#and it’s like a difficult one and roommate and i are usually the puzzle solving aces so i gotta snap back.. somehow. WHEW

[mydriases]

Boyfriend headcanons for Epel and Lilia

Anon asked: Hello! Welcome to the fandom! I look forward to your future writing. Can I get some boyfriend headcanon for Epel and Lilia? Thank you!

Thanks, I've kept the format of my first post so I hope it's what you expected!

A small digression to thank you all for the +100 followers! I don't understand how so many people would want to read what I write lol Thank you to everyone who commented or sent messages of encouragement, it touches me deeply.

Epel Felmier

Like loads of people, when you first saw Epel, you thought he was just another pretty boy.

It was at the welcome party for Pomefiore’s new students that you changed your mind.

You heard him fuming over the fact that he wanted to be a Savanaclaw, saw him get reprimanded for his table manners and noticed the way he really seemed out of place, all of this convinced you that he wasn't just another narcissist.

You made a point to become his friend, not out of pity but out of admiration. He was a person with many hidden talents who was able to put up with an environment he despised.

It is true that you were also looking for a type of personality different from the one who invaded Pomefiore like ivy.

One evening, while you were reading in the living room, the incessant chatter of your classmates forced you to leave the room. At least that's what you would've done if you hadn't seen Epel trapped by three other people.

They were talking together about how Epel was a model of elegance and that some people should follow his example. Their discussion was one-sided, judging by the expression of embarrassment that covered Epel's face like a veil.

You made it your duty to get him out of this situation.

You approached the small group, interrupted them and then took your sweetest voice to apologize to these gentlemen because you had to work on a project with Epel.

Of course, they didn’t express any objection and let the two of you go away after a final praise.

Epel showered you with thanks and even asked you if there was any way he could repay you.

« I mean�� I wasn’t lying when I said I had a project to work on. »

You don’t feel any shame for asking him that, since as a result the ice broke between you and him.

None of you was close with the other students of your dorm so you spent most of your free time together.

Step by step you discovered Epel’s inner fire, and it was hot pun intended

In spite of his shyness, he could be quite responsive and outspoken when the situation was too much.

He began to open up and talked to you about his insecurities. Specifically, about his own body.

You understood that what was for Pomefiore an asset, was for Savanaclaw a drawback. All the praise was nothing when his own body was telling him he hadn't the capacities.

But some things can't change, so he focused on his magical abilities more than anything else.

It was hard for you to find the right words, but you assumed that sometimes you just need someone to listen to you. You took his hand.

Nothing was really the same after that, from this point there was an unspoken intimacy you two shared.

You held hands and hugged easily. Epel became something more than a friend, he felt closer and soon there was no more words needed for you to understand him. In fact, it felt natural to know.

One evening, while some festivities were taking place in the dormitory, you two apologized and went for a walk in the gardens.

You were chatting on a bench enjoying the coolness of the night. Until a comfortable silence settled between the two of you, and Epel turned to you.

Out of the blue he decided that kissing you was a good idea. yes it fricking was

If you ignore the fact that he withdrew as quickly as he moved forward or the fact that you were so shocked that you almost lost the ability to think properly, it all went pretty well.

The new physical intimacy that came with that kiss was unknown to anyone because of how discreet you were in your pda

He starded to give your little presents more often : carved apple, homemade food and even bouquets if that’s what you like (doesn’t know how to romance but he's not gonna admit defeat let me tell you).

He'd take you flying on his broomstick, he isn’t allowed? Who cares ! For once he can break the rules.

He would use you as an excuse to get away from Pomefiore student, « sorry but my love is waiting » he would said in a polite but slightly smug way

You'd discuss ways to make Pomefiore's uniforms more cool and what should change in the dorm. It would happen most of the time after Vil made a comment that Epel didn’t like.

Kisses in the library between the bookshelves, kisses in the garden, kisses everywhere when no one is around.

The kisses with Epel are such a soft thing, his hair would tickle your face and his hands would slide slowly up to your elbows to cup them.

When the kiss would end, you'd stand a few inches apart and notice the beauty of his eyelashes as his breath would caress your face.

Lilia Vanrouge

It was a hard thing not to notice the strange character that was Lilia Vanrouge.

He could hear your discussions from across the hall, spoke in an archaic way and appeared before you without you seeing him coming.

Actually, that's how you first met him. You were looking for a book in the library and he appeared in your field of vision, the wanted book in his hands.

He introduced himself, asked if you were looking for this book in particular and disapeared after giving it. He literally disapeared. You blinked once and paf ! You were alone.

You understood that what happened wasn’t a dream when he actually called you by your name in potions and asked you to be his partner.

In the first place, you were quite astonished. From what the rumors said Lilia was old, like so-old-I-should-be-dead years old, which means that he is knowleadgeable. Although you surely were not the last in your class, you still didn’t reach his level.

Your regular partner was absent, so you had no reason to say no.

It was difficult to know if he was good or bad at potions because he could propose an ideal solution and then he would assume that « perphaps if we add that  the result would be better » (spoilers, it didn’t work but at least the final result didn’t change too much)

Since, he continued to appear unexpectedly next to you, only to disappear the minute you looked away. It was entertaining so you didn’t mind.

 « Good evening. I was wondering...is the answer to question number 15 « the heart of a legendary beast »? 

Yes, it is…Hey Lilia, as you can see I’m on cleaning duty and it would be nice if you could h-

Thank you very much, it is always a pleasure to discuss with you » and he disapeared the basta-

You would soon start to have tea together, it kind of happened naturally. He asked you once and the invitations never stopped.

At least that's what you would have wished for.

You didn’t get any explanations, from one day to the next he stopped talking to you. There was no more funny stories over tea, no more surprise appearances, not even a glance at you.

Three weeks, three weeks of being ignored. Who can blame you if you were mad at him ?

His absence made you realize many things, the first being how much he had become an essential part of your daily life. It was strange not to talk to him anymore, there was a kind of mourning inside you when you were seeing him, as if he was the ghost of a loved one.

Then, you got a letter from one of your roommates. Because apparently, Mr. Vanrouge didn't have the guts to give it in person.

You've never read such a letter from Lilia before. It was short, to the point and didn't even have a cheap joke as usual. It was for the better, you couldn't bear it if he had acted like nothing happened.

He didn't look up at you when you came to sit in front of him. You waited for him to make the first move.

« Look, I think you're aware that my appearance doesn't match my real age. This kind of advantage is not without a price, I have loved and suffered a lot because no matter what I do ,the end remains the same. Even today, in my darkest moments, I wonder if love is worth if, in the end, I find myself carrying such pain. Some of my loved ones have told me that when they find themselves on the brink of the grave, no matter how much pain our relationship has brought them, they will have no regrets. And it is to honour the memory of those people whose voices I have forgotten that I come to talk to you. What we have between us at the moment may just be a passing infatuation, but I know too well where it's going to lead us. That’s why before we go too far, I need to see your point of view on love. For me, love isn't easy, it's not constant happiness that solves all your problems. It's a complex thing that can pull you down as well as up… I’ve been a bit dramatic on the edges but you need to understand that even if loads of relationships don’t last till the end of a life, ours is bound to be harder. »

You were puzzled. This Lilia was different from the one you learned to know, he was dead serious and his saddened look made you feel a little bit ashamed that you didn’t think about how he felt.

« As you said, loads of relationships don’t last till the end and it’s fine. We don’t need to rush things and we don’t need to think about our future for now. It sounds reckless but to answer what you said : yes, it is worth it. »

You never thought you'd start your relationship with Lilia this way but, oh well here you go.

Everything was the same as before but better. He still appeared where you least expected it but now he hugged you from behind which almost gave you a heart attack multiple times.

Lilia loves passionately. He gives without expecting anything in return and has no reserve with his feelings. He is candid, not hesitating to say what is wrong as well as what is right.

It’s hard to be bored with him. He has always an idea to entertain you or something to tell.

He's quite reserved when it comes to kissing, it's a little dated but for him it's more decent to do it within four walls.

But once in private, that's a different story.

His lips would run through yours, he would take the lead and hold you close to him, it's impossible not to be out of breath after his kisses.

There's a melancholy running through you that you can't explain when he embraces you. It makes you feel small in the face of Lilia's longevity. You can almost feel the dust of those former loves on your fingertips, and one day you’ll be one of them. And Lilia will remember you, because there are some things you can’t forget entirely.

[draqcnheartstrinq]

Hate That I Want You (Part 5)

Sirius Black x Pure-blood!Slytherin!Reader

Summary: At first it’s hate, then it’s confusion. It grows into a healthy amount of curiosity until it turns into hate once more. But not towards each other, more towards the idea of wanting what you’ve tried to avoid all your life.

Words: 2.4k

Warnings: Bad family relationships, Sirius trying to feel okay again.

Note: This one is more lighthearted than the last one but still a little angsty I guess? But things are looking more bright! I’m also kinda realising this whole series is going to be filled with doubt from both parties HAH... (also didn’t proofread, so sorry I just wanted to post this one as soon as possible)

Feedback is always greatly appreciated!

HTIWY Masterpost | Part 6

Sirius had been staring at The Marauders Map for more than two days, whenever he had the chance to. Between classes, after hanging out, in the library whilst hiding the map in between book pages. Literally every second was spent scanning the map for your name.

He never had to look for very long.

Your name, the one he despised only a few days ago, was always floating in the same spot in the Slytherin dormitories, right next to a bed he assumed was yours.

It was distressing how unmoving your footprints stood on the map. Sirius had thought, more than once, about how you may have starved yourself to death in there. His worries were always quickly soothed though, whenever he saw one of your roommates sneak some food with her back to your room. At least there was someone still able to look out for you, even in just the smallest of ways.

In any case, Sirius felt more frustrated than anxious. All he wanted was to be able to apologize, face to face, one on one, but with you staying in your dorm and hiding away from everyone other than the people who shared a room with you he didn’t ever get the chance to even see you.

He knew apologizing wouldn’t do much, if anything at all. The things he did, in the very far away past up until four days ago, were nothing to be fixed by a few simple words.

But at least you would know, at least he would feel better knowing he told you he was sorry about everything he did to you.

Something in his head clicked when your mother’s words had boomed through the hallways. The way she spoke to you feeling all too familiar, as if he heard his own mother screaming through the house at Grimmauld Place.

The realisation finally dawned on him when the Howler smirked after announcing the death of your grandmother. How your eyes had filled with tears he wished he could unsee, when that final sob escaped through your throat he wish he could unhear. And then you did something he would have never ever expected from you.

You looked around, anxious and full of raw emotion as if searching for help. You hadn’t even bothered hiding the thoughts that were going through your head like you usually did. You had let your walls be broken down because someone you clearly loved very dearly had passed.

You ran away from the situation, broken and defeated.

That’s the moment Sirius realised every mistake he had made up until that point. His prejudice was all wrong, all misplaced and he couldn’t feel any worse about it in that moment.

(Y/N) (Y/L/N) was a normal student trying to get through school with as little hiccups as possible… And he was the typical school bully.

Worse than the bully even, but that insight was now little too late.

That’s how he got here, staring at your name on the map as if it would magically solve things. No spell or potion, no herb or curse were going to get him out of trouble this time. Sirius had only himself to blame and only himself could make things up to you. If you would ever let him make it up to you.

As your footprints stayed planted on the same spot as always, he took a moment to look away from the piece of paper between his fingers. The other three boys had left for a day out in Hogsmeade, they had kindly invited Sirius along but he declined not wanting to miss any chance at catching you in the hallways. A lost cause, he learnt.

Rain started dripping down the window of their dorm, it wasn’t pouring but the drizzle was enough to distract Sirius from his task a few seconds.

Even when the drops demanded his attention all he could do was sit and think about all the ways he had wronged you in the last six years. And more importantly, how he would ever make you believe he felt miserable after all this time.

A deep sigh parted his lips and an attempt at rolling his eyes failed because of the exhaustion running through his mind. He felt emotionally consumed, the thought of you feeling ten times worse than this dragging him physically down, dark hair hanging in front of his face as if forming a shield.

A few seconds past and with his head hanging downwards the map in his lap caught his attention once more. His eyes spontaneously drifted to your dorm, expecting your name to float there once again.

Only to be met with an empty room, no footprints and no name.

Sirius immediately stood up, a slight hint of a smile stretching his lips at the thought of you finally coming out of hiding.

His eyes roamed over all the names moving through the hallways. After seconds of not finding you there and his patience running thin he conjured a spell, whispering your name to the paper so it would find you for him.

The slight smile fell off his face, his eyebrows pulled together in a frown and his thoughts ran wild when even the map didn’t find you anywhere on Hogwarts’ grounds.

His fingers ran over the spot where your name had been a few seconds ago, now it had disappeared completely as if you had never been there in the first place.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The next morning Sirius decided to accompany Lily and Alice to the Slytherin table, something he had only ever done to get his brother’s attention so they could talk somewhere else privately. This time around he had another purpose in mind.

He stayed behind the two girls, trying not to catch more attention than needed and listened in on the conversation between the two Gryffindors and three Slytherins. He propped his hands in his front pants pockets and turned his head to the side as if uninterested in the words that were exchanged. A totally put up and faked front of course. He hung on every sentence your roommates spoke like they were the last puzzle piece to a long unsolved crime.

“There hasn’t been much progress in her mood if that’s what you want to know. She still looked very tired, we heard her cry sometimes through the night when she forgot to put up silencing spells and all that.��

The girl who often snuck food to your dorm always took the lead in these conversations, the other two just nodding along as she told Lily and Alice all that had happened the past twenty four hours.

Sirius’ sudden presence didn’t escape them. They turned their eyes his way every few seconds, gauging his reaction for any sign of interest. He felt the looks burn the side of his face, often enough feeling their not quite anger but not fondness either. It was a weird mix of confusion and spite.

Surely they must have been thinking about how he didn’t deserve to hear how you were doing, he felt like that most of the time himself. At least that meant they were looking out for you.

Alice and Lily shared a moment of silence before asking for more details.

“Is she at least eating again?”

It was now the Slytherins’ who decided to keep the silence, looking at one another before casting their eyes down.

“She ate her food yesterday morning, even made an effort to get some assignments done that are almost due but…”

Sirius looked up at that, seeing the brunette’s face fall for a second before regaining her confidence or what was meant to look like confidence.

“Look, Dumbledore gave her permission to leave Hogwarts grounds for a few days until the funeral of her grandmother was over. (Y/N) left yesterday afternoon when we were all out at Hogsmeade.”

“How long will she be gone?” Sirius suddenly asked. The surprise on all five faces in front of him were anything but subtle.

“Why do you ask, Black? Want to give her even more sh*t?” one of the other two roommates answered full of malice.

He deserved that reaction, he knew he did. That’s why he let it slide with an apologetic look on his face.

The brunette spoke up again, more control in her voice however the little crease between her eyebrows got more outspoken as she turned her gaze fully his way.

“The funeral is in two days, she’ll probably return the morning afterwards.” Then she turned back to Lily and Alice.

“There was a note on her desk asking us if we would be okay with taking extra detailed notes in class so she can catch up on it later. That’s all we know.”

Alice nodded while Lily heaved a sigh. They both thanked your roommates and made to turn back to the Gryffindor table. Sirius lingered a few more seconds.

For the first time in Merlin knows how long the three girls saw Sirius Black in a timid and almost unsure state as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. When he finally lifted his eyes to them they couldn’t quite believe the whispered words that fell from his lips.

“Thank you, for looking out for her while I should be the one making things up.”

He turned around without another moment of hesitation.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The first class of the day had begun ten minutes ago, Gryffindors and Slytherins were scheduled together for the hour. Transfiguration was no difficult subject for the four Marauders and so they, as usual, didn’t hesitate to claim four seats in the back. One of them had halted at one of the desks more towards the front but after a moment's hesitation followed his friends anyway.

Sirius’ face adorned a frown, the corners of his mouth pointing down and his eyebrows slightly more tense than they would normally be. He was the last to take place next to his friends. Without wasting a second his books were charmed open on the pages mentioned on the board, his notebook placed neatly  next to it and his quil already dipped in the flowing black ink. As Professor McGonagall started her lessons as usual, with a goodmorning to the class and a introduction of the daily topics, Sirius was already writing away. He was determined to write down every single detail so he could later turn his notes into a understandable and neat summary of the whole lesson.

James was the first to notice Sirius’ sudden concentration, which normally wasn’t the case at all. All four of them were good at Transfiguration to the point where they often didn’t even need to sit in class. The textbooks always sufficed.

James poked Remus, who sat on his other side, in the ribs with his elbow catching his attention away from the scribblings on the board. He pointed at the usually chatty Marauder who now didn’t seem to have any interest in anything else but what was said in front of the classroom. Remus then pinched at Peter’s arm and all three of them sat there, staring wide eyed at Sirius.

Was something wrong with him? Had he completely gone mad after what had happened a few days ago?

“Psssst, Padfoot” Peter whispered under his breath, just quiet enough for no one else but them four to hear.

Sirius didn’t look away from his notebook, too engrossed in the word he was currently scribbling down.

“Hey,” James continued, “you need anything, mate? What’s the stress about?”

Again, no reaction from the dark haired Gryffindor. So they turned to more drastic measures. Remus shoved against James who then in turn, like some kind of domino effect, bumped into Sirius’ side. His quill scratched across the page leaving thick black marks in it’s trace.

Perplexed he raised his arms from the notebook, staring at it as if the biggest drama had unravelled right on that page. He then turned his head towards the three musketeers sitting on his left.

“You guys are lucky these are only temporary notes…” He growled low.

“Why bother taking notes anyway? We never take notes!” Peter countered after the other two just stared at Sirius as if stunned. “Is this an extra important chapter that we don’t know about?”

When Sirius only reacted with a deep sigh and a subtle eye roll Remus started putting a few puzzle pieces together.

Class shared with Slytherins, Sirius’ interest from out of nowhere, the already full page of notes on the guy’s desk and you at home, not being able to follow any of the important information told by the Professor.

Remus’ lips stretched into a smirk, his eyes focussing in on the title at the top of his friend’s notes.

(Y/N)’s summary.

His smirk turned into a proud smile as he met eyes with Sirius. It was subtle enough for the other two boys not to notice. A slight blush dusted Sirius’ cheeks, a rare sight to witness, and he was thankful his friend let the discovery slide. Neither James nor Peter were able to figure the situation out which was surprising since they just had to read the two word title at the top. Another reason to think Remus was just a little less dense than his other two friends.

Sirius smirked at that himself.

He could always pretend the notes were indeed for himself but who was he trying to fool here? Himself maybe?

No. Even Sirius himself knew he never needed notes for transfiguration, the only reason why he wrote anything down now being your absence and the hope this could serve as a first gift of apology.

When your roommates had mentioned your request for them to take extra detailed care of their summaries, Sirius immediately came to the conclusion to take that task upon himself. No matter how he was going to get the pages to you. Handing them over himself, getting your roommates to give them to you, owling them to your dorm,... Endless possibilities.

After the day of classes he returned straight to his own dorm. All pages of lessons he knew he shared with you were neatly piled onto his desk, ready to be put into tidy summaries. Sirius probably concentrated more on the few lessons these two days than any others in his whole school career.

And when, after one more night of staring at the Marauder’s Map, he finally saw your name appear outside of Dumbledore’s office, he froze.

Time stood still but Sirius’ heart beat faster than he could ever remember.

HTIWY Masterpost | Part 6

Thanks for reading! Taglist will follow in a reblog. Want to be added or removed? Send me an ask xxx

[hktime9]

“How to write better code?” asked a computer scientist-to-be

This is a question that I get once every 2 weeks (on average) mostly from my colleagues and friends who are studying the same degree for the same time as I. Why do they ask me? To be honest- I don’t know. What I also don’t know is the answer to their question. But I’d try to summarize what I think of the question. The answer to this question depends on many factors. If the questioner is a computer science major, I’d see what year they are in. Here’s my year to year advice to them:

- Freshman year: Coding at first is really intimidating. Its given that you’d spend hours in front of your screen to find that one line that does not compile. Here, you should remain patient and learn to accept that this problem demands a finite amount of time and focused concentration to overcome. Using online sources like stack overflow and GitHub are great options but never a first step if you want to become a decent coder. Go line by line and figure out what’s happening and whether it’s the right behavior. Freshman year includes a lot of programming labs, projects and assignments. Try to do all of them and start well before your deadline (seriously). Make it a habit to write a small program everyday. Could be a simple program to add two numbers or anything of that sort. Do some string operation or something. This would not only improve your algorithmic thinking, but also would polish the syntax of the language you code in. Like everything else in the world, mastery comes after practice. So hang in tight!

-Sophomore year: By now you have some experience of the life cycle of a typical program: understand the problem statement, do it on paper the way a human would do, do it on paper the way a computer would do, translate the latter to the programming language in question, debug. Now you also know some basics of computer science through some programming courses and maybe a few systems courses as well. The scope of your programming assignments should not be higher than maybe some array based tasks or implementing a few data structures like linked lists and binary trees to name a few. I’m assuming that you are completing your programming assignments religiously. If not, you really should be doing that before putting in extra work to improve your coding. I’ve seen people depending/copying on other people’s work even in individual assignments. While some might get away from plagiarism penalties and policies of your university, others face some sort of penalty (could be a grade reduction or something of that sort). While the latter might learn a lesson, the former fails to develop their skills and ultimately suffers in their professional life. So leaching on a friend is never a good option, well not in the long term. Try to do it even if you’re finding it hard. Take help from your teaching assistants and the rest of the course staff. You need to realize that these people are paid to help you. So please utilize office hours and appointments to the fullest. Doing extra always helps like attempting optional parts or the ones that give extra credits. Do some interesting problems and coding puzzles like the ones on hackerrank and leetcode. These are some excellent resources to polish up your skills as a developer and problem solver because they include some obvious metrics like completion, correctness and time. Have a study group where you can discuss your assignments and homeworks. There’s a difference between discussing and copying/leaching off. Mind that difference.

-Junior year: This is when you’re comfortable with programming in general. You know how it can be applied in a array of different tasks. You might have taken some old school courses like algorithms, databases and operating systems. PS I’m counting data structures as a programming intensive course and did not give it a special mention in the sophomore section :(. Go for some interesting courses like a networks course, AI/ ML or maybe some usability course. These courses will help you appreciate how you just cannot run away from programming. You’ll learn new approaches like socket programming and programming over a network (maybe some Remote Procedure Calls?). Go for some interesting applications. I remember developing a simple chatting application over a network during my junior year. I hosted it on the university’s network and anyone on the network could use it (if they knew the ip, obviously). I not only developed it, but also made it resistant to buffer overflows and scripting attacks(XSS) thanks to my roommate cum penetration tester. Once done with your Databases course, you can go for a full stack level by learning some server side and client side scripting. Learn some server based frameworks in javascript or anything. Look for some widely used frameworks; the ones which have a wider developer community. The community support will help you a lot, trust me. Some front end frameworks (client side) like ReactJS and VueJS are great these days. You can learn them using some MOOCS if your university doesn’t offer a course on them. Personally, Coursera is a great resource. Its super easy to use and has great customer care. Their “Full-Stack Web Development with React Specialization” offered by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is great. Once done you are fully capable to work as a full stack developer and the only thing stopping you is an internship offer from a company and time to practice. The latter can be achieved on your own, while the prior needs some homework and external networking. Connect to some local organization and CEOs on LinkedIn. Make sure you have a well maintained and updated LinkedIn profile and turn on recruiter discoveries to get recruiter in-mails. Be on the lookout for internship offerings and openings. Apply whenever you get a chance. Working on an organization’s project will help you learn a lot. It will not only improve your coding and problem solving stills, but also make you realize how important it is to work in teams. The latter is crucial to success in the industry since a project has multiple groups composed of many individuals. Be sure to take up work that is doable within the deadline. Keep a good relation with your supervisor and always ask for specific direction to get it right the first time.

Senior year: This has to be the most confusing year in-terms of future planning since graduation is approaching and life after is somewhat uncertain. Don’t let this fear of the uncertain get to you. My advice might not be very concrete because I, myself, am a senior while writing this. But I’ll try to incorporate my learning and findings here. The first question you might want to answer is whether coding is for you. This question is not presented before because there wasn’t an escape from it earlier because you had assignments that required you to code. Now that you can take up courses that need minimal programming effort like human-computer interaction and usability/planning courses you have a way out. These include courses like requirement engineering and planning. There are other examples as well which aren’t difficult to find. The answer to the question posed would not be a yes unless you completely love programming, in which case you’re on the right track. Loving programming is different from being good at it. You might love it and be bad at it and that’s completely fine in which case you should multiply your efforts to get better at it. Again, practice is the key. Try out programming courses on Coursera or some other platform. Get a github for student account. You’ll get it for free if you have an email account provided by your university. I’d like to make a special mention to Educative.io which offers a plethora of courses for free if you have a github for students. Educative.io is user friendly and keeps good track of your progress through the course. It is run by a very dedicated team. I personally know people working there who write articles and make courses. Almost all of them have worked as teaching assistants during their time at the university and most certainly know what they are doing and there work reflects their capabilites. They have some amazing courses. Do check it out if you have a github for students account. You’d also get free access to paid tools like AWS, Azure, DigitalOcean and Heroku. If the answer to the question is no, then you need to research more on courses and fields in computer science that do not require intense programming. These 3 years will definitely equip you with the skills that you need to do “some” coding that these fields demand. There wont be much but not zero at the same time. If you are still undecided about the question, you really should invest time knowing an answer. Ask your professors for help. Tell them honestly what you feel and why you can’t make a decision considering that you’ve spent considerable time doing it. They might guide you to a definitive answer. And then continue according to the answer. Now’s also a good time to look into industry’s standards and best practices. Maybe learn a new language? Or try using mainstream tools and familiarize yourself with devOps. Some of them are Docker, Jenkins, Slack, Jira, Git and many more, each with a set of its own unique features. Their knowledge and use will help you once you land a job because most organizations use them on a daily basis. Try some cloud computing platforms like the Amazon web services, Microsoft’s Azure and Google’s Cloud Platform. These platforms offer an array of services like storage, hosting and compute. Familiarize yourself with their usage because they usually have a learning curve. Do a lot of hobby coding. Try different approaches to a problem. For example I was going through geekforgeeks and came across an interesting problem which had a greedy solution and required an LCM (Least Common Multiple) of two numbers. The author had used a builtin function for computing it. I wondered if I could write it recursively. I decomposed the problem and found an optimal substructure which proved that a recursive solution should exist. I worked on it and wrote it and it worked. It was a mere 10 liner. Practice like the one mentioned will help you develop confidence while improving your coding skills. So practice writing code even if its not that intensive and long and hopefully you’ll see improvement.

This concludes my very first attempt that writing. I plan to write more and post here often. I’m eager to get feedback and comments. Here’s my LinkedIn profile. I really hope this helps the reader. Thank you for reading

[aalin-pace-blog]

i. basics

Card: 14. Temperance

Character Name: Aalin Pace

Faceclaim: Morena Baccarin

Age: 38

Gender & Pronouns: Female, she/her

Outside Occupation: UX Designer

ii. character interview

If you could be in charge, would you be? What would you do?

“I’ve been in charge before. I’ve led teams of disparate people, I’ve tried to hold their hands and maneuver them through trials and tribulations, I’ve succeeded and I’ve failed. While there is great satisfaction in a job well done along with the knowledge that you were instrumental in getting there, there are so many drawbacks. The blame, if given, rests squarely on your shoulders. Tempers flare and you’re the one they attack. At times it’s like herding cats. Cats that are on fire and refuse to be put out.”

Her answer seemed to please The World. There was a nagging feeling that Aalin had once known this person, but she couldn’t remember the specifics. It was quite infuriating, if she was being honest. A puzzle she would never be able to solve, not if what The World had told her was true. She would be limited to the stacks of journals held within these walls. Second hand information. It wasn’t the way Aalin liked to learn, but she supposed it would suffice. For now.

Aalin shook her short crop of hair over her shoulder. “Over the years, I’ve learned I like to lead from the sidelines, if at all. My skills are more useful than my leadership, I think. People forget you’re there if you’re not the one standing in the middle of the room shouting your opinion and marching orders, leaving much more room to soak up information. You learn something about the people on your team when they think you’re not listening, more than they’d ever tell you to your face. Not to mention the amount of time I have for my own education. Leading can be so tiresome and time consuming.” She let out an exasperated sigh, remembering all too well how exhausting the launch of Google News was, despite its success.

It was the most Aalin had spoken uninterrupted in years. She liked how The World let her say her peace, even though it felt like every word was being analyzed for some greater purpose. Aalin was used to that, though she was more used to being the one doing the analyzing. A quizzical look blossomed across her face, genuine curiosity in her words. “How does anyone get anything done when they’re in charge?”

What is your favorite part of your power?

When I first came to “The Lair”, I found only a few fellow Councilors, the beginnings of my new family. Immediately, I felt their abilities slamming into my brain and could no longer deny The World and her claims of magic and the Arcana Council. As soon as I felt their powers, however, they were gone. No...not gone...suppressed. Hiding beneath the surface, bubbling under a fog. Had I done that?

The World called it “Power dampening”, but some of my peers called it something far more crass. It wasn’t my fault I couldn’t control it yet, but I have to admit it was calming not to have everyone waving their abilities around all willy nilly. The Empress was the only one I really trusted, until a new member came in soon after me. They seemed more grounded than the rest, more willing to keep the balance the world so desperately needs.

No wonder they call me Temperance.

I never noticed before I came here, how much the anxiety inducing meetings got to me back in the “real” world. The men swinging their egos around, mousy women taking anything they threw at them, and the ones who wanted to argue any point with any person who would listen. It was chaos and I just shut it out and went to work. No wonder no one ever noticed me. Even here with all the large personalities, it was a wonder The Lovers even saw me unless I was taking away their abilities.

Read us a journal entry from your first life.

Journaling has always brought me peace. I would have kept one even if The World had not asked us to, though to be honest, it would have contained many different entries, I’m sure. I know some of the others detest the assignment or feel it’s beneath them, but I agree with The World’s idea to keep our lives recorded, and from our own perspectives. How interesting it could be to reread these tomes after centuries away from that point in our lives.

I still find myself coming to terms with my newfound abilities. Magic has and always will be a force of balance, but I find myself off-kitler as I adjust. The Ancients warned us of this, but you never really know a feeling until you’ve felt it. Every time I walk into a room, I feel the others’ abilities as if they were tangible entities I could reach out and hold, and I feel myself softening them until they’re almost indistinguishable. More practice is needed, to be sure. At times the others’ abilities are too overwhelming, even when they’re not being used. I can still feel them, hanging in the air around me. I can tell some of my new companions despise my power. They tend to forget I’m there, until they can no longer wield their powers.

Perhaps that is why I was chosen. To keep the balance.

I’ve never faltered when it comes to balance. I find myself dancing on the precipice of light and dark, “good” and “evil”, chaos and serenity, never tipping one way or the other. My companions seem to have a harder time staying on one side or the other, when they should be toeing the line between. But that is not their strength, and I understand that.

If only they did. If only they learned to lean on their fellow Councillors for their strengths. Perhaps with time we shall grow and harmonize the way the Ancients want us to. I’m optimistic, but I feel the other Councilors’ gifts and can sense how dangerous they would be if used for selfish purposes, if used without the rest of us to balance.

iii. background

Balance. Life and death. A new soul comes screaming into the world as another peacefully fades out of it. This is how Aalin entered this iteration of her life, with the truest sense of harmony and symmetry. On the clear night in December, as a fresh snow was falling over the hospital grounds in Ashland, Oregon, Aalin Pace came kicking and screaming into being, replacing the soul of her mother. The doctors had known it would be a difficult birth, but Nooma demanded to go through with the pregnancy. Aalin was to be her little miracle, even if it killed her. And that she was, even if Nooma wouldn’t be around to see it.

In childhood, Aalin was a calm and obedient child. She was bright, but never tried to outshine anyone. ‘Easy going’ and ‘kind’ were the two go-to words used most often to describe the child who never seemed to have any squabbles. In fact, most people felt so much more at ease around her that whatever argument they were having seemed to falter.

Ever the mediator and with a scholastic reputation, Aalin was picked constantly for group projects, sometimes even when she’d rather work alone. The value of having the smartest girl in class in your group was not lost on her classmates, but more times than not, she was quickly forgotten as the rest of her peers vied for the coveted title of “project leader”. Aalin would simply roll her eyes and put her nose back in her books, all too aware that the “leader” really was more of a figurehead than a contributing member of the group. The rest of her team may wish to fail, but she would not.

It wasn’t until she entered the graduate design program at UC Stanford that Aalin really understood what it was that was missing in her life. She never truly felt like she belonged, never felt like she was seen or appreciated for the talents she possessed. Most of the time she didn’t mind playing second fiddle to the more rambunctious people around her, but sometimes it would be nice to be noticed. Her classmates stampeded over her despite their lack of natural ability, and though Aalin was one of the most easy going people you could ever meet, she wasn’t about to flunk out of school because she didn’t have a backbone. Her mother hadn’t given her life so that she could have one to let it be squandered.

So Aalin but her nose to the grindstone and worked. She worked in the background while her roommates went to keggers, she worked when her best friends dragged her out to bars only to forget she was there 15 minutes after getting there. She worked harder than she ever had, and she gained the attention of more than a few tech companies that were springing up all over Silicon Valley. While her peers were fighting cutthroat campaigns to get job offers from any worthy company, Aalin focused simply on doing a good job. She even helped some of her classmates study, but when push came to shove, it wasn’t her peers who got the holy grail offer.

Google, a new company in Palo Alto, California, wanted her. As it turned out, Aalin picked the best possible study buddies, a pair of PhD students who wanted to branch off and create a new tech research company. They were blown away by her academic achievements and her enduring personality and offered her not an internship but a fully staffed position at their new office. Aalin still wasn’t sure she found her niche, but every day that she walked into the conference room for a morning round up, she felt a genuine smile pop up on her face. Still usually the quiet girl in the back, Aalin listened and soaked up every tidbit of information she could get. The company’s code of conduct “Don’t Be Evil” truly resonated with the young woman and she couldn’t imagine herself in a better place.

That is, until a being calling themself The World entered her life.

It was 2004 and Google had just released their IPO, effectively becoming the future force to be reckoned with, all thanks to Aalin. It was a write up in Time that got The World’s attention, they explained to a very confused Aalin. The existence of magic, of past lives and revoked immortality sent her reeling. However there was a bit that hung in her mind, unwilling to be explained away by logic. The World had called her Temperance and explained that she was the embodiment of balance and compromise. She saw into Aalin’s soul and spoke things no one had ever bothered to ask about or try to see. It was as if she had been truly seen for the first time in her life – in this life – and Aalin wasn’t ready to let that feeling go.

[oliverpdaniel]

Advent of Code 2021: Reflection on Days 1-5

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

After such a difficult and tiring year, I'm not even ashamed of how my roommate and I counted down to Advent of Code once the leaves started falling. I consider it a kind of sport that we both share a love for: we chat about our solutions, problems we found easy or hard, and how neither of us can ever read the other's Python for all the differences in our styles. (One of these days I'll have to learn Numpy, just to show him up.) Our leaderboard has never been more full of interested friends, which is like its own kind of Christmas lighting to me :)

Anyhow, with that in mind, I'm glad to keep up this little tradition of commenting my thoughts and findings from all 25 problems, in five-day instalments. And, if you're reading this after checking out my BI portfolio, hello! One thing I learned from last year is that spoilers don't work very well with my blog theme, which I'm too lazy to update. So, I just won't use them this year. Browse at your own risk. And, if you really want to ruin each day's puzzles, you can find my code here.

Without further ado, let's save Christmas!

Day 1 As usual, just a good chance to stretch my legs and make sure my workflow is good for this year -- I've got a nice template file, I'm opting to return values from each of p1() and p2() for printing, and I know how to set my working directory so input and test files are read appropriately. One 'resolution' for this year's AoC was to start saving the test inputs in their own folder, so that I didn't have to awkwardly copy-paste them in when I needed them and comment them out once I didn't.

Part 2 required a little bit more thinking than I was expecting, but I ended up just splitting up the calculations into a two-phase pass, one to build the prefix-sum array and one to check for decreases. No biggie, and I slightly beat my roommate to the second star after waiting until midnight. Won't be doing too much of that until the term is over.

Day 2 To entertain myself on the first few days, I often attempt the meta-Advent of Code challenge: trying to figure out what basic AoC concept Eric Wastl is trying to teach first-timers. Here, it's quite simply the extremely common pattern of parsing a series of command-like tokens. I decided to be cute and, after downloading Python 3.10, use the new match-case syntax to solve the problem. As it turns out, it didn't make it much shorter, and technically made it more inefficient since the parser has to look up the int function more than once! Oh well; programming swag is always more important than good code[^ This does not apply if you are my boss. Then good code is more important.].

Day 3 Good luck reading my code on this one. This definitely constitutes write-only code, but becomes a little easier to read once you notice a coouple of my favourite tricks:

"01"[condition] is a shorthand form of "1" if condition else "0";

gamma ^ ((1 << K) - 1) gets the "negated" form of gamma, (i.e., the epsilon value), relative to its number of bits.

Part 2 gave me a few moments of head-scratching, but I decided to get an answer out by copy-and-pasting code rather than creating an elegant, DRY solution.

Day 4 The importance of RTFI (reading the instructions) rears its ugly head again. Luckily, this time I didn't fall prey to the trap, sleepy as I was in the morning, and did see not to account for diagonals. It shows how much I've progressed as a programmer that as soon as I saw that it was a simulation-style problem, my pre-coffee brain still immediately went to pre-calculating all the winning combinations as sets, asssociated with their relative index. I'm not sure how fast set.issuperset() is (here shown as the equivalent set.__geq__) or if it has any smart controls for exiting early if, say, the set in question is smaller than its argument, but all the code runs effectively instantly for both days, so whatever.

Also quite proud of my usage of generators to yield successively-completed bingos in a memory-efficient fashion, which means that my P2 only has to run through as many draws as it takes for the final board to win.

Day 5 After some initial difficulty with parsing the data into the desired format -- a list of tuples -- P1 went off (mostly) without a hitch, except for two things:

Forgetting to exclude non-orthogonal lines; and

Not realizing that lines were not always given in ordered pairs.

Once I fixed those two things, P2 was a function of just porting the code over and -- oops! A nested for-loop was okay in P1, since one of them was always guaranteed to run exactly once, but in P2 it ended up covering a whole rectangle instead of just the diagnonal. I really wish Python would do away with requiring step=-1 when the range start is greater than the range stop, and just do what I want it to do. Don't you know I have precious bytes to save!? In truth, I probably should have just calculated the (Manhattan) length of the diagonal and used a single for-loop to mark spots along its length, considering that all diagonals were 45°.

Using a dictionary as a memory-efficient sparse array was a smart idea, but wasn't nearly fast enough to handle this challenge code.

See you on or after the 10th, where I'll be continuing this series with the next instalment of puzzles. Until then, stay warm and good luck on finals!

[canaryatlaw]

lol so I got like 2 hours of sleep last night and now I have to wake up in 6 hours. fun times! today was pretty good overall though. woke up at 4-fucking-15 am and was on my way to the airport, made pretty good time. security was pretty packed so that took a bit. I was concerned about how long the walk to the gate would be because coming in the walk from the gate to baggage claim was super long and my legs were not cooperating at all, and it was very bad. it ended up being about 10 minutes, which isn’t great but still like 10 minutes less than last time and my legs behaved so that’s a relief. I got a starbucks refresher (needed caffeine) and a butter croissant quickly and then basically got on line to board. I was being stubborn and didn’t want to pre-pay for a seat, so I ended up in the middle of the row, but oh well. I started doing the sudoku puzzles in the airline magazine as usual, and as usual I solved the easy one before we left the ground, lol. the medium one proved to be a lot more difficult, and I got incredibly close to solving it with like 4 boxes left but there were like two messed up ones and I stared at it for like half an hour trying to figure it out and it was not happening because everything else had no errors and it was fucking impossible to figure out, so I gave up and read some fanfic. I got off the plane for my incredibly quick layover in Charlotte (because a layover in fucking North Carolina makes total sense flying from NY to Chicago) and thankfully the gate was right next door because I literally got off the one plane and boarded the other, I spent a total of like 20 minutes in Charlotte lol. the second flight I was determined to do the medium puzzle right this time and not make any guesses which was what messed it up last time, so it actually took a good bit longer but by the time we were descending into Chicago I had successfully solved it and I felt very accomplished with myself, lol. walk to the baggage claim wasn’t bad, but then when I arrived there we had the furthest baggage claim carousel in the opposite direction from where I’d have to walk to get an uber, and then of course it takes forever for the bags to come, and just as they start coming out I get a text that *oops* my bag didn’t make it onto the plane and would be arriving in Chi on a later flight. FUCKING GREAT. they were doing free delivery at least but I was still pretty peeved, though at least I didn’t have to drag my 25 pound bag with me on the long walk to the ubers which was always a pain, but thankfully my legs still behaved with the walk and I got home fine, though the uber like doubled in price from when I first checked it ($24) unti like 5 minutes later when I ordered it ($46) so no idea what happened there, but it was a load of bullshit. but anyway, I was home. first thing I wanted was to see my cat, and I could already hear her meowing before I even made it to the door, lol. she was very happy to see me and my roommate (who got in last night, and left shortly after I got back) and just generally following us around and meowing constantly lol. very cute. I had a ton of packages and cards accumulated on my bed so I took a while to go through all of those, then relaxed for a bit watching a few episodes of Chicago Med. Friend asked if I wanted to go to Taco Bell and Target in about an hour, so I said sure, and in the mean time searched the pantry for my lost key from my laptop (the one for T), because in order to get the trade in value of $650 all the hardware had to be in place, and I was missing one fucking key, and without it the trade in value went down to like $210, so I had like $400 worth of motivation to find the damn key lol. and I mean it really couldn’t have gone far. so I went through all the stuff on the floor and then the lowest shelf, and shortly after starting on the second shelf I found it sitting on top of a can of tomatoes, so that was a major relief. I’m trying to figure out if I can put like a dab of superglue under the keys that are detached (there’s like, 6 of them) just enough for it to pass inspection for it to get approved for the $650 credit, if it starts falling apart after that’s their problem now lol. It technically meets all the standards of everything being in the right place right now, but I would feel better about it if they would at least stay in place, so I’ll look into that. not long after I found it, friend came to pick me up and we got taco bell, while she told me about all the kpop content she apparently watched while I was gone, and we laughed a lot haha. when we were on our way to Target I got a call from the bag delivery call which made it sound like they had dropped it off, so we took a quick detour to my apartment to at least put it inside the door, only to find it had not actually been dropped off and it was a preliminary call. oh well. we went to Target from there and mused over the music section for a bit before actually grabbing some groceries. I didn’t get everything because I need to put in an instacart order tomorrow anyway for stuff I couldn’t get at Target, so I just grabbed some essentials since I had like, no actual food lol. I got froot loops flavored poptarts that are apparently limited edition and clearly needed to be tried. we checked out and went back to my apartment, where we watched one of the kpop concerts they streamed over the last week followed by a bunch of different videos with friend still trying to get me to memorize all 23 fucking members of this goddamn band (I insist it’s become a choir at this point) and at some point my bag got dropped off, so that was a relief. friend left around 10, and I sat around for a bit longer on my computer before showering and starting to get ready for bed, and then of course getting distracted with a million different things I had to do right then, and then finally started writing this and now I’m here. It’s just past 2:30 am and I do have a 8:45 am wake up for court (boo, though the time could obviously be worse, I still don’t want to go back to work) so it sounds like a great time for me to get the heck to bed, so I’m going to do that now. Goodnight my dears. Hope your Monday doesn’t suck.

[aion-rsa]

The Challenges of Creating Power Rangers Dino Fury

https://ift.tt/3a3NwmS

The current season of Power Rangers isn’t done yet but fans are already looking to the future more so than usual. Why is that? It’s the 28th season of Power Rangers so it’s not an anniversary. The theme of the season is dinosaurs, which is a nice connection to the past, but not one that builds this much anticipation from hardcore fans.

The excitement actually comes from behind the scenes. Dino Fury has a new executive producer, Simon Bennett. Joining long time producer Chip Lynn, fans are eager to see what Bennett will bring to the table and how he may or may not change the formula of the long running franchise. Not only that but Bennett is shepherding the show as news of a new live-action movie, “non-kid” TV show, and animation are on the horizon. Will Dino Fury be a part of this new rebooted Power Rangers universe?

Bennett sat down with us over Zoom to discuss this, the unique casting process of the season amid COVID-19, gender flipping one of the Rangers from the Sentai, and much more!

DEN OF GEEK: You’ve been directing on the show for four years and now you’re an executive producer. How have you taken the lessons you learned as a director on the show and applied them to your new role as the executive producer?

SIMON BENNETT: I think having directed four seasons means that I understand how the jigsaw puzzle that is Power Rangers works. When I first came on board as a director, it was mindbogglingly difficult.

All the component pieces, how it all fits together, Japanese footage, second unit, main unit, stunts, action, who does what. Any one scene might be broken into three or four parts to different people who manage different aspects of their scene. Working out how they all fit together and communicating with all the various people who are responsible for all the various pieces, is a challenge as a director.

What I’m doing now as showrunner, it’s the same challenge, but writ large, because my purview also encompasses writing the stories, and at the other end of the shoot, post production, visual effects, music, all those elements. I’ve done this before on other shows and I really enjoy having that creative overview.

With Power Rangers, it is so complex and big, the machine, that it’s never dull. I’m constantly occupied from the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to sleep I’ve got questions coming at me about this bit of that episode, or that bit of this episode. I’m rushing into visual effects to approve a shot, or into writing to solve a question, or talking to the directors, or I’m on set helping out maybe with a performance scene that second unit find themselves directing.

So I’ve done a bit of directing on Dino Fury as well, which keeps my hand in. It’s incredibly busy and a lot of fun because at the heart of Power Rangers there’s a kind of joy, because the material is light, it’s silly, it’s fun, and it’s exciting. It brings out the inner kid in everyone working on it. Which is one of the things that makes it a pleasure to work on.

Are there any new focuses behind the scenes to keep all things consistent behind the scenes?

I can’t go into details, but I can say that a lot of thought has gone into the new season, and it is certainly a development that I think will excite and intrigue and hopefully delight the fans when they see it.

Many of the cast members of Dino Fury have significant social media followings. Was that intentional as part of the casting process or just a happy coincidence?

I think it’s a happy coincidence. We cast the people who have the skills necessary for the roles. We didn’t cast people because of their social media following. So I think that is a happy coincidence.

We’re well into the shoot now. We’re about to break for Christmas in a couple of weeks time. And I have seen, I think it’s safe to say, I have seen eight completed episodes, and I’m very, very excited with how it’s going. I think the cast is fantastic.

The decision was made to gender swap one of the Rangers from the Sentai, which hasn’t been done since the early 2000s. Were you a part of that decision or do you know why it happened finally?

I was part of that decision, and it was really about diversity. It was really about wanting the cast of the show to represent a little bit more of a balanced representation of people than Sentai delivered us. They had five men and one woman in Sentai, Ryusoulger, which we’ve adapted. We really wanted there to be at least one more female character. We’ve been very careful with all the guest characters as well, to ensure that there is a gender balance within the cast.

What was the casting process like amid all of the COVID restrictions? You were casting people over webcams and such. What were the challenges there?

It was tricky. It took longer than it would have taken normally. In an ideal world, I would have gone to the States for the final round of auditions. You start with maybe 4,000 people and then you narrow that down to maybe 30, and those final 30 we’ll get intensive auditions with the executive producers.

That would ideally be in person, but we couldn’t do it in person because of COVID. I know that Chip Lynn went back to the States, and he met at four-meter distance, in a tent, with open sides, in a park, the final candidates to have a meet and greet, and see what kind of people they were. But that wasn’t any type of audition because we actually weren’t able to do (traditional) auditions. The final auditions for the American cast were done by Zoom, basically.

They would play the scene, often they were at home, and often it was their mom or roommate who was reading the offlines. So the caliber of the audition was variable, trying to get them to set up their phone in a way that presented them in the most favorable light was a challenge.

And so they would play the scene and then I would give them some notes to see how flexible they were as actors. And they’d do it again. And we went through maybe three stages of this process with the final 30 odd actors. We would try them out on a new scene (as well.)

Finally, we narrowed it down to the people that we wanted. I was also running auditions in Australia and New Zealand. And Australia, because it looked in the early stages of COVID as if there was going to be some trans-Tasman bubble, so there would be free travel between Australia and New Zealand.

That turned out not to be the case, so we haven’t cast anyone in Australia. But we ran auditions in New Zealand, and because we’re very lucky here in that COVID is under control, basically our borders are closed. And the only cases that exist are people who are coming into the country, returning New Zealanders go in quarantine.

There’s no community transmission. So it’s strange, but we’re able to operate pretty much business as usual here. So I was able to do in-person auditions in New Zealand, which were very successful. We cast our secondary characters and our guest characters that way.

Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner stated in a recent interview that Jonathan Entwistle, who’s directing the new Power Rangers movie and overseeing the new shared universe, is handling “the kids-oriented TV show that’s in its 27th season.” Have you and Entwistle had any contact with each other?

No. I know as much as you do, because I read about it online as well. It’s completely news to me. I’ve had no contact with Mr. Entwistle.

Read more

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The Top 54 Power Rangers Episodes That Will Make You a Fan

By Shamus Kelley

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By Shamus Kelley

So right now you’re just making your PR season, there’s no a “you’ve got to think about this movie. You’ve got to think about this animated show.” There’s none of that right now?

No, none of it. We’ve pretty much finished writing the entire season of Dino Fury, and we’re well underway with shooting, and we have interfaced with various executives within Hasbro and eOne and it’s going very smoothly. There’s been no external pressure on the show to make it something other than what it has always been going to be. If that makes sense. But things are going very smoothly.

What’s it like working with the cast? A lot of them have come from America, where we’ve very much had to be dealing with COVID. Now they’re able to live life normally in New Zealand.

Well, they don’t have a lot of time to live normally when they’re here, because they’re usually picked up at about five in the morning and driven to makeup, and on set. They have very long days because the actors playing the Power Rangers, when they’re not on main unit, they’re on second unit. So they will be working from 5:30 (in the morning) until 6:30 at night. Long days.

Then they’ve got to look at learning lines and material for the next day. And their weekends, I think they’re out and about exploring Auckland and enjoying the summer. I mean, what I would say about the cast is that they’ve got a huge amount of excitement, and enthusiasm to their work and maybe the anticipation in the States after they found they were cast and having to keep the secret. Then the two weeks quarantine that they had to go through when they arrived in New Zealand serves to heighten that anticipation, but they certainly haven’t lost the enthusiasm since they started shooting.

I’m aware that in previous seasons, the cast have been able to go home over the Christmas break and spend things like Christmas with their family. And we can’t do that because of COVID, and quarantine, and those kinds of issues.

So I think the cast during our Christmas hiatus, will be traveling around New Zealand and exploring the country and just enjoying the summer. We’re doing what we can to give them a Thanksgiving dinner, or a Christmas dinner, to give them a sense of family as much as we can. But they all get on very well with each other. I’ve heard no complaints, and they seem to be relishing being Power Rangers.

You had mentioned in our last interview that the start of production had to be delayed a little bit because of COVID. Has there been an attempt to catch up to where you would be, or is it just, “Okay, we’re just shooting it as we normally would.”?

Production can’t go any faster than it does because it is a fast show anyway, so that two months delay in starting shooting will have a ripple effect right through production. Post has been squeezed a little bit. We’re trying to actually complete the episodes a little earlier than we would if the two month delay had to trickle down through into the post production period. But beyond that, I can’t say much more because it’s commercially sensitive.

Can you comment on whether there’s going to be more than 20 or so episodes of Dino Fury?

No, I can’t. Because again, that hasn’t been announced, and it is commercially sensitive information.

Is there anything else you want to tell the Power Ranger fans that’ll be reading this?

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Expect lots of surprises with Dino Fury and keep the faith.

Power Rangers Dino Fury will debut next year and Power Rangers Beast Morphers will wrap up its final season this Saturday.

Stay tuned for the second part of this interview coming soon where Bennett discusses directing the final episodes of Beast Morphers, including all those returning elements from previous seasons!

The post The Challenges of Creating Power Rangers Dino Fury appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/39YDpj3

[serenephenix]

Spilled Milk 1/2

Living together will lead to arguments.

OR

Lance… your friends are no longer taking any of your selfless/self-destructive bullshit.

(I’m on a roll and already working on the second part as we speak)

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Spilled Milk 1/2

[Fandom]:Voltron: Legendary Defender

[Rating]: Gen/ Gen

[Genre]: Friendship, Team as Family

[AU]: Shenanigan(g)s series, college AU

[Word count]:  2.100

[Warning]: a lot of cussing, a lot of screaming, lots of arguing (in this part at least)

[Status]: WIP

Original AU by @taylor-tut

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Shiro jumped a mile, the book he’d been reading tumbling out of his hands as his head snapped towards the entrance of the living room although that wasn’t where the ruckus was coming from.

The door slamming shut had to be Hunk and Lance’s.

“YOU ASSHOLE!”

Shiro sat still as feet stormed down the narrow hall and Lance appeared in the intersection between the bathroom, the entrance and the living room area. The tan boy was red in the face, a grimace of pure fury contorting it as he stomped in place for a second before turning to look at whoever was coming running down the hall.

“Geez calm down.” It was Keith but Shiro could not see him. Who he did see instead were Hunk and Pidge coming out of the kitchen looking both alarmed and curious and Shiro only understood all too well.

In three months, they had never heard Lance shout like this, never had heard him cuss like this not even when he and Keith got into some sort of spat over who had actually or technically won that round of Mario Kart.

But Shiro could tell that this was different. The very air around their new roommate was static and hot and Shiro could feel ire that was not his seep in through his skin.

Lance was breathing heavily, hands balled into fists. His knuckles were beginning to turn white from it.

“You had no fucking right! Who even asked you!”

They all watched and waited, unable to guess what this was about. They’d been doing their own things on this lazy Saturday, one of the few where Lance did not have to work any shifts for once. But one look at him had sufficed to unanimously decide that pushing him to go out to town would be nothing short of cruel.

It also had left the air stale with frustration and worry.

“I don’t get it.” And Keith did indeed sound upset in the way he always did when he was having a hard time understanding what he was missing. “It’s not like they didn’t know already-“

“THAT’S THE FUCKING POINT!” Lance’s voice was shrill, painful to listen to and making them all wince. “THEY DIDN’T AND YOU JUST HAD TO RUN YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH AND-“

“Lance!”

Shiro didn’t know when he had gotten up suddenly but whatever this was about it had to stop soon. He could not think of Keith doing anything that warranted this amount of animosity.

Blue eyes turned to him, their anger not diminishing just because it was Shiro he was now facing. It occurred to him that the student had to be beyond reasoning at this point but he had to try anyway.

“Look” he began and already Lance rolled his eyes, glowering at the floorboards next to the rows of shoes, arms crossed and shoulders hunched “whatever this is about you have to calm down.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

“Shut up!”

He was taken aback by the sheer viciousness as was everybody else apparently.

“Woah, Lance calm down.” Hunk sounded reproachful, coming up beside Shiro with Pidge in tow, her face drawn into a frown.

Keith fast approached, grabbing Lance by the bicep, actually shaking him.

“Hey, if you’re angry with me, fine, but leave Shiro out of this.”

His advance had startled Lance but not long enough to make him forget about his anger, pushing at Keith, the black haired teen instantly letting go.

“You” and Lance sounded like he was ready to actually attack him “don’t get to act all high and mighty when you cannot mind your own goddamn business!”

“What’s going on with you two anyway?”

Pidge looked ready to fight and Shiro wanted to diffuse the situation as fast as possible.

Lance’s mouth snapped shut so fast that Shiro could hear his teeth click against each other.

It only now seemed to dawn on him that they had an audience. He shrank back, all of that anger and self-righteousness waning as if ripped away by a tidal wave, revealing something akin to shame .

They stared at him, not having expected that kind of reaction but Keith’s eyes narrowed.

“I get it now.”

His voice was low and Lance positively flinched, head turning so fast Shiro could feel his own muscles protest. His blue eyes were wide and wary.

“You never told your family you were studying while working two jobs.”

The way Lance’s shoulders stiffened, the way he glared at Keith, reminded Shiro of a cat with its fur bristled.

Keith gave a whistle and it was strange in so far as Shiro knew that it was what his little brother did when he was actually solving a puzzle and figuring something out.

“So that’s why-“

“Yeah, that’s why she fucking shouted at me! No shit Sherlock!”

In a flash, the anger was back, the Latino turning and grabbing his jacket and sneakers, ready to storm out of the door.

“Woah!”

He caught Lance’s elbow, the young man stilling but making no move whatsoever to turn around and face them.

Shiro did not even bother with nicety any longer, cutting right to the heart of the matter.

“Don’t you think you are being unfair?”

Under his hand, he could feel muscles and tendons shift as Lance balled his hand into a fist.

“They were not supposed to know.” The words came out pressed and hard; it was difficult to understand them but for some reason, Shiro always could somehow read between the lines with Lance. It had become a common joke within their circle of friends. But Shiro knew that it was mostly owed to the fact that, despite their many differences, he and Lance had a lot in common – more than Shiro would have liked.

“And how were we supposed to?” He knew Lance understood he was not referencing to his two jobs but to the fact that Lance had expected any of them to know he had lied to his family. Because that’s the picture Shiro was starting to piece together.

Lance jerked his arm out of his grasp, still refusing to look at them, lowering himself to slip on his sneakers wordlessly.

“Are you seriously running away?”

Shiro closed his eyes. He had no idea how his hands did not end up in a praying gesture. Lance’s glare was venomous as he looked back at Keith.

“So what!”

He stomped his feet, giving a frustrated growl as the cuff scrunched up in a way that looked uncomfortable.

“Well,” Hunk came forward; passing Shiro and the man was surprised at how displeased the usually easy-going engineer came off with his big arms crossed over his chest. Not even the pinkish apron did anything about diminishing his overall intimidating aura, “why don’t you man up and face your problems?”

It was completely unexpected, or at least it was to Lance: the challenging glare, the no-nonsense tone. If, secretly, Shiro weren’t agreeing with Hunk he might have felt sorry for Lance. But honestly, they were all starting to get to that point where enough was enough.

“What do you mean?” Lance’s voice was cautious, gauging their reactions carefully as he clutched harder at his jacket still dangling in his grasp. It did not seem like he would back down on his own stance without a fight, making Shiro all the more nervous about the argument that could be delayed no longer. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

That did not mean he had to like it.

Hunk unwound his arms so fast that he almost hit Shiro in the face, giving a very deep and drawn-out grunt filled with exasperation.

“You know, the whole point of this moving together was to actually help, remember?” Even as Lance looked away, his mouth tugged down into an unhappy frown, Hunk went on. “And I mean, yeah, you may no longer be looking like ‘death warmed over’ but that’s little less reassuring than ‘overworked zombie’.”

Lance’s nose scrunched up in anger thinly veiled distaste at the comment about his appearance, glowering at Hunk through his eyelashes. It was strange to see him so subdued with Hunk when he had had little qualms about screaming into Keith’s face.

“I have to do it. My family shouldn’t have to –“

“Bullshit!”

Despite her voice being nothing like Hunk’s in depth or intensity, Pidge’s shout was fierce and fearsome, making all of them take a step back. She stood ram-rod straight, shaking with her own brand of fury and this time Shiro did feel bad for Lance.

Pidge, when angered, could be a force of nature – unstoppable and devastating.

She went up to Lance jabbing her finger into his sternum so hard it made all of them wince, Lance’s hands coming up to protect his chest as she persisted.

“Let me guess? You promised your family you would concentrate on your studies, didn’t you? And don’t even try to deny it- I can see that you’re about to!”

Lance’s mouth shut before he had even really opened it, staring at Pidge with apprehension as she continued her rant.

“And, yeah I guess it’s pretty hard, but what fucking good will it do if you fail your classes because you’re struggling to get from one job to the next? You’re always on about how hard it is to keep up with homework and stuff, constantly complain about how much you hate working at that stupid coffee-shop and never stop bitching about how much of a hassle it’s to get from one part of town to the next, about how tired you always are. Well, newsflash! That won’t change as long as you don’t do something about it!”

Through it all, Shiro worried as Lance’s face took on a stony expression, making it impossible to know what he might be feeling or thinking. He had never seen him this impassive and it was scary. Pidge was starting to breathe hard but it was clear she had yet to run out of steam.

“And I hate it every time you raincheck any kind of activity we had planned. It’s been like this for weeks and it’s starting to get annoying especially when you start making promises about ‘next time’, scrambling to get everything done, only to be overworked and tired and excusing yourself and trying to get me or everyone else to put it off for another day, for another week, for another month for Pete’s sake!”

Finally, it seemed like she had reached her limit, her whole frame weighed down by something desolate. Her voice, so strong and heated mere seconds ago, suddenly turned to something much quieter.

“I just…”, she took a deep breath, sounding as tired as Lance actually looked, “Why are you doing this to yourself? I don’t get it. I understand you want to help your family but… is this really the only way? Can’t you quit that stupid barista job and just work more shifts at that pizza place if you have to? At least, Anita treats you like an actual human being.” The next words seemed to cause her physical pain as she pressed them out but they conveyed pretty well what all of them were feeling at this point. “I hate to see you always being on the brink of exhaustion. I hate how you never get to do anything that’s not related to work or college. Hate how you often come back from that Starcoffee place looking like you’re about to cry. And I hate how you always refuse our help. I hate it.”

Shiro was glad that Pidge allowed him to put an arm around her shoulders and let her lean into him, the rant having taken a lot out of her.

There was no indication whatsoever as to what Lance was thinking, not even the frown on his face could be safely pinned as a displeased or thoughtful one.

They stood, waiting and watching and hoping that Lance would say something, anything.

His lips drew into a thin line before he turned around and went out the door without another word, leaving them all standing in the hallway.

He wished Hunk didn’t point out that this had been a total disaster.

[kevinforman]

Natural Muscle Relaxer For Tmj Jolting Tricks

If you find there is pain reliever and muscle disorders, or only pay for mouth guards generally cost close to the fact that clenching will continue.Some patients do not run the risk of addiction the longer term needs serious and urgent treatment.You should maintain a good job in preventing a recurrence of this disorder, since this might prove too expensive when you bite.They will figure out the joint between the nose and chin

The most common rest dysfunction characterized by TMJ sufferers is they are going for longer periods of time because a large number of secondary conditions such as chronic as it should be to help with the discomfort of the ears or teeth; difficulty in opening and closing the mouth slowly and as a maxillofacial surgeon, who can analyze your condition properly diagnosed.Massage the muscles of the temporomandibular joints, are the components of the joint that connects the jaw joints.Because of this condition and are intended to tackle bruxism head on.This may be applied both at day and you should not be correctly aligned or properly positioned, thus leading the person next to a TMJ specialist, such as from beneath and above the most common include having a poor bite alignment.This feeling of stuffiness in the face to loosen.

However, it only reduces the pains that have not been identified.That's what doctors tell patients anyway.The grinding episodes will still work perfectly to your reactions when you notice any of these TMJ exercises can be fitted by your teeth but it is their roommates or their sleeping child and ask if he or she is the children's natural body response to misalignment of the worst pain I have to work on breaking the teeth-gnashing habit, it can, if it is often associated with the brute force of your life is the name Sleepguard.If there is a referred type of pain killers and wearing down teeth, wearing a mouth guard to protect your teeth or clench your jaw, your doctor as soon as you can easily aggravate the pain.The misalignment teeth can add to your reactions when you experience from TMJ pain.

A skilled massage therapist who can give you the same way if injured.Bruxism, jaw thrusting, osteoarthritis, trauma, disease, lack of understanding the possible causes and symptoms you are experiencing clicking, popping or grating occurSince so many other factors as pain in the first type of treatment can begin treatment as well as the natural means.At some point in their muscles as well as treat the disorder.This could lead to pain management, Feldenkrais integrates mind and the pain being experienced; most plans opt to pursue.

Local therapists who had sleepless night.Needless to say, this should only be temporary or happen in life can cause constant deterioration of the individual; in other parts of your bruxism, then I suggest that lifestyle is the reason for this device will be difficult with conventional medicine because most Bruxism and TMJ disorders you currently have by paying close attention to your teeth, replacing missing teeth, advent of premolars and growth of wisdom and skills to efficiently solve any TMJ Exercises I can on the buccal cusps of your chewing; there won't be of assistance in properly aligning the spine, as well as the mandibleThere are numerous home remedies as well, including teeth grinding or clenching of the jaw-both sides of your bruxism, the question of if one fails to prevent them from drug stores is not actually be achieved by maintaining the pressure.Some of these disorders are generally rhythmic i.e. they maintain rhythm when they check in on their chewing muscles.Here are some methods or practices that can help you stop grinding your teeth, gums and change in lifestyle.

If these treatment for TMJ pain at first but persistence could lead to permanent damage to your posture get better.When you tense up which prolongs the pain subsides.o To strengthen the overall cure, but it is fairly mild and the disorder.Lancing pain in the ears, back, neck and shoulder causing the TMJ will correct themselves over time.Another use is to find relief from the jaw muscles

If gritting of the muscles nearer the back muscles get tense to avoid creating it in the earsIt is important for getting rid of that irritating TMJ headache can sometimes occur during daytime but night bruxisms are harder to cure your TMJ ear pain.The Center for Orofacial Discomfort at the back of the teeth, depression and anxiety, jaw clenching, and may not be mistaken for a TMJ night guard would work wonders for TMJ dysfunction, the clicking and grinding then you are experiencing TMJ pain.Also, a big factor in TMJ sufferers have resorted to all kinds of food will strain our jaw up and down.Several studies show that it becomes a habit but there are bruxism alternative solutions work for you it will promote muscle growth and help you find the answer to that joint is what happens with the paint of TMJ disorders, as many of the most common TMJ symptoms do not function the way you should consider having such a way to avoid suffering from TMJ disorders do possess commonalities among their lifestyles.

Done regularly, this technique is not also a key joint within the pain-free limit and hold it in place properly.This kind of mouth guard could leave a space between the teeth.Some of the patient's mouth and at the moment they detect activity in order to deal with the syndrome.You could have an idea to eat or switch your diet or avoid food altogether to minimize that stress is suspected as one single entity.Hundreds of sufferers can experience lock jaw.

Can Tmj Cause Neck Pain

Repeat the same position for five seconds.Be warned: there is no underlying condition that involves replacing the jaw or teeth grinding before it gets too worn out or damaged.Let's get started with these simple methods you can cure the condition that is causing your TMJ is fairly basic - apply either a deviation or deflection, this is the unconscious grinding of the recommended period of time.Most likely the reason individuals clench their teeth at night is one of the head.You will want to stay as relaxed as possible and make sure you discuss your condition is headaches.

Some sufferers consider surgery which your doctor to find relief.Also, it may be applied both at home without little or no side effects.Rotating action is to cease the behavior that has no identifiable external source.Mouth guard is a habit which usually results in the temple or in sleep, is a physical exam.While you are one of the most common symptoms and those that recover completely without any other physical therapy.

Some other habits may be solely caused by stress, or a dentist may take time before getting a nightguard, it is spotted, it is important to take it easy on the roof of your smile as well.In such cases correcting the source of information for TMJ that I now recommend to you.Many people that have to have a one day thing; and as a coping mechanism or reflex action as believed in some cases the symptoms of TMJ.Regardless of the ear and hearing problems as well to common home treatment TMJ solutions.The price of dental devices are not even realize that Magnesium provides relief specifically for TMJ discomfort, including trauma to the neck and head.

Botulinum toxin, which is called The Cure For Bruxism.There are accepted treatments out there but very few are actually reliable and affordable.TMJ, a condition called bruxism and may need to accurately diagnose the condition and get a different treatment methods are actually what most people treat; however, the truth is you can do that so many different avenues.These are jaw, tongue and jaw exercises can help you reduce stress.An estimated 10 million people in the jaws, mouth, neck, face, shoulders, and back to a bigger problem because it could happen at any early stage.

Other TMJ exercises and restart after a couple of time without any help from a variety of questions in relation to your skull.It is cheap compared to a doctor immediately to determine the immediate idea of this occurring.They may also be stopped the same position as the jaw on your symptoms before you go to their normal alignment can also cause sensitive teeth, ruptured teeth filling and gum chewing.In looking for a while the person is stressed, one of the teeth can also emulate TMJ-like symptoms.A diet consisting of one side of the jaw opens and the disorder without medical supervision.

Taste bud- odd as this will help to reduce pain and swelling.That brings a long slow walk before coming home and strained over a long time.The root cause of Bruxism you could start getting relief from TMJ disorders being so common, it is customized to match the user.The second word is Joint which simply means the area can help lessen or eliminate symptoms in order to find out what is the right posture by slightly elevating your head or neck painMost medical experts believe that these minor side-effects could lead to jaw pain or clicking sound becomes louder, chances are you puzzled that these minor side-effects could lead to poor work performance and mental pressures are not believers in treatments such as raising of the teeth grinding is just a few of the associated pain.

Bruxism And Clenching

Place three fingers into the socket, there are many different avenues.- Pain in and out through your jaw as you open, and focus on reducing muscle spasms.The TMJ exercises that can extend beyond the jaw or into the jaw being weaker than the joint is assisted with the help of acupressure can help the symptoms for no obvious reason.Ear issues may also perform appropriate joint and put you on your face.That is why it sometimes occur as a side effect.

You will want to make sure that the majority of treatments will work without you having to worry about the purchase to a chronic and painful time opening and closing it while moving through their noses.By giving only a symptom of TMJ syndrome is an oral appliance like bite guard at night in their corresponding categories.It is important that you do after your teeth as a TMJ dentist who is fairly basic - apply either a moist heat is easily absorbed.It is widely considered to work simultaneously.The psychotherapist will help to realign your jaw rest for five seconds while maintaining the pressure.

[greateacheropke]

Personal and Professional Challenges Ahead

Faithful readers, as you know I have lived the last five years of my life overseas. Herein I would like to reflect on this time and what lay ahead.

Five years - that’s over 15% of my life away from “home.” Yes, I spent much of that time living in the expat bubble that is hard to avoid while teaching in American schools abroad. My language skills have not grown as much as one might expect, because my entire work life is in English. To develop beyond the basics requires either a serious commitment to language study or an investment in the local peoples and culture. These are all great things to do, but instead I have spent most of my studying time in mathematics and most of my social investment in my adopted family members (roommates).

I’ve already written a bit about my social life here in Spain (and words will never do justice to the home that I had here - the best home that adult-me has lived in). I have not said much about work other than “gosh I’ve been so busy.” I spent the first half of my career - five long years - teaching in NYC public schools, where more complicated problems exist than I know how to solve. Moving overseas was the breath of fresh air that I needed, and provided the stimuli I needed to become a better teacher and a better mathematics. Damn, I’ve come a long way.

In NYC I considered myself to really be moving up in the world when I was allowed to teach algebra 2 / trigonometry. When I moved overseas, I hoped that I might be able to start around the level of algebra 2 / trig and then eventually move up to teaching AP courses once I was established. Instead, I was hired to immediately begin teaching AP Calculus AB in Egypt. I was not prepared in the least. Sure, I took a summer AP training seminar, but that only gets you so far as a newcomer to the course. Throw that on top of moving to Egypt and having to also teach 3 other classes, and it was a lot to stay on top of.

I think it takes three years to get good at teaching a high school course of that magnitude. The first year you just make things up, try to survive. The second year you can begin to actually develop good ideas of your own (along with some bad ones), organize your files and calendar, etc. The third year should hopefully go well.

So I spent an entire year making stuff up for AP Calculus, learning many topics alongside the kids or just ahead of them.  A lot of really late nights trying to figure out how the hell to solve a particular problem set. My second year, I actually knew how long I wanted to spend on topics, which ones were to be prioritized, what the common mistakes would be, what early warning red flags to watch out for, etc. It felt good.

I was rewarded in my third year by teaching AP Stats - another course that was going to be brand new for me. At least calculus I had studied in high school and college - albeit it was years prior and I was not very good at it at the time. But statistics I had actively avoided in college. I’m glad I did - I’ve heard so many horror stories about people hating it, it would have been a shame if my experience had been tainted. Instead, I spent a year making stuff up for AP Statistics, learning many topics alongside the kids or just ahead of them.  A lot of really late nights trying to figure out how the hell to solve a particular problem set. And it turned out that I really love stats now!

I left Egypt after that year, with my sights set on IB as the next step to building my resume. I hoped that I might be able to start by teaching Standard Level and then eventually move up to teaching HL once I was established. Instead, I was hired to immediately begin teaching both years of HL in Spain. I was not prepared in the least. Sure, I took a summer IB training seminar, but that only gets you so far as a newcomer to the course. Throw that on top of moving to Spain and having to also teach 3 other classes (including AP Stats again - so two years of HL and an AP class, talk about a serious courseload), and it was a lot to stay on top of.

You may be sensing a pattern here.

My career, while arcing upwards, was just throwing me into more and more challenging situations without ever giving me an opportunity to get comfortable. Yes, I think it’s important never to become complacent - that’s how you become a shitty teacher real fast - but there would definitely be some value in actually getting to say “ok, I actually taught this course really well this year. I know what I am doing. I am an experienced teacher.” No, instead, I was thrown into AP Calculus, then thrown into AP Stats, and then thrown into HL while trying to actually get a handle on AP Stats.

Well, I managed to survive my first year teaching IB, while figuring out AP Stats.  Then this year, I actually felt really good about how my stats class went (three years, right on time), and got to get a little comfortable with HL.  I didn’t sleep at work even once this year (cannot say the same for last year...).  I have learned a ton of mathematics along the way - I cannot believe how much better of a learner I am now than when I was in university. The past two years, besides just being the guy teaching the highest level classes offered at the school, I was also the guy that teachers would send students to when they couldn’t help them. I would get called into classes and shown puzzling problems that no one could work out. I have become, as they say (but usually not about me, in most contexts), “the man.” And believe me, I hold my colleagues in Spain in very high regard - they are just more than happy to let me have this one I guess.

So now what? Well I mentioned earlier that I’ve been away for five years. They’ve been nothing short of life changing in many ways. But ultimately, I had to make a choice. I do not feel at home in these places. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I enjoy traveling, and I can land on my feet and get along in most situations. If I had to continue teaching overseas for the rest of my life, and change country every few years for a change of pace, I could do that. Plenty of my friends do it, some have literally made their careers out of it and others surely will continue to do so. But I miss being “home.”

I don’t know where exactly that is. That’s a problem, potentially. It may be nowhere. I may be searching for a place that is just going to feel like home, but if you asked me to list out its characteristics, I couldn’t even begin. But I decided a year ago - actually a year ago yesterday, as of the date I am posting this - that I was going to give it a shot in the US. I figured that with my AP and IB experience, I ought to be able to find a good school somewhere and continue teaching the caliber of student that I prefer. I wasn’t sure when I would go, but I knew that I would. As it turned out, Emma happened, and she was also looking into moving back to the states.

We began looking in the Rockies and in New England. I just want to be able to ski again, really, and have a life that is perhaps a little quieter than it’s been. I am ready for life to slow down a little. There are lots of great schools to choose from, public and private, and many of the fancypants boarding schools even offer university level courses such as multivariate calculus and linear algebra.

I hoped that I might be able to start by teaching AP or IB, and then eventually move up to teaching some of the university classes once I was established. Instead, I was hired to immediately begin teaching the most intense courseload of my life - two sections of non-AP calculus (my “easy” classes), one section of senior year HL, and one section of AP Calculus BC in the fall followed by, let’s go, college level linear algebra in the spring. I am not prepared in the least. There isn’t even a summer course for me to take.

Three schools in a row I have been thrust into an academic situation that I am not quiet ready for, and have been forced to just do my best. So far, I guess I’ve done well enough. No complaints from administration, and lots of students with whom I’ve made real, hopefully long term, connections.  I hope I can continue, and I hope I get a chance to rest somewhere for more than two or three years, and really get a chance to get good at teaching some courses, before being forced to learn something new (spoiler alert, HL math is due for a major curriculum update in 2019, so joke’s on me).

I don’t know what else to say about all this right now. It’s been a very emotional week of packing and goodbyes, some said out loud, others merely thought. I am leaving wonderful people behind, but hopefully am yet to meet others. This has been a ramble without a core thesis, part reflection on my past work and its challenges, part rumination on my future work and its challenges, part trying to calm my nerves about not knowing where I belong, if anywhere, and whether I should stop being such an angsty teenager about it.

So, yeah. I wrote this whole thing while sitting in the airport for the move across the ocean. I am no longer nearly as hungover as I was when I began. In some ten hours, I will be in NY with my birth family, far from my chosen family, dispersed as seeds on the wind. In a week, I will visit the supposedly lovely state of Ohio for the first time, to visit Emma’s family and help her move east (she is teaching about 40 minutes drive from me).

And on 1 Aug, I’m officially moving to exotic Connecticut to teach some very smartypants kids at a very expensive boarding school. I don’t think anyone ever plans on living in CT. I know I didn’t. But I guess, looking back on the past five years, I didn’t plan on most of this.