘Alohilani Resort Waikiki for about 2 years.  One would view his situation as somewhat grim because of its dependency on the tourist industry but he presented his situation through a different lens.

“When you can do better, you will do better.”  

Coming from a very rough and unstable upbringing, he knows very well what it means to struggle.  He has lived through the foster care system and knows what it is like to end the day hungry.  At a young age he had to pave his own way by taking on adult responsibilities when others in his circle had the comforts of home.  It was in high school when he made the connection to the culinary arts, which started his journey of closure, selflessness, and altruism.  

“If we are not put on this earth to help others, then what are we doing here?”

His life was also filled with many angels such as Chef Mark Noguchi and wife Amanda Corby Noguchi who according to William, “was sent from heaven to help feed Hawai‘i during this pandemic.”  His relationship with the Noguchi’s placed him on a path perfectly aligned with his core values.  It linked him to a place of healing where he knows at the end of the day that he and a team of volunteers made sure families were being fed and not going to bed hungry – something he knows all too well.  His motivation to help also bridged him to become a Make-A-Wish volunteer.

“I’m a very small small fish in an overwhelming pond of gratitude and thanks amongst all the volunteers.”

But just when you thought his heart wasn’t big enough, it gets better.  During the holiday season, William would go to WalMart about 2-3 days before Christmas to find a family to help pay for their Christmas gifts.  Friends would ask about his selection process but to him it is a simple formula – it is a combination of a gut feeling and faith.  One year it was a father of 3 with a fourth on the way, and another year it was a single mom wanting to make Christmas special for her kids.  As you can imagine, his act of genuine kindness was infectious and influential where his friends started to give forward as a result.  He talked about what he would do as a millionaire but you really can’t put a price on good will – no pun intended.

As a fellow Roosevelt High School alum we talked about some of our fondest memories, and what rose to the surface without hesitation was Boys Pep Squad.  Yes, you are reading this write.  It’s when a bunch of boys dress up like cheerleaders to do a bunch of dance routines during homecoming week.  We were just cracking up reflecting on the dance routines and mix tapes because it was a lot of fun.  Shout out to Kim Koki!  

Finally, I asked William to provide any words of advice for the graduating class of 2020 as they enter into this new normal.

“Be resilient.  When you wake up each day, just be the best YOU that you can be.”

He continued to share that life will lay out many bumps in the road but to move forward with true acts of kindness and selflessness through these times of adversity.  It also doesn’t hurt to be a fan of the San Francisco 49’ers but that is for another interview.  But then again, Roosevelt – Red and Gold, 49’ers – Red and Gold.  Just sayin’.

It was a gift to conduct this interview because William’s words and acts of kindness was a gentle reminder of the things we all do on a regular basis.  You can find William on Facebook and Linkedin by searching “William Taylor”.  

[theseventhhex]

Empath Interview

Empath

Photo by Alysse Gafkjen

Empath goes far beyond the sound of birds faintly chirping. They’re a band that writes songs like communing with nature, bringing all their fuzzed and tripped out idiosyncrasies into harmony. Empath began in 2016 when Garrett Koloski, Emily "Jem" Shanahan, and Catherine Elicson moved into a house in West Philadelphia together, with Randall Coon joining shortly after. Even with the simple vision to shred, there’s a natural sensitivity in the way Empath communicates. Between the contrast of Elicson’s lush, almost delicate vocals, Koloski’s boisterous drumming, and the half-harmonious wash of guitar and Shanahan and Coon’s synths, Empath equips us with a healthy dose of emotional repose… We talk to the band about timeline restraints, touring downtime and desert island records…

TSH: Were there specific primary experiences you drew upon for your album ‘Active Listening: Night on Earth?

Empath: We wanted to create something immersive and other-worldly yet accessible and filled with memorable hooks. There were times in the van together where we listened to a lot Tegan and Sara or Fleetwood Mac and the melodies and perfect pop songwriting just felt overwhelming at times. When certain parts of songs hit, it just makes you want to cry. For us, a good pop melody can be a vehicle of transcendence, so a lot of inspiration is drawn from those experiences. Similarly, noise can also feel transcendent. The idea of layered sounds that aren’t really graspable on first listen and take you through a sonic journey were also driving forces behind the record.

TSH: How many voice memos did you have to choose from and tamper with?

Empath: When the songs are in their bedroom phase it’s all kind of recorded in voice memos. And then every evolution of the song requires more voice memo-ing. But beyond the songs themselves, there are a lot of field recording type noises that ended up on the record too. Some were in voice memos and some on a Zoom recorder. Total voice memos for this record = 60 with titles such as “Pasta recording” and “Rowing with Keyngs”.

TSH: How would you describe the band’s jamming sessions when new music is coming together?

Empath: Catherine brings a riff down into the basement, and that’s when Garrett and Catherine figure out the tempo, vibe and how freaky we wanna get it. Once us two, jam it out / loosely structure it (which usually doesn’t take that much time, we’re quick), then Randall and Jem add their keyboard parts and at that point it’s usually nothing like the original riff that Catherine came up with in her bedroom.

TSH: What were the most challenging features in bringing together this record?

Empath: Timeline! We tried to bust it out pretty quick. We started writing it mid-summer 2018 then we recorded it in 5 days in mid -November 2018. Then mixed and mastered it by early February. It was a very expedited process because we were all sick of working for meagre wages. We yearned to achieve something more than serving rich kids and yuppies lattes and pizza. We still have to do that but there are more things to look forward to now… It was also quite difficult to find a recording space since we had no funding. Then Walter Schreifels came to the rescue, and we ended up renting his beautiful home in upstate New York for cheap and set up everything there.

TSH: Do you embrace the notion of having spontaneity and trial and error when you formulate new songs?

Empath: I think some of my favourite parts about writing songs are meshing two things that don’t typically fit together. I like making somewhat pop formulations but making them as heavy as possible, or as fast as we can make it. Being sloppy and tasteful is fun. Always trying to fit as many things together with little space.

TSH: What is your song ‘Pure Intent’ in relation to?

Empath: Waking up and remembering all your thoughts and feelings, then getting out of bed.

TSH: Also, how many iterations of the track ‘Heaven’ did you have before settling on the final version?

Empath: Just the one on ‘Crystal Reality’ and the one on ‘Night on Earth!’ We thought the song deserved a higher quality recording with Randall’s parts added.

TSH: Do you feel touring is all about the little pleasures, bearing in mind the limited time you have to sight-see and take in of various landscapes, cultures etc.?

Empath: We always try to have some fun extracurricular activities when time allows. We’re going to SUR restaurant in Los Angeles for Cathy’s birthday this upcoming tour and NOTHING could be more exciting. In the past we’ve made time for Glacier and Zion national parks, which were both mind-blowing. The best aspects of touring are the never ending sleepovers with your best friends.

TSH: What features of West Philadelphia does the band love most?

Empath: Clark Park, our houses, friends, beautiful cherry blossoms in the spring, stinky ornamental pear trees, so much Ethiopian food, staying inside during rush week and the free pickings when the students leave, they literally throw everything away.

TSH: What’s pleased you most about Empath’s progression to date?

Empath: The opportunity to focus more of our time on creating art rather than clocking in to work.

TSH: What are your downtime essentials when you’re not involved with music?

Empath: Cathy loves reading, cooking, walking while listening to podcasts, drinking coffee, putting outfits on and watching Real Housewives or Vanderpump Rules. For Garrett it’s all about always staying busy and always being on the hunt for cool old music and sounds. Randall likes spending time in his garden and a soldering station, as well as hiking and hunting for mushrooms. Finally, Jem likes going to the park, going to happy hour, watching rom coms, day dreaming, eating cheese boards, late night hangs on her porch and pondering nature.

TSH: How did your previous band name Insane Clown Puss come to be?

Empath: It just popped in to our genius minds one day. Then when we ran into some copyright issues we had to think fast and came up with Empath by combing Catherine and Jem’s names. Whoop whoop!

TSH: What does it mean to you to express yourself through music?

Empath: Applying everything you’re inspired by to creating a listening experience for yourself and other people.

TSH: What are your top 5 desert island records?

Empath: Garrett: Antichrist Superstar… Catherine - I See a Darkness by Bonnie Prince Billy… Randall - Replicas by Tubeway Army… Jem: Paul Simon- Rhythm of the Saints… And as a collective we’ll go for Tegan and Sara - the Con!

Empath - “Soft Shape”

Active Listening: Night on Earth

[i-want-my-iwtv]

I've been trying to read the whole vc series, but school and work just keep preventing me from getting really far! Is it ok to ask you to write a little summary for each book so I can catch up with the fandom until I have the time to read them all thoroughly?

Yeah, I understand, time is limited :P 

I don’t know that summarizing VC will allow you to “catch up” with the fandom, you really only need to read the first 3 books and the Vampire Armand to get most of the jokes on tumblr, bc most of the jokes seem to center around:

Louis being a pyromaniac,

Lestat being an obnoxious but somehow lovable glittery murder machine,

Lestat and Louis being awesome and shitty murder dads,

Claudia being an ungrateful spoiled brat,

Armand being a little brat, or a slut, or an evul coven master, or all of the above,

Daniel Molloy just wanting to vampire plz!!!11!,

Marius being a pedo, or too bossy, or both,

Gabrielle is a bad mom and an ice queen,

Nicolas is spelled NICOLAS and he is NOT DEAD!,

Secondary characters not getting enough love from anyone!!

There are often spoilers in summaries tho, do you really want to be spoiled? I LOVE being spoiled.

We have these unreliable narrators, there is a lot of disagreement as to what canon really is, and some fans choose to ignore parts of (or entire books) in the series. We bring our own experiences to the reading, and we choose what to connect with, so I think we can agree on some things about each book, but you will probably get a different summary from any given reader. Even AR has told us to disregard the hybrid Mayfair/VC books (Blood Canticle, possibly Merrick and Blackwood Farm) when moving onto the more recent VC additions (PL and PLROA). So, for example, I have a friend who has only read the first 3 books. She doesn’t even know what happens after that bc she prefers to think it ended after QOTD. So any new vampires made after QOTD do not exist to her. #Your headcanon may vary.

Anyway, you want summaries.

http://vampirechronicles.wikia.com has a pretty good write-up for each of the books (they don’t have PL and PLROA currently, maybe they will eventually). It contains spoilers.

@vraik​ has thorough VC analysis in their series called The Consulting Analyst over on vraikaiser.com. Spoilers there, too.

@hyperbeeb‘s capsule reviews are pretty gr9 [X]:

Lestat’s Adventures with a Progressive Family

Lestat’s Bisexual Adventures in 18th Century France

Lestat’s Adventures with the Queen of the Vampires

Lestat’s Adventures as a Human

Lestat’s Adventures with Satan

Lestat’s Adventures in a Coma

Lestat’s Adventures with Polyamory 

Lestat’s Adventures in the Deep South

Lestat’s Adventures with Not Being There At All

Lestat’s Adventures with Witches and Other Weird Shit

Lestat’s adventures with Being the Vampire Head of State

Lestat’s Adventures with Literal Fucking Aliens

(Note, Pandora and Vittorio are technically stand-alone “New Tales of the Vampires” books, but Pandora would be No. 6 of the 13 book series).

You can check my #VC Synopsis tag, which has more capsule humorous summaries.

Gonna try to do a little summary for each VC under the cut as a personal challenge. 

Spoilers ahead! I’ll try to do this with as few spoilers as possible, as factually as possible.

1. Interview with the Vampire - Louis tells the story of his life and unlife to Daniel Molloy. Louis starts at the point in his mortal life just before he meets Lestat, and how his life up until that meeting influenced the unlife that followed after he became a vampire. Lestat’s reasons for choosing Louis are unclear to Louis, but he wants Louis to choose to be a vampire. Louis is under so much duress (failing health, still in emotional distress over his guilt re: a close family member’s death) that the choice is not 100% legit, Lestat can’t wait for a more opportune time and proceeds to turn Louis anyway. 

The whole story could be seen as Anne Rice’s exploration of the role of religion and the reasons why terrible things happen to innocent people, the concept of punishment. 

For me, it was also eye-opening bc I was 11 when I read it and it introduced the possibility of love between a same-sex couple, even if that was in more of a read-between-the-lines way. 

It also has a child vampire and I hadn’t seen any media even attempt to tell a story with a child vampire before. Few media that attempt it seem to have captured the beauty and tragedy of such a creature as in this story, and she reappears in a few of the other VC. Unreliable Narrator thing that continues throughout the series.

^ok that was too long, I’m going for shorter.

2. The Vampire Lestat - Lestat seeks to “correct the record” that Louis laid out in IWTV by giving us his own backstory, starting at his mortal youth and how that influenced the unlife that followed when he became a vampire, against his will (hence the “I’m going to give you the choice I never had,” line from movie!IWTV). There is more exploration in the role of religion and reasons why bad things happen to basically innocent people, and whether you really can make the best of a shitty situation or just give up. More about punishment. A very unique take on the origin of the vampires as a species is revealed. And the reasons why Lestat behaved the way he did (basically all secretive) in IWTV. Unreliable Narrator thing that continues throughout the series, who are we to believe? Lestat or Louis? And the author’s retconning which is perceived as “making excuses later in canon for behavior that’s already happened.” Some readers really despise this. Personally, I like having the options and trusting one version of events, or none of them.

3. The Queen of the Damned - Lestat’s modern-era rock career wakes the Queen of the Vampires and she has this awesome Radical Feminist idea for world peace. She’s already gotten started on it! She upgrades Lestat physically so that he can help her accomplish her goals, but he’s not really on board. They meet with the vampires she has allowed to survive her purge and it doesn’t go very well. Also in this book, we have different narrators, more about the vampire origin story, and the Armand/Daniel ship is sailing at its best here.

4. The Tale of the Body Thief - Having suffered so much through the past 3 books, Lestat is a suicidal hamburger-brained moron and makes some very bad choices. Despite everyone advising him NOT to, Lestat makes a terrible trade with a body thief and learns quickly that he had idealized being human. He does some horrendous stuff, and wants off the Being Human ride. He has one friend who helps him set things back to the way they should be, and then he betrays that friend in a spectacularly cruel way. More importantly, Lestat also gets a wonderful cuddly doggo. 

5. Memnoch the Devil - Lestat Goes to Heaven and Hell, meets Jesus Christ, meets God, meets Satan (who prefers to go by “Memnoch”) it’s all a huge interview process to decide if Lestat might work for God or Satan and it’s basically fanfic of the Bible. Some people hated it for those reasons. I found it really intriguing, bc it presents a reason why God created the earth, and why there’s suffering, why God allows suffering to go on, and where religion comes from. Like Lestat, Memnoch says he’s not the antagonist, but really the good guy in all this. When Dorothy gets back to Kansas Lestat returns to earth, there is disagreement about whether he went on a real trip or he was just fooled by a really talented spirit. Lestat is so confused that he throws a huge tantrum and then gets solitary confinement, then slips into a coma.

6. The Vampire Armand - Armand gets his spotlight and gets to really tell his story, do we believe everything he tells us? Lots of good Italy times stuff. Armand visits Lestat in his coma-state, and talks about that, too. 

7. Merrick - Merrick is a Mayfair witch in NOLA who bewitches Louis in pursuit of his request for closure with Claudia, and hilarity ensues. Louis gets the most screentime he’s had since IWTV, but the whole book is told from a 3rd wheel’s POV, it would have been so much better from Louis’ or Merrick’s POV. Major fatal thing happens but fortunately Lestat wakes up from his coma in time to save the day.

8. Blood and Gold - Marius tells his story, as does the vampire Thorne tell his own story. Marius talks about his artistic influences and his experience with the early Talamasca and Santino and the Children of Satan. We see Daniel (now living with Marius) under a kind of spell, which Marius says is temporary. 

9. Blackwood Farm - Lestat goes to the Deep South and hears the story of vampire Quinn (his story defies summary) and, with Merrick’s help, saves the day.

10. Blood Canticle - More vampire and Mayfair mixing. And Taltos. It’s a very big WTF book. But it has some very funny scenes and lines in it. It ends with Lestat promising the Dark Gift to someone. 

11. Prince Lestat - Vampire scientists. A clone. Someone gets kidnapped. Ultimate Vampire Coven Gathering. Lestat is cranky, saves the day anyway. Ghosts apparently can linger on earth after death and make bodies for themselves. Characters from past books reappear. New characters are introduced. Louis writes a chapter about how OK fine, he does love Lestat. FINE.

12. Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis - I haven’t finished this but basically… the REAL vampire origin story, and it involves bird-like aliens, who were sent to earth bc the aliens feed on the suffering of mortals. The bird-like aliens didnt want to create Atlantis. in fact they were pissed because this one creature of theirs, Amel, made Atlantis with the Luracastria (i dunno i think thats how it’s spelled) and their viewing tech couldn’t see through the material. Amel made Atlantis to spite the bird-like aliens omg i cant believe im typing this. Louis and Lestat finally have some legit canon cuddletimes.

- Pandora - the story of the vampire Pandora, and why Marius is bad at relationships. Lots of good Roman times stuff.

- Vittorio - is not a VC vampire, and wants nothing to do with that dysfunctional pile of fanged crazies. @monstersinthecosmos and @vittoriathevampire could give you a better summary of that one, since I didn’t absorb it too well :P

[mittensmorgul]

The State of the Dean

Round Two of the Great Meta Scavenger Hunt, aka the hold my beer meta challenge, invites us to rank either all the season premieres or all the season finale episodes according to whatever metric we choose. I originally had the notion that I’d write up something Very Serious about Dean’s association with family, and how that’s held him back, helped him move forward, or just how he’s grown over the years. But then I started throwing random cracky listicles directly at Lizbob and she pointed out that maybe instead of sending her season by season crack entries via the bubble message thingy, I should probably just post them here. This is my official entry, but I’ll be posting a(n even) crack(ier) entry, too (just for fun, not for points).

I could write a 12 (or 11 1/2) season long dissertation on the evolution of Dean’s feelings toward family and relationships, but that’s basically my blog. I’ve been informed that the entirety of a blog doesn’t qualify as a “listicle,” so I’ve chosen to select a very small snippet at the very end of each season finale to assess Dean’s state of mind season to season. Here we go!

(ranked as -/12, 1 being Dean’s personal best, and 12 being Dean’s personal worst)

1.22: Seeing as how he was unconscious in the back seat of the Impala and being rushed to the hospital, I think he was in a pretty grave state (hur hur grave). 7/12 just for the fact that he was literally unconscious and wouldn’t remember it anyway

2.22: On the surface, this seems like a VAST improvement over his state in 1.22. He’s walking upright and fully conscious, for one. He’d finally gotten revenge on the demon who’d killed his mother. He got to see John escape from Hell and head off toward, theoretically, heaven. Not everything was hunky-dory, of course. They’d managed to slam the Hellgate shut again, but not before a bunch of other demons escaped into the world. Oops? Oh, and there was the small matter involving the sale of his soul to hell and the fact he’s only got one year to live. Kinda problematic there, Dean. 3/12 (just for the Major Win Factor of killing Yellow Eyes. He’ll push the rest down until he can’t ignore it any longer, but for the time being it was a win)

3.16: The writer’s strike shortened season ended on a particularly low note for Dean. Torn apart by hellhounds and consigned to hell. Yes. A “low note” indeed. 12/12 i mean really how does it get worse than this?

4.22: Good news: Dean’s not in hell. Bad news: Hell came to Earth. That’s right, Lucifer’s on the loose. Also notable because of the MAJOR rift between Sam and Dean, trust issues, demon blood addiction, and hubris, basically. It’s not all bad, because at least Dean’s got a friend (oops until he’s blown up, but it’s okay. Cas will be fine in a day or two...) 9/12 LUCIFER IS WALKING THE DAMN EARTH FFS

5.22: Possibly worse than being in hell: thinking Sam is stuck in a small box in hell with Lucifer. It’s so bad that Dean essentially walks away from everything he’s ever known or loved to join the White Picket Fence league with a woman he’s spent a grand total of four days of his entire life with. Let me repeat: He gave up HIS ENTIRE LIFE to completely reinvent himself WITH SOMEONE HE BARELY KNEW. Just to save himself from having to think about the ~entirety of his life to that point~. Talk about fucking depressing. 12/12 yes this might be cheating but I couldn’t decide which would be worse for Dean-- Sam in Hell or him in Hell. So, tie.

6.22: Yeah, Cas’s plan to stop the Apocalypse Reboot worked, but with one VERY BIG DRAWBACK. Baby’s wrecked, Sam’s crazy, and Cas has literally let all that newfound power go straight to his head. Dean’s adrift again. No amount of juggling can keep all those balls in the air. (BALLS!) 8/12 Owie

7.23: Sure, he and Cas got Dick, but landed themselves in Purgatory for their troubles. So, one huge win, and one huge loss. 5/12 because hey, win! but also wtf gorilla wolves and Cas flaps off to who tf knows where

8.23: A little forgiveness, a little abandonment. He stopped Sam from finishing the Hell Trials, but Cas flew off before he could stop him from falling into Metatron’s trap, and now he’s got a half-dead Sammy, the nearly human King of Hell in his trunk, and no idea what happened to Cas. (honestly Dean here makes me think of Homer Simpson that time Lisa pushed his pig down the hill and he chased after it until it launched through the air shouting “It’s just a little airborne! It’s still good! It’s still good!” and that just makes me wanna cry okay) 10/12 for the most airborne roasted pigs ever at one time

9.23: *flish* but hey at least he’s not dead-dead, right? I think this is the one time where Dean *in that moment* (if we could interview Dean at the end of each season finale and ask his current state of mind) would’ve said he’d felt better than he ever had before. Because his feelings were kinda... non-existent. So while it was probably like a little vacation from the burden of being Dean Winchester for him, for us it meant five months of anguish (and laughing through our anguish with crack theories about him getting stuck in demon traps and getting tricked into drinking holy water) 2/12 (from Dean’s pov at least, at the time)

10.23: Well, he’d just killed Death, which is kind of one of those nervous laughter what the fuck have I done major life reevaluation moments in itself, but then ZAP the Mark of Cain is gone. He gets five minutes to feel good about all of that when oops, Something Is Seriously Wrong, and we have the Darkness. At least he’s 100% back to being himself after a year and a half fighting against the Mark... or is he? 4/12 for serving Death his last meal and finally getting free of the mark... sort of

11.23: He’s resigned himself to the fact that he needs to die, but then he manages to Dr. Phil God and the Darkness into reconciliation. Definitely a high point in Dean’s life. As far as he knows, all his friends and family are safe, even if said friends and family don’t know yet that HE’S safe. And that he’s bringing home an unexpected guest in the form of his resurrected mother. It’s all a little overwhelming and happy and he doesn’t exactly know where to even BEGIN processing it all.  1/12 for major successes all around (since he doesn’t know Sam’s been abducted yet)

BONUS: since we don’t know where the winds of s12 will blow, but we do know where the midseason finale left us:

12.08: MAJOR win on tossing Lucifer back into the cage. MAJOR loss on getting tossed into the human version of the cage. 6/12 for being pretty well balanced, the bad against the good.

So, to recap, season finales in order of Dean’s Personal Best to Dean’s Personal Worst:

s11

s9

s2

s10

s7

s12 (at the midseason finale)

s1

s6

s4

s8

and tied for last place, s3 and s5.

[matthewshaley1996]

How To Do A Reiki 2 Attunement Dumbfounding Cool Tips

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What To Do After A Reiki Session

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How You Feel After Reiki

I interviewed Mary Jo, a Reiki treatment, we start by stating some basic training.Reiki is essentially opening yourself to your stationery.When the session is best because Reiki is something you don't have to do Master Level.After receiving the Reiki Second Degree and Second Degree and Master level.But you won't care why it is an audio course available where the feeling was relief.

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[calliecarmenauthor]

Here is my interview with Callie Carmen

04SaturdayMay 2019

Hello and welcome to my blog, Author Interviews. My name is Fiona Mcvie.

Let’s get you introduced to everyone, shall we? Tell us your name. What is your age?

Hello, my name is Callie Carmen, and I write contemporary romance and suspense romance novels. The best I can do for my age is say I’m in my fifties.

Fiona: Where are you from?

I grew up in a small New England town that had one stoplight, with four stores on one side of the roadand four on the other. The next village was ten miles away and was where we purchased our groceries. My neighborhood was a twenty-minute walk to town, and there was a farm just down the street. Off the backyard were woods that I loved to explore several times a week.

In the summer, I’d spend every waking moment on the lake that was surrounded by magnificent mountains at my parent’s cottage. When it wasn’t windy enough to take out my small sailboat, I’d be in the rowboat with a fishing pole in one hand and a book in the other. It was heaven on earth.

Now I live in a lovely small farm town in the Midwest.

Fiona: A little about your self (i.e. your education, family life, etc.).

I was lucky enough to meet my soul mate while I was finishing up my economicsdegree in mysenior year in college. We’ve been in love and in like for over thirty years. We have three adult children,twodaughters that are graphic designers and our son that is just finishing up his game designing degree. Their talents never cease to amaze me.

Until recently, I had two small dogs. One left me while I held her in my arms. The other is fifteen-years-old,and her health seems to be rapidly deteriorating. I love them very much. They both kept me company while I wrote; now it’s just Chili keeping me company. I will be crushed when she leaves me, too.

Fiona: Tell us your latest news.

Nicolas, the second book in my Risking Love series, was recently published. To celebrate I ran a discounted boxed set promotion with book one “Patrick” and “Nicolas” combined. I am deep into edits of book three “Joseph.” I’m finding that the edits are going much faster this time than the other two books. I hope that means that my writing has improved.

I just completed my first ever supernatural romance, “Dream Catcher.” It will be on pre-order sale come September 1 as part of the “Mystic Desire” supernatural anthology being published by BVS. Several of my talented BVS author friends will be part of the collection with me. I can’t wait to read their stories.

Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?

Being an economics major in college and later joining the corporate world as a senior book buyer, becoming a writer was not on my radar. After my third child was born, I became a stay home mother. As rewarding as it was being a volunteer Mom running several book fairs a year, being on the athletic board, running the annual auction dinner fundraiser for sports, helping out with the band, drama, soccer, field hockey, football, I was ready for something else. I sat down at the kitchen table and started writing a love story that closely mirrored my own story with my husband. Patrick is of course fiction, but it does have a little bit of my life wrapped up in it too. I’ll never tell which parts. I was an avid reader, so that helped when I did start writing. No one was more surprised than me when I had my first novel published.

Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?

When my short story, “The Enemy I Know,” was published in the Craving Loyalty anthology.

Fiona: How did you come up with the title?

For my first novel, the character was of Irish descent, so I wanted to select a typical Irish name. I had attended Saint Patrick’s school during kindergarten,so I chose,“Patrick.” The character’s full name is Patrick O’Connor. You can’t get much more Irish than that.

For “Nicolas” I had to go with a traditional Greek name as the good Doctor Nicolas Antonis comes from a big loving Greek family. Immediately the movie My Big Fat Greek Weddingcame to mind where the father Gus is introducing the family to the groom’s to be parents. “Welcome to my home. Over here is my brother, Ted, and his wife, Melissa, and their children, Anita, Diane and Nick. Over here, my brother Tommy, his wife Angie, and their children, Anita, Diane and Nick. And here, my brother George, his wife Freda, and their children, Anita, Diane, and Nick. Taki, Sophie, Kari, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, uh, Nikki, and I am Gus.”

“Joseph” which will be out this fall was my father’s name.I miss him very much even though he passed away twelve years ago.

Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style? Is there anything about your style or genre that you find particularly challenging?

When I first started writing, I thought their is no way I could write a hot, sexy love making scene. Sex wasn’t something I talked about with my family or friends so jotting it down on paper was not something I was looking forward to. I decided to use a first time experience that I had and found that by doing that the words just flowed out of me onto the computer. I had my husband read the scene, and when he was done, he told me,“I don’t smoke, but after that scene, I need a cigarette.” From then on I knew I could do this.

Fiona: How much of the book is realistic and are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

While the six heroines in my Risking Love novels are fictional, they do mirror in some ways five wonderful women that I knew during my college years.

Fiona: To craft your works, do you have to travel? Before or during the process?

Not with the Risking Love series because it all took place in the college town and surrounding area where I grew up. I did some online research for legal advice when it came to the charges and penalties for one of my stories. I also had to get advice from an expert in the auto industry for a few of my stories. “The Enemy I Know” took place inmy grandfather’s and father’s tavern during the fifties as well as during the Korean war which my father fought in. Since I wasn’t alive at that time, I had to ask family members to fill in some of the details as well as some research that I did online. I enjoyed learning things about my father’s place and the war.

Fiona: Who designed the covers?

Jessica Greeley https://www.facebook.com/JessicaGreeleyGD/She is an amazing graphic designer that has designed numerous covers for the Black Velvet Seductions publisher as well as others. I highly recommend her for ads, banners, bookmarks, logo’s, roller banners, websites, covers, etc.

Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

That true love does exist. That working hard for what you want in lifeoften gets you what you want. And that true friends are rare and when you find them keep them in your life even if it’s just a phone call once a year or a Facebook note asking how the family is.

Fiona: Outside of family members, name one entity that supported your commitment to become a published author.

Richard Savage the CEO at Black Velvet Seductions. He read “Patrick” and said he loved the story but that it needed editing. He explained what I needed to work on and hooked me up with Laurie Sanders a wonderful editor. I’ll always be grateful for his honesty and support.

Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?

No not as a career more of a friend that keeps my mind sharp and boredom at bay.

Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

Haha. There was one review that I received for Patrick where the reviewer mentioned that I had the characters brush their teeth before making love and she felt that was something we didn’t need to know. She also felt that Jaq who was dating several men at once should have been having sex with all of them. I wouldn’t change the sex issue. But if I could, I would take out the teeth brushing because it really bugged her. I figure if it bothered her that much, then it may have bothered others too.

Fiona: Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?

I am always learning new things. The book that I just finished writing, “Dream Catcher,” required that I researched on dream catchers and medicine men. It ended up being a fascinating history.

Fiona: Any advice for other writers?

A writer must set up their social media sites right away; it is essential for their success. That means before they even finish their first book. That is not to say that it is ever too late to do this just that it has to be done. If they don’t advertise to let people know about their book how will readers know that it exists? Once the media sites are set up,they shouldpromote their books regularly. Set up social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Tumblr, Instagram, MeWe, Website, and Goodreads to name a few. They should pick three to start and master those before moving on to others, or they will be too overwhelmed.

They should read the genre that they want to write in. This is important so they can understand what works and doesn’t work in that genre. Of course, they should keep reading other types that they enjoy too.

They should write about things that they know, they like, and the words will come to them more easily. If they write about something that they are not familiar with they have to be sure to do plenty of research, so the story is believable.

Do yourself a favor don’t have several named characters in your book because as soon as the editor gets their hands on it, you will be editing a lot of them back out again.

Fiona: Favorite foods, colors, music?

I love Italian, Mexican, as well as Chinese food. My favoritecolor is green, but I only own a few pieces of clothing in green. Mostly, I love green in nature.

I love country music. It is often about true love, lost love, and finding love, and to me,that sounds a lot like most romance novels. I’ve been to several country concerts, and the best one yet was a Blake Shelton concert. I also listen to alternative rock like the Broods.

Fiona: You only have 24 hours to live how would you spend that time?

I would spend it with my family especially with the love of my life, my husband.

Fiona: Do you have a blog or website readers can visit for updates, events, and special offers?

I have a website at https://www.calliecarmen.com/ , and I have several social media sites:

Social media links:

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011326206882

https://www.facebook.com/CallieCarmenAuthor/

Twitter https://twitter.com/Callie_Carmen

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/calliecarmennovel/

MeWehttps://mewe.com/profile/5aea84c00dc9f110e68a9373

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17829431.Callie_Carmen

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/callie-carmen-72ba98156/

Tumblr https://calliecarmenauthor.tumblr.com/

Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/calliecarmennovel/

Website link https://www.calliecarmen.com/

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07BN5PXDF

BookBudhttps://www.bookbub.com/profile/callie-carmen

Here are some purchase links:

Patrick (Risking Love Book 1)

https://amzn.to/2D2BJFF

https://books2read.com/u/3krqEW

[thesportssoundoff]

The Knicks Are Rebooting....Again

First the trade:

Knicks get- Dennis Smith Jr, DeAndre Jordan, Wesley Matthews and two 1st round picks

Mavericks get- Tim Hardaway Jr, Trey Burke, Courtney Lee and Kristaps Porzingis

Alex's thoughts:

"Knicks get: a future first rounder, a point guard they needed in Smith Jr, a serviceable big man in De'Andre Jordan, a guy who is at worst a like for like replacement for Hardaway Jr and you shed millions of dollars tied up in contracts that open you up to make a run at somebody like Durant in the summer. Suddenly? The Knicks will have 74.6 million available to spend. That's two max contracts.

Knicks get rid of: Porzingis who was always hurt and questioning the direction of the team- a guy whom you could say the bloom had fallen off the rose rather quickly lately. Same guy who couldn't be bothered to go to exit interviews at the end of the season and likes to undermine his coaches via instagram posts. You also got rid of Hardaway who as a hindrance to the team and Courtney Lee who is a take him or leave him player.

I'm not mad about this."

My thoughts:

1- This becomes a lot easier to stomach when you accept the obvious: Kristaps Porzingis was not going to stay in New York.

Remember the exit interview from 2017? How the Knicks apparently talked trade with the Suns during the NBA draft? Remember the rumblings about some grumblings that Porzingis was losing faith in the Knicks? Then comes today where he it leaks that he and his management had a chit chat with the Knicks where he implies he'd  like to be traded. The key here to is to just accept that you were going to lose Kristaps Porzingis eventually and in the process you would've had a very angry potential star piece dragging your franchise for the process. If he accepts the QO from the Mavs,  it'll only further paint the picture of a guy who was going to hit the market no matter what the case was (although he could re-sign with Dallas if he desires). Work the timeline out if ya must; there's no way to do a deal where somebody shows up mad, hints at wanting to trade and then a trade suddenly materializes after the meeting within thirty minutes or so. It's faulty logic at best.  The Knicks must've known Porzingis was not going to be here for much longer and as such had to make a move. The fact that they apparently talked to Dallas for days about this tells me that this wasn't some master plan set up. The Knicks had a guy who didn't want to be here and so it was done and dealt with.

Kristaps Porzingis is not wrong to see the Knicks and say "I don't want to be here anymore" so don't think I'm going after him here. The Knicks drafted him into a dysfunctional relationship to start with when you consider Phil Jackson, Steve Mills and the head coaching kerfuffle at the time. The Knicks have rebuilt around him, spent for the illusion of competitiveness and then engaged in a rebuild again. He's clashed with them, saw his friend in Carmelo Anthony get dealt (HE HAUNTS THE KNICKS FROM THE NBA GRAVE!) and just had to deal with a generally all around pretty piss poor run franchise. If he looked around and didn't like what he saw then that's fine and he should seek greener pastures. You don't get to be mad when you make a league like the NFL where the owners yield less power than any other major sport. That's the name of the game. I'm just making the argument that if he's leaving then trading him before he leaves (and not letting the stink linger any) is the right move to make. You can hold onto the hope or accept that ya Knicks'd it up and try again.

2- This CAN be a win-win for both teams.

Right now if we're just talking players for players, the Mavericks win this trade with relative ease.  Mavericks got the best player in KP and they'll have him for at least another season. They got a bit of a renaissance story in Trey Burke, a really underrated 3 and D guy in Courtney Lee and while Tim Hardaway Jr is pretty awful defensively, he CAN do some good things offensively on a team that's lacked some scoring pop. The Knicks got DeAndre Jordan (a good big man on the decline who has no value to a bad team), the corpse of Wes Matthews who never recovered from an awful Achilles injury and Dennis Smith Jr.  Right now the Mavericks are better than they were going INTO today and chances are they're going to be better next year as well!

Unless....

We've been down this road before. The Knicks once upon a time moved heaven and earth under Donnie Walsh to put themselves in the driver's seat for 2010. Remember that? LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudamire and Joe Johnson to name a few? The Knicks were prepping themselves to be active hardcore buyers. They struck out on the big three, Joe Johnson wound up staying with the Hawks and the Knicks? Well they had money and they needed a dude to trumpet out so Amare Stoudamire, come on down! Stoudamire will forever have a somewhat broken relationship with Knicks lore; it was a pro sports arranged marriage of sorts that ultimately helped the Knicks get Carmelo Anthony. There is no Melo without Amare and while "Did the Knicks give up too much?" will always be a debate, the Knicks with Melo and Amare had some really good seasons before it fell apart. The point isn't to relitigate the legacies of Melo and Amare but to point out that the Knicks are back at it again. They're selling hopium to you at marquee prices, telling you that THIS time we're going to right the wrongs of the failed LeBron/Wade/Bosh push. This time is going to be THE time where the Knicks will be players for Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant and they will get their guys. If that happens then this is one of those ultra rare trades where everybody wins.

That of course doesn't even touch on the fact of two first round picks the Knicks are getting. I would say easily there's little to no chance that the Knicks actually MAKE those picks but those are assets which leads me tooooo....

3- The Knicks allocated some assets BUT do you trust them?

The first is that the Knicks collected some good assets in this deal. There was a plenty of interest in Dennis Smith Jr when the Mavs were shopping him SO if the Knicks feature Dennis Smith Jr and then move him in June or July (assuming he's not a TOTAL failure) then they can continue to flip him into assets. The two 1st round picks (2021 and 2023 apparently) do not matter now but in a year or two the Knicks COULD be able to throw some picks out there to try and trade for somebody. Asset allocation is great  and having options with so many young players who are on flippable deals with picks to back them up can get you something. The counter here is that you're absolutely right and dare I say fair to have zero trust in the people making these decisions.

The same guys who rotted the KP/Knicks relationship still remain.

The guys who gave Tim Hardaway Jr the fat deal you had to fight from underneath to get out of remains.

The guy who drafted Frank Ntilikina over Dennis Smith Jr (Which WHOOPS!)

The sole difference in the equation is Scott Perry; a long time executive who has some skins on the wall who will be tasked with not making the mistakes of Donnie Walsh or a Phil Jackson. Good luck pal.

4- "The Heaviest Jersey In The NBA"

I would not have a single problem with people not wanting to hear from Allan Hahn right now given who he works for BUT Hahn was on the Michael Kay Show and he said something that struck me. "This is the heaviest jersey in the NBA and it wears you down." His point was that it takes a certain guy to be the guy who carries the Knicks franchise and even so it requires plenty of help. Hahn paints a picture of a really good young player with poor support around him off the court who grew tired of the poor support on the court. He talked about Porzingis being fragile and sensitive to New York criticism with a support group that didn't like seeing Porzingis take the heat for the Knicks' woes. If that's the case then Porzingis simply wasn't going to be "the guy" and now the Knicks are left chasing "the guy" onward into perpetuity.

5- Your view on this deal is directly tied on how addicted to Hopium you are.

Seriously. If you're a guy who can still get buzzed on Hopium then this deal is a winner for you. You traded a guy who didn't want to be here for two 1st round picks (ASSETS!), a good young guard (TALENTED GUY WHO CAN GET BETTER!), expiring deals (CAP SPACE!) and the opportunity to be free agent players (KD! KYRIE! KLAY THOMPSON!). Throw in a potential top 3 pick (THE KICKS HAVE TO WIN THE LOTTERY ONE YEAR RIGHT?!?) and you've got something to be built. If you've gone to sports rehab for Hopium then you see the Knicks trading away a player not even close to his prime for pennies on the dollar and promises of doing something they haven't been able to do in a long, long time. Let your addictions define your fandom.

[thatcreativegirll]

F I N A L

T-minus 3 days…

“Mona, wake up, it’s 3pm stop being so damn lazy!” my mother yelled as she yanked my bedroom door open and came in without invitation. The curtains peeled open revealing the merciless light of the outside world followed by the scorching heat. “No! I’m tired- NO DO NOT TURN IT- MAMA NO LEAVE THE A.C. ON, I’M GOING TO DIE FROM THE HEAT,” I yelled as my mom carelessly grabbed the remote and turned my only source of comfort off. “Well, if you’re so tired why did you stay up until 6 am last night? God these stupid phones will ruin your life, you’re always on the damn thing.” I groaned while slowly sitting up on my bed putting my head in my hands. I throw the covers off my still asleep body and slowly get out of bed and make my way to the bathroom. Welcome to Egypt, where the only thing stronger than the sun, is the sun. In the summer, it feels like you’re living inside fire, the heat is so unbearable and your only savior is the beautiful, the amazing, the revolutionary: air conditioner. Now, now, don’t get too excited, because although the air conditioner gives you comfort and helps you survive till the next day, the damn thing makes you electric bill longer than a tissue paper roll, it’s quite outrageous. I get into the shower and let the icy water coat every inch of my skin – mm how refreshing and quite honestly the best feeling in the world (except when it’s Eid time and you get presents and money from all your relatives). I dry off my body still cherishing the coldness of my skin, then I change and get back out.

T-minus 2 days…

“How on earth can a place be so damn hot? Allah save us – Ah finally there you are. Why are you so lazy, it’s 4 pm might as well sleep for the rest of the day eh,” my mother murmured as she scrambled around the house looking for the air conditioner remote. I rolled my eyes at her and raced to her tackled her, enveloping her small body in a tight hug. My mom and I had a weird relationship, one minute we’re arguing and the next we’re hugging and laughing, we’re like those middle school girlfriends and boyfriends who fight about the stupidest things but make up straight away. “Your aunts are coming over today and we’ll be going out, have you packed your bag yet? We don’t have much time, just 3 days” she told me as she flipped through the channels on the television. I sighed heavily and rubbed my eyes, “Why do you have to keep reminding me about that?” Ah yes, the big move. You see, sometimes your dreams and ambitions take you far, far away and cause you to make more sacrifices than the number of breathes you take in your entire life time. Yeah, I guess that’s a little exaggerated but it is true. “I’m going to take a walk mama; do you want anything?” I said while not looking at her. She rose from her seat and grabbed my hand as if she was holding on for dear life, “Are you crazy? Do you want to get kidnapped or killed? Haven’t you been watching the news?” No mama I’ve been watching other news, I think but I juts nod at her and go to heaven. Oh no wait, I meant the kitchen.

T-minus 1 days…

“WHAT THE HELL?? 500 POUNDS FOR A DRESS? FORGET IT!” my cousin Rana quietly and snarkily exclaimed as she dramatically put the dress back in its place. I giggled as I caught her reaction on camera and saved it. Rana and Roudy were my twin cousins, they were only 1 year younger than I was and so they were basically like my sisters. We would only be seen together like a swarm of bees or something, they sure were the closest people to me. “Let’s just get out of this store, you know it’s really expensive.” I look around me, this was home, they were home, their smiles and voices were home, this mall was home, the scent of our favorite fast food restaurant was home, the thousands of hijabi women around me were home – oh no. my body felt numb and my brain had already muted every other sound but the sound of my own uncertainty bubbling up, just about to overflow… oh no… not again. O dreams what have you done to me? “Earth to Mona!!” Roudy waved her hand at me squinting her eyes a little, “excited for the big move?” I huff and walk past her. Don’t get me wrong, I was excited but the thought of leaving home scared me, the thought of having to make new friends frightened me, the thought of not being successful or not being accepted there horrified me, but the thought of being one of a kind there, haunted me. It wasn’t going to be my first time there, in fact it will be about my 8th time but the other times I was only visiting.

T-minus 4 hours…

“Take care of you mother and you siblings okay? I want you to get all A’s okay? Make us proud!” my aunt choked up as the tears poured out of her eyes like waterfalls, they landed on my shirt. I couldn’t contain my emotions and burst into tears like a baby in pain, I squeezed her harder and harder as my tears soaked up her blouse. “I-I won’t- I’ll miss yo-” I was interrupted by the announcement of our flight coming through the speakers of Cairo’s busy airport. For a moment my brain hits pause but my eyes continue to scan my surroundings, my mom tears filling up her eyes as she hugged grandma and my aunts. My siblings hugging our cousins promising to stay in touch for the next year until they reunite. Rana and Roudy sobbing as they hugged me and demanded that I promise to call every day. This is it. Here comes change. I hope the success is worth the pain.

 T-minus 10 minutes…

“PLEASE FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS TO PREPARE FOR LANDING.”

T-minus 1 minute…

“PASSENGERS, WELCOME TO NEW YORK, AMERICA, WE HAVE JUST LANDED PLEASE DO NOT TAKE YOUR SEATBELTS OFF UNTIL THE PLANE COMES TO A COMPLETE STOP.”

T

Wow.

Here we are.

“Is it hot every damn place we go or what hoff,” my mom groaned making me smile a little. The adrenaline was starting to kick in after a 13-hour flight, suddenly, I was more excited than scared, I was curious to see what comes next. We finally made it through the longest line, it literally seemed as though we waited in it for 3 hours. As we finally approached security check in, I gave the officer a polite smile expecting one in return but instead he just furrowed his eyebrows at me and grabbed my passports from my dad. For a moment I froze in my exact spot not really sure what I already did wrong. I take a deep breath and look down waiting for the process to be over. “This isn’t your first time in the united states am I right?” the officer asked without looking up. “Yes sir,” my dad replied with a smile on his face. The officer stops for a moment and then continues, “what brings you to the united states?” My dad replies again, “my daughter is going to college and my wife is also studying while I’m on a tourist visa.” After what seemed like forever, he handed us back our passports and we went to grab our luggage.

 4 hours plus T…

I felt like the center of attention, everyone started at me as I walked, everyone stared at my siblings when they spoke excitedly. Judgmental eyes poked holes through every inch of my body as did the slightest action. I was uneasy, tried and mentally drained, it’s been a long day. I felt kind of empty but kind of not. My eyes desperately looked around looking for someone who looked like me, my eyes and my head were frantically looking for home. I entered the hotel room and threw myself on the bed groaning as all my muscles relaxed. “Can w- Lets- NO- no- SHUT UP LET ME SPEAK!” my younger brother screamed at our brother. I shook my head and smiled, they were really excited about moving away, they looked happy. I left to the bathroom but my mind kept racing, was I overthinking? Overreacting? Maybe. I should try and enjoy myself.

1 day plus T…

“C’mon guys let’s go!” I yelled as my siblings scrambled to get ready, “Hurry, I don’t want to be late for my interview.” They put their shoes on and ran outside to the elevator arguing about which one of them is a better football player- I mean soccer. We finally got into the elevator and to the first floor where we ran to the car my parents rented. Our hunt for houses was officially on, there was only a couple more weeks until I start college and my dad leaves and the pressure to be settled by then was higher than Usain Bolt’s speed. We drove to campus where I had my first job interview, it was also my first time on campus so I was absolutely clueless. My dad parked the car and wished me good luck but my mom insisted on walking me there so I wouldn’t get lost. After getting lost a couple of times, I finally walked in to the location of my interview on time. “Hey, Mona?” I looked up to find the source of the voice, a boy probably my age made his way to me. He was way too tall, he was literally a giant compared to me, he was wearing a hat that had an ‘R’ on it. His eyes were the most beautiful shade of blue. I smiled at him nodding and he led me to the office where we sat down and there began the interview. “You got the job!” he smiled at me. Humph, thank god, I was so nervous.

1 week plus T…

Today is the first day of classes, I’m excited but I’m also twice as nervous. My dad leaves in a couple of days but the owner of the house we requested to rent juggling our emotions and increasing the price for us with no promise of approving our request, so we still live in the hotel and everything is really hectic. We couldn’t even get a car, we rented one and my mom’s really panicking about that but oh well, everything will be sorted I think. “Have a good day!” my dad smiles at me when he drops me off. I smile at him and make my way to the building, it was huge, students and teachers came out and went it holding their books and bags, some others were sitting outside on the benches typing away on their laptop. I was alone, I felt alienated, I was so different in every way but my eyes and brain constantly scanned my surrounding try to spot someone who looks like me, someone that reminds me of home. I made my way inside the building and started looking for my class all over but I couldn’t find it. After what seemed like forever, I found the classroom and sighed in relief as I opened the door- wait, what? The classroom was empty. How could this happen? I am in the right building on the right campus at the right time what could I have possibly done wrong? I asked someone who seemed like a professor for help and they gave me a number and told me to call ask and so I did. I whipped out my schedule and called the number and told them that my class was empty, giving them the details of the class. “That class is on Monday, it is not today.” Shit. I called my mom sobbing barely able to speak as I told her that I accidently looked at Monday’s schedule rather than Tuesday and that I missed the first class. What a horrible first day right?

2 weeks plus T…

My dad left, we still call him every second of the day because we can’t believe he went back home. It’s like we are going throw withdrawal with extreme withdrawal symptoms. I felt like I lost another part of me, another part of home and I felt lost. I used public transportation for the first time in my life here, since we weren’t able to get a car. I wake up 4 hours before class just to get there on time, which to be honest I don’t really mind. On my way back, if I’m lucky enough to have my class end before 5, I take the bus that stops 10 minutes away from my house; but most days I had classes after 5 so I took the other bus which stops 30 minutes away from my house and I have to walk the rest of the way in the eerie dark of the night, alone. College was getting better however, I know were my classes are and I’m enjoying most of them but I’m still alone. I leave my house early in the morning and come back at night and in efforts to kill my spending I do not get food so I spend the whole day without eating until I get to my house. My house, it’s not home yet.

1 month plus T…

I found the Muslim community! I found home, that was the most exciting day. I made my first friend and she’s amazing, we have class together and we get along great my body is consumed with the overwhelming feeling of joy and excitement.

4 months plus T…

She left me down. She saw nothing but my differences. What did I ever do? I want to go home.

7 months plus T…

I have another friend, she is caring and thoughtful. She values me for my difference and cares about me. She’s an amazing human being, I’m so lucky to have her. This is now my home, after months upon months of pain, I finally got over the shock, I value my hijab more and love my differences. There are sometimes where I feel lost and empty but life can’t be all laughs and smiles.

I am happy.

I am succeeding.

This is home.

[fictioncareercreativity]

Diary of Surprising Sleeptime Dreams Entry One As They Pertain To Career/Money Areas Part One Creative Writing Fiction Genre

Diary of Surprising Sleeptime Dreams Entry One As They Pertain To Career/Money Areas Part One Creative Writing Fiction GenreOctober 29, 2017 Disclaimer; Please know that I am writing this more for fun and because of my writing passions from a fiction creative writing intent to grow my creative writing wings. I definitely prefer to avoid telling what to do and I am still learning and realize that there is still so much for me to know. For me, doing this writing is also a healing creative writing therapy for me. With that said for karmic reasons these series of stories is going to pertain to characters who lived on earth until at least the year 2094 with a work history listed from 2043 onwards. This is meant to be written from the fictional perspective of providing material for earth-based writers who are going to have stronger connections to heaven/celestial worlds by the year 4000 or sooner. For karmic reasons, I have to keep the common denominator of people who passed over in their sleep as part of the fiction based stories but keep out their age andor how long they live in case one of the generated names matches up with a real life circumstance in the future.Indirectly andor Directly Related to My Foodservices job I Stella Carrier am in the process of learning to create heaven on earth both for myself and those who surround me for both present and futureI Stella Carrier am in the process of allowing myself to be a channel for greater wisdom and intuition in all areas of my life both present and future.I Stella Carrier contribute my best in a creative manner for the highest good of myself and everyone around me in all areas of my life for both present and future. Diary of Surprising Sleeptime Dreams Entry One As They Pertain To Career/Money Areas Part One Creative Writing Fiction Genre Start time; 349 amCompletion time 433 amDecember 1, 2094            Priscillia Frye has passed over from earth over 59 hours ago on the celestial replica that is Virginia Beach Virginia. Priscilla Frye was actually enjoying her life as a part-time school lunch lady and part time model. She was recruited to work in modeling after a modeling scout spotted her physical resemblance to gifted musician Rihanna in an article chronicling her fitness journey. Priscilla Frye is being interviewed by Minnie Day, a woman who resembles musician Goldfrapp yet who works as a boarding high school art teacher/part time psychic in what is now Iceland in the year 4000.  Minnie Day was researching creative inspiration for some romance stories set between a female spirit who lives in the 2100 time period who unintentionally travels to the time period 4000. Priscillia Frye answered Minnie Day’s request to gather information in her story in a mutual sleeptime meeting place as a background story for the mother of the year 2100 female spirit. Minnie Day also writes for a company in Iceland affiliated with modern Day CNN live on cable tv. Their conversation (between that of Priscilla Frye and Minnie Day goes a little like this Minnie Day; Priscilla Frye please tell me a little bit about your career path while you were still alive on earth.Priscilla Frye; I was determined to stay in the same type of job for the rest of my current lifetime in order to become an expert despite well-meaning and powerful/famous critics steering me into a career path that was completely different from what I sensed was my celestial career life purpose destiny. In the year 2043 I started out as a Food service worker at George Washington University in downtown Washington D.C. and then I transferred to a school in Virginia Beach Virginia as a lunch lady for a middle school.Minnie Day; How did your family andor friends react.Priscilla Frye; I understood where they were coming from when they asked me questions on what would motivate me to completely relocate out of an area that has lots of jobs for an area with just as much fierce competition yet with lower cost of living. However, I had a sleeptime dream where I was serving lunch to some middle school students and noticed parents who were in uniforms. This happened less than 48 hours after I prayed on my life purpose/destiny.Minnie Day; Did you consult with your heaven spirit ally team andor heaven higher self and what did they say to you in your sleeptime dreams when you were still alive.Priscilla Frye; I was told by a female celestial guide in a colorful 17 story celestial akashic library that showed at least over 5200 spirits just in this library alone to pick an area that I would reside regardless of what comes up, stick with one career path that I can see myself doing if it was necessary for me to do so into my 80s if need be, and to both make time to sketch and write about my plans while squirreling away money.Minnie Day; Priscilla Frye please tell me where you reside in heaven know and how that might have shaped your career trajectory after you analyzed it in an akashic library in your celestial/heaven world less than 8 hours ago Priscilla Frye; Fortunately, I have earned the privilege of currently residing in a celestial world of my own making complete with libraries, schools, and theme parks with over 800000 celestial spirits reading in harmony. This world I am told is actually created by the year 3985 or sooner on earth. What this had to do with my career trajectory on earth was that I used this futuristic imagery I saw in my dreams coupled with my intent to relocate in one area to just bounce around various parts of Virginia as a school lunch lady until a job opened up. I just simply transferred from different school when necessary to ensure that I continue to work as a lunch lady.Minnie Day; Why Lunch LadyPriscilla Frye; more time to do my writing and free time which brings me to the next question you have for meMinnie Day; yes your career trajectory from 2043 onwardsPriscilla Frey; I had my hopes set on either a University food service job, a military base food service job, or a school lunch lady. By 2044 I was visiting a former female coworker on the Norfolk Virginia military base and I noticed a job fair just 2 miles from her job that was recruiting food service workers to work in the grade school, middle schools, and high schools for many of the children of various military people. From the year 2044 to 2050 I Priscilla Frye worked as a school lunch lady in a grade school less than 5 miles from Old Dominion University in Norfolk Virginia. I then was recruited for a temporary 2 year job to help serve as a school lunch lady to a private middle school less than 2 miles from the University of Maryland College Park campus by the year 2051. Many of my customers,coworkers, bosses, managers etc. appreciated me so much to where I was approved to stay until the year 2060. I Priscilla Frye then worked as a cook at Old Dominion University from 2060 to 2075. From 2075 to 2080 I worked at a newly open dining hall campus on the University of Maryland College Park campus and then my final place of employment before passing over to the celestial realms in 2094 was as a school lunch lady at a well known public high school in Norfolk Virginia that is also known to train students to qualify for colleges in both the Hampton Roads Virginia area and the metropolitan Washington D.C. area.Minnie Day; To help me develop my year 2100 character andor to pass some advice to my students that you learned what would you recommend Priscilla Frye either for your job andor ways you strive to grow your wisdom.Priscilla Frye; Regardless of whether you are considered a novice or expert in your field please allow yourself to be shame free and pray for some of the guidance for your career to be revealed to you through synchronistic signs andor sleeptime dreams. Fortunately for me, less than a week after I prayed I received important guidance in a dream from a female spirit dressed as a school lunch lady manager who explained she was sent to me from one of my main male spirit guides to explain to me that regardless of my level of expertise in whatever job that I am in that it is ok to save and gather information both from online and offline sources that are indirectlhy andor directly related to my job. I started to implement that guidance which helped me in my creativity in both my job yet also other various parts of my life both present and future. ResourcesIntuitive insight-more fiction story entries related to my current  food services job at the University of Maryland College Parkhttp://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/20th-century-english-names.php#.WfWDPltSzb0school lunch ladySchool Lunch Lady Loses 100 Lbs. – By Eating Her Own Cafeteria FoodAbout Tammy McRaeBy Hilary Shenfeldhttp://people.com/bodies/school-lunch-lady-loses-100-lbs-by-eating-cafeteria-food/goldfrapprihannaamazon pop cardio shuffle modeMove Your Body by SiaSomething In The Way You Move by Ellie GouldingCan’t Remember To Forget You by Shakira feat. RihannaSing by Ed SheeranComing With You by NeyoPerfect by One DirectionThere’s Nothing Holdin Me Back by Shawn MendesLet Me Love You by DJ Snake feat. Justin BieberThat’s What Like by Flo Rida feat. FitzAmazon music storytelling playlist shuffle modedon’t delete the kisses wolf alice song length 435Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom by VengaboysShape of You by Ed Sheeran song length 353Da Ya Think I’m Sexy by Rod StewartFreeway of Love by Aretha FranklinThe Distance by CakeFable (Message Version) by Robert MilesDirt On My Boots by Jon PardiEcstasy by ATBSing by Ed SheeranIn Da Club by 50 CentYou Can Do Magic by AmericaBad Things by Machine Gun Kelly & Camilla CabelloHappy Together by the TurtlesThe Look of Love by ABCDip It Low by Christina MilianMmm Yeah by Austin Mahone feat. PitbullAdore by Miley CyrusMagic by B.o.B feat. Rivers CuomoStrip It Down by Liam Payne feat. QuavoLady by Austin Mahone feat. PitbullYou Make My Dreams Come True by Hall and OatesHow To Save A Life by the FrayWitchy Woman by the EaglesWhat You Like by Darren HayesI Am the Bullgod by Kid RockHeaven is a Place on Earth by Belinda CarlisleDo You Believe in Magic by the Lovin SpoonfulStrange Love by Depeche ModeYour Man by Josh TurnerWicked Game by Chris IsaakHeaven by JesBuddy Holly by WeezerNeed You Tonight by INXSVogue by MadonnaWildest Dreams by Taylor SwiftMy Passion by Kris McTwainSources I prefer to keep secretClint Eastwood by the GorillazUtopia by GoldfrappYou Spin Me Round by Dead or AliveGirls and Boys by BlurA Horse With No Name by AmericaI Can’t Stay Away by the VeronicasLoving You by Minnie RippertonCome On Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight RunnersBeliever by Imagine Dragons A Former High School Teacher Admitted He Had Sex With a Student. He Didn't Lose His License I admit that I have worked around some self-confident, assertive, and leadership potential type of female coworkers 20 years old and younger who also have strong social andor relationship skills. As a result I can easily see how an older man would easily fall for their charms unless they are extremely careful andor highly self-disciplined. No I do not condone a high school teacher having sex with one of their teenage students. Additionally, I feel that special training ought to be given to male and female teachers on how to conduct themselves and handle a teenage student that sexually comes on to them if they still go after them even when the teacher says no. Once again, I do not condone high school teachers having sex with their teenage students and I believe that it is important for a high school teacher to wait until after the student is graduated from high school and at least 18 years old before they would even consider reciprocating a student's feelings if they are going to cross that dangerous line. Rather, I am implying that special training needs to be done for the teachers to teach them how to handle a teenage high school student who sexually comes on to them. Again, I do not condone their behavior, I am only implying that with the increasing cases of male and female teachers having sex with their students that there is a chance that some of these teenage students may be persistent aggressors in some of the cases and the teachers may not have been aware on how to handle such incidents. Once again, I do not condone this behavior as I feel that it is the high school teacher's responsibility to explain to the student  and politely but firmly resist the student's advances. Rather, I was just bringing up a potential motive on what might be driving some of these teachers to do what they do. A Former High School Teacher Admitted He Had Sex With a Student. He Didn't Lose His License https://www.yahoo.com/news/former-high-school-teacher-admitted-143554540.html Regarding this interesting article regarding Donald Trump meeting reporters kids and it was more trick than treat by Molly Reilly, I was taught by both of my late adoptive parents to avoid saying anything unless you have something nice to say. My late adoptive father was a supporter of President Donald Trump and I truly try to see the positives to his Presidency again I must listen to my rule of refraining unless I have something nice to say.Donald Trump Met Reporters' Kids, And It Was More Trick Than TreatBy Mollie Reilly https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-met-reporters-apos-211854251.html I am going to try to believe that President Donald Trump said this knowing full well the rise that he would get out of many people-in addition to the widespread attention- as physical appearance as perceived by others is subjective anyhow.President Trump to reporter's kids: 'I cannot believe the media produced such beautiful children'By Aris Folleyhttps://www.yahoo.com/news/president-trump-reporter-apos-kids-203203481.htmlI have seen at least one well-meaning and highly successful facebook contact who might be a fan of Amazon’s rival Barnes and Noble so I must be aware and considerate of what I say. However, I feel comfortable saying this, as a long-time Amazon customer (since the early 2000s when I was still in the U.S. navy) I have ordered from Amazon and received items in a timely manner. Any order challenges that have came up are resolved in a reasonable and timely fashion and there is now a wide range of items carried for convenient online ordering and shipping (in addition to the subscription that gives me a wide range of music for streaming). My point; even I can easily understand why Jeff Bezos is very successful and despite the intense competition it is easy to see that the company of Amazon is going to be around for many years to come.Jeff Bezos is now the richest man in the world with $90 b...By CNBC videoshttps://finance.yahoo.com/video/jeff-bezos-now-richest-man-172000038.htmlA multiple number of the costumes featured from the Star Wars, Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man, Pirates of the Caribbean, Thor, Wolverine, Batman etc. are more than understandable.Wonder Woman, Pennywise top movie-inspired Halloween costumes of 2017By David Canfield of Entertainment Weeklyhttps://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/wonder-woman-pennywise-top-movie-inspired-halloween-costumes-2017-134705595.htmlOld Navy websitehttp://oldnavy.gap.com/?tid=onpm000568&dfa=1&ap=143&cvosrc=display.mediamath.retentionThis article includes a brilliant range of celebrities/famous people to appeal to many people; Jon Hamm, Alessandra Ambrosio etc. As for Cindy Crawford probably many people who have looked at a television andor magazines andor who have been alive in the 90s are going to be familiar with Cindy Crawford. I know that I am showing my age by admitting this yet I remember being in high school in the 1990s and Cindy Crawford being a popular highlight for a soda commercial (I think it was Pepsi) aside from her many magazine appearances. As for Amal Clooney, it looks like from the picture that she is still having fun  at the Casamigos Party in West Hollywood even if her husband George Clooney was elsewhere (maybe there was a good reason such as a job assignment andor some other plan that would have been tricky to change even for a high profile party). I’m guessing that this Casamigos Halloween bash party was also probably even lucrative for multiple public relations professionals, event planners andor party planners in addition to food industry professionals; chefs, caterers etc. Amal Clooney and Cindy Crawford Embrace Disco Fever with their Halloween CostumesBy Maria Pasquinihttps://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/amal-clooney-cindy-crawford-embrace-150754866.htmlThis article includes a brilliant range of celebrities/famous people to appeal to many people; Jon Hamm, Alessandra Ambrosio etc. As for Cindy Crawford probably many people who have looked at a television andor magazines andor who have been alive in the 90s are going to be familiar with Cindy Crawford. I know that I am showing my age by admitting this yet I remember being in high school in the 1990s and Cindy Crawford being a popular highlight for a soda commercial (I think it was Pepsi) aside from her many magazine appearances. As for Amal Clooney, it looks like from the picture that she is still having fun  at the Casamigos Party in West Hollywood even if her husband George Clooney was elsewhere (maybe there was a good reason such as a job assignment andor some other plan that would have been tricky to change even for a high profile party). I’m guessing that this Casamigos Halloween bash party was also probably even lucrative for multiple public relations professionals, event planners andor party planners in addition to food industry professionals; chefs, caterers etc. https://pagesix.com/2017/10/28/cindy-crawford-and-rande-gerber-win-halloween/ Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber win Halloween by Emily smithhttps://pagesix.com/2017/10/28/cindy-crawford-and-rande-gerber-win-halloween/ To be fair, I understand that physical appearance is subjective and that a person must be careful to avoid wrapping their self worth around the way they look while growing their self-confidence. However, from the photos it is easy to see from the photos that Julia Roberts is comfortable in her own skin and is driven/ambitious.Julia Roberts turns 50: What makes her smile mostBy Raechal Leone Shewfelthttps://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/julia-roberts-turns-50-make-smile-110126399.htmlRegardless of whether I am in the minority with my view or majority, I thought that both Taylor Swift’s music video for Ready For It and her costumes were original and tasteful. I am guessing that some of the people who might have been judging Taylor Swift for her Westword inspired theme might have been secretly wanting to break free and dress andor look a little unconventional themselves yet may still need to allow themselves to do so for various reasons.Taylor Swift Shakes Off Nude Bodysuit Shaming of Her '...Ready for It?' Music Video: 'Warms My Heart'By Entertainment Tonighthttps://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-shakes-off-nude-225753870.htmlI admit that I have to credit a female coworker that I knew from my time when I was still in the U.S. Navy as to what indirectly influenced me to give Kelly Clarkson’s music a listen more often. Catch My Breath and Break Away are two of my favorite songs by Kelly Clarkson and yet I also enjoy the Move You and Love So Soft songs from her recent collection. This article reminds me to give Kelly Clarkson’s new music a listen.'Voice' set exclusive: Kelly Clarkson says new album is 'the reason I became a singer'By Lyndsey Parkerhttps://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/voice-set-exclusive-kelly-clarkson-says-new-album-reason-became-singer-170145130.htmlTom Hanks puts a lot of innovate intensity in some of his films that I have seen which influences me to keep an open mind about the film mentioned in this article. Tom Hanks to star in sci-fi film 'Bios' from 'Game of Thrones' directorhttps://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tom-hanks-star-sci-fi-193636800.html I have to admit that both Meghan Markle and her publicity entourage are very gifted/talented on ways to share certain stories/information to garner popular attention while being overexposure-free (I say this sarcasm-free and wishing both Meghan Markle and Prince Harry well). However, even if true that Prince Harry developed a crush on Meghan Markle for Two Years after watching her in Suits then maybe she (Meghan Markle) can capitalize on that scandalous yet juicy info for further career opportunities. Why do I say this; Even as a writer who intends to be a creative writing fiction genre storyteller, I know full well that I have no business commenting on if andor will Prince Harry and Meghan Markle make it to the altar. What I will say is that it is obvious even to a woman of my socio-economic class that one of the reasons that Prince Harry (whether he realizes it or not) might have been drawn/captivated by Meghan Markle is the professionally accomplished/career driven vibe that being affiliated with Suits conveys. Meghan Markle has the opportunity to strike while the iron is hot for even more lucrative andor highly sought after career opportunities and still possibly be with Prince Harry. I may be in the minority for saying this yet I feel that Meghan Markle maintaining her career status and parlaying that into both present and future career growth opportunities can only benefit her. Please understand that I have nothing against women who voluntarily choose to let their partners be their major breadwinners for that is not my place to judge. I am just implying that it was generous for Meghan Markle and her publicity team to share one of the factors that romantically drew Prince Harry to her (as even I understand that it is common knowledge that a woman who can make enough of her own money to be financially prosperous is appealing whether it is through a traditional career path andor other legal means). I understand why Meghan Markle wants to get married to him and is hoping for Prince Harry to propose. However, publishing almost weekly articles on Meghan Markle waiting for Prince Harry to propose to her overlooks the fact that Meghan Markle might have unintentionally attracted a mutual romantic connection with Prince Harry because of her own prestigious and lucrative career path that communicated the message that she can make independently pay for her own things (rent, clothes, other types of material upkeeps) regardless of whether Prince Harry marries her or stays her romantic boyfriend andor lover. CelebrityPrince Harry 'fancied Meghan Markle for TWO YEARS after watching her in Suits'By Stephanie Soteriouhttps://www.yahoo.com/news/prince-harry-fancied-meghan-markle-two-years-watching-suits-122432849.htmlI told my husband about Will Smith’s concept for a Men in Black meets fantasy type of viewing that is going to be on Netflix as referenced in this article for “Bright”. My husband might watch this as he did enjoy the most recent Men in Black 3 film starring Will Smith, Tom Jones, Josh Brolin etc.Will Smith teams up with an orc in NSFW trailer for sci-fi cop movie 'Bright'By the Wraphttps://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/smith-teams-orc-nsfw-trailer-sci-fi-cop-135143516.html https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/so?utm_source=US_Online_Content_Marketing&utm_medium=Storygize&utm_campaign=152601 Bob's Discount Furniture link https://www.mybobs.com/matrix-server?utm_source=criteo&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=retargeting&ctocode=435670782-72470 15 Old House Features We Were Wrong to AbandonI am keeping this Bob Vila article for creative and educational purposes. I admit that the sleeping porches feature caught my attention.https://www.bobvila.com/slideshow/15-old-house-features-we-were-wrong-to-abandon-46066?I am far from a fan of President Donald Trump yet and I understand that Jacob Passy is only trying to inform and educate the implication that there are other options besides just college. I a myself am fortunate to be in a good paying job with ambitious coworkers and fair leadership where my past work experience helped me get my current job more than my schooling. However, I prefer to say that at times having a college degree can often times be helpful andor worthwhile even if your job may not require one. I say this because of the opportunities to brush up on writing skills, having back-up expert knowledge in a field that could carry over into a present job andor volunteer opportunities etc. Additionally, sometimes jobs that do not require a college degree can be just as competitive if not more competitive than jobs that require a college degree (due to the large pool of people going for just one spot/one job that hinges more on work experience over a degree). Even when I was younger I understood that a degree was not a guarantee for a certain job/certain salary but more a ticket to help a person expand their options. I obviously had to learn the challenging way that the major must be something that can cross over into the private sector, government sectors, military sectors, possibly overseas-for federal government jobs etc. Additionally, when I interviewed for some jobs this past summer I discovered the challenging way that even some minimum wage andor private sector employers require experience for certain jobs andor schedule flexibility (i.e. a preference for a person willing to leave their current job for that job as they wanted someone who would work just one job). At my current job I am fortunate to see other coworkers who hold two jobs yet even I understand that this could sometimes be the exception rather than just the norm at other workplaces not requiring a college degree. My point; although not a guarantee, a college degree in certain majors can help a person be more marketable for certain career skills/career jobs  in the long-term that may have limited openings/fierce competition in relation to their current job andor the college degree may supplement for experience in conjunction with other work experience andor volunteering experience(for a person who is fortunate to get to do the same job in a similar industry for many years). I add that disclaimer at the end because this well-meaning article overlooks that a person going for their college degree andor looking to add volunteer experience-whether for first andor second time etc. is not necessarily metaphorically giving their employer the middle finger, rather the college degree would be more of a means to take charge of their own destiny/be the captain of their life ship in expanding their knowledge andor skill set (as even I understand that it is up to me and not my current employer to shape my career destiny when aiming to match it up with my career life purpose on a spiritual level).President Trump’s ‘Ivy League’ comment exemplifies America’s college-degree obsessionBy Marketwatchhttps://finance.yahoo.com/m/0ad81ca2-28dd-3ce2-ad11-fd48ce8866a4/president-trump%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98ivy.htmlPresident Trump’s ‘Ivy League’ comment exemplifies America’s college-degree obsessionBy Jacob Passyhttps://www.marketwatch.com/story/president-trumps-ivy-league-comment-exemplifies-americas-college-degree-obsession-2017-10-26?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo https://www.yahoo.com/music/stream-voodoo-music-arts-experience-weekend-yahoo-music-161959407.html Stream the Voodoo Music + Arts Experience this weekend on Yahoo Music by yahoo music staff I admit that I have recently seen Griffin Dunne in the Who’s That Girl film back in May(starring him and Madonna). This yahoo article by Gwynne Watkins encourages me to keep an open mind to watch Practical Magic andor American Werewolf within the next month or so (maybe before Thanksgiving or sooner).MVPs of Horror: Griffin Dunne talks drinking tequila on 'Practical Magic' set and his 'American Werewolf' mauling by Gwynne Watkinshttps://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/mvps-horror-griffin-dunne-talks-drinking-tequila-practical-magic-set-american-werewolf-mauling-173712284.html I am blessed to have a good paying job and will be working this Halloween yet I intend/plan on purchasing some candy for some of the kids who live near the apartment for when my husband is home. My point; Regardless of whether an adult has children or just lives on their own or with a partner/spouse many people are going to spend some of their money on candy for kids who might stop by. Naturally, I am going to either get the candy from either Aldi’s andor the Family Dollar store near the apartment that my husband and I live. Obviously, I understand that several billions of dollars are going to be spent on costumes (adults and kids) as well as for party paraphernalia for Halloween parties etc.Boo! Americans will spend $9.1 billion on Halloween this yearBy Britney James Cooperhttps://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/boo-americans-will-spend-9-1-billion-halloween-year-143527993.htmlTom Hanks puts a lot of innovate intensity in some of his films that I have seen which influences me to keep an open mind about the film mentioned in this article.Tom Hanks to star in sci-fi film 'Bios' from 'Game of Thrones' directorhttps://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tom-hanks-star-sci-fi-193636800.html All of these pictures evoke positive and festive vibes of Halloween in some way yet I have to admit that I feel that pictures 12 showing Luna (daughter of John Legend and Chrissy Teigen) near some pumpkins and a makeshift western themed traveling wagon to be a touching/moving photo along with slide 13 of Ashley Tisdale and her friends because of the positive and spiritual symbolism of friendship. Celebs get in the Halloween spiritby Taryn Ryder https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebs-halloween-spirit-slideshow-wp-000841449.html Fortunately, I am blessed with a good paying temporary job with reasonable leadership. However, being an Amazon fan made me curious about this article including the information on a military veteran representing one of their employees. How Amazon quickly trains 120,000 workers for the holidaysBy JP Mangalindanhttps://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-quickly-trains-120000-workers-holidays-113357493.htmlVirginia Beach Virginia tourism websitehttp://thedailylifevb.visitvirginiabeach.com/post/fall-bucket-listI take pride in the current food service job that I’m blessed to have and wanted to save this link to expand my own knowledge and creativity as it intersects with my job. Please know that I am definitely not sharing or commenting on this link to tell anyone what to do andor claim being expert as I am fully aware that there is much more for me to learn(even though of course I would like to eventually become an expert). Rather, I am saving this link to help me understand food trends both related to my current job and food trends outside of work for both my present and future reference. I like that each college feature has a detailed blurb explaining how and why certain places are selected.These Universities Have the Best Food You’ll Ever Eat on a College CampusBy Emma Bleznakhttps://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/m/c6d3fbe4-3c8a-3c55-86ce-89b8deb5e68a/these-universities-have-the.htmlThese Universities Have the Best Food You’ll Ever Eat on a College CampusBy Emma Bleznakhttps://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/these-universities-have-the-best-food-youll-ever-eat-on-a-college-campus.html/?ref=YF&yptr=yahooI unintentionally came across this list of the 15 Best Colleges for Dining Hall Food by Lauren Cunningham of Spoon University when I was looking for another article. I intend to keep this list to help me understand how food trends change from time to time based on this article being from March 4 2016.The 15 Best Colleges for Dining Hall FoodBy Lauren Cunninghamhttps://www.yahoo.com/news/15-best-colleges-dining-hall-230657460.htmlI admit that this Town & Country article pertaining an Autumn Dinner event and the museum photos catch my attention because of the intersection of what appears to be food and event trends as they relate to museums.A Look at the Frick Autumn DinnerBy Town & Countryhttps://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/look-frick-autumn-dinner-005050095/photo--photo-014304361.htmlVB is for Brunch Lovers Virginia Beach Virginia website linkhttp://thedailylifevb.visitvirginiabeach.com/post/vb-brunch-lovers?utm_campaign=fy18-vblt-lifestyles&utm_source=trade-desk&utm_content=fy18_193&utm_medium=mediahttps://go.asuonline.asu.edu/lpppc-brand/?utm_campaign=HouseholdExt+Brand&utm_medium=internet&utm_source=THETRADEDESK&st-t=ttdhttp://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/pizza-skulls-533699http://onlinemba.umd.edu/lpppc-mba/?Access_Code=UMD-MBA-FACEBOOK&kwd=lal-vtl-m3&utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=lal-vtl-m3http://mbaonline.pepperdine.edu/lpppc-mba-combo/?Access_Code=PEP-MBA-FACEBOOK&kwd=PEP-MBA-FB-REMARKETING-Sep17&kwdmt=fb-remarketing-oct17-6a&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pep-mba-fb-remarketinghttps://www.hugoboss.com/us/sale/?utm_campaign=FallSale&utm_medium=FB&utm_source=Socialhttps://learnmore.smpa.gwu.edu/ma-media-and-strategic-communication?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=newsfeed&utm_content=v1&utm_campaign=LMO-SMPA-FY18http://politicalmanagementmasters.online.gwu.edu/lpppc-mpm/?Access_Code=GW-MPM-FACEBOOK&kwd=GW-POL-FB-XSELL-GW-SPR&kwdmt=fb-xsell-gw-spr-3a&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=GW-POL-fb-xsell-gw-sprhttps://www.yelp.com/biz/wasabi-bistro-college-parkYelp ReviewsI admit that my husband and I have ate some food from Wasabi Bistro in College Park Maryland less than 18 hours ago and we both enjoyed our food. My husband got some shrimp and chicken combination with noodles and he seemed to enjoy it. I chose to get the witch roll with cream cheese and the maki combo sushi roll that allows three choices. For the three choices I chose the shrimp tempura roll, the salmon avocado roll, and the yellowtail roll. My husband and I shared some fried pork gayoza that we also both liked.  We ordered our food for delivery and the food arrived in a timely manner.https://www.yelp.com/biz/cold-stone-creamery-college-parkI confess that my most recent visit to this College Park Maryland Coldstone Creamery was less than 12 hours ago. I chose to have the smallest size available of the crème brulee ice cream with yellow cake pieces(which was a tasty concoction) . Even the smallest size ice cream is of an abundant portion and the employee putting my ice cream order together was cordial.The Taco Joint Everyone Is Talking About In Your StateBy Max Rutcofskyhttps://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/restaurantsandnews/the-taco-joint-everyone-is-talking-about-in-your-state/ss-AAjf4V3Our 10 Most-Popular Recipes Right Now http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/photos/our-10-most-popular-recipes-right-nowhttps://www.washingtonian.com/2017/10/26/economist-food-truck-dc/

[breaksandbites]

Ever since I posted Facebook check in regarding our migration to New Zealand, I have been getting lots of queries about how did we apply for the immigration? what is the process? Is moving to New Zealand better than living in UAE? How it is different from Australian and Canadian Immigration? etc etc

Looking at the number of questions and interest I decided to write about our experience. But before digging more into the process and details I want to throw some disclaimers:

This is NOT the only way you can apply for NZ immigration

We started the process in 2015 and the policy is now updated a bit, I’ll try to highlight the points which are now changed (according to my information)

Every case is different! Things that worked out for us might not work for you 

WHY NEW ZEALAND?

Let’s rewind our lives to 2015 and play…

We were exploring a couple of options like Canada and Australia (apart from where we are) to apply but the arrow landed at New Zealand in the map eventually.

The quota of Canada was full by the time we thought to submit our application (Common idea is that the job market has saturated over there). Confused between OZ and NZ, we chose NZ main reason being HI’s best friend was already there.

Please note that we were applying just to keep an option open apart from UAE (where we already were at that time). I longed to visit this beautiful country once but this definitely was not the reason to choose New Zealand over all other options.

At this point, you may want to check out Australia’s process as well because it has much bigger market as compared to NZ.

OUR CONDITIONS

We applied family visa under Skilled Migrant Category, HI being the primary applicant (Read about this type of visa here)

We did NOT hire any consultant

We also claimed MY points to guarantee selection of application

Find out whether your skills are needed in New Zealand not in the Skill Shortage List Checker or download the complete lists from the same link.

THE PROCESS

If your occupation is listed in the Skill Shortage List then:

Calculate your points using the Points Calculator at this link.

Apply for your PAR (Pre Assessment Result) Online from NZQA . Side by side, create your account at Immigration New Zealand website and start filling out your Expression of Interest (EOI).

Submit EOI online – Enter the code received as a result of successful PAR in EOI. There is a fee.

Wait for EOI to get selected.

Note: Minimum points requirement is 100 but in order to guarantee selection of your EOI you need a score of 160 (as per last policy change). P.S. The policy keeps on changing

On receipt of notification that it has been selected, wait for preliminary checking to be done. (Start collecting your documents at this time. See FAQs below for examples of documents)

Wait for ITA (Invitation To Apply).

If you get ITA;

Send your degrees to NZQA for full qualification assessment. You’ll need to send your original educational and work related experiences documents to NZQA.

Carry out the Medical process.

Submit formal application within 4 months of ITA (or the last date will be mentioned in the email you will receive). This includes providing all the necessary evidence to back up the points claimed on your EOI. Results of full IQA assessment of qualifications from NZQA, Police checks, Medicals, Proof of relationship etc etc. Pay the fee.

Wait for immigration to assign your application a case officer.

Wait for your application to be processed and answer any questions your case officer asks.

Wait for immigration interview appointment. Usually done after approval of IQA on phone and only if you don’t have a job offer.

Case Officer passes your application to another case officer for audit checking.

You will then receive formal notification of the outcome – the case officers decision. (Either you get a resident visa or job search visa. Keep in mind that your application may get rejected too)

If successful, send in your passports for the residency stickers. Pay the final Migrant levy fee.

On receipt of your passport returned with visas you have 12 months to activate by travelling to NZ. (the duration to make the last entry may be different in some cases)

Attaching ITA Documentation Checklist below (Note: this was customized checklist for our application, yours can be slightly different).

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TIME

The timeline I am able to deduce based on our experience is as follows:

PAR results from NZQA – within a week 

EOI process – 1 to 3 months

ITA email is received – after a couple of weeks once the EOI is accepted

Time to submit ITA – usually 4 months

Time after ITA till final outcome – atleast 7 months

Time to make entry – 12 months to make first entry, after that your visa becomes valid for 2 more years (We visited NZ in December 2016 as a result of which Trip Of Lifetime series started on the blog, check out some beautiful places to visit in South New Zealand here)

This is NOT a definite/ constant time period rather the total time our end to end process took, yours may take a little more or may be less.

MONEY

I don’t remember how much fees we paid at each step but the whole end to end process may cost you around AED 12,000 – AED 15,000.

  FAQs

Answering some of the common questions I am usually asked these days:

Is NZ Immigration better than others?

The reasons that led us to choose NZ are stated above, I have no idea about how it may or may not be different/ beneficial as compared to the other countries’ immigration. New Zealand is heaven on earth ❤ and apparently the 4th most safest country to live in 😀 (this might help you with the choice 🙂 )

How is moving to New Zealand better than living in UAE?

Well I like, no LOVE UAE. there are loads of advantages of living in UAE.

It is a Muslim state (Being a Muslim I’d say that this is one of the best part)

The food is amazing (everything is halal and available 24×7)

Closer to home (Pakistan)

Tax-free luxurious life

But apart from all the countless pluses, you never get citizenship hence the irony. You will have to leave your home as soon as you lose your job. Living in constant fear of leaving the place which you call your home is scary at times. Sometimes we have to take difficult decisions for better future 🙂

How is the weather there?

The climatic conditions of New Zealand are the opposite of those in the Northern Hemisphere. Typically December to February is summer; March to May is autumn; June to August is winter; and September to November is spring. Also, Wellington is super windy. So we are experiencing windy-rainy-cold days these days.

Did you hire a consultant?

No, HI himself is a consultant (not immigration one though) hence he was appalled at the thought of hiring one. Lol :p Also, the process is pretty easy and straight forward. And the internet is full of helpful articles which is our day-to-day FREE consultant by all means.

From where did you apply?

We applied from UAE

How did you get 160 points?

You can always check out INZ (website for NZ Immigration) for more insights and detailed understanding. The limit was 140 points at the time we applied. Scoring 160 points is very difficult unless you have a job offer from NZ but there is a likelihood that they will update and lax the policy pretty soon – a ray of hope :). I will update here, snap about it and will also share it on my Instagram stories as soon as I’ll come to know about it.

Since minimum points requirement is 100, should I apply even if my points score is below 160?

 Surely the minimum points requirement is 100 but in order to guarantee selection of your EOI you need a score of 160 (as per last policy change). Any less selection is unlikely.

What documents should we collect to submit with ITA?

The supporting documents you will be required to submit with ITA may include:

English marriage certificates

Police clearance certificate (from every location you have lived so far – like in our case we had to collect these certificates from Karachi and UAE)

Spouses should have joint bank account (for verification that you are husband and wife and living together) – We did not have any so we had to prove our relationship through pictures, rental contracts etc etc

Some letters, Envelopes of mails on your address with your name (Aramex, DHL , Pakistan post any couriers)

From where should I get my medical done?

We went to Pakistan to carry out our medical process since it was very much cheaper as compared to UAE. The total cost of going to Pakistan and the entire medical process was less than it would have costed us in UAE. You can also consider going to Turkey for the cause 😉 (it is cheap there as well)

From where should the documents be attested?

Get your documents attested from HEC and MOFA (Ministry Of Foreign Affairs)

How does claiming spouse’s points works and how it is useful?

Spouse’s points can be claimed in order to get the desired score if primary applicant’s point are insufficient to get 160 (as per latest policy change), the spouse then will have to fulfill all the requirements as of the primary applicant. (IELTS score, NZQA assessment result etc etc)

Some Interview Tips please?

Do your homework about the country – they’d like you to have some information about it

Boast about your skill (the one which you are applying in)

Be confident

These were the FAQs I was bombarded with time and again. However, you can read about general kinda queries related to skilled migrant category here.

This was it from my side about our Immigration tales. Hope you all find it informative and easy. If you have queries about the article drop your questions in the comments section below, I will try to help within my reach and limit. And you can always visit INZ to explore more visa options 🙂

All the best to the ones who are thinking/trying to apply or already have applied.

See you soon here 🙂

New Zealand Immigration – Our Story! Ever since I posted Facebook check in regarding our migration to New Zealand, I have been getting lots of queries about

[wisdomfish]

An Ode to the Concert

I have a friend who is a born entertainer, a very talented young man. If you ever get a chance to see him perform, I’d highly recommend it. Now this friend has me thinking about what it takes to put on a concert. There’s a lot of forethought, planning and execution of fine details for sure.

When you walk into the auditorium your eyes are drawn to the stage. The stage may not be in the center of the space but it definitely is the focal point of the action. A good stage needs to be well designed. It has to be mechanically sound, able to handle the weight of the instruments and the movements of the musicians. The structure of the stage is hidden by a skirt. If the stage manager allows you a back-stage tour you’ll discover the pulleys and levers for delivering stage props, the storage and prep areas, and the schematics for pyrotechnics and smoke machines etc. You’d be impressed by the mechanics underneath and the beauty that surrounds.

Above the stage are the lights. The lights are specifically placed to achieve their desired results. They brighten and dim, change colors, and can move. They’re plugged into a central control board and as the mood of the show progresses so the lights are operated to highlight what is happening. The lights go in unison with the music.

Ah, the music. I have no idea what goes into making a song but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating a good tune when I hear one. Despite my lack of knowledge I’m not unfamiliar with the process. The notes on the page are gobbledygook to me yet I’m able to understand the whole when played. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication behind the scenes, in the quiet places to create a masterpiece and each song is its composer’s child. A lot of mathematics is involved with the beat, timing and rhythm but it’s so much more. There’s storytelling going on. There’s mind, emotion, heart, thoughts; an expression of the individual’s personal self. This goes beyond the physical and enters the soul. Music touches the heart of humanity.

So the stage is set, the behind the scenes world is in motion, the lights are bright, the musicians are playing but there’s one more element that needs to be involved. That’s the main man. Yes, when the headliner hits the stage everything which has been so diligently planned out, staged and executed receives its full meaning, it reaches its full purpose and comes to life as the entertainer envisioned. At this point in the concert all makes sense and even though lights may eventually blow out and dim, the props dysfunction, the instruments break down and the stage slowly gives way: the show must go on. Any good entertainer will work through trials and difficulties and give their best for the audience for whom they love.

If I conversed with my friend on what it takes for him to put on one of his concerts and said,

“Your show just happened by chance; there was not a single rhyme or reason behind it. I mean it has the appearance of planning and design but it doesn’t really. You’re simply lucky everything came together at the right time, out of nowhere. This could have happened to anybody so you’re work has no everlasting worth because when the concert is over everyone will doubt it even happened. There'dbe no evidence that the show went on. Everything will become worm food for the memory.”

What would be his response? What would he say to me?

First off he’d laugh because he’s a nice guy, but, then the truth will come out. He’d behold me in contempt; not only contempt but derision; not just derision but scorn; not just scorn but he’d be extremely insulted. And he’d have the right to be insulted! To say that a concert is anything other than a lifetime of hard work, blood, sweat, tears, dedication, planning, design and execution by an obviously intelligent and talented performer would be ridiculous. It would be absurd, a complete fabrication, a denial of the facts, a contradiction and flat out weird to say that a concert happens by accident.

Yet it’s been said, “the whole world is a stage.” And I agree.

The earth may not be the center of the universe but it is the focal point of activity. The earth is a firmament capable of sustaining life and is mechanically sound and eye-catchingly beautiful.

The sun rules the daytime sky shedding its light so work can be completed and vegetation can grow. At night the moon sheds a gentler light soothing for rest which glows just enough so one can find the outside lavatory. Then there are the stars in which we can navigate the entire globe just by reading them. All these are for signs and for seasons; placed perfectly for our use.

Humanity has discovered numerous laws that govern the universe on which entire galaxies turn. Laws which possess incredible precision, interact flawlessly, operate consistently of which we know but a few nor fully understand the one's we know. Still we can dig into the earth’s core, send probes into the heaven’s, dive into the human genome, split the atom and after our efforts have been made sit back in awe at the discoveries and knowledge that is unearthed.

These physical laws are complimented by the non-physical. There is mind, heart, emotion, thought, and consciousness of which the physical sciences cannot explain. Sound waves may deliver a song that the ear and brain process; light waves a spectacle of which the eye and brain process but it is the heart which interprets these things. Science cannot explain such wonders. So the whole vast complex array of life exists. All the props are set but none of it matters until we recognize the main man, the Creator. Only when He is given due respect and acknowledgement then everything makes sense, receives its meaning and purpose.

Just as a performer wants fellowship with his audience so they can share in the goodness of what he has created, God walked with mankind in the Garden of Eden sharing His goodness. As a performer may invite an audience member onstage, so God created male and female. The audience member may appreciate the calling, he may be the biggest fan and everything’s good until that person via his own free will starts smashing the lights, props, abusing the band members and finally assaulting the performer. There is no choice at this point; the performer must boot the transgressor out of the concert hall. This is the truth of the catastrophic results of sin as humankind was banished from the Garden.

Does the performer stop and tell everyone to go home? No! The show goes on, albeit under new rules. Because of the personal attack and destruction of property the performer surrounds himself with bodyguards, places a no go zone in front of the stage, ceases doing meet and greets, and abstains from interviews, just as God no longer walks with man, gave Torah, sent the prophets, established Israel. The audience is kept at a distance, the relationship has changed; still the performer continues to share the goodness of what he has created but from behind a veil. So does God.

As time flows the negative effects are felt. Tensions between the performer and his fan base increase. Everyone knows how it should be, and recognize that it isn’t. So it is with God and humanity. The performer’s audience is dumb founded, growing angry, not understanding that the performer understands that if one audience member can be so violent, causing so much physical and emotional damage then any audience member could. Yes, as Adam fell, we all fall. The fans reject the performers work. Man rejects God. They move on to find other artists, other religions. The performer is heartbroken, his audience declining; the performer is saddened knowing what He has to share is of the highest good. So it is with God. What is to be done?

The performer must put aside his fears of future attack, not count the cost of his property,  go amongst the crowds to seek the fans that need him, remove the veil, all the while showing kindness to the tabloids, the cynic’s, the mockers, the haters, the hurlers of insults and the physical violence. That’s what Christ did. Christ entered the world through the virgin birth, lived a sinless life against much resistance, was judged, crucified and buried to rise on the third day! Why? Because we’re on His stage; attacking Him and ruining His property; and despite this He went out into the crowds to become the sin offering for mankind. That once again we can join Him in fellowship.

I highly respect the talent of a good performer. They can do a lot of good in the community. What they do has meaning and purpose. I’m not blind I notice it. So when I convey Christianity it may appear as an attack but what is it that I’m trying to say?

I try to convey that talent is God-given; that it is far greater than just being happenstance. Think of it, one’s voice was given them by the very hand of God. One should sing before Him, His angels and all of creation in glory everlasting.

I try to convey that meaning and purpose isn’t just for this lifetime. Interactions with ones audience can have eternal significance. A performer can meet their audience again in glory everlasting. That is a meaning and a purpose far beyond selfishness, stardust, and galaxy hopping. Our deeds are not worm food.

I try to convey goodness, and hope, and a promise of a future that no eye has seen and no ear has heard.

I try to convey the truth about the nature of humanity and how God views humanity.

Humanity is that ill-behaved brat of an audience member whom forces the Holy God to deal justly with them. As the performer weeds out the members of the audience who are ruining the show, God does on a cosmic scale. Simply put, and you’ve heard it before, we’re not that good, you and I, we’ve missed the mark haven’t we? We’ve missed the mark so many times in transgression it’s almost unbelievable that God still wants us in His audience. Yet, HE does! However, we can only be in that number if we recognize our own depravity; if we believe in the fact that God wants to fellowship with us regardless so much so that He sent His one and only Son; if we receive and abide by His conditions found within the death, burial and resurrection of Christ Jesus; if an encounter with Christ Jesus, the unavoidable prerequisite, brings us to our knees in humble repentance, seeking His forgiveness. It is written and Jesus surely said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

It’s my hearts desire not to tear a person down, belittle or critique their sins. I have my own. It’s my hearts desire to guide one to a new hope, a new life, and a new song that is not of my making, and is not mine to give. It is the truth that I was handed and it comes from outside of humanity.

See a friend does not share Christ if he does not love the person he shares Christ with. Jesus is love and mankind’s only eternal hope. Freely He has given, so freely you can receive.